Today’s post is going to be a little bit more focused on three quick talking points for small business owners and entrepreneurs. But hopefully everyone can get a little bit of value from this.
These are three things that every small business owner needs to give up in order to grow in 2021. These are three things that I have given up or are trying to give up each and every day, and we’ve seen the positive benefits from it. I speak from personal experience.
Catch Up Calls
You’ve got to give up these spontaneous calls, texts and catching up type meetings. I’m not saying all of them, but what you have to realize is that as a small business owner, your time is the most valuable. You just have to accept that fact. With that understanding in mind, it puts everything into more perspective.
There’s a lot of pet peeves that I have with some communication that goes on. Even little things. I might offend several people that are reading this post. For example, my voicemail says if it’s an emergency, please leave me a voicemail. If it’s not, please email me and I will get back to you at my earliest convenience. I am shocked to this very day how many people listen to that voicemail and leave me a voicemail. It’s amazing. I will listen to the voicemail. And of course, 99% of these calls are not emergencies.
It goes to show it’s not a personal thing. I know they’re not out to get me. No one’s doing this on purpose. I think there’s very few people out there that are trying to waste other people’s time.
I remember there was a colleague of mine who once made a joke, but I took it seriously. He said, you know, you should only take revenue generating calls. And I was like, oh, that’s interesting. Let me actually try that, put that into practice. For a period of about a month and a half, all phone calls, emails, even text messages where people were just asking me for stuff such as, hey, can you do this? Hey, I can do that? What do you think about this? Let’s chat about this, I gave him a short, respectful response. I would say, hey, sorry but for right now, I’m really only focused on revenue generating projects. I was shocked at how little pushback I got from that.
I was also shocked at how it often turned several conversations into really awesome collaborative conversations later down the road. I didn’t have time, but it was just amazing to me to show that if you really do put your foot down, value your time, and show that to others, for the most part, people are going to respect that. You’re going to get a lot more done and you’re going to feel less of this external pressure throughout your workday. You have to put your business and your team first or you will be taken advantage of. It’s just the way things go.
Long Meetings
The second thing you have to give up in order to grow in 2021: long meetings. And I would add meetings in general. I’m bad at this. I’ll admit this right now, but we’ve gotten a lot better at Big Red Jelly. I think people are stuck in these patterns of having meetings like either daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually and here at Big Red Jelly.
We’ve got certain team meetings that we have every other week. We found that very, very effective. These are 30 minute meetings within our specific smaller teams. They’re thirty minutes long and they’re every other week. We found that pattern or sequence was the most efficient. Every week felt a little unnecessary for us and every month didn’t feel like we were collaborating or meeting enough.
Feel free to get creative. You don’t have to pick one of these daily, weekly, monthly, maybe try something that really works for your team or that particular process at hand.
Micromanaging
The last thing you have to give up in order to grow in 2021 is micromanaging. This is on so many different levels. Some of my previous videos and posts, I talk a lot about relinquishing control of some of the technical work. That’s something I have a hard time with if there’s a web design project, branding project, or just a marketing project. I really like getting into that project and working on the actual project, trusting your team, trusting your employees and creating processes. Working on the tools instead of in the tools.
That’s what is ultimately going to help you develop these processes so that your team can become more autonomous and your business can grow. In that weird, paradoxical way, you have to do less technical work in order for your business to grow. It sounds backwards, but I have learned that lesson the hard way.
Those are my three points. You’ve got to give up these spontaneous calls and meet ups, you’ve got to give up long meetings and you’ve got to give up micromanaging or spending too much time on the actual technical work in order to grow. Three things that I’m constantly working on. But I’ve seen the benefits of doing that. Hopefully you’ve found value from these three points.
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We’ve implemented this at Big Red Jelly. We have several phases that clients go through. It’s never a pushy sell. The upgrades and upsells usually don’t come directly from our sales team. Rather, they come from team members who have worked with a client personally on a project. Our team is trained to ask, “Hey, now that we’ve completed this phase, are you interested in taking it to the next level?” For example, if we complete a branding project for a client where we rebrand or reposition their company, by the end of that project, it’s become more apparent to the client and our team member that the client’s digital platforms are archaic. With the new brand, their website looks outdated. At this point, it’s a very smooth upsell to build a new, modern website. You’ll be amazed at how many upgraded or unsold clients you receive even after a couple of conversations where you simply ask. 
Making a client feel like the cool kid on the block or the cool networker that everyone wants to network with. When you finish work for a client, give them the opportunity to refer your business to anyone in their network for a discount. Let your client know how much you loved working with them and how great it would be to work with people in their industry, their network, their colleagues or cohorts. Let them know that if they refer you to their network, they’ll get a 10%, 15%, 20% discount. It makes them look cool. They look great. They really appreciate it. You’re looking after them. And of course, future business, future clients are going to like it as well. 
The project is fresh on their mind. They may decide then and there, after receiving your automated message to close the sale with you and to stop shopping around. It lets them know that you’re on top of it, but you will also provide human contact within 24 hours. I hate when I complete all the information and the response says “Thanks, we’ll get back to you”. I get so frustrated. What does that even mean? But if it says “Thanks, a team member will reach out to you in 24-hours. In the meantime, check out our awesome work, see what our clients are saying. Look at this latest project we just finished up” you have further engaged a potential client and they have a positive association with your company before talking to anyone. Don’t be the barrier that loses leads. If possible and applicable, give them a link to sign up, get started, schedule a call, etc. Automating next steps will save you time and money, while increasing the bottom line.