Jul
3
Michael Masterson’s Personal Productivity Secrets
Filed Under Strategy, Time Management | Leave a Comment
Raise your hand if you know who Michael Masterson is.
Okay, for those of you with non-raised arms, Micheal Masterson is founder of health, wealth and success e-newsletter Early to Rise. In less than 7 years, Masterson built a loyal following of over 250,000 people–whom he mentors to help them acheive their financial goals–through his success at productivity, selling and marketing.
Masterson is also the author of several Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Amazon.com best sellers, including Ready, Fire, Aim, and Automatic Wealth: The Six Steps to Financial Independence.
So here’s the deal. In a short book called Personal Productivity Secrets, Masterson shared his personal blueprint for productivity success.
It’s called the Master Plan.
Jack Welch used a Master Plan to turn GE into a lean, market-dominating company. NFL Coach John Fox used a Master Plan to go from a 2-14 season to a run at the Super Bowl the following.
The same process can help you achieve your goals. Here’s how it works.
Simplify Your Goals
A master plan works by simplifying your interests and acting upon them in a simple way. Start by figuring out your life goals.
- List all the things you want to accomplish on a sheet of paper.
- Choose the top interest.
- Decide if that is what you want to spend your life doing.
- Create a five year plan to reach your number one goal.
- Create a one year plan to reach your number one goal.
- Repeat steps 4 and 5 for every major goal you want to accomplish.
How Does Rising Early Make You Rich?
The morning time is the best time to collect your thoughts. Better yet, if you get up at 4:30 A. M., and work 2 hours, you’re that much ahead of your competition.
During these hours of solitude, make your to do list, then prioritize it and finally start on one of the most important tasks immediately.
This Little Tool Will Be Enormously Valuable to You
Masterson carries 3-by-5 index cards everywhere he goes and writes down every idea that comes to him. This way, nothing escapes him.
Each morning, he reviews his cards and consults them whenever you have a spare moment. I sometimes use the voice memo feature on my phone. This is especially helpful when you are driving.
Whether electronic or paper, once you start doing this, you’ll be surprised at how much more “on top of things” you’ll be in a few days.
Don’t Let Your Email Ruin Your Schedule
If you are on email more than twice a day–stop it. Checking email is not the most important thing you should be doing.
Also, Masterson recommends you train people who email you to keep it short. And when they pose a problem, teach them to map out multiple choices.
Group Like Tasks Together
Tackle similar tasks at the same time: That means, create time blocks when you check voice mail, send emails and write memos.
Or, group similar tasks by time duration. Lump all tasks under fifteen minutes for the end of the day. And group your more time intensive tasks in the morning when you are fresh.
Choose a Daily Planner That Works for You
Electronic planners tend to be the least effective. Daily paper planners the most. I use a makeshift notebook. Whatever you choose, stick with it.
Pencil in Appointments First–Ink Later
When you make an appointment, pencil it in first. When it is confirmed, then ink it in. This lets you know at a glance appointments that are concrete and those that are not.
Measure and Improve Your Personal Productivity
It’s always a good idea to review every two weeks your planner to see how many tasks you aren’t getting done. If you find yourself with more incomplete tasks than you like, do one of three things:
- Work more hours and be happy with it.
- Learn how to be more efficient.
- Schedule fewer tasks.
Two is probably your best option. But, highly-motivated people often try to bite off more than they can choose, so the third option might work for you instead. You decide.
Conclusion
In How to Become CEO, Jeffrey J. Fox recommends spending an hour a day “planning, dreaming, scheming, thinking, calculating. Review your goals. Consider options. Ponder problems. Write down ideas.
Mentally practice your sales call or big presentation. Figure out how to get things done.”
Good advice.
Follow Masterson’s simple steps to get a jumpstart on your day, your career and your income. And to change your life you’ve got to stick to this basic program.
The bottom line is: stop focusing on anything that is keeping you from your most important goals.
Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.
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Nov
30
Guarantee Your Success with This Strategic Planning Tool
Filed Under Real Estate Marketing, Real Estate Prospecting Ideas, Strategy | 2 Comments
Here’s a little piece of business wisdom that may or may not surprise you:
The freedom, lifestyle and income you’ve always dreamed about depend upon you. It depends upon your patience and it depends upon your planning.
In his 2001 book The 7 Keys to Marketing Genius marketing consultant Michael Daehn, writes:
Many marketing books jump right into the promotion process where instructions on how to broadcast the marketing message are described in detail. The problem with that approach is that if you are sending out the wrong message, it will not only be ineffective but counterproductive.
That’s why it’s so important to create a sound strategy before you start the promotion process. Whether you employ new social media or stick to flagging classified ads or build a sales letter campaign from the ground up…
You need to analyze. You need to plan first.
A SWOT analysis will help you do that.
A SWOT Analysis, is a strategic planning tool used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a business venture.
A SWOT is about defining your advantage over the competition. The questions you have to ask yourself are:
- What do I do better than anyone else in my market?
- What can I do that my competition can’t do?
- What will separate me from my pack?
A simple SWOT analysis will help you find out what you do best. And it will give you the road map to a predictable and profitable business that will last for decades.
Here’s what you need to do:
1. Gather all stakeholders.
Since you are an individual contractor you are in a way defining your individual strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
But it may be helpful to you involve your spouse or a business partner or your broker. Someone who can help you see the things you can’t see.
This is especially helpful when speaking of weaknesses and threats, but sometimes people are so low on themselves they need help to see what they are really good at.
2. Focus on the strengths.
Hammer out all of the positive elements you can think of : education, experience, connections, knowledge.
This is important: Devote enough quiet time. Clear a day or a weekend. Get alone and discover what it is you are really good at. This is important that you get this right.
3. Dig deep and consider your weaknesses.
Even the brightest, most educated, highly successful individual has weaknesses. Find them.
But remember this about weaknesses: when it comes time to work on your weaknesses, only work on those that can damage your life or career.
Habitual drinking or a fear of confronting people are two weakness that could quickly destroy your hopes of success.
Work on these but ignore the benign weaknesses…otherwise you spend all your time on your weaknesses and not your strengths.
4. Evaluate the opportunities in your market.
Unlike strengths and weaknesses, opportunities are outside your influence. You merely exploit them.
For example, perhaps you identify a segment of your market that is not being serviced appropriately AND you have some well-connected people who can help you reach this segment.
This is a huge opportunity for you. Seize it.
5. Discover the threats in your market.
Threats can kill you. That’s why you must pay attention to them.
A threat could be monster brokerage house that systematically mows down competition. You need to realize this and figure out what to do about it. Otherwise you’ll be bankrupt and blue in less than a year.
Or a threat could be a cooling market. You need to identify this and ask yourself the question: is this the best time to go into real estate?
And remember: Be honest during this entire process. The freedom, lifestyle and income you’ve always dreamed about depend upon it.
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Nov
23
Black Friday Link Mashup: Blog Strategy Happy
Filed Under Networking, Strategy, blogs | Leave a Comment
Outside the obligatory first link on Black Friday by Seth Godin, this post is about all the nice links that will help you with your real estate blog strategy.
[And by the way, happy shopping!]
Seth Godin: Create panic by making your customers uncomfortable.
Are you using the right content development strategy for your blog?
I’ve previously talked how content needs to capture attention, a scarce asset in the today’s accelerated information economy. [via doshdosh]
Value Blogging In: Less Writing, Higher Quality
How I Built 10,000 Links in 3 Weeks
Prison Break: Lessons on Blogging
Do You Have a Blog Commenting Strategy?
40 Observations about My 2 Year Old Blog by Teresa Boardman
6.5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Blog
Writing Good Headlines for Regular Readers, Search Engines and Social Media
What Is the Future of the Real Estate Blog?
Do you have any links about blog strategy you’d like to share? If so, pop them in the comments below. Thanks and hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!