[00:00:04] Speaker A: If you want more time, money, freedom, and have a business that's not reliant on you, then you're in the right place. Each week, Mark Creedon, along with some of the very best business minds in the world, will take you through simple, practical steps you can take to create the business you always wanted. From his own practical experience, Mark will show you how to work less, make more, and get the business you always wanted, the one that you deserve.
Now, here's your host, one of Australia's most sought after business coaches, Mark Creedon.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: Hi, welcome to the latest edition of the Mastermind for Business podcast. I'm Mark Creed, new host. I was running one of our ask Mark anything sessions the other day, and which, by the way, if you'd like to jump on, there's another one coming up on the 14 March. If you are listening to this podcast and you'd like to ask me anything, then you can do that by we'll tell you later. I'll tell you later in the show how you achieve that. Anyway, I was running one of those ask Mark anything sessions and somebody jumped on and said, I've got one question for you, Mark, and that is, what is one thing that I can do in my business in the next seven days that's going to have a positive impact on me, on my life and on the business? So if you are in your own small business professional practice and you'd like to know what one thing is that you can do, then stick around because I'm going to show you in just a couple of minutes what that one thing is, one very clear thing that you can do.
So we were talking in the ask Mark anything sessions, and I'll tell you how you can jump onto the next one of those. And I had this guy said to me, all right, Mark, I've got one question for you. What is one thing that I can do in the business in the next seven days? Now, I had no idea as to, I knew what his business was. It was a service business. I knew what size it was. Had about eight, nine employees. But I didn't know what was going on for him, so I didn't know what his pain point was. I didn't know what was frustrating him at that point in time. But he had said to me, he sort of quoted back to me, mark, you often say that at any given time there's probably 100 things you could be working on, but really only three to five things that you should be. What I want to know is, without knowing anything about my business, without knowing anything about what my pain points are, where my struggle points are, what's frustrating me, what's going on. Without knowing any of that, are you able to give me advice on one thing that I could do? And I absolutely can. I'm going to share that advice with you right now.
I learned this at a business breakfast for a not for profit organization. I always remember the CEO saying, not for profit doesn't mean for loss.
And it's the concept of the stop start, keep going.
And so my answer back in this ask mark anything session was pretty simple. Yep. I reckon there's one thing you can do. That one thing is to regroup.
That one thing is to regroup. So as you are listening to this now, I want you to think about this. What would it be like if right now, today you just stopped, you took 15 to 20 minutes out of your day and you grabbed a pen and paper. And those of you who listen to the podcast regularly know my love for pen and paper. And there's a whole bunch of neuropsychology around why it is that I love pen and paper, but grab pen and paper, or your I pen, your stylus and your iPad, or your tablet, whatever it might be, grab your pen and paper, turn off the phone, turn off your computer, turn off your emails, lock the door and just stop and regroup.
So the first thing, the big overarching thing, is to regroup. How you regroup is to have these three thought processes.
What is one thing that's going on that you are doing in your business right now that you really should stop doing?
Are you serving the wrong people? Are you keeping the wrong people employed? Are you running systems that you shouldn't be doing? Are you selling products that you really shouldn't be? You're offering a service that you know you shouldn't be because it's not profitable, because it's not ideal, because it's too hard, because the return is too low, because whatever reason it may be, if you were to stop now and think to yourself, you know what? I reckon there's one thing in my business I really should stop doing. And I would venture to put a little challenge out there and say that for everybody listening to the podcast right now, there is probably one thing you should stop doing. What is it for you? What's that one thing? And if you keep this in mind, that you could do this process on a regular basis. So that whilst I'm only talking about one thing, we often talk about the concept of incremental change. What we want to do is bring about change slowly but surely. It's a gridarius firm as Victoria, right? Slow and steady wins the race. So what we want to do is gradually but firmly change things in order to be victorious. So what's one thing that's happening in your business? Maybe you're doing it. Maybe your team's doing it. You know what? Maybe your clients are doing it. I'm accepting late payments. Why are you doing that?
My clients always pay me late. Why? Stop it. Stop it. Set new boundaries.
So I want you to think about what is one thing that you should stop doing? And then with your pen and paper, I want you to write a dot point plan for what you're going to do to stop it.
So let's use that example of I'm going to stop accepting late payments. All right? So now when I send my accounts out, I'm going to make it really clear what the terms and conditions are. When we bring new clients in, I'm going to pre frame with them what the terms and conditions are. I'm not going to accept this anymore. I am going to stop doing that in my business. Step number one, stop. Step number two is what's something that you should start doing? What's one thing in all of those lists of things, pull out your journals, your notebooks, your capture cards, your postit notes, or whatever it is that you've got pinned around your corkboard, what's one thing that you think to yourself, I've been meaning to do this.
I know if I made this change, I know if I moved this person from position a to position b, I know that if I added this product, I know that if I just spent an hour a week on my social media marketing or if I booked an appointment with my marketing manager or whatever it might be, but for each and every one of us, there is one thing that you know that you should start doing in your business. And what I want you to think about is I want you to identify what that one thing is. Don't agonize over it. Honestly, this is a situation where sit down, grab your pen and paper, work through your stop the thing you're going to stop doing. Next, write down, start and just pick one. Is it the right one? I don't know. But you know what? It's better than not starting anything at all.
If you are a procrastinator, and we all have some procrastinator in us, if you are a procrastinator, don't overthink it. Don't wait for the perfect thing oh, should I do this or should I do that? Which is going to be the better outcome? Stop it.
Maybe that's the thing you need to stop doing.
Just pick one. What is one thing that you can start?
What is one thing that you can start now and then that you can implement within the next seven days? So what you want to do is write down what that one thing is and then same again, make a dot point step by step process of what do you need to do to implement it. We need to think about what do we need to do, who do we need to get involved, how's it going to happen? And then set a time frame and an action plan for it. I really want the time frame to be seven days, though. I don't want this to be a three month project or a three year project or heaven forbid. I want it to be a seven day project. Come up with it today, implement it in seven days.
The follow through is King the fortune guruk Ashley taught me that the fortune is in the follow through. The quicker you can follow through, the more likely you're going to get the result.
So think about it. What's that one thing? What's that one thing that you've been thinking you need to do in your business and that you now can, and you can get it done and implement it in the next seven days?
Now the third step is to think about what's something that I'm doing, but I'm not necessarily doing it consistently and yet it's a really good thing and I know I should. Is it maybe calling new clients, having random contacts with your clients? Is it having review sessions with your team? Is it reviewing your service offering, reviewing your products, reviewing your pricing, changing your pricing? I don't know. What is it? What's something that you're doing that, you know, brings about good results?
You know, it brings good results. It's a really positive aspect of your business. So we've kind of gone from the negative, which is the stop, to the super positive, which is the start, and now this is the stuff in the middle. This is all the meaty stuff. What's something that you are currently doing in your business that you know has a positive impact on your business but you're just not doing it consistently? That's the one thing you need to keep doing. And what I want you to do, again, grab your pen and paper and then just write down what's that one thing I need to keep doing?
And then what is the step by step process that I need in order to bring it to fruition. In other words, to bring the consistency to fruition. Do I need to put it in my calendar? Do I need to delegate it to somebody? Maybe you need to give it to somebody else to do. Maybe the reason you're not doing consistently is because it's not in your genius, it's not the highest and best use of your time. So what's the one thing that you really need to keep doing? If you think about this, we've now taken one step, which is the regroup step.
We've regrouped, we've closed the door, we've turned off the phone, we've stopped the interruptions and we've thought about how can we regroup now?
We've gone down into the next three steps. What's one thing we need to stop doing and how are we going to stop it in the next seven days, by the way, who's going to hold you accountable in relation to the stopping? Who's going to hold you accountable? Who's going to make sure that you are actually stopping it? One thing you're going to stop one. One thing you're going to start. What's one thing? One thing that's been on your list, it's been on your little wish list, on your bucket list, on that list of ideas that you've got floating around either in your head or in your book or on your cork board or on your whiteboard or wherever it may be, what's one thing? And then start it. Have a plan in place to have it started implemented up and running in the next seven days. And then the third thing is, what's something that you do really well that you really need to keep doing but you're just not doing it consistently? Fix the consistency and apply that one thing. You got to stop a start and a keep and you are going to move beyond that regroup phase and you're going to see some real change happening in your business. Now, there's a couple of things that you can do with those three steps. You can do those on a monthly basis. Imagine that you did that on a monthly basis for ten months of the year. You've stopped ten bad habits, started ten really cool things and created consistency for ten things in your business. It's a very, very cool exercise. Do it every two months, do it every six months, do it every year, but do it, regroup, stop, start, keep going. The other thing you can do is you can then pass that down to your senior team. So actually you can pass down to all of your team run around your team and whoever they may be. Remember, we talk in mastermind, our team is not just necessarily the people that work with us in the office, but it's the people who kind of work alongside us, whether they're our business partners or our contractors or outsourcers or whoever it may be, have share this exercise with them. Get your team on board, guys. Have a look at what it is that you do. What's one thing that you could stop, one thing you could start, and one thing that you could keep doing?
Hopefully that gives you a little bit of momentum and impetus to get cracking. All right, I told you it was going to be a short session this week because the Rona is taking my voice and I'm just about out of vocal cords. Before we wrap up, though, I just want to quickly remind you on the 14 March we've got an ask mark anything session. We'll be doing a number of these sessions across the year, so if you like listening to this podcast, you might get some pretty good advice out of this bloke and you would like to jump on a Zoom session and ask me anything completely free of charge. It's just part of my mission to help more business owners spend more time in their life and less time in their business. 14 March if you'd like to be a part of it, email Caroline C. Credon Credon at Metropole M-E-T-R-O-P-O-L e.com au
[email protected] au. You'll have to be quick and Caroline will fix you up with all the details. And if you are listening to this after the 14th, email Caroline anyway and she'll put you on the waitlist for the next ask mark anything session where we get to be a little bit two way in this rather than me talking and you listening. I'll listen. We can see each other, we can talk to each other, and it's a good way for me to give you some help in your business. These are the sort of things we help our clients within our mastermind program all the time. Metropolmastermind.com au love to talk to you until we chat next week when hopefully I've got my voice back to chatting to you there.
[00:15:28] Speaker A: Thanks for joining us on the Mastermind for Business podcast. If you're ready to have a business that you're not a slave to, check out Metropolemastermind.com au or have a chat with Mark and the team at all the w's. See what's possible today.
