- Not Urgent and Not Important
- Urgent and Not Important
- Not Urgent but Important
- Urgent and Important
How much time do you waste on the Not Urgent or Not Important items? Realize that you set the tone for your team and your customers based on how you spend or waste your time.
By working on the three things below, you will earn back your precious time and work fewer hours or use that time to work on what actually matters in your business (the Important stuff).
Time is money – and time’s arguably more valuable than money. Why then, do we allow the customers who spend the least amount of money to take up most of our time? Does the scenario below resonate with you?
Now, I don’t expect you to just drop all of your lower-paying clients immediately. But perhaps you should think through ways for these customers to eat up less of your time.
Especially if your business is well-established in its market, you need to look for ways to eliminate time wasted by certain customers who:
- Tie your people with inconsequential sales
- Constantly complain
- Make your finance/admin team chase them for payment.
You need to either find ways to get rid of these customers or transform them into customers who proactively feed the bottom line. Option two may happen at some point, but not immediately. Customers usually won’t see your $50,000 value even if you 100x the value of your products or services.
Here’s the point – be mindful of time-wasting customers, and spend that time on the products, services, and customers that DO produce profit. More profit means more positive impact your business can make in the lives of employees, GOOD customers, and the community as a whole.
Double Your Conversion Rate
Most businesses spend tons of money and time chasing new customers and clients. Leads, Customers, and Revenue matter, but are these the only critical drivers of business? Nope.
When business owners take a good look at their Five Ways, they usually realize the huge importance of Conversion Rate on their bottom line. How many more clients/customers would you land if you increased your conversion rate by 10%? How much less time would you spend chasing customers and money if conversion increased?
Gather the data and metrics that give you a clear picture of where your profits come from, and you’ll notice what critical numbers need to go up for a better bottom line.
And if conversion IS holding your business back, invest time on the front-end to save time in the back-end. Train your sales team (and if that’s just you, train yourself). Have every sales objection written down and responses well thought out. Role play. Test and measure.
Take control of your Five Ways, focus on the front-end first, and watch as your conversion rate skyrockets and your calendar declutters.
Build Systems
We all know that great systems save tons of time and energy. But there’s a huge difference between having some systems and being a systems-minded business owner.
You may have a CRM and some software to handle accounting/finance. What else can you do faster, with less steps and more automation/delegation?
Some great systems require little more than a detailed Word doc with links and steps. Others require more work and setup, like a Zapier integration. Start building as many systems as possible, even if they seem trivial. Consider utilizing video to teach your team and delegate work – and watch as team-members can handle more while asking less questions.
If you spend more than five minute per day on a certain task, and you can systematize it in any way possible, DO IT. Those few precious minutes saved add up over the course of a week, month, and year.
And by automating dozens of these five minute tasks, you will save those ten hours per week and spend more time working on growing your business.
You may notice a pattern with these solutions. They take time and effort to implement! I promise you that investing your time into your business will lead to a TON of time saved later. Think of it like an IRA – the compound interest you earn makes the early and often investment worth it.
Want to make the process of saving time even easier? Hire a coach. You’ll save even more time working through the solutions needed to handle bad customers, increase conversions, and build great systems – all while having rock-solid accountability and guidance. Schedule your complimentary session today or check out one of our upcoming seminars to get started.
