Build a Business, Not a Job

Category: Productivity

Stop Living Your Life 10 Minutes at a Time

Human hand holding alarm clock on red background, solid block of focus time

As a small-business coach, I have seen it all. Thousands of business owners each year work with my team to help grow and scale their businesses, and the vast majority of those owners usually come to us completely overwhelmed with the sheer volume of things that they need to accomplish every single day. Then when you add […]

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Unintentional Ways You Are Wasting Time

People in a meeting and talk about time management and productivity

When it comes to productivity, there are a lot of things that can slow you down as a business owner. There are employee issues, customer concerns, marketing issues, and a whole slew of other fires that pop up on a daily basis. But, for the majority of us, there is one productivity killer that beats all others in terms of time […]

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You Are Unintentionally Jeopardizing Your Team’s Productivity

International business team connecting online together and teleworking: work outsourcing and telecommuting concept, team's productivity

Being a leader of a small to medium-sized business means that you often wear a lot of hats. And you have a lot of things on your plate. And as a business coach for over twenty five years, I can say that for most business owners productivity and efficiency are not innate skills. They often take years […]

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How to Navigate Emotional Land Mines in Delegation

good relationships with your team members, colleagues engaged in a productive business meeting, brainstorming ideas, delegation processes and procedures

As a business coach for more than two decades, I have taught thousands of business owners how to streamline their delegation processes and procedures in order to get more done without working 80-plus hours a week. And, for many, the actual delegating isn’t the most challenging part of the process. For most, it’s the emotional components that come […]

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You Have Your To-Do List All Wrong

manager helps her new employee to find a solution on her task, day-to-day task, to-do list

As a busy business owner with a lot of responsibilities your to-do list is your lifeline to getting things done. You likely have a running list of all the things you have to do on any given day or week, both professionally and in your personal life. And that list can be housed either digitally or in […]

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The Real Reason You Struggle to Delegate

The Real Reason You Struggle to Delegate

As a business coach, I am in a unique position to not only help struggling business owners but also recognize and identify unproductive patterns of behaviors across all industries and business models. This in turn allows me to help others dodge a similar fate. So today I wanted to address the real reason that you are struggling […]

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Delegation Mistakes You Are Most Likely Making

Delegation Mistakes You Are Most Likely Making

Being able to delegate tasks and projects to others on your team is a crucial skill to have as a business owner. Not only does it help free up your time to do more high-value tasks, it also empowers those on your team to really shine in their role and take on more responsibility in your absence. […]

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Improve Your Delegation Skills Faster

Improve Your Delegation Skills Faster

When it comes to delegation, practice really makes perfect, but fortunately, there are some tips and tricks along the way that can help you be more efficient at the task without dropping the ball or losing momentum. So today, I wanted to share with you three tips that I teach my business coaching clients on how to improve […]

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Your Hyper Responsiveness is Expensive and Dangerous

remote world, hyper-responsiveness

In today’s business environment there is an expectation among workers, particularly remote workers that can be really damaging to your business’s overall growth and well being. And that danger is hyper-responsiveness. It can rear its ugly head in the form of emails, chats, slack, team messages and meetings. It’s the expectation that you should be able to […]

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5 Sales and Marketing Things You Should Have a System For

marketing strategy Concept. five sales and marketing things that you should have a system in place for

As a business coach for over 25 years, I have helped thousands of business owners grow and scale their business faster than they thought possible. And one of the secrets to success is through the use of systems and controls. The more things that you can put on auto-pilot in your business, the better, which […]

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Why the 80/20 Rule Isn’t Enough

80-20 rule, Pareto principle concept. 80% of outcomes (or outputs) result from 20%. Determining how to best allocate time, money, resources and prioritize activities for enhanching productivity.

In the business world, the 80/20 rule is pretty well known. You may also know it as Pareto’s principle, which is the idea that 80 percent of what you do is of very low value. And 20 percent of what you do is the percentage that really makes a difference in your business growth trajectory. I would go even a step […]

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The One Conversation You Need to Have With Your Team to Increase Productivity

The One Conversation You Need to Have With Your Team to Increase Productivity

When it comes to leading your team, there are a thousand opportunities to guide your team to growth and development, and subsequently a thousand opportunities to lead them astray. And while one meeting won’t change their lives, it will open up a dialogue about where they stand within the company, and how they can best […]

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How to Increase Productivity at Every Level of Your Business

how-to-increase-productivity-at-every-level-of-your-business

In the past I have talked a lot about productivity when it comes to your management team. Having a united front on the things that matter most in your business, and being able to help them focus their time and resources to those end goals can be a huge game changer for a lot of […]

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The 1 Thing You Can Start Doing Now to Get Your Team to Do More

the-1-thing-you-can-start-doing-now-to-get-your-team-to-do-more

Managing a team can be a difficult task. There are so many moving parts and so many chances for things to fall through the cracks. Throw in different work styles and personalities, and you may be struggling to move the needle on the big projects on your agenda. Even with the help of project management […]

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How to Use Design Principles to Streamline Your Business

how-to-use-design-principles-to-streamline-your-business

Have you ever had the experience where somebody forwards you an email thread and you have to read through 14 conversations to find the action items? You basically have to become an investigative journalist to try to piece together who said what, who was this again … and by the end of the email you find yourself […]

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5 Processes You Should Go Over With Every New Assistant

5-processes-you-should-go-over-with-every-new-assistant

In an ideal world you would hire a personal assistant that would stay with your company until retirement. You would only have to onboard an assistant once, and for the next twenty years you would never have to worry about teaching someone how to check your email or make bank deposits. But we don’t live […]

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You Are Probably Looking for the Wrong Type of Personal Assistant

you-are-probably-looking-for-wrong-type-of-personal-assistant

As a business owner, one of the best things you can do to help maximize your time and ability to focus on the big-picture items is to hire a personal assistant. In my 25-plus years of business coaching, I have seen so many business owners propel their business growth by having someone to take items off […]

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The 1 Hack I Use to Never Show Up to a Meeting Unprepared

the-one-hack-i-use-to-never-show-up-to-a-meeting-unprepared

If you’re like me, you have a lot of meetings throughout the week. You might have a one-on-one with a key team member. You might meet with potential or current vendors. And you might take a few select sales or client calls. The meetings start to add up quickly, and it’s easy to lose track of […]

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1 Simple Habit That Will Help You Get More Out of Every Meeting

1-simple-habit-that-will-help-you-get-more-out-of-every-meeting

It’s a typical Monday morning in corporate America. You grab a cup of coffee and head to your desk to login for the day. You glance over your inbox to see if there is anything time sensitive before opening up your calendar to see what meetings are on the agenda. And as usual, it’s back […]

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3 Tips for Using an Assistant to Help With Your Email Inbox

3-tips-for-using-an-assistant-to-help-with-your-email-inbox

If you want to grow and scale your business, you must focus on tasks that bring the most value and growth to your bottom line. Unfortunately, there’s one thing that you do every single day that takes up 28 percent of your workday–that’s 2.6 hours a day. We are talking about email. But, thankfully, that’s 2.6 hours of your […]

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How to Use the 4 Laws of Accountability With Your Team

how-to-use-4-laws-of-accountability-with-your-team

As a manager or business owner, there is a lot riding on your shoulders. At times, it may feel like an impossible task to get all the things accomplished that you want to in any given quarter–which is where your team comes into play. Once you have a clear idea of where you want your […]

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What Your Employees Wish You Knew About Having Better Meetings

what-your-employees-wish-you-knew-about-having-better-meetings

If you are like most business owners, you start the day by reviewing your calendar and seeing how many meetings you have for the day. Often, there are quite a few each day, many of which are marked as urgent. This can be a total productivity killer–not to mention a mood killer as well. In […]

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Forget the To-Do List. Here’s What You Should Create Instead

forget-to-do-list-heres-what-you-should-create-instead

Are you living your life based on a to-do list? Do you struggle with getting it all done? Do you keep adding more and more to your list, but never make any real progress? You are not alone. Most business owners have a to-do list that never seems to get any smaller. And we wonder […]

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5 Times You Should Have Sent an Email Instead

5-times-you-should-have-sent-an-email-instead

In a previous article, I shared with you four situations in which you should never use email, and we got a lot of great comments. So today I want to share with you five times that you should use email instead of an alternative. Because in today’s fast-paced remote workplace, there is still a time and a […]

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Struggling to Finish Your To-Do List? Here’s a Better Way to Organize Your Day

struggling-to-finish-your-to-do-list-heres-a-better-way-to-organize-your-day

Ever since I was a young boy, I’ve been a sucker for a good to-do list. There is something so satisfying about writing down all the tasks that I plan to do for the day and then marking them off one by one as I complete them. But, if you are like most business owners, that […]

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Does ‘Eating the Frog’ Still Not Work for You? Try Focusing on ‘Big Rocks’ Instead

does-eating-frog-still-not-work-for-you-try-focusing-on-big-rocks-instead

When it comes to prioritizing tasks and staying productive, Mark Twain once said, “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.” That sounds like pretty good advice, and […]

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How to Stop Doing Everything Yourself

how-to-stop-doing-everything-yourself

It’s Friday afternoon and you are about to call it a day. You open up your project management software (or paper planner if you are old school) and you review your task list for the week. Despite your best efforts, and working overtime almost every single day, you still only managed to get about half the […]

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3 Things That You Can Do to Reach Your Goals Faster

3-things-that-you-can-do-to-reach-your-goals-faster

There is nothing I love more than a good strategic plan. A carefully considered quarterly or yearly action plan can really help propel your business forward and put you on the path for success. But even the most dedicated business owners have only 24 hours in a day to get it all done. But the really successful […]

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The Real Reason Why You Have Trouble Focusing at Work

The Real Reason Why You Have Trouble Focusing at Work

I have seen the scenario play out a thousand times before: Your to-do list is pages long and your email box is overflowing, yet you keep finding yourself being pulled into YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. You know deep down that you should be working on more important things, and that time is in short […]

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The Key to Keeping Your Business Up and Running When You Are Short Staffed

The Key to Keeping Your Business Up and Running When You Are Short Staffed

Finding yourself short staffed right now? You’re not alone. Millions of business owners across the country are struggling to keep their businesses running while dealing with a large number of call outs from their staff. While this certainly makes business more difficult, there is something that you can start doing right now that will ease […]

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4 Steps to Getting Your Projects Done Faster and Within Budget

4-steps-to-getting-your-projects-done-faster-within-budget

I was recently talking to a business owner who was struggling to meet his project deadlines. No matter how hard he tried, it seemed like every project that he took on over the past few months has ended up way over budget or late. When I delved a little deeper into the problem, I realized […]

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The 7 Elements of Accountability

david-finkel/the-7-elements-of-accountability

As a leader, accountability (or lack thereof) can have a huge impact on how you grow and scale your business. It is one thing to plan for growth each quarter and lay out the steps needed to complete a certain task or project, but it requires a completely different skill set to take those steps […]

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The Root Cause of Procrastination

the-root-cause-of-procrastination

As a business coach, it’s my job to hold business owners accountable. Every day I talk with leaders who have aspirations to scale and grow their businesses, and we work together to get their businesses to the next level. At the end of each session, we part with a list of action steps that the business owner can […]

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The 1 Time Thief You Can’t Ignore.

the-1-time-thief-you-cant-ignore

When it comes to time management and productivity it all boils down to finding and eliminating your time thieves. Once you are able to identify the low value tasks that take up the bulk of your time, you will find yourself with more time to focus on the big picture tasks that fuel growth in […]

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The Right and Wrong Way to Delegate

the-right-wrong-way-to-delegate

You are busy. Your to-do list is never ending and you feel like you could work 80 or 90 hours a week and still not accomplish everything you want to do in any given week. Add onto that a myriad of meetings, phone calls and employee issues and it’s enough to make any business owner want to throw in the […]

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3 Ways You’re Getting in the Way of Your Employees’ Productivity (and How to Stop)

3-ways-youre-getting-in-way-of-your-employees-productivity-and-how-to-stop

Over the last 25 years I have helped thousands of business owners grow and scale their companies. And one of the biggest deciding factors on the rate of growth has to do with a business owners (and their staff) ability to focus on the bigger picture tasks that create the most value for the company. […]

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Free Up Your To-Do List By Letting Your Team Manage Themselves. Here’s How

free-up-your-to-do-list-by-letting-your-team-manage-themselves-heres-how

Hiring employees is supposed to free up your time. The goal is after we get past the initial hump of recruiting and onboarding, that having that extra person on the team will help free up your time to do more higher level tasks. That is the goal at least. But for many business owners, managing […]

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The 3 Biggest Time Sucks That Are Killing Your Productivity–and How to Avoid Them

the-3-biggest-time-sucks-that-are-killing-your-productivity-and-how-to-avoid-them

Another week is coming to an end, and if you are like most business owners out there your to-do list is still pretty full and you are running on empty. You may wonder “where did the time go?” You got up every morning and went to the office, put in a solid eight to ten […]

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How to Cut Your To-Do List in Half While Creating More Value for Your Business

How to Cut Your To-Do List in Half While Creating More Value for Your Business

As a business owner, you have a lot of responsibilities. And if you are like many of the clients I coach, your to-do list is extensive and filled with meetings and other responsibilities. It’s easy to get caught up in your task list, and to feel overwhelmed and anxious. But what if I told you that very little of that […]

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You Spent Almost 2 Months in Meetings This Past Year. (Here’s What You Should Have Been Doing Instead)

You Spent Almost 2 Months in Meetings This Past Year. (Here's What You Should Have Been Doing Instead)

“Let’s set up a meeting.” The statement itself seems harmless enough, but for the majority of us, the mere mention of yet another meeting is enough to send you off the deep end. It has been estimated that executives can be in meetings for up to 23 hours per week on average. And business owners […]

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Treat Your To-Do List Like A Buffet

Treat Your To-Do List Like A Buffet

Over the last 25 years, I have worked with thousands of business owners to help grow and scale their companies. One of the biggest hurdles most founders and entrepreneurs experience is the inability to manage their time correctly and focus. Throw into the mix cell phones and emails, and it then becomes nearly impossible to […]

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Forget the 80-20 Rule. Follow the 1-50 Rule Instead

Forget the 80-20 Rule. Follow the 1-50 Rule Instead

Over the last few years, I have written a lot about time management and shared ways that you can do more by working less. Once you understand that the idea of a direct, one-to-one relationship between time and value is outdated, you can begin to upgrade the use of your time within your business for […]

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You Are Wasting 900 Hours a Year by Doing These 10 Things

You Are Wasting 900 Hours a Year by Doing These 10 Things

“All I do is work. Even when I’m with my family, I’m still responding to emails and texts for work. The saddest part is that my family has just gotten used to it. When I do actually put down my smartphone, they act surprised, as if I’m just a temporary visitor.” Over the past 25 years, […]

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The True Value of an 80-Hour Work Week (Part 2)

The True Value of an 80-Hour Work Week (Part 2)

I recently shared with you the concept of the “time and effort chains,” which are the factors that trap us within a business and force us to work longer and harder, with little to no additional value or payoff. Today I wanted to share with you the final chains that hold us back and keep us […]

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The True Value of an 80 Hour Work Week (Part 1)

The True Value of an 80 Hour Work Week (Part 1)

If I made the assertion that eventually the gains of working longer and harder eventually cap out would you agree? I ask this question to business owners all the time and it seems universal that we all get that at a certain point, working longer and harder has a degrading rate of return in terms […]

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Overwhelming Inbox? Here’s a Simple Trick to Try Before Declaring Email Bankruptcy

Overwhelming Inbox? Here's a Simple Trick to Try Before Declaring Email Bankruptcy

You arrive in the office at 8:00AM ready to work. Your to-do list is full of high value tasks that will help your business scale and grow. You fire up your laptop and the all too familiar “ping” of your inbox serenades you…drawing you into the depths of mundane tasks and low level activities. The […]

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Your To-Do List Is Costing You Money

Your To-Do List Is Costing You Money

In the past we have talked a lot about how to grow your business and scale without sacrificing your life and personal relationships. And today, I wanted to introduce you to the concept of “fewer and better” and how this very simple concept has allowed my own business (along with thousands of others) to grow […]

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Try This Thought Exercise the Next Time You Need a New Product Offering

green-hat

I recently shared the idea of the business coaching concept of the six hats from the Late Dr. de Bono with our readership and I wanted to go into more detail about the hat that is going to change the way you look at your business. This creative hat will help you find new and innovative ways to serve your customer […]

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Make Your Meetings More Productive By Doing This 1 Thing

Over the past few weeks I have been sharing the business coaching concept of the six hats from the Late Dr. de Bono with our readership. Today, I wanted to focus in on the blue hat, which has to do with organization and planning. This particular hat is one that I wear on every team […]

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How ‘Focus Fridays’ Can Supercharge Your Team’s Productivity

I was recently listening to a podcast that discussed the concept of designing your week around special events to give you something to look forward to in your day-to-day life. They suggested implementing a “Taco Tuesday” or a “Spa Saturday” to break up the monotony. The idea is a good one that I want to […]

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3 Foolproof Ways to Make Your Remote Team More Productive

Hiring remote workers has a lot of advantages: increased productivity, decreased staffing costs and better communication. But there are some pitfalls to having a scattered workforce. If you are struggling with your remote staff try these 3 remote workforce tips to make your team even more productive. Tip #1:  Make Sure Your Expectations Are Clear, […]

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The Best Productivity App, Hands Down (and 12 Insider Tricks on How to Get the Best Out of It)

As a business coach, I’m always looking for new strategies to help people and businesses become more effective and more efficient. Usually, I focus on things like leadership and marketing tactics. But, in this article, I want to tell you about a productivity app called Evernote that’s helped me radically reinvent the way I work. […]

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How to Train Your New Admin

6 Tips to help Your New Employee Help You Both Stay Productive You know you need help to get even a fraction of your to do list done, but unless you have deep experience on how to best leverage the admin help you have in the office, often it feels like more work to get […]

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CEO Tips: The 5 Secrets of Today’s Billionaires (and what they have to teach you about producing more with less)

The world today is different in many ways, one key way is how the most successful business leaders have learned to break the chain between one hour of time worked and one unit of value created. Time cards and grueling days don’t help business leaders create value. We create value by what we do with […]

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10 Email Best Practices Every Company Should Adopt

10 Email Best Practices Every Company Should Adopt

In a recent business owner survey we conducted with several thousand of our business owner clients it became very clear that email had eclipsed phone calls and meetings as the single biggest time distraction in business. It’s addictive; it’s never ending; and it’s overwhelming. Here are our top 10 e-mail best practices we think every […]

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8 tips to leverage Instagram to promote your products

A simple formula for leveraging Instagram to promote your product, along with 8 tips to get started now to use Instagram to sell more.

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12 Productivity Hacks to Get Control of Your Business Day

If you’re pulled in too many directions you’ll enjoy these 10 productivity hacks to help take back control of your day.

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12 Email Tips to Increase Your Productivity

Here are 12 tasks to get back in control of your inbox and your day every businessperson needs to know about.

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