In this transcript, Deedra Determan (Award-winning publicist) and Clay Clark (Business Coach speaker of choice for Hewlett Packard, Maytag University, and more) discuss the importance of effectively managing your time on Thrive15.com, the best sales training program.
Clay Clark: Can a business coach ask you, do you ever find a problem … For anybody who works in this room who might have attended some college, I’m not trying to offend you for you who might work in this room or watching this, but I find sometimes when people get out of college, they’re so used to the slow pace … Because I went to college, it’s slow … Basically college … I’m really probably offending someone, and I don’t mean to be, but I think if your brain is mentally functioning properly, you can just graduate by showing up.
Deedra: Oh, yeah.
Clay Clark: You can just show up and you’re just like, “Just blow in this glass and make fog and I’ll give you a degree.” That’s basically how college has become for a lot of colleges. I see people who come and they’re like, “I have a degree. It’s a degree. Look at it. It’s on parchment paper and it has a signature from the dean of something or other. I got a B.” You’ll say, “We need to move. Let’s make a decision.” “Well, you know, I have to think about it.” You’re like, “Time is money, man.” It seems that there’s a slow pace coming out of college, and you got to pick it up a little bit. Have you noticed that? I know I have my thoughts as a business coach.
Deedra: Yeah, I would say that. I thought I was busy in college two to three hours a day in class. You get out and you’re like, “Oh, I wasn’t real busy.”
Clay Clark: When you get into business, you’re 90 miles an hour. As an entrepreneur and business coach, I know from experience.
Deedra: 90 miles and hour.
Clay Clark: You’re, “Rrrrr,” just the whole day. I just want to make sure that if you’re watching this and you find yourself being slow to make decisions, you have to fail first. Don’t you?
Deedra: Right. You learn from mistakes.
Clay Clark: When you were doing 918moms and you’re trying to sell an ad, did you have a pitch that didn’t work?
Deedra: Oh, yeah! My first several pitches didn’t work.
Clay Clark: So you make a sales presentation, and you walk out going, “Whew, that was not very good.” Clifton Taulbert, the guy who is a Thrive mentor, successfully launched the StairMaster product into the humanity. He told us that he had 36 months of consecutive rejections before he sold one unit. Now if he would have taken a month to get a rejection, he would still be doing that. He’d be a 75 year old without a sale.
Deedra: That’s a lot. You [crosstalk 00:02:11].
Clay Clark: You’ve got to get that rejection. I think it’s important we act.
Deedra: And you learn from it and make it better and tweak it as you go.
Clay Clark: Why do you think a lot of entrepreneurs struggle to make a decision? What do you think a lot of these guys, whether you happen to agree or not, are just slow to make a decision or these ladies are slow to make a decision? What causes that in you mind? Tell this business coach your experience and insight.
Deedra: I think they don’t want to make a wrong decision, so they ponder on it forever rather than … I’m a pretty react person, “Yes, let’s do this,” but if it’s something that I’m not sure about, I ask my team, feedback. Everybody give me your thoughts, and we weigh the decision that way.
Clay Clark: Isn’t a wrong decision to not make a decision?
Deedra: Yes, I would say so.
Clay Clark: I just wanted to make sure you’re hearing me here. If you’re an entrepreneur right now or you’re thinking about being one, you’re like, I just don’t want to launch my business until it’s perfect. It will never be perfect.
Deedra: Right.
Clay Clark: I promise you. You got to move. You got to move. Moving on to principle number 16, don’t let email control your life. Now Deedra, in terms of time management, most entrepreneurs I know are paralyzed by emails. I literally see people that are stuck in the inbox. They can’t get out to get anything done because they’re stuck in that inbox. Do you struggle with that ever?
Deedra: Yes, the amount of emails, I think the amount of information today. People are texting. They’re emailing. It’s crazy, so I think managing a block, sometime in my day. I usually, which is probably maybe not the healthiest thing, but I always bring my lunch and eat while I work.
Clay Clark: Do you eat liquid lunch so you [cook 00:03:46] faster?
Deedra: No.
Clay Clark: No? Okay.
Deedra: I eat food. That’s a time where I’ll go through emails. I’m eating. I don’t have any appointments. I’ve got an hour. I’ll do some social media, stuff that I need to do, and I’ll do my emails during that time, so two to three times a day like that where I’ve got a block.
Clay Clark: I just think with the email thing, you definitely have to have a strategy of what’s important now. I’ve heard a couple different strategies that I know have worked well for myself and for others. One is having maybe two defined times a day where you check email, maybe an hour after you’ve been to work. You get your stuff done, get your planning done. You start maybe at 10:00, and then again a 4:00, and then you’re done. That’s a move. You can also learn sales training on Thrive15.com.
I know other people who are more executives who respond to every email at noon and that’s it. But the strategy that won’t work is just constantly responding while trying to … If you’re in a meeting and obviously trying to update your social media while texting your mom while trying to hit on your wife on the text message, email, twitter thing, you just can’t get much done. You got to have that focus. Are there any rules you give people that might work for you about handling their email?
Deedra: I think just definitely picking times in your day. Pick a slot. First thing in the morning is great. If you haven’t done it the night before, look through all your emails, make sure you’ve covered everything from the day before, and then you’re ready to start. Have those blocks in your day that work and don’t spend your whole day on email. You can’t.
Clay Clark: Learn from me, a business coach…You can’t spend the whole day on email. This just in from our home office