10 More Ways to Manage Your Time

Here are 10 more ways to manage your time.

1. Automate or systematize your life and your business as much as you can.
2. Check email 3 times a day - or at certain specific times that you've sheduled.
3. Back up your files - every week at a minimum.
4. Get the most out of the software you use - and look for new software to help personally as well as professionally.
5. Slow down and take time to think.
6. Take 10 minutes at the start of your day and 10 minutes at the end of your day to review your calendar, schedule, appointments, meetings, etc.
7. Respond to emails as soon as you read them. Get to the point quickly in your response.
8. Close your door.
9. Return calls at certain times during the day. Utilize voicemail as an empowerment tool to get things done. Return all calls within 24 hours to avoid adding more to your list for tomorrow.
10. Take an hour everyday just for yourself. Use it to read, workout, watch TV, listen to music - anything to relax and do something just for you. [The people around you will notice and appreciate it, too!]

Sara L. Fitts is a time management expert and can help you become more productive and efficient in your life and in your business. Contact her directly for more information. 703.791.4741 or visit www.SLFConsulting.com for more information.

10 Ways to Manage Your Time

This Week with Sara Fitts offers ways to manage your time. Here are 10 ways that you can implement today. After trying them for a week or so, you will definitely see their benefits.

1. Write things down.
2. Prioritize your tasks and projects. Do first things first.
3. Plan your week.
4. Say "no" when you need to say no.
5. Don't do other people's work.
6. Keep one calendar and put everything on it - personal, work, and family activities.
7. Don't be a perfectionist. Get it done. Revisions can last a lifetime if you let them.
8. Don't attempt the impossible. Candidly assess what is possible for you.
9. Don't chase waterfalls. We all have seen how this eats up time and energy.
10. Delete, shred, and throw away.

More time management tips will be available later this week. Check back to find them.

12 Performance Review Questions

This Week with Sara Fitts focuses on questions to ask when reviewing the performance of your employees. Small businesses vary in their approach to performance reviews - and after working with a number of small business owners, we have come up with 12 questions that help guide the performance review process.

1. What are the contributions of this employee to the organization?
2. What actions of this employee have moved the organization forward?
3. How has this employee improved the overall organization?
4. How has this employee hindered the organization?
5. What 3 words come to mind when this employee's name is mentioned?
6. What needs to be addressed for improvement?
7. How can this employee improve, specifically?
8. What does the organization need more of from this employee?
9. What does this organization need less of from this employee?
10. What skill or training needs to be developed or acquired in the next 30 - 90 days?
11. Where do you see this employee within this organization in the next 5 years?
12. What are the goals of the organization and how has this employee contributed toward their achievement? OR What are the specific results attributed to this employee?

These questions are not a "check-off" nor a ranking of 1 - 5 rating system. These questions are generally meant for small businesses with 5 - 250 emplyees. They are meant to provoke thought and generate candid opinions of employee performance. Too often small businesses do not take the time to assess their employees on their contributions to the overall success of the business. Whether pay increases result from candid assessment or increases are given for longevity - if you're the owner, I think you need to know how your business is impacted by your employees. In my opinion, the only way to do this is with candid performance reviews.

More to come . . .

Sara L. Fitts is a business coach and consultant who works with small business owners, self-employed professionals, and entrepreneurs to help them grow and develop their businesses and balance their lives. Please contact her directly for more information on her Simple Little Formula for business success. Her direct line is 703.791.4741. Visit us online @ www.SLFConsulting.com .

Performance Reviews: Is There a Point?

Performance reviews can be difficult, stressful, informative, motivational, and sometimes even ridiculous. We've all probably had good ones, inaccuarate ones, nice ones, or ones that never address our true roles within the organization. This Week with Sara Fitts takes on the performance review and offers perspectives for both sides of the table - for the giver as well as for the receiver of them.

In my limited research, the use of performance reviews in small businesses is extremely varied. Some businesses never use them for a variety of reasons - and other businesses use them every quarter for all staff members. Whether given annually or at other increments of time, there really can be benefit of the performance review - benefit to the business as well as to the employee.

Some performance reviews are given to justify pay raises while others are given to justify firings and lay-offs. Sometimes performance reveiws are used to justify the business itself and to look at the results over a period of time. Sometimes investors want to see how well their investment is really working - and performance reviews can be used as justification for change.

Throughout the week I will post several perspectives on performance reviews - and how we can use them better to create more successful businesses. As for now, here are my questions to you:

1. Do you use performance reviews in your small business? What is the cycle or calendar for them?
2. What is your point for using them?
3. Do you use a standard format - or do you use one that is exclusively yours?
4. What do your employees think of their performance reviews?
5. Do you base pay raises on them? Do you use them to terminate employees?

More to come later . . . .

Bigger and Better Results in Relatively Simple Ways

This Week with Sara Fitts focuses today's post on how to get bigger and better business results in relatively simple ways. This is definitely a short list, but I think it can have powerful results when implemented well.

• Hire and fire the right people.
• Improve cash flow by configuring commission scales that reflect compensation for payments received in the business. An example of this would be offering 105% of the commission for payments that are received in 5 days, 100% of the commission for payments that are received in 10 days, 85% of the commission for payments received in 30 days, 60% of the commission for payments received in 60 days, etc.
• Invest 1% - 2% of your revenue into your business.
• Hire a business coach.
• Implement your marketing plan.
• Track your results - and review your results. Set goals based on previous results in order to get better results.
• Stay motivated and focused.

The Butterfly Effect - for Your Business

This Week with Sara Fitts looks at how the butterfly effect can affect your business. Without going into the physics and scientfic explanation of what the butterfly effect is, I'm going to use its principles as they apply to your business. In a nutshell, the butterfly effect is this: a very small thing can have have huge effects on the universe. Here's how the butterfly effect can be change agent in your business.

Most of the time a very small thing can create huge results in your business - regardless of what business you're in. Take an inventory and look at each piece and part of your business. Then ask yourself these questions:

• How can I impact my business by 1%? How can I impact my business by 5% or more?
• What would happen if I worked 1 hour more or 1 hour less? [Sometimes by taking off an hour, you are recharged and renewed so much that the impact actually brings in business.]
• What would it mean if I had more time?
• What would it mean if I had better cash flow?
• What would it mean if had more breathing room?

I work with business owners, self-employed professionals, and entrepreneurs to help them create huge results in small ways. It really is a butterfly effect for business when you think about it. I got the idea of comparing my Simple Little Formula to the butterfly effect from The Rev. Stuart Schadt, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church, during his sermon last Sunday. Little things can have huge impact - in our lives and in our businesses.

There are numerous ways that each of us can get bigger and better results in relatively simple ways. Stay tuned for more.

First Quarter Assessment of Your Business

Today is the last day in the first quarter of 2007 - can you believe it? Whether you are a small business owner, entrepreneur, or a self-employed professional, the business you own needs a candid assessment of the first 90 days of this year. (Some of you may not use the calendar year as your business year, so July 1 - June 30 may actually be the calendar you use. If this is the case with your business, you are ending your 3rd quarter today - and still need to candidly assess your business.)

Here are the questions that I think are extremely useful in assessing your business at the end of each quarter:

1. How much money came in? List the total receipts for the quarter.
2. How much did the business cost you this quarter? List all costs assoiciated with the business for the quarter.
3. What was the profit or loss for the quarter? Basically, the difference in the receipts and the costs give you the profit or the loss.
4. What were your targets or goals for the quarter - and how successful were you at meeting or exceeding them?
5. What were the challenges? What were the results of the challenges?
6. What are the targets or goals for the next 90 days? Use a format for writing SMART goals: specific, measureable, attainable, realistic, with a definite timeframe or time line.
7. What do you need to do or have more of next quarter?
8. What do you need to do or have less of next quarter?
9. How will you market your business next quarter based on the marketing results of this quarter?
10. What is still outstanding or hasn't been handled - debts, receipts, etc. - and what is your plan for addressing all that still needs to come in?
11. What have you learned this quarter about your business, your colleagues, clients or customers?
12. What have you learned about yourself?

These 12 questions provide a very simplistic way to find out how you're doing in your business. The candid answers to these 12 questions can mean the difference between major growth and failure.

The Benefit of the Doubt

I heard something yesterday that has had a profound effect on me. Yesterday Rev. Vinnie Lainson's sermon was powerful - the takeaway from it is basically this: give everyone we encounter the benefit of the doubt. We can change the world just by giving others the benefit of the doubt. Yesterday's effect for me was mostly personal; however, this morning I awakened with the realization that the business world for me and my clients can be forever changed by this exercise as well.

For example, when someone cuts us off in traffic, instead of making gestures and using harsh language that only seems to raise our own blood pressure, perhaps we should give this driver the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he's just lost his job and is on his way home if he can find it or perhaps she has just left the hospital after hearing bad news. Other examples might include the grocery store express line with someone holding us up with double the number of "allowed" items, or the bank drive-thru lane when the person in front of me actually abandoned their car (true story!) and traffic was tied up for half an hour, or a colleague who has gotten on our last nerve for what seems like no good reason at all. There are many examples and we've all experienced them. But I want to look at this from the business perspective.

This Week with Sara Fitts will probe the ways that small business can be changed and improved simply by the power of giving others the benefit of the doubt.

• What if we abandoned all assumptions and gave our customers, clients, and colleagues the benefit of the doubt?
• What if we didn't second-guess the complaints, the requests and demands, or the need for a change in the appointment or meeting time?
• What if we didn't question the need for additional time for that report? What if the report really did get "lost" in cyberspace?
• What if we simply said "I'm sorry your child is sick and I hope he feels better tomorrow" instead of asking why a nanny is not a part of your household staff?
• What if we redefined the culture within our organizations to allow for giving every single person connected with the ogranization the freedom to experience receiving the benefit of the doubt? [This is really where it hit it for me.]

The benefits would be phenomenal, I think. And the benefits would be too numerous to ever count. But, for purposes of example, here are some of the benefits that come to mind initially:

1. Our production would immediately and exponentially increase - due to the simple fact that we have refused to get mad and bent out of shape yelling and saying things that are negative and detrimental to our work.
2. We would be happier and have happier colleagues, customers, and clients.
3. The culture of the organization would be much more positive.
4. The culture of the organization would not tolerate negativity nearly so much.
5. There would be much more creative energy for everyone associated with the business.

For me, the bottom line is this: When you develop a culture of giving others the benefit of the doubt, there is really no need to have back-stabbing, lying, cut-throat elements that distract from the business and the people involved in the business. Everyone is willing to give more because they are getting more.

It takes time to create this type of environment in any business or organization, and it is possible to have a successful and productive company based on this model. I'll write more about this in the next post.

A Simple Little Formula for Success

This Week with Sara Fitts is showcasing a Simple Little Formula for Success. The formula is not magic, yet the results of it can be magical. It isn't complicated, yet it can be complex. It is simple, and the results are powerful.

These are the key elements of my Simple Little Formula for Success:

• Define who you are, your vision, and your mission
• Articulate your skill sets
• Determine how to use your skills in order to get the best results
• Manage your time and manage your goals
• Track your progress with complete candor
• Celebrate your success throughout your journey

The formula is simple, but the process is complex. Steps cannot be omitted. Dedication and commitment are required.

Look at Your Business with New Eyes

Over the last week I've had a real epiphany of sorts - and it has implications for me personally as well as professionally. Its effect has been so profound that I actually took the week off to let it totally sink in. I never take an unscheduled week off - so it really is a profound experience for me and I want to share it with you.

This epiphany began with a simple quote that I found when I was doing research for my weekday ezine (JumpStart!). Here's the quote from Marcel Proust:

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

The meaning behind this powerful quote for business owners, entrepreneurs, and self-employed professionals is extremely important. The following list represents a short list of implications.

• Instead of looking for new and different targets for offering your products and services, consider looking at your products and services through different eyes to get a different perspective of how these products and services can be used - differently than they are currently being marketed.
• Instead of looking for new employees, consider the current (or former) employees and look at them with new eyes in order to strengthen your business with their support and skill sets.
• Instead of throwing out the old ideas for marketing, look at those old ideas with fresh eyes and make simple changes in order to make them work this time.
• Instead of looking for the new and different, simply use fresh eyes to see what is really in your business plan - and make it work better.
• Look at your business plan and review it with different eyes. What do you think of it now? What changes need to be made? What is your mission? What is your vision?
• Refuse to be locked in to your business structures and look at everything about your business with new eyes. New eyes can make all the difference in your bottom line for 2007.

This quote may not be so profound to you right now; however, I cahllenge you as a business owner, entrepreneur, or self-employed professional to use this simple quote as a tool to look at your business (the organization itself) with a freshness and a newness that can create exponential growth for you over the next months.

What does your business look like through new eyes?

5 Solutions for my Clients

There are many solutions that I provide my clients; however, I'll highlight 5 of the "best" solutions that people pay me for.

• Lower stress levels - because I am a sounding board that is 100% confidential.
• Ability to get more done - because I provide time management and goal-setting strategies and techniques.
• Ideas that work to increase cash flow, income, revenue, and profit - because I provide a way to think outside the box.
• More balance between work, family, and personal time - because I teach a prioritizing strategy that is simple and works quickly.
• A simple little formula that helps grow a business and balance a life - because business owners, self-employed professionals, and entrepreneurs are too busy and have very little time.

Contact me to find out more about how I can provide the solution you need in your business and life. I love what I do - and I want to help. Sara

thecoach@SLFConsulting.com

International Coaching Week 2007

International Coaching Week is this week - February 4 - 10. The purpose of this week is to celebrate the power of coaching as well as to educate the general population on the many benefits of coaching - both personally and professionally. This Week with Sara Fitts will take this opportunity to spread the word on the power of coaching.

Today I will highlight 10 reasons that business owners, self-employed professionals, and entrepreneurs seek coaching. I will make myself available at various times this week to talk with you about your specific goals and dreams for your business (or your work and life). Feel free to contact me and I'll schedule an appointment with you.

Here are 10 reasons that business owners, self-employed professionals, and entrepreneurs hire business coaches:

• To have an interested person who has no dog in the fight to listen and candidly respond to business and personal issues - and have 100% confidentiality.
• To have help in setting goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, and realistic with timelines for each step.
• To have help in creating a marketing plan for 1 year or 5 years.
• To have a professional ask the questions that often aren't asked.
• To have added accountability when there are no other employees or board members.
• Help in thinking outside the box.
• Fresh perspectives.
• Help in hiring the right staff - and training them.
• Ideas for doubling or tripling your income/revenue/profit.
• To see the bigger picture, play in the bigger game, and reach the finish line faster - with more money, time, and fun.

To experience what I'm talking about, please schedule a complimentary session to find out if you qualify to be a client of mine. If you qualify, get ready for phenomenal results! I hope I talk with you soon! Sara

Sara L. Fitts

Business Coach 202.374.8158 or 703.791.4741 or email thecoach@SLFConsulting.com

Put Your Ideas to Work for You

This Week with Sara Fitts is dedicating this week's focus to putting ideas into motion. I read a powerful quote from John C. Maxwell in Thinking for a Change. It has powerful implications for all of us - especially self-employed professionals and small business owners.

Ideas have a short shelf life. You must act on them before the expiration date.

Too many times we have good ideas and don't take the time to act on them. Either we are waiting for the perfect opportunity to implement them, or we are trying to perfect the idea itself. I challenge you to stop waiting for the perfect moment and just jump into action with your good ideas. Be bold. And realize that waiting for perfection is another view of procrastination.

What ideas have you been putting off? What marketing tactic have you been waiting to use? Have you been waiting to hire staff? What is really holding you back from implementing your good ideas?

Too many times our competitors beat us to the punch - and our own ideas may have been better from the beginning! (Have you ever experienced that?) You will never know the outcome of your efforts if you don't put your ideas into action. I challenge you to make 2007 your best business year yet - by putting your good ideas into action before their expiration date - or before your competitor beats you to the punch.

Put your ideas to work for you - and start today!

Can You See the Forest for the Trees?

This Week with Sara Fitts focuses this week on "big picture" thinking. Too often the only thing holding back self-employed professionals and small business owners is lack of seeing the big picture. Sometimes we are so focused on what has to be done today and tomorrow that we fail to even condsider the next 5 years. And other businesses aren't successful due to only focusing on the years down the line and not paying any attention to the next 30 days.

The strategy that has been most helpful to me and to my clients is seeing the forest for the trees - but making sure there is balance in the view. See the big picture.

Take a helicopter view of your business - as it fits into your industry on a global level. Make sure you see the trees as well as the overall lay of the land. Get different perspectives from different views. Don't be afraid to see what is really there. Adjust your business plan as needed after looking at your business with an extremely focused eye. Look at the big picture and see what's there. Break it down for the next 30 days, 90 days, 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, etc. See the forest and the trees - and you will find success.

Change Your Thinking to Change Your Results

This Week with Sara Fitts focuses on the power of thinking - and how you can change your results simply by changing your thinking. I believe that we will always get the same results we've always gotten if we continue to do the things we've always done. The same applies to our way of thinking, too. In order to get better results, we need to change our thinking.

John C. Maxwell makes the case for different ways of thinking in his book, Thinking for a Change: 11 Ways Highly Successful People Approach Life and Work. I find his book to be an excellent source of energy - especially at this particular time of year when New Year's Resolutions and new goals and action plans are the subject of many conversations, memos, and meetings. For example, Maxwell gives us these thoughts about thinking:

• Everything begins with a thought.
• What we think determines who we are. Who we are determines what we do.
• Our thoughts determine our destiny. Our destiny determines our legacy.
• People who go to the top think differently than others.
• We can change the way we think.

As you complete your plans and goals for the new year - or as you simply plan the new quarter or even just a month at a time - this book can provide an excellent structure in an easy-to-read format that will challenge you to think differently in order to make the changes you want and need to make.

Get in Gear for the New Year - Today

This Week with Sara Fitts is dedicated to helping you get in gear for 2007. There are many ways to approach a new year and I'll focus on what I think are some of the best ways to approach business and personal goals for the new year. My hope is that these ideas will be helpful to you - a new and different perspective at the very least.

Today is an excellent opportunity to have a clean slate for yourself and your business. Regardless of what type of work you do, whether you are self-employed or work in a small business, or own a business and have several employees - today is a day that is open to you and your ideas for new success in 2007.

Here are some questions to consider as you plan your success for 2007:

• What do you want to accomplish in 2007?
• What do you want to do differently in 2007 from previous years?
• What do you want less of in 2007?
• What will you refuse to let hold you back in 2007?
• How will you approach 2007?
• What is really possible for you and your business this year?

Additionally, here are some thoughts to consider as you approach the new year:

• Today is a new beginning. Make the most of the talent you have. Make the most of the opportunities you have. Make the most of the experiences you bring to the table.
• Sometimes you have to do less in order to have more. For example, perhaps you have to jump into action as opposed to talking a project or concept to death. I believe in planning, but sometimes success is put on hold because there is way too much planning and talking and not nearly enough action. Less talking and more action can mean a huge increase in revenue and profits.
• Perfection is not worth waiting for. I believe you just have to jump into action and make the best of your efforts and ideas. Too often people wait for just the perfect product or service, or the perfect time for launching a new venture - but ultimately, the time is now. Don't wait. Make it happen - and start today.

Happy New Year! I hope 2007 is fabulous for all of us!

Get Your Business in Gear for the End of the Year

Regardless of what kind of business you run or what type of work you do, the end of the year is a wonderful opportunity to close the current year and set into motion your plans for the coming year. This process is actually critical to your success - if you're serious about growth and moving your business forward.

This Week with Sara Fitts looks at the necessary ways to get your business in gear for the end of the year.

• Review your business plan and your marketing plan. What worked? What worked well? What didn't work? What surprised you most? What do you want to replicate for next year? What is most important to focus on in 2007?
• Assess your results with brutal honesty. What do you need to do to improve your overall business in 2007? What systems must be in place in order to make these improvements happen? What do you need more of? What do you need less of? How will you make these improvements happen?
• Be willing to make necessary changes in order to get better results. Who do you need to be in order to be more successful? What do you need to do to sell more products and services? What has held you back? Will you refuse to become stagnant? Will you make the changes your business needs you to make?
• Be specific when planning 2007. How much growth do you want to experience? Do you want to increase production by 15% or by 50%? Do you want to increase sales by $100 per sale or by $5000 per month? It really doesn't matter what numbers you use as long as they are realistic for your business and your market.
• Think outside the box. If you continue to do the same old things, you will continue to get the same old results. If these are the results you want, great! If they are not at all the results you want, you must make the necessary changes in order to get the results you want.

Get your business in gear for the end of the year! You'll be even more ready for 2007!

Ways to Keep the Customers You Have

Following up from yesterday's post, I'm going deeper into some ways to keep the customers you already have. It pays huge dividends to keep your customers - because it is almost always less costly than getting new ones. And, your current customers will likely bring you additional customers with their "word of mouth" marketing of you and your company.

Ways to keep the customers you have:

• Showing your appreciation of each customer. This can be in the form of hand-written notes, holiday cards, a personal thank you note, a phone call from the owner or president, a gift basket or gift card, or even a logo-crested item that advertises your own product or services. Regardless of what it is, appreciation goes a long way to sustain a relationship.
• Invite your customers to lunch. If your customer base is primarily local, you can invite them to your office for a major customer appreciation catered event and really play it up. You can have tours of your facility, introduce your staff, and make an event of it. You can make it an annual event - and really use it to springboard new products and services.
• Invite your customers to a workshop or seminar. It doesn't even have to be related to your products or services. The workshop can be on time managment, New Year's resolutions, or anything motivational and uplifting.
• Publish a company newsletter. Use this as a marketing tool in addition to making it newsworthy. It can be done as a traditional newsletter or as an ezine. As long as it keeps you connected to your customers, it should work for you.
• Fix any and all problems as soon as possible. While the customer may not always be right, the problems should always be fixed - if you want to keep the customer who has the complaint.
• Make yourself available. Return calls in a timely manner. Address issues that arise. Never close your door on a customer - unless you don't want them back.
• Initially be selective when seeking customers - and then it becomes 100% easier to want to keep them!

How to Increase Your Bottom Line

This Week with Sara Fitts looks at how to increase your bottom line by increasing sales and growing your business - any business, actually. I see these as basic fundamentals of business growth.

1. Keep the customers or clients you have. Customer service is extremely important in growing your business. By keeping the customers you already have, it becomes much easier to attract others. Your base should be held in the highest regard and never taken for granted. Reward your customers for their loyalty to you, and you'll have them for as long as you're in business.
2. Attract new customers or clients. Marketing should be an on-going activity that keeps your name in front of your target market at all times. Marketing is not an activity that should be "done" when sales are down. Marketing won't attract customers without follow-up. Attract new customers by following up on every marketing campaign. Follow-up is fundamental - but often lacking. Follow up on all leads and prospects. Increase your base.
3. Add to the average sale. Fast food restaurants do this extremely well with their value and combo meals. This is a strategy that I think can work in any business. Bundle your services or products for a bigger and better sale. Add value to every single sale for the sake of the customer as well as for the sake of the business.
4. Increase repeat business for every customer. This may mean an increase in research and development of new product offerings and services. This also means that you must stay on the cutting edge of your industry in order to increase your bottom line. Take the average time for repeat sales, and cut it in half. When you think about that, you've already doubled your revenue.
5. Refuse to accept all prospects as customers or clients. We all know who we need to get rid of - but we often don't because we feel we need their money. But the reality of the situation is that the worst customers or clients actually zap the life out of the business because we become drained by the aggravation they bring. If we refuse to accept poor candidates for our products and services, we then are more energized to go out and find the very best customers and clients. Be more selective, and you'll automatically increase your bottom line.
6. Remain positive, stay focused, and never give up. Growing your business will almost always take longer than you want it to, but never give up. Have a plan and keep working that plan.

An Invitation to Manage Your Time & Stress for the Holidays

This is an invitation from Sara Fitts to Manage Your Time & Reduce Your Stress for the Holidays.

I'll show you 12 ways to have more time and less stress - and enjoy the holidays so much more.

If you have an hour, I have the solution.

Join me for a 1-hour teleclass on Wednesday, December 6 @ 12 noon (EST). The tuition for this one-hour class is $45 (USD) - payable by debit or credit card. This class is limited to 20 people - so reserve your spot right now by emailing thecoach@SLFConsulting.com to register. Please include your name and telephone number in your email.

After you register, you will receive an email confirmation with payment details and call instructions.

I hope you'll join me!