5 ways to improve productivity if your self-employed (or not).

The cool thing about being self-employed is you are your own boss - you don't have to answer to anyone other than your clients. You can make the rules about what work you do and when you do it.

The important thing is however that you actually need to be productive so you generate enough cash without burning yourself out and not being able to enjoy your lifestyle choices.

Here are 5 simple activities you can do to be more productive as a self-employed professional

1. Use your diary properly - I cluster my appointments with clients from the same franchise so I stay switched on to their businesses. I work from home and have done so for 23 years and now I hardly travel at all  because I meet my clients face to face using Skype.  I colour code my diary by client, personal, national and international activity. Once again it helps me to switch on to what I am going to be doing. I have used the same colours for 10 years now so it is a language to me and at a glance I know what space to get myself in.


2. Turn your email off for at least 2 hours a day so you can pick up the phone and make calls to clients or prospective clients. Clicking the send/receive button in your inbox will not grow your business.

3. When you are working on a new idea, service or 'value add' always ask this question - "is what I am doing a return on investment activity or a distraction"? Distractions are not productive so dump them. ROI activities make you money or get you business so put your energy here. 

4. Turn your cell phone off at lunch time and sit in the sun.  Being available all the time to your clients is slavery - you are not a slave. You are a valuable resource that needs to freshen up and energise so you can maximise your productivity and your value to your client.

5. When you are working on a project that needs your undivided attention put a sign on your door that says "I am psycho and will shoot in the big toe if you knock or open my door".  If you work at home it may be your kids who want to come in so be more softer about what you say e.g. "Only come in here if you don't want a 21st birthday". If it is your wife who wants to come in - are stupid - let her in of course. You get the idea.  Let people know you don't want to be disturbed.

There are more tips for you atwww.theknowledgestadium.com

Are you an in-betweener

Are you an in-betweener? Inbetween good and great. in-between stagnating and growth, in-between walking and running, in-between not making a decision and making a decision.

When I was coaching international athletes the very worst place was 2nd or 1st loser. It was gutting not to get the gold. When you have had a taste you want more.

In business the worst place is in-between. In my experience so many businesses and so many business owners are stuck in-between not achieveing their business goals and achieving them. They haven't yet found the tipping point or reached the tipping point. They just keep on hoping it will show up.

So how do you move away from the in-between acid bath.  The answer to this is a one word answer - DECIDE!  Decide that you want to move forward and then get on with it.  The single greatest mental blockage is the ability to decide.  To many people are scared to make a decision because when they usually do things dont work out for them.  In fact they carry out a self-fulfilling prophecy because when they make a decision they immediately go to the negative about the outcome - therefore make a proactive positive decision becames a hindrance. 

Typical negative thoughts are - it will be to hard, cost to much, haven't got enough resources, to many other people are doing it, my staff wont buy in, a meteor will hit the earth or a flying pig will land on my head and kill me.

The in-betweeners dilemma - to go forward or stay behind or make myself a nice little comfort zone in the middle.

As a peak performance coach there is only one answer 'decide to go forward and stop being an in-betweener'!


HOW? 5 little words!

Clarity - be clear about what you want to move forward to and only see the proactive positive picture.
Specificty - write down the specifics of what you see in your mind as you go forward including the positive things that will happen to you.
Capability - value your own personal capabilities and then decide on what capabilities you need to source through coaches, contractors and specialists. Everything is out there you just need to identify it and ask for it. Sure it might cost you money but that is what budgets and forecasts are for.
Simplicity - whatever you do make sure it is simple - no sophistication or complexity. The basics work. Keep in mind that 'excellence is doing the basics everyday all day in every way'
Discipline - there is no escaping this one and ultimately this is the one that can trip you up. Discipline means staying on task - or being a disciplie to the plan. To stay disciplined ask this question regularly - "is what I am doing a return on investment activity or a distraction?" If it is a distraction get more discipline and stay on task. Set your plan and follow it.

 NO MORE IN-BETWEEN  - Peak Performers are never in-between they are always moving forward sometimes slowly and sometimes fast but they never stagnate - they make a decisions and then get to work.

 You can to and be winner. Mind-set + Activity + Persistence

How to Win the Rugby World Cup

 With the Rugby World Cup coming to its final blows I thought it might be worth a trip back in time to learn some lessons from the coal face of the 1987 World Cup. To do this I am reviewing some sections of David Kirk's 1997 book ‘Black and Blue’. I recommend this book to anyone who loves sport and would like some genuine insight into the mind of a world champion athlete and a successful businessman.  I will relate each excerpt from the book directly to business.

1. Page 22, on being good enough

Why wasn’t I being selected?  I certainly wanted it bad enough. I was ambitious enough, I was playing enough, I was training enough, the only answer could be I wasn’t good enough.

That’s a conclusion you avoid as long as you can.  But if you succeed in avoiding it completely you never get any better.  So I finally came to it and asked the next important question: why wasn’t I good enough?

In your business you'll have moments when business does not go well at all. You will have the ambition and you will have the will and you will think you're doing the right things but it's just not happening. You need to ask the question, why is it not happening for me?  It can be difficult facing the fact that you might not be good enough. The great thing is you can actually turn it around, because there are no limitations. It just takes time, energy and determination. Are you up for it, David Kirk was, he became a world champion.

2. Page 71, on doing your best

If the kick was to long - as it frequently was - Kirwan would have run down the pitch for nothing.  The fullback would have cleared the ball with time to spare. But every time, JK faithfully chased the ball as hard as he could because it was his duty to do so. That I’d made a mistake didn’t in the spirit of the team absolve him of the necessity of chasing the kick.  In some way he was doing it for me - to try and turn a bad kick into a good one; but also he was doing it for himself, his own pride, his own compulsion to do the best he possibly could.

This lesson is a simple one, do your best for your business, your business partners, your team and your clients, period. Your compulsion should be the same as JK – to do the best you possibly can. By doing this you become a leader by example to your team and you become someone your clients can trust.

3. Page 110 - on preparing to win the world cup.

Rugby changed for me at this time. We had always played to win. That was our constant purpose, our strategic objective. But then, in training, in discussion, out of our collective spirit, another aim evolved. Our ambitions increased. There had been a goal of winning the world cup.  It changed to become a larger one - the goal of playing the best rugby in the world.  This distinction may have seemed slight at the time but ended up becoming a whole new philosophy of play. We stopped playing to win; we stopped playing against our opponents. We began to play against the game itself, pushing back the boundaries of what was considered possible. The opposition simply became the means by which we brought our vision of rugby into the world.

It was a reincarnation of the amateur ethic. Winning was not the most important thing anymore. Winning wasn’t the point. Playing the best rugby was the point, and winning was the by product. The distinction is real.

For years I have been telling people in business that profit and growth are by-products of playing the best possible business game you can. As an Olympic coach I fully understood that any medals we won were simply the outcome of 180,000 minutes of training every four years. We aimed to do our training better than any other athletes on the planet and it worked.  In your business you can do the same, you can push the boundaries of what is considered possible. No matter what the market place is like you can still do business!  It comes down to acknowledging the situations and then pushing against it delivering something special, something that others have not thought about. It is about generating a collective belief within your business team that they can be successful. Getting the deal is not the most important thing anymore, getting the deal isn’t the point. Providing the best service and outcome possible to your client is the point. By doing this you make a distinction between an average mortgage broker and a professional mortgage broker and getting the deal is the by-product. 

Go the All Blacks

What a Superhero can do for your business.

 I spend a lot of my time telling clients that Superman and Wonder Woman are and always will be comic book characters.

Right now however I want to ask you who your favourite superhero is.  I want you to identify why you like this superhero, what is it that your superhero does, how do they go about it, what's their driver and of course what cool outfits do they wear?

So why am I asking you to check out your favourite superhero? If you could package up the qualities of your favourite superhero how would it change the way you do business? How would it change the way you view your clients and customers and how would it change the way you view the world?

For example let's take Superman.

"Faster than a speeding bullet!

"More powerful than a locomotive!"

"Able to leap tall buildings at a single bound!"

"Look!"

"Up in the sky!"

"It's a bird!"

"It's a plane!"

"It's Superman!"

Just reading these words makes you want to say them out loud, they are full of energy, excitement and anticipation; you can see the Christopher Reeves movies and the comics in your mind with Superman speeding across the skies with his red cape.

Superheroes provide us with energy, excitement, values, consistency, a never say die attitude, and they always want to do good and what is just. Superheroes also have an arch nemesis, somebody who is annoying and frustrating and hell-bent on trying to do things to suit themselves out of greed, like taking over the world.

I have read in various publications and heard various speakers talk about creating super fans for your business. To create super fans I believe you have to be a superhero. This means you have to be prepared to go the extra mile and provide a value proposition that will make your clients continually want to do business with you. Two things you can do that can make a difference to your client as well as generate cash flow and profit are to introduce consulting and coaching to your mix.

Are you the superhero or the arch nemesis? The superhero runs their business with energy and purpose, the arch nemesis is only after one thing and that is greed. The superhero understands that if you do the right thing by the client the outcome will be cash flow, profits and a loyal client.

Consulting means solving a problem which is exactly what the superhero does. They take charge and they solve the problem. Coaching is about instructing, guiding, and empowering people to do better so they can solve the problem. Consulting and coaching can be added to any business whether it is in product sales or services.

I heard somebody once ask "do Black & Decker sell holes or drills?" The answer is they sell holes. By knowing what type of hole is wanted they can then offer the appropriate drill to the customer. By asking questions about the hole, the salesperson has become a consultant and a coach. They have become a superhero to the customer. They solve the problem of what drill is needed and then can coach the customer to use it the right way and maximise the use of their drill. This creates a super fan.

Here are some of the activities that superheroes do that can relate to the way you do business.

1. Do no evil - they are on the side of right and justice. Your business is about fair trading and   quality.

2. They know their mission and purpose - you should have a mission and purpose for your business.

3. They have a distinctive brand - Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman - they wear their brand and live to it - so should you.

4. They have knowledge of their patch. Superman patrols the skies, Batman cruises Gotham city in his Bat mobile.You should be observant about your market place trends.

5. They team up just like the Fantastic Four - Mister Fantastic, The Invisible Woman, Human Torch and The Thing - together they are formidable. Who are strategic alliances with - they can grow your business

If business is about having super fans then you need to be a superhero.  Hey you can even wear the costumes – that will get your clients attention

www.peakperformanceguru.com