Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, welcome to the Mastermind for Business podcast. This is the podcast designed for you, the small business owner who feels like you've got more like a job than a business. Right? You feel a bit like a slave, a bit trapped by your business. It's designed to help you spend more time in your life and less time in your business. And we know that one of the biggest interrupters in a day, one of the biggest time sappers in a day, is other people interrupting you. And in this episode, I'm going to give you some very simple tips, tricks, tools, and equip with you with everything that you need to stop people interrupting you. Let's get underway right now.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: 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.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: Hi. Welcome to the latest episode of the Mastermind for Business podcast. I'm Mark Creedon, your host. If you are in a service, business or professional practice and you find that you constantly get interrupted, you know, people come and knock on your door or ring you up and, you know, if you've got a minute, have you got a second? Can you help me with this? Can you help me with that? And you'd like to know how to stop that so that you can actually buy some time back for you. Congratulations, you're in the right place because today, in today's episode, that's exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to show you some really simple tips and tricks that will help you to deal with interruptions. All right, let's get underway. In our last episode, I spoke about how emails and phone calls can be one of the greatest interrupters. And we spoke about the importance of batching emails and phone calls, turning notifications off, stopping interruptions by setting expectations.
I'm going to show you three simple ways that you can do exactly the same thing, but with people interrupting you rather than your phone or an email.
I remember that I had this director that I was working with and she would come to me and she would say, oh, you know, Mark, have you got a minute? Mark, have you got a minute? I'd go, yeah, sure, sure, no worries. And, you know, 15 minutes later we'd still be we'd still be going round and round and we'd still be talking about about, you know, sometimes it wouldn't even be what the actual topic was.
Unbelievably frustrating, if that sounds familiar to you. Then again, you are absolutely in the right place. I'm going to show you some things that we can do. Imagine that somebody pops in to you, whether it's in your office or, you know, whether it's on your on site, whatever it is that you do, they come to you and see you, whether it's whether it's a staff member, a colleague, you know, an alliance partner, whatever it might be. Hey, Mark, have you got a minute? I've now established three alternatives, three alternative answers to that question, and then I'm going to show you the three really important questions that you need to ask once you do decide that you can spend some time with that person. Let's look at the threshold process first. So somebody's come in and asked you if you've got a minute, you've got three options. One, you can say no, the next one you can say is not now, or the third one is I do, but I only have like three minutes. I was talking to her just before about that, that director that I used to work with, and I found that when she would come to talk to me and she'd say, mark, do you have a minute? I got into the habit of saying, do you know what I do? I literally have two minutes. I'm sorry, but I've got all these other pressures, all these other things to do, and I literally have two minutes. Change the way. I'm going to show you what it did in just a minute. Let's look at the other two alternatives. 1st first one is to say no. Now, somebody said to you, hey, Mark, have you got a minute?
You're not just going to say no and turn around, but what you can do is you say no. Is there anybody else that can help you? No. Is there anybody else that can help you? I think that by doing that, you're showing them that you respect your time, but you also still have respect for them as well, right. Really important part in that process. So number one is to say no. Follow it up with is there anybody else that can help you? Is there anybody else that they that can ask? Now, if they say yes to that, awesome, great. What if they say no? Mark, I hear you say really simple. What you can then do is you can move to stage two or three. Stage two is I don't have a minute now, but I do at 03:00 or I do in a half an hour, or I do in 15 minutes or whatever it might be. So, sure, you're kicking the can down the road, but the point is that you're kicking the can down the road to a point in time which is more suitable to you. If you listened to our last episode, I made the point that your email inbox is really just somebody else's to do list. It's their priority list. And this is the same sort of thing. Somebody comes to you and says, hey, have you got a minute? Really? That's about, you know, what's important to them. I really need you right now. I need you to help me. You know, what if somebody, unless somebody's dying or the building's on fire, probably isn't that urgent. Again, maybe there's a deal that needs to be done. Maybe there's something that's really important needs to happen right now, and you can use some discretion around that. So, number one, no. Is there somebody else that you can ask? If the answer to that is yes, fantastic, off they go. If the answer is no, great, we can move to this. Okay, look, I don't have the time now. Can we chat at 02:00, 15 minutes, whatever it might be? Of course. That can be your initial go to. So you can run with no and then go through. If they say yes, somebody else, great. If they say no, there's nobody else. Then you can move to that. Well, you know, I've got time at a certain time. The third alternative is what I just mentioned before, and that is to say, do you know what I do? But I literally have three or four minutes, or I literally have whatever time it might be. Again, what you're doing is you're not being rude, you're valuing them by giving them your time, but you're also showing them that you're truly valuing your own time. And I think that's a vitally important component in this. People will start interrupting you less if they start valuing your time. You know, no one's ever going to value your time if you don't show them that you do. It's a little bit like somebody, you know, if somebody who I don't know, comes to me as a coach and says, oh, mark, can I just steal ten minutes of your time? And my answer is, no, you can't. No, you can't steal ten minutes. I will give you some of my time, but my time is valuable and people pay good money for my time. And so you have to show that you respect the time. You know, you can't walk around. I've had people come, oh, nobody respects my time. Guess what? Nobody respects your time because you haven't shown that you respect it. So that the third alternative is to go, listen, I do, but I've really only got five minutes, or I've only got two or three minutes. Let's just track back to that little story I spoke about with that director. What happened after that was that she would come to see me or she would ring me or now even send a text instead. And the text. So I got a text just the other day from her where she said, hey, it's me.
Do you have 30 seconds? I have one question to ask you now. That has come about by me simply managing that expectation and training that person, that my time is valuable, I'm giving of it. I want to help within certain boundaries. And so the more that you get into the habit of doing that, then the more likely they are, they're going to pick up and that's going to become a part of kind of their process as well. Your process is that you value your time. Their process will then become that. They value your time as well. So you'll find they'll come to you and they'll start to say, hey, do you have just two minutes? I promise that's all it will take. And then it's up to you. You might decide that you want to give them a bit more time than that. You might decide in the process of that process of that couple of minute conversation, you might say, do you know what? I think this actually deserves a longer chat. I was having a chat with Michael Yardney just last week and he said, I just want to run this idea past you. We need to talk about this. And I said to him, you know, mate, we do. I've only got three or four minutes because I've got a Zoom session to be on and that topic is too important and it deserves the respect that we should give it a substantial amount of time. Let's set aside 30 minutes, you know, tomorrow afternoon. It's not that pressing. Again, no one's going to die. It's not that pressing. It does need to be dealt with, but let's pay it the respect it deserves by allocating the right amount of time to it. So, quick recap. Three simple things you can do. One, you can say no. Two, you can say, not right now. Or three. You can say, I do, but I've got a really limited amount of time and it's really interesting because people will now come to me, who I've been working with for some time, and they'll go, oh, Mark, have you got two minutes? And I'll go, yep. Ready, set, go. Like it's become a little bit of a joke, and then at the end of it they'll go, oh, did I keep it in the two minutes? And, you know, you're not being a wanker about it. It's not, you know, I'm so important. It's just valuing your time. And do you know what? They actually appreciate it as well because they get to cut to the chase really quickly.
Let's talk about cutting to the chase, because I think this is the other tool that you can use. Let's imagine that somebody's come to you and said, do you have some time? You've gone. You've chosen the second option. Look, I do, and I know it's more than a two or three minute conversation, so let's set some time aside for it. We're going to set aside an hour tomorrow or half an hour tomorrow, whatever it might be. I think there's some really important questions that you can ask. I call these the all important coaching questions, and they are great coaching questions that you can use with the people around you right now. And here's what they are. The first question is, what's on your mind?
Tell me what's on your mind. Now, you can. You can say this in at the time that you set the meeting up, you can go, yeah, no worries. That's great. We'll set aside half an hour tomorrow. Tell me what's on your mind, or you can say, you know what? We're going to set this time up. And at the beginning of that meeting, you go, look, just before we get started, I just wanted to run a couple of questions past you, if I can, so that I can make sure that I can be of the most help to you. Tell me what's on your mind.
The next thing, once you've asked what's on your mind is to say, is there anything else? Is there anything else? Because, you know, what happens is you say to somebody, what's on your mind? I'm just having an issue with this account.
And in their mind they're going, it's this account and I really need to talk to Mark about this as well, but they just get caught up on what's in their frontal lobe. Right? What's urgent for them right now, and then they'll try and come back and then the whole thing gets extended or blown out. So instead, if you run with, hey, what's on your mind? Is there anything else? Is there anything else? The next question to ask them is, what's the outcome you're looking for?
What's the outcome you're looking for? And then the final question is, how can I help you? So if I was sitting down with somebody, okay, what's on your mind? Is there anything else at the end of this meeting? What's the outcome that you'd like to achieve? And what part do you see me playing in that? Oh, I don't want you to do anything, Mark. I just thought maybe you could give me some guidance on it or I'd really like you to, you know, to stand beside me on this, or I'd really like you to get involved in this project. I'd really like you to help me. So you're really delving into their, their situation. You're starting, you're starting to stand in their shoes. I guess this is like empathy 101 in lots of ways. You're starting to stand in their shoes, but you're starting to see it from their point of view. And the more you do that, two things are going to happen. You're going to be able to more quickly get to the crux of the issue and help them to solve it.
But I think more importantly, they're going to feel really heard. There was, I remember reading this article years ago about how it came out of the UK, how people preferred the company of dogs over other humans. And the reason was because dogs listen, right? They don't jump in. You know, most people, when they're communicating with you, and you can sometimes see it like they're listening, kind of, but they're so eager to think about what they're going to say next, they're just trying to get out that. Here's what I want to say next. Dogs don't do that. Good listeners don't do that. So if you follow that process of those simple questions, hey, what's on your mind? Number one. Number two, what else?
What else is on your mind? Or is there anything else? Number three, what's the outcome you'd like as a result of this meeting? And the number four, what role do you think I can play in this? What specifically would you like from me? You are really saying to the person, I really want to help you. I want to get in to what's going on for you. And I'm trying to understand it. Simple processes, quick recap on them, right? We're talking about interruption, people constantly interrupting you. You've got three options. Mark, do you have a minute? No, I don't. Is there someone else you can ask? Number two, I do, but not right now. I'm gonna, you know, I can do it at another time. Or number three, I do. I've got literally two minutes. Let's put the timer on. Let's make it happen then. If you are having a longer meeting, set the parameters of the meeting by asking those four simple coaching questions. The all important coaching questions, what's on your mind? Is there anything else? Or what else is there?
The question number three is, what's the outcome you'd like to get as a result of this meeting? And the number four, what specifically do you want from me? I follow those really simple steps, and what will happen is you will start to train the people around you and they will value your time. You will get so much more done. You will have uninterrupted time, but you'll also be empowering the people around you. And I reckon that's one of the greatest things that you can do for those around you, is actually empower them and help them to be the best version of themselves that they possibly can be. These are the sort of things that we teach in our mastermind program. If you know somebody who's in a small business, service business, or a professional practice would benefit from this sort of stuff, please share the podcast, review it, tell us what you like. If you've got a particular topic you'd like to hear, send us a message and let us know what it is and we'll see if we can run a podcast, a topic, or on it. If you'd like to double your revenue in half the time, in 18 months or less, that's what our mastermind for business program does. Mastermind Business accelerator metropolmastermind.com dot au dot that's it for today. This is Mark Creedon saying thanks for joining us. Looking forward to chatting with you in the next episode of the Mastermind for Business podcast.
[00:15:47] Speaker B: 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 dot au or have a chat with Mark and the team at all the ws. See what'spossible today.
