 I recently had the pleasure of being a special guest on A Bridge To Wholeness podcast! A Bridge To Wholeness is committed to bringing awareness to wellbeing beyond what we think health and wellness is all about.
In this interview, I demonstrate for you my process of helping others remove obstacles and create a path to their life's work. Host Jennifer Crisp acts as the “client” and I lead her through on an incredible journey of self discovery. We discuss how your environment affects your well-being and productivity, why organization makes a difference in your productivity, and how to focus on what you really want to achieve. This is a health and wellness episode for all business owners! The episode is titled #21: "How To Stay Motivated: Start With One Task." You can listen to it on iTunes, Stitcher, or online by clicking the button below. I hope you enjoy it!
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 If you are like most entrepreneur business owners, you started your business to have more freedom with your time, more freedom with how you earned your income and more freedom with how much you could earn. So why is it, that know that you have been in business for a while do you feel trapped? You’ve hit the ‘six figure mark’ that so many coaching programs promise to help you achieve. You’ve even surpassed the make or break, 5 year mark. You have employees (or staff) to support the work you are doing and yet it may seem like your next breakthrough is impossible and you working for someone else would be so much easier. Where is the glass ceiling for you?
I have seen so many programs that help you get started and reach your first milestone, but what about the established business owner. It’s time for you, the hardworking multi-six figure business owner, to become a flowing multi-seven figure business owner. What you need most, right now, is a Roadmap to Freedom. This is a high cost to waiting for your breakthrough to come:
Imagine for a moment, that you have:
Now, until April 8, I am opening up a never-before-offered program for a ridiculously low price and it is ONLY available for 10 people. (How's that for a call to action? :-)) I have created a quick video (13:02 minutes) to explain all the details or you can click here to find out more: http://www.sappariconsulting.com/accountability.html Here is what is included:
The dollar value of this program is well over $9,700 and it’s worth even more as you free yourself to breakthrough to your next level of business. Most participants are able to recoup their costs in the first month. But, you have an opportunity to participate for only $5,000 IF you submit your application by April 8, 2019.
 The goal is not efficiency. The goal is productivity. Completing a process that doesn’t need to be done at all, efficiently could be wasting your business thousands of dollars. Here are a few real life examples of efficient processes that waste money. Hiring Process If you are hiring and firing employees at a high rate, you are absolutely losing money. If you have an efficient system that brings in 10 new hires a month but you are losing 10 employees monthly because there is no system for retention. You are losing potentially $80-$100,000 a month. Even though your hiring system is efficient. The cost of recruiting, on-boarding, training and then removing, covering for and retraining an employee are high. One study shows the cost of losing an employee to be ~$8,000. Other studies indicate the cost of employee turnover to be in the tens of thousands of dollars per employee. This is especially true in the skilled fields and managerial roles. Even slight improvements in this area will yield significant financial gain and improved morale. Creating a repeatable system that ensures you hire well, train and on-board for the right fit employee so that they stay with your company saves 10’s to 100’s of thousands of dollars. Invoicing Utilizing effective systems to invoice clients automatically always pays off in dividends. This is one area I see the most that owners hold on to. The owners have become efficient at creating and sending invoices such that they spend no more than 4 hours a month on this process. However it usually happens on quiet weekend mornings or in the evening while watching TV. While that may not seem like a big deal, it is cutting into deep work and personal time. Creating a system that can be automated such that you are paying software to invoice and follow through on payments can bring the cost down to a negligible amount. Creating a system that a bookkeeper can implement brings the cost to $140 month for 4 hours at $35/hour. If the owner remains involved and they bill at a rate of $300/hour (that is typically a low amount for what the owner can bring into the company) the cost is $1200/month. You are losing approximately $1,000 a month on this task alone. Client/Lead Followup Again, if we imagine that the owner of the company bills at $300/hour, which is low, they may create an ‘efficient’ process that allows them to complete follow-up in just 1 hour a day (~25 hours a month or $7,500). Many owners enjoy this process as it keeps them in front of new potential clients and existing clients. However, this efficient process could be implemented by an administrative assistant bringing the cost down to $1,250. Parts could be automated or eliminated and the cost could be under $500 a month. Report Creation This one is easy to overlock because the workarounds seem so small and inconsequential. And, if you don’t know the tools you are using, you may think that solving the problem is more difficult than it really is. Your Goal - Have the information in hand to see what invoices are paid (or not). In the example below, there is a 10x cost savings to automating the process (in the example, that savings is $9,161!!)  
A deep dive into your systems and processes will always yield a high return. Not sure where you stand? Let’s chat. Schedule a 15 minute CEO Call here.  I have invested in the Frequent Flyer program with Southwest Airlines. I applied for the credit card and receive points for shopping. In this situation, being a frequent flyer has served me well and I love the dividends. Flying with Southwest, I have structure, I know what to expect and I am served with consistency. Flying is good.
Flying by the seat of your pants, outside of an airplane? This frequent flyer plan not only doesn’t yield great dividends, it can easily end up costing you a LOT in time and money (and your sanity). These are the excuses that I hear for business owners who are part of the frequent flyer club: 1 - I don’t have time to create systems 2 - I can’t afford more help 3 - I love the novelty of new ideas Let’s look at each one. Systems, contrary to the feeling of dread you feel when you read that word, are a big part of the structure that your business needs to thrive. I get it, you have built your castle successfully without out them (or with few) but a well documented system can save you jet planes full of time and money in having a repeatable, easy to follow process, that provides a consistent experience for the customer and frees you up to do the work that you love (that brings in the bigger dollars). Use a Hit by the Bus System. This is a system that is so well documented that even if you were hit by a bus it could be implemented easily. (Join in the Systems Masterclass on April with Jen Hickle) Money: Early in your business, it made sense that you were bootstrapping tasks to help you grow to your next level. But there comes a point of critical mass (critical mass is like in the movies when the thing begins to generate energy itself rather than be fed energy) where if you are still doing tasks that you could be paying others for to do faster, more efficiently and better then you are not yet a Momentum Business Owner and you are still in the frequent flyer club. Doing the payroll at midnight happens because you have not yet set aside a few hours of time to find and hire an appropriate person to do this job and free you up to (again) work in your unique brilliance. Where is is this showing up? Where else are you using money as the excuse for not finding and hiring the right person for the job? Novelty: I get it. All the entrepreneurs that I know at 7 figures are visionary. They love new ideas. However, the ones that have really hit their stride in success have picked Just One Focus to put their energy towards. They are not bored because they are using their unique brilliance to make this Just One Focus blossom. Instead of being frustrated that they never quite get where they want to go, they have the accomplishment of seeing success and then tackling a different aspect or a new project that will give them that thrill again. What is your Just One Focus that you could get behind and stop the flying by the seat of your pants club? If you are ready to ditch your Frequent Flyer Card, join me in the Momentum Business Association. It’s a group of entrepreneurs and business owners, just like you, who have already built their castle and are ready to make it operate to serve them and their kingdom best. And, it’s a complimentary benefit of being part of MY domain. Join here: CreatingMomentumProgram.com/Club Ready to find out how you can take your business to the next level of success, operating efficiently and reclaiming your time? Let’s chat.  You are an entrepreneur. Your days are long. You are hustling to make things work. You have lots of ideas and not enough time (or energy to do them). When you complete a goal it is such a high and you love when the business is rolling in but it can be feast or famine. You are often creating something new. Sometimes you forget about the tools and systems you already created. Things are moving so fast.
There are times when you feel like, "Geez, I thought I would have this figured out by now.” or “Life was just easier when I was working for someone else. Maybe it’s time to throw in the towel.” I get it. I hear you and I have been there myself. It’s embarrassing to say. I am an organizer. I am time management and productivity coach. And yet, keeping up your energy, momentum, organization, time management and productivity as an entrepreneur. It is completely different when you do it for yourself. So much information is out there about how to manage your time, structure your day, set and reach your goals. But, most if it is directed to people who work for someone else. And that is not you. You have the responsibility of not only implementing the vision but creating it too. You aren’t just using the systems you are creating the systems. You are creating the structure in your day, your business, your life AND you are trying to be creative within that structure. It’s hard, time consuming and tiring. No wonder there are times you want to just throw in the towel. There is another way. You not only desire something different, your business and life depend on it. What if you could wake up and know what to do every day? What if you knew that every day you were moving towards and taking action on the biggest goals? What if you had a mechanism for getting the ‘clutter’ out of the way to focus on the most important work? What if you could be supported in a community of people that are all also in the same boat, rowing together towards a common destination? (I like to think of this as the most fabulous island getaway that has everything you ever wanted) What if you could not only SEE the Vision but know how to break it down to make it actionable? What if you could learn a framework that worked for entrepreneurs just like yourself to provide structure and the space to be creative at the same time? It is absolutely possible, entrepreneurs just like you are doing it every day. They are reaching their goals and doing it faster than they imagined. They are gaining clarity, focus and the support of a community they knows just what it’s like to be an entrepreneur. And you can, too. I was in the same place as you are now. I had a successful business and yet was feeling more and more burnt out. Things were going well but they took so much energy to operate and I was getting tired. What I had created was great for a smaller business but it wasn’t scalable to reach the biggest heights I wanted to reach. And then I figured it out. What I do takes me 5 minutes every day to plan AND with another 15 minutes to implement. I am consistently taking action on my goals. That’s it. Less than the time of 1 Netflix tv show, daily. Starting March 17, I’ll teach you how to do it, too. All you need to do is sign up to participate in One Focus 30 Days. The information you need is right here: CreatingMomentumProgram.com/Challenge At the end of November, I spent 5 days in Nashville at Funnel Hacking Live with Clickfunnels. It was an amazing conference and in that time I gained a lot of clarity around the Momentum Programs. I came home ready to implement these changes as quickly as possible because I want you and others to benefit as quickly as possible :-) You may have already seen some of the program name and graphics changes. There will be more. My plan is to quickly implement now and make changes along the way. I hope all of this makes things less confusing, more accessible and of greater value. Here are the highlights so far and I welcome you to respond with any questions, celebrations or suggestions. Big Change #1 - You have a new club that was built and designed for YOU! The Momentum Business Association is for Visionary Entrepreneurs to come together, share resources, make connections, gain clarity, focus, find support and accountability. Your membership is complimentary and you can access it here: CreatingMomentumProgram.com/Club  Big Change #2 - I have created a clear path for you to continually receive the support you need to grow your business. It's easy to feel alone as an entrepreneur. There's no big boss anymore to hold you accountable to the vision you have in your mind. This graphic, hopefully, visually explains how you can receive support in the Momentum Programs.  Big Change #3 - The Momentum Masterclass Series is now available LIVE in the Momentum Entrepreneur Club. Next week, Frank Demming will be joining us to share HOW to Select the Correct Source of Traffic for Your Business without guessing. March 13, 12pm EST. Frank IS the Local Business Marketing Guy. You do not want to miss his course. If you think you might, sign up for Insiders and you have access to his class and every class in the series along with the Creating Momentum Program, CEO Secrets and MORE!  Big Change #4 - One Focus 30 Days a BRAND NEW 30 Day Challenge is coming to YOU and starting on March 17. BUT... you are going to want to get in now and SIGN UP! You are the very first to see this opportunity and I cannot wait to support you to reach your big goals. 30 days to focus in and get it done! Learn More HERE & Register.   You are a Visionary Entrepreneur and yet you struggle with creating the vision that you have seen. Whether you are overwhelmed by the magnitude of what you are creating or just don’t know where to start. Getting from where you are right now to what you see for yourself and the world seems impossible. And yet, there is a pathway. You need only find it and take the first step.
And then the next. It’s not about seeing the entire road ahead. It is first about knowing the road is there. Once you have this core vision, you can use what you know about what you do, who you serve and who you are to get there. These are the first steps of Creating Momentum. It doesn’t stop there though. The first steps are energizing and inspiring, a catalyst for change but they are not enough. You have most likely felt this before: the excitement of telling a friend about a new idea; the rush that comes from seeing the future you would like to create; the thrill of the lives you will change when your idea becomes a reality; the joy of receiving abundance when you are fully aligned with your purpose; and the sense of dread of wondering how to actually make this happen. Your Vision, Mission & Core Values need structure. They need a framework to exist in. You need to know how to spend your time, what tasks to complete, how to use order and systems to implement consistently and provide a container for the energy that comes from the idea. These are the next steps of Creating Momentum: time and task management, organization, and systems. But they are not enough. Those Visionary Entrepreneurs that succeed in the long run have something more. They exist, not in isolation but within their connected community, serving their community and the world. They use their tribe and complete their role within that tribe by utilizing their gifts. And they focus. Always concentrating on how these pieces work together. These are the final steps of Creating Momentum that complete the circuit: strengths, connection, and focus. I help entrepreneurs see their vision and break down the steps to make it happen. I do this through Creating Momentum (TM). If you would like to know more, let's find a time to talk.  My oldest daughter was frustrated with how unkind her little sister was being towards her. “People’s actions and words say more about them and less about you,” I told her. Her sister was tired and upset at some perceived infraction. And no, she didn’t have any business being unkind but it happened. My oldest daughter could take the nastiness to heart or she could remember that her little sister’s words really had nothing to do with her. The great thing is that as a parent, I can teach both of my daughters in this moment. Rather than get sucked in, my older daughter walked away and found something else to do. I dealt with my younger daughter and life moved on.
It’s easy to look at this childhood dilemma and comment from our adult-sized perspective on how to handle it. However, how often does this happen to us as adults and we absorb that other person’s behavior as if it were our own? In coaching clients recently these situations have come up:
Instead of allowing the others to have their logical consequences - :
- the entrepreneur is taking it upon herself to try and solve the other person’s problem and changing herself in the meantime. She is letting the other person come with in her boundary of acceptance. No learning occurs. But it could have been different. What if this were the outcome instead?
Don’t get sucked into other people’s drama. It is not for you. As an entrepreneur, your business is you. It can be hard to separate what is coming at you from what you can control (I know! I have been there myself and need to remind myself of these words, too.) The lesson here is learning how to receive the message that IS meant for you and take actions that allow you feel more in line with yourself and your gifts. How is this related to productivity? When you are doing the work you are meant to do, you will be your most productive. Many times these experiences are opportunities to create new systems, clarify your messaging, and show up in a more authentic way. What experience have you had that said more about someone else than you and how did you navigate it? Are you in? The Momentum Masterclass Series is an opportunity to tap into a deep well of knowledge from experts that have been where you are now. Right now, it is only $97 step into this program and gain full access to the library of resources, CEO Secrets interviews and The Creating Momentum Program. But, you must act quickly as the price is going up. On March 1st, the Momentum Masterclasses will be offered LIVE for free and full library access will only be available to members. But you can jump in now. Don’t wait!! Click HERE to learn more.  When I was a kid I LOVED when my parents would take us out to a salad bar or buffet. I would go back and forth taking a little bit of everything until I was so full I felt like you would have to roll me out of the restaurant. Did you ever see Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory? It was the 1970’s movie based on Roald Dahl’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In one scene, a child, who has won a ticket to tour Mr. Wonka’s factory ends up turning the shape and color of a blueberry. Helpers roll her out the door on her side to be “squeezed.” That was me. Too full having taken a little too much of everything.
Your options for getting help to grow your business and reach your goals are a lot like an all access banquet. There are often so many good tasting things to choose from. But, if you do choose them all you will stuff yourself and become ineffective and unproductive. And, you will have to wait until all of that food settles until you can get back to work. I know this is not the solution you are looking for. You need to select items onto your plate that will fill you with the nourishment to keep you going, sustain you for the long haul. What do good, nourishing, sustainable selections look like? Here is what I put on my plate and I hope it will help you, too.
These are concepts that I use to fill my plate with the right information that will sustain my business. I have built the Momentum Programs around these concepts. The Masterclass Series is one example. It includes one class a month from an expert in their field positioned to deliver content you need without overwhelming you and always leaving you with an action step you can move forward on. If you would like to learn more and access the first class in the series to see what is all about, you can check it out here https://creatingmomentumprogram.com/webinar  I am so glad to share this journey with you. Going it alone stinks. But, thankfully, neither you, nor I have to do it on our own. Everything that I teach and talk about comes from lessons I have personally learned. Being in business for fifteen years and on this planet for a lot longer, will do that to you, if you are open to it.
The reality is that sometimes, even on the greatest journey of your life, you will get stuck. I imagine, that like me, you will find these ‘stuck’ points to yield the greatest returns, even if it doesn’t feel like in it. I really don’t know anyone who has ever said, “I am so glad I am stuck.” This is what I have learned, I hope it speaks to you today. Remember who you are. What makes you great at what you do? Why are you the best Widget Maker on the planet? What do your customers come to you again and again? When things aren’t working, we tend to think that means we are somehow flawed and no longer worthy or valuable. It’s not true. These times are actually a stripping away of everything we are not so that we can show ourselves (and then the world) who we are. When you are stuck ask yourself, "Why am I a great…?" or "What makes me the best…?" Surround yourself with people who speak truth to you. You don’t need people to give you unnecessary compliments but you do want people around you that can recognize what you do well and feed it back to you. You also want people who call you out when you are not acting like yourself. If you feel like you are surrounded by people that do not see your light, then find even one person who recognizes your contribution. If you think this is easier said than done then check out Victoria Whitfield’s Visionary Shaman Circle, a business networking group, a church or a volunteer organization. When you are stuck find somewhere where you can be appreciated for your contribution. Be real. It takes a lot of effort to, ‘Hold it all together”. I know how it feels. You don’t want people to know how messy your office is, how overwhelmed you feel, how many times you have tried and not reached your goals. More often than not, the people who you are trying so hard to impress are struggling equally with something they don’t want you to know either. But imagine if you were to honestly state what is working and what is not. You could actually receive support and move forward. When you are stuck share honestly your situation in order that the solution may be revealed. This is what Momentum is all about. It’s about asking questions, gaining clarity, being focused on the right activities, receiving the support you need to move forward. It’s about growth, success, truth and taking action. It’s about small movements to greater results. If you are not there yet, it’s ok. Let’s find a time to talk: https://sappari.as.me/StrategyCall |
AuthorHi! I'm Nettie Owens, Certified Professional Organizer in Chronic Disorganization and Productivity Consultant. Archives
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