THE VITAL FEW

RUNNING A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS IN JUST 2 HOURS PER DAY!

Let’s get right into this one friends! Time! I talk about it in some way on every show, I thank you for investing that most valuable currency of time each week by listening to this show, and to be completely transparent with you, I think somewhat deeply about it every single day. When you’re 20 years old, you’re just living and figuring things out. IN your 30’s, you’ve figured some things out from your 20’s, you’ve hopefully got a better sense of who you are and what direction you’d like to head in. In your 40’s you’ve settled into life, probably raising kids, fairly settled in business or career, you’ve hopefully reached some level of stability in your finances, and you’re thinking about life when the kids are grown and what’s next. In your 50’s, well, I’m only now 50 years old, so I can only speak to the way I think at 50, not necessarily through the whole decade of my 50’s. What I can tell you about being 50 and what I think about with regard to time is that I know logically I have fewer years on this planet than what I’ve already had. Unless the scientists come up with something that allows us to live considerably longer than what we’ve been able to historically, it’s unlikely I’ll live another 50 years. Rest assured, I’m going to try, but the odds are simply not in any of our favor.

Time is truly our most valuable asset and currency. We’re always trading it for something. We trade it for rest and recovery, we trade it for money, we trade it to have experiences, we trade it to have things, and we often squander it simply because that’s what we do as human beings. For many of us, you included, we do our best to find tips and tricks to uncover and reveal more time in our days with which we can then do more of something else. We seek efficiencies in our work days, in our businesses, and in our lives so that we can do less of one thing, and maybe more of another thing, which I’m all in favor of. What I’d like to do in this episode, with your permission, of course, is to offer you a way of thinking about time, along with several strategies for working less, making more, and, maybe most importantly, living more. What I will not say about any of this information or strategies is that they’re new and revolutionary because they are not. At least not for me, and probably not for you if you’ve listened to this podcast, or any of the hundreds of other podcasts that talk about time management strategies. What my hope for this episode is that you hear something new, maybe even something you’ve heard before, but maybe you hear it in a different way today and you become inspired to try something new out. Maybe its just something you hear today that makes you look at time and life a little differently.

Many of you know Tim Ferriss, the author of the Four-Hour Work Week, Tools of Titans, and one of the worlds most listened to podcasts.  A brilliant mind and a great teacher, in my opinion. He was one of the first to talk about some of these things in the Four-Hour Work Week when it came out in 2007. What he offered in that book was his story of starting and running a very successful supplement company that was essentially killing him. He was working day and night seven days a week and realized that if he didn’t change a bunch of things, he’d end up dying, or the business would fail. He also realized that he wanted more out of life that what he was experiencing and so began his experiment that led to the ideas in the book. One of the ideas I got from the book was a set of questions he posed. It was a two-part question that sounded exactly the same except for one thing, the time. The first question, or scenario, was to suppose you had a heart attack and were in recovery. The doctor comes in and clears you to go back to work but says, as they often do in these instances, you can only work 2 hours per day, not an hour more! Your initial thoughts are that there is simply no way you can run your business in only two hours per day, it will most certainly fail if you don’t put in at least 6 to 8 hours per day, like you did leading up to the heart attack. Nevertheless, you heed the doctor’s orders and grab a pen and paper to begin making your list. Somebody outside of yourself has just given you one of the most important tasks you may have ever been given to date: figure out what is most important to you in your life and business, and then figure out how to do just the most important stuff in 2 hours per day so that you can rest, recover, and enjoy your life the remaining hours of the day. 

I know what most of you are thinking, ‘But Blaine, I haven’t had a heart attack, I’m in great shape, I take care of myself, and I like working 8, 10, 12 hours per day! Not sure what I’d even do if I wasn’t working!’ I will address the ‘not sure what I’d even do with my time’ comment a little later in the show, but first let’s address the first parts. The point of any envisioning exercise is to do just that, try to imagine or envision what life might be like with certain circumstances that may not exist yet today for you. Just try to imagine something has happened to you, or better yet, imagine that your spouse, one of your kids, one of your parents has had something happen to them and you must now care for them. You’re left with only two hours per day to run your business. What are the things you would do in those two hours to maintain, or even grow your business and revenue? Just do it! Do the exercise, write out an imaginary daily schedule that only has you working two hours per day. Whats on the schedule? What do you do with that time to maximize your two hours? The point of the exercise is to get you to really think hard about what you value the most, or what is most important for you, the business owner, to be doing with those two hours so as to maximize revenue and profits. The big point you’re trying to get to is what we call the ‘vital few’. These are the things you do in your business that lead to the most revenue. 

When I coach somebody in business I am always first looking to learn about their business, its structure, its systems, and to eventually ferret out the vital few things that are leading to the greatest results. After doing it a few times in a particular industry, say the appraisal industry, I know pretty quickly what needs to be done because those vital few things are almost always the same. If you don’t do the exercise though, you’ll never force yourself to come up with your list of the ‘vital few’, instead of the trivial many. The trivial many are all the silly little things, many of which do need to be addressed, that you fill your day with and that trick you into thinking you’re actually doing something important with your time. My good friend, Aaron Chonka, a great appraiser in Arizona, calls this working in your flame, not in your wax. I love that analogy because of the image it conjures up. You’ve got only two hours per day to work so its got to be white hot valuable time. You can’t be bothered with a bunch of little trivial stuff, its got to be the most important stuff that leads to the most valuable results. So, the first step in this process is just that, make your list of the vital few, and eliminate everything that doesn’t matter. If you say to me, ‘Blaine, you’ve said email is a low dollar task, but email is where I get all my appraisal orders from so I have to do it!’ Ok, no problem, there is a solution for that. I’ve never said don’t ever look at your email, I simply contend that if you only have two hours per day to get the most important revenue generating things done in your business, than it’s important to figure out how to do one of three things with your email: automate it as much as humanly possible, delegate it to somebody else to handle 95% of it for you so that you can just address the top 5%, and batch it so that you’re not addressing emails every 10 minutes. 

If you only have two hours per day to be productive and generate revenue, then you should only spend 10 minutes or so per hour of those two hours accepting the most valuable orders. Oh, you have to vet orders and research to see if you even want them? Is that the most valuable use of your two hours? No? Great, then you have your answer! Delegate it to somebody else! You must constantly be asking yourself, ‘what can I offload?’, and then set about offloading as much as humanly possible. Know this before we go much further, even when you work an 8-, 10-, or 12-hour day, you really only effectively use 2 or 3 hours of that time to produce the most revenue for the business. The remaining time is spent dragging down your dollars per hour because you’re in the midst of the trivial many. You feel busy and productive, but trust me on this, you’re not. The studies have been done, the results are out there. Regardless of how important and productive you think you are, 2 to 3 hours per day is the max when its comes to contribution to the bottom line. Now, I didn’t say all of the things you do with the remaining time wasn’t important, just that very little of that time drips to the bottom line and, in fact, much of eats away at your bottom line. For two hours of the day you’re contributing $200, $500, $1000 to the revenue. The rest of the time you’re doing things that you think are valuable but are really things that you could hand off to somebody else, automate in some way, eliminate all together, or at least batch so that you’re doing it all at once, instead of randomly throughout the day. 

I’ll just throw this in there, Tim Ferriss takes the exercise to the next level by posing a follow up scenario: you have a second heart attack, and the doctor says you can go back to work, but now you can only work 2 hours per week, not 2 hours per day. Once you have your list of things that you would do if you only had two hours per day, now try to pare it down to what you’d do with just two hours per week. So, your first step and the first list(s) you make are your vital few, and your trivial many. Offload the trivial many by either automating, eliminating, delegating, and batching. Make your list of all the things you do throughout your days and weeks and then ask, ‘what of this leads to revenue?’ I know, I know, not everything you do can, or has to lead to revenue, but it should. At least in some way. If you’re taking time to write up a training manual you might ask, ‘does this lead to revenue?’ Well, in the short term, maybe not, but it will certainly lead to revenue and increased profitability down the road. Does giving a talk at a Real Estate office lead to revenue today? Maybe, maybe not, but it will down the road for sure. Does working on your logo lead to revenue? Nope! Never! Hand that one off to somebody who is probably much better at it than you! “But Blaine, I’m super creative and love doing art and working on our logo!” Cool! Then why are you wasting your life doing non-creative work? “I do non-creative stuff because that’s what pays the bills and allows me to do the creative work that I love so much!” Ok, I get it, then these steps are absolutely for you!

Write out your list of things that you, only you, can do and that lead to the most revenue production so that you can spend the rest of your time on things you really want to be doing. Make as much money as humanly possible in the least amount of time possible so that you can do one of two things: figure out how to make more money in less time doing something else (multiple streams, another more fulfilling business, business building activities, higher dollar thinking, investing, etc.), or spend your free time moving into the significance zone. The significance zone is the top of Maslow’s pyramid where ‘self actualization’ lives. Its what we all want at some level but tend to put off in our minds until some imaginary time in the future reveals itself. I won’t go too deep on self actualization and moving into significance because that’s not what this episode is about, but its definitely part of it. Its part of the conversation because of what I mentioned at the beginning of the show. I’ve heard it uttered many times when I pose this question that the person wouldn’t know what they’d even do with the time if they had it. So, what do they do? They stop thinking about it any further and they put their head back down and get back to their role as the technician in the business. 

Let me assure you that you will never be using your time at its highest and best until you think deeply on what else you could, and should, be doing with your time given your skills, your insights, and your unique abilities, most of which are likely not being utilized to their fullest. If you’ve forgotten what I mean by your unique ability, it’s a term I learned from one of my coaches, the Strategic Coach, Dan Sullivan, and it refers to the unique set of capabilities, strengths, vision, natural talents, and passion you have for a particular area of life and/or business that allows you to make the greatest contribution in that area. Most people get stuck in doing work that doesn’t really motivate or inspire them. They do it because it pays, and I won’t go as far as saying that there is nothing wrong with that, I get that not everybody can make a living doing what they’re passionate about. However, when you find your unique ability, you find unique and creative ways to turn any job or task into something that you can uniquely do. For entrepreneurs especially, many fall into doing things because they saw an opportunity, followed a family member, took over a business, bought in, or started a business because they had some skills and abilities to do the work that particular business requires. The problem, as we’ve talked about on the show many times, is that what got you there wont necessarily take you to where you ultimately want to go. Most get stuck in the technician role and stay there, never fully recognizing and utilizing their unique abilities. 

This is why understanding time is so important! When somebody says, “I don’t even know what I’d do with the time if I had it”, what they’re really saying is, “I haven’t done the difficult and challenging work of figuring out what my unique ability is, what skills I currently have, or need to be developing, to take me to the next level, and what this business really requires of me to grow and scale past survival, stability, and even success, and move toward significance.” What does it need from me in order to become a company of significance? By the way, I recommend you ponder on this question at least quarterly, if not monthly, lest you get stuck in the pattern of the technician doing, doing, doing, and never really getting out of the massive gravitational pull that role can impose on the founder. 

You must constantly ask yourself what absolutely needs to be done by you, and what can be done by others, and the question, and subsequent answers, need to be based on where you want to go, not necessarily on where you came from. If it does not need to absolutely be done by you; automate, eliminate, or delegate, and then teach your people how to batch tasks so that they can be the most efficient at the things they’ve maybe taken off of your plate. You’ll be freeing up extremely valuable time for you to focus on your unique ability. Its only when you’ve never really thought about what that might be that you stay in the orbit of low value tasks, time wasters, things that annoy you but you do anyway, and things that suck the life out of you and lead to burnout. What would you even do with the time if you had it? I don’t know! That’s for you to figure out. Let me say that with a different emphasis: That IS the thing you’re tasked with figuring out as a business owner. Your people are counting on you to figure that out. They may not even know they are, but they are because if you burn out, if you quit, if you don’t or can’t grow it, you will eventually shrink or die and they’ll be on the hunt for an opportunity to express and expand their unique abilities! 

Remember what this episode is about: working 10 hours or less per week or month on your business. That’s the exercise I’m asking you to consider. What would you do with your time if your doctor said you can only work 2 hours per day, or 2.5 hours per week, and you must maintain, and even grow your business. It can be done by the way and I’m proof of that. I have multiple businesses that I spend varying amounts of time in each day and week, and none of them takes 40 hours per week, in fact, none of them requires even 20 hours per week of my time. Most of my businesses require around an hour to two per day, sometimes a little more depending on the day, but not much more, and that’s because I focus on my skills and abilities and I find people to carry me where I’m weak. I also focus on the skills I need to gain to grow to new levels in the areas that I know my unique abilities exist in. Some of it can be really scary, by the way! When you identify an area you’re weak in, or maybe even completely clueless in, but choose to march forward anyway you’re forced to confront the inevitable, which is that you’re going to fail, look silly, embarrass yourself a bit, and potentially come across as an amateur. What I have found over the years, however, is that by being honest with everybody as you venture into new territory you can be free to learn and grow. You simply tell people, “hey, I’m a complete noob in this area, but I’m trying to learn what I need to. Any help and grace is very much appreciated.” What you find is that people respect that and will actually go out of their way to offer insight and advice. 

Alright, the second to last part of our ten-hour work week, or month when you get really good, is to learn to say ‘no’ a lot! Part of developing a list of things that other people can do and that don’t require you is to learn what to say ‘no’ to. If you want to grow you simply have to learn to say no to almost everything. By the way appraisers and agents, this means learning to say no to certain types of business. I work with so many appraisers and agents who accept every job and almost every client. This comes from never taking the time to write down who your ideal client really is, what your ideal business looks, feels, tastes, and acts like, and where you want to be in 1 to 3 years. Its only after that that you start to develop some ability to say no much more effectively. Every request that comes across your desk, your phone, your email, or wherever requests and demands of your time tend to suck you in, must go through a filter built into your brain that asks, ‘is this my ideal client, is this our ideal type of job, is this the best use of my time given my goals, and will this person be best served by me/us given our specialty and unique abilities?’ If the answer is no, I didn’t say to be a jerk about, you can even go out of your way to be super helpful and help them find somebody better suited to their request. We do this all the time in our offices. We get requests for all kinds of work in all kinds of areas around us. We take an extremely small amount of it and end up sending dozens of referrals every week to other appraisers, agents, and complimentary services. We’re very clear on who our ideal client is, what our ideal fees are, what our goals are, who we can serve the best, and who we wouldn’t serve the best and we tell them exactly that! 

If you want to grow, scale, build, and constantly move from survival into stability, then into success, and onward toward significance, you’ll have to find ways to maximize your time into your unique abilities. That means doing less of the stuff you’re not the greatest at AND what doesn’t motivate and inspire you! Remember, you only have 2 hours per day now, or 2 hours per week if you really want to push the exercise, to accomplish what you accomplish today, and then actually accomplish more than you do now. What are you going to do for those two hours? 

The last part of this exercise is to learn to teach and train people how you work and what your schedule is. If you want to succeed at this exercise and work 10 hours per week in your business so that you can do something more valuable with the remaining time, you must become a teacher. You have to get good at teaching people how you work, what’s important to you, and how your schedule works. I’ve taught and talked many times about my own voicemail message and email signature. My personal voicemail basically says, “I only return calls on these days and these times. If its more important than that and need an answer right away, text me or my assistant and we’ll do our best”. My email signature essentially says, ‘hey, if you don’t hear back from me right away, that’s normal. I am prioritizing some important projects and it takes me a few days to get to all of my email. I’m sure you understand.” In essence, I do everything in my power to silence the noise so that I can focus in my unique ability zone as often as possible for as long as possible. I say no to a lot of things and a lot of people. Not because I’m so important, but because my own growth, and the growth of my businesses is very important to me. I have learned over the years that nothing, absolutely nothing is as important as other people will make it out to be to get your attention. If it’s important, it will be there tomorrow, two days from now, and next week. Learn to say no to almost everything that doesn’t fit your list, and that includes business. If you’re not specializing you’re commoditizing and that will always lead to the lowest value business. The more you learn to say no to, the more quickly you’ll be operating in your unique ability and the more quickly you’ll become known as a specialist in your field.

If you want to learn more about whether to be a specialist or a generalist, I just did an episode on that topic a few weeks ago, go listen to it, its packed with value. And with that my friends, I bid you adieu until we meet again next week. A quick note about our upcoming travel and teaching plans, I’ll be in Vegas on the 8th of September teaching an hour long session for the Valuation Expo on building your business using content. And then I’ll be leading a half day free business building workshop and mastermind. If you’re planning on going to the Expo, or if you just want to come hang out and mastermind with us, we welcome you with open arms! There is limited seating so reach out to me and let me know if you want in and we’ll save you a seat. We will also be videoing the workshop for our coaching members that aren’t able to make it as a benefit of membership in one of our coaching programs. I look forward to seeing you there, if you’re planning on it, and I look forward to meeting up here again next week to do my best to add some value for you. So, until then my friends, I’m out…