More Clients More Profits

As a marketing coach, I work with professional services providers who are looking to better their businesses. It could be that they want more clients, more profits, or more time to enjoy their lives. No matter what their goals are, however, they must gain control of a particular facet of their lives — time management.

I was recently speaking to an entrepreneur who acknowledged that he could not consistently find time to effectively market his business. While discussing this, I brought up the idea of time blocking — putting aside time in his schedule specifically for marketing. He responded by telling me that he can’t make time blocking work. Even when he puts time aside in advance, he told me, he often uses it when other things arise. This is not an uncommon reaction to time blocking. In fact, it’s the one I hear more than any other.

I suggested that we go over his schedule and see if there might be an hour or two in the week that he could steal and use to grow his business. Everything, that at first seemed promising, resulted in a reason it wouldn’t work. I asked that he indulge me, and we looked at the time before and after his usual business hours. I noticed that every day he was at the gym at promptly at 7:00 and worked out for an hour before heading to his office. When we talked about this, he said that nothing got in the way of his workout — that that time was “carved in stone.” I asked why this was so, and he responded by telling that his health is important and the exercise also puts him in the proper frame of mind for the business day.

It was then he realized that he was already using time blocking and that he is good at it. All he had to do was convince himself that the activity during the time is valuable. As a result of this, he has vowed to put aside a specific time each week and use it to work on his business. I truly believe he is going to make this work.

Odds are that you already time block. Do you take the kids to school each day? If so, you’re time blocking. Do you walk your dog each night at a particular time? Yes? Then you’re time blocking. Do you watch your favorite show each week, have season tickets to a sporting event, bowl on a particular night, have a date night with your spouse? Answer yes to these or things like them, and you are indeed an expert time blocker. Now all you have to do is determine how you are going to make your expertise in this time management skill work for your business.

I recently read an article by Jim Rohn, the business philosopher who passed away last month. The article concerned time management — one of the things many small business owners list as an obstacle to their success. In this article, he says that the idea of time management is a myth, if not detrimental … and he’s right.

As Jim goes on to say, we have no ability to manage time. It is going to move on no matter what we do. So believing that we can indeed manage time is setting us up for failure and disappointment.

At this point, you may be thinking, “This is being too literal. Everyone knows we can’t manage time itself. ‘Time management’ is just a label applied to a possible solution.” Well, that’s true, yet the inability to effectively work within times constraints still persists. It continues to sap efficiency and profitability from businesses of all sizes, especially small businesses.

Time blocking
One possible solution is time blocking. This is the practice of allocating blocks of time for specific activities. For instance, you may block time for your weekly meetings. Time for other important tasks, such as marketing, bookkeeping, and networking, would be blocked. Not only does it put aside time, but the exercise itself reveals any lack of adequate time to complete all your activities. It also shows inefficiencies in your schedule.

Self-management
So the answer is obviously time blocking, right? Well, according to Jim, it’s not … and neither is any other practice. His point is that the only thing we can truly manage is ourselves. And that’s where many of us drop the ball. I can’t tell you how many people I talk to who grasp the idea of time blocking, understand its usefulness, and still do not implement it. Even though they understand this may be the answer to their problems, they are too stubborn to change their habits. (I wase for quite some time.)

This being the case, we have to learn to learn to change of frame of mind. We have to do whatever it takes to be more efficient and effective when it comes to utilizing the time we have. This could be time blocking or other idea — whatever works for you. But make no mistake, no matter what you implement, you have to manage yourself first!

Here’s to your success!
Peter George
Creator of the More Clients More Profits System

What would happen if you needed a new car and, instead of test-driving a few cars and making a decision, you just kept test-driving them? You would still need a new car, right? That’s exactly what I see as I give seminars or talk to self-employed professionals. The only difference is they aren’t test-driving new cars. They are attending marketing seminars, reading marketing and small business books, and picking the brains of other successful business owners. Yet they aren’t putting any of the advice into practice. Using the metaphor, they are still driving the same car that needs to be replaced!

As a marketing coach, I am disturbed by this. I have asked people why they do this, and the reply I get most often is that they are looking for the thing that suits them best. Well, they may be looking for a very long time. There are few marketing/business tactics out there that suit any one of us exactly. Success isn’t found in the best-fitting tactic; it’s found in the implementation of a good-fitting tactic.

My advice is to look for something that you can and will consistently implement. but don’t make this an on-going search. Find it and use it. Be sure to do this before your car breaks down and you find yourself with no means of transportation (or in this case, no means of supporting your business).