I am sick of all the entrepreneurs and the gurus and the experts out there who are touting this idea of more money. More money for money’s sake doesn’t mean squat. Because I know way too many, well-meaning entrepreneurs who grew their businesses and scaled their businesses the wrong way. They had plenty of money coming in, but because of the way they structured and built their business, they had more money going out because their business required more team, more salary, and more resources. So they had more money going out than they had going into their bank account.
I don’t want you busy for busy’s sake. I don’t want you making money for money’s sake. I want you to be productive for the sake of profitability. You can be productive by sitting down and hammering through that to-do list and checking a million boxes, but does that move the needle? So, how do we ensure that the things that you’re doing, the work that you’re putting in, the energy you’re putting into your business, the stuff you are focused on drives the business forward?
PROFIT
Today, I’m going to walk you through our P.R.O.F.I.T. framework. This is something that we bring to our clients to help ensure that what we’re helping them do are the things that are going to make them more money. Because our goal here at the Luminary Leadership Company is not money for money’s sake. It’s not for notoriety, it’s not for fame – it’s for freedom and prosperity. There are plenty of entrepreneurs who have flexibility but they don’t have true freedom aka if they aren’t working, they ain’t making money. There are plenty of people who have money but they don’t have prosperity- they don’t have quality of life, they don’t have joy, they don’t have that money that they can then give back to family or the people they love or the charities and the missions that they stand behind. Prosperity is what we want to aim at.
P = Prioritizing Profit Potential
Let’s talk through the letters of the P.R.O.F.I.T. framework.
P stands for prioritizing profit potential. You start this process by categorizing your tasks, all the things you have to focus on or that require your time and attention based on their potential to generate profit for your business. This is where things get a little ugly sometimes because once you focus on the tasks that have the highest potential to increase revenue, there’s this humbling moment, a painful moment of realizing that your energy and time have been going into things that are not driving profit. Instead, look for the tasks that have a high ROI and that will help you maximize your profit. One way we do this is through our visionary process that you can download for free at luminaryleadershipco.com/focused.
So, think about the last 90 days and what in those 90 days drove profit the most, and then think through how you can double down on those things. Oftentimes we’re trying to focus on the things that may require the most of our energy, but those are not necessarily the things that maximize our profits.
R = Ranking Your Tasks
The R is for ranking your tasks by urgency and importance. This is something that a lot of entrepreneurs fail to do and it leaves them just responding and reacting instead of being proactive and intentional. And that is often the differentiator between where you are and where you want to be. So once you’ve prioritized the tasks by their potential profitability, you rank them then based on their level of urgency. What requires your attention first, what tasks need to be completed immediately, which ones can be scheduled for a later time, which ones can be eliminated? Being productive for the sake of productivity, doesn’t drive anything forward, doesn’t support you in your dreams and goals and it doesn’t build a life of freedom and prosperity.
Now, when I talk about urgent tasks, I am not talking about the fires that need to be put out. I’m talking about mission critical things, the most important things, the most powerful needle movers in your business. These are the things that should be completed first to avoid the negative consequences or missed opportunities; they have to be the things that you put your energy into and drive forward.
O = Optimizing Your Time Allocation
This is huge. You have to allocate your time and your resources based on the importance of each of the things you’re focusing on. I talk a lot about the idea of “mission critical” meaning things that will drive this thing forward. Without this, the mission stays in this holding pattern and you never really get to those goals and truly make the impact you want. So you need to dedicate more time and energy to those high priority tasks and delegate and outsource the lower priority tasks as much as you possibly can. You have to start valuing your hour; if you had one hour of time, should you put that one hour of time towards a needle moving task that drives profit and makes sales within your business or editing a video for TikTok that somebody else could do for $15/hour? You have to start paying attention to the value of your time and optimizing your time allocation.
I also talk a lot about the idea of energy zones or really understanding when you’re in your sweet spot during the day. For me it’s this 9:00 AM to noon, that’s when the most important, mission critical things are on my plate; the most creative tasks that require the most brain energy and focus fall into that time. There are a lot of layers to this particular piece of the puzzle. Again, I’m not talking about the things that fall under urgency, I’m talking about the things that fall under “critical to drive the business forward” and to help you be more productive in profitability aka doing the things that create more profit. Time is such a finite resource, but sometimes despite the fact that we know that to be true, we hemorrhage it. We just absolutely sacrifice our time at the altar of things like Instagram, social media, TikTok. We lose our time and we don’t do anything about it. It is so important to use it efficiently and to stay laser focused on the things that are going to support us.
F= Focusing on High Impact Tasks
Okay, so we’ve identified the tasks that have the highest impact on your business and growth and profitability, right? We did that in the first step, but now it’s actually time to focus on them. Are you building in time to do that?
These tasks should be top priority. It is your job as the leader of your business to lead your business. It is your job as the leader of your business to protect the viability and the health of your business. A lot of people are out there doing a lot of really cool things that’s not creating enough profit, therefore they’re not going to be viable for long. You have to focus your energy and your resources on completing those things as efficiently as possible.
We’ve really adopted an incredibly different mentality in our business in the last two years than we operated with for the last several where we do not aim at perfection at all. We aim at efficiency. We aim at quality. And we remember that getting our work out into the world so that it can generate profit for us, allowing us to then improve it, is part of the process.
Now, what you need to focus on and how you need to set aside time to focus on it is not always an obvious profit driver. So for example, obviously having sales calls is a profit driver because if you close those calls, you make money right on the spot. Sometimes things that drive profit are things like traffic or visibility, because if you’re yelling into this vacuum where no one can hear you, even though you have this great potential for a needle mover, if it’s falling on deaf ears or it’s not reaching any ears at all, that’s not going to drive profit. So, think like a leader. When you think of all the things that can drive profit, make sure you allocate appropriate amounts of time, realistic amounts of time for the things that need to be focused on to drive the business forward.
I = Implement a System for Tracking Progress
Our word of the year is “data” and the phrase is “data is sexy.”
It is so important to track your progress and ensure that you’re staying on track with your priorities. You have to implement a system for tracking progress on your tasks. You don’t just want to check things off, you want to know what your ROI is.
So, what is your system for tracking progress on your tasks, on the work that you’re putting in to ensure that you’re making progress towards your goals? We use different tracking systems for that. We have a spreadsheet that tracks a lot of things, we have our scorecard, we do some things in Asana and we also have a team member who is responsible for helping us figure out what is the ROI on the work that we’re putting in. There’s no assumptions or feelings. Although I’m a very intuitive person, I want to know the information that is true. I want to know the data and I want to put the data up against my intuition and use those for growth. Without these systems, it can be really challenging to know whether something’s working or not. It can be really difficult to know whether you should be doubling down on something or eliminating it completely.
T = Take Breaks
Take breaks and recharge. Now, I don’t mean scroll Instagram for 15 minutes without feeling guilty. No, that’s a waste of time. What I mean by a break is you’re actually creating time to be in a visionary mind, to be taking a break, to think, to contemplate. You get that data but now as a leader you consume it – you think about it, you get inspired, you take the data and you reimagine a way forward. But without the time blocked into your schedule to actually think, to actually be creative, to be a visionary leader, you’re just going from one task to the next, one task to the next. As a leader you have to see the path forward before it exists. So, you have to have the time to cast that vision to see your way forward and then to be able to bring your team back to that and really galvanize them around it.
One really critical thing to remember is that sometimes what is productive and profit driving might be a little counterintuitive. For example, that time to think is actually a very productive, profit driving activity, even though it’s not creating profit in an instant. So, you have to let go of the mindset of immediate gratification. Leaders don’t operate in immediate gratification. They operate in the vision, they are future thinkers. Yes, they’re focused on how things are operating right in the here and now, but they also have the ability to keep their head up enough to see that horizon line.
Practical Tips You Can Try Today
Lastly, I want to share a couple of practical tips that I’ve picked up along the way that I think have been absolutely powerful in helping me become more focused, more productive, and doing productive things that actually drive profit.
- No meeting days. We have two days a week that are pretty stacked with meetings and this is my preference. My Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are completely blocked, they are my no meeting days. This allows me time to do uninterrupted work and to stay laser focused on those high needle moving tasks without distractions, without interruptions, without other people’s agendas coming to the table.
- Blocking my time ahead of time. I get really crystal clear on the large blocks of time where I’m going to focus and if I have menial tasks, they fall into a block of time that is allocated for that. It doesn’t just get sprinkled throughout my day because that’s something that can bleed into other minutes and hours of the day. I have a window allocated for that and then I have bigger blocks of time that are dedicated to the more creative things or the more visionary things I have to focus on.
- I leverage my energy zones. I know the time of day where I am naturally most productive, where I am naturally most focused and during that time of day it is highly, highly protected by me and my team. What I mean by that is they know from nine to noon there will be no meetings, unless there’s a fire that requires my time. This is when I’m focusing on the creative things that require that physical and mental energy that I can bring to the table a little bit more naturally during that time of day where I’m just more alive, I’m more energized and more excited.
- Eat the frog. Brian Tracy talks about the idea of eating that frog meaning that you should tackle the most difficult and needle moving thing first in that time block before anything else. And this helps you build immense amounts of motivation and momentum for the rest of the day.
- 5 things.Warren Buffet talks about the idea that if you make a list of your top 25 career goals and circle your top five, the remaining 20 become your “avoid at all cost” lists. These are the things that take you off track to the five things that should be focused on right now.
I know productivity is a major struggle for entrepreneurs. I’m here to tell you that it’s possible for you. You can be productive. You can work in more narrow chunks of time. Even if you have less time overall to invest into your business, it does not limit your possibility for success. You just have to know how to be focused, what to focus on, and then how to be productive and ensure that the things that you’re focused on and productive in are driving profit and leading to prosperity.
RESOURCES
- If you’re struggling with focus and productivity and want some help, download this FREE Focused Entrepreneur Playbook: luminaryleadershipco.com/focused.
- Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy
- Connect with me on Instagram!
