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To the 33' free training: ProductivityForLife.com/just33minutes
Action Guide for the 33' free training: ProductivityForLife.com/33guide
I would love you to share your impressions and thoughts in the Comment box below. Thank you!
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According to Wikipedia, a Business Model is the description of "how a [business] creates, delivers, and captures value." Many of us easily confuse it with the notion of a Business Plan, which is a "formal statement of a set of business goals (WHAT), the reasons they are believable and attainable (WHY), and the plan of reaching these goals (HOW)." (definition adapted from Wikipedia).
But what exactly is a Business Model? What kind of a description we need to create?
Bob Norton
According to Bob Norton, CEO of C-Level Enterprises and chief trainer for AirTight Management, a useful Business Model is the combination of no less than nine components. These nine components are not independent: they are highly interdependent, meaning that even a small change in one has significant effects on some of the other.
Here is how he describes them during a recent tele-webinar on Optimizing Your Business Model.
.»» MORE on »» What is a Business Model? with Bob Norton
Optimizing Your Business Model - Tele-Webinar Sampler [ 10:45 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1722)Filed under Business, Business Processes, General, Structuring by
Business productivity does not mean just producing more results in less time, but producing the "right" results, the Valuable Results. This brings us to the crucial notion of Business Model. I asked Bob Norton, an expert in the art and science of business strategic planning, to explain
- Why a well-differentiated business model is key to your business success
- What are the attributes of an optimized business model
- How to go about refining your business model
- How to create a business model that secures your competitive advantage in 4 steps, and
- What impact will a differentiated business model have on your business, once you have optimized it
So first let's watch the video together, while following Bob's points on the mindmap:
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»» MORE on »» Is Your Business Model Differentiated Enough?
Differentiating Your Business Model - with Bob Norton [ 5:39 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (344)Filed under Business, Business Processes, Individual & Team Productivity, Productivity by
Whether you are a business leader, a business owner, a professional info worker, a solopreneur, or even a stay-at-home parent, we are constantly faced with the need to focus and the reality of distractions. I know I am. Are you?
But what is "focus?" Here is how Stever Robbins, author of The Get-It-Done Guy's 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More, and renowned productivity podcaster (over 11 million downloads at the time of this writing), defines it:
As to distractions…
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Email has transformed the way professionals (and beyond) both work and live. Its versatility, portability, ease-of-use and speed have made it the preferred way in which we digitally send and receive messages.
That's part of the good news.
Unfortunately, email has also unfortunate sides to it, including spam, viruses, quantity, poor quality content, and much more. The one controversial drawback of email I will be focusing on here does not come from the outside, but from the inside. It's our propensity to check and process email frequently. In my view: so frequently that our ability to get things done during the day is severely diminished.
Before you challenge my assertion, let's first start with the facts. I recently created a poll on LinkedIn.com where I asked:
How many times a day do you check your email?
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The Structure of a Marketing Video
In a previous post on The Structure of Persuasive Communications I had my friend and teacher Alex Mandossian share the 7 questions that provide the structure of his teleseminars, articles, videos, seminars and teachings. In this video, he reminds us the two most powerful fears that keep us all from achieving what we care most about. I'll let him explain it, as he does it brilliantly in just 5 short minutes, and then I will discuss the how Alex applied his own 7-Question method to this brief communication.
So first, let's watch the video together:
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»» MORE on »» The Two Fears Entrepreneurs Face
The 2 Fears All Entrepreneurs Face with Alex Mandossian [ 5:00 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (332)Filed under Marketing, Marketing & Promotional Campaigns by
I use a myriad of tools in my professional work. Some I explicitly use every day, some I implicitly constantly use (they work for me in the background), and some I use only occasionally. Every tool I use helps me not only accomplish a task, but also structure it, so that over time I get that task done faster, better and easier.
Here is an almost random selection of 5 tools I use very often. For each tool, I am providing a quick commentary of my use of the tool, and a link to the vendor's website, for more information (you can also click on the tool's logo image to get there). For full disclosure, these are affiliate links, so I may get some financial benefit if you decide to get that tool from the vendor. If you don't want me to gain from this, no problem: simply google the name of the tool and visit their website independently.
In addition to the 5 tools, I am also mentioning two additional resources that either I created or use constantly and intensely.
Here we go:
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[#1] Every persuasive communication has a structure—the order in which every part builds the argument. Experience has shown that this structure is not random: some structures create much more persuasive communications than others. A few are so powerful that they have become the "secret weapon" of the best, most successful communicators out there, such as marketers, educators, trainers, coaches, public speakers, and others.
[#2] My good friend, teacher and business mentor Alex Mandossian teaches such "secret formula." It's a 7-part structure, constructed around 7 core questions. The 7-Question structure is pretty universal: you can apply to interviewing experts, to teaching via a teleseminar, to writing an article, to promoting a product via a webinar, to creating a marketing video, and the list goes on and on.
[#3] Here is Alex himself, quickly explaining this structure in 5 minutes and 15 seconds, from his recent London trip:
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»» MORE on »» The Structure of Persuasive Communications
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In a recent article on The New Attention Deficit, published by Entrepreneur Magazine, Chris Brogan provides four techniques to restore what the mis-use of smart phones and computers has done to our productivity:
- Schedule your correspondence
- Pick a task (by removing the other tabs from your browser window)
- Avoid answering the phone
- Maintain human contact
He's right on, and entirely in tune to the principles and techniques in my Productivity Workshop. There, I talk about the three dimensions of productivity, and aggregating what you do along each of these dimensions. Chris Brogan's recommendations line up along the same:
:
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Well-structured mindmaps help you absorb, review and apply rich business training content, for maximum productivity. What is a well-structured mindmap? How do we read it? Here is a quick introduction:
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Didn't catch the mindmap of this presentation, shown at the end of the movie? Click below for…
"We get less done not as much due to WHAT we do, but HOW we do what we do." This is the central theme of a 60-minute teleseminar on Productivity for Professionals I recently offered to hundreds of professionals worldwide. Here is a 4-minute introduction:
You can gain instantaneous access to the 60-minute replay and 11-page Action Guide at zero cost by simply introducing yourself below:
Enjoy!
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5TracksOfWealth - August 2010
We live in a world of fragmentation: everything comes at us in small doses: lots of short messages over IM, lots of emails, lots of paperwork, constant voice messages, etc. With fragmentation of the flow of “stuff” comes fragmentation in time: our time is now divided into short spurts of attention to many items, jumping from one to the next in an never ending dance of coping. At the end of the week, we are exhausted.
While fragmentation has its benefits, it has sunk our productivity, our ability to produce more results in less time. Why? Because fragmentation requires switching:
- In time, from one task to the next;
- In space, from one source to the next;
- In our mind's memory, from one focus to the next.
Research has shown that switching comes at a huge cost. According to Dave Crenshaw, author of The Myth of Multitasking, the cost is an average of 28% in lost time.
The antidote to fragmentation is aggregation.
»» MORE on »» AGGREGATE to Succeed
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Brandon Allen
Brandon Allen is the CEO of TheBizBlueprint.com and producer of 5TracksOfWealth.com, an exclusive financial and business building coaching service for business owners.
Brandon produces and hosts regular teleseminars on topics of interest to his coaching clients. Last week he invited me to speak to this distinguished group on Personal Productivity–a topic of high interest of his clients and focus for the 5TracksOfWealth program.
The interview lasted 60 minutes and it covered topics such as:
»» MORE on »» Brandon Allen interviewed me on 5TracksOfWealth
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During my recent trip to London, Elizabeth Walshe interviewed me on the why, what and how of personal productivity. During this short [4'34"] interview, I explain WHY I have been focusing on productivity, WHAT productivity really is and HOW can you and I increase our productivity through the Productivity Boot Camp.
Filed under Business, Individual & Team Productivity, Life, Productivity by
Schedule blocks of time to deal with individual items together, instead of sprinkling the entire day with them.
Why?
Because you'll reduce how much you switch-task during the day, meaning the number of times you switch from one kind of task to another kind.
Why is that important?
Because switch-tasking is mostly likely the #1 culprit in lowering your productivity throughout the day. Reducing it can recover 20% or more of your time! Really!!
How do I know?
Because this is what most people who go through the Productivity Boot Camp I now conduct with my clients experience almost immediately.
How to do it?
For example, deal with emails & paper mail only during 2-3 set blocks of time during the day. This will save you considerable amounts of time, thus making you more productive.
Try it for a few days, and then share below what you experienced. Thank you.
Filed under Individual & Team Productivity, Productivity by
Before the end of the day, prepare your prioritized to-do list for the next day.
Why?
Because …
- You'll get a better rest not worrying about planning your day, AND
- You'll be "background processing" these items for higher productivity next day, AND
- You'll be starting the day strong, with a great certainty about what you are supposed to accomplish.
I learned this from Alex Mandossian two or so years ago, and it has impacted me quite a bit.
When do YOU prepare your to-do list for the day?
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Being recently certified as a Productivity Coach by Dave Crenshaw, best-selling author and the President of the National Association of Productivity Coaches (NAPC), I am in the process of launching a new suite of services aimed at personal, group and organizational productivity. The Productivity Boot Camp is the first such service. It is a package that includes a 1.5 day 1-on-1 Productivity Intensive coaching, a 21-day Productivity Accountability service, and even a copy of Dave Crenshaw's latest book (Invaluable: The Secret to Becoming Irreplaceable).
I am still working on posting the full information about the service, but if you'd like to explore how you can reclaim 20% of your professional time, please contact me at ProductivityForLife.com/PBC. For a Quick Facts Sheet, check ProductivityForLife.com/PBC/info.
Here is what one of my early clients had to say about his experience with the Productivity Boot Camp [2:48]:
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Understanding how we tend to learn is important for each of us if we want to become more productive. If I gain a deeper insight into how my "learning mind" is wired, I can try to emphasize those ways that get me there faster, such as choose between a lecture and a book, a hands-on workshop versus a user's guide, this teacher against that one, etc.
As marketers and business people in general, or as info products producers, understanding how others tend to learn (read: absorb our information) makes us more efficient AND effective in our own teaching. After all, marketing, managing, promoting, and training are all forms of teaching. Making sure that we don't exclude an important segment in our marketplace translates into securing the possibility of revenue from that group. If we don't communicate with (teach to) most prospects in a way that suits their own modality, it's less likely we'll be able to persuade them to act in our favor (such as buy from us, recommend us, etc.).
There isn't one "ultimate" model of learning. In fact, there are several out there that I find quite relevant. For example, David Kolb's model I mentioned in a previous post is quite popular these days, and for good reasons: it is helpful in structuring our marketing and training copy. In other words, making sure that what we say and/or write strikes a chord with both the Why-people, the What-people, the How-people and the WhatIf-people gives us a method of assessing how impactful our copy is.
I recently came across another model I found quite intriguing, and potentially useful. It's called The Felder-Silverman Index of Learning Styles (or ILS). While developed mainly in and for the academic world, I found it particularly interesting also because it comes with a practical tool for assessing one's own "learning styles."
