Robby Slaughter Interview–Workflow and Productivity Expert

09/22/20 • 18 min

The Business Accelerator: Accountability | Productivity

Robby Slaughter is a workflow and productivity expert, and you know how important I think having workflows and being productive are to the success of your business. His consulting practice assists a wide variety of organizations, including Fortune 500 companies, regional non-profits, small businesses and individual entrepreneurs to help increase productivity, simplify workflow and optimize business processes. He discovered that to become more effective and efficient at work, we need to empower individuals with authority and responsibility, and I couldn’t agree more. Here are some questions I asked Robby that you will benefit from by listening to his answers: 1. What is the #1 reason people struggle with being productive at work? Inability to understand the emotional impact of tasks and the people around those tasks. Please elaborate on this for us. 2. When asked, most business professionals tell me they waste about 2-3 hours a day. How can the average business professional become better at time management, so they aren’t wasting so much time each day? Step one is self-forgiveness. Accept that you’re going to have bad days, and forgive yourself. Step two is to identify and manage the distractions and interruptions that impact you. Turn off email notifications. Set your phone to do-not-disturb for 30-minute stretches. Ignore social media. Ask people who call you if they can send you an email instead. Anne: To download my complimentary Time Log Exercise and help you and your team members be even more time efficient, so you are in a higher probability position to achieve your goals, go to: https://www.accountabilitycoach.com/time-log/. Simple instructions come with the sample document to help you know how to complete the time log. 3. What do you recommend people to help them reduce interruptions and distractions that plague most offices? Get out of the office. Go to a conference room or a coffee shop. Work from an empty cubicle for a while. Close your door if you have one, or wear big headphones (even if they aren’t playing any music.) Put up a sign to let people know you are focusing for blocks of time, and put that on your calendar as well. Anne: To claim your free audio training, Focus on Your High Pay-off Activities and Achieve Your Goals Using Effective Time Management, go to https://www.accountabilitycoach.com/landing/. 4. How do you suggested people create their To-Do List, so they make the most progress on their activities? At the very least, try adding a face next to each item, indicating how you feel about the task. Most people can quickly sketch a face with a smile, sadness, anger, boredom, etc. That way you can quickly scan the list for something you’re willing to tackle, keeping the balance of high energy and low energy tasks. Beyond that, asking what tasks can be delegated is especially powerful. Anne: I recommend to my clients that they use, what I call, a Prioritized Action List (PAL) which is like a glorified To-do List. It is simply your To-Do List in priority order and with the highest payoff activities on it that will you to make progress on the achievement of your goals. These are activities that only the business owner or business professional can do and can’t be delegated. Anne: To download my Free Sample Prioritized Action List (PAL) that everyone in your office can use, go to https://www.accountabilitycoach.com/pal-sample/. You can of course use this format to customize your To Do List that may reside online in your contact management system. I consider the PAL a glorified To Do List. 5. What does it mean to have a “workflow?” How can you design and improve on a workflow? It means to have a larger meta-pattern for how you operate. A good example is batching: do you turn on your computer, then go get some coffee, and by the time you return the computer is ready? Do you reply to emails during certain times of day? How do you decide when to call someone and when to send them a text? Anne: To help you be even more effective and efficient, so you can achieve your goals at an accelerated rate, you can delegate more to your team members than you have or might think possible. Stop holding on to things that can be done by someone else and do only those activities that you can do and can’t be done by anyone else. Stop doing revenue generation / business development avoidance activities and delegate more! You should be doing only those activities that only you can do and nobody else can. Successful people are excellent delegators, so work at being an even better delegator and be even more successful. Download my Free Delegation List Sample Exercise to help you identify more activities to delegate, by going to https://www.accountabilitycoach.com/delegation-list-sample/. 6. What are some basic examples of business processes? A business process is a defined (and hopefully documented) sequence of steps that enable a business to get something done. How you pay your bills, how you approach a new cu...

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6 Tips for Gaining Even More Confidence and Increase Success

Becoming an entrepreneur can be one of the most unnerving ventures in your entire life. Just when you thought you knew it all, you find out you’re just a student trying to make the grade. So, what do you do when your confidence takes a hit? Follow these 6 tips we will be exploring for gaining even more confidence. 1. Start with what you know If you’re a new business owner, start with what you know. If you know your stuff, in and out, you’re bound to make a lasting impression with your clients and prospects. Create a specific outline to the benefits of your services or products, and then be sure to deliver what you’ve promised. Don’t worry about being the expert, just start with what you know because that’s where your greatest confidence lies. 2. Have an insatiable thirst for knowledge Your business will not survive unless you continually learn, nor will your confidence grow. When you don’t learn new things, you cannot offer expanded products or service, and that is a death sentence to your business. The market and demand are constantly changing and if you don’t change with it, you’ll be left behind. The more you know the more benefits you can deliver to your clients. Keep learning and you’ll keep gaining confidence. 3. Know your target audience Most entrepreneurs think they know what their clients need and want, but rarely do they truly understand how to market and deliver the right products and services to the right people. Invest in research so you have a full snapshot of your market. Without it, you can only hope for successful sales and business growth. Survey your clients and prospects to learn more about them. The more you know about them, the easier it will be to create products and services that deliver exactly what they’re looking for. Some resources for web surveys are surveymonkey.com, zoomerang.com, zohosurvey.com, surveygizmo.com, etc. Check out all the options and use the best one for your survey. 4. Try something new every day We all get used to routines, because we like to stay within our comfort zone. However, it’s staying within that comfort zone that keeps us from gaining confidence. Knowing what you know now will only get you so far – and I regret to point out, that is not very far. As an entrepreneur, you must constantly push yourself outside your comfort zone to learn and do more. This not only benefits you, but it also benefits your clients, which will only grow your business. “If comfort is your goal, success is NOT in your future.” --Bill Bachrach, CSP, CPAE 5. Have unwavering optimism There are only two outlooks you can have on life and in business. Either the world is your oyster or it’s out to get you. It is only the latter that will not support your success and confidence. If you are an entrepreneur and you think the world is out to get you, chances are it will deliver. Your perception is everything! Having an unwavering optimism will constantly be fed creative ideas to increase your success. Obstacles will melt, challenges will be seen as opportunity, and you will have peace of mind that you can conquer anything. 6. Success breeds confidence When you are facing a situation that takes you outside your comfort zone, keep taking steps forward. Even if you have to take baby steps, at least they are steps in the right direction. Trying something new isn’t always easy, but take action before the nerves have time to settle in. The longer you wait, the more your confidence wavers, and the likelihood you will talk yourself out of taking action increases. Remember, success breeds confidence, so if you have to take baby steps to make it to the finish line – that’s okay – just keep moving forward. Being an entrepreneur is not about being the expert, although you may one day reach that status. For the time being, focus on what you know and become the best at it that you can. Commit to learning more, so you can deliver more to your clients; and your business is bound to grow with you. Continue taking steps forward, even if you stumble the first time. Don’t worry, you’ll get better with time; every entrepreneur has to find his or her way, and believe me, there is not one entrepreneur out there that hasn’t stumbled along the way. The good news is that your clients don’t have to know when you stumble. Continue to accomplish little successes along the way and know that your confidence grows with each step forward. It may help you to keep a log of what works and doesn’t work, so you can go back and review it before taking future steps. If something didn’t work, tweak it with a set of creative eyes and try it again. Eventually the pieces will fall into place and you’ll become better at succeeding on the first attempt. Before you know it, you’ll be beaming confidence and that will come across in everything you do – especially your business. If you are getting value from any of Podcasts, please take a minute to leave me a short rating and review. I would really appreciate it, and I would love t...

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Interview with Bryan Clayton–Entrepreneurial Mindset Expert

[[:encoded, "Bryan Clayton is CEO and co-founder of GreenPal which is an online marketplace that connects homeowners with Local lawn care professionals. GreenPal has been called the “Uber for lawn care” by Entrepreneur magazine and has over 100,000 active users completing thousands of transactions per day.\n\nBefore starting GreenPal Bryan founded Peachtree Inc. one of the largest landscaping companies in the state of Tennessee growing it to over $10 million a year in annual revenue before it was acquired by Lusa holdings in 2013.\n\nHere are some questions I asked Bryan that you will benefit from by listening to his answers:\n•\tTell us what specifically was the single most important activity you did to go from zero revenue to descent profitability, and how long did that take you? \n\n•\tDid persistence play a role in your success? If so, how did persistence help you?\nBryan said: Learning more from your mistakes than your success is what is going to carry you forward. Moving from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm is what it takes to be even more successful.\n\n•\tHow can a small business owner outsource certain tasks to cut costs and make their business more profitable?\n\n•\tWhat sort of mental mindset do you think it will it take to grow your business no matter what the economic climate might be?\n\n•\tHow do you maintain the necessary mindset continue to grow your business over time?\n\n•\tHow important is consistently applying effective time management to the business owner and everyone the team?\nBryan said: You get exactly the company you deserve. \nYou have to have inner confidence. \n\n•\tHow do you manufacture and keep momentum?\nBryan said: Distilling down as to what are the activities that you and your team members are going to need to do on a daily basis to get to the goal(s) is an exercise that few business owners do through. Then holding everyone accountable to actually getting these activities done that they agreed to do is another thing that can be uncomfortable for business owners. He and his team have weekly standups that help with goals and accountability. \n\n•\tHow does the business owner maintain their focus on their highest payoff activities only, so they can achieve their goals?\n\nBryan offered a free quote on your lawn maintenance. Head over to https://www.yourgreenpal.com/ and get your free quote today. Bryan’s firm is like Uber for lawn care.\n\nSubscribe and get notified every time a new episode is released.\n\nIf you ar

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Aim for what you want each and every day!

Anne Bachrach

The Accountability CoachTM
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