Here’s a guest post from Peter Gold, one of our stellar sales-focused clients at Evercontact & someone who is duly committed to optimizing his daily pursuits & that of his clients as well! Enjoy the post, feel free to learn more about Peter below & of course leave a comment should you wish to continue the conversation!
As a salesperson, I have 2 main goals in mind when it comes to life hacking:
1 – I want to be able to spend more time selling
2 – I want to spend less time on activities that don’t involve selling
Like any good journey, a degree of planning is needed before setting off.
Introducing the Love vs. Hate List
In order to become efficient we need to remove any process or thing that makes life inefficient. But these things may not necessarily be things we hate – they may be things we like doing.
THE LIST
Begin with a simple list, depending on preference it can be paper or electronic (mine is on Google Keep). List out the things you do each day/week and put them in relevant columns. Remove anything that you have to do e.g. managing email, cold calling etc.
For example:
• Your HATE list could include jobs such as cold calling, expenses, organising meetings etc.
Include all of the tasks where you add the least value to your business.
• Your LOVE list should include (unsurprisingly!) everything you enjoy doing, for me this means writing blogs, sales, coaching etc. Include all of the tasks where you add the most value to your business.
Next, set yourself a target of 80% love, 20% hate and share this with your team.
What is really important here is that just because you hate doing something, does not mean someone else feels the same way!. When you delegate your hate tasks make sure you give them to someone – or something – who is happy doing them. For example: Delegate your expenses to a bookkeeper and delegate your email management to a smart program.
Action Plan
• Create your LOVE and HATE list.
• Decide which tasks can be delegated.
• Delegate your hate tasks and agree processes and deadlines with your team.
• Find some great programs that can automate the “non person” hated tasks.
• Get more stuff done!
• Work less hours!
• Stay focused!
Getting rid of the tasks that you hate, do badly and inefficiently can save you hours each week, and you’ll feel a lot happier about what you achieve too.
Notorious HR Tech blogger Peter Gold is the founder of Storifyd– he helps business owners tell their stories, and build businesses they love. He is the hero and villain of Success and Failure.