If you’ve listened to us before, you know that we are all about efficiency.  “Work smarter, not harder” is a motto we live by.

But recently we realized, that not everyone really knows what we mean when we say efficiency, and so today we thought we’d dive into why efficiency is all that matters.

To a business owner, efficiency means getting things done with the least amount of time, money, and energy possible, while still getting the desired results.

Efficiency In Business Strategy

How are you doing inside your business?  Are you following a plan or are you shooting from the hip?

If you set goals, do you usually fall short?

Do you have processes and workflows in place across the board?

• A great way to improve efficiency is by making improvements to your process and workflow.  Finding ways to save time and energy in your processes (like utilizing forms so that you can qualify your leads and spend less time talking on the phone to the wrong people) can save you in the long run.  Creating a better workflow means you are producing your product or service faster, without compromising the quality, therefore making it more efficient.

Efficiency is Ongoing

• If you do a project for a client and something goes wrong, find out why, and fix that particular issue in your workflow for your very next project.
• Over time you’ll craft a smooth process, system, or workflow.

Efficiency means more money

• We are saving money because something takes less time to do, or we are using fewer resources and therefore it is costing us less to do it.
• Overall we’re trading less time for more money.

Efficiency In Work-Life Balance

• Put yourself in situations that will lead to good outcomes
  • Don’t overbook your time – if you’re a person who always runs late, that’s a YOU problem. You’re just setting yourself up for failure. 

Finding Inefficiencies

Where do you see yourself being inefficient in your business?  Sometimes it helps to take a time audit and find where you are spending the most time.  Find where you are spending the most money or energy, and see if you can brainstorm ways to be more efficient.

Simple Process Change Example

We used to offer weddings, and we would constantly get emails or phone calls asking about our pricing or availability for weddings.  Then we made a form on our website to make the process more efficient…saving us the time of talking to people who couldn’t afford our services or were getting married on a day we were not available.  Then we noticed, we were typically responding to the form submissions in one of 2 ways:  we’re booked, or we’re available and let’s schedule a consult.  So to be more efficient, I drafted up two email templates that I could customize to save me time in replying.

Quick-Wins

1. Pay attention to what you’re doing and find the inefficiencies.  
2. Use templates, batching tasks, contractors, and software to help solve your problems.

Host Bio –  Rhi and Pete [Rhi-Pete – now you’ll remember] are a wife and husband team who have been in business together for over a decade.  They run a creative media agency [Do Something Different Media] that provides strategy and consulting, video production, website development, photography, graphic design, and content writing for small businesses.  

Recommended Resources 

Wrike Project Management

Less Annyoing CRM

The post Quick-Win Episode 9: What Does Efficiency Mean? appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

In our maiden voyage of the Learn It – Do It Podcast we introduce ourselves and give you a little insight on what this show will be about.  We’re a husband and wife team who’ve been in business for ourselves since the fall of 2008. We share our story of how we jumped feet first into being self-employed entrepreneurs and discuss how we navigated the challenging task of creating our own opportunities in business.  Over the last 10+ years, we’ve worked with hundreds of clients and we noticed that almost everyone struggles with similar challenges. We decided to focus this podcast on the topics of Content & Marketing, Business Strategy and Personal Development, because no matter what industry you are in or what your business is, these topics play a crucial role in running a successful business.

Episode 0 Summary

• We introduce ourselves as business owners and podcast hosts
• We talk about our qualifications and experience in this space
• We share why we wanted to start this podcast
• We tell you what this podcast will be about and talk about who it’s for
• We describe the show format and episode details

Recommended Resources 

Check out our creative media agency: 

Do Something Different Media – www.dosomethingdifferentmedia.com

If you want to apply to be a guest on the podcast head over to www.learnit-doit.com/podcast

The post Episode 0 – Who are Rhi & Pete and What’s this Podcast All About? appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

We are launching a podcast!  Our goal is to provide resources and education to the self-employed business owner who’s in the trenches day in and day out.  And to that end, we figured that in addition to the online course material, blogs, and free downloads, we’d create a bi-monthly podcast to provide you with more real-life, valuable information.

WHAT IS THE LEARN IT – DO IT PODCAST ABOUT?

(the official Podcast Intro Description)

“Welcome to the Learn It – Do It Podcast. We focus on content & marketing, business strategy and personal development for self-employed entrepreneurs. Each episode will feature a live coaching call with a small business owner just like you – where we will tackle a specific challenge and develop a plan of action to overcome it.”

We want to unpack what it is like to run a business day-to-day. There’s so much involved with running a business that most of us are never taught, and being in business for yourself is challenging. Each week, we’ll roll up our sleeves and pull back the curtain into real small businesses so that we can help solve problems and develop solutions for growth.

No matter what industry, or whether you’re a product or service provider, we all face similar challenges each day — especially if you’re the one wearing all the hats.

WHAT IS THE FORMAT FOR THE LEARN IT – DO IT PODCAST?

Each episode will be hyper-focused on a particular topic [or challenge] faced by our guest.  Rhi and I will introduce the concepts and premise of the topic and then we’ll share a live coaching call with a real business owner.

Our guest will introduce their business and describe the main challenge that they are currently struggling with.  We’ll have a conversation that dives deep into the specific topic and by the end of the episode, we’ll come up with the next three steps to solve it.  The whole point of this coaching call is for our guest to leave the call with an action plan that they can start implementing right away.

As a listener, you’ll be able to relate to similar challenges you face with content & marketing, business strategy, and personal development and you’ll immediately be able to utilize the next three steps for yourself in your own business.

WHEN WILL THE LEARN IT – DO IT PODCAST BE AVAILABLE?

Twice a month we’ll be publishing new episodes of the Learn It – Do It Podcast.  Each episode will be 30-60 minutes in length [mainly because some topics are cumbersome and we want to make sure that our guests get a proper plan of action before the end of the episode].

HOW DO I GET ON THE LEARN IT – DO IT PODCAST?

In order to be a guest on the show, head over to the podcast page and fill out a brief digital interview.  If you have more than one challenge you’re interested in discussing, feel free to fill out more than one form.  While it is not guaranteed that every applicant gets a coaching call, we will be reading each submission and truly appreciate your interest in being a guest.  We rely on submissions from listeners just like you and will choose the topics that we know will best suit our listeners and help us cover a variety of challenges that are relatable.

WHERE CAN I LISTEN IN?

Our podcast will be launching in September and will be published on our website biweekly.  You can also subscribe to our podcast on iTunes.

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