As we move from one season to another, we have the opportunity to undertake a “clean sweep”. Having lived and worked in the tropics for the first 15 years of my career, and now having been back in Canada for 15 years where the seasons are so distinct, I have come to (re) appreciate, how significant seasonal change provides an impetus for change and review. Have you done a clean sweep of your surroundings lately? Is it time to clean up your files? Your desk? Your contacts? There is a lot written on clearing and creating order – from the work and writing of Marie Kondo to Gretchen Rubin’s new book – Outer Order, Inner Calm. Last fall, I offered up a weekly planning tool (separate from the Coaching Business Builder and PlanDoTrack) called the Clean Sweep. Structured as a five-day planning tool, it also offers some prompts and reminders for business owners or virtual workers to take action on some of the more overlooked aspects of our work. For example, outreach and building of relationships. Taking these small steps continue to “add up”. Download a copy of the Weekly Sweep for your business document here. Where could you benefit from a "clean sweep"? Best wishes, Jennifer Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Check out the Weekly Planning Hack Facebook Live each Wednesday 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) Want to offer this body of work to your own clients? Join us in July for the inaugural PlanDoTrack Facilitator Training program, kicking off on July 9th.
0 Comments
![]() Week 23 Focus – What’s your message? Focus Question: What are you doing to create a message that is clear, crisp and consistent? What is important to consider? Description We have spent the last few weeks exploring different marketing approaches which will have been of interest to virtual professionals and entrepreneurs. For those that are leaders and professionals internal to an organization, a reminder that positioning your message internally, and building a business case, draws on many of the marketing principles we have been talking about. This week’s focus on “What’s your message?” is important to all virtual professionals and business owners. Being clear with your message, and its delivery is key to business success. Across the span of a week we are constantly communicating. From formal presentations to meetings with your boss, to connecting with peers, communication happens formally and informally throughout the day. This week’s focus is what’s your message? We’ll explore it in the light of making a presentation. It’s often said that you have 7 seconds to make a good first impression. What’s going to capture the attention of others with your message? Consider the following:
Activity Think about an upcoming presentation or message you need to deliver. It could the announcement of a new program or offering. Work through these questions: What’s your core message? What is it that you really want to say? Distill it down to 3 bullet points. What’s your intent? What do you want others to do as a result of the presentation? Key to creating memorable messages is that it is:
Connection to the Workbook and Planner Using the content planners and brainstorming space found towards the back of the planner can support you with your messaging. Also consider referring to some of the tips in Section 3 (Marketing and Promotion Essentials) as well. 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) ![]() Week 22 Focus: Marketing–Creating Continuous Content Focus Question: If you were to create content around different themes, what would those themes be? Description Marketing can take a variety of different forms. It can be useful to look at it from different time frames including:
Ongoing marketing is critical for business success. It’s easy to run out of ideas. This week’s Tip gets you thinking about Creating Continuous Content. Whether it’s Facebook or a blog, Instagram or Pinterest, here are some of the varying ways to get your ideas out: 1. Create a series – i.e. 31-day series around the topics of your choice; 2. Create an A- Z series (take a look at my A-Z for Virtual and Remote Team Members); 3. Do an infographic about the different steps in the process; 4. Do a 60 second sound byte around the most important topics in your area; 5. Do an in-depth step by step guide with a series of different posts for the different areas of focus; 6. Create a Top 10 list of books 7. Prepare a top 10 list of videos to check out 8. Make a list of 10 Websites to check out 9. Create a go-to guide 10. Produce a user’s guide to (insert main questions or how tos) 11. Create a Top 10 trends from the year 12. Make a list of Ted talks to explore on the topic What will help to make your message more strategic and targeted? What is of interest to your clients? What will help to focus the conversation for people? Activity Get in to action around one of your key priorities in marketing. Use the list of 10 series above to create a series of marketing tasks. You might:
Who can help you expand your marketing reach? We talked about use of the Top 20 list in an earlier marketing post. Who could help you expand your message? Connection to the Workbook and Planner Section 3 is dedicated to Marketing Essentials. What are your key priorities around marketing? Use the One Page Plan (page 275/277) to create a focused plan around marketing Use the trackers to track the outcome or impact of this activity – note visits, likes, what gets traction. specific activities or results for each of the activities. 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 Taking time to stop and pause is critical for success. "Big thinking precedes great achievement."— Wilferd Peterson As I wrote in the 19 for 2019, review is critical for success. Part of productivity is about building in pause points to reflect and think about what’s working and what’s not. Building in time for regular review helps to:
What are the blocks of time you want to set aside for review? Best wishes, Jennifer 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) ![]() Week 21 Focus – Challenges with Marketing Focus Question: What’s the challenge for you around marketing right now? Story There are many challenges with marketing including:
Experimentation and trying things out in small cycles helps us get important data on what people like and don’t like, value and don’t value. Things in the marketing space change quickly so not relying on just one channel can be of use. Being able to repurpose material is key for ongoing marketing efforts. To create new content each day can be exhausting, and repurposing allows us to leverage what we have already created. Activity While there are many challenges we face in marketing, there is always an opportunity to repurpose the material we have already created. This week identify key pieces of content you have created. Think about how it could be repurposed. For example, the next time to you create a blog post, consider what it could look like if you were to repurpose it three times, not just once. So, consider this… Original Version: A blog post on five things to do before the end of the year with your team. #1 - Repurposing – Create it as a video – 5 Things to Do Before Year End with Your Team #2 – Repurpose - Create an audio post/podcast around it #3 – Combination: Combine this with other posts to make a larger article or download from your website. #4 – Magnify: Share the link with other content providers, so they can share it with their readers/followers. Connection to the Workbook and Planner Refer to the tools in the Content Planner Section. Take particular note of: 1. Tool – Content Tracker – For each piece of content, use the tracker to note how many views and reads it has gotten in each of the different locations. 2. Tool – Don’t Just Do it Once! Scaling Content (page 275 of PlanDoTrack and page 271 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 Ongoing learning is part of business success today. We each have areas in which we will want to learn and grow in. What are those areas? As you consider your own learning pathways, what is going to help you stretch? What will help you grow? There are many ways we can be learning and growing including:
Best wishes, Jennifer 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) We operate as part of a larger web. As Buddha wrote: “As a net is made up of a series of ties, so everything in this world is connected by a series of ties. If anyone thinks that the mesh of the net is an independent isolated thing he is mistaken. It is called a net because it is made up of a series of interconnected meshes, and each mesh has its place and responsibility in relation to other meshes.”
Even as solopreneurs or someone working remote we are a bigger part of a web. Being clear on how we connect and interrelate can help us be more focused and intentional in our messaging, marketing and communication. This week take some time to draw out your web of relationships.
Have a great Wednesday! Jennifer 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) In a virtual team it is critical to build capacity given that people are working more autonomously. Time spent equipping team members with the tools to influence, be proactive and also communicate is key. This week I wanted to zoom into three skills related to coaching that may be valuable to your virtual or remote team. These skills are:
I often am amazed at how many organizations have not invested time, or resources, into helping team members work around goals. While there are many frameworks including:
I usually encourage organizations to consider what’s going to work best for you. A majority of clients I work with are aware of SMART Goals, which we morph into SMART – E Goals, E meaning Exciting. If our goals are not exciting or motivating, it’s unlikely that we will get them done. As a quick refresher – SMART goals are goals that are: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timebound. What is important to note around GOALS right now? 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 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 16 Focus – Project Management 101 Focus Question: What are the projects you are involved in with your business and work right now? Description As small business owners we will often be managing a series of projects. Not all of us are trained in the areas of project management. Quality of a project is determined by a balance of Time, Cost and Scope. If one of these qualities change, there will be an impact on the other two elements. Projects may be as big as a book creation which is scaled over several months or years, or as discrete as writing a newsletter.
Story - Project Management 101 As a former project manager my world was always framed in program starts, mid-points and end of project reviews. Spending time on end-of-project review helps us reduce learning and mistakes in a second iteration. Regardless of how big or small the project is it can be useful to talk stop and pause and see how things are going. Some of the questions at the midpoint could include:
If time changes, the budget or scope needs to change. For example, if you had originally ear-marked 6 months to have a book published, and all of a sudden it needs to be ready in the next 3 months, you will need to explore: Adding more resources – paying for rush service, or bringing other people on board to help OR perhaps you need to make the book shorter, so instead of having it be 20 chapters, publishing it as a 10 chapter book this year, and aiming to publish Part 2 of the book as a follow-up next year. There is a whole slew of project management tools available. Tools to explore include Asana, Trello, or other apps. Activity Consider a project you are working on. What is the time, scope and budget? Break things down into project tasks and activities. What are the major milestones? What needs to be done by when? What do you want to do each month or week of the project? Map it out/create a timeline. Who are the key stakeholders you need to engage with and keep updated? Connection to the Workbook and Planner Every month use Monthly Daily Tracker to capture key learning from projects. Noting data (milestones, completions, meetings) may help with things like Time Estimation, Process mapping or other learning for this project or others. As you complete your Monthly To-Dos each month note any projects, tasks and activities you are working on. There is space in each of the Monthly One-Page Planners to note projects you are starting, continuing and ending. You can also adapt the Content Trackers or monthly trackers to track the different stages of the projects you are engaging with. 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 It’s likely that your virtual and remote team may not get the support they need. As I often write “Out of sight should not equal out of mind”. In a virtual and remote team, it can be very useful to provide peer support across the team. This might include things such as: Mentoring pairs – If there are certain skills people want to develop, is there a way to create mentoring pairs across the team? Peer partners - A valuable activity can be assigning peer partners across the team on an annual basis. Whether formal, or informal, having a partner people can meet with and ask questions to, can be valuable in sharing learning. Job shadowing – Another interesting, and valuable, experience can be job shadowing virtually, where a more junior person is paired with a more senior team member. They may shadow meetings virtually and learn more about the behind the scenes work experience by co-working virtually. Consider how you might create a “take me to work day”. Formal coffee break/meal sharing time – We learn a lot from each other informally. What are the informal pauses you can create for the team? This might involve coffee breaks where people can drop in for a chat once a week or every few weeks, or a lunch time potluck. Co-working experiences - Where people bring projects they are working on and work together real time on a virtual platform like zoom, checking in at the top of each hour and working for several hour bursts. A session held like this once a month or more frequently can be incredibly valuable in terms of “getting things done” and also supporting learning across the team. What are the different ways you can build in more virtual connection time across the team? This is critical for building your team culture. Wishing you the 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 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 |
AuthorJennifer Britton is the blogger behind the popular Teams365 blog, a daily,blog for team leaders and members since 2014. Her latest publication is the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner. Pick up a copy at Amazon. Pick Up a CopyUpcoming Programs
Join us for the 21 For 21 Virtual Co-working Sprints - $21 US. Want to access the recordings and bonus worksheets? Join us at the Booster Pack $79 US early bird rate. Sign up at 21for21 Virtual Co-working - STAND OUT VIRTUALLY! Stand Out Virtually - Incubator - Running an online, virtual or digital business and want to get the word out to organizations? Join us for the 8 week Stand Out Virtually Incubator. Next group starts April 2021. Build out your brand, offers and proposals. Virtual Facilitation Essentials (8.5 CCEs)- Expand your toolkit for better remote and virtual conversations. This is a virtual train-the-trainer - 5 weeks: Fall 2021 programming starts in October $495 US Learn more and register. Coaches! Register for the 60 Day Coaching Business Builder Accelerator. Join us for 60 Days support and ACTION for coaches wanting to grow their businesses. On-Demand Course. PlanDoTrack Facilitator Training Program (24 CCEs) - Starts again in October. Contact Jennifer to discuss. Month-End/Quarterly Planning Session: Thursday September 30th - 8 -9 am ET Archives
January 2021
Categories
All
|