1 – YOUR BUSINESS TIP
Let’s stop reinventing the wheel and look at quickly fixing ‘leaky boat’ syndrome.
Do you, like me, ever wonder just how much time is taken up by ‘reinventing the wheel’ and not getting the lessons from past experiences?
This was highlighted in a conversation the other day when a couple of business partners were reflecting on things they knew, and things they’d often talked about ‘fixing’, ‘sorting’ or ‘including’ but that somehow never seemed to get done. They knew the differences between knowing and doing. We all do!
Currently, they’re missing out on collecting all the valuable experiences they have and turning them into a fantastic experience for their prospects and customers.
They know it’s costing them all of the above – stress, time, energy and money – and are really frustrated. Maybe you understand how they feel? I know I have.
But ‘why does it keep happening’ and ‘we don’t have time’ don’t help at all when it comes to fixing what they get wrong by not pausing and fixing the real issue. It’s really quite simple.
My mentor Bob always used to say that if you have a leaky boat and you’re rowing across a big lake, you can row, go really slowly (because you’re constantly bailing out the water that comes in) or you can take a small pause between trips and fix the leak.
Solution:
Of course there IS a very simple solution and the clue is in the problem.
Did you notice that I often refer to Saving Yourself Stress, Time, Energy & Money?*
There’s a reason for that.
The first letter of each word spells out SYSTEM and – as daft as it might sound – putting in simple SYSTEMS in your business on an ongoing basis is what frees you up and keeps your head free for the real business work.
In our business we have 3 simple rules about systems and they have revolutionised everything.
- We must have a clear, written system for each key activity that happens, step by step, clear and simple. So anyone can do it, regardless of their level of experience. Tip: many of our systems have been written, tested and used by the most junior members of team who only work part time.
- We must use/follow the system – and not work from memory which is fallible. And how often have you been interrupted mid-flow and missed a key step. #facepalm That reminds me of the phrase: ‘if you don’t do it right the first time, when the heck do you think you’re going to get time to fix it when it goes wrong?”
- We must look to improve the system in any way we can for it to support our team members, our business and our clients – this is an ongoing work in progress with all of our systems. As things change, we change things.
*SYSTEM – with special thanks to Brad Sugars and our former colleagues at ActionCOACH – this was a simple but hugely valuable lesson learned from a master!
Will you join me – free – so I can help you DO this?
You can find out lots more on my free 5-Day Business Mastery Challenge that starts on Monday 5th March – scroll down to register and join me for just 20 mins a day x 5 days. I’ll show you how to Save Yourself Stress, Time, Energy AND Money forever . . . if you’re prepared to invest 100 minutes over a week to make a significant positive change in YOUR LIFE & BUSINESS.
And yes – replays will be available for you to do it in your own time if you don’t join me at 2pm UK time each day.
2 – YOUR MARKETING/LINKEDIN TIP
If you are not seeing much traction in your content, there’s one thing you should be asking yourself:
What makes your content different?
You see, content is essentially a product your audience consumes.
Even if they’re not paying for it.
And like with any product, it needs innovation.
If all you’re doing is sharing the same ideas in the same exact way as others have done before, you won’t win.
Now, there are several ways you can differentiate your content.
For example, through humour. Or through simplifying complex ideas and making them easy to consume.
But there’s one way that works particularly well for LinkedIn:
Being specific about the advice you give.
Let’s have a look at an example:
(Click on the image to watch the video)
I want you to pay attention to what Jane did here.
She is literally showing the exact steps needed to do something.
In this case, creating a design with Canva.
That’s what I call being specific.
She’s not posting something like:
If you want to design something, use Canva. It’s a great tool.
She’s literally giving her audience a tutorial on how it’s done.
Now, you might not want to do this with every single post you create.
But my point is, be more specific with your content and the knowledge you share.
It’s the single best way to stand out on LinkedIn and at the same time show that you’re an expert in your field.
Solution:
One of our most difficult things when it comes to posting regularly on LinkedIn is coming up with consistent ideas for content and what content works best for your business.
We’ve created a 32-page E-Book full of our collective knowledge on LinkedIn. What works best and what strategies will get you more leads from LinkedIn.
Want a copy? Click here: resources.90dayplanning.co.uk/Content-Secrets