Are you inundated by constant notifications and interruptions? You could be hurting your bottom line.

According to a University of California Irvine study, it takes nearly 25 minutes to refocus on the task at hand after your concentration has been broken; for modern business owners, high distraction levels could be costly.

Entrepreneur interviewed me to get the six simple steps to maximize productivity by 500% and it only takes 5 minutes a day. I reveal the time management secrets from our late founder, Chet Holmes, in his book The Ultimate Sales Machine.

Originally, Chet learned these strategies while working for Berkshire Hathaway Vice-President Charlie Munger (Warren Buffet’s business partner). He noticed Charlie’s time was maximized in every way and once he adopted the practices of his billionaire boss, he found the secret to mastering time effectively. Chet always used to say that majority of businesses are terrible at time management, and if he could see how we waste it with our phones today, he’d be utterly shocked.

6 STEPS TO INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY BY 500% 

Six proactive steps to time management can transform your day. They take five minutes to do and can double the amount of results you get daily. The problem is not whether or not these steps will work because they absolutely will. The problem is whether or not you will fully commit to doing them, repeatedly. Download the Time Management worksheet to follow along with the article RIGHT NOW! The key to time management is committing to the following six steps:

 Step One: Touch it once 

How often do you pick up something on your desk and say, “I have to take care of this, but I can’t deal with it right now”?

If you do that a few times per day with a few different documents/projects/tasks, by the end of the year, you will have spent an entire month touching and rereading information without taking action. So, if you touch it, move it to the next step. If you want to see how often you waste time, each time you pick up something, put a red dot on it. After you have three red dots on a piece of paper, you begin to feel pressure to do something and move on. If you touch it, take care of it.

Step Two: Make lists, but stick to the six most important things 

When we conduct this time management seminar, we ask how many people in the audience make lists. Practically everyone does. People often have lists with 25 to as many as 40 items on them. They are proud that their lists are so long and that they are so busy.

Further investigation quickly shows them that long lists are the perfect way to be busy, but not productive. When you have a long list, your energy is focused more on trimming the list than it is on being productive. Each day, pick the six items that will produce the highest level of results, put them on your list, and finish all six things by day’s end.

Step Three: Plan how long you will spend on each item 

You’ve started your day by making a list of the six most important things. That took two or three minutes. Now, take another minute to plan how long each item will take or how long you will dedicate to the items that are ongoing.

When we conduct this workshop, the people with long lists usually find that they can have an incredibly productive day with only six hours spent on their six key items. Most people who use these steps find they get more important work done in less time because their time is focused on the most productive tasks.

Step Four: Plan when 

Now that you know how much time to dedicate to each task, you need to plan when you will do them. In addition, you must build in time for the reactive mode.

For example, if you are a sales manager interrupted by frequent “got a minute” meetings, plan a fixed time when you will accept those types of meetings. Otherwise, unless it is an emergency, do not allow people to come to your desk and ask if you’ve got a minute!

Think of any top executive you know. Can you simply call them up, or do you have to schedule time with them? Many top executives plan their day down to the minute. Everything is done according to a schedule, including time for “got a minute” meetings. Scheduling time is the key to time management.

Step Five: Ask the results 

Few people are highly productive. People like to have items on a list, so they can cross off the items. But that’s not enough.

The things that produce the best results are generally the most difficult. Thus, they get left off of the list or are scheduled at the end of the day, causing them to get bumped to the next day…and the next…and the next.

Schedule important tasks at the beginning of your day. Cold calling or trying to get appointments with key prospects or clients are the things that produce the best results. However, they often get pushed off by average salespeople. After you make your list, ask yourself if the items on it are the ones that will produce the most results.

HERE’S AN EXAMPLE OF A MANAGER’S DAY

• 8:00 – 8:30 am Plan day; have quick look at staff’s planned day.
• 8:30 – 9:30 am Work on a strategy to overcome our new, most frequently heard objection.
• 9:30 – 10:00 am Create a standard promotional piece or standard letter that addresses the problem.
• 10:00 – 12:00 pm On sales call with Bill
• 12:00 – 1:30 pm Lunch with an important client, Smith
• 1:30 – 2:00 pm Miscellaneous
• 2:00 – 3:00 pm Got-A-Minute meetings
• 3:00 – 4:00 pm Review “Six Musts of Marketing” for the month
• 4:00 – 5:00 pm Work on improving systems
• 5:00 – 6:00 pm Meet with Boss

Question: How much of this day is proactive?

Answer: All but 90 minutes

NOW IT’S YOUR TURN!

Get your copy of the Time Management Secrets of Billionaires Worksheet now

Step Six: Will it hurt me to throw this away? 

Of all filed information, 80% is never referred to again. After hearing this time management idea, I began to throw away four out of five of the items I used to keep. It’s been 10 years, and I cannot think of a single time where it has hurt me.

Making The Training Stick

Human behavior can only truly be affected in two ways: Repetition and direct involvement. You can agree intellectually that these six steps will cause a productivity increase, but until you practice them (direct involvement) and continue to use them (repetition), your behavior will not change.

The common wisdom is that it takes 21 days to form a new habit. My experience is that it takes years. But for now, if you can stick to this program for just 21 days, you will be forever reminded of its power, and you will be more likely to use these important steps.

To hear the full interview, it only takes 40 minutes to press play below. It could be the best 40 minutes you spend this year if adopted with PIG HEADED DISCIPLINE AND DETERMINATION.

Solution

We’re here to help you grow faster, better, smarter! We have shared the Time Management Secrets of Billionaires Worksheet for your own implementation here.

If you really want to have a massive impact today, schedule your own 1 on 1 breakthrough strategy call where we find you a breakthrough in your business in under 20 minutes, click HERE to get your complimentary session!

There’s a hidden weight dragging down the bottom line of every business.

We see it every day. Studies reveal 92% of companies have ineffective, incomplete, or non-existent sales process. Or worse, sales processes that their salespeople don’t follow. The need for understanding your sales process is more important when years are tough because it forces us to become smarter and more efficient about how we market and sell our products and services.

Follow these important steps to improve your sales productivity:

1. Know Where You Are.

“People respect what you inspect.” Chet Holmes cleverly said. This is a very simple concept and yet you’d be shocked at how many companies have little understanding of their true numbers. Here’s a case study to show you the power of understanding your data:

We had a client with a sales floor full of salespeople. We built a tracker that would post how many cold calls each person had made every two hours. In one week this simple act of posting the number of calls for each salesperson tripled the amount of cold calls the team was making. It created a natural competitiveness that was also fun. 

Keep in mind that it’s important that your organization’s performance be monitored. Tracking metrics, setting benchmarks for improvement and evaluating them regularly makes it easier to boost moral and adjust to reach your goals.

If you’d like some assistance from our 30 year learning curve of diagnosing businesses we’ve put together a gift for you to identify where you are and find hidden pockets of money. Take advantage of our Ultimate Sales Machine Opportunity Assessment here.

2. Have a well-defined sales process.

Every sales trainer on the planet will give you steps to the sale. We at Chet Holmes International train companies on the 7 Steps to the Sale as taught in our flagship New York Times Best Seller “The Ultimate Sales Machine” which explains these 7 steps:

1. Establish rapport (trust and respect)
2. Find need
3. Build value
4. Create desire
5. Overcome objections
6. Close sale
7. Follow up

Do you have each step to the sales process thought through with scripts? Ebooks? Memes? Infographics? PLEASE NOTE: Most companies put all their time and energy focused on the back end, the last two steps of the sale.

HOWEVER, studies of the best sales people indicated they actually flip the pyramid upside down and spend majority of their time establishing rapport. Once they do that, the close of the sale becomes much easier.

If you haven’t looked at your steps to the sale in a while, we recommend going back to the basics to get your foundation as strong as possible for the next 12 months to take flight.

3. Choose a Superstar Team

Research reports 3 out of 4 salespeople are ineffective. Twenty percent barely make the grade meaning only 6% of sales reps could be considered sales superstars. Do you have sales superstars? Watch this video to see if you’ve hired the right team and how to attract more top producers. Typically in a group of 10 sales people its very common to have just two superstars producing 80% of the revenue while the other 8 produce 20%. What if you had only superstars? Imagine how quickly you could double your sales. Watch the video to learn more about the details of finding top producers.

In Summary

Building a highly productive sales machine isn’t about doing 4,000 things. It’s more about doing 12 things 4,000 times. Use these 3 important tips to guide you in your approach to running your own highly efficient sales team.

Take Action

When was the last time you did an opportunity assessment of your business? Are you clear on how many sales appointments you have a day on average? What percentage turns into a sale? How many days it takes to do so? Majority of business owners miss the critical fundamentals of their business and therefore leave money on the table.

For the last 30 years we have been using CHI’s proprietary Business Opportunity Assessment, as a powerful diagnostic tool that examines every system in your business to find gaps of hidden opportunity. Until now, it was only available as part of our $36,000 consulting package. However, as a special promotion, we’re now making it available separately in a self-guided format for just $49. CEOs who have gone through the Opportunity Assessment tell us that it truly opened their eyes to what is really happening in their business.

The diagnostic tool contains sets of incisive questions to draw out information you probably haven’t considered. But be warned. You might find some of the questions challenging or uncomfortable. This is by design. Breakthroughs come when you’re out of your comfort zone.

But you won’t be alone. If you need help, you can schedule a no-obligation complimentary consultation to ask questions. You’re guaranteed to uncover untapped profit opportunities hidden in plain sight within your business. You are also sure to unmask problem areas you need to shore up. Honestly, at $49 this is a no-brainer.

If you go through the CHI Opportunity Assessment and don’t feel you received 100x the value, I INSIST you reach out to us for an immediate refund. That’s how sure I am this will help you.

Most people know Henry Ford as the founder of Ford Motor Company and the originator of the assembly line.

 But Ford was also a master motivator. 

 One day he walked onto the factory floor carrying a can of paint.

 He marched to the middle of the room and proceeded to paint a large number 6 right on the floor. 

 When the night workers came in, they asked what it meant.

Ford told them that it was the number of cars the day crew built. 

 The next morning he came in and learned the night crew had built seven cars. 

 He then painted a 7 over the 6 that had been there. 

 When the day crew asked about it, he told them that that was how many cars the night crew had built. 

 By playing the day crew off against the night crew, he was able to substantially increase productivity for his factory.

 Gamifications like this are a great way to inspire and increase effectiveness in sales or any other areas of your business.

 This works in any industry. 

 Yet few companies take advantage of this natural human tendency that plays such a large role in today’s culture.  

 How do you come up with out-of-the-box ideas like this?

 The best way I know is CHI’s proprietary Business Opportunity Assessment, a powerful diagnostic tool that examines every system in your business.

 Until now, it was only available as part of our $36,000 consulting package.

 However, as a special promotion, we’re now making it available separately in a self-guided format for just $49. 

 CEOs who have gone through the Opportunity Assessment tell us that it truly opened their eyes to what is really happening in their business.

 The diagnostic tool contains sets of incisive questions to draw out information you probably haven’t considered. 

 But be warned. You might find some of the questions challenging or uncomfortable. 

 This is by design.

 Breakthroughs come when you’re out of your comfort zone. 

 But you won’t be alone.

 If you need help, you can schedule a no-obligation complimentary consultation to ask questions.

 You’re guaranteed to uncover untapped profit opportunities hidden in plain sight within your business. 

 You are also sure to unmask problem areas you need to shore up.

 Honestly, at $49 this is a no-brainer.

 If you go through the CHI Opportunity Assessment and don’t feel you received 100x the value, I INSIST you reach out to us for an immediate refund.

 That’s how sure I am this will help you. 

 Best regards,
Amanda Holmes

 P.S. Henry Ford once received a letter from notorious bank robber Clyde Barrow (of Bonnie & Clyde fame) praising Ford vehicles as great getaway cars. 

 Honestly, it might feel a bit like stealing when you receive so much value for just $49, but go ahead. I urge you to try the CHI Opportunity Assessment and see for yourself.

Our Ultimate Sales Machine methodology has done it all. Our methodology has been able to:

• Double the sales of a paint manufacturer even when all the competitors were half the price.
• Sell television advertising in an industry where TV ads are becoming obsolete -doubling sales after a mere 8 months.
• Increase leads 5,400% when the market was in a blackout and nobody was buying.

These times we find ourselves in are unprecedented, but it isn’t the first time companies have come to us looking to gain revenue fast. As Chet Holmes says in the NYT Best Seller The Ultimate Sales Machine:

“When I go in to help a company that’s in trouble, the most powerful thing I do is to get them focused on solutions and setting goals for improving the situation. This shift in focus shows up in the results the company is getting.”

Just like after a car accident has happened on the side of the road. Do you find yourself slowing down to look? Have you ever tried to resist the urge to look at it and just tried to focus on the road? It’s hard right?

And that’s not even happening to YOU, that’s happening to someone else and you can’t take your eyes off of it. What happens when you have an issue or a problem, do you watch it like the car wreck it is, or do you keep your eyes on the road unwavering?

Here is an important distinction that every day we see business executives miss.

Let’s do an exercise.

Answer these following 4 questions about Information regarding transactions in your business:

IMPORTANT: you would be shocked to know how many CEOs are unable to answer these 4 questions.

There’s three groups of executives.

1. The ELITE top 5% of business executives that knows their numbers like clockwork.
2. The top 20% of business executives that don’t know the answer but still are confident that they can find the answer.
3. The remaining 80% of executives that don’t have the answers and won’t look for them.

How will you ever make an accurate goal if you don’t know where you are today?

As Chet Holmes says in The Ultimate Sales Machine, “People respect what you inspect.”

Especially if times are tough, you must have your hand on the pulse. If you’re repeating to yourself, “times are tough I just have to get through this Covid thing and we’ll be ok.” That statement is reactive, it’s based in fear, and has no definitive outcome.

 ULTIMATE SALES MACHINE EXCERPT:

“A Shortcut

Keeping your mind focused on your success may be difficult at first, but here’s a shortcut to help you make the transition. Your mind is more receptive when it is less busy. Right before you go to bed and right when you wake up, you are at your most receptive. That’s the best time to really focus your RAS on all the positive things you want in your life. If you picture yourself succeeding or overcoming something at those times, your brain will grab hold of that much easier. If you’re about to have a big meeting, picture it exactly as you want it to go. This visualization will stick with you as you enter that meeting and help create the results you want.”

If you find out that you actually generate 25 sales a month and to get to the next level all you need is one more sale a week. The goal is tangible, it’s definitive. And something you can track daily and weekly to get to your desired outcome.

Your focus can then shift from confusion, overwhelm, depression, into clarity, determination, and creativity to get the desired outcome.

So the first step to rapid sales growth is -knowing where you are.

We highly recommend taking the time, especially at the end of quarters and year end to look back at the last 12 months to see where your true metrics. To understand where you’ve been, and where you stand. Spending that additional 2 to 4 hours looking at your data will only make you work smarter and ensure success.

 Action Step

For several decades now we have refined the process of collecting data and analyzing the Opportunity within an organization. You’re welcome to spend hours searching through your reports to try to find this information to then develop your plan for the next 12 months.

Or. You can short cut 30 years of practice and use a process we’ve proven to work.

We know that business is really weird right now, so to give you a heads start we have made our Opportunity Assessment available to you. Our consulting clients pay a minimum of $36,000 initial fee to go through our diagnostic process. We’ve always kept this proprietary information close to our chest. However, we’re in unprecedented times, so we’ve made a condensed version available to you for a 99.9% discount. Please consider it our gift to you to get a clear picture of where your business is, what it’s strengths are, where it’s weaknesses are, so you can have more certainty and clarity for your plans in the next 12 months.

Please share it with anyone else you think needs a reboot, a refresh. A clear look at their business to start fresh. This Opportunity Assessment is yours for the taking.

Most companies are totally reactive, rather than proactive. Moreover, they have to constantly recreate the wheel because they never stopped to create a formal process or standardized training program in the first place. 

An exercise to find out what you want to fix

During a recent workshop with a client, I asked them to tell me “what are the things standing in the way of this being a much better company.” There were about 20 people in the room when I asked this question. We let them all think about it for a while and write down their thoughts before I went around the room and asked them what they had written down. By the way, this is a great exercise. Most companies have never done this, yet this simple exercise will give you six months of things to fix in your company.  

One of the items that came up was this vague notion: “Too many exceptions to the rule.” So I asked what that meant and the person said: “We have too many circumstances where the rules are flexible or no one knows what to do, so we (the customer service people) have to go to the boss all the time to find out what to do.”

The next week we put on the whiteboard “Too many exceptions” and asked everyone for examples or situations. There were 19 of them that came up. That means 19 different situations where this company had never bothered to create procedures, policies, or standards by which people could operate. 

We fixed all 19 within two weeks. Some of the solutions involved simple form letters. Some involved putting up a section on their website where many of these questions were answered, and the customer service people just had to send an email to the customer with the link. Some solutions required setting parameters within which the customer service people could operate. In some cases we created a tiered approach to resolve the issue. Meaning, try this, if that doesn’t work, do this, if that doesn’t work, do this, etc… Virtually every area where they once had to go to a boss was fixed because we had created some standard operating procedure for them to follow. The results were astonishing. The entire company runs better now. 

We’ve all heard the Michael Gerber saying: “work ON the business not just IN the business.” Here’s how you work ON it.

You have to ask people what needs to be fixed. Try it. It will be profound for you. Most companies have never asked their staff what’s broken. Believe me, they’ll tell you. But you have to do it with emotional detachment. No one can get hurt by what other people say, and no one will be made to feel stupid or intimidated. 

Then ask them how to fix it. I tell my clients all the time: If you have a good staff, the only thing the CEO needs to bring to a meeting is her or his judgment. Most CEO’s think they have to think of everything. That’s not correct. A good staff will fill you with ideas on how to fix the problems you haven’t even looked at. Do this every week and in a year you’ll be an entirely different organization with dramatic improvements in every area of your business. Just stop everything once per week for an hour to fix all the things in your business that aren’t the way you like them.

Increasing sales 600%

I have another client where we worked over their lead generation process for five solid months. First we broke down the entire process into every little step you can imagine. Then we did “workshops” (where you ask for input) on every little piece. In five months they went from getting four appointments per week to getting thirty. Most CEO’s leave everything to chance. You don’t have to.

In summary

Be a scientist about improving your company. Work ON every aspect of it with loving care and meticulous thought. Be devoted to getting one small improvement every week without fail. In just 52 weeks from now, you’ll be a profoundly improved company. 

The next step

My experience as a top-producing salesperson, business owner, elite business-change expert, sought-after Fortune 500 trainer, film producer, and karate master has taught me that the key to improving anything and everything is not about trying to implement 4000 things. The key is to isolate a handful of things that will have a massive impact and master them by practicing them everyday. But how do you know which ones will make the biggest difference?  Check out this 52 Week Workshopping Playbook. To give you the exact workshops to use every week for the next 12 months.