Not all to do lists are created equal

Another day, another dollar?

Its seven o’clock on a Monday morning and you’ve decided that this is the week that is really going to make a difference.

You’ve got your to do list and a goal to get more clients, more orders and more money in the bank.

It’s too early to start calling people so you decide to check out your social networking channels – a few new followers on Twitter, that’s good; a couple of likes on your Facebook Page, hmmm, and who are all these people writing posts on Linkedin? Where do they find the time?

Then you wonder how your competitors are doing and check them out. How come their website always looks so much slicker than yours? Maybe you should make a few tweaks.

Before you know it its lunch time and you still haven’t made any calls, haven’t followed up those hot leads or even checked that your existing clients are happy.

No problem – you’ll get to it after lunch.

Except that you won’t.

Here’s the to do list that works:

1) Check your cash flow every morning, first thing. Nothing focuses the mind like knowing what money is due in, and more especially, what’s due to go out.
2) Send out reminders to get your money in. Remember its YOUR money and you’ve got no obligation to be lending it to your customers until they feel ready to part with it.
3) Work out your most profitable activity and how you can do more of it.
4) List the things you do that don’t make money and make a decision to either stop doing them, or make them profitable.
5) Work out all the things you could delegate or outsource and do it.
6) If you need to put your prices up to cover the cost of outsourcing, do it.
7) Check to see if your marketing is actually generating leads. If not stop it.
8) If you have leads, follow them up (it must be after 9 by now).
9) Call your favourite customers and see if there’s anything more you can do for them.
10) Now you can have lunch.

Repeat steps 1, 2 8 and 9 every day and by the end of the month you’ll have a very different business.

If you’d like help growing your business and making more profit with less effort, contact me and we’ll have a chat!