For those of you who have met our illustrious social media guru, Joe Manna, you will totally understand why he is so good at what he does for us in getting Infusionsoft buzz out for our customers, prospects and peers in the industry. But in this entry, I want to point out his biggest strength is keeping on top of making sure we blog, Tweet, and connect as much as possible. What I also realize, is that I am not doing enough of either. (Mainly because I’ve had so many meetings.)
Sure, I put it on my calendar to get it done, but something always came up. I am sure that many of you can relate to trying to get something accomplished and there just doesn’t seem to be enough time. It’s that never-ending to-do list that never actually gets done. I know, we all have one.
The other day, Joe popped into my office to remind me that “(I) haven’t blogged in a while and I really need to.” And to be honest, I really want to. So, I look at my calendar and there is no white space to be had to even carve out 30 minutes. That’s when it happened! Epiphany!
The issue isn’t to try to carve out more time, but to ask myself, “Why am I going to so many meetings?”
I printed out my calendar and met with my leadership team. And guess what, they are having the same issue. We went down the list and questioned whether every meeting was necessary, the length of them or could someone else attend on our behalf? We spent no more than 30 minutes and managed to clear at least 12 hours a week. When I analyzed my meetings, most of them were to gather data about what we are doing in my department, how were we doing meeting our goals and what were we stuck on. Believe it or not, that was 3 separate meetings each lasting 45 minutes. Why? There had to be an easier way. And there was.
Here is a snapshot of what my calendar looks like today:
Believe it or not, this is when it’s “free.”
If you called my office at 4:04pm during the week, I won’t answer. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s that the management team and I huddle for no more than 15 minutes. We start off with “What’s Up?”, which is the quick highlights of the day, followed by “Stats,” which includes listing the important numbers that let the team know we are on track to meet our monthly goals, and lastly, “Where are you stuck?” That can be something that needs escalation to executive level or simply just an awareness that we are stuck but working through the issue.
Wow, what a difference this made in freeing up time! Also, since the whole management team is there, it breeds a cohesiveness and shared responsibility between the teams. More than once, my Support Director offered to help with an issue on the Services side and visa versus.
Now the challenge is out to you — I bet that if you take just 30 minutes to explore your calendar and change from meetings to huddles, you’ll find you have much more time to spend on building your business. Wanna bet?
