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Time management hacks used by top producers
80 Plays7 years ago
In this episode, James will be covering the most common time management habits all top producing sales reps have in common.
To learn more visit sevenfiguresolar.com or follow @jamespswiderski on social media.
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Transcript
Introduction & Host Introduction
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Are you ready to take your solar sales to the next level?
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James Swiderski, co-founder of 7 Figure Solar, is your host of the podcast, created by solar sales and marketing pros.
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The 7 Figure Solar Podcast.
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Sales tips, online marketing, industry news, and much, much more.
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Here's your host of the 7 Figure Solar Podcast, James Swiderski.
Podcast Purpose & Audience
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Welcome to the 7 Figure Solar Podcast.
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My name is James Swiderski.
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I want to welcome you, any visitors, let you know this podcast is for the solar professional who's just getting into sales and marketing, or maybe they're well into their career and they want to find just that one thing that's going to take them to the next level.
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We're going to give you those tools on this podcast.
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And on this rapid fire segment, I'm going to give you everything you need to know about time management as a solar professional.
Time Management in Solar Sales
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So here's the deal, guys.
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Time management is one of those very small details that's going to make a huge difference between the top performers.
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And as I talk to and I associate, we interview hundreds of top performers around the world, we notice a common trend, and it's that the top individuals, the top dogs at their companies that are clearing multiple six, 500, 600, 750, a million-plus dollars a year,
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Those guys have one thing in common and that's a tremendous amount of discipline when it comes to time.
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There's a million quotes about time and how rich people are stingy with time and poor people are stingy with money.
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I'm not going to talk about that.
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You could go look at a million resources about that.
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But I want to talk how the solar professional, the sales and marketing pro that you are trying to become, that person that you want to be,
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how time management is the key to getting there.
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It can be that key.
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And I notice with so many reps and owners that we talk to, it's the way that people spend their time that really says a lot about a person and a lot about how they manage their business.
Consistency & Daily Planning
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There's a great quote.
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It's one of my favorite quotes from Bedros Koulian.
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And he says that how you do anything is how you do everything.
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Think about that.
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How you do anything is how you do everything.
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Meaning that if I find one area of your life that's a little sloppy, maybe you didn't wash your car, maybe you eat a little sloppy, I guarantee I can find another area within your life, within your pipeline, within your business, within your sales, your paycheck, I could find something else that is equally as sloppy.
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Because it's all in our mindset.
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If we think and treat our time like it's a commodity, if we treat our time like it's something that could be squandered around, that could be wasted on non-effective and useful activities that grow our business and pipeline, then we can find something else in our life that is like that.
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So, with that being said, to tie it back into time, if you treat your time like it's something that could be thrown away,
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How does your sales look?
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I guarantee your sales are reflective of that.
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Your business is reflective of that.
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Your home life is reflective of how you spend your time.
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So I want to set some ground rules.
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I'm going to give you some actionable steps that have taken my sales to the next level and hundreds of our students as well.
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If you're ready, number one is plan your day every day.
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I can't stress this enough.
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Do you know how many solar professionals never plan out their day?
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I always do this in the first couple of meetings with new members of my team.
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I say, okay, man, welcome, awesome.
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We just talked about goals.
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We just introduced our meeting, whatever it is, got them fired up.
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Cool.
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Let's look at your calendar today.
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What do you got planned today?
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80%, 90% of the time, it's way up there, I don't know exactly, they don't have anything on the calendar.
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They're thinking, well, maybe I was going to do this.
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Maybe I was going to make a couple calls.
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I was going to knock this street.
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I was going to build this sales funnel.
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It's all maybes, right?
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It's all perspective.
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Maybe I'll do this.
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Well, here's the problem with maybes, okay?
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When the afternoon rolls around and that motivation is going down,
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and you were maybe gonna do this, guess what you're not gonna do now?
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Because it wasn't set in stone, it wasn't on the calendar.
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You're not gonna feel like doing that.
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Maybe doesn't have commitment, and without commitment, you're not gonna do it.
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You're gonna let something else get in the way.
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There's gonna be some sort of distraction.
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There's gonna be some sort of emergency that pops up.
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Commitment is what's going to allow you to stick to that schedule.
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So every day, plan your day out in full.
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Meaning if you need to go on a date night with your wife, if you want to do that and prioritize that, put that in the calendar.
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I'm not saying you have to ditch out your family life and personal life, but you need to schedule those things and don't go outside of that schedule.
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So if it's important to go on a date with your wife, it's important to do this.
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Put it on the schedule for when you need to and stick to it.
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That's important.
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It's an important part of your life.
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I'm not saying it's not, but so are the other parts.
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So don't let them bleed into each other.
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So when you plan your day, do it the night before.
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Do it the night before, that way when you wake up, you're filled with a purpose, with a drive, with what you need to accomplish in your sales day.
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And a salesperson's day is super busy.
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An entrepreneur's day is super busy, okay?
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Take the time, take 25, 30 minutes to plan out everything.
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I plan in 15 to 30 minute increments in a day.
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What am I gonna do this 15 to 30 minutes?
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And I find that's a perfect window for me.
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I used to do longer, one to two hours, but I realized that I would stretch the activity out.
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We typically adapt to the amount of time that we're given to do a task.
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So if you think it's gonna take you an hour and a half to do something, try 45 to 50 minutes, try an hour.
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Try shortening it down.
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You're going to be amazed how quickly you adapt, how quickly you get these things done.
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So plan your day out every single day in full detail.
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Who are you going to call?
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Whose door are you going to knock on?
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What street are you going to drive on?
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Is that the quickest route to this appointment?
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What time are you going to host your webinar?
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What time are you going to record that YouTube video to send to this prospect?
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every single thing down, right?
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Plan your day by day and do it over the entire week as well.
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I do a weekly planning session on Sundays.
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Well, that's a separate podcast, separate video where we'll give you that information, but make sure you take the time to plan guys.
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How you do everything is how you do anything.
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If you're too lazy to plan, then you're too lazy to follow your plan and you're too lazy to reach your goals.
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So plan,
Impactful Work Hours
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okay?
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Next, time management is only spend your day-to-day activities or as much as you can
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with high value sales activities meaning activities that are going to produce sales either today or the down the road okay so what do those activities not include let's look at that eating lunch with fellow sales associates right i mean yeah you could do that here and there but that was the one of the biggest changes i made when i read grant cardone seller be sold book
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He says, look, if they can't buy from you, don't hang out with them.
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And it sounds really straightforward, really brutal, right?
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But it's so true.
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Spending time with your sales buddy, Janine, um,
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every day right is not going to bring you any sales she's not gonna buy from you right Oscar he's not gonna buy from you whoever it is go eat take other people take other professionals out to lunch network with them spend time spend eating time networking that's gonna take you way further and maximize that amount of time that we're given everybody's given the same amount of
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Time in a day we always hear Warren Buffett right Steve Jobs had the same time of the day as Warren Buffett did as I do It's how you spend that time and really I like how a lot of entrepreneurs and salespeople are talking about you don't need to sacrifice sleep
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and taking care of yourself.
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You don't need to sacrifice your health.
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It's all about what you do within those waking hours, within those working hours, right?
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Gym's super important.
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I believe going to the gym and working out is an important daily activity.
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So it's in my schedule, right?
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But that time when I'm outside of the gym, when I'm not sleeping,
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That's work time.
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That's go time.
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I'm focused.
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I'm maximizing and squeezing everything out of that waking hour.
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That means I'm not wasting time at meetings.
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I'm not going to two-hour meetings every week.
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I'm shortening.
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I'm going to a meeting, a sales meeting, and I'm coming in when it matters.
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Anybody around the office I work with, anything like that, if there is a meeting, I'm going to be the guy that comes in and says, what is the outcome of this meeting?
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What are we trying to accomplish here?
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Let's cut to the point.
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Let's cut to the chase.
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Let's skip the chit-chat.
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I've got stuff to do.
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What are we trying to get done?
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Okay, we got to get this done.
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Boom, boom, boom, boom.
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Okay, perfect.
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Let's do it.
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Now you can narrow down an hour, two hour meeting to 15, 20 minutes.
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It's amazing what will get done if you're the guy who is driving the force, right?
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If you're driving things forward, you're skipping past the pleasantries, all that stuff, and you get the job done.
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Maximize that time so you could go and spend it where it's most valuable.
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Whether that's your family, whether it's your friends, whether that's growing your pipeline, your business more, getting more sales, maximize it, okay?
Daily Task Strategy
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The third thing with time management is focus on key tasks for the day.
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I like to do a five task list.
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I call it the power list.
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I kind of adopted it from Andy Frisella, the MF CEO on his podcast, but the power list is so useful.
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It's so powerful for sales professionals.
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And all it is is pick five tasks
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that are going to grow you towards your goals to get done every day.
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Once you get those five tasks done, then you could call it a day and you're done.
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But here's the key with the five task list, the power list.
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Don't do more than five tasks and don't do less.
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If you do more, if you get greedy and you go 10, 15, 20, because I've done that,
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I'm always trying to grow.
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I'm like, oh, you know what?
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If I could do those five, I could do 30, right?
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I could do 40 tasks, whatever it is.
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40 is a lot, but whatever your number is, stick to five, okay?
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What this does is it teaches you to trust yourself, that you can commit to something.
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It teaches you that if I say I'm going to do something at this time, at 11 o'clock today,
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I'm going to do it.
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And if you do do it, you're going to build more trust in yourself.
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And the more trust you build in yourself, the more credibility, the more responsibility, and the more trust you'll have overall and confidence.
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So the quickest way to build confidence is sticking to a schedule relentlessly.
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Meaning if it's on my schedule, I'm going to get it done.
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If it's on my power list, I'm going to get it done no matter what.
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There is absolutely nothing that will get in my way from this task getting accomplished today.
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So pick five things that will move you towards your goals that are accomplishable, that you can get done.
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But make sure you're not under limiting yourself.
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Make sure they're not too easy.
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Make them difficult enough where they stretch you and they push you, but you can get them done.
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And then lastly, make sure those tasks are actually effective towards moving you towards your goal.
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Meaning if I want to make three solar sails this week, I want to close five deals this week.
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I need to make sure that every day I'm doing some sort of task that's going to move me towards getting a sale every day, five days a week.
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Or if I'm not going to make sales on Monday, I make sure those five tasks are going to set me up for sales.
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One and a half sales Tuesday through Saturday, whatever it is.
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Okay, make sure those tasks move you towards the goals and they're effective.
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So guys, that's it for time management to review, right?
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Make sure that you're setting the goals that are effective.
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You're setting that power list every day.
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Make sure that you are sticking to your schedule.
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If it goes on your schedule, then you're going to get it done.
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And make sure that you plan your day every day, of course.
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Make sure that you spend the time.
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Spend the 25, 30 minutes.
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However long it takes, that time that you spend planning your day is going to be well overspent.
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the next day.
Conclusion & Next Episode Teaser
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Focus on these things, guys.
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Your sales are going to go to the next level.
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And as always, I'm going to see you on Friday.
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We're going to talk about, for about 40, 45 minutes to an hour, some deep dive strategies to improve your sales and marketing so you can crush it in 2019, this coming year, and dominate your market.
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So until next time, guys, I'll see you soon.