5 Habits of Highly Productive People You Can Copy Tomorrow

Do you like lists?

I do. So do most people.

Maybe that's part of why I love the "Tracked" column in WSJ Magazine.

Every issue, they follow a top achiever around for a day and tote up all they got done -- 73 phone calls, 14 meetings, 30 laps swum, etc.

I thought it would be fun to analyze a handful of "Tracked" profiles for you, in search of common traits -- each of which you can copy in your business.

Want to know what I found?

First, here's the list of super productive people:

• Hollywood mega-producer Brian Grazer
• Silicon Alley icon Kevin Ryan
• CEO and publisher Martha Stewart
• Restauranteur and "food crusader" Alice Waters
• Pixar Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter

Now, here are 5 things they do to get huge amounts of profitable work done each day ...

1. Early to rise. Martha Stewart wakes up at 4:59, Alice Waters about 6:45. All 5 top achievers get up somewhere in between, further proof that Ben Franklin was right
   
   
2. Exercise before breakfast. Walk, swim, cardio/strength training -- every one of these highly productive people makes time to invest in their health
   
   
3. Follow a script. Nobody gets on their daily schedule without an appointment
   
   
4. Delegate. The highest-paid activity on earth is thinking. That's why people at the top surround themselves with support teams to implement their ideas, giving them more time to find more ideas
   
   
5. Over-communicate. Waters sent 193 emails, Brian Grazer made 73 phone calls, John Lasseter held more than 4 hours of meetings. However it's done, these top achievers have a lot to say each day -- and they say it in a way that matches their communications style

If you can find more shared habits among these 5 super achievers, let me know in the comments section below.

Meanwhile, I'm laying out the kettlebells for tomorrow morning's workout :-)

Bio: Kevin Donlin can help you grow your business and enjoy the breakthrough results your hard work deserves. If you're interested in boosting your revenues and profits, please click here.

Dinner and a Limo with Harvey Mackay

I had dinner with Harvey Mackay at his home last night, along with a group of folks helping promote his new book, The Mackay MBA of Selling in the Real World.

He shared dozens of anecdotes about business and life, many of which you'll find in his books.

(Writing was in Harvey's blood even before sales -- his father was a correspondent for the Associated Press in St. Paul for 35 years.)

My favorite story was about the chance meeting in a limo that helped make Harvey a best-selling author ...

In 1988, after publication of Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive, Harvey found himself in the same New York ad agency as Larry King. Each was there to shoot publicity photos.

Harvey wanted to ask Larry King to book him as a guest on his TV show, but missed his chance. Quickly, the shoot was over and Larry headed out the door to his limo.

Harvey, dejected, walked out to hail a cab. Suddenly, the window rolled down on Larry King's limo -- "Where ya headed?"

"The Carlyle Hotel," replied Harvey.

"Hop in!"

Taking his seat, Harvey remembered a lesson his father had drilled into him as a kid: "When you shake someone's hand for the first time, ask yourself: 'How can I help this person?'"

While engaged in small talk, Harvey's mind raced: "How can I help Larry King?"

Nearing the hotel and running out of time, Harvey had an idea. "Larry, do you want to sell more books?"

"That's why I write 'em!" he said.

"Well, I've made quite a study of the publishing industry in the last year and I may be able to help you," said Harvey.

Just then, the limo pulled up at The Carlyle, but Larry told his chauffeur to turn off the engine and wait. "Go ahead!" he said.

About 15 minutes and 7 ideas later, Harvey had given Larry plenty of help. And Harvey had an invitation to appear on Larry's TV show.

Harvey's first appearance on "Larry King Live" sold 50,000 copies of Swim With The Sharks, and led to a spot on Oprah ... that sold another 50,000. The rest is publishing history.

So, next time you're talking to someone who can help you, resist the urge to brag about yourself or kiss up to them. Instead, ask yourself: "How can I help this person?" Then let the answers guide your conversation -- you may be very happy where it ends.

Bio: Kevin Donlin can help you grow your business and enjoy the breakthrough results your hard work deserves. If you're interested in boosting your revenues and profits, please click here.

Your Public To-Do List

Email is your public to-do list that anybody can get on.

I don't know who came up with that idea (it wasn't me) but I’m happy to share it with you. 

Anyone who knows your email address has a button they can push to give you something to do. You’re like a secretary on Mad Men who has to drop what you're doing anytime you get buzzed on the intercom.

Or think of email as a doorbell that anyone can ring. Imagine how little work you’d get done if the neighbor kids rang your doorbell every five minutes ... all day, every day.

Time is the only thing you have every day in which to do your work. When you let email steal your time, you’re leaving the vault doors open and inviting 100,000,000 strangers into the bank. You’re not just letting people steal from you -- you're an accessory to the crime.

If email is your public to-do list, that makes it Public Enemy #1 in your work (and life).

Bio: Kevin Donlin can help you grow your business and enjoy the breakthrough results your hard work deserves. If you're interested in boosting your revenues and profits, please click here.

What's On Your Not To-Do List?

We're 17 days into 2012 -- how are those New Year's Resolutions coming?

Before you yell at me, hold on. I'm just the messenger.

And if you're not happy with the progress you're making on your To-Do List for 2012, here's help ...

... in the form of a Not-to-Do List from Peter Drucker and The Drucker Institute:

If you’re like most people, you’re working on a list of resolutions: Eat healthy. Go to the gym more. Read the classics. But Peter Drucker would have likely asked you for a different kind of list: What are you going to stop doing?

As we’ve noted before, Drucker believed that “planned abandonment” is among the most important things that any organization can engage in. After all, shedding yesterday’s products, programs and policies is the only way to make room for the innovations of tomorrow.

But Drucker was also adamant that this same discipline should extend beyond the organization to the individual. That’s the only way one can ensure that he or she maintains proper focus and protects what for many of us is the most precious resource of all: our time.

“The job is . . . not to set priorities,” Drucker wrote in The Effective Executive, his 1967 classic. “That is easy. Everybody can do it.  The reason why so few executives concentrate is the difficulty of setting ‘posteriorities’—that is, deciding what tasks not to tackle—and of sticking to the decision.”

In a 2004 interview with Forbes, Drucker asserted that leaders, in particular, need to make the setting of posteriorities—well, a priority. “The most dangerous traps for a leader are those near-successes where everybody says that if you just give it another big push it will go over the top,” Drucker said. “One tries it once. One tries it twice. One tries it a third time. But by then it should be obvious this will be very hard to do. So, I always advise my friend Rick Warren (the pastor at Saddleback Church), ‘Don’t tell me what you’re doing, Rick. Tell me what you stopped doing.’”

So, what are you going to stop doing this year, to free up more time for high-value activities like 80/20 Marketing?

I would never ask you a question I wouldn't answer myself, so here are 3 things I'm stopping in 2012:

1. reading past the front page of the newspaper at lunch (saving bad news for after dinner :-)
2. showering during the work day (hygiene is all well and good, but I'm moving my workouts before breakfast, to reduce transition time)
3. taking any work home past business hours (leaving all books, magazines, etc. in my office)

Chime in on the comments section if you'd like to share what's on your Not To-Do List this year.

Bio: Kevin Donlin can help you grow your business and enjoy the breakthrough results your hard work deserves. If you're interested in boosting your revenues and profits, please click here. 

How To Break Bad News: What The Post Office Knows That You Don't

You can learn a lot about how to break bad news to clients (or anyone) from the U.S. Postal Service.

Their news release announcing higher postage rates is a masterpiece of positioning ...

1. Look at the headline -- prices aren't going up, they're "adjusting."
   
2. A "penny increase" sounds minimal, doesn't it?
   
3. The increase is softened by bracketing it with the fact that it's the "first since May 2009."
   
4. The first paragraph provides more softening context: "... it will cost just a penny more to mail letters to any location in the United States, the first price change ... in more than two and a half years."

Sheesh. When you phrase it like that, I almost hate to complain about another jump in the price of stamps.

Bottom line: this news release -- obviously written by a pro -- illustrates the importance of context and language when communicating bad news to clients (or anyone).

It also shows how important it is for your marketing communications to be written by a pro ....

... because, while Bob the mailman or Dolores the postal clerk are pros at what they do and can tell you all about the new prices, they are NOT pros at choosing exactly the right words for this marketing message. 

Bio: Kevin Donlin can help you grow your business and enjoy the breakthrough results your hard work deserves. If you're interested in boosting your revenues and profits, please click here. 

What Can Only You Do? What Should You Do Right Now?

Twitter asks, "What are you doing?"

Success asks, "What should you be doing?"

Harvard Business Review agrees with the latter:

"The higher up you get in an organization, the more you need to focus on what the company needs from you, not on what you want to do."

Stop. Look at what you're doing now. Then look at your calendar for the rest of today. How much of what you're doing is what you want to do vs. what your company needs you to do?

Especially if you're an entrepreneur or business leader, you need to do what you need to do, not what you want to do.

To the extent that those two ideas converge -- you love doing what you need to do -- you win. To the extent that they diverge ... you lose.

"While management experts advise doing what you are best at, great leaders do those things that only they can do"

What can only you do? (And may I suggest that it ought to include 80/20 Marketing?)

"Figure out what functions only you can perform. These may be tasks that are unique to your role, such as meeting with a key client or calling a top official. Or they may be strengths that the organization lacks, such as solid marketing skills. Gauge how you can be most useful and focus your time and effort there. Then delegate the rest."

To figure out what functions only you should perform, here's advice from Tom Hopkins, who uses this as one of his guiding principles: "I must do the most productive thing possible at every given moment."

So, here's the question you need to answer, all day every day: What is the most productive thing that only you can do right now?

Bio: Kevin Donlin can help you grow your business and enjoy the breakthrough results your hard work deserves. If you're interested in boosting your revenues and profits, please click here. 

Free Marketing Dashboard: More Profits Made Simple

Want to improve your marketing in 2012 -- and beyond?

Fact: You can't improve what you don't measure.

Problem: You, like all mammals, probably hate tracking the data that goes into marketing. So you don't measure your marketing. Which makes it difficult to improve.

Solution: Why not try my Marketing Dashboard?

It's an Excel spreadsheet I created for my own use, but I'm happy to share it with you. It's an easy way to improve your marketing, by making it easy to measure it ...

... so you can do more of what makes you money, and less of what doesn't. You know, 80/20 Marketing.

Also: it's free. Gratis. Zero dinero.

First, take a look at a screen cap, below ...

The Marketing Dashboard

Here's what those columns mean ...

• The first column = days and dates. Duh.
  


• Connects Offered/Given = the number of networking connections I offered to or actually made for clients and prospects each day. There's no easier way to start a sales conversation with a prospect than to offer them a networking connection.


• Pro. Emails = emails sent to prospects, either in reply to inquiries from them (reactive) or to follow up and provide more reasons to like and buy from me (proactive).
  


• Pro. Convos. = conversations by phone or in person with prospects.
  


• Client Convos. = conversations by phone or in person with clients.
  


• Quotes Sent = price quotes sent by email to prospects, after we have had a sales conversation by phone or in person.
  


• YES Rec'd = prospects who said yes, they want to buy.
  


• Pymt Rec'd = checks or credit card orders received that day.
  


• TOTAL at the bottom = results vs. quotas for the week
  
  (10 of 10 = good ... 3 of 5 = bad).

I filled out the first week of January for you on the example, and left the next week blank for you to insert your own quotas. And, of course, feel free to modify any or all parts to suit your needs.

Want to download your own copy? Click here.

Bio: Kevin Donlin can help you grow your business and enjoy the breakthrough results your hard work deserves. If you're interested in boosting your revenues and profits, please click here.