​We are exploring five of the different productivity keys captured in PlanDoTrack. The second one is around experimentation. With today’s business context characterized by change and disruption, experimentation can be an important strategy in product development, service delivery and also learning.

Just as in an experimental mindset, we can approach some of our project work from a trial and error standpoint. While these may not be all projects, some areas may be earmarked for innovation and experimentation.

Adopting an experimental mindset can lead to an ongoing cycle of trial, results, learning, iteration, adjustment.

Some of the areas you might consider experimenting with could include:

• Meetings: (times, flows and processes) – Given that many organizations realize that current meeting processes are not the most effective or efficient, might this be an area to experiment with different approaches and strategies? For example, facilitation at team meetings – Rather than the same person leading each team meeting might you rotate that?
• Program Delivery – Instead of offering everything in an in-person format, might you experiment with offering something as a virtual or online offering?
• Content Delivery – Instead of always writing something, might you experiment with something that is delivered via audio or video?

What are the changes you are noting in your industry? Where might experimentation be of service?

For more on this topic check out:

• Michael Thompsons article – 5 Benefits of Adopting an Experimental Mindset
• Alex Cuthbert’s article on Embracing and Experimental Mindset

What does an experimental mindset mean for you as a team or business? What can it look like?

Best,
​Jennifer

​​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019), Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon.

Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
​Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326

Check out these Instagram accounts @coachingbizbuilder & @remotepathways!
Check out upcoming programs on our calendar!

Are you a remote professional? Listen into the Remote Pathways Podcast on your favorite podcast player!

This week’s Weekly Planning Hack gets to you think about how you can make things more visual. Visuals are processed by the brain faster. What’s important about this?
Visuals can help to:

• Communicate messages faster
• Keep it memorable
• Synthesize many ideas in one image                              
• Visuals can take a number of forms – from illustrations, to icons, to photographs

What are the things you want to keep top of mind this week? How might visuals support you in this?

Consider these ideas:

• Illustration
• ICONS for feedback
• Photographs
• Conversation Sparker

​Enjoy being creative!
​Jennifer

Week 50 Focus — Experimentation
Focus Question: Where might experiments in your work or business support you?

Description
In the three books I have published since 2017, I make reference to the need for experimentation in today’s VUCA – Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous – world.

Given that things are changing so quickly, trying things out to see how, and if, they work can be an important part of the business process.
It may be the things we are not sure of, that give us the greatest impact. Part of experimentation means that are we willing to try something out, and another part of experimentation is tracking our results.

In my business, one of the longest experiments I have undertaking is my writing at the Teams365 blog. Born on January 1st, 2014, the blog was an experiment to initially see how I could enhance the readership and visibility of my work and brand. What initially was going to be a one-year experiment in posting blog posts has grown into a six-year experiment (2014-2019) and an important part of my creative process. My regular writing under the Teams365 banner has become an important part of content creation for my client programs, and an important vehicle for me to find and magnify my voice in the areas of leadership, teamwork, remote work and virtual conversations. It’s become a really important repository as well for my work and intellectual property.

After six years of blogging, I would say that this has been a success. Website visits have moved from 80 page reads a week to more than 10, 000 a week.
What experiments have you undertaking? What ones do you want to plan for the new year?

Activity
Think about your key goals right now. What are the things which could benefit from more experimentation?

What is your hypothesis, or what do you think is going to happen?
​
What do you want to track so that you know your experiments are working? What are the short-term metrics? Long-term?

Connection to the Workbook and Planner
Consider using one of the Monthly Daily Trackers to track the results of your experiments.

Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Plan, Do and Track here.

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Plan, Do and Track

Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019),  Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon
Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326
Check out the new 19 Productivity Tips on-demand program. Explore this video based program at  your own pace, and join Jennifer for bi-weekly calls as part of your course.
Follow the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series on Instagram
​

The weekly planning hacks are geared to get you into immediate action. The tagline for PlanDoTrack, and Coaching Business Builder is “Daily Steps + Consistent Action = Momentum”. Things are easier to get done when in process. Think about how much energy it takes to get things going.
​
Part of this approach is to plan first. To take bigger tasks and break them down into manageable parts. For example, let’s say as a business owner you want to write a book. Planning can be key to success with a project like this.

1. First, what will the book be about? Spend time brainstorming all your ideas. Capture these in a MindMap or a set of index cards.
2. Next, identify what different areas you have. These may form your chapters.
3. From there, note the chapters, and if it’s useful, make an outline of each chapter. I will often write these on their own index card, or on a new piece of paper which I then place into a new binder with sections.
4. Looking at the number of chapters can help me then identify other resources I may need (i.e. research, illustrations etc). It can also help to start earmarking time windows. Perhaps I dedicate a week for writing each initial draft, OR as I do during NANOWRIMO’s Writing Months of November, a day or two for pumping out the first draft.

While “pumping out the first draft” may sound overwhelming, remember, you’ve got items in your MindMap and/or outline to start writing from. As we know in writing, it’s often through the process that the words come!

As you consider current projects you want to undertake, what does PLANNING first mean for you? What can it look like?

Best,
​Jennifer

​Week 35 Focus – Presentations 101
Focus Question: What is important to communicate in your next presentation? How do you want to capture people’s attention?

Description
As a solopreneur, it's likely that you'll be giving presentations to a wide variety of audiences from webinars, to lunch and learns, to speaking at conferences. Section 3 goes into many different ways you can be thinking about creating content and positioning presentation.
 
Fear of public speaking is usually listed as a Top 10 fear of adults. So how can we prepare to give a WOW presentation?
 
As a starting point, take 5 minutes to brainstorm. Make a list of everything you could possibly talk about. What are the topics that your clients or customers would really appreciate?
 
As someone who's been involved in presentation skills training for almost 2 decades, here are a couple of key things to keep in mind:

• Speak in bullet points – reinforce what the main points are at the start, middle and end.
• What would you like people to take away from the presentation?
• Connect people early on to what’s important about the topic for them. We often call this the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?)

 
Research/Story
One of the biggest pitfalls you can experience as a presenter is that no one wants to participate.
 
 Tips to get participation happening:

1. Be clear with process let people know what process will unfold. Describe what they can expect to take away from the session (3 bullet points). Return to this throughout your session.
2. Connect them with their WIIFM – What’s In It For Me? Connect people early in your presentation to how this topic has relevance to them. You might do this by asking the question – What’s important about this topic to you right now?  OR Who has a story that they can share? Consider how you will connect people early on.
3. Have a variety of strategies to engage people on a regular basis. From the litmus test of incorporating a pace change 7-10 minutes, to a more frequent pace change virtually, we want to keep things moving and involve the audience. Virtually, this can range from breakouts to annotation to polls. Get people involved in the presentation. Bring in their stories and voice.

 
Activity
Consider an upcoming presentation:

• What is important to note about the process? What is the purpose? What is the presentation all about?  What do you hope people will take away?
• What will you do to connect people to their WIIFM?
• What are the strategies you will use to connect people to their WIIFM? When?

 
Connection to the Workbook and Planner
Refer to Section 3 of the Coaching Business Builder and the section specific to presentations. Take a look at the textbox on presentations which you will find on page 77 of the Coaching Business Builder.

Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Plan, Do and Track here.

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Plan, Do and Track

​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019),  Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon
Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326
Check out the new 19 Productivity Tips on-demand program. Explore this video based program at  your own pace, and join Jennifer for bi-weekly calls as part of your course.
Follow the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series on Instagram

Scattered throughout some of the 28 different planning tools of PlanDoTrack and the Coaching Business builder is the question “what will wild success look like?”. I love asking this question to people I am coaching as it gets us to think about WHAT IS POSSIBLE, often without a lot of censure.
​
There are several ways to reword this question:

• What’s possible?
• If you were to wave a magic wand, what would be the end result?
• If there were no limits, what would you do?

​The benefit of these questions is that it:

• Helps us look larger and bigger
• It may shift some of the limiting beliefs and inner critical voices we face around that goal and the related change we need to take in order to make it happen
• Helps us stretch
• Supports more ideas and possibilities

As you go about your planning for the next month or quarter, what can wild success look like for you around your most important goals?

Best wishes,
Jennifer 

Week 31 Focus – Marketing Review
Focus Question: What needs a tweak with your 5 P’s?
​
Description
Last week we started to take stock of where you are around dialogue and marketing of your work. Whether you are internal, or external, we are regularly marketing ourselves. Internally we may be focused on personal branding and/or creating and positioning a business case for our work. Externally, we want to offer the best item of value to our customers or clients.
 
When we explore the topic of marketing and program/product design, we often talk about the Marketing Mix or the 5 P’s– Product, Placement, Promotion, People, and Price. Knowing our 5 P’s and reviewing it regularly ensures that we are on target with what our customers or stakeholders want.
 
This week, as review, note what’s worked, and what hasn’t recently in the five different areas of the 5 P’s.

Activity
Use associated worksheet to note what’s worked and what hasn’t around the 5 P’s around your product or service offering.
Undertake a review of your metrics. This could include numbers of subscribers, engagement, posts, views, follows, comments etc. What do you notice?
What’s working around your marketing right now?
Consider the business which has come in, over last six months. What sources led to it? What is in the pipeline? What has shaped this?
 
Do an audit on your content. Consider:

• Content to be created
• Content which is being consumed
• Content which could be repurposed
• Syndication options – WHERE and THROUGH WHOM could you expand your web of followers and readership?

Connection to the Workbook and Planner
Part of doing a marketing review is reviewing metrics and trends. Take a look back at your notes. What do you notice? You may want to:

• Review the Annual planners and quarterly tools
• Review the monthly daily planners – what do you notice?
• Use the Content Creation Tools in the Coaching Business Builder or PlanDoTrack to Track and note ideas you want to action
• Use brainstorm list to capture these ideas around marketing

 
 Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Plan, Do and Track here.

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Plan, Do and Track

​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019),  Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon
Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326
Check out the new 19 Productivity Tips on-demand program. Explore this video based program at  your own pace, and join Jennifer for bi-weekly calls as part of your course.
Follow the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series on Instagram

Week 29 Focus – LinkedIn
Focus Question: What does your LinkedIn profile portray?

Story
LinkedIn is an important social media vehicle especially for those who are looking at working in organizations and corporations. Many HR professionals or leaders may go to LinkedIn to check out the resources.
 
What are the things you want to include on LinkedIn? You might consider:

• Posting articles or a new resource through LinkedIn Pulse
• Sharing a photo of you at work with clients (with permission of course!)
• Share an update regarding a recent award or other
• Sharing a press release
• Post in a group and keep the conversation going

​Activity
Review and update your Linked In profile. What does it showcase? What needs updating?

• Who are you connected to?
• What are the things you want to post on LinkedIn?
• How much time do you want to dedicate to it?
• What traffic do you get around what you have listed? Note these in your tracker.

Using the following chart make a list of engagement points:

Connection to the Workbook and Planner
Use any of the content scheduling tools to plan for and track your LinkedIn focus.
 
Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Plan, Do and Track here.

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Plan, Do and Track

​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019),  Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon
Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326
Follow the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series on Instagram

Week 28 Focus – Creating Your Visual Story - Instagram
Focus Question: What picture do you want to paint about your work and focus?

Description
Whether you are creating your own personal brand, or building that of your business, creating a visual story of your journey and offerings adds another important layer in communicating who you are. Instagram is currently the fastest growing social network, estimated with more than 1 Billion users. 


Story
There is no one right way to use Instagram and an increasing number of professionals and businesses are setting up accounts. Like any social media platform, you may want to develop a strategy and/or series of posts. There are many different ways to use Instagram, including creating a series of posts to:

• Illustrate what you do
• Demonstrate your work and focus
• Share testimonials about your work
• Bring your work to life
• Share quotes about topics you work around
• Build community with others who are interested in, and/or active in the areas
• Host a 30-day challenge where every day people are posting a different picture based on the prompts you provide
• Follow a 30-day challenge where you post something around the daily prompts set

 
During 2019 I am hosting a monthly series called the 1 Biz Step a Day. You can check them out here.

Activity
Research Instagram. Note the hashtags which are being used in your area of focus.

• What is your strategy for Instagram?
• How can this be different than other platforms?
• What are the hashtags you want to include? IG is all about hashtags…
• How much time are you spending on it?
• What results and business has translated to it?
• What can you do to post regularly on this?

Find 10 other companies or profiles of people who are interested in the same things on Instagram. Connect with them. Follow and like their posts.

Connection to the Workbook and Planner
Use any of the content scheduling tools to plan for and track your Instagram focus.

Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Plan, Do and Track here.

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Plan, Do and Track

​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019),  Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon
Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326
Follow the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series on Instagram

Week 24 Focus – 9 Different Promotional Vehicles
Focus Question: How do you want to get the word out?

Description
Whether we are representing our organization, building our personal brand, or marketing a product or service, becoming savvier with different promotional vehicles can be of importance when building a business case, communicating it or marketing a product or service. Section 3 of both the Coaching Business Builder and Plan Do Track explores 9 different promotional vehicles.
​
Now that you have your message, what are the key ways you want to get your message out? Let’s explore the 9 Promotional Vehicles a little more in-depth.

Research/Story 

Activity
Identify 2-4 different strategies to help you “get the word out” this quarter. Complete the following chart:

Connection to the Workbook and Planner
Section 3 explores the different marketing approaches more in depth. Review these and the associated questions to gain further insight.

Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Plan, Do and Track here.

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Plan, Do and Track

​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Check out the Weekly Planning Hack Facebook Live each Wednesday or Thursday here. Be sure to like our page to be updated each week!
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)