Time Tracking Means Business Growth?

So in this episode , I'm going to tell you about the insight and that I got from this team time tracking exercise and how I was advised to set it up and how I did it . But before we get there , hi , my name is quay Joe and I am the new host of the art of online business podcast .

After coaching alongside Rick for three years and managing Facebook ads For about that same amount of time , we had a talk and decided it's time to pass the baton , and I am carrying that baton the art of online business baton forward .

There's two links in the description below where you can find out more about who I am , where Rick interviews me , and you can also find out where Rick has gone to , and it's a really cool AI project . So welcome , and I can't wait to deliver to you my insight on this tracking exercise that really did help me . And now here's a problem .

I wanted well , I wanted to grow , yes , but I had hit like the maximum monthly revenue that my business had ever made for the third time , and previously I had come up against that ceiling . While I didn't know it was a ceiling until I went back down twice , and this time I'm like I want to smash through that revenue ceiling .

So I took the common and very popular and very sound advice and hired a business coach , someone who has the same kind of business that I do , like a small boutique ads management studio and then also a course or a suite of courses on the side , and I saw her . I saw her help out .

So , of the many things that she has taught me so far , she taught me that I needed to track my time , and not just my time but my team's time , and she was adamant .

Before I could hire anyone else , I , before I could create any other extra offers that I had been thinking about , I had to do this time tracking exercise , and I did it because she's my coach . Shout out to you , brandy Miles , you you're a great coach and she is quite , quite a good coach . So here's the mindset that I had to a spouse .

That's a big word . I don't like using big words . I was so happy when I heard somebody talking about how , when it comes down to writing sales copy and sales pages , think like a genius but talk like a third grader . So everybody can understand you , because I , hand raised , if you're watching on the YouTube channel , do talk like a third grader .

So back to what I was talking about , though .

I had this mindset I had to get a hold of , which was , you know , it's all my past ideas that got me to where I was , and if I was going to break through this revenue ceiling and go further , I had to get some new ideas , and so I had needed to do my research , find a good coach , and then , even when they tell me or let's say , you have a coach

and your coach tells you things that don't make sense to you , of course they don't make sense to you because they have a completely different perspective , because they're the coach and hopefully they have the . Well , if you're hiring them in more of a consulting capacity , then they have the experience and the results that you're looking for .

So this whole time tracking thing exercise , it was quite insightful . So it's a one week time tracking exercise with your team . It's all in meaning you do the same amount of time tracking that they do five days in a row .

Pick a normal week , not a launch week , and pick a time when all of your team is present and no one is on vacation or has like a reduced working schedule .

And then all of you well , all of us we used the same spreadsheet , duplicated across several tabs , each with our name and the date of the beginning Monday of the week , and we tracked our tasks of what we were doing in 15 minute intervals . So it was a team effort . It was tough , you know .

I kind of felt a bit vulnerable because my team could just click over to my tab and see what I was doing , and so I felt like a little bit of pressure , like maybe I should take , instead of 45 minutes to eat , only 30 minutes to eat , like these are real thoughts . Right now I'm on this .

It's not weight loss , it's a transformation , a body challenge , 90 day deal and a surprise , surprise it was a super big surprise to me . My coach for that looked at what I was eating . He looked at my body weight fluctuations over a week . He's like Kwejo , you need to eat more . I'm like what he put me out of a reverse diet .

I'm like I got to get this summer body . We got like three months until summer body own and you put me on a reverse diet . Huh , but he's the coach again . If I had all the knowledge that I needed , I wouldn't be at the point of taking this transformation challenge . So I did what he said and it's been working . It's an interesting process .

Anyway , the reason I went on that little tangent is because it takes forever to make my three meals in the morning . And before you DM me on Instagram , which you can the Instagram my screen logo .

I'm very new to meal prepping and so it does take me like 45 minutes to prepare three meals while I stand at the counter and begin to munch on my broccoli because there's like usually 215 grams of broccoli have to eat through at breakfast . Anyway , I tried to speed that up so I could get the time tracker , so my time tracker could look good .

You know , I just did it and I encourage you to do it too . So , after me and my team tracked activities for the entire week . And , by the way , if you don't know my team , it's a small but mighty team .

So it consists of me , and then I have an EA who is my de facto project manager , and then I have a video editor and I have a junior ads manager , and then I have a graphic designer and I contract with a copywriter .

So I'm a copywriter that I contract with is in Canada , and then the rest of my team is in the Philippines and there is a data guy that I reach out to you from time to time for like special projects that require lots of , lots of data magic for ads tracking , and he's also in Canada .

So , at any rate , my full-time team and I , we tracked our time in 15-minute intervals . So when we finished the time tracking , we had to go back and color code our 15-minute segments . The colors were red , yellow , green . Red is I hate it , dump it , let's get rid of this task for me no longer .

And then yellow is I'm not a fan , but this thing has to be done , so I do it . And green is I love this work . And so I color coded mine and my team color coded there , and here's what I learned and here's the good part that you will get to once you go through the exercise with your team .

So , like , take away one or analysis one , and there are three here that I wrote down .

I realized I needed to be spending my time surprise surprise more on the business rather than in the business , and let me break that down for you In the business , being day-to-day operations on the business , referring to things that grow the business , things that only I can do , like recording this podcast episode , or reaching out to potential , like new connections

or new clients , or following up with other folks who had previously applied for Facebook ads management but it wasn't the right time for them to start or following up with previous students in my course or other guests who had been on the podcast . So I need to spend more time doing that .

That was I kind of saw that one coming before the exercise came because obviously you know me or you as the CEO of your business . There's only things that me or you can do to grow our businesses . This is very related to that concept of $10 tasks in your business and $100 tasks , and $1000 tasks and $100,000 tasks , even .

And then think about it like this how are you going to get to , say , $300,000 in three months if you're limited to only working 40 hours a week ? No overtime , no secret overtime , after everybody goes to sleep either , and you have to choose between those tasks , so you're limited on time . You want to make it to $300,000 .

I just picked that number , but you can't work overtime . Well then you have to realize that if you fill up your schedule with 10 or $100 an hour tasks , you're not going to make it to that $300,000 . You need to do the $10,000 an hour tasks , the $100,000 hour tasks , like planning out your funnel , planning a webinar , these sort of things .

So I saw that coming and I learned that . My second insight , if you will , was that I realized I was . I was doing tasks still , still come on . Now I know this that my EA should be doing , but and I was getting maxed out but then she was doing tasks that she shouldn't be doing and so she was maxed out .

So my coach , brandy , she kind of guided me to like restructure some things and take some things off of my EA's plate so that my EA could do some things that she should be doing as an EA , so that I would no longer be doing those things .

And you know , the beauty of having a business coach is just having another set of eyeballs on your business because , I mean , you're listening to this podcast . I'm sure you listen to others too , and so some of what you're hearing is not new to you . Right , we know things , but the gap between what we know and what we do , well , it's real .

And so having a coach , or even being in a mastermind , or the concept where you kind of have this rubbing of shoulders with your peers and the exchange of ideas letting somebody look at your business usually exposes blind spots that you were kind of aware of or not aware of at all , kind of like that little blinking light on your side view mirror when you

attempt to shift lanes on the highway , and that light lets you know that there's a car in your blind spot , something you cannot see . I guess I don't drive here in Mexico . I take Ubers all around because it's much more cost effective that way .

Plus you don't have to worry about driving in a foreign country , plus you don't have to worry about parking , and taking an Uber here is like a third of the cost of what it is in the US . Back to the third insight . I did realize that my ads manager and my general VA , who is my video editor and does some kind of spreadsheet and data compiling stuff .

They actually were doing lots of things that they enjoyed . So you one could say , I would say I do say , and my coach did say , that for those roles I had the right people in the right place . Now what would happen if you ? I didn't , but what would happen if you had , let's say , a role that had a bunch of red on the majority of their tasks ?

Then you got to look at that and say , hmm , maybe they're not . Well , obviously they're not in the right place for their position , or maybe you would do them a better service or you're doing a disservice to them .

Oh , my words today , right , like a third grader , keeping them around and not letting them have a different opportunity to grow , like they really need to grow as a person at a another job .

Right , and also one of the benefits which I look forward to experience learning more about on my next coaching call is that now that I've done this team time tracking exercise , I can answer the question when is it time to hire the next position or two that I'm thinking of ?

And because I have a coach who has a business that's bigger than mine , that runs better than mine , then I can look kind of down the future and see ah , do I really need a person in this position or was that just something I made up because my systems weren't so ?

These are the benefits of hiring a coach , but this podcast episode was about everything I learned from team time tracking and how I never thought that team time tracking was the way to unlock business growth and it's been one of the ways and I am faithful to go through the rest of the process .

So if you're like Kwejo , that sounds nice , but I'm still at solopreneur mode , overwhelmed doing all the things , working way too many hours . I know my business could grow if I just had more time to focus and do that one thing . On my list that's like a hundred items long . It might be time for you to contact

me , reach out . There's a link in the description below to go to my website where I do these hiring projects . Like I've hired so many VA's I think the number is at 16 or 17 over the years for myself , for a couple of other hiring clients , even for Rick , and he loves the VA that I hired for him . So head down there .

If this is you , this is your sign . It's time to add in that crucial role , so you can begin to spend more of your CEO time on CEO things Until the next time you hear from me or see me Be blessed . See you in the next episode .