Use time to achieve better results and motivation

Tip: Time is a constant, you cannot change it or perhaps extend it, rather change yourself.

The best way to appreciate the value of your time is to calculate the financial worth of a single hour. Let’s assume your last “most exciting, executive planning session, away at the KZN wildlife” brought a revenue target of R200, 000 a year. That translates to R100 per hour for a 40-hour workweek for 50 weeks a year.

Now think about a normal workday: Probably you take a couple of coffee breaks, extended a few phone conversations with little how was your weekend chats, were left on hold with a technical support call or reservation call centre, ran around for misplaced papers, were interrupted with boring telemarketing calls, got caught up in distracting activities, and so forth. Over the course of the day, these nonproductive minutes could easily add up to two hours or more.

OK, point made: In small chunks, time slips away unnoticed. Using our example, the lost hours would calculate to about R200 a day, R1, 000 a week, or R50, 000 a year. Next time, trust the MD for screaming about too many minutes away from your desk! Even more compelling is to realize that this adds up to more than an entire day a week, or quarter of your entire work time. Gone! Remember, “Time lost will never be regained”.

Doing these calculations emphasises the importance of time management and how it directly relates to the bottom line.

The next step is just as important – how to solve the myth of time:

• To do this, for a week, draw on a chart how you spend your time in 15 minute blocks. I know this may seem tedious, but I encourage you to persevere for five days, because at the end of the week you’ll have taken a very revealing snapshot of how well or poorly you invest this resource.
• If you’ve done a similar exercise before, do it again and on a regular basis. Whenever you find your business going off track, you can pull out the chart and find out where the time is being spent. The results will help you to strategically assess where your getting the best return on your most valuable asset.
• These two exercises calculating the value of an hour and charting your time usage should provide you with compelling motivation to take command of your time. Think of them as tactics to push you toward mastery. Their complement, establishing goals, will pull you toward achievement.

This strategy, if well communicated to the team can pull you toward achievement

Customer management tips

Someone said it “the client is always right no matter what”, but you can set the tone by carefully managing client expectations.

The kick-off

In initial sales meetings and project meetings, you the business owner needs to set the tone for the relationship. Your job is to guide the client. Let the client know up front when you are available, how you plan to respond to emergencies, how often you will have face-to-face or telephone contact, and what the client can expect at the conclusion of the project. Do not wait for the contract signing stage, this needs clarity before hand so that if any unknowns arises, they can be sorted there and then.

Setting the record straight

What happens when the client feels free to call at all hours? As a business owner, it’s up to you to manage your time. It’s up to you to put the phone to voice mail when your workday is at an end. That’s professional, and it’s effective, do not try to be nice by doing it at first and when it burns decide to quit.

Your obligation is to check your messages first thing in the morning. If you’re in a business where client emergencies are part of the business, then give out a cell phone number on a limited basis and clearly define in your contract what defines an emergency and whether you will be charging extra for emergency service.

Letting go

And what if, despite your best efforts, the client continues to demand more than is what you can offer? Then it may be time to show the door. You should fire a client if you’re not making money on the business and that client is not bringing you other business that would be profitable. You should fire a client if you, as a business owner, decide the client is not a good fit and that a long-term relationship will not be successful for both parties.

But, when you do fire a client, do it nicely. It never pays to burn bridges. Ensure the fired Client understand your reasons or frustrations so that he/she does not mouth off wrong info to the important people.

Do not offer the World

Many business owners, eager to please their clients, fall into the trap of promising too much. As a business owner, the best way to avoid this is to consider that every hour you give away is money your business is losing – check our time management article.

If you have a valuable client and you decide to give an extra two hours of your time, let the client know that you’re giving extra time and why. You need to make it clear that this is a one-time occurrence and not something to be repeated, and let the client know that even when they get only what they contracted for, they are getting valuable service.

Keep logged on to www.moneybiz.co.za or email info@moneybiz.co.za for further information, or perhaps suggest a topic we should tackle.