- Hey, it's Marley and today is Q and A day.
So I got a question from Shauna.
She says, "I watch your videos on YouTube and follow along
"all of your different social media channels."
Thank you.
"I was wondering if you have any advice for a new business?"
Yes, I do.
"I recently became self employed but I'm struggling
"with time management and confidence to put myself out there
"to gain new clients.
"Could you advise on how you manage these issues?
"I would really appreciate any advice at all.
"Hoping to hear from you soon, Shauna."
Oh my gosh.
So first of all, congratulations on becoming self employed.
Being a business owner, an entrepreneur can be hard work
but it is so worth it.
I so appreciate the freedom and flexibility that I have
being able to work for myself, create my own opportunities
and my own income.
One of the things that was such a struggle
with working for someone else or being a nine to five
is you needed permission to take a day off,
or needed permission to go on vacation.
You get to live by your own rules now
so I'm so excited for you that you have that.
First let's dive into the first part of your question
which was about time management
which is something I learn more about all the time.
About the best strategies and tips and tricks
to being productive.
So one of the biggest things that I would recommend
is that I schedule my day the night before.
And if I don't do this what I do is
I get to my desk in the morning and I'm like
I guess I'll check my emails and I forgot about this
that I have to do and I end up
puttering around my to-do list
instead of doing the valuable things
that I should be doing first in the day.
And I also want you to think about what are the tasks
that are valuable to you.
What are the tasks that are generating revenue
for your business?
Or do you have these kind of admin tasks or tasks
that a virtual assistant or some other person on your team
could be doing so that you can be doing the things
that are actually moving your business forward?
When I'm scheduling my day the night before
I have my three most essential tasks
that I need to get done for the week
and I look at what are the things that I need to do
each day to get that done, to complete my goal for the week.
So I schedule my day according to
the revenue generating tasks.
What's most valuable for my time.
But I also schedule in my breaks.
So I'll schedule when I'm having lunch,
when I'm going to the gym, because I want to treat those
like non-negotiable meetings because
if I don't schedule them they might not happen.
So I make sure that I put that in my day too.
I actually block it out by time, that I actually say
at 9:00 I check emails, at 10:00 I work on this project,
at 11:00 I work on the next project.
Another thing I try to do is I don't want
to have that context switching between my tasks.
That can actually lose you a lot of time,
the transition between something to something else.
So if you're working on a report and you need to work
on your website, just the switching from writing
and creating the report to then moving over
to your website, you lose focus.
You might forget about what you were doing here,
there's distractions, so I actually try to get
as much from one project done in one sitting
so that I can get it all done and still be in
that same mindset and focus on
the first project I was working on.
I also have to become really strong in my boundaries
because as a business owner you can work from anywhere
which means that I can work from home, I can work
from the beach which is a lot of fun.
But I have friends and family who think that
because I work from home I'm available all the time.
so I get phone calls or people drop by or say
hey do you want to go for lunch and yes,
because being an entrepreneur I have
that ability and freedom to say yes
and go to lunch in the middle of the day
and take a midday break.
But sometimes that's not actually what's best
for me and my business so I have to have boundaries around
these are my working hours and these are the times
that I'm gonna take a break.
That said, give yourself that treat of going
for a midday lunch with a friend or going shopping
because also being a entrepreneur you're likely to work more
than a regular nine to five because this is your business
and the growth of the business and your income
depends on you.
So you're likely to work more hours than you would
in a nine to five.
so be sure that you are giving yourself the R&R
that you need.
And if you haven't heard of it already
check out the Pomodoro Technique.
There's a book on it there's also an app.
What this is, is that you work in these sprints.
So you have 25 minute that you work
and you're focused on a task.
You can have the app that counts 25 minutes for you
or you can just have a regular alarm clock timer
that you work focused on this one thing for 25 minutes.
Because if you can focus on one thing for 25 minutes
you can get a lot done.
and as you see that countdown timer beside you
if you get that urge to be distracted
you see the timer and think, I have four more minutes
I can get through this, and then when the timer goes off
you get a five minute break and you move onto pomodoro two.
So you have pomodoro one, two, three, four, five.
You get five of these 25 minute sprints that you work on
and then from there you get a 25 minute break.
What that does is it encourages you to keep working,
to keep being focused on a certain project
with these five minute little breaks in between
that's good for you to refresh, relax.
Don't work on something else in that time,
actually take a break.
So whether you want to read a book
or get up and grab a snack or take a little walk.
it's something for you to refresh and then
come back to work ready to go for another 25 minutes.
It makes me so focused and efficient so
it's something you should try.
So let's talk about confidence.
This is something that definitely takes practice over time.
If I feel myself going into a place of insecurity
the first thing I do is try to acknowledge where that's
coming from.
Am I insecure about a lack of skills?
Or knowledge, or time?
And from there my remedy for that is often
to take action on it.
So even if it is something that's kind of scaring you
and making you feel like you want to procrastinate
because it's putting you out of your comfort zone,
the best thing that you can do is take action.
Whether it's baby steps, small steps, having someone
hold your hand through it, taking that action
will move you towards what you need to do.
Whether it's get better at that or push yourself
to finish a project.
If I'm feeling insecure about something I often recognize it
as me needing to take action to improve my skills
or to get down to what I was procrastinating on
likely because of fear or stepping out of my comfort zone.
Another thing with clients,
although I always want to appear confident
the truth is I'm not an expert in everything.
I want to give you a real life example of something
a client asked me for.
My client asked me if I knew very much about Huffington Post
and how to get her article promoted on there,
and in the top spots on Huffington Post.
Instead of coming right out and saying, I don't know
I've never worked on it before, I said, I'm not sure
at the time but if you give me till Monday I can know it
like the back of my hand.
I showed them that confidence that I'm a go-getter,
that I'm willing to learn.
Or the other route that I could have taken is that
I'm not an expert in that but I know someone that is,
and connect that person.
Because we want to work together, we want to build our team
and have someone from my team that is an expert
collaborate with us on the project so we can provide
that value for our client.
And then the client's happy because we didn't just say,
I don't know.
You've provided another route that you can go,
whether you learned it yourself or whether you find
the right person to support you.
Another thing that I'd suggest to you is if you start
to feel insecure about getting out and going after clients,
I'd ask you to go back and remember your why.
Why did you get into this business?
Why do you want to do this?
What is it providing for you?
This is an exercise from Simon Sinek.
He has great books and speeches.
You can look it up on YouTube to find it.
Knowing your why will support you and give you back
that confidence for why are you doing this?
Why does this fire you up?
What makes you so passionate about this?
And remember that you're providing a service
for people making their lives better.
If you don't reach out to them you may be doing them
a disservice because they need people like you
to support them.
So when you feel that insecurity about going out
and taking that opportunity remember that you have a lot
of skills to bring to the world, and people are just waiting
for you to reach out.
If you're still thinking about what's your why,
that's completely okay.
Sometimes it takes some time to figure that out.
It's fine if your why is that you want to make
lots of money or if your why is that you want
to support your kids or your family.
That's often a lot of people's why.
If you don't know what your why is and you want some
support in that I would suggest reading books,
finding a mentor or finding a support group.
There's a lot of communities of entrepreneurs.
A lot of free Facebook groups where you can go in
and find people who are likely in the same position
as you in your business.
I hope all that advice was helpful for you.
Of course, feel free to suggest any other content
that I can provide for you.
If you have any other Q and A, other questions
that I can answer for you, there's a link in the description
below where you can submit your question.
And of course remember to like, comment and subscribe
for more future videos.
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