104: Save Someone Next Steps

Hi, this is Charles Michael Davis. Toyotathon is on. So stop by your local Toyota dealer for incredible year end deals on the cars, trucks and SUVs known for their legendary reliability like the stylish and efficient Camry. The Ready for anything RAV4 or check out a rough and rugged Tacoma or Tundra, all with great financing and lease options available to qualified customers. Visit buyatoyota.com to find out more. Toyota let's go Places.

Take a beat before you mark something complete before you finish copy for your website, before you put the finishing touches on a product or how you're going to onboard customers for that product. If you're a team member listening to this, how can you delight the person who is delegating something to you by not just delivering what they asked for, but anticipating next steps, visualizing the outcome and then saving them time.

This is your time. How can we earn twice as much in half the time with joy and ease while serving the highest good? That is our guiding question here at the Freetime Cafe, your home for heart based business. I'm your host Jenny Blake. Join me for conversations with authors, friends and fellow business owners as as we explore ways to free your mind, time and team to do your best work. Now onto today's show.

So you're getting good at saving yourself time, but what about saving other people time? How creative and proactive are you at removing work for others? Right? As I was starting to think about this concept of free time, I had these two words in my mind. That was it. There was no podcast, no brand, no book. I got a gift in the mail and this gift, I was so excited to open it. It was filled to the brim with what looked like synthetic tater tots. I'm sure you know there's the styrofoam ones. These were not Styrofoam, but this box was jam packed with these things. So as I was trying to pull the gift out, dozens of these synthetic tater tots spilled onto my floor. I started cursing their use of Styrofoam because I didn't know yet what they were made of. I go, who still uses Styrofoam? As I'm chasing these flyaway pieces into the trash. And you know these things, they're so light and kind of staticky that you're kind of chasing them up on all fours, hands and knees in the kitchen, chasing these little tater tots that had spilled everywhere. And I pull out the trash. I'm just getting them from every little corner because there was no way to pull out this box, this inner gift box, from the bigger container box without spilling all these things onto the floor. Only after getting to the very bottom of their packaging did I see a note from the vendor. And the note said that these were not, in fact, pollutants. They said we'd never send you a load of Styrofoam. That's how they describe their packing peanuts. I commended their efforts in making potato starch based material that biodegrades quickly in water and soil. But alas, it was too late, because my first experience of their product was crawling on my hands and knees, picking up trash and literally putting things into the trash at eye level, noting that I needed to take out the trash. So not only did this company not save me next steps, they created extra work. And what was otherwise a joyful gift was now associated with this memory of me crawling around on hands and knees, thinking, I need to take out the trash. And the irony of this gift was that it was a bunch of luxurious bath products. So they were supposed to connote rest and relaxation and, you know, indulgence and a treat like honey, I don't know, scrub, lip balm, all this kind of stuff. But my first experience of it was not this blissful, relaxing shower, because I hate baths. I feel like a beached whale in the bath, which my friends laugh at me about. They love them. And if I go to a hotel room, there's a bathtub, like, I will literally, I will just never step foot in it. So instead of my first experience of this company's products being a happy one, it was a pain in the rear. It was a pain in the butt. This is an example that I actually ended up cutting from the book. It did not make it in because it was just kind of tmi, you know, And I actually didn't want to throw any one company under the bus, at least not in print. I mean, I could say it now here on the podcast, because we can talk about it as a learning experience and just as a customer experience. Contrast this with Dyson products, which for 10 years, if not more, I was just lusting after Dyson. I love gadgets. My husband calls me the CTO of our household. We have the mirror, we have the tonal, we have the peloton. And for my entire adult life, never gave myself permission to spend as much money on a Dyson vacuum or any other product. I just thought, jenny, you can get them for a tenth of the price somewhere else. Go do that. Finally, once we moved into this new house. Once we had a dog, a German shepherd who sheds everywhere. There's this Dyson animal vacuum baby. I finally got it. And when this box arrived, I hugged it as if you would hug a long lost family member. Michael took a photo of me. He's like, I've never seen you this happy. You're like blissed out. So me hugging this box, this Dyson animal vacuum. When you take a Dyson out of the box, everything is labeled. The stickers label what parts, click into which other ones. I just recently indulged in two more of my Dyson fantasies and got the Dyson fan. Because our AC doesn't work even after spending five grand. We just have these old wall units. So basically we're in sometimes 90 degree, humid East coast heat with no AC. So once again, I've given myself permission as I approach 40. I'm not there yet. I'll be 39 later this year to get my next two Dysons. And these are a floor fan and a hot and cool fan. Okay, I know I'm boring you to tears here. What I love about Dyson is that the packaging is beautiful, much like Apple products. And then there's stickers on just very clearly what to click in to what. So unlike IKEA products where you're scratching your head trying to read an instruction manual with no words, just images. I'm so bad at those DIY build it yourself products. I always just pay IKEA team members to come assemble it all for me because I guarantee you, if I assemble a table or a shelf, that thing will be crooked and it will fall over and be dangerous. So the Dyson, in contrast to the baths and soap products that I got, the Dyson, the packaging is super neat, super clean, not one extra piece than is necessary to protect the products inside. And then it's clearly labeled. So it saved me a ton of time in terms of figuring out what goes where and how to set it up and just to go from zero to start to using it within minutes. I'll give you another example. The free time Operations Dashboard. This is my digital product. That is the like I've done for you, built it for you dashboard to run your entire business operations. And I've thought through the steps, okay, after somebody purchases, what's next? And so there's a little getting started checklist of this can be overwhelming at first. There are so many places. Here's where I suggest starting. And it could be things like renaming the business areas to fit your operations, creating the mirror of the tasks categories to Mirror those business areas. There's even a task I created called Notion Questions that I recommend in the checklist. As you have questions, as you're getting up to speed, add them here to this task. So every time I anticipate what is going to happen next, even something at a meta level like you might have more questions, I've created a container for that. I'm not saying I'm perfect at this, but this is a chapter in free time called Save someone Next Steps and I see it all the time as not just as a business owner. This is something that I hope and dream that team members will think to do and the best, especially admins. What makes somebody an executive admin? And I was fortunate to know some at Google who supported the highest level executives in the company. What makes the difference between a VA or a personal assistant and an executive admin is that the easiest are phenomenal at anticipating next steps and saving someone Next steps Think about and I'll give you an example. Here's how I know when it's a high level EA with decades of experience. Because if I say, hey, can you book this flight for me? They won't just book the flight, they'll say, okay, great. Do you also need car service from your house to the airport and for the return trip home, they anticipate, well, sure. I have a flight from JFK which is an hour from my house. How am I going to get there? They're going to think to ask. And in the future let's say that's happened. Maybe the next time I say can you book this flight? They automatically book the car. Wouldn't that be a dream? Of course this can be documented as a process and you know it is in my own business. But I always want to teach my own team members how can you save someone the next steps? Whether it's me or one of our clients, community members, customers anticipate. Do the work. Do the work upfront of thinking about what somebody is going to need next. You could almost think of it as a leapfrog step.

We'll be right back just after this.

When the holidays start to feel a bit repetitive, reach for a Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry and put your twist on tradition. A bold cranberry and Winter Spice Flavor.

Fusion Sprite Winter Spice Cranberry is a.

Refreshing way to shake things up this sippin season and only for a limited time.

Sprite Obey your thirst with Venmo Stache. A taco in one hand and ordering a ride in the other means you're stacking cash back Nice. Get up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash on your favorite brands when you pay with your Venmo debit card. From takeout to ride shares, entertainment and more. Pick a bundle with your go tos and start earning cash back at those brands. Earn more cash when you do more with stash. Venmo stash terms and exclusions apply. Max $100 cash back per month. See terms at Venmo Me Stash terms.

Another way to do this and another way to teach this skill is to have people visualize the final outcome and work backwards and ask, what else, what else, what else? So I kind of learned this the hard way. There were times where I would say something like, please order 25 books. And this example is in free time as well. But I'll say, please order 25 books, or in this case it was 250 books and send them to Barcelona for a speaking engagement. Now, this example shows the difference between a task versus an outcome. A task is something like order 250 books for this gig in Barcelona. The outcome is that when I arrive, those 250 books are already at the hotel. So the day I check in, I know I can sleep well that night. The books have arrived with plenty of time. They've probably called in advance and ensured that the hotel can receive those books. There won't be customs issues, which I've had before. And so the outcome is that after my keynote, I will be there to sign books. That's an outcome. I'm there, the books are there, we're signing. And it's a glorious, wonderful event where teams get stuck and where tasks and things fall through the cracks is where a team member goes, oh, okay, I'll place the order for 250 books. At this time, it was through Penguin Random House. And that's it. Check. Oh, okay, I ordered the books, I put the final destination. Check. Now, I'm not saying anyone on my team did this, but I've had certain things. I'm giving you this example, but I've had plenty in parallel in this situation. It's not like they just dropped it after that. But you're not done yet. You're not done yet. I also say the owner is not the owner. You can't just say, oh, yeah, I called Penguin Random House, I placed the order, check. Check done. And the task goes away and they never see it. No, you are responsible for the outcome of this instruction. Like, this is where sometimes you want to shake someone and go, you got to use some logic and some kind of anticipatory intuition here that what I'm really asking you is not just order these books, but ensure that they are there in plenty of time. I was speaking at south by Southwest in March of 2022. Same thing. I actually called the Fairmont Hotel. That was where I was staying weeks in advance, months in advance. And I said, I'm going to be staying there this week in March. How early can I send the books? Oh, it needs to be no earlier than five days. Oh, okay. Is there a fee for you to store these books? If they arrive prior to five days, what do you do with them? Okay, if they arrive within the five days, is there a fee for receiving them, for holding them? Okay, great. Then a month early, I called the warehouse where the free time books live, and I asked them, how long does ground shipping take? When would I need to place the order? How can we ensure that the books arrive on March 10, knowing that my talk was going to be on March 13? And so there are all these steps involved to. In this case, I was doing them myself. But I always want people to be thinking about the outcome of a situation, not just the initial task. And so that means thinking something through again, visualizing the final outcome. What does success look like? Working backwards and asking, what else, what else, what else? So on the personal level, let's say you're giving somebody directions to your house. You're going to have a guest over for dinner. Great. Don't just send your address, actually link it up to Google Maps. Now, that might be obvious, right? Because I bet so many of you already do this, but I think it's a common courtesy. If you're going to give someone your address, let's say it's in an email or even a text message. Just put the link to Google Maps so that it's one less thing they have to copy and paste into their Maps app. Even better, send them a link to the route. So if you know their starting point and you know they're ending up at your house, send the route. So here's the link. Now, they don't even have to input their starting address. You've already sent it. This is so simple, and I know it's tiny, and sometimes I wonder if you think I'm being ridiculous with these tiny, tiny examples. But the reason I give them is because they're so tiny that we can wrap our heads around them. And then this way of thinking can, of course, apply to the big stuff. Another example, on the personal front, that A friend and I have been talking about lately, if you can't make a commitment, send a substitute or suggest what you're going to do. Now, this is more for work, like let's say house cleaner. If you can't make it, you don't get to just like cancel and then, oh, sorry, can't make it. You do the work. See if you have a friend who can sub in. This is why in New York, I mean, I'm lucky because we have more services in general in the New York City area and all kinds of services kind of pilot and get their start in big cities. But I now have a cleaning service where I do have a regular person who comes theoretically every week, although something always comes up on their end or mine. But if she can't make it, this cleaning company now sends a replacement. I don't love when that happens because I don't know that person and we don't have the rapport of my favorite. But hey, at least they proactively found a replacement and arranged it for the right time and send them. So it's reduced a lot of friction for me having an actual company, a service as opposed to when I would just work with one off cleaners where there was always extra work involved. Oh, I can't make it. Oh, how about this tight time? Oh, no. Now something came up and I was struggling with a consistency and because my mental cycles are already in use for so many big and bigger questions in my business, I would get so fatigued that I just would kind of give up on the entire thing and then the house devolves into a state of chaos.

So I really appreciate having a service that's just this one extra layer of accountability and consistency and proactivity in terms of solving problems and the problem of inconsistency. All right, so that wraps up this episode on saving someone. Next steps. Can you make this a game? Can you just take a beat before you mark something complete, before you finish copy for your website, before you put the finishing touches on a project product or how you're going to onboard customers for that product? If you're a team member listening to this, how can you delight the person who is delegating something to you by not just delivering what they asked for, but anticipating next steps, visualizing the outcome and then saving them time? I don't have to tell any of you that time is a great gift. It has been so rewarding working on free time because I feel more than money. I feel so happy if I can save any of you time and you can do this too, like in ways large and small. You too can give this gift of time by anticipating and saving someone. Next Steps. Look for those moments of delight. Look for how you can make their life easier. Look how you can anticipate the one next thing or that leapfrog step. That's two moves out that no they didn't ask you, but you went ahead and solved it for them anyway. You hereby have permission to tell everybody on your team that we're playing a new game and it's called Save Someone Next Steps. That includes you, the owner, it includes themselves by delegating to software and it includes customers, clients and community of making this directive in your business. So you have permission not to do it all yourself, but to engage your team and anyone you work with in this thought exercise. Thank you so much for listening everybody. Have a beautiful rest of your day.

If you've listened this far, you get a gold star.

Thank you.

Word of mouth is the most joyful way we can grow this show, and it helps us land interviews with the luminaries and insightful guests that you would most love to hear from. Please send this episode to a friend who might find it helpful, and for show notes and related links from this episode, visit itsfreetime.com while you're there, make sure you're subscribed to the Time well Spent newsletter. You'll get instant access to my Tech Toolkit, a continually updated list of all the software I use, along with the total monthly spend to run my business where no one works full time even me. Visit itsfreetime.com join remember, you are running the show. It's time for radical reimagining and everything is up for grabs. Let it be easy, let it be fun, and build with love.