Lloyd Williams

Get Organized with One Sheet of Paper

The Pocket RoadMap™ is a single sheet of paper folded into six small panels that puts you in control of your life and time. Download the PDF file and print the two pages back to back on one sheet of paper.

Whether you are using GTD or ZTD or any other productivity system the Pocket RoadMap will keep you focused on the most important items each week. Download it for free and give it to your friends. This is a tool your entire team can use.

Video showing how to use the Pocket RoadMap coming soon.

Every once in a while a book comes along that transforms your definition of business and practice management. The new book, Rework by the founders of 37signals.com is such a book. Order a copy now.

A coaching client asked me this week to discuss my thoughts on social prospecting. This is a delicate subject because you do not want to be labeled a “networker” which is synonymous with “always selling” and becomes a fast track ticket to the “Black List.”

When asked about what you do for a living you should have an effective Elevator Script which results in the person saying “tell me more.” But what do you do when you are in a social setting and no one inquires about your job and you look around the room at all these great prospects.

First ask yourself, why are you there? Was the purpose to prospect, if not maybe you should stop trying to sell and just enjoy the company and conversation. If your purpose was to prospect, then you should ask yourself whether the other’s expectations are to be solicited. If not maybe you should amend your purpose.

Too many sales people join organizations solely to find prospects and they are soon identified by the group and “Black Listed.” If you join a group, be there for the purpose of the group. Be there because you believe in what they are trying to do, if not leave.

As I mentioned in an earlier post clients and advocated first need to like us before they trust us. If you want to work with your social contacts, be likable and participate in the activities because you believe in them. If they like you they will trust you. Then when they ask what you do, you are prepared with your Elevator Script.

What makes a person a true advocate? The dictionary defines advocate as “a person who pleads on someone else’s behalf .” Simply it is someone who speaks positively about you to others. So we should ask ourselves who does that for our us?

I believe there are three criteria for an advocate:
1. they like us
2. they talk positive about us to others
3. they want to help us grow our business

List your top 50 clients and ask yourself how many of them meet all three criteria. If you want 100+ unsolicited introductions a year, your practice is going to need a number of true advocates. If you do not have enough then your work is set before you. Start with the Relationship Conversation and help them achieve their dreams.

Most investors and advisors pursue alpha (performance) and the result is beta (risk/volatility). We should pursue the reduction of beta and the result would be alpha. If you don’t lose money you don’t have to make as much to get it back. A single significant loss like 1987, 1990, 1997, 2001, 2008 can eliminate all the performance of the proceeding years.

If you would like to reduce beta and achieve true alpha register for the upcoming Counter Intuitive Investing Workshop. For more information click here.

The team will only buy into a vision they create. If the boss does all the planning, they will have to do all the work. Ask the team to identify the three biggest changes that need to happen to make the team more successful. Say nothing and do not critique their choice.

Then ask them to identify the next action necessary to make each of the three changes a reality and have someone other than the boss be resonsible for completing the action in the next seven days.

You may suggest they block off time on their calendar to accomplish the task. Assign one task for each of the three changes. Then sch the meeting for the next week.

Tell each person assigned a task to come to the meeting prepared to answer two questions.
1. was the task accomplished? yes or no
2. what is the next task that needs to be done to move the project closer to completion.

This should take 5-15 minutes of your weekly meeting. The rest of the meeting can be used for each department or team member to explain what is on their plate for the week.

The purpose of the meeting is to focus the team on the most important tasks and make sure everyone knows what the team workload looks like.