Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I know enough of enough things, about enough things that we can have this conversation. And so confidence comes from knowledge. People don't often understand that, but the more that you master your craft and the more knowledgeable that you are, the more confident you will become.
And self esteem is different than self confidence, and self esteem comes from the relationships that you develop. And so I'm constantly looking at developing strong relationships with people, but I'm always curious and I'm always learning about something, you know, like, my husband and I will just watch odd documentaries and our daughter is into it too. Like, you know, how's that made? Like, let's watch that. Let's watch how they do this. Let's watch because you just, I don't know, like, you learn things and you apply and you just always remain a student.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: It takes four things to build a successful focus, commitment, consistency and organisation.
We unpack these with today's guest, Belinda Ellsworth. Belinda is a powerhouse entrepreneur with almost four decades of experience working for herself. Her popular podcast, work from your Happy Place, was picked up by iHeartRadio in 2021. From paper girl to consultant and speaker, Belinda shares her four pillar roadmap to freedom and success.
If you need help to be more focused, committed, consistent and organised, stay tuned to my conversation with Belinda.
Belinda, how about you tell us a bit about your story? What would you like our listeners and viewers to know about Belinda the person?
[00:02:07] Speaker A: I guess so. So a little bit about myself. Um, I. I basically worked for myself and had my own business of some kind for nearly 40 years. So I haven't really ever worked outside of working for myself. So that's probably. So it takes a lot of. And I've done it with a couple of different businesses. So it takes a certain amount of discipline and good habit building, but it's also allowed a freedom that sometimes I take for granted that you just have and that you are able to, you know, have the time to do the things you need to do and spend time with family and do all those awesome things.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: So, yeah, I talked about very, very important, obviously something you guys value a hell of a lot. So what's the. Have you ever thought about the drive? Like, what sort of led you into. You've just. You've always been that entrepreneurial type and had that entrepreneurial spirit.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: Do you know, I've had, like, lots of conversations with people on that. Like, is some people, I think there is a very small percentage of people, I guess like 1% of people are just sort of born with that natural ability to, they motivate themselves, they inspire others along the way. They get people to follow. They, you know, they talk people. I could talk people into things when we were kids. Like, I talked to my whole neighborhood when I was like eleven or twelve. It's like, I'm going to teach school here this summer and everybody's going to come, like, on our summer vacation. And so, and they all showed up and then we put on plays and I could get, I could really get everybody to follow. Like, from a very, very young age, I was always very attracted to sales and having my own business. Like, the first business I probably ever really had was I had a paper route. Route, whichever you want to call it, but which don't exist anymore, but like delivering papers and then building a client base and like, and I had to fight for that because at that time there were only paper boys. I actually had to petition an entire neighborhood to say that they would be accepting of a paper girl and get these signatures. And so then I got that route and that was at a young age, like 1112, and built that client base and learned about, like, actually taking care of your customers and caring and having relationships and, gosh, you know, they loved me as their paper girl and I got great tips and I grew my route and that's when it started and I got a bank account. I was twelve at that time, and, and so I saw the direct correlation of, if I work really hard and I show up and do a good job and I'm really super kind to people, I'm going to make a lot of money. And I learned that at a really, really young age. And it really just sort of continued from there. I studied music, so I was a musician and I was very serious about it. Like, I was gonna be a rock and roll star for sure. And so I always had these little side hustles of business while I was pursuing music. And then eventually it just was, no, my side hustles are the ones making all of the money, and now I'll just pursue music as a fun hobby. So they flipped somewhere along the way. But that was good discipline, too, because I learned a good work ethic. I think.
I think work ethic, I don't think I know, is just a huge part of how you show up and what you're willing to put in and what you're willing to do. Like, all three of my kids have it. I think it's just been modeled for them that you put in the work, you put in the time, you do what it takes.
My daughter's going to theater school and she's had to work very, very hard to get to one of the top schools in the country to get there. And she continues to work hard when her friends are like, oh, can't you come over here? Can't you do this? And the joke, she had a t shirt that said, I can't, I'm in rehearsal.
So that was her line, I can't, I've got rehearsal. So.
But she learned that and it never was. She never felt bad about it. Like, she wasn't like, oh, darn. Like, of course, every once in a while, oh, I wish I could go, but it was like, but I've got this.
And you go and you show up and you do it.
[00:07:00] Speaker B: They do. I can't quote the study or where I remember even reading it, but they do say that the work ethic in people is born around those sort of young teenage, sort of 1112 and into their teenage years. If you can get people, young people, really understanding that you put in a solid day's work and you get some outcome from that, then that's the basis of work ethic. So as you said, you've like a good leader, you've modeled those sort of behaviours through your life. And whether you've had actually deliberate conversations, it's probably more the fact that you've just, you've done what you've done. You've been disciplined, focused, all those sort of things. We're going to talk about today at it and your kids notice these things and then they start to mirror it, don't they?
[00:07:39] Speaker A: They do well, and then they were put to work. Like, no matter what we were doing here, like, if I was shipping things out, even right now, I've, you know, we're in planner season and we're shipping planners every day. And I've got a gal that works here and does that. But during Christmas break, she won't be working. But my daughter will be home from school on Christmas break, but she already knows she'll be filling planning or planner orders. Like, that's what she and I will be doing. And so there.
[00:08:08] Speaker B: You do look like such a hard taskmaster, I have to say, belinda.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: So we are like, let's go down and get orders done and then we'll go to the mall, right? Like, but she doesn't even think about it. It's like, okay, let's hurry on do orders today so we could get out and do this. Like, like, they don't think about, like, do we really have to do orders? It's like that's never been part of their growing up. It's been, okay, let's, let's knock this out so we can go.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: Part of what they did. Now the other thing I can't let go. Before we get into our, you know, keep unpacking our core topic. But you said you've got a bit of a musician about you. There must be a favorite. Is it. Is that singing?
[00:08:54] Speaker A: No, I'm a drummer.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: A drummer? Well, I can't say. Get your drums out and play some tunes for me, can I? There's going to be more singing.
[00:09:02] Speaker A: No, I can't hardly carry a tune. My daughter is an outstanding standing singer.
I'm a drummer and my son is a drummer. And then my daughter played clarinet and so a musical family it was. And my husband played bass in a band. And so we're all pretty musical that way.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: Very talented. Well done. I really appreciate those sort of talents. Why? Because I don't have them. But anyway, that's a whole other story.
In the hybrid working world, I've seen too many business owners and their businesses suffer because of poor performing employees, leading to below average results.
If you want to improve your employees performance, to deliver consistent results for your business, you have to master one on one meetings. The doors to our master one on one meetings training program are opening soon. I'll teach you how to improve employee performance and deliver consistent results using one on one meetings. To be one of the first 1st people notified when the doors open, go to leaderbydesign au waitlist. Don't wait. Sign up now.
Focus. Let's go into focus. Belinda, why is focus so important for business leaders, business owners?
[00:10:23] Speaker A: Because it's very, and in a world today, it's even, it's even worse. I think that that's what people probably struggle with the most, is distraction. They have a really hard time focusing in on exactly what it is that they want. I think most people have a hard time, first of all, just determining that, like what is it that I really want? And so they don't even know what to focus on.
And then we've got the shiny object syndrome that is so prevalent today of, well, maybe I want this, but maybe I want that. And so they lack the focus and the drive at the same time that is to get one task completed.
You know, I teach a whole thing in this time management system that I teach and that is, you know, pick your income producing activities and just work on them for 15 minutes a day. Four of them. Like if you just worked on four of them for 15 minutes and focused on that one activity. Not like I am really about focus. I'm really about time batching, time blocking, like focusing in on those income producing activities. Because when you put on your hat, like if you're doing customer service calls, for example, or if you're doing sales calls or whatever that might look like, when you're focused, you start to learn the same language. Like, you pick up the phone and it starts to become a good routine. And I can build off the conversation that you and I just had. I can take that conversation into my next call. But if I'm talking to you about this and then I'm talking to somebody over here about customer problem or a return, and then I'm moving over here and I'm talking about something else, my brain doesn't have time to create any momentum. And when you are focused in on either a task or that income producing activity or that goal that you're trying to achieve, when you're focused in on it, that allows you to create momentum and start to see, I'm getting a little bit better at this. Oh, I'm getting a little bit better at this. If you don't have any focus, then it's hard to even see your results, which, when it's a cycle, because you're focused, you get your results that get you more excited, which allows you to get more focused and want to do more of that thing. And if you never get into that cycle, then you're always just kind of scrambling. You know, one of my biggest quotes that I use and that people quote me on is random acts get random results.
And that is what most people are doing most of the time, is random acts.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: I like that. Random acts get random results. How do you, what do people need to do, or excuse the pun, focus on to bring focus to them and their business or those high value activities that they need to need to focus on.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: I think the first thing I need to sit down is first you got to identify your goal. Like, you got to have a goal of what is it that you really want to accomplish, and then within that goal. So that's problem number one, is only about 14% of people set any goals whatsoever. So. And only 8% of people achieve any of their goals. So you got 92% of people sort of just flailing out there, like not really moving toward a target. So if you don't know what target you're moving toward, it's hard to be focused. So then once you know what that target is, then what people do is they look at it as too big of a kind of a mountain. So then you have to break that down to, okay, if this is my end goal, like this is where I want to be. Like, break that down into smaller tasks, but then you also have to break it down into the income producing tasks. So a lot of people do busy work versus productive work.
So just like when people make a list of things to do, like I always tell you should never have more than ten items on your list of things to do because otherwise you will just put really useless things on there. If you make yourself pick ten in a day, you will start to prioritize what really is more important. But even with things to do, a lot of those are, they have to be done. Like I had to go to the post office today and that didn't really move my business forward. I mean, I had to get that order out. Yes, but it didn't really create any new business. See, that was an existing business and it was tasks that had to be done. But I really encourage people outside of your list of things to do. Wake up every day with three intentional things. What are three things that could move me closer to my goal today? If you start thinking that way, that is going to move the needle in that focus. What did I do today that moved my business one step closer to my goal? Just one step closer. That's where getting people to really identify the, it's called the power hour. And I actually have been training that for like 30 years. And then I had it trademarked, which I, lots of people use that, but it was a program that we did and it's identify those four income producing activities.
Now, that's different for everybody, but like, if you really sit down and say instead of busy work, what's productive work and what moves my needle towards my goal. So what are those four things? And so those four things I'm going to focus on either two times a week, three times a week, four times a week, whatever that looks like for you. And I'm going to do that consistently no matter what. Like, that's not, that's, we're, that's not a, it's not up for grabs. Those income producing activities are the ones that are going to produce results. And yes, I might have to go to the post office. I have to send an order out. I have to take care of a return. I have to do things that maintain my business, but they don't grow my business and people don't spend time.
It's actually so small, so small, even with major companies and corporations. Like, it's less than sometimes 8%, 10% that is spent on growth versus maintenance.
Wow.
[00:16:56] Speaker B: It's focus.
And again, it's such a common thing. And I don't reckon I met anyone that I've worked with now previously and maybe work in the future. It's not that they would question focus, and it's not that they don't believe in focus being important, but then they get taken away. So what are the distractions that happen for people? That no focus is important, but the distractions come in and override the focus.
[00:17:29] Speaker A: So the biggest distraction today, of course, is your devices, your phone.
People have almost become prisoners of their phone. Like, I'm going to wait and see if. I mean, people can't even have a conversation with somebody without being distracted. There's a study, actually, I think was done at the University of Michigan. For every. For every distraction that you get off of the focus that you have, it will take you twelve to 22 minutes to get back on that task. So that's a lot of wasted time. If you're wasting 20 minutes every time you looked to see if your phone or you changed off your, like, again, you're not creating any momentum. You don't get on a roll. That old day of like, oh, man, I'm on a roll. Like, we don't. Hardly anybody says I'm on a roll anymore because they're never on a roll.
They might have a good call, and then they go, oh, so and so is texting me. Let me, let me, let me get. Let me get in that. And now I'm trading my brain pattern because I'm answering your text message, or I'm responding, or somebody sends me a video to look like at. And then that takes me into five more videos that I'm randomly looking at before I get back to. And in that, I've lost that energy. I've lost. There's an energy that is created for momentum.
It's like, it's powerful. And so people get distracted from their devices. That's probably number one. People get distracted from.
I don't want to do this. Like, oh, you know what? I'd rather. I think I'll go down.
It's the whole multitasking, and. Multitasking isn't your friend. You know what? I'm gonna run downstairs and, like, especially this is for people that working at home, I'm gonna clean the kitchen really quick. And, oh, if my space were really this, I would. I would be able to do this better. I think I'll make this spreadsheet. So it's an avoidance of maybe you're uncomfortable doing the thing. And so that's, that's the other reason why people get distracted is they don't really want to do the thing. And so. But the only way you'll ever become comfortable or get better at it is by doing it.
And then, so that's why I make people do that task for 15 minutes every day, no matter what. Like, if picking up a phone and talking to your customers is challenging for you, then make yourself do it for 15 minutes. Then pretty soon, guess what, it's not challenging, and pretty soon, you don't want it. Like, if you make yourself do it for 15 minutes, this is what clients even tell me. They're like, the next thing I knew, it was 30 minutes, and I was so excited, and my results were so incredible. Like, why would I want to stop?
And so I think that people don't allow themselves to get that I'm on a roll. Like, think about that.
Boy, oh, boy, oh, boy. And people want to. There's a. Hmm.
When you don't set a goal, either you. That's a big piece of it. So if I don't set a goal that I want to, I want to. And this is just, this is just a very simple goal, but, like, I've got a big goal to sell, you know, $10,000 in a month of whatever I sell. So then I break that down and I realize, okay, you know what I need? I need to sell ten of these a day. Right? Whatever it is. And so I need to keep moving and sell my ten. But the thing is, is you got to need to know that you need to sell ten. But then when you do and you hit it and you're on a roll, why would you stop?
But they do. They go, well, got that done.
It's like, I remember I used to publish a magazine. This is going back a number of years, and one year, it was right around the Christmas. This time, we had to publish, and we published every other month, and we had to publish in January, and we didn't have the money. Like, we didn't have all the money that we needed in order to get it. So I thought, all right, I need to get on the phone every day from the 1 December to, like, the 15 December. And I figured out how many subscriptions I needed a day. And so, and I think it was like, I don't know, 15. So, like, get on the phone, and I'm gonna do this for this many days. And I'll have enough money to get this published and we'll be on our way. And, man, I had great conversations with people that had let their subscription lapse. And like, oh, I thought I was still getting that. Oh my gosh, no. Yeah, sign me up. I remember one day I was on a roll and I got 32 subscriptions in the one day. So now a lazy person would say when they got their 15, I'm done for the day. Or another person would go, well, I got 32 yesterday, so I don't got to get 15. I don't have to get 15 again today. But, man, I was on it every day. And you know what? We had more than enough to get that published in January. And then it got us over that hump. And I learned a lesson in that, too. And there's fun in that. And getting to know your customers, you get feedback from them. Like, I don't know why people fight having good contact with their customers. You get such wonderful feedback about, you know, good and bad. Like, you know what, I really wish you had. And some people say that about my planner, like, you know what, I wish this planner had. And sometimes it's like, well, that's impossible. But I'm like, oh, thank you so much for that feedback. But there are times where they make a suggestion and I think that's a no brainer. Like, that's easy to do. Like, that isn't, that won't even cost that much. That's a no brainer. And I can do that like, with no problem at all. And look at the number of customers then that you make happy, you know, and your customers feel important. And when your customers feel important, they refer you to other people because they think, I matter, I matter to this person.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: There's an element of what you're saying, where there's the goal of what that sort of bigger goal is. It might be a month, it might be six months, might be twelve months away, whatever. But then the ability to chunk that back to daily tasks, that's really definitely, I link to that sort of methodology. But how much of there's people that don't realize the simplicity in that. They haven't had experience or background in that sort of thing. So there's that part. But also I also start to think in my own journey that there are people that it's the limiting beliefs that they have around they set a goal. They may know how some of this goal setting happens, but deep down they're actually challenged by the belief that, you know what I'm not sure I can do this. So they just avoid. Because that's an easier thing than failing in their own head.
[00:24:47] Speaker A: Well, the number one, yeah, the number one reason that people don't set goals, because I've done a huge amount of surveys, focus groups, research on this, even myself.
And the number one reason is fear of failure.
But it's really this fear of, it's two things. It's like a fear of what other people think. Like, if I put it out there to the universe that I'm going to do this, so, so there was a time where we could say to ourselves, I'm going to try to do this. And you didn't put it out to the world. You didn't tell everybody on Facebook. You didn't, everybody didn't know all of your business, and now they do. And so now there's a certain thing, like, well, if I say I'm going to do this and I don't, then people are going to, you know, say, oh, I knew she couldn't do that, or whatever. Most people aren't even paying attention, like, to be honest with you, but that is the fear. But then there's, I've really got down in deep with it with people and it's the fear of other people having expectations from you. So if I commit that I'm going to do this, and then now you're going to, you're going to call me out on it. Like, say, if you're my leader, you know, maybe a team leader or you're a, and I say to you, hey, I really want to go for this and maybe it's even your boss. And you say, I really want to go for this, this promotion. Well, now you're going to call me out on it. You're going to have a certain expectation of my behavior. And people are like, I don't want anybody having any expectations out of me. And that blows my mind, like, completely. But if you, if people can understand that there is no failure. In fact, there's, I just did a whole bunch of, you know, study because I've been really into this goal thing recently.
And anytime you set goals, even if you just go, are reaching for them and you don't hit every one of those benchmarks, you will have growth. Every time that you set a goal and reach for it, you will have growth. So whether you actually hit it or you don't hit it, there is no win or fail because you grew in the middle.
And otherwise, if you're not striving for anything, you're basically staying in the same place and you can only sit in the same place for so long or you will start to go backslide. Like, you're not going to start to see those results. It's that whole every thing that I talked about. But there is three parts to setting an effective goal. Not just setting the effective goal, but then achieving it. And they are.
You have to have the why? Like, why do I want this? Because if you don't have an emotional attachment to it, the first little road bump that you hit, you're going to say, eh, does it really matter?
It's got to matter. And why does it matter? If I hit this goal, what will that represent for me? My family, our income, our whatever? What are we going to do with that? Like, what could we do? If I actually, if I actually hit this, what would that picture look like? Get emotionally attached to that vision piece. The second piece is then find your benchmarks. Right? So here's my goal. Like, so, annually, break it down to quarterly, break it down to monthly, then break it down to weekly, because otherwise it just gets away from you. So when you break it down into smaller tasks, then you actually are able to do the action steps around it. Which brings us to number three. So you got to have benchmarks. And benchmarks are nothing, that goals are just benchmarks. So if I'm striving for that, like, so this month I want to sell, you know, $5,000 and I only sell $4,200. If I've got an emotional attachment, I'm excited. I'm like, it's okay. Look how close I got, you know? And it's got me this much closer to x of what I really want.
And if I don't, then I'm like, I didn't think I could do it. Like, I didn't really think I was going to be able to do that. That's where that belief system starts to break down because you don't have any, there's no emotional attachment to what you're doing. Like, kind of like it doesn't have any meaning.
So number two is just set your benchmarks and if you hit them, you hit them. If you don't, you don't. Like, I use the analogy of a GPS all the time. You put your destination into a GPS every day. And guess what? It's sophisticated equipment, right? I mean, like, it tells you, go here, turn left, go here. And no matter what it says, man, we make wrong turns.
Like, we miss a turn, we miss the street. And you know what it says? It says, recalculate, redirect, recalculate, redirect. It doesn't say, you're a loser, go home. Like, it just recalculates you. And that's how your life is. It's just like, you're not a loser. Don't go home. Just recalculate. Just redirect and hit a new benchmark. Okay. But the third piece is the piece to achieving goals, and that is the plan of action. What's your plan of action? To actually do it, because if you don't have one, it's those daily tasks, the daily things to do, the intentional pieces, the income producing activities. How am I going to set my schedule to really align with this? If I need to make 20 calls today, then where am I blocking off the time to do that?
Not like, oh, I didn't have time to do that today. No, my, one of my other goals is what gets scheduled gets done, you know, if you want to work out. I mean, like, people used to think I was like, I don't know, mean when I was training people, when I was, when I had really little ones. But I'm like, don't feel guilty. Like, if you want playtime with your kids, schedule playtime with your kids. Like, I mean, we had Wednesdays and Fridays where. And every Friday, each kid got to trade off, like, okay, it's your Friday. What do you want to do? You get to pick today. And so they knew I wasn't going to be working on Fridays, and it was going to get to be their day to do whatever they wanted.
So if you want to have quality time with your kids, then schedule it.
You know, quit fighting. Guilty about, I'm supposed to be working, but I should be with my kids. I'm with my kids, but I should be working. It's like, schedule what you want, you know, if people say, I just don't have time to work out. Sure you do. If you schedule it, you know, when I don't, I never work out.
Mm hmm.
[00:31:15] Speaker B: It's really about being deliberate with your time. And how does the, I feel like the power hour that you referenced earlier comes into that?
[00:31:23] Speaker A: I love the power hour because it does a couple of things.
It forces you to say that, pick what's important. Like, what are those tasks? What is that income producing activity? It forces you to, like, if you're scared to death, I've got people scared to death to make sales calls. And I'm like, they said, when I just had to do it for 15 minutes, I would think I can get through this. Anybody can do anything for 15 minutes.
We have used the power hour so often, and my youngest one is just, like, lived on it, right? So if I'm. If I'm saying, like, oh. Like, we were going to. We were actually going to London, and then we were going on to Paris, and she kept saying, mom, have you packed? And this is like, you know, ten year old, have you packed? I haven't packed yet, honey.
Then she one day said to me, okay, you have 15 minutes starting now. Go. And you want to know what? I nearly packed for that entire two week vacation in 15 minutes. Like, you would be blown away. We play this game all the time. Go right now. You got 15 minutes to clean this whole kitchen. You can do it. Like, we put things off until they become mountainous. But if you just said, I got 15 minutes, like, even in between calls, like, or whatever that you've got, okay, I've got 15 minutes. What can I knock out? And you start behaving that way, it. It's mind blowing at what you can get accomplished.
So I love.
[00:33:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I love the term the power hour as well. Just what's wringing my head or going around is that even from somebody who's sort of starting on this journey, and I love your three sort of steps, the wider benchmarks and the plan of action. But even if you just said, well, you know what? If it's 15 minutes or this is my power hour for the day, my preference is when I work with people to try and make that power hour as early as possible in your work day, because it's too easy to get distracted later on in your day. But even you just did that and made sure that you nailed those one, two, three tasks in that time. Wow. I mean, even over a month, two months, three months, your business is going to be in a different place, isn't it?
[00:33:43] Speaker A: 100%.
Just 100%.
It's interesting because I. So we offer a planner, and I sell this planner, and in each one of the dates on the month, at a glance, I've got these four tiny boxes, and then at the bottom of that page, I've got a legend so people can put their own. Like, what are my four income producing activities? And then each of the boxes are different colors, so you can see, did I do that task? Like, this is my red task. It's my whatever. And, like, I had a lady that had followed me for years. She goes, I even teach this power hour to my sales team, and I tell them I do this three times a week. But when I actually got your planner and you actually had to check it off and then I had to, like, then there was a space at the bottom of the page that said, how many did you do this week or this month? I was like, I thought that I was doing it, but in reality I wasn't. And she said, I recommitted to doing it and my business blew up again. Like just blew up.
And it allows you to focus. And I have so many people that write me cool things. Like I like, color coordinate your stuff. So like, okay, this is the blue one. Like whatever blue is for you. So people tell me I've got different colored ball caps that I wear and so I'll put on my blue ball cap for my blue task. And it just helps me to say I'm only doing this, this blue task when I'm wearing this hat. And it gets me in that mode and they'll have different, like for some people, they need that to get completely immersed in it. It's so funny at the different things that people write me and tell me how they've used that and made it work for them. So it's kind of cool over the.
[00:35:31] Speaker B: Years, it's very cool to get that sort of feedback and to know that you're having that impact. So I just, even as recently as this morning and we're recording this conversation that a client of mine who's also I consider a good friend, he runs an engineering consulting business. And in a big part of our conversation was focus and pure and simply his business. If you concentrate on, we've got very simple measures in place, but pipeline project delivery, invoicing and collection, that's your focus points. You do that. And if you are managing your team of people around those sort of things in your leadership team, then once again you're going to have a pretty solid business and you're going to be less distracted, to use the term that we're looking at, far less distracted if you stay focused on those things and know that that's what drives your income producing requirements for you. So I hear you loud and clear, Belinda.
[00:36:20] Speaker A: Oh, good.
[00:36:24] Speaker B: Let's move on. So we've talked a lot about focus and I think that's good because it's such a foundational piece. And to me, if you've got that focus, that's going to flow onto some of these other three pillars. So tell me how commitment links in this journey.
[00:36:37] Speaker A: Well, commitment is you got to be in it to win it. If you're going to let the least little thing say, well, like roadblock, you know, I hit this obstacle. I hit this challenge.
It's learning to be, I'm in it to win it. Like, it's so funny because I've used this analogy from people who have a nine to five job, for example, you know, and they go to work every day and they don't, if they have a bad day at work, they don't even think much about it. I had a bad day at work. You know, you don't look at your coworkers and say, you know, yeah, well, I don't think I'm coming back tomorrow.
You just show up at work the next day. But when it's your own business, when it's something that you are striving for yourself, I'm blown away.
When the first little thing goes wrong, people say, oh, I don't even know why I'm doing this. This is just really too hard. I would be better off if I were doing this. They go down this whole rabbit hole of why this probably isn't a good choice for them or talking themselves out of why they're doing what they're doing.
And you just have to have those good conversations with yourself. You got to be in it to win it for the long haul. You got to be resilient. You got to be solution minded. Instead of, we're going to have obstacles. And anybody thinks it's a straight line to success, it's sorely wrong. It's twists and turns and ups and downs and two or three steps forward and a step back. But if you stay in a mindset of how, okay, how are we going to solve this? Like, in a, in a positive way, like, oh, like, oh, no, I can't believe this happened to me. It's like, okay, we've got a situation. How are we going to solve it? If you become solution oriented right at the top of it, it will help you to stay committed because everything is fixable. You know what I mean? Everything is like, you just have to say, okay, what's my solution here? What's the solution? And I use that analogy about work because rarely ever, no matter how bad of a day of work you have, you don't usually say to your coworkers, yeah, I just don't think I'm coming back.
You might feel it, but you don't say it. So why do you for something?
It's a job that you have, but why are your hopes and your dreams and your aspirations of building something of your own? Why don't they get the same level of commitment.
[00:39:17] Speaker B: It's a fantastic point. I love the analogy. In your own journey, again, you've been in your business for some decades. When is your own commitment being challenged?
[00:39:25] Speaker A: Oh, my commitment. I don't know that my commitment has been challenged, but it has.
My greatest challenge has been and remains to be, even as we are speaking right now. Today is the pandemic changed the course of my business.
It changed what it looked like. It changed what I did.
And the mistake that I made in that first I went into survival mode, which was okay that first year, and we managed, and then I went into, things are going to come back, and I've taught to people over and over, quit waiting for something to return to the way that it was. This is your new normal. Operate on what your normal is today. And I'm moving forward from where my normal is today. I did not follow that on advice.
Like, I didn't, and I didn't until probably last year. I was like, wake up. This model of what you did has changed, and it is not coming back to the way that it was. So what are you going to do about it?
And that is challenging. And I was talking actually to a coach today because I'm smart enough to know for a while, I was like, I can figure this out on my own. And then now I'm at the point where, no, I can't, like, you know, I'm help all these other people, but we all need help at times. And so in talking to the coach, she said, you know, glenda, it's just when you've already been on top and then you got to start all over, it's. It's easier when you were never there and you were enjoying that journey, and it was like every new mountain that you climbed or every new little piece that you hit, you're just like, oh, my gosh. And then, um. But now when you've already been there and now you're back at the bottom again and you got to climb back up, that it should be easier because you already know how and you know what you need to do, but there is something in you. Like, she said it and she nailed it is why am I here? Like, there is. This isn't fair. Like, um, I shouldn't be here right now. And you got to let that go and just say, you know, whatever your new normal is. And life does throw us, like, some unexpected curveballs that are not pleasant sometimes. And the pandemic certainly was as a professional speaker and having an entire year's worth of bookings on my calendar that produced 65% of our income for our company and the employees here for that to be gone and overnight, like, it was wiped out overnight, it took ten days for me to hear for every client for the rest of the year. That said, for the unforeseeable future, we do not see this returning. And a lot of big conferences have not returned. I think people have been waiting to see is the shoe gonna drop or are we gonna, you know, a lot of people lost a lot of money in planning a big event.
And so some people are finally, we're finally starting to see some conventions and conferences are coming back.
But even some of the companies I've talked to said we've decided to do some really small scale ones. Like we'll have 50 people in a room. We're not getting 3000 people in a room. So it's just the trajectory of it changed. And now I've got to say, okay, what's it look like? For me?
[00:43:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I think lots of people's commitment was challenged during the pandemic days. But again, I think that the other thing I find interesting, again, I know from your background and research and some of the conversations we've had just today, you're in the direct marketing game. There's the sales side of that, and there's a lot of sales training you're involved in in Australia. I don't know about the states. There's rightfully a wrongfully, there's a bit of a stigma around that, around that sort of direct marketing industry that says to me that people who succeed in that sort of industry and continuously, like, it's almost like, it feels like there's another level of commitment needed to do that because there is a bit of a stigma around, at least in Australia. I don't know what the story is in the States. Can you talk to that a bit?
[00:43:54] Speaker A: Yes. So that is where I originally, like in sales, got my start. So then when I started as a speaker, it was a natural thing that all those people wanted me to speak to that because I even, all these things I've learned and I've spoken to many other companies like, you know, Ford Motor Company and, you know, the Builders association and the OT Ologists Society and like lots of other sales organizations, but just not as on a regular basis because that's what I knew. And I would say to you that years ago there was a really a pretty great stigma in that. And then I saw it level off. I saw early two thousands we had some big players came into the game.
Warren Buffett purchased the pampered shaft, and then we had Reebok got in the game, and then Jockey got in the game, and some big known brands decided, okay, this is a viable way of which to market our business. And so there was sort of this new period of time where it was like, no, this is, this is cool. Like, this is, this is a, this is a reasonable way to, for people to be able to make extra income and for people to be able to companies to have a different arm. You know, that's what most of them call that. This is the, this is the branch, or this is the arm of this. And I would say that the majority of those companies have either sold off that arm or decided that they don't want to be in that game anymore. And I see that stigma is strong again. I see that coming back maybe stronger than I've seen it in 30, 40 years.
And I think that comes from people that don't really know anything about it. And then there's so much talk about it online like that. Like, you've got a wider audience for people to be talking about it. And that is certainly has what has happened.
And so for me, like, trying to speak outside of that, like, that's where I spent time today with a coach. Like, what other sales organizations am I going to be speaking to? Like, realtors. That's another big group of people that buy our planner. And so I need to tap into that market because I can teach the same. The skill sets that I teach to those individuals are transferable, really, to anyone in sales.
But that is where I have spent a good number of years helping that industry and successfully helping that industry.
And, yeah, they have to be more resilient and they have to be more focused because people are trying to bring it down every day.
[00:46:53] Speaker B: Yeah, it's.
Sales is one of those things generally, like, everyone is selling something. Sales is one of those sort of things that is just so transferable in the skills across stuff.
[00:47:06] Speaker A: 100%.
[00:47:07] Speaker B: I did a lot of sort of corporate gigs over my 20 plus 23, 24 years in corporate. I never officially had a sales role, so I never looked at myself as a salesperson. It's one of those things that I had to at least start to embrace that, hey, I need to be that sort of person and be able to promote and whatever, because otherwise I wouldn't have a business today. Like, I need money to survive and I've got to be able to sell stuff. But the things we're talking about, like focus, commitment, we've spoken a bit already and consistency in organization, which we're going to get to organizational skills.
To be a top sales, to be great at anything you do, you have to be good at these things. But to be a great salesperson and to actually win clients around that, you know, to bring money into your business, if you don't do any of these things, you're not going to achieve what you need to achieve as a salesperson. That's how I see it 100%.
[00:48:00] Speaker A: You're not.
And it's not just one of those, either. It's, it's all of them. That's why when I's four, yeah, it is.
And it's every day, you know, like, it isn't. Like, I mean, yeah, you can take off that day and you can take off the weekends, and you can whatever you want to do, but you're being, you're mindful of it, you know?
But when you are mindful of it and you enjoy it, it really doesn't feel like work anyway. Like, you know, I was driving home from the birthday party. My son didn't go because he's leaving tomorrow for a trip, but he's called me and he's like, okay, I want to talk to you about. And he's just on it, like, right. Because he's in insurance sales. He does Medicare, health insurance, and they just ended their big, you know, sales period. And I helped him out a little bit with that. But it's like, it's fun to talk about how to grow that business. And he's on it every day like he's thinking about selling. But you know what selling is? The greatest skill in selling is listening.
And that is where you got to listen to your client. You got to listen to what they want. You got to listen to what their need is.
You're basically helping them to solve a problem or to make their life a little bit easier, to make their life a little bit better. And if you are constantly thinking about what you need to sell versus listening to your client, you're going to come up short on that one, too. Like, I've got a whole ten tips in sales, but, you know, people always ask me, what do you say the number one tip is in sales? These tips, these foundational pieces I'm giving you on these four pillars, they're, they're operational, they're the things that you got to do to sort of operate on a daily basis, but like, to be a good seller. Like, there's other skills that are involved in that, and you just have to start to sort of master those, master your skill sets.
[00:50:05] Speaker B: Absolutely. And I guess to wrap that up I look at it and say, well you have to be able to find the pain point for the client. Now again, depending on what industry, you may have these things and you're trying to find people that have this pain point for the product you're selling. But let's say you're finding the pain point and then from there is it hurting them enough to do something about it? If it is, do they have the budget to do something about it or the need for the budget to do something about? If they do, then you've got some action happening and that drives. If you don't have any of those sort of three things there in my own experience, certainly from a consulting perspective, then you may as well end the conversation.
[00:50:41] Speaker A: Right. But you know, there's things that are like. People get hung up on that too though there is a pain point, but it doesn't have to be painful.
So, and I. And people get confused in that because if I'm selling jewelry, what is the real pain point? It isn't. It's not painful, but that, but what it might be is like it, it makes you feel good or it might make you. You can change your wardrobe without having to really purchase a whole lot of new clothes, but maybe with some different accessories I can change a completely different look with a couple of things and so that might stretch my budget a little bit further. Like there are things that are pain points that aren't painful. And I think that people need to also learn to sort of identify that depending on the product that you're selling.
[00:51:37] Speaker B: Yeah, again, an absolutely great point. If we're talking from a business owner's perspective, business leaders, I think the about sales and bringing clients now whether it's the business owner that is focused on that, from my experience, a lot of them have been at some point because that's how their business got to where they're at. Either they're still doing that because that's what they love or they've got somebody doing that. You've got to make sure that you have focus, commitment, consistency and that person, or people driving the sales, business development stuff. They've got to be organised. If you've got that and you keep your eye on the ball, then you'll probably have a reasonable business that you'll be able to look after yourself, your family and other people's families. If you don't, then you'll probably find yourself on this wave of ups, downs. Why am I doing this? No, this is terrible. I got no clients and, or I put some focus and now we've got clients again. It becomes a really bumpy road, doesn't it?
[00:52:27] Speaker A: It does. It's like consistency is, you know, like you've heard this everywhere. Consistency is key. So it is one of these pillars. You have to be committed, you have to be focused. But consistency is creating systems and habit patterns that allow you to do your business with ease without having to use a lot of brainpower behind it. So, like, I'm a, I'm a real set schedule girl. Like, I know what my Monday looks like. I know what my Tuesday looks like. I know what Wednesday looks like. And so when my feet hit the ground first thing in the morning, I already kind of know what my day is going to look like and the expectation that they look different. Of course, you know, here and there. But I have a good, you know, I know when I wake up on Tuesdays, it's podcast day and I'm going to have several interviews and I'm going to get myself up. And I also know that that's going to be my busiest day of the week. And I'm going to work from about 09:00 in the morning until about 11:00 at night without too many breaks. And I know that, and that's okay because I take Wednesday almost completely off. So in my brain I'm like, but I get Wednesday. And so I'll do all this and batch it all out. And of course, I make calls and do little things on Wednesday, but I don't schedule any. I don't have any big stuff. So that becomes consistency. I'm consistent in that.
When I first started my podcast, people said, batch your interviews. And I just thought, eh, is that really necessary? I'm brand new. Like, we'll offer this to people at, you know, on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday at one, two, or three. Then I found myself just people randomly picking and then not knowing what those days were going to be and wasting a huge amount of time. So then I said, nope, you get to pick Tuesday.
One, two, three, or four. What do you want? And that's so I know that they're scheduled. And some days I get all four slots filled. Some weeks I don't. I'll get three of those four in every once in a while. Most of the time it's Australia. Like, if somebody says, could, can you do this at a different time? I'm actually sleeping.
[00:54:44] Speaker B: We are painful.
[00:54:45] Speaker A: And so I go, yes, yes, we can. But that's about it. Everybody else is going to fall into that Tuesday and I give them enough notice. So find a Tuesday a little ways down the road where we can make this work. And people do it like they just do. And so like that is saved my Wednesdays and my Thursdays and my Mondays. Like now I can schedule something else and then knock my podcast out and it gets done.
So that's consistency. That's what people don't, don't look at. Sometimes they think consistency is just, I'll work on my business every day. No, it's the tasks. What are you consistent with? I'm consistent with my morning routine. I'm consistent with, you know, batching one to 04:00 I'm consistent with whatever, whatever it looks like. It's systems that you put in place that actually cause your brain not to have to think about what you're going to do. You already know what you're gonna do. So now I just wake up and, and I'm just gonna execute with really a pretty fresh mind.
I'm going at it full on in focus because I'm not stopping going, what should I work on right now?
That's energy and it's distractions.
[00:56:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's a really important point because it's that mindset that you've already set yourself into. It's like even if you're doing something that maybe you don't enjoy as much as something else, you can just set yourself up. You know what's going to happen. Tuesday's my day for x. I don't always love doing that, but it's got to be done for my business and I'm ready to go. So yeah, there's a, there's a big. So you're even starting the setting up of making sure you're being consistent the day before, the night before, whatever that is. But you just know, some would say I'm far too consistent. I'm consistently boring, belinda. But let's not go too far into that rabbit hole, right?
[00:56:53] Speaker A: It's funny because the fourth pillar, like, so when I do this seminar live, I always say, okay, let's talk about these. And I'll say the first 1, second one, third one, people are with you. And I say, okay, number four. And this is why I make it four. Because if I did it any other, nobody would even be listening. Like, I'm not kidding. So I go, number four organization. The whole audience will go, oh, like there's this collective, like, oh, like the dreaded organization. And, and what's so funny is if you looked at my desk right now, it's a hot mess, but it's because I've actually. Today was a crazy busy day for a Thursday. I've been at it since this morning, and it'll be late tonight before I'm done. It's a hot mess. I've got my breakfast stuff in here and my lunch stuff in here, so I gotta clean up tonight after we're done. But everything here, even though it's a mess right this minute, everything here has a home.
And that is where people mess up. It's like they're not organized. And the biggest problem with. Or what organization or your lack of organization causes is your lack of everybody. Then what is the number one thing I'll ask you? What do you think the number one thing if you ask people what they wish they had more of? What is it?
[00:58:21] Speaker B: Time.
[00:58:21] Speaker A: Time.
It's. It's the number one answer for everybody anywhere. I wish I had more time. If I could add more time in a day. If I could add another 2 hours to a day. Well, your lack of organization costs you more time than anything else.
If you want to sit down and make a call or I said, oh, I got to find brendan's, you know, information that he sent me.
If I don't know where that is or I don't know where my emails are, I don't know. If I haven't created a file for whatever. It's like, where is that information? Like, you're looking around for a phone number. You're looking around for where you put, like, it might be a mess right now, but I will pull everything out of here, and I will go out into my outer office, and everything has a home, whether it's my training, things that I have that I might want to come back to, whether it's whatever. Everything has a home. Where do my leads live? My leads live here. Where does this live? This leave. This lives here. And, you know, it all goes down to even, like, in your kitchen when you're looking for your cooking and you can't find that whatever. Like, my kitchen is pretty dang organized. My closet's pretty organized because you can spend 45 minutes hunting for that pair of black pants you want to wear.
But if they're hanging up where they should be, then you're grabbing and you go, and you're able to get ready in like, a few minutes. You know, I used to travel when I spoke, usually about two times a week, and I could literally pack for a trip in less than 15 minutes because it just was.
I already. I had. I kept my regular toiletries in the house, and I kept a different toiletry bag for my suitcase all the time, was always ready to go, and all I had to do was make sure it was replenished. But I didn't waste time in pulling all that out and then pulling the stuff out. And, like, everything was just really super simple, streamlined, and I was very organized. And. And I wouldn't say.
I would say I've struggled with organization, but I have gotten better at it and better at it because I recognize that is where the majority of my time is wasted.
I do. I color coordinate things a lot, like when I have coaching clients, for example, and this is so elementary, but I started doing this back in my early twenties, and I found it to work, and I've kept it for all of this time. But, like, if you go out on my table right now, just like there is here at my desk, I have a different notebook for different things I want to take notes in. So if I'm doing it for speaking, it's this. If I have it for my podcast, it's my blue notebook. If it's leads, it's my purple notebook. And so if I get a lead or I want to find that lead, I know I'm going to walk out on my desk and I'm going to go to that purple notebook, and it's going to be there. If I take a course, I've got one notebook that I use for courses. So then if I want to go back to find where was those notes on that course that I took, I know it's in that. It's in that colored notebook with my clients. They each have a colored notebook and a colored folder that I have. Their notes I take with my client, and then any marketing materials that I want to look at or reference. So if that client happens to call me on the side and goes, oh, we got an, we got a problem. We got an emergency, I could be ready with that client in three or four minutes. I walk out onto my table, I grab their folder, their notebook.
My notes are right there for the last conversation that we had.
Their marketing materials are at my fingertips, and we are ready to go.
[01:02:15] Speaker B: It's pretty good. So you've been, you are now quite organized based on what you've just explained, what you mentioned, that you struggled with organization. So what did you struggle with about organizing yourself and your day and your business?
[01:02:28] Speaker A: So back early in the day, it was just that, like, oh, my gosh, where did I put that? And, like, looking around 45 minutes for it. And finally one day I was just like, this is going to end. Like too much of, I just spent a good 45 minutes of my, what, you know, whatever hour day I had to work hunting for the information that I needed.
It made me feel that this is my own thing. Nobody else put that on me. But if somebody called and said, do you have that information about so and so? And I'd say, oh, let me, let me see if I can find that and I'll get back to you. Well, now I gotta find it. Now I don't. And I just, I didn't like looking on professional. I love it. If you called me and said, do you have that information?
I would say, yeah, I've got it right here. And depending on what it was in regard to, I, even though my desk is a hot mess right now, which it is, I'm not gonna lie. But you said, hey, do you have those notes on whatever? I got all my colored notebooks right here. I could pick the one up and I could probably give you the answer.
[01:03:40] Speaker B: Grab the podcast one, Belinda, grab what? So what would you say to business owners out there listening and watching this episode? What are some critical or a critical organizational skill that you think they need to have in order to keep advancing in their business ventures?
[01:04:02] Speaker A: It's the one that I rarely talk about because people get so, whoa. But it's the one that if you don't do it, oh my gosh, it's going to kill you. And that's analytics. It's your numbers.
People don't know their numbers. And I, and I mean, they don't. I've actually talked to some people that do taxes and financial planning and bookkeeping for all different sizes of businesses. And they said, especially with small businesses, like, they're like 80% of them don't keep a profit loss statement. That's mind blowing to me. Like, I'm like, how in the world can you operate or know if you're really making money? Or where are we losing money? Or like, where could we, where could we do better if you don't know your numbers and what are you trying to do better on? Like, I just, I'm a numbers girl and I, and I have been, and that goes back to those early days of being like twelve and being excited about them and, and people just don't know. Like I, when I first consult with a company, I'll sit down and we just have an interview and I'll just be talking with them and I'll go, well, what are your, what's you know, what's your average per consultant seller? What are, what is your, you know, what are your sales numbers? What's your highest grossing, whatever, what's your profit margin?
They'll say, what's your activity count? You know, they'll go, I don't know. I have to look that up for you.
Golly, those are things you ought to know off the top of your head.
Like, I actually interviewed with a fella in Australia recently where he was asking me some things about my business, and he said, belinda, I'm going to ask you a few questions, and if you have to get back with me, it's okay.
What's your return on investment, on this, on your ads? What's your, how much, what's your average ticket amount per customer? And I just went, I just rattled him off top of my head. He was like, wow, because I know them. And so if I were to say to anything, if you're a business owner and you're trying to run a business, fall in love with your numbers, like, this needs to be not a drudgery. It needs to be like, oh, my gosh, and keep some kind of every month. Like, what did we do this time last year? Like, people can't compare. This is where companies make a mistake, too, is they compare, like, over last month. Are we going to grow over last month? Well, depending on what season you're in, you're not going to have growth over every month. Over every month. You need to start comparing. Okay, here's what we did January of last year, because now I need to compare apples to apples.
What are we going to do to beat January of last year?
If you're constantly setting those, eventually it's going to catch up to where you are growing. You know, I've helped companies go from 4 million to 12 million, and it isn't by hoping, it's what's working. What isn't working. What can we do more of? What, what did we do last year that worked at this time? Like, like knowing analytics.
Even in social media, people, it's like throw spaghetti at the wall.
We, we look at our insights, we go, gosh, I'm not wasting time on somebody to create these graphics that are not getting any engagement. Like, and just spending all these thousands of dollars on social media if they're not doing anything. So where are they doing something? Where are we seeing a bump? Where are we seeing growth? Like, I keep track of social media numbers every week and we do a staff meeting and I say, okay, here's the numbers. And I say, gosh, we increased, we increased by 360 people in one week. What did we do? What did we do? And then everybody goes, I don't know. Let's look. And then it's like, okay, let's do more of that.
And if you don't know, then you don't know. And that's how most people operate, is in a. I don't even know what the heck is going on over here. So that's.
[01:08:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Flying blind is a recipe for anxiety, I think, in business ownership. But how do you.
Let's talk again on that, on that business owner side of things and the focus, the commitment, the consistency and organization.
We've talked, you've talked through a lot around those pillars. How would you just wrap that up in a nice little bow and summarize that from a, a day to day of, you know, using focus, using commitment, using consistency, and being organized?
[01:08:51] Speaker A: I would. I'm also a big proponent of whiteboards, and so that everybody in the space can see, like, what, what the goal is for, you know, that, that month or that, that week or that day or whatever, celebrate small wins. Like, you can't, like, as an, as a business owner now, you can't have employees, and you can't have team members, and you can't have people that are constantly working and they don't know are they making a difference or not making a difference. So if you have some of these measurable things and you're putting it up and you, and you, like, let people know, celebrate those wins with people and celebrate the small wins, or otherwise, everything just becomes like, oh, like. It becomes overwhelming, even for employees, where they don't want to be there. If you're just constantly saying, we got to do more, we got to do better, it's like, you've got to have some celebrations of small wins along the way and let people know what you're striving toward.
A lot of times, employers don't just go do your work, just do your job. But if they were let in on, here's our collective goal.
You play a part of this. We all play a part in this together. You know, that is, if you read any of the Disney books, that's where they really claim their success to be, is they'll take advice from the person who's in the laundry department if they've got a better way to hit the overall goal or streamline things.
And I think that we have to look at individuals and let them in on, here's what we're trying to accomplish. Because people are smart and people come from vast, different backgrounds and have different experiences and allow people, when you allow people in on what we're striving for instead of just what the problem is, it's like you allow people to.
You allow people to do better. It's funny because maybe this will explain it a little bit better. A lot of times I get called in as a consultant when the company is in trouble and they just want me to fix it. Well, everybody's down. The company's down. The company owner is like hitting the whip at people and like, there's like a lot of angst going on and everybody feels like there's nothing that can be done and, like, you're in there to try to create a miracle, but that's when they think they need the help. But really, when a company needs the most helpful is when they are on a roll.
And if they would get a good consultant when they are rolling, that's where I see the greatest growth, is when somebody's starting to see some growth and they call it, they have me as a consultant and then I'm able to say, all right, let's take this momentum, man, and let's roll with it and let's include everybody in on what we're doing and make them part of the picture and make them part of the success story. Every single person you have. And, man, then you get momentum like crazy and the company just like explodes. And it's hard to move a needle when things are bad. So don't share in the goodness when things are great.
[01:12:07] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Again, I love that sort of bringing together and creating that combined focus, that collective goal, and that brings that level of commitment to it. Assuming people are bought into the. The journey of the business. And then as a leader, you do need to drive the consistency and obviously work at a level with the individuals in the team to know what consistent actions are required each day and then how they organise their day and those sorts of things. So if you've got that, it seems like a pretty decent recipe for some sort of success. What would you say to, let's say I'm a business owner, I've got a. A project. Fit out business, workplace fit out business. And to your point, there's just not. I don't have enough hours in my day, Belinda. I need more hours in it in my day, talking around these things. Focus, commitment, consistency and being organized. What advice would you give me to get. Get myself started on the right track, so to speak?
[01:13:05] Speaker A: I would look at this schedule, the schedule you've created for yourself. And where can you fine tune that? Where can you create more habit patterns. Patterns. And then the second thing, I would look at your systems and what could be more automated to save you a little bit more time.
The third piece is, especially for a small business owner that might not have, like, a lot of employees. The first, you know, employee that I ever had, she was part time. And you don't have to get somebody full time for, like, a, for a huge salary, like, find people that want to work part time and make some extra income and just work for a few hours a day.
I find that there's still. I get lots of moms here that want to work after they've dropped their kids at school and they want to be home before they get their kids get home from school. There isn't a lot of places that want to hire them those hours, but for me, that's a good amount, a number of hours. I don't need them here for that whole time. They get more work done in the time that they're here. They're more efficient.
They're able to do what they want to do, which is be with their kids and not have to get somebody to watch their own kids. And so I've always been very successful in that piece for myself, and I've always been really good about, like, I've never, ever, ever, in 30 to 35 years of having employees ever had anybody work on a Friday, ever.
They appreciate it. We get more work done Monday through Thursday.
You go have a good weekend. Sometimes I will have a couple say, can I come in on Friday? Sometimes I flat out say, nope.
And sometimes if we're really swamped and we need to catch up, I'll be like, let's work a half day. Let's come in and let's work till noon and then take the rest of the day, because I want to take the rest of the day, and I want you to take the rest of the day.
And so we'll do that. And I'm not afraid to get down in if we need to catch up and go downstairs and do shipping with them. Like, I don't. Sometimes it's good to do that, is go down and actually, I'll write little notes in with customer orders. If I see a name that I recognize, you know, my daughter, and this was a couple of years ago, she was still, she was home at Christmas, and she said, mom, this lady lives ten minutes from us. Like, instead of mailing it to her, it's New Year's Eve. Why don't we deliver it to her house?
And I said, okay. And that happened because she was paying attention. And we got in the car and we drove it over there. We videotaped the whole thing, and that blew up online. Like, just blew up that. We delivered that to that lady. But she. My daughter recognized it because she had babysat in that neighborhood. And I just think that that's the sort of little things, like, I got off the subject there, but I think it's finding employees to start. To start to say, all right, this isn't worth my time's more valuable, that I should be doing this instead of this task. And so I can do that. But I think you should always be aware, even as you hire employees and be willing to jump in and say, here, let me help you out with that. Even if it's for 20 minutes, it makes the person feel like she understands my job, she understands what I'm doing.
[01:16:44] Speaker B: Yeah, makes a lot of. Again, makes a lot of sense and good customer experience, opportunity that your daughter's created there. So well done. You've obviously raised her very, very well around the service delivery side. Belinda, what's one thing that has helped you become a more confident leader?
[01:17:02] Speaker A: Always remaining a student myself, always putting on my hat of, I need, what can I learn today? What. What new thing can I learn? What can I. Being curious. Um, staying. You know, I see young people today, and I don't try to say, like, all these young people today, but I don't see it as much of a curiosity level with them about how something works or why it works the way that it does. Like, I've always been super curious about other people's businesses. Like, gosh, how, you know, in conversation notes. So how does that work? Like, I'm not ever going to open a business doing x, but, like, golly, I can learn from something that they're doing and apply that to something else, or, I don't know, it's. It's learning to be. That's probably helped me be more conversational than anything else. Like, I honestly, I don't.
People, like, don't you get stressed out? Like, you're just gonna go from this birthday party and go do this podcast tonight? I'm like, yeah. Because I know enough of enough things about enough things like that we can have this conversation. And so confidence comes from knowledge. People don't often understand that, but the more that you master your craft and the more knowledgeable that you are, the more confident you will become.
And self esteem is different than self confidence and self esteem comes from the relationships that you develop. And so I'm constantly looking at developing strong relationships with people, but I'm always curious and I'm always learning about something.
Like, my husband and I will just watch odd documentaries and our daughter is into it, too. Like, you know, how's that made? Like, let's watch that. Let's watch how they do this. Let's watch. Because you just, I don't know, like, you learn things and you apply and you just always remain a student. Like, one of the things that's been very difficult for me is the technology aspect of things in digital marketing. And I wouldn't say that's my forte or that I'm strong in that or understand all of it. And so I hid behind, oh, I'm challenged in that area. I'll just hire people to do it. Well, I started hiring people that were really taking advantage of us because I don't know if they're doing it right or wrong or not or whatever.
So this last year, man, I went to school on digital marketing and I can tell you that I don't know how to do it. Like, I don't know how to create a link and I don't know how to put this over here and I don't know how to make it work. But I'll tell you what, if you start telling me what you're going to do, I know if you're telling me the right thing or not. Like if you say, well, we're going to do this and we're going to do this, I'm going to go, oh, really? Because I thought you needed to do this first, or I thought you needed to do this. I've got enough basic understanding of what needs to be done. I just don't necessarily have the technical skills to execute all of it. But I know whether you're handing me a line of garbage or not.
[01:20:20] Speaker B: Some of these things you've just shared through that answer, is that to learn a bit more about social media type stuff, to do some things in your business, to be more curious and all that sort of stuff, it requires a level of focus, it requires a level of commitment in order to want to be better or want to learn at this. It requires some consistency about attending something or doing something each week. And in order to do that, you've got to be fairly organized because again, as all business owners are, there's always so many things to do and it's about what you choose to do. So, yeah, you've tied that up really really well with a nice little bow at the end. So thank you very much for that. Thank you for what you've shared today. Around these four pillars, they are so applicable across so many things. Whether you're leading a business, whether you are an employee in a business, whether you want to lead a business, whether you're striving for something else in your personal life or growing families and all that sort of stuff, these things are so transferable. So once again, focus, commitment, consistency and organizational skills. If you can keep those things in mind and actually act on them, then you're in a good place. Thank you very much for being a fantastic guest on cobtrum leadership.
[01:21:31] Speaker A: Oh, thank you so much for having me and it's been a wonderful, very easy conversation. So thank you.
[01:21:38] Speaker B: Been my pleasure.
These were my three key takeaways from my conversation with Belinda. My first key takeaway confident leaders are focused. They know the importance of focusing on what matters most. They set clear, achievable goals that align with what they want success to look like. This focus enables them to steer their team in the right direction and make impactful decisions. By maintaining a laser like focus, they avoid distractions, stay on track and inspire their team to do the same.
My second key takeaway confident leaders are committed and consistent.
Their strength lies in their unwavering commitment to their goals and the consistency in their actions to achieve them. They understand that success is an outcome of persistent effort and dedication.
They inspire their team by showing up and staying the course, especially when facing obstacles.
Their commitment and consistency breeds reliability and trust, which underpins success.
My third key takeaway confident leaders are organised. They know that being organized is key to managing their time and their team.
By creating systems and processes that streamline tasks and minimize chaos, they build a foundation for clear thinking and better decision making.
Optimising their own productivity sets a strong example for their team, leading to improved performance overall.
So, in summary, my three key takeaways confident leaders are focused confident leaders are committed and consistent and confident leaders are organised.
Let me know your key takeaway on YouTube or@theculturalleadership.com thanks for joining me and remember, the best outcome is on the other side of a genuine conversation.
