One of my favorite creative projects this year has been creating and co-hosting the Remote Pathways podcast with Michelle Mullins. If you haven't had a chance to check it out, I hope that you will listen in, either at our site, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Little did we know back last fall when we launched in November,  how may people would be working remote at this moment in time.

The Remote Pathways podcast explores the people, places and pathways to remote work. 

Here's a list of where our first 10 episodes have taken us (each one is about 15-20 minutes in length):

Episode 1 - Welcome and Introduction. Listen in here.
Episode 2 - Getting Started with Remote Work. Listen in here.
Episode 3 - Goals, The One Page Plan. Remote Pathways - Serial Entrepreneurs and Coaches. Listen in here.
Episode 4 - Vision, Metrics, Pathways: Project Management and Sales. Listen in here.
Episode 5 - SMART-E Goals, Creative Solopreneurs and Virtual Facilitators - Listen in Here.
Episode 6 - Systems, Mentors and Work From Anywhere. Listen in here.
Episode 7 - Collaboration (In the virtual space); Pathways - Voluntary Sector and Selling Your Start up. Listen in here.
Episode 8 - Special Guest - Jennifer Grote: Strengths, Wellness and Mojo Habits. Listen in here.
Episode 9-Remote. Virtual or Mobile?  Listen in here.
Episode 10 - Susan Combs and Mentoring in the Virtual Space. Listen in here.


Let us know what is your FAVORITE episode so far? What other topics would you like to hear? Use the comments listed below, or share with us over at the Remote Pathways Facebook page.

With best wishes,
Jennifer

​​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
You can now pick up a digital PDF copy of PlanDoTrack at our Potentials Realized Store.  Download and print at home!
Let's connect to discuss the virtual and remote support needs you have for your team or organization. Phone me at 416.996.8326 (M-F 8 - 4 pm ET)
Check out upcoming programs on our calendar - Virtual Events of course

The third productivity key which PlanDoTrack is grounded in is that of momentum. Creating momentum where things seemingly take on a life of their own, where strengths and/or velocity is leveraged, is key for business results. Momentum can involve consistent action as well as experimental action. It often will involve more risk than normal so that frequency of action is faster. Momentum may also involve incorporating strategic thinking so that you are looking further down the horizon to estimate where your actions will take you. Thinking about what happens when you ski or boat – we are usually looking across to the horizon for a point at which we are aiming for, to set the course over the medium or longer term, rather than immediately looking to the short course.
​
So, what can we do to create momentum? Here are some of the ideas I shared over at the Teams365 blog (my daily blog around leadership and teamwork issues).
 
“Some ideas to keep in mind with creating momentum around anything - whether it's getting more exercise, having more one on one time with your staff or eating better - are:

• Clear the clutter so what's important has space - What clutter could you remove to help this stand out more? I'm always amazed at how clearing clutter really can bring in some new energy.
• Schedule it - As Peter Drunker used to say, "What doesn't get scheduled, doesn't get done."
• Create an accountability partner - Who can you partner with to do the task, cheer you on or hold your feet to the fire?
• Remember the "why" behind why this is important
• Get started! Getting started is half the battle with most things. Whether it's getting into a routine of writing or clearing in box, get started. It can help to set a time for 15 minutes and see how far you get. You may find that that creates all the start you need, or it may be that it just the start.”

What are the things that are going to help you move forward as a business or team?
Check out this additional article which may be of interest by Glen Llopis. 

Enjoy!
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!

Collaboration and partnership help us magnify and scale our impact. At least as long as the partnership or collaboration works. Strong partnerships are grounded in a shared vision for the work  you are doing together, with clear roles, and usually shared agreements on how you want to work, address issues, and adjust as necessary.
While it may be appealing to come together and just wing it, taking some time to design your partnership can be of service to both of you, as well as the people you serve.
​
Before you go to launch a new program you co-facilitate, or partner with new team members, consider these questions:

1. What do I want out of this partnership? What is important for them?
2. What is our shared vision?
3. What is possible together, which we cannot do ourselves?
4. If we run into problems we will….We have agreed to raise tricky issues by…
5. Our commitment to this process is….

What other areas do you want to design together as you go to work together?
​
For more on this topic, download a digital chapter I wrote with Effective Group Coaching. You can download the digital chapter here. (use code 4411). There you will find 3 other digital chapters including one on marketing group and team coaching, and two separate case study elements. Be sure to download them today.

Enjoy the conversations!
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!​

We often talk about collaboration as something we aspire to, or want to do more of, but what are the things we need to ensure we DO In order to have successful collaboration. For today’s post, I am reaching back to a Teams365 blog post, a daily blog I have hosted since 2014.

As I shared in Teams365 Blog post #506 – Four Essential Ingredients for Collaboration:

1. Be clear on why you are collaborating. Collaborating for collaboration's sake does not equal success! Why is this collaboration occurring? What is possible due to the fusion of your skills and abilities? What outcomes are you looking for?

​Partnerships and collaboration are not always a straight road. It's important to be clear on:

• why you are collaborating
• ​what you hope to gain from the partnership
• ​what you want to gain
• and what your expectations are

​Spend some time as a partnership exploring this and coming back to it throughout your work together.

2. Consciously design your partnership
​Take time to intentionally, or consciously, design your partnership. Building in time for focusing on the relationship can be as important as creating or doing the work together. In a recent newsletter article  I shared several of the partnership planning questions I have written about over the years.

​In my writing I talk about at least four stages where you will want to focus conversation - pre-program/partnership, at the start, during the work and at the end of major projects. Refer to chapter 12 of Effective Virtual Conversations or Chapter 11 of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching.

3. Regularly check in and adjust. Regular check ins will look different for each project. Ask yourselves regular questions such as:

• What’s working well?
• What progress have we made with this project?
• What are we learning and need to make sure we do? We stop doing?
• What changes are important going forward?

​4. Consider what end result you have in mind - As Steven Covey wrote years ago "Start with the end in mind". Our end result shapes our action. As you engage in every conversation think about the end result you are aiming for. How does this influence your partnership? What roles you play? What attention you have? 

​These four factors - clarity, conscious design, check in, and end in mind - support partnering and collaboration to be a flexible, fluid process. What is important for you to consider in your own work?

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Looking to the long haul, long term or big picture can really support us when we go to plan, schedule and execute. Looking to the long haul, can be applied at all three stages of PlanDoTrack.

Consider these:
Planning –
How often are you taking time to review or reconnect with your annual vision? Do you have an annual vision? If you haven’t created your vision for this year, check out the questions on page 101 of PlanDoTrack or 99 of Coaching Business Builder. Do you have strategic goals in your work or business for the next 3 – 5 years? As you look at your vision and/or strategic issues, what do you notice? Along another vein, as you consider your longer-term planning, consider jumping up to the 30,000-foot view, as if you were in an airplane. As you look out at the landscape below (and far ahead on the horizon) what do you notice?

Take time to review your long-term plans and visions this week, make additions to your weekly and monthly plans accordingly.

Doing –
Consider the tasks you are working on right now. How are they supporting long term action and impact? How are current actions supporting your longer-term vision? If current actions are not supporting long-term vision steps, what do you want to build into your schedule? Keeping in mind Consistent Action + Daily Steps = Momentum, what 15 minutes could you earmark for longer term DAILY Action? Does anything (i.e. TV Time) need to go or be condensed so you have time to do this? What else will support you in action around your long-term goals? Schedule this in now.
​
Tracking –
As you review your metrics (financials, monthly trackers etc.), what do you notice about trends? How do these metrics connect with your bigger vision and longer term goals?

What changes you do you want to make based on what you see?

What do you want to keep doing, and/or magnify?
​
Enjoy the exploration!
Jennifer

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 32 Focus – One Percent Rule to Business Development
Focus Question: What are the consistent daily steps you want to undertake?
​
Description
Since 2005 I have been sharing what I call the One Percent Rule to Business Development. I've heard from a lot of entrepreneurs that they like this notion of incremental business action. So here it is!
The 1% rule to business development consists of a series of 8 different stages:
1. Create the Vision: Our vision sets the broad swath of possibility. It gets us thinking about what is possible. It also helps to anchor us when we think about where we want to go and what we want to do. Making our vision detailed and keeping it visible can be important. How are you enshrining your vision?
2. Prepare. During the preparation phase we want to get clear on what the requirements are for our work and projects. We want to know what a successful result looks like. We want to be clear on what resourcing is needed. During the preparation phase we will gather all the information we have so we can pull together a plan.
3. Create an action plan. In my work as a coach, I usually get my clients to create a One-Page Action Plan. The value of the One-Page Plan is that it contains all of the most important information in one page. The One-Pager be placed in a visual location so that you can refer to it quickly AND regularly. What’s on your action plan?
4. Seek out support. What is going to help you achieve the key goals you have set out for yourself? Support can take many forms – financial, technical, people. What do you need to be successful?
5. Take ongoing small steps. As my father, a retired entrepreneur himself, always reminds me that “Rome was not built in a day”. The premise behind the workbook planners is about taking REGULAR, CONSISTENT action. In building a business by ourselves burnout may be a possibility if we move too fast. It can be important to take regular small steps to create the momentum needed for things done quickly.
6. Test, Learn, Retest. In the sixth step were going to test things out. Today's volatility and complexity requires that we experiment regularly.  With the data we receive from the initial test or action we can learn and apply then retest and learn again. This is an iterative process which continues. Throughout the business cycle we may move through different bouts of experimentation. Each cycle creates an opportunity for learning and growth.
7. Learn, Iterate and Act. Each action creates a reaction, which over time creates its own momentum, making it easier to achieve the goal. Along the way learning and feedback will help to shape what we do.
8. Ultimately our goal is achieved. Based on our experience we will further refine the vision that we set out for ourselves, expanding it or modifying it based on our experience. This will further support and shape our actions are we move forward with the next cycle and process.
This cycle may take place in a short amount of time, for example a day or it may be phased over the longer term of a project.
 
Activity
Using your business or a current project, work through the One Percent Rule. What can action and learning look like around one of your most important goals? Map out the 8 steps of the One Percent Rule.

​Connection to the Workbook and Planner
Refer to the One Percent Rule to Business in Section 1 on page 29 of the Coaching Business Builder, or page 31 of PlanDoTrack.

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

​In today’s Digitally Disrupted world, the skill set of discernment and focus are taking precedence. The ability to find “micro-pauses” where you can stop, assess and make decisions plays a critical role in productivity, teams and leadership.
​
Here’s what I wrote bout the skill of discernment earlier this year here at the PlanDoTrack Blog in February:

​“Leveraging our time is as much about getting organized, as it is getting clear on what’s important. Against the backdrop of complexity, ongoing change and disruption, getting ruthless with our time management can be so important to many. As a business owner, or remote worker, this is especially true. We can’t get out time back. So, when we go down a rabbit hole (whether it’s doing too much research online, following a shiny red object or thinking we just need to learn “one more thing”), the costs can be tremendous. Not just in NOT getting things done, but in terms of our focus, our motivation and also our profit line!

Discernment is about getting clear on what’s important and what’s not. It is about being clear of what’s going to provide impact now, later or never.
​
As a remote worker or virtual business owner, we are quite control of our time. Our colleagues and/or superiors may be hundreds of miles away, or several time zones ahead. As remote workers, it’s not always about how we manage our time, but how we get our results. Those who feel the crunch in getting something over the finish line is usually only us (and those loved ones around us!).

With this in mind, what is the cost of not being discerning around where your time goes, or how clear your projects are, or what is a more important priority than another?
​
As we embark on new projects, or start a new week, it can be useful to be asking (ourselves, and our stakeholders):

• What’s most important today?
• What are the top 3-5 things I want to get completed?
• What are the MUST Dos?
• What will success look like with this project/task?
• As it relates to this project/task, what’s important?
• Have I considered the short-term, medium-term and long-term in making decisions?
• What would my colleague/boss/peer/customer say is most important to focus on today?
• What impact will this activity have? And that one?

 
What questions do you want to consider asking as you decide one priority to another?”

How can discernment help you in your work and focus right now?

Let us know!
​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

​The mantra for today is for many “Bigger is better” but when it comes to goals in fact it may be that “Less is more”. With workplaces ripe with ever-changing priorities it can lead to a lack of engagement and clarity on the part of employees. When we are pulled into meetings last minute and not able to focus on some of the core tasks we had planned, it can feel disruptive and disempowering. While we may never be able to focus on all the tasks we have planned, being able to focus, and take action on, our top 3-5 goals in a day or a week, can help employees feel as if they have some control.

As you will note with the Coaching Business Builder and PlanDoTrack, many of the planning templates have space for you to note your Top 3 – 5 goals each week or month. These can serve as anchors in what sometimes feels like a sea of change!

Do you already ask yourself every day or regularly, “What are my top 3-5 goals?”? If not, now many be the time to experiment with this practice. See what you notice.

Let us know how you are using the different planning resources in PlanDoTrack or Coaching Business Builder in the comments here, or jump into the discussion over at the Conversation Sparker Zone.

Enjoy the conversation!
​Jennifer