It’s officially the end of Q1 of the year, and yet another reason to pause and take stock of your successes from the last quarter and some planning for the month ahead.
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Looking backwards to the last quarter:

• What successes did you have over the last quarter?
• ​What major accomplishments did you have?
• ​What were key lessons learned?
• ​What habits or practices helped you?

• What role did planning play?
• What forms/templates and practices supported your focus and planning?
• What got in the way?
• What do you want to make sure you don't carry forward into this season?

Now turning to the next quarter’s planning:

• What are your goals for April, May and June?

• ​Narrowing it down, what are your top 3- 5 priorities? (Think - by June 21st I hope to have achieved)
• What time are you earmarking for planning?
• What time is earmarked for projects?
• What new habits and practices do you want to put into place?
• What relationships do you want to put more focus around?
• ​What is one thing you could do on a daily basis each day of spring to move your goals forward?
• What relationships do you want to put attention around?
• ​What do you need to, and want to take action on?
• What needs clearing up?
• What else is significant for you this quarter?

Finally...
​What pauses and renewal periods do you want to build in? Grab a calendar and schedule that now.

​What else will help you remain at your peak?
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Enjoy your reflection and be sure to update your Monthly Tracking Forms in the Coaching Business Builder/PlanDoTrack.

You will also want to fill out some new Quarterly To-Dos and do a weekly breakdown (check out pages 140 and 141 of the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner and Coaching Business Builder).

Enjoy the planning and celebrations!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CPCC
Author multiple books including the Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner (2018), Effective Group Coaching (2010)
Potentials Realized
Phone: 416-996-8326
Looking to grow your coaching business this year? Check out the Coaching BizGrowth Lab. We meet the 1st and 3rd weeks of the month for 1 hour group coaching conversations. Focus this month is on collaboration and building community. In addition to the group calls you have access to a growing resource library of monthly articles, templates and recordings. Join us this quarter or for the rest of the year!

​This week’s post focuses on renewal. About ten days ago I got back from some glorious time away at March break. For the last few years we’ve tried to go somewhere warm during these breaks. While every year it’s the same mad rush to get things in place, and in line, it is so worth it!
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What are you doing to renew yourself on a regular basis? When you look back at the last few years, what are the breaks you have taken that have been important in creating memories, rather than just working?

As business owners shutting off for a short while may be difficult AND it’s important to know that we too need renewal!  If there’s nothing in the tank, there’s nothing in the tank!

What breaks do you have planned this year for renewal? And note, to renew, you may need longer than a long-weekend.

If you’ve joined me during the summer months, or read my Coaching Business Builder, you’ll know how important my time spent up north is every year. For all of July and most of August I work out of a 90-year-old cottage, river side. While my business is virtual, it’s really basic during these months as I downshift and focus more on time with family. My work days shorten so that most days I work from 6 am to noon, except for Mondays which is a full blown 12-hour day. The balanced between continued revenue and time off works well, and I actually find myself yearning towards these throughout the year.

Hopefully we are enjoying our work, and not just feeling like we always have to do!
What are you planning, and doing, around renewal right now? If it’s not in your spring schedule, schedule it in now, and add it as a tracker item in your Monthly Daily Tracker.

Best,
Jennifer

Happy Spring! As we step into a new season, I hope that you will take a few minutes to take stock of the winter – your accomplishments, learning and achievement. Take a look at the Quarterly Review questions I shared a few months ago here. 

Today I wanted to remind you of the resource available to you here - the Weekly Sweep for Your Business. This is a one-page document you can use on a weekly basis to undertake a sweep of your work or business.
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The “Why” behind this document is that regular actions clear things out. As we move into a new season, there may be more energy to get things organized.

If you haven’t downloaded a copy of the Weekly Sweep for your Business document, download it here.
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As you will note at top of the Sweep for your Business, get you to outline your key priorities for the week around:

• Planning,
• Doing,
• Tracking

As well as key goals in the areas of

• Business
• Your Environment (home, office, etc)
• Yourself

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The next section gets you to outline your goals for the next seven days, with prompts for possible tasks scattered across the week. These include things such as – administrative tasks, outreach to clients/prospects, content creation, and taking 15 minutes to clear some clutter.

On that note, it doesn’t need to take a lot of time to get things into order. 15 minutes at a time can make a big difference to a cupboard, a table, a filing cabinet or your email. Set the timer and see what you get done in 15 minutes!

This is a document you can refer to week after week! Be sure to download it now.

Enjoy!
Jennifer

Building a business can be all-consuming. While it may be important to “push it” at several times of the year, building a business sustainably also means building in blocks to renew, and setting boundaries in terms of when you are available and when you may not be. In this post, we’ll explore three areas you might want to consider in tightening up your boundaries in business.

Boundaries in business can involve:

Learning how to delegate. Consider the tasks that could be passed on to others. This might include posting your articles on social media, designing graphics for your work, laying out brochures or other.

• Putting it into practice: Look at all your tasks for the next few months and consider what could be delegated. Consider the tasks that are taking a lot of time for you right now, but don’t really require your involvement. Make a list, put some time frames around it, and think about what instructions you would give so someone else could complete this.

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Time at work – As a business owner the work will always be there. It’s important to remember that productivity does not always equal amount of time worked. Many of you took advantage of the Heart of Coaching Giveaway item I shared this year which was the 19 Productivity and Business Development Tips. I’ve now made this into a video-based program which also includes a series of bi-weekly live calls. You can join us here.

Becoming more discerning. Check out the blog post I included over at the PlanDoTrack blog a short while ago on discernment. You can search out the PlanDoTrack blog posts here.
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Questions to help you with discernment:

• What is really important to the business right now?
• What are the activities that are having the impact I want?
• What are the things my clients are asking for?
• What support am I able to offer in a high-impact way?
• What tasks could be systematized or automated? Think about things which are taking time and are done repetitively.
• What are the items which are taking away focus on the main parts of the business, and revenue generation?
• What do I need to say NO to and either Defer, Delete or Delegate?
• What do I need to say more YES to – and focus even more on!

Best,
​Jennifer

I’ve been a long-term blogger and writer for almost 15 years now. As someone who is always creating content, it’s interesting to go back and review some of the past posts I’ve shared. Here is one that I think many of you as business owners will find useful. I wrote it back in 2010, and it’s still relevant today:
Six Tips for New Small Business owners – Originally published at the Biztoolkit blog in April 2010

This April marked my 6th year of business. I continue to be reminded of the excitement and emotions of new business owners through regular discussions with participants of the 90 Day BizSuccess program - some of whom are new business owners, as well as seasoned small business people.

In running the program I often get asked, what are some tips for new business owners. Here are 6 tips which have kept business exciting, and successful for me, over the years.

1. Track it! Take notice of the impact of the activities you are undertaking, over both the short term as well as the medium term. What are you noticing about the money you have invested into different marketing activities? Notice what's giving you impact in terms of your activities, networking and relationships.

2. Create Systems so that you don't have to recreate things over, and over again. It's not surprising that even experienced business owners still " have not had time" to create simple processes for their businesses such as invoices, proposal formats etc.

Ask yourself:

• What activities might you need to repeat time and time again (consider finance, people, marketing etc)?
• What systems would benefit your business?
• When will you spend time creating these?

3. Build on What You Already Have, Have Done or Do: Many times small business owners fail to capitalize on what they have already created, designed or know. What can you build upon in your business? Do you really need to start off at 0?

4. Plan it! Time Management and Planning can be a major challenge for business owners. When was the last time you sat down to plan and strategize about your goals for the quarter or even the month? As we know from time management 10 minutes of planning can save an hour of unfocused effort.

When will you spend time creating your plan for the next month?

5. Schedule It! What doesn't get scheduled, doesn't get done. What are your main business priorities right now? Have you scheduled them into your calendar? If it's not written down or blocked off chances are it may get lost.

Activity:
Take 15 minutes this week to identify one or two main priorities for your business and schedule in time in your calendar to get these things done.

6. Be strategic - We can't be all things to all people? Consider the Pareto Principle, or 80/20 rule, which states that we get 80% of our impact from 20% of our efforts. What activities are going to give you the most impact this month?

Best wishes,
​Jennifer

For several years I’ve talked about the Six Factors of High Performing Teams. It's likely that many of you also coach teams, or work with them in team development programs. In recent months I have had a lot of requests from coaches to share more on the six factors, and I thought that this blog post would be a great place to start.

Extending from the Team Effectiveness research, such as Hackman and Wageman, and Katzenbach and Smith, we know that teams which excel have a:

• Shared mission and vision
• Clear goals
• Clear performance measures – what does exceptional look like? What is required?
• Clear Roles
• Shared team practices – common ways to communicate, get clear on results and built relationships

As I have written in past Teams365 posts, the six factors of high performing teams include:
1. Shared purpose or mission (Your WHY) – Why do you exist? What do you take a stand for?
2. Shared behavioral norms - How you do things? What is acceptable and unacceptable on the team?
3. Shared commitment - What are you as a solopreneur committed to? What will you make sure you do, no matter what?
4. Shared performance goals (How are people measured? How do your goals align? Overlap?
5. Shared team practices - Teams that work together effectively share common practices such as a Monday morning huddle, a Thursday night out or some other regular event.
6. Clear Roles - How our roles overlap, align and connect?
(Originally posted November 3, 2014 - https://www.potentialsrealized.com/teams-365-blog/teams365-307-revisiting-the-six-factors-of-high-performing-teams)
 
Facilitating discussion around these areas helps with the alignment, and clarity, required for teams to excel in today’s ever-changing environment.

I hope that you will take a few minutes today to write out or capture the Six Factors of your business and/or team. For more on these, refer also to my 2017 book, Effective Virtual Conversations, pages 349 – 355. 

How might conversation and focus around team effectiveness benefit the teams you are working with?

​As you grow your team, what's important to keep in mind?
 
Enjoy your week!
Jennifer
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Welcome to March! For many, spring is just around the corner, but not here yet.
As we step into a new month, what are your key business goals?
What do you want to make sure you complete by the end of the month?
What is important to put into place?
What is the daily action, and consistent steps you want to take to build your momentum?

Today marks the start of the 3rd monthly installment of the 1 BizStep a Day. This month, I'm supporting you through daily prompts around marketing.
Imagine what 15 minutes of action each day around marketing could look like for your programs and work?

Be sure to download this month's prompts for the 1 Biz Step a Day! Click here to Download.

Enjoy and be sure to share your action and successes via photos with us on Instagram (#1bizstepaday). You can also share over at the Conversation Sparker Zone at Mighty Networks. I've set up this social community for those that want to explore Coaching Business Development, Virtual and Remote Team Issues, Team and Group Coaching. Sign up for one, or all, of your interest areas.

With best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CPCC
Supporting Coaches through ICF CCE approved programs, mentor coaching, individual coaching and the CoachingBizGrowth Lab
Author multiple books including the Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner (2018), Effective Group Coaching (2010)
Potentials Realized
Phone: 416-996-8326

Spring 2019 programs are starting later this month including:
Mentor Coaching Group for ACC/PCC (10 hours) - Starts Friday March 29th at 11 30 am ET (4 spots open)
Group Coaching Essentials (8.75 CCEs) - Fridays 10:15 - 11:30 am ET: March 22, 29, April 5, 12, and 26
Advanced Group and Team Coaching Practicum: Fridays 1 - 2:15 pm ET: March 29- early May  (no call 4/19) (Being renewed for 10 CCEs)
Hope you will join us!