ROI of Prioritization

Foreign. Hey everybody, it is Jim Josin, the head coach here at Contractor Coach Pro and your host with Contractor Radio. And I'm coming to you today to talk to you about a topic that is near and dear to my heart. It's something that I struggle with. It's something that I think a lot of people struggle with. And I want to help you out with maybe learning a little bit about what I've done to really start to set up how to prioritize things. Because what I learned is if I can prioritize things, I can build some capacity. We're going to talk about that today, but before we do, let's take a short break for one of our sponsors. We got bills to pay and want to make sure that we get those guys in for this week's Contractor Radio show. We'll be right back.

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All right, everybody, we're back. Thank you to our sponsors and all that they do to support what we do here at Contractor Coach Pro. Without them, this show would not be possible. And please take time to go check them out and they have been vetted by us. We know that they'll serve you well and so make sure you definitely support our sponsors. So today we're here to talk about a topic that is very near and dear to me. It's really something I've struggled with. I think a lot of entrepreneurs, not business owners, but entrepreneurs, not CEOs, but entrepreneurs, I think it's something that they struggle with. It's prioritizing what's important, figuring out, hey, what's the most important thing I can do right now? It's going to be one of two things. It's either going to generate more revenue or it's going to develop more time, create more time for me. And those are the two most valuable assets we have. Absolutely, without a doubt, two most valuable assets we have now, obviously our wives and our families. I don't look at them as assets. Those are relationships. Those are different. Time and money are the two most valuable assets that you have and so if you look at things from a return on investment aspect of things, whatever investment I make into something, I want to make sure that, that that investment pays off, right? And we tend to get into this position of doing a lot of shooting from the hip, right? We are in this school of hard knocks thing. There isn't a real roadmap for this business thing or this contracting thing. And so I'm in a bit of a guessing mode. We don't want to be that way. We want to be in this mode where, hey, I know what the next thing is that I'm going to do. Because if I do that thing, it helps the next thing happen, the thing happen. We're all on this journey, right, in our business and every decision that we make has an effect on that return investment of more time, more money. The higher the effort or risk that you have, it's going to take, it's going to give you more return so that you put in more risk, more effort on something you, your return is going to have to be higher. There's no doubt about that. Your primary investment is money and time and both are scarce. Just one of those things that, hey, I never have enough money and I never have enough time. We're all in that boat together. And so we start to think about it that way, like, hey, I want to return on investment. The higher the risk, the more profit I'm going to need from this. And both money and time are very scarce. So what's the enemy, right? What's sitting out there and the enemy of scarcity, why you feel these things are scarce is lack of efficiency and effectiveness. Those two things are going to have the most dramatic difference on you and your return on investment. So what's the thing that eliminates the scarcity is having a plan. And so everybody talks about business plans and strategic plans and that kind of stuff. You need to have one about your time too. And how do you get that plan right? By prioritizing the things that are most important. So the most controllable of those two things is your time. Sometimes money is a little bit out of our control, but we are totally in control of our time. And if we look at it that way, that hey, I'm in control of my time, you start to take control of your life back. It's super important. A lot of times those of us that are working on our business, we tend to work in it more than on it. And that business starts to run us and it starts to take our time away from us. We start working extra Hours, we start wearing more hats. We start trying to get it all done in a day type of situation. And it's because we're constantly in this mode of, of being notified. Man, if I missed something. Fear of missing out might be a really good way to look at this. Everybody feels like they have to have their notifications on the world's gonna end if I don't see this thing that's on my phone and respond to it right away. The reality is, I hate to break it to you, you're not that important. And neither is the issue that somebody's calling you about. At least it's very rare. And so, and really and truthfully, like, think about it for a second. Let's say a house was burning down. Like, that's the worst possible thing that could happen to a contractor. One of your houses burning down. If you took that call right this second or that text right this second, how much of an impact are you going to have on what happens to that house? Now, I know that's really kind of harsh, but the reality is you're not going to make much of a change in what's going to happen. Somebody's already called the fire department, somebody's done all those things already. And it doesn't mean that we're not going to set aside time to appropriately pay attention to those things. But they can't run us. We have to run them. So the most important thing about time management is prioritizing. That's how we build capacity. We have an equation around here that's really important to us. Our skill, the amount of skill that we have, knowledge that we have. If we multiply that by the amount of capacity we have, in other words, the time we have available to do what we need to do, it will equal the amount of impact that we have. So if you have very little skill and very little capacity, not gonna have much impact, you might have a lot of skill and very little capacity, not much impact. Have a lot of capacity and no skill, not gonna have much impact. When you have both. That's the key. I got a lot of skill. I'm able to lead, I'm able to think, I'm able to problem solve. I've got a lot of knowledge and experience and. And I've learned how to do what I do great, delegate what I don't do great, and prioritize the most important things for my business. I start to do some pretty amazing things and have amazing impact not only on my own life and my business, but the lives of those Working for me, the lives of those around me, the community, the nation, maybe even the world, if you get really good at it. And so what are the requirements of prioritization? It's a process for thinking and implementing. So you got to think first and then implement. And that's, I think, the thing that most people don't do. They react. They react to everything that's going on around them. Instead of being proactive, say, hey, this is what I do. And when I do it. So there's this concept that I hear a lot of out there, work smarter, not harder. I absolutely hate that phrase. I think it sets us up with this mindset. Boy, if I'm really smart, I really get things organized. I won't have to work all that hard. And really what you do is you let yourself down with the amount of impact that you could actually have if you worked both smarter and hard at the same time. If you work smarter and you're still working hard, you're going to have even better impact. That's that skill, smarter, hard capacity equals the impact that you're going to have. So if you have a picture of what it is that you want to do, right? Like, hey, this is what I want to do. And I understand how that looks. It's more likely to actually happen. And usually that's something that I got to put down somewhere on paper or a spreadsheet. Ideally, I like whatever that thing is to be in front of me. I want to be able to see it all the time. So I'm going to talk to you about two things that I use to help me get ahead in that world. And you can go and look those up. You can contact us about them. We do free coaching calls. And if you really want to get ahead of your time management and prioritize things correctly, do that free coaching call with us. We'll give it to you. So we'll talk about those two things. And there's this idea that if I am a little bit proactive about things, set proper expectations on things, and inform somebody that these are the things I'm gonna do, it holds me accountable to them. So I tend to get things done more often. So what are these two tools? What are these two tools that allow me to gain that concept of priority and when I'm gonna do it? Two of the tools that we like to use. One is called the action Matrix. I think you can go look that up on Google. You do a Google search and probably find one. We've kind of built what we do in the Home services world. And the idea behind that is identifying all the tasks you have to do and how much effort and impact they'll have. So I've got all these effort and impact things that I have to do and so they apply to the task. I got a task and it's got a score 1 to 10, 1 to 10 is going to take this much effort. So score that one to 10. One being little, 10 being a lot. And then the impact it's going to make, one being a little, ten being a lot. So when I start to put that score, whatever scores the highest so it has the most impact with the least effort, that's the thing I want to do first. I want to go out there and go, hey, it's not going to be hard to do. I can do it right now and it's going to drive more revenue or give me more time. And then you have the thing that's a lot of impact and a lot of effort. Those are what we call major projects. So the first one is quick wins. What can I do real quick to have a win? Maybe I can run a Facebook ad or do a campaign and sure enough people respond and boom, we got some leads. Or I could do some training today and in close closing percentages by 5% with just that training. Take me an hour to do that thing and all my sales guys increase their closing percentage by 5%. Very little effort, great impact. But it's only great effort or only very little effort. If you're a professional sales trainer, you understand sales and you can coach and train and teach very well. If that's not your forte, then it changes, it's more effort. I gotta get it all put together, I gotta learn a bunch of stuff, take a long time. So could I leverage somebody else or something else to help us get there for that training? So that's how you have to think about these things. You got all these different tasks that you want to do, things you want to accomplish, but each one has a level of effort and a level of impact to your business, either financially or time wise, making something easier, gaining you more time. So now that I got those figured out, what are the other things? The things that are low effort and low impact? If it's low effort and low impact, that's what we call fill ins. Like those are the tasks I got to do every day and just get them done. They're important, don't get me wrong. But it's not a lot of effort. I don't have to really think about it. But the Impact isn't a whole lot. I got payroll and I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. All those different things, those are going to fall into that fill in task, fill those tasks in where I have time available. And then we have what we call thankless tasks. And these are the ones where the reality is we suck at it. We don't like to do it and it takes us a long time to do it. So there's a lot of effort, right? And very little impact. Because that thing that we try to do and we try to figure out and we're weak at, no matter how well we do it, the result isn't going to be that great. It's not going to have a whole lot of impact. One of the most valuable things I ever learned is that whatever I suck at, don't worry about it, get somebody else to do it. Seriously. I have a lot of value that I bring in other areas in my business, but there's certain things I'm just not good at and I need to find other people to do. So you need to identify what those things are. Those are where those thankless tasks live. And that's going to be the first people you're looking for. So you did two things here. You said, hey, these are priority. These are quick wins are going to drive revenue and profit. These are major projects. I want to get those done because they're going to drive revenue. Might be a little bit harder, but they're important. The fill ins are the things I have to do. I don't have much of a choice. I don't have another person for that. I got all these thankless tasks that I stink at. Okay, who can do that? What person does that thing? And so it could be a salesperson, it could be a production person, it could be an administrative person. But do I start to identify who that is? And think about it. You, you get somebody that's really good at doing what you hate doing, they're gonna do it a lot faster and be a lot more effective. They're doing it way better. There's gonna be a bigger impact from their effort than what you would do, which allows you to go do those quick wins and those major projects, they're gonna drive more revenue and give you more time. So think about everything that you do on this as a return on investment. That's what it is. I'm gonna spend some time doing something and I'm gonna get a return on this investment, a quick win. I get a return right away and it might not be huge, but it's a return. I got something this major project, maybe it's going to be really big, but it's going to take some time to do it. Man, I want to really focus here. So that's how you kind of set up that action matrix, right? That hey, quick wins, major projects, fill ins and thankless tasks. So now I know what all I need to do and what's priority and what's not. Then I need to figure out when. And so one of the best tools for when is what's called a block schedule. Another thing you can go and search Google for and look up block schedule. And that block schedule is a tool that allows you to set blocks of time to do the duties and tasks that you have that need to be done in your business. So you put in all of your quick win times. What am I going to do? When am I going to do my quick wins? What am I going to do? My major projects, when am I going to do all my fill ins? And you start to identify what those things are. Paperwork, fill in, right? Quick win once a week Facebook post, major project, building a training program. You still put major project on your block schedule because it might be a training program for the next three months that you're working on to get that thing done. And you take each, you take little tasks in that training program, you go put them in quick wins and say I can get that thing done to get a little bit of that project done. We will take a little bite out of it each time until that thing's actually done. But when it is done, boy does it pay off. Saves you a tremendous amount of time. And right along training and all this other stuff, you train people up quickly, get them out in the field right away, get them making money right away and you have a system of process. And you're like wow, man that was amazing. Why didn't I do that a long time ago? So being proactive about those things, thinking about it as a return on investment. The time that I'm spending, that if I spend this time today, I'm going to get some reward back. And that applies to all things. It's not just business. This time I spend a day in my business, does that buy back time in the future for spending time with your family, spending time with your spouse, going on date night, going on vacation, taking real time off from your business in this mode of truly running your business is a well oiled machine. Our goal with anybody that we work with here at Contractor Coach Pro is To get them into a position where their business is generating enough revenue and they have enough leaders in their business that all they have to do is manage those leaders once a week with a weekly meeting that we teach them about called a mission meeting. That's the ideal. And we help contractors do that all the time. It all starts here in understanding how to prioritize things so that you can then dedicate time to those things that allows you to get a return on that investment of time. And so if you don't get anything else, every moment you spend on this planet is an investment. You're either losing or winning. What are you going to choose in your business each and every day to win or lose? What are you going to choose in your life each and every day to win or lose? You know, sit in front of a TV for three hours and watch mind numbing sitcoms or American Idol? Like, yeah, those are enjoyable and there's nothing wrong with them necessarily. And if you get enjoyment from an entertainment, return from it, that you need good investment. But if it's just wasting time and you're really not getting much from that, and you're scrolling through Facebook the whole time and you're not paying attention to either one of those things and gaining nothing from it, you're losing, you're losing every day. So really consider how you're going to spend your time. Your time is the most important asset you have. And I believe it's more important than money. Money's great, we can do all kinds of great things with it, but it's really just a tool. It's a tool that allows us to do something with it. And we gotta figure out what that thing is that we really wanna do. Because we can figure out what that thing is that we really wanna do. We'll put in the effort, that proactive effort to achieve those things. So this block schedule, we build it out, we say, hey, this is when I'm doing what I'm going to do. I create general blocks of time. So paperwork here, marketing there. You could get a little more specific. Maybe you're marketing to residential and you're marketing to commercial. Relationship building. Payroll. I got payroll to do at this time. It's a block. I do it every week at that time. When I do my emails, I do them at these times every day. Whenever you can translate that information to somebody else that, hey, this is when I do my emails, they can then understand from you and what you expect and what's expected of them. Like for me, I check my emails every day, 11 o', clock, 4 o', clock, email me at 4:05. I'm probably not gonna get it at 4:30 because I'm still checking my emails. But about 4:30 I'm done. Emails finished, I don't have any more to do today. And everything that comes in after that next day at 11 o' clock is when I'm gonna get you. But everybody knows it. Everybody knows it and they don't question it. They're cool with it. Nobody has a problem with it because I let them know I'm able to set that expectation. So any of those things that are on your schedule that pertain to other people and the way that you do what you do, inform them of it, set the proper expectation and they'll be cool with it. They didn't know anything otherwise. If you don't set the expectation, their expectation is they're the most important person or whatever issue they have is the most important issue on the planet and you need to get back to them right away. And then if you don't, you're letting them down, you're not communicating. So you got to be proactive about that stuff. The other key to the blog schedule that's super important is you got to share it. You got to share it with somebody that's important to you. Especially if you're making a push, you're trying to grow your business, do something amazing that takes sacrifice. You're sacrificing time and investing it in hopes of a return on that investment. So when order for you to do that, if you have another party that is involved with you like a spouse, then you need to talk with them about it and say, hey, I'm about to really put some effort into my business and I built the schedule. This is what it's going to be. What do you think? Because I'm going to be working till 7, 8 o' clock at night, it's important right now. But if I do this today, this is what it's going to do in the future. I'm investing right now in us in the future. You'd be surprised how on board your spouse will get for that. And you'll be shocked how often they refer to it when they see you not doing it. And that's the key. You're accountable, you've let somebody else know. Super valuable to your success with a block schedule. So I hope those two things helped you today. I hope you gained some understanding of the value of prioritizing things, especially your time, and that it is an investment. If you get nothing else out of it. Get that every moment's an investment. Is it a wise one or a foolish one? That's our Contractor Radio for this week. Thanks for hanging out with us for a few minutes today. I hope you found some value in this and we look forward to hanging out with you guys in the future. As a little reminder, if any of this hits home, feels like your business is out of control so your head's spinning all the time. You are reacting instead of being proactive. Hop on contractorcoachpro.com click that assessment button. Take our assessments. Going to take you 15 or 20 minutes. So set aside distractions. We want to get to know you a little bit. We're going to come into a free coaching call with you and we're going to truly coach you. It's not a sales pitch or anything like that. We want to help you with whatever the problems are in your business. If you find value in it and you want to be our customer, great. If not, we hope to have helped you that day to be better at what you do, to get better that day and to see a little return on your investment and the time that you dedicated towards your business. Thanks for hanging out with us here at Contractor Radio. We'll see you on our next episode.

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