Unique Ability

The 80/20 of a daily routine

Focus, Leverage, Unique Ability

I have been analyzing my daily routine. On a weekly basis if we were to just take 40 hours of work, then after a month of monitoring my daily activities I have realized that

1. I spend more than 30% of my time in peer to peer meetings and unscheduled internal calls

2. I spend another 30-35% of my time in emails

3. I spend about 15% in reviews / feedback sessions with my team .

4. About 5-7% is spent on meeting customers to understand what is happening at their end or to give presentations or to get feedback ….this is one of my Unique Abilities and I love interacting with customers.

5. I spend less than 10% on actual marketing activities like conceptualizing marketing messages, strategies etc.

The last item I am able to achieve with the focused thinking time that I keep writing about.

The other day I was listening to the Ultimate Entrepreneur podcast by Jay Abraham. He had a guest by the name of Dr. Alan Barnard who is a practitioner of Goldiratt’s Theory of Constraints.

In this podcast towards the end they speak about a new offering they’re bringing to the market which shows entrepreneurs how they can convert their existing top line into the bottom line in less than 4 years.

That’s what got me thinking. I have been talking so much about 80/20, prioritizing, small hinges move big doors etc. in my blogs. To actually be able to convert the top line that I get for the company into the bottom line I will need to focus sharper and sharper on the 80/20 of the 80/20 of the items which actually get me business. Items where I have high impact and where presently I am spending less than 15% of my time.

I am on the experiment to see how I can convert the amount of my present top line to become my bottom line in next few years. Will keep you posted.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Solving problems – only focus on your Unique Abilities

Unique Ability, Value, value proposition

Today’s post is going to be short. Today has been an overdose of problems to be resolved.

Some problems were with vendors to get a better price point, some with the internal teams and some with customers.

I have observed that while I can handle customer and marketing related problems quite well, I am generally not very good at interacting with vendors and negotiating contracts. I have a feeling when dealing with vendors I tend to get a little soft and don’t keep all the commercials in control, so I have to put an amazing amount of effort to even go through a small transaction.

On the other hand when I am dealing with customers or dealing with marketing related challenges with the team I am more alert and tend to be more creative.

Dan Sullivan has this concept of Unique Ability that he talks about a lot. As per him when you operate in your unique ability not only are you more energised to do things, you are also more creative and get less tired.

On the other hand when you are doing things where you don’t have the necessary ability, you tend to have to spend more time and energy. His view is that you should have people around you who complement you on your unique ability so that the areas where they have a unique ability can cover the areas where you are weak. This way every one enjoys all the time because they only do the work which suits their Unique Ability.

What’s your view. Will love to hear your comments

Till next time

Carpe Diem!!!