Simplifying my life!

Life's been a bit crazy for me in the last few months, which has resulted in me juggling lots of balls and working long hours. You know, the typical lifestyle of the entrepreneur. However, it got to the point where I was feeling a little bit burnt out and so I realized I needed to be smarter and start doing less whilst remaining as effective as I was before. So I wanted to share this journey with you in the spirit of openness, never trying to look like I have it all sorted, and perhaps most importantly, in the spirit of sharing so that you might learn something that you can apply to your agency as well. So that's what we're going to talk about in today's episode of the Agency Accelerator Podcast. I hope this will be really useful for you. A bit of a different episode, but let's get on with today's episode of the show. Accelerate your agency's profitable growth with tools, tips and value added interviews with your host, agency owner and coach Rob DeCosta. Today's episode of the Agency Accelerator Podcast is sponsored by Cloudways. Loved by agencies around the world, Cloudways is a managed cloud hosting platform that takes care of all the web hosting related complexities, leaving users free to focus on growing their businesses and clients. The platform offers unmatched performance, reliability, choice and and 247365 support that acts as an extension to your own team, making Cloudways the ultimate choice for growing agencies. Now at present Cloudways is offering an exclusive discount for the Agency Accelerator listeners. So visit cloudways.com and use the promo code AA20. That's AA20 to get a discount of 20% off your first three months on the hosting platform of your choice. Okay, on with today's show. I don't know about you, but it seems that more and more and more frequently we are surrounded by so much noise and so many distractions, with people telling us how we should run our businesses. Better ads showing people standing in front of shiny expensive cars telling you that they made millions and you can too. Every week there's a new book out by an entrepreneur and of course there are loads of social media platforms and new things coming along like Clubhouse. And of course there are coaching programs just like mine that help you grow your business too. We are just surrounded by so much noise and as I said in the introduction, life has been crazy for me and I've been juggling lots of things. I'm kind of putting pressure on myself to do more of these things. There's definitely a feeling of fomo. So for example, when Clubhouse came out, I was one of the lucky people, I guess, that got an invite very early on and I thought, right, I must join that. And then I remember spending a Saturday just kind of listening into different convers and then suddenly feeling overwhelmed because if I was going to do that properly, I really needed to find the time to do it. I was also a member of a mastermind coaching group that met three times a week and I needed to commit a minimum of five hours a week to do that. And because I wasn't managing to do all of that, I started feeling like I was letting myself down, letting the group down. And I was spending lots of money on that program every month as well. So something needed to change. I needed some kind of filter to work out what I really need to keep doing and what I could stop doing while still remaining productive and effective and serving my audience, you guys. Plus of course developing my content and delivering my coaching, whether that be the one to one private coaching or one of my group coaching programs. So it's just a lot going on and I'm not saying any of this because I'm looking for sympathy from you, but much more because you can probably relate to this as well. And I just want to share with you as I come out the other side of that, some of the things that I have done to simplify my life. And hopefully you can apply some of this too. Now you may have heard of the four Ds Eisenhower Square, where we talk about running tasks through this filter of the 4D. So can I ditch this task? And if the answer is no, then you ask yourself, well, if I can't ditch it, can I delegate it to somebody else? And, and if your answer is no, then you move on to the third D which is can I defer it? So can I do it at a later date? And if the answer is no to that, then you say, okay, I have to do it. And I've always used those four Ds to quickly assess tasks that I'm doing so that I don't get distracted by things that I can quickly get done now, but they're not really important. And this is all about separating the important from the urgent from the nice to do. Well, I've taken those four Ds and I've added two more Ds and an A to it. And, and I think that's really, really helped me. So the A is automate it. So I think when I look at tasks now, I'm always thinking, are there tools that I can automate? And a great example of that would be email automation or the systems that I use to run my business. For example, appointment setting, where I use youcanbook me for my calendar system, but I've also used Calendly before and Kartra, which is the main CRM system that I use that also has a calendar booking system. That's a really good examp of taking a task that can be quite time consuming because you've got to compare diaries and swap notes and all that kind of stuff and then just automate it. So that's my sort of fifth element to the 4Ds, which is the A for automate. But then the other two that I've been using recently, which have helped me really filter things, is just to ask myself, does this task make a difference? So that's number five. So when I look at moving my business forward, does this task make a difference? And if the answer is no, I really got to ask why I'm doing it. And then the sixth D is do I enjoy doing it? And if I don't enjoy doing it, but I've just been doing it because I've always done it, which is what so many of us do, then I'm using that as a filter to say, do I really need to do this? So using that filter of the four Ds plus the A, plus the two extra Ds, there's six things that I've done in my business over the last three months that are simplifying, things that are giving me renewed focus, that are making me feel like I'm in control of my day and my week without working crazy hours. And I feel like I'm moving the dial forward. So I want to share with you what those six things are. And number one is the big game changer for me. It's such an obvious thing. It's something I tell all my clients to do. It's something I work on with all my clients, but like many of us, I don't do it for myself enough. And that is reconnecting with your vision. So what that's enabled me to do is to figure out what I want to do over the next couple of years in terms of growth, in terms of focus, in terms of revenue, in terms of product development. And it's also enabled me to stop chasing things that others are telling me that I should do or I should have. There's a real danger that we look at, for example, our revenue figures every year and say I must grow by 20%, 30% next year. And we set that as a target. And then we just do that year in and year out without ever stopping and saying, is that what I really want? So I think reconnecting with my vision has been so powerful because it becomes a framework for making decisions about whether I do things or not. So I spent a day when we had some sun sitting in the garden with my remarkable. And just using the template I teach, I use with my private clients, using it on myself to capture my vision and say, okay, where do I want to be in the next year and the next year after that? And that has really helped me apply the next five things. So that's number one thing that I've done, which is reconnect with my vision and stop chasing things that others are telling me I should be doing and actually start thinking, what do I really want to do that will make me happy, that I will enjoy and will give me the things that I need? So the second thing I did, which sounds really counterintuitive given that I sell a group coaching program, is that I put the pause on a time intensive mastermind group that I was part of. Now, this group is great and I'm still part of the group, but I was part of like a premium part of the group, but it was just taking a ton of time. As I said earlier, it's taking me about six hours a week. It was costing me about a thousand pounds a month and I was missing half the sessions because I was busy with other stuff and that was causing me stress and I felt pressured. And there was a huge relief when I said, like, I need to put the pause button on this for the next few months to focus on a number of other things that is simplifying my business. So that's the second thing I did, which was put pause on some of the external help that I was getting and actually just give me some time to implement what I've learned and get my systems right and make sure that I'm doing the things that I'm learning in a sort of best practice way. So that was the second thing. After six changes that I made in my business, the third thing I did was really focus my social media and decided to focus on LinkedIn as my major social media platform because that's where my ideal target customer hangs out mostly. And I spent lots of money, for example, on Facebook ads and I have tried to build a Facebook group and some of you might even be part of that group. And whilst I'm not closing any of that stuff down, I'm certainly not spending any money on Facebook ads at the moment, and it just isn't a major platform. And most of my clients tell me that they want to use Facebook for, you know, staying in touch with their family and looking at fluffy animals rather than being interrupted with business things. So I've decided to focus on LinkedIn as my major platform and pause the effort I'm putting into Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Now, that doesn't mean I'm not going to keep posting on there. I'm just not really putting the major effort. And when I spend time on social media now, it's always in LinkedIn and it's not on those other platforms. So that's number three, which is really focus down on LinkedIn and stop focusing on some of those other platforms. The fourth thing I decided to do, which could, which will take more time actually, is to resurrect my YouTube channel. So I've had a YouTube channel for a while and I have probably about 70 videos on there of varying quality over the years. But I've never really promoted it. I've never really thought about, you know, the SEO aspect of it. And let's face it, remember that YouTube is the second biggest search engine after Google. So it's a great platform, provided we think about SEO with the content that we're putting out there and tagging and all that stuff. So I'm putting a renewed effort into that. And why am I doing that? Well, because if I go back to those 6Ds, one of them is, do I enjoy doing it? And actually, the two kind of things I really enjoy doing most is recording podcasts and shooting videos. And I'm fortunate that in my home office I've got a studio set up. So it's really easy now for me to record a video. And the more you practice getting in front of the camera, the more comfortable you get, just like anything. So I'm going to be putting some renewed effort into that. And that's going to look like taking some of the guest podcasts that I shoot because we record a video for them and putting them onto YouTube, creating smaller videos from them, plus creating some more YouTube content. So a little plug here. If you're not part of my YouTube channel, then please head over to YouTube.com Robert Da Costa or one word Robert. D A C O S T A. So very simple. And you can hit subscribe, you can look at some of the YouTube videos on there before. And obviously I'm now going to try and grow that channel and we'll be putting more focus on It. So that's. So those are the two kind of social media things that I will really be focusing in on, which is LinkedIn and YouTube. So that was my fourth strategy, my fourth thing that I'm cutting down on. And number five is stop being distracted by new shiny objects and get a get a grip about fomo. So, like I mentioned earlier, Clubhouse would be a good example of that. Where I jumped on board quite early on. I probably could have put a big focus on it, and it's obviously a big growing channel. But what I didn't want to do is what I've done often in the past, which is kind of dabbled at it, but not really done it. And then you waste a lot of time, but you don't get any value from it. So I just made the decision that I'm not going to focus on Clubhouse because it's just a distraction. It's a shiny new object, it's the latest trendy thing, and I need to focus on the core things that will make a difference that I enjoy doing. So that's number five. And then number six. The last one, which is probably the biggest thing, is that I have worked with a number of different virtual assistants and copywriters, and I've tried to find some podcast editors and show note writers. And I've had varying degrees of success with that. But I've always had to be the project manager that's pulling it all together, that's chasing people up for content. And some of the time I felt like it actually wasn't saving me a lot of time because the quality of the written work wasn't very good and I had to rewrite it. And I don't want to fall in that trap that a lot of my clients do who are not good delegators because they think it's quicker to do it themselves. But when it really is quicker to do it yourself, you need to do something about it. So I changed the structure of that. And thanks to the coaching program that I'm part of the they just taught me this concept of hiring a project manager and then hiring some delivery people. And so that's what we have been putting in place in the last few weeks, really. So we now have a project manager that looks after all of the stuff that I've just talked about. So they will take the raw footage for this podcast and they will make sure that it gets edited and they will make sure that the show notes get written and they will make sure that it gets uploaded to my podcast and hosting platform and Then they'll make sure that some social media posts get written. So I've got a project manager who is then managing some specialists who are managing my admin for, you know, reconfirming client appointments, managing the creation of the podcast both from an audio editing and a show note perspective, but also video editing and also creating social media posts from the podcast and from my weekly email and then doing some admin like uploading the content to my platforms. And this is going to save me a ton of time and I think I'm finally nailed this. Like a lot of you who are listening, I don't aspire to grow my business by hiring lots of in house staff, but having this project manager who then manages these other people and makes sure that not only things get done when they need to get done, but is also the first kind of gatekeeper point for quality control is just changing my world completely. So if you're really busy, this is a really good structure that I would encourage you to do. So if you're looking at outsourcing aspects of your work, the key person you need to find is the project manager who can be the shepherd to make sure that all the things are getting done and also the gatekeeper to make sure that they're the first point of contact for quality control before things get passed over to you. So that's probably the biggie number six, which is hiring different structure for my virtual assistant and my content creation and copywriting and video editing and audio editing. So lots of stuff go into making these podcasts and getting them broadcast out and then shared out, as I'm sure you're more than aware with the marketing that you do. So those are the six things that I've done to simplify my life. So first of all, reconnected with my vision, really sat down and thought about what is it I want to achieve over the next year and the next couple of years, break that down into quarters and then into months and then make sure that the things that I'm doing every day are driving towards delivering the month and then the quarter, then the year's goals. And not just doing things because people telling me that I should be doing them. The second thing I did was put a pause on the intensive Mastermind group. Although I'm still part of the group, I'm just not part of this premium program that's giving me back about five hours a week, which is amazing and taking some stress away from me. We shouldn't be doing things if it's causing us a lot of stress. The third thing was to focus just on LinkedIn and then the fourth thing was YouTube and for my social media and stop really putting too much effort into Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. That doesn't mean I'm abandoning them, it just means I'm not putting a ton of effort in. The fifth thing kind of aligned to that was to not be distracted by new shiny objects such as Clubhouse and then lastly to put this new VA structure in place and I already feel like a weight has come off my shoulders. I already feel like I'm going to be dropping less balls. I already feel like I don't need to work 10 hour days and a Saturday in order to just keep up with the volume of activity that I had self created. That actually wasn't always moving the needle forward. And that's one of the filters that we have to be asking ourselves which is is this really driving my business forward? And if the answer is well, I'm not sure or no, then we really need to ask ourselves why we're doing it. And remember, doing something because you've always done it is not a good reason to keep doing it. Especially if you can't measure the effectiveness and the roi. Because at the end of the day, all of the things that I'm doing and all of the things that you do are there to win new business and to be excellent at client delivery and to make sure that the product or service you're delivering is as premium as it possibly can be. So that's what I wanted to talk about today. Like I say, in the spirit of honesty, I wanted to share with you some of the stresses that I've been feeling over the last six months and how crazy life has been and how that resulted in me kind of just stopping, taking stock and saying there must be a better way and what do I need to do to keep my sanity but also keep my business. So I hope that helped. Love you to share this episode. If you found it useful, please do consider leaving a review. Hit the subscribe button and I will be back with you next week for our next guest interview. But until then, have a brilliant rest of your week and a great weekend and I will see you next Thursday. Sa.