M03.02 The Place of You

Brendan Nichols, one of my first high level biz coaches, had an epiphany that kick-started him on the road to riches. He was wearing a cheap shinny suit, sitting in a drudgy kitchen on the western outskirts of Sydney, looking at a pile of bills and realising that his $10,000 overdraft at the bank was completely exhausted. He had a wife, a small baby, no money and a lousy business. Then a light came on. One those ideas that is so obvious that no-one actually thinks to follow it. To make money, he realized, you had to be in contact with someone who could give you money. It sounds too simple doesn't it? The best ideas usually are. Try this quick quiz: 1. Which (if any) of the following did you do today?

• wrote an email to your list? (do you even have a list?)
• communicated directly to a person interested in sessions? (by phone, skype, email, face-to-face, text, facebook, twitter, whatever)
• wrote: another blog, more on your book, article for a website, essay for a conference?
• planned/added a new (landing, squeeze, info, event, sales) page to your website?
• planned/placed an advertisement somewhere?
• distributed some flyers?
• recorded something people can listen to?
• planned/shot a video for website, distribution, promotion of some kind?
• developed more referrals from current clients?

  2. Choose yesterday to add up the total time spent on any and all of those activities in 1. above, including any I left out.  (BTW Teaching to current students does not count – they are already giving you money. This is about time spent prospecting for future students.) 3. Divide that time amount by 16 hours (let's assume 8 hours for sleep). 4. What percentage did you arrive at? *** I love to you share your percentages below. For my own fun, and to illustrate how this works, I will use yesterday as my day. (BTW I didn't know I was going to create this quiz today, so I am playing fair!) Yesterday, this is what I did that qualifies me as putting or planning to put my self into contact with prospective future clients:

• I finished an email in the Improve Your Posture series – 30m
• I wrote several emails to prospective clients – 20m
• I set up a meeting to plan a residential project in Australia – 10m
• I made five posts on FaceBook, and many likes – 10m
• I followed some new twitter accounts – 5m
• I wrote my blog – 60m
• I started work on a sales letter for BCLA ProCourse – 30m
• I approved a plan to re-engineer our Japan website – 20m
• Organized a new email for the Pro list in Japan – 10m
• Posted a new essay to CareerThinking students – 10m
• Wrote a sales flyer for a workshop with Pilates/Yoga instructors – 30m
• Instructed two teachers on a plan to draw Ballet teachers into a one year course – 20m
• Uploaded 200 articles for use in the new BCLA website in USA – 20m
• watched and approved a new promotional video on BodyChance's Golden Week residential in Japan – 30m

  So that all adds up to 31.77% of my 16 hour day. It seems as though I did a lot, but actually less than a third of my day was spent on steps that will gather new students for BodyChance. This is the reality of making a business – focus on the place you are in. You need to be in the place where you, or your representative, is involved in planning or actually being in contact with a potential student. It's called focus, and I wrote about it more here. Please post your percentages for yesterday – it will surprise us all to know how little time each of is actually able to spend on this, yet this is the only place where you can build your income. So when you feel overwhelmed, wonder what to do next, this is the way you filter your myriad choices: of all the things I could do right now, which one most directly and immediately puts me into contact with a potential student? Maintain your focus there, and it's (almost) not possible to fail. Almost too simple isn't it?