Ok, here we go with our next set of productivity hacks, ninja style!
Productivity Part 4 of my series is all about having the right systems in place and setting your priorities straight.
This allows you to get your life back (as in, feeling like you’ve got one!), and will help you scale your business faster than any other “strategy” out there.
Let me put it to you this way…
If you don’t have the necessary systems in place for things that you do all the time in your biz (i.e. recurring daily, weekly and monthly tasks, like client onboarding) you’re wasting a ton of valuable time that you could be putting into the needle moving stuff – like getting new clients and making more sales.
I’m talking about systems for EVERYTHING… from tracking to client retention, financials to follow-up, lead generation to managing a team, conversions and sales, and the list truly goes on.
Also, as you might recall from last week, I challenged you to block off 20 minutes to calculate the value of your time.
This is a concept I snagged from James Clear’s article “The Value of Time: How Much is Your Time Really Worth?”.
If you haven’t done this yet, please do it first before moving on to Ninja Productivity Steps 5 & 6 presented in this article.
Parts 1 through 3 are here:
Part 1: Ninja Productivity: Enter the Time Tracker
Part 2: Ninja Productivity: You’ll Need 4 Highlighters
Part 3: Ninja Productivity: How Much Are You Worth Per Hour?
Make sure you’ve gone through those FIRST, before heading on to the next steps below!
Next Step: Auditing Your Business Systems
If you don’t have a system in place…enter ‘THE AUDIT’.
Doing an ‘audit’ is where you take a look at your current systems, evaluate what’s working and maybe most importantly, what’s not.
And if you don’t have any systems in place to begin with, start to figure out which ones are needed in your business first.
Don’t know if you’ve got any systems in place, or where to start with an audit?
Grab my Fitness Business Systems Checklist RIGHT HERE <—-
After many years in the fitness industry, I’ve found the following systems to be absolutely essential in keeping you organized and helping you turn a profit more quickly.
(READ: if you don’t have any systems in place, focus on these first!)
- Client Fulfillment Systems – onboarding, programming, retention, client management, proper follow-up, accountability, etc.
- Lead Generation & Marketing Systems – marketing calendars, launch plans, ads management, referral programs, etc.
- Sales Systems – WHAT do you really sell and HOW are you going to sell it?
- Team Systems – team responsibilities, proper delegation, evaluations, team meetings, accountability, etc.
- Financials – taxes, bookkeeping, scheduled financial reports, weekly reviews, etc
If you don’t have the right systems in place, or if your audit reveals that your systems aren’t up to par – Client Fulfillment Systems are a great place to start since clients are literally the lifeblood of your business.
Always take care of your current clients FIRST, before trying to get more of them.
For example, establishing a thoughtful “90-Day New Client Onboarding Experience” (including a kicka$$ Client Welcome Package) is a great place you can start to over-deliver to your clients.
The New Client Welcome Package
Giving a very well thought-out and systemized Client Welcome Package is just one of the things I do for new clients. To “over-deliver” is one of my core values – in business and in life.
I aim to give every single client excellent value and service, make them feel special (because they are!), and to genuinely welcome them into our fitness business systems family.
Things like a handwritten card (with their goals on it), a food journal or even a branded water bottle can go a looooooong way in making your clients feel like they’re a part of your fitness family.
Setting up your own Client Onboarding System means you need do the following:
- Brainstorming your Welcome package
- Set your Onboarding budget
- Sourcing your Onboarding materials & content
- Implement it AND track all the details so all your clients get the same level of service no matter when they join
Maybe you already have a great onboarding process in place, but you don’t have the proper systems in place for your amazing clients to consistently refer their friends?
Time to pay attention to all of the things you may be missing.
Now, take a look at YOUR systems!
Step #2: Harness The Power of The Brain Dump
This is one of my favorite ways to reduce the feeling of overwhelm. As a business owner, you have a MILLION things swirling around in your head at any given time.
All of those ideas are taking up valuable bandwidth and energy in your brain.
Get them out and on to paper (which may be digital notes I realize!) so you can prioritize what’s ACTUALLY important and what’s not.
Set aside some time and block it out on your calendar (psst…this is next week’s topic!) to brainstorm some ideas on this particular system.
Here’s how to brain dump…in the matrix!
- Write down everything (and I mean EVERYTHING!) on paper. There are no rules or limits on what you can write. Just get it out of your head and on to paper. It’s a surprisingly freeing task!
- Then we take the red pill and enter the matrix – the Eisenhower Matrix that is.
- On a piece of paper, draw 4 boxes – check out a sample pic here (from my fave time hacker James Clear).
- Pictured in Box 1 are tasks that are both Urgent and Important – meaning they need to get done like yesterday!
- Box 2 are tasks that are Urgent, but Not Important. They don’t need immediate attention, but you do want to get them done. Delegate, delegate, delegate. Part of being a productivity ninja is outsourcing your inbox!
- Box 3 are Non-Urgent, but Important tasks. Decide when you will do these and schedule them in your calendar for later.
- Box 4 are Non-Urgent, Non-Important tasks. Delete them and don’t waste a single minute worrying about them.
Once you’ve finished your matrix you’ll be able to figure out what is ACTUALLY worth spending time on and what can wait. Then you can start taking action on these tasks – which is where the magic truly happens.
The more you do this, the easier it will be to identify the urgent tasks, i.e. stuff that moves the needle in your business, and ignore the minutiae.
Oh, and one last thing…
Just focus on ONE system at a time. It can feel like a daunting task when you start going through what can be a rather sizable, but amazing systems checklist — just like the one I use with my coaching clients in my 16-week intensive Fit Pro Accelerator Coaching Program.
Build the right foundation into your business, and the world is your oyster. Systems are what turns your business into a well-oiled machine…. and THAT is how you create time freedom!
Make it a productive day,
Alicia
