I've spent a lot of time in meetings during the past two
weeks and I found myself noticing opportunities for
productivity that my clients kept missing. Each time, I
spotted the same missing element: no one was keeping their
eye on the numbers.
A manufacturer was using two entire days for his monthly
management meeting. That's Days! Not hours!
A financial advisor insisted he's "been at his work so long
there are no new ideas for marketing my business.
An executive coach was planning a retreat for her clients
that was focused on strategy, without naming their goals.
In each instance I found myself pulling back the veil of
the hidden element that really magnetizes results:
Measuring.
As I think about it, there were actually 15 different times
over the past two weeks where I spotted the metric that
could be used to design and track high payoff business
building activities. I used those metrics to sharpen the
effort my clients planned to put into growing their
business.
I mean measuring the value of the activity so that you'll
know if the investment of time, energy, resources,
political capital and so on was worth it.
So I decided to pull together a quick summary of the
metrics that might be boosting your results too - if you
give them your attention.
The value you place on your time
The first measure is one that will help you decide what is
high priority and what is just interesting or busy work. If
your time is worth $15 per hour, then go ahead - be
distracted. But if your time is worth, $100, or $200 per
hour, or $3,600 per day and so on, they exactly what topics
should you spend your time on in meetings?
Moreover, what activities after your work are worth your
attention? Which high-potential employees or teammates need
your encouragement and guidance in daily or weekly meetings?
The value you put on your team's time
That exercise of building on an individual's hourly income
serves very well when they are entry-level staff. But when
they take on more senior roles, such as manager or higher
their value no longer stands in isolation. Their value is
in the results they create through their entire team.
There is a compounding effect. The degree to which you use
management practices to build our staff's potential, the
greater the overall result for the business.
The value you place on your market
Many people look at the entire industry they are serving in
order to envision their business's potential financial
return. This wide a view actually is more a a diversion
than a useful yardstick.
In order to recognize the true potential you could tap, you
need to define the niche you want to focus on so that you
make noticeable headway and can track the share of business
that you have a chance of capturing.
The value you place on your product or service
The biggest sticking point for many financial advisors,
business consultants, and executive coaches is naming their
rates. They look around to see what other people are
charging to create the limits to their pricing, and miss
the point entirely.
When you look at other people's pricing you're missing the
true opportunity - what is the value you are creating for
your clients with the results you are teaching them to
produce? With your focus on that result, you'll find you
can move your prices up 20, 50, even 100 percent and your
clients won't quibble at paying them.
As I pointed these values out to my clients, they shifted
their perspective and changed what they were focusing on.
They didn't abandon the subject, they expanded it to
include the new metric.
In sharing the added target with their teams and clients,
everyone's attention sharpened and new solutions came into
view.
The manufacturer focused on three topics his team needed to
solve and they did it the same day. The financial advisor
realized he had expertise in the health care industry and
six calls that week brought in two new engagements. And the
executive coach put the goals up on the board with the word
strategy and her client picked the strategy with the
highest payoff in the next two years.
So what business building topic have you been spending your
time on lately? Now it's time to use the value it will
bring your business as the key trigger to prioritizing the
time you'll spend on it.
----------------------------------------------------
Management expert, consultant, and coach Linda Feinholz is
"Your High payoff Catalyst." Linda publishes the free
weekly newsletter The Spark! to subscribers world-wide and
delivers targeted solutions, practical skills and simple
ways to build your business. If you're ready to focus on
your High Payoff activities, accelerate your results and
have more fun at it, get your FREE tips like these visit
her site at http://www.YourHighPayoffCatalyst.com
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