| September 28, 2018 | Comments Closed |
Top 9 Productivity Tips to Beat Procrastination and Drive Growth
I regularly meet financial services professionals who say they never have time to market themselves or their business. They seem to have a lot of time, however, for unproductive activities, such as such as surfing the web, browsing social media, constantly checking emails and organising their offices.
For many, these are procrastination tactics. They know that they are avoiding marketing but just can’t seem to get down to doing it.
Here are 10 tips to help you accomplish your marketing tasks:
1. Make a daily and weekly list. This puts you in a position of control, and allows you the time to execute your marketing plans, activities and tasks.
2. Do the most difficult things first. When you put together your daily list, the hardest and most difficult tasks should be at the top. Completing them will create momentum, and set the pace for the rest of your day.
3. Create blocks of time. To complete your high priority marketing tasks, create one-hour blocks of uninterrupted time. Allow no other activity except the marketing task you are working on. This method takes discipline but the pay-off is well worth it.
4. Work from a schedule. I recommend creating a daily schedule that allows you to focus 70-80% of your time on money-making activities, such as converting existing clients to 100% clients (which means you handle all of their business), obtaining referrals and introductions, and meeting prospective clients.
5. Prepare in advance. All your marketing tasks (including calls, lists and phone numbers) should be prepared in advance, so you can focus on doing instead of looking for and preparing information.
6. Delegate weekly. Each week you should identify any low priority clients, administrative tasks and other things that can be delegated to an assistant, or outsourced. This will allow you to devote 70-80% of your time on money-making activities.
7. Plan your marketing. Spend time on planning your marketing. Work backwards from your objective or goal to determine the type of marketing you must do. For example, work out the number of calls required to obtain an appointment.
8. Keep a time log. This is an invaluable tool to show clearly how you are spending your time each day. It will keep you honest about how you are really spending your time, which might not be the way you think you are spending time.
9. Conduct weekly reviews. Each Friday or Sunday night, update your list of priorities for the week ahead. Transfer any uncompleted high priority tasks to the new week, and review your goals and priorities.
Never Stop
If you are in the early stages of your career, you should spend virtually all of your time on marketing. As the quality and quantity of your clientele grow, you can scale this back to 15-20% of your time each week.
Remember: Top producers never stop marketing entirely.
Follow these 9 tips, and you will you get more done and earn more, while building a successful career and a great lifestyle.
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