Latest / Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney / Manage your time and create a winning week - with Carin Hunt

Transcript

Manage your time and create a winning week - with Carin Hunt · Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney

0:00
Carin: The other big mistake I see is not actually having a
0:03
plan for every 10 minutes that you take to plan out your week.
0:07
You're saving about an hour of time for the rest of the week.
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It's like one to two hours.
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So when you plan for an hour, you're saving up to 12 hours
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of work during your week.
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I'm
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Becca: Becca Pountney, wedding business, marketing expert, speaker, and blogger,
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and you're listening to the wedding pros who are ready to grow podcast.
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I'm here to share with you actionable tips, strategies and real life
0:33
examples to help you take your wedding business to the next level.
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If you are an ambitious wedding business owner that wants to take your passion
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and use it to build a profitable, sustainable business doing what you
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love, then you're in the right place.
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Let's get going with today's episode.
0:49
Today, I'm chatting with Carin Hunt with 15 years experience in luxury
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hospitality and event management.
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She's now the founder and CEO of Celebration Pros.
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I was recently a guest on her Celebration Pros podcast, and today
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she's come back to join me here so you can learn from her too.
1:05
Carin, welcome to the podcast.
1:07
Carin: Thank you, Becca.
1:08
This has been so much fun doing this podcast swap and just getting
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to know you and what you do more.
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And thanks so much for having me.
1:16
Becca: I'm excited to have you.
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I'm excited for my audience to learn a little bit more about you and from you.
1:21
But before we get into the good stuff.
1:24
Just tell everyone where you are, because right now I'm in England.
1:28
It's been cold.
1:29
It's been a terrible summer.
1:30
Tell everyone that's listening who's also in England with me where you're based.
1:34
They're going
1:34
Carin: to be so envious.
1:37
So right now I'm living in the Florida Keys.
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So it's a string of island off the tip of Florida, kind
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of down close to the Bahamas.
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And we're only 90 miles away from Cuba.
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So pretty much in the Caribbean.
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And right.
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I actually got a notification on my phone yesterday and a phone call because there's
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a heat advisory and the heat advisories have been as high as like 114 degrees.
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So, while it might be very cold where you are, it is like, we're actually
2:06
staying inside quite a bit right now.
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Normally, in the summer, we would be like, out and about voting
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and on the beach and stuff.
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But yeah, so right now it's a little too hot.
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So, towards maybe.
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Yeah.
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It's at the end of September.
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Come and visit.
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Becca: Absolutely.
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We love Florida.
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So basically for us, you're living in a honeymoon destination because
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the Florida Keys is the kind of place people go on honeymoons and
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you're lucky enough to live there.
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So we can all imagine you now sat on a beach recording this podcast or actually
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inside because of your heat advisory.
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Now I've got another question for you, Karen, because as I was preparing
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for this podcast, I was reading up.
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Your bios and having a look over all of the stuff.
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And one thing caught my attention, which I know people are going to love, and I just
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need to understand it a little bit more.
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So in your bio, you talk about celebration pros and how you're helping wedding
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professionals in all different aspects.
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And then you say this sentence, which I love through application of champagne.
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Logic.
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Now, I absolutely love champagne.
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Explain to me and the pros listening, what is champagne
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logic and how can we all have it?
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Yeah,
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Carin: absolutely.
3:12
So in the wedding industry, you know, we're in the exclamation business, right?
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The exclamation point business, we're in a celebration business.
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And that's really where the name of the company comes from.
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And when you think celebration, you of course think, how do we celebrate?
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We always celebrate with a bottle of champagne and Champagne Logic is the
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way that I approach anybody's business, and I think it's a way of having fun
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in business because that's the whole reason why we're doing this, right?
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We did it to be able to create something of our own that we love.
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It's all passion projects, but we also want to make sure that we're doing it
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in a way that is lucrative and, you know, and also helping others while
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we're building our own kind of empire.
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So with Champagne Logic, we go through pop, fizz, and clink.
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So we popped the bottle off of your business.
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We, I can kind of go through audit your business, see where you're at, see
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where maybe there might be some gaps in your mindset and start applying.
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It's more of a mindset based step in, in everything.
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I always say you want to match the woo with the work, and then that's
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when you're going to see results.
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So that's really where we start is kind of a big audit on your
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business and your personal mindset.
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Then we get into the fizz of things and the fizz is all the
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details that run your business.
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So the strategies, the platforms, the apps, or lack thereof that
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might be pushing your business along and helping you run the
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functions, the day to day tasks.
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So we look at those and we see how can we streamline the fizz,
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the meat of your business.
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So that again, we can match the woo with the work.
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And then the clink is when we're able to clink glasses with others in our
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industry and really start working on what I use as a low cost marketing strategy.
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So that you're not having to think about all of the ways that you can
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spend your money on marketing, but actually the ways that you can step out.
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You know, from behind your desk and behind your logo and get to know the
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people within your industry and in turn start getting those beautiful
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referrals that match the brand of your
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Becca: business.
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I absolutely love that.
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Any business analogy that is based around champagne.
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is just fabulous and so easy to remember.
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So I think we all need a little bit more champagne logic in our minds.
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Now, the subject that you're going to talk with us about today is something
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that sometimes might not feel like the sexiest thing to talk about.
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Might not be what people think top of mind when we talk about marketing
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and business and all the good stuff, but it is actually something that
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people need a lot of help with.
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And that is scheduling planning.
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And calendars, because we know that wedding pros have incredibly busy lives.
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They're spending a lot of time on, you know, replying to inquiries,
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administration, all of this stuff.
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And they're just overworked.
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So why is it that you think this is a topic that they
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should be paying attention to?
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And
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Carin: you're absolutely right.
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A lot of, many of us in this industry are We at least start as solopreneurs
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and I think the majority kind of stick as a solopreneur, maybe a little bit
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afraid to let the reins out a little bit.
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And what happens is we leave the actual workforce of a nine to five job,
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or we leave the idea of a workforce nine to five job to start our own.
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And what happens is.
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Instead of working 40 hours a week, we're working 80 hours a week, right?
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Because we're doing all the things when you work for a corporation, you
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have an HR department and a marketing department and you know, the housekeepers
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and all of the different things.
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And When you're a solopreneur, you get to wear all those hats and
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it gets to be quite heavy, right?
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So what, what I like to do is to look at your week in a way that
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we are prioritizing the things that actually move you forward.
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Uh, Pareto's principle, 80 20 rule.
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20% of what you do is 80% of your results.
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So we want to look at.
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The 100% of your business and what's that 20% that's moving you forward.
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And that's what we're going to implement into your week today.
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We're going to actually, I'm going to give you like the to do's as we move forward.
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Becca: I'm excited.
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So you're going to teach us all today how to have a winning week.
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So before we get into the how, I'd love to just to understand, to help
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people see where they're at with this.
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What are some of the mistakes to start with you see wedding pros
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making when it comes to planning, scheduling, planning out their weeks?
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Carin: A lot of us stay stuck in the 80% of the things that
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aren't moving us forward.
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We're in our emails where on social media, we're kind of stuck in analysis paralysis.
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Like a lot of that.
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I always said it would be really interesting to go back and like.
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audit, like, like be a fly on the wall for the days when I was a wedding
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planner and be like, how much were you actually working during the
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time that you sat in the office?
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Right?
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How much were we actually putting towards the things that were moving us forward?
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And then how much of that was kind of like just sifting around in your business
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instead of actually doing the work?
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Um, and it's something I hear a lot where.
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Where people are just saying, they're like, I don't know where to go from here.
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I'm just kind of spinning my wheels and we're not really doing anything.
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The other big mistake I see is not actually having a plan when you take 10
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or for every 10 minutes that you take to plan out your week, you're saving.
8:52
About an hour of time for the rest of the week, it's like 1 to 2 hours.
8:57
So when you plan for an hour, you're saving up to 12 hours
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of work during your week.
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So there's so much investment in that time of actually having a planner.
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And so often we're just like.
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day to day.
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You don't really know what's happening the next day.
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We're not feeling prepared and everything just feels
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unorganized and we don't know why.
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And that would be wise.
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We're not planning ahead.
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Becca: Okay.
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So we're not planning properly or we're thinking we're too busy
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to plan, but actually what you're saying to us is if we plan, we'll
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get more time back in productivity,
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Carin: right?
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Correct.
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Or more time to live your life.
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Becca: Yeah, that is true.
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We don't have enough of that either.
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Now, I know that wedding pros tend to just fall into the trap of I've got
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loads to do, I'm just going to write the biggest to do list in the world.
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And I have been on calls with people where they show me their to do list and
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it's pages and pages long and they're so stressed out and they're so overwhelmed.
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Is this what we should be doing?
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Tell us what we should be doing.
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What is the first steps towards creating a winning week?
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Carin: So...
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I think a lot of people might say like, throw away your to do
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list and work on your priorities.
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And I think that a lot of times as creatives, we have some really brilliant
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ideas and they might not just be for like right now, but it might be
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something, a great idea for the future.
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For an example, I've always thought that hosting a directory in my area, because
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I'm in the Florida Keys and I don't think we have a very strong directory.
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That really represents the Florida Keys here.
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And when people are booking in the Florida Keys, they're looking
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at this specific destination.
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And a lot of times, the keys, because it is You know, it's a small area.
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It gets lost in those larger directories that we see like on wedding pro.
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So I really wanted to create this niche thing and I don't have the capacity for
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it right now, but it's a great idea.
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Maybe someone will run with it when they hear me, but I,
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I have it on the back burner.
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It's on a to do list, but that to do list is not on my desk.
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All those ideas and those to do's that don't matter for the goal I have in
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front of me at the moment, they're not in front of me, but I do keep a to do list.
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Sometimes it's in the note section of my phone.
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Sometimes it's on a spreadsheet on my computer, but when you
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have that like hundred, you know, points to do list in front of you.
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That's extremely overwhelming.
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And what happens is you no longer prioritize, you start picking
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the easy things or the things that feel good in the moment.
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And those aren't necessarily the things that are going to move you
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forward towards your current goal.
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Becca: Okay.
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So it's okay to have a list, but we don't necessarily need to have that
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list in front of us at all times.
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It's okay to have a list of things to come back to and list of things that
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we're actively working on at the moment.
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Now you talked a moment ago about how people spend a lot of time on
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things that aren't necessarily moving.
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our businesses forward.
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So how do we start identifying out of all those tasks that we're doing on a regular
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basis each week, each month, each year?
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How do we start by identifying where we're wasting time or where we've got
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weaker habits that are going on and things that aren't moving our business forward?
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Sure.
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Carin: So what I call these activities are income producing activities, IPAs.
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So right now I'm working on my summit and It doesn't serve me to
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also be planning my live panel for next, uh, for the next quarter.
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It only serves me right now to be working on my summit because the
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summit is the goal ahead of me.
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And so my to do list for launching my live panel in the quarter, it's It's
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there, but it's not in front of me right now because if I start working
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on that, it shifts my focus and the summit isn't going to do as well.
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So hopefully that makes sense.
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We want to just really hyper focus on what's in front of us.
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An example, say you're a photographer and it's slow season and instead
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of focusing on the meat of your business, the fizz of your business.
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You're focusing on how can I gain more clients right now?
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I need, I need that extra dollar right now.
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And until you actually get the structure of your business down and streamlined
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and you get your marketing plan in place, just kind of throwing out feelers and
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hoping that you're going to, to get a lead that's going to book might not
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actually be the thing that's going to be your ultimate income producer right now.
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So really figuring out what is the thing that's going to
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move my, my business forward.
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Immediately, that's what your focus should be on.
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So
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Becca: we need to be focusing on things that are moving our business forward,
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that they're going to produce some income for us, and we need to shed some
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of the activities that are just like being on a hamster wheel and we're just
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doing for the sake of it thoughtlessly.
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So I know that you've put together a resource that my listeners can grab.
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So talk me through this resource.
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What is it?
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How's it going to help people and how can they actually practically
14:09
Carin: use it?
14:10
Yeah, and I actually, I use it myself.
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I actually have mine in front of me right now.
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Over time, you may just have, you may just have this.
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As like your go to North Star for your week.
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But what I like to start with is this template and then you continue to use
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it weekly until you have it honed to a point that you feel like it's again your
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North Star like it doesn't go anywhere.
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It's it's always the same.
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So and people ask me that they're like is does your week.
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Do your weekly themes stay the same?
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And so most of the time they do, they recently shifted and I redid it.
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And so this is something that is fluid with the journey of your business.
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Basically what the weekly focus planning template will do for you
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is it will take your week and each day give you a specific focus.
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And for each focus, you think of the priorities that help
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you move that focus forward.
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So, Like, how often have you spent, like, hours?
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Say you're in your website and you're just like messing around in your website.
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And the next thing you know, it's like 2am and you're like, Oh my gosh.
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And we don't want that to happen, right?
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Especially on a day where maybe your focus was something else.
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And I'm going to be honest because I'm human.
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Yesterday I went down a whole rabbit hole of a new, like free resource.
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And I even messaged my business bestie and I was like, Girl, I just
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have to tell you this because I need someone to snap me out of it.
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That's why it's great to have an accountability partner.
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But it really, it really helps to give you a snapshot of,
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okay, what are we doing today?
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And I, and that happens too a lot, right?
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We sit down and we're like, what are we doing today?
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I don't know.
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I'm just going to get into my email.
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And then you get lost in your email, just like you got lost in your website
15:56
or a blog post or whatever it was.
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So to give you an example, there's two days I think everyone should
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have, and that is your CEO day and that is your planning day.
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My CEO day is on Monday.
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Now I'm going to tell you my, my big work days are Monday through Friday.
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When I was a planner, my big work days were Tuesday through Saturday.
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So.
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You're going to be able to form this to whatever profession that you have.
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And I know a lot of times, especially in the event industry, you're going to
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see that you might have to shift days based off of when you have events.
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You might have to shift priorities.
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You may have to even look ahead and say, September is insane for me.
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So I need to make sure that I have specific priorities.
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For the summer, so that when we start going into fall and things
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are getting busier, those things are already in place and maybe
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automated and those kinds of things.
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But back to the template.
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So, when you look at the template at the top, you're going to
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be able to fill in some dates.
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And then there's a spot that says work hours.
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And I like to say, how many hours do you want to work a day?
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And not how many are you working or how many like you think is realistically
17:04
possible, but how many do you actually want to work a day and as creative
17:08
entrepreneurs, we want to work.
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We want to be in our passion.
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But do we want to be in our passion 12 hours a day every day?
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I don't think so.
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We typically have families or or her hobbies or personal lives and friends
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that we want to spend more time with.
17:22
So I like to work no more than 5 hours a day.
17:27
I typically work.
17:29
Kind of around like nine to one ish.
17:31
And then there are certain days like my weekend, which my weekend is your
17:34
typical Saturday, Sunday, again, your weekend might be, look a little different.
17:38
I work one to two hours, so I do work every single day.
17:41
And the reason why is because I'm not working in.
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Large chunks of time through the week, so it doesn't feel cumbersome
17:50
to take an hour or two on my weekend to put into my business.
17:55
And then I don't feel like Monday is my catch up.
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Right?
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Everyone says, like, oh, I've got the case of the Mondays.
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Oh, it's Monday.
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Oh, I have to go back to work.
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You don't have to feel that way because you actually feel good moving forward.
18:05
It's more of a flow instead of a stop start situation.
18:09
So my Monday focus is my CEO day.
18:12
Yeah.
18:13
And what is CEO day?
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Well, this is when I get to be the boss.
18:15
This is when I get to pull up my CEO pants, and I get to do
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the things that a CEO would do.
18:21
So this is where I'm updating my finances.
18:23
And let me tell you, doing it every single week and looking at
18:26
your finances every single week, It makes it so much less daunting.
18:30
Imagine looking at your finances like once a quarter and realizing it went all wrong.
18:34
Like that's like, oh my gosh, like heart in your stomach or looking at your
18:38
finances and seeing that things were going really well and then realizing
18:42
that you could have done even more.
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Like you don't want that to happen.
18:45
You want to make sure that you're very aware of where you stand financially
18:49
at any point in time, especially as the CEO and having the time, cause I know it
18:54
sounds daunting, but having like a day in a specific time that you do that, it's
18:58
like, that's just going to become natural.
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This is also a time that I look over data and my system.
19:04
So I'll look at my email marketing.
19:06
How did my campaign go last week?
19:08
I'll look at my social media.
19:10
Was there like a specific post that everybody was loving or a podcast
19:13
episode that everyone was loving?
19:15
Um, so I look at, I look at my data and kind of do some analyzing there.
19:19
And then the last thing I do is check in with my team.
19:22
And while I am a solopreneur, this is when I'm checking in with my
19:27
business bestie, because she'll say, Hey, did you get this done?
19:30
You said you were, you were going to take care of it.
19:32
week, I check in with my resources because a lot of my resources
19:36
have customer support behind them.
19:38
So if I'm realizing that one of my resources isn't working correctly,
19:41
like I recently had a contract that something funky was going on, I
19:45
wasn't able to countersign it Monday.
19:47
I'm going to go in and say, did, um.
19:51
I'm going to go in and ask customer support.
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Is there something that you can fix with this?
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They were able to fix it for me on Monday, and I was able to
19:57
move forward with my contract.
19:58
So, even though you might feel like a solopreneur, you have CRM systems, you
20:03
have, um, scheduling systems, you have people who work alongside you constantly.
20:10
Maybe it's, uh, if you're a wedding planner, maybe you have, or a florist
20:14
or a rental company, maybe you have contracted help That you need to reach
20:18
out to and just touch base and say like, Hey, are you prepared for our
20:22
wedding that we have this Thursday or our event that we have this Thursday
20:25
or the project that we're working on?
20:27
So that's what CEO day looks like.
20:29
And when you get your finances updated, you've reviewed your data and you've
20:34
checked in with your team, you can go to bed feeling like you got some stuff done.
20:39
You notice how I didn't check in on my 100 tasks to do list.
20:42
Like that wasn't a part of my day.
20:46
And then for planning planning is the other day that I think is so important
20:50
and planning, I do this on Sundays.
20:52
I think your planning day should be in and out of business because
20:57
when you're able to batch things, you get it done so much faster.
21:00
For example, what I do is I reflect on the last week and
21:04
I forecast for the week ahead.
21:07
And when I do that, I'm not looking just at my business calendar.
21:09
I'm also looking at my personal calendar to make sure nothing's overlapping
21:13
that my son's doctor appointment.
21:14
Isn't at the same time as a podcast interview or an appointment or a meeting.
21:20
So it's really important to actually look in and out of
21:23
business when you're doing that.
21:25
Also prepping for upcoming meetings.
21:27
If you have, maybe you have a tasting or a, an intro call, or like I do a lot
21:35
of podcasts, podcasts that's coming up.
21:37
Is there anything that I can prep for upcoming meetings so that they
21:40
can go smoother and just check in and make sure everybody is aware
21:43
that it's happening and confirmed.
21:46
And then, uh, and then I do meal prep because prepping for your week with meals,
21:52
oh my gosh, I mean, that alone, if you take one thing away and I know it doesn't
21:56
sound like it's a business thing, but when you're working, whether you have a
22:00
big project where you're just in it all day, whether that be a, you know, an event
22:04
or elsewhere or halfway through the day, you're hungry or, It's lunchtime, like
22:10
just the most basic things, what, what you're making sure that you're consuming
22:15
enough water, hydration, what type of energy that you have available to you.
22:20
So I say all of this because when you don't have those things in place, next
22:25
thing you know, you've spent 30 minutes in front of the refrigerator or it's
22:29
like two o'clock and you are hangry and you're about to go into a meeting.
22:33
And you don't show up the way that you want to.
22:35
So meal prep is huge.
22:36
So Sunday is reflection, forecasting, prep for upcoming meetings and meal prep.
22:41
So hopefully that just gives you an idea of how theme days can really help.
22:45
You move forward and feel focused for your week.
22:49
Becca: I love that.
22:50
And I think especially the CEO day is something I need to implement more myself.
22:55
I know definitely a lot of the pros listening definitely need to implement
22:58
it themselves because again, I have conversations with people and they're
23:01
like, I haven't looked at my finances all year cause I don't want to look at it.
23:04
Whereas actually doing it each week, getting into the habit.
23:07
is incredibly helpful sometimes.
23:11
So I think people are going to come up against that thing.
23:13
Well, I just don't have time to do those things because I'm so busy.
23:16
Like.
23:18
Is it going back to what we said before that putting these things in now and
23:21
planning ahead will actually help us with our time management going forward?
23:24
Carin: Yeah.
23:25
So again, the time that you're spending planning is so minuscule compared to the
23:29
time that you save throughout the week.
23:32
So like, what would you do with 12 hours, like 12 extra hours?
23:36
You know, there's, there's so many things that you could fill that space in with.
23:40
Um, that, that could be.
23:41
It could either, you know, fill your, your passionate heart.
23:45
Uh, it could bring in more business.
23:47
It could be used for more connections.
23:49
It could be used to spend time with a hobby.
23:52
I just got a, a watercolor set that I'm really excited to dig into.
23:57
I've been doing like art and gardening and I was never able to do that when I
24:00
worked my corporate job or when I was even a wedding planner myself, because
24:05
I didn't know that this was possible.
24:07
And then once I started implementing.
24:10
this strategy, I now have time for all of that.
24:13
I have something I do with my son every day.
24:16
We do, we theme out our days, uh, ourselves, like Monday, we
24:20
go to the library and play Legos.
24:22
And like, I have that as part of my schedule and I never would have been
24:26
able to spend this time with my son.
24:28
He's three and a half and like, It would have been so sad if he
24:31
turned like eight and I never got these opportunities to enjoy him.
24:35
And this can be applied to spending time with your friends or yourself or
24:40
personal projects, you know, around the house and that kind of thing.
24:44
And I say this because I know that we're talking about business, but The reason
24:49
why we're in our passions is so that we can enjoy life and live beautifully.
24:53
And I think that there's a way, I don't think it's a balance.
24:56
I think it's a harmony.
24:57
And you're going to find times where you're going to have a busier season
25:01
and you're going to have to put 80% of your time into your business and
25:05
20% of time into your personal life.
25:07
And that's okay too.
25:08
I just want you to know that, but having a structure like this.
25:12
really helps you to identify that ebb and flow and to bounce back into a little bit
25:18
more of, you know, I hate saying balance because that means everything's 50 50 all
25:23
the time and that's just not the case, but it does give you that flexibility.
25:27
And when, when you download the template, I actually give a lot of different options
25:31
for the different types of theme days.
25:33
So there are examples in there so that you can kind of round out your week.
25:37
But CEO and planning is really the biggest thing.
25:39
Oh, and one other thing I wanted to mention is when you're looking at your to
25:42
do list, so you have your to do list in front of you, there's your hundred items.
25:47
What I want you to do is think about your current goal and highlight all the items.
25:51
Highlight all the items that are going to help move that goal forward and
25:54
then everything else you can decide.
25:56
Can you delegate and automate any of those?
26:00
Can you put any of those on the back burner?
26:02
Like, they're just not important right now, but maybe they're
26:04
important down the line.
26:06
And is there anything you can eliminate?
26:08
This board back here is like, sometimes it's my idea board.
26:11
And there was one day where I had like 20 ideas on it and I
26:14
literally scratched them all.
26:16
I'm like, I, this isn't, this isn't helping me.
26:19
And that's okay to do that.
26:21
So that's, um, that's the best way you're going to delegate and automate.
26:25
Put on the back burner.
26:26
for future, maybe the side burner rather.
26:29
Um, and then what can you
26:30
Becca: eliminate?
26:31
So then within your days, do you plan by the hour?
26:34
Do you give everything a time slot?
26:37
If you're, so say you're in wedding planning mode rather than your current
26:40
business mode, and you've got this whole load of stuff to do, would you plan it?
26:44
Like, I'm going to do this between this time and this time, and then I'm going to
26:47
do this between this time and this time.
26:48
How would you make that work?
26:50
Carin: I do.
26:51
So the weekly focus planning template is like step one.
26:54
It's like you're, you're just kind of putting your toes in the water.
26:58
And, uh, and it's, it's basically your awareness around what
27:02
your schedule could be like.
27:04
And you're absolutely right, Becca, you're going to time block from there.
27:07
So I use, I have my trusty planner here and I was actually introduced
27:11
to this planner from my coach.
27:13
So if anybody's interested in a link to the planner, I'd be happy to pass it out.
27:18
But basically what it does is it time blocks from 5 a.
27:20
m.
27:21
to 10 p.
27:21
m.
27:21
every day.
27:22
Of course, there's a little area for gratitude and affirmations and notes
27:25
and things like that, but there's also a spot for your three priorities.
27:29
So again, kind of matching the template, we're still looking at what
27:35
our three priorities are every day.
27:37
So at the top of the page, um, I'm able to put what my theme for the day is,
27:41
and then I'm able to break things down.
27:43
This also gives you time to put intention around your morning routine.
27:48
What does that look like?
27:50
And it gives you time.
27:52
Then, then the next thing I do after morning routine is I look
27:54
at my schedule and I'm like, okay, what do I have coming up today?
27:57
Let's fill in what those meetings are.
27:59
And then around that, I'm able to drop in what my priorities
28:03
around my theme look like.
28:05
So, yeah, it's, it, it really helps when you time block and then you
28:09
keep that next to you all day.
28:10
You bring it with you, whatever it is.
28:12
And I like to highlight as I go along just to make sure I get everything
28:15
Becca: done.
28:16
Fabulous.
28:16
So you are super organized.
28:18
You've got it all down day by day, hour by hour.
28:20
But I think it's important for people who are listening, even to just do some of
28:24
this, because we do waste so much time.
28:27
And as you said, very honestly, at the beginning, we can end up down
28:30
these rabbit holes and we can end up doing loads of stuff that isn't moving
28:33
our business forward, or isn't going towards the goal that we're working to.
28:36
Whereas when we do break it down and we plan out our time,
28:39
we feel less overwhelmed.
28:40
We have more space and we feel on top of it so that we're running our business
28:44
rather than our business is running.
28:46
Now, there's two areas where I think wedding professionals
28:50
can waste a lot of time through their days and through the weeks.
28:53
And I would love to just get your thoughts if you've got any ideas on each of these.
28:57
So the first one is email inbox.
29:00
And by email inbox, I mean all communication.
29:03
It might not be traditional email.
29:05
It could be Facebook messenger, Instagram messenger, WhatsApp, you know, our clients
29:09
are messaging people like each other out.
29:12
In all day long, all over the place, like, how do we get on top of this so we don't
29:16
just spend all of our time going backwards and forwards to all these messages?
29:20
Carin: Okay, so there's a different approach when we're looking at
29:23
email and and then social media.
29:26
And my approach to email is probably not.
29:30
There might be some, some people who think that this isn't the way to do it.
29:34
This is what works for me.
29:36
So when I every morning I go in my inbox and I delete anything that's not relevant.
29:41
And I unsubscribe from any junk mail.
29:44
It's the 1st thing I do and I, a lot of people say, don't
29:48
go into your email 1st thing.
29:49
So, I think what happens is you have to have a lot of self control to
29:54
not open the other, the other email.
29:57
So, if that's you and you have no self control and you do
30:00
get lost easily in your inbox.
30:02
I would just schedule a time of when you're going to do your emails.
30:06
So have like an hour where you can kind of pull that inbox down.
30:10
But definitely anything that's spam mail, unsubscribe.
30:13
Anything that's not serving you, unsubscribe.
30:16
Because That's just adding and when you open up your inbox and it says
30:20
that you have, you know, I don't know, put in the number that makes your
30:23
anxiety go up that many emails that it's against again, that analysis
30:30
paralysis, you just sit there and you're like, which email do I tackle first?
30:33
You know?
30:34
And what I found is, um, I'm like, I'm a part of Toastmasters and they just
30:39
submitted, I'm the VP of education and everyone just submitted to me what
30:43
their goals are for the year because their fiscal year starts in July.
30:47
So I have all of their goals sheets, and they're all sitting in my inbox, but
30:52
I know I'm like, okay, that's all one task, even though it's like 10 emails.
30:56
I know it's all one task.
30:57
I know that they're there.
30:58
I'm like, okay, even though that's 10, it's really just one.
31:01
And I need to find the time to go and save those into my Google Drive.
31:05
That's not a big deal.
31:06
And so I kind of like, In my mind clump them together.
31:09
I'm like that that's fine.
31:11
And then like I have the summit coming up So I need some emails.
31:13
I'm like, okay Probably at one o'clock when i'm working on my summit i'm going
31:17
to go in and i'm going to take care of those So I I kind of match them to
31:20
whatever my schedule looks like Uh rather than trying to say like, oh my gosh,
31:25
I have 100 emails I'm going to tackle them all right now because the reality
31:28
is is that all of those emails are like 10 different themes in your week, so
31:35
try to stick to whatever the goal is for the day and then go from there.
31:39
1.
31:40
1 big day that I have is like client care or community day.
31:44
And that's really when you're going to be talking more to
31:46
your vendors and your clients.
31:48
Another big 1 is phone calls.
31:50
Because you might be in the middle of something and somebody calls you and
31:53
it just like derails your whole day.
31:56
What I do, and again, this might not be the favorite way to do it, but
32:00
it worked really well for me when I was in corporate, was If I got
32:05
phone calls, I would let it go to voicemail, and I would get back to them.
32:10
I had an hour between 1 and 2, sometimes to 2.
32:13
30, where I would return calls or answer calls during that time.
32:18
So I'm returning their calls within like six hours, and the only time I
32:22
would return a call sooner than that is if I know that like, oh, maybe
32:26
they're a nurse and they're working.
32:28
All day and they only have a lunch break, right?
32:30
Like there's certain there were certain clients that I
32:33
would make considerations for.
32:34
But for the most part, I would return phone calls around 1 and you can figure
32:38
out what time works best for you.
32:40
But that way, you're not getting derailed and you have it planned in your day.
32:44
Oh, and then social media.
32:46
Yeah, sorry, social media was the last one.
32:48
If you're inundated with messages and social media, hire somebody.
32:53
Please hire somebody.
32:55
Hire a virtual assistant.
32:56
Hire an in person assistant.
32:58
Delegate that task out.
33:00
You'd be surprised how affordable it is.
33:03
And then just get them very clear on What your messaging looks like so
33:07
that when they're responding, they can decide whether this is a qualified
33:11
lead or a qualified collaborator and then pass it back to you.
33:15
And that way they're doing all the sifting for you.
33:19
Becca: That's so helpful.
33:19
And I think so much of what you're sharing, so much of what you're
33:22
saying in this whole conversation is actually, it's about us taking
33:26
back control of our businesses and control of our time schedules.
33:30
Because we.
33:30
almost have this belief that if someone rings us, we need to just
33:33
interrupt everything and answer it.
33:34
Or if someone emails us, we need to just get back to them immediately.
33:38
But actually, what you're saying is we don't have to do that.
33:40
We can actually take back control of our day and think, yeah, I will get
33:44
back to these people at lunchtime.
33:46
I also need to tell you a secret, Karen, which is going to blow your mind and
33:51
probably make you have heart palpitations.
33:54
As you were talking about your inbox, I thought I'd have a little look down
33:58
at my phone and see how many unread emails I have in my inbox right now.
34:03
And the number is 2634.
34:06
Oh my gosh.
34:10
So I think I need to take a leaf out of your book and actually
34:13
get on top of my emails and Maybe unsubscribe for some emails because
34:17
it does make you feel stressed out when I just look down at that.
34:20
And I think 2, 634 emails, where do I even begin?
34:24
I definitely need to get on top of this.
34:26
So if you're listening to this and you are in a similar position and
34:29
you're feeling overwhelmed, it's okay.
34:31
Take a step back, take a breather.
34:33
We can do this.
34:34
Now, the final thing I wanted to ask you about the other thing that I
34:37
think people spend way too much time getting stressed about and wasting
34:40
time on is social media posting.
34:43
So have you got any thoughts around?
34:45
How to not spend so much time down this social media hit, basically,
34:51
where it sucks so much of our time.
34:52
We're spending all our time.
34:53
We're saying we're there to work, but then we're actually just scrolling and
34:56
then we can't think of what to post.
34:58
Do you recommend people schedule ahead?
35:00
What do you do?
35:01
What works?
35:01
So
35:02
Carin: great question, because this is relevant to probably everybody.
35:07
So Friday is my content day, and I'm actually considering having
35:13
a content writing day And then a social media day because it's, it
35:19
is cumbersome and sometimes you do need a little bit more time.
35:23
And again, this might be where you pull an assistant in to help you.
35:26
Um, so I'll explain it pretty quickly.
35:28
The biggest thing you're going to do is repurpose.
35:31
So, say you have a weekly email that goes out or a blog post that you've recently
35:35
written, or maybe even one that you wrote like years ago, but it's still relevant.
35:39
Like that's cool too.
35:41
And what you're going to do is take that, what we call long form
35:44
content, and then you can break it up.
35:46
The easiest way to do this is of course, with our friend AI.
35:50
So you go into chat GPT, you drop in your long form comment content.
35:55
And you say, Hey, chat GPT, can you please break this up
35:58
into three Instagram captions?
36:04
And then it breaks it up into three Instagram captions.
36:06
And then you say, can you add these keywords into there?
36:09
And it goes ahead and it does that.
36:10
And then you're like, you know what?
36:12
I have a more playful voice.
36:13
Can you rewrite those in a playful voice?
36:15
Yep.
36:15
Chat GPT does all of that.
36:17
It includes the emojis.
36:18
It includes the hashtags.
36:20
And then you can take those captions, attach them to pictures
36:23
that had to do with the topic.
36:25
And now you have your posts for the week and you can do all of that in probably
36:29
as much time as I told you just now.
36:30
So it's a very quick way to go about your social media content, but in the end,
36:36
social media is not a business strategy.
36:38
What happens is we spend all this time in Instagram when only 1% of
36:43
our followers see what we're doing.
36:45
So if you have 100 followers, 1 person sees what you're doing.
36:49
If you have followers, only 10 people see what you're doing, right?
36:54
So it's good to have that, that, what I call portfolio, Instagram should be
37:00
more of a portfolio, but in the end, my, my biggest suggestion has always been
37:07
following that low cost marketing tactic of word of mouth and really getting your
37:12
name out there, creating connections, going to the networking events.
37:15
Um, if you are on social media, instead of posting all the time, Plan to post
37:20
two or three times a week, but put more of your focus into engaging on
37:24
other people's platforms, because what that's going to do is they're
37:28
going to say, Oh, they're interesting.
37:29
They like what I do.
37:30
And they're going to start a conversation with you, uh,
37:32
and start connecting with you.
37:33
So I would put engagement.
37:36
First over actually putting content out there and so that we're not scrolling, uh,
37:44
in the background, you can, you can see Becca, but I know the listeners can't see.
37:47
I have this cube that I got off of Amazon and the cube there's different times.
37:51
Um, mine is a 15, 20, 30.
37:54
15, 60 minute and basically you drop the cube on its side and it times
38:00
you and then it beeps and then when the beeps done, then you're done.
38:04
So you use your timer cube or whatever you could use timer on your phone.
38:07
You don't have to buy anything fancy, but time yourself so that you're
38:11
doing 15 minutes of engagement.
38:14
And then put it away and then put your phone away.
38:17
And that's really going to help give you that those boundaries so that
38:21
you're not getting lost in the scroll.
38:23
Becca: Love that.
38:23
There's been so many great tips in here.
38:26
Thank you so much for sharing.
38:27
I could talk to you about this all day because clearly I need to organize my
38:31
own life and my own business and take some of your advice on because you're so
38:35
right when I do plan ahead and when I do.
38:38
Give focuses to my days, then we get more done.
38:40
And I'm sure that's the same for people listening as well.
38:43
I will make sure that I put the link to that focus planning spreadsheet that we've
38:46
been talking about in the show notes.
38:48
So do go and grab that.
38:49
If you're listening, if you want to go through that exercise and
38:52
get your week planned out, and we would love to hear about it.
38:55
So if you do manage to do that, why not take a photo of it, put it on
38:58
Instagram stories, send it to me Carin and we'd love to see that you're taking
39:02
action on what you've heard today.
39:05
Now we always end this podcast with the same.
39:08
Question Karen.
39:08
So I'm going to ask that to you now.
39:10
And that's this, what's one thing you wish you'd known sooner in your business?
39:14
This,
39:17
Carin: all of this that we just talked about.
39:19
Uh, yeah, it's, it, um, it was really a big life changer.
39:23
But I think, you know, what is as a, as a kind of a version of that question
39:28
would be like, what, what could I tell somebody in their business?
39:33
Like, what's the 1 big thing that's really pushed me forward is I don't
39:38
want to say not taking no for an answer, but just asking anyways.
39:42
The only reason why Celebration Pros is where it is now only just over a
39:47
year of being in business is because I just asked, I asked people that I
39:52
was like, they are far ahead of me.
39:56
They're the expert.
39:57
They're, you know, the people that kind of scare you a little bit to
40:00
approach, I just asked them anyway.
40:02
I'm like, Hey, you want to be a part of my life panel?
40:04
Do you want to collaborate with me?
40:05
It was a big reason why my wedding planning business did so well because
40:09
I wasn't afraid to just call up and ask and say, Hey, If I scratch
40:12
your back, will you scratch mine?
40:14
Like, I'm going to give you value.
40:16
Let's work together.
40:17
Like collaboration is so it's, it's very much respected in our industry.
40:23
And so when you stay behind your, your business and you don't.
40:27
Put your best foot forward and help others and kind of rise together.
40:32
Guess who gets left behind?
40:34
You do because you just sat sat there and you didn't ask for the help.
40:38
You didn't ask for the the uh, the collaborations and the connections.
40:43
Um, so my that's probably my biggest advice to anybody would be.
40:47
A, do everything in this, you know, consider everything in this episode,
40:53
but also just get out there and start connecting with the people who are
40:57
gonna, who are gonna grow with you.
40:59
Becca: So, so important.
41:01
If you don't ask, you don't get.
41:03
So be brave, go out there and do your own thing and just ask for it because
41:07
you never know what might happen.
41:08
Karen, it's been such a pleasure having you on the podcast.
41:11
Go back, enjoy your Florida sunshine, and we will try not to get too jealous.
41:15
Carin: Thank you, Becca
41:15
Becca: it's been great.
41:17
What a fabulous conversation.
41:19
As you've heard, there's a lot of work that I need to do in my own business to
41:23
get on top of some of these plans that Carin's been talking to us today about.
41:28
I'm definitely going to get some focus days going into my diary.
41:31
So hopefully you get to do the same as well.
41:34
Make sure you go and download that focus spreadsheet.
41:36
And if you want to find out more about Carin, all of her
41:38
links are in the show notes.
41:40
I'll see you next time.