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Have you heard the phrase “Everything is content”? I decided to go with that approach while promoting this week’s episode of the Launch Your Business Podcast. It features one of my favorite authors, Dorie Clark.

Instead of just sharing a cool takeaway on LinkedIn, I posted an embarrassing video where I completely forgot the name of her books during the interview.

Fortunately she just went along with it and few people chimed in to share their own embarrassing stories.

Without further ado, let’s get started.

Today at a glance:

Thought: Who should you tune out?

Time-saver: A simple process to increase your productivity

Tactic: Win bigger deals with the Wedge Strategy

Read time: 3 minutes

Thought: Who should you tune out?

I’m stoic by design but I was floored by what I heard while leading a webinar this week. I asked an attendee about the challenges he was experiencing in regard to growing his business. His response? “Nobody in my family believes in me and they think I’m going to fail.”

I definitely wasn’t expecting that response and it was impossible to ignore the pain in his voice. I gave him some advice on how to boost his confidence, but I also suggested not talking about his business around his family anymore.

And, this isn’t to say that he should get away from his family completely, but it did remind me of a powerful quote; “If people are doubting how far you can go, go so far that you can’t hear them anymore.”

Your turn. Is there someone you need to tune out because of their negativity? If so, do it.

There are way too many people rooting for you to let one person diminish your sense of self-worth.

Time-saver: A simple process to increase your productivity

Next week will be a short one for many of us due to the holiday, which is why it’s even more important to be as efficient as possible with your time. Here’s a simple process you can use to boost your productivity and efficiency.

First, think about your overall goals. What would you like to achieve over the next 60-90 days?

Then reflect back on tasks you’ve done over the past few weeks. This includes projects, admin work, meetings. Anything that takes up your time.

This is where the magic happens. Based on your overall goals, determine how – or if – you should move forward in regard to performing these tasks. And, determine what else you should be doing to get you closer to your goals.

You’ll do this by assigning each of these tasks to one of the following buckets.

• Stop
• Start
• Change
• Continue

Here’s an example of how this could look.

Of course this will look different based on what you have going on but the process can work in any situation.

Spend some time filling it out this weekend so you can save more time next week.

Tactic: Win big deals with the Wedge Strategy

To win new business, many professional service providers spend hours performing audits to determine what issues a prospective client has and how they would fix them. They then deliver these findings as part of a proposal and hope to get paid for performing the associated project.

Here’s are two problems with this approach:

• The prospect may say no, so you’ve wasted hours on the proposal
• The prospect may send your proposal to other providers and choose to take their business elsewhere

Either way you’ve done a lot of work and received nothing in return. McKinsey & Company – a global management consulting firm – solved this problem by charging for their audits.

They refer to it as “The Wedge Strategy”. The name comes from the process of chopping down a tree and even though I spent two summers as a landscaper, I’ll spare you the details.

In short, the easiest way to chop down a tree is to first drive a small wedge into it, then back cut on the other side

For McKinsey the wedge is the audit, a foot in the door, and they make even more money on the backend by charging to perform all the services referenced in the audit.

You can and should do the same thing. Don’t give away your talent for free based on the potential of winning a bigger contract.

You might be thinking. “Cool, but I have no clue how to perform an audit”.

Yes you do. You’re an expert in one discipline or another, so you know what steps are needed to do so successfully.

An audit is the process of analyzing all the steps for an individual or organization, then discovering areas of improvement or opportunity. You already know this process, you just need to document it.

Still need more help? I cover the process in detail as part of my video course, the Solopreneur’s Fast-Track. If you’d like to join, the pre-sale price is in effect through Monday. For now, you can watch this video to learn how you can perform your own audit.

Yes, the video is 7 minutes long, but you’ll win more deals and make more money if you apply what you’ve learned.

And here’s another benefit. Besides getting paid for these audits, they also accelerate the process of you winning bigger deals by establishing trust with your clients.

I hope you found this valuable (please let me know) and if you did please consider sharing it with a friend. They can sign up here.

I’ll see you again next week!

Want to receive The Solopreneur’s Shortcut every week? Subscribe here. We’ll send one thought, one tactic, and one time saver straight to your inbox. No fluff, just proven techniques for growing your business.

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