I had the opportunity to facilitate a conversation with over 60 women business owners at the NAWBO Leadership Conference last month about their feelings regarding time. What is your biggest challenge with time? We narrowed the list to six main categories. They then broke into groups and shared best practices and consistent solutions that work for each of them. Below are the results of [...]
I get it...being a business owner means you wear SO many hats. You're ultimately responsible for staff and their tasks, and for client care, and for business development, and for your own tasks...and...and...AND! Even when you are great at time management and delegation, you might still feel challenged by how much you have to get done. If you find yourself procrastinating or feeling stressed [...]
Do you ever worry that setting firm boundaries in your business might affect your relationships with clients and coworkers? Award-winning realtor Ann Blair and I discussed her experiences with balancing the two in a recent podcast. (Listen to the podcast here.) As a very busy realtor, Ann manages her time and tasks well but realized that, because she wants to provide superior service to [...]
How do you effectively keep track of important tasks and deadlines when you manage two businesses and a staff? While very organized and effective, Elin Barton was experiencing a productivity bottleneck created, she believed, by not regularly reviewing her calendar and project management system. Elin's video production and marketing company (White Knight Productions) and the Elin Barton brand (elinbarton.com) were both growing, and although [...]
The way to really grow your business is to stay in your Zone of Genius, doing the work in which you excel and moving the rest off your to-do list. Let’s face it – you can only do so much by yourself. At some point, you run out of time and mental capacity! After all, when you try to do EVERYTHING, something suffers. Your [...]
I was reading the book Deep Work by Cal Newport and was intrigued by one of his calendar scheduling tips. [su_youtube url="https://youtu.be/T5qvYeS912c" width="360" height="280"] First, a quick synopsis of Cal’s book: He believes that most people have lost the ability to go deep, spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media. They often don't even realize there's a better [...]
A year ago I read the book Clockwork by Mike Michalowicz. It changed my business. It changed how I worked with clients. It changed how I run my business. And then one of our NAWBO Cleveland board members reached out to Mike Michalowicz to see if he would be a speaker for our group. AND HE SAID YES! OK - obviously I’m a fan, [...]
Laura Licursi Marketing...some of us love it, some don't. Some are great at it, some are not. It takes time, expertise, and energy to create an effective marketing campaign, but it's a necessary part of doing business. Laura Licursi, owner of the VA service Elite Virtual Assistants, says that the first question she is usually asked is how a Virtual Assistant can help [...]
Laura Licursi If you've been following me for any length of time, you know that one of my favorite ways to increase capacity is to delegate. (Read this post or this one.) You may be considering hiring a friend or family member - is working with that person in your best interest? You want and need great service, but not at the [...]
I recently shared some ideas my clients have given me about making time - and enforcing it! - for self-care. (Read the post here.) I admit that I’m guilty of letting my self care activities slide a bit when things get busy. I've learned from past mistakes that if I try to “fit in” time later, that time never comes. There always seems to be [...]
