One of my favorite activities over the last few years has been to create a summer project list of small, and larger tasks, to complete in what some find to be a quieter time. There always are lots of project possibilities in the summer months. Have you considered:

• Updating your website
• Incorporating a new system
• Catching up on the reading you have piled around your office (or bed)
• Taking time to plan for a new program
• Writing some blog posts (and getting ahead of the curve)
• Creating a content calendar for your business
• Writing your newsletters for the next few months
• Starting a new series on Instagram

Some useful questions to consider as you go to decide what projects you want to put attention around:

• What have your clients been asking for?
• What are your key goals this year?
• What new activities would support your action and achievement of these?
• What projects would you like to move off of your “TO DO” List?
• What milestones would you create for yourself so that this is completed before the end of the month, or the end of the summer?
• What resources do you need in order to be successful with this?

For some more inspiration around this topic, listen into this 20 minute video I did last year on 2018 project ideas – check it out on my YouTube channel.

Best wishes,
​Jennifer

In both the Coaching Business Builder and PlanDoTrack, I include four business philosophies which are critical to all types of virtual and remote professionals, and business owners today – Focus, Experimentation, Momentum and Reflective Pause.

In my work with teams, and individuals, over the last fifteen years in my business I’ve seen that these make the difference between good and exceptional.

With this in mind, over the next few weeks I’ll be taking a deeper dive into the realm of these four areas looking at:

• What it means in today’s business context
• Why it’s important
• Ideas for putting it into practice
• And resources you may want to follow up around

​A reminder that if you like these topics you may want to check out my weekly Facebook Live, where I put into voice quick planning ideas and activities. You will find it over at the PlanDoTrack Facebook page.

Let’s turn our attention to the first topic of FOCUS.

We live and operate today in what is often considered an era of distraction. Our ability to focus and keep our eye on what is important to us, and to our work, is key.
Did you know that:

• The average worker receives 90 emails in the span of a day?
• It takes 22 minutes to get back on track after an interruption?

It’s not uncommon for workers (not just managers) to be spending 5-10 hours a week in meetings? I’ve met managers who wear the badge of
Focused work and attention are critical, and essential in order to create foundations, and grow a business.

How To- Creating Focus:

• Consider building in focused blocks of work – turn off email, move into a conference room, or take your work mobile. What will give you the space and time to do the focused work you need in your job/business?
• Leverage the circadian rhythm. Science continues to show that we have different times of day when we are at our best. What are those times for you? What can you do to ensure you have focused work times within those blocks.
• Create your to-do list of Top 5. With change being the norm for many workplaces, having a top five list each day is important. It’s interesting as the writing of James Clear has pointed to the early 1900s productivity hack from Ivy who asserted that a focus on a top 6 list every day would lead to productivity advances. Whether it’s five or six, being able to check core items off the list can help with efficiency and also motivation.
• Know your priorities – and your teams. Priorities also keep us grounded. They will help us shape our top five as well as discern where our time needs to go. What are your priorities for the week? The month? The quarter?

 
Refer To - Focus
When: The Science of Perfect Timing – Daniel Pink
Atomic Habits – James Clear
Outer Order and Inner Calm – Gretchen Rubin
Deep Work and Digital Minimalism – Cal Newport

Check out my April 3, 2019 Facebook Live 

Wishing you all the best,
Jennifer

This week it’s launch time! You’ve done it!

Over the last four weeks (or more) you have been working on your free offer or giveaway. This is key in terms of letting others know what you do and offering them something of value.
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Doing this regularly can help further develop your reputation and let people know what you have to offer.

This week as you go to launch, consider the varying ways you are going to continually let people know about this offering. Some possible ways might include:

• In your signature line
• On your blog
• In your newsletter
• Via your network
• Instagram post
• LinkedIn Status update

What are the ways you are going to let everyone know about this?

Have a great day!
​Jennifer

Over the last few weeks you have been busy working on your free giveaway. It’s now been drafted, and you have figured out where it’s going to go. It’s not quite ready yet!

Take some time this week to-do a last review and perhaps get some feedback. Maybe you have a routine of passing materials off to your loved ones for a quick second set of eyes. Maybe you have a community that supports you on this. Who can give the project a review?
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This week you will also want to focus in on how and where you are going to promote this. Don’t forget the 7 to 11 times rule. The landscape of free offerings is super-saturated at times.  You will want to make sure you are regularly talking about this and letting people know that it exists. If you haven’t done so, make a list of WHERE, WHEN and HOW you are going to let people know about it (Here’s a challenge - make sure you have at least 11 different touchpoints!).

Share with us what you have been working on – you can share it here in the comments, or over on the Effective Group Coaching Facebook page.

Best,
​Jennifer

Welcome back. Last week you did some research around what possible giveaways you could offer to your clients. It might be a video, podcast series, mini – e course, article, or even a checklist.

What are those things you wish you had?

This week, in part 2 of the series, you are invited to map out your giveaway, and start drafting it. What are the major elements of this project?

Consider these questions –

• What is the purpose of this item?
• What are the 3 main points?
• What question does it answer or solution does it offer for the client?
• What are the elements of the item?
• What other resources can the product direct the client to?
• What is your call to action?
• What are the discrete steps you need to complete in order to complete this project?

Once you have a good idea of what it can look like, spend some time drafting it out.

Be ready for a next step next week!

Best,
​Jennifer

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

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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