How to Apply the Four D's of Time Management in Your Growing Business

Are you struggling to manage time for your growing business? This is a live coaching call with Jason, an entrepreneur who is looking to turn his cleaning business into a well-oiled machine by using four key strategies: Do, Delegate, Delete, and Delay. 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

what's up. What's up? Welcome to another episode of the more than a side hustle podcast where we help nine to five us create more impact, income and influence outside their jobs. My name is anthony and this was a snippet of an episode inside of our cleaning business university community live coaching call. What you're going to be listening to is us talk to jason, entrepreneur, business owner, husband, super busy, and he was having troubles with delegation and time management in his business and we spoke about the four D's of time management.

Speaker 1: 0:34

We're going to go into that in a little bit more detail on this episode and how we were able to help him overcome that roadblock. But then also we're going to talk about standard operating procedures and also how you put those into your business and are you just procrastinating or do you really need them at this point? So make sure you guys tap in. And then also to let you know we are running back our eight week cohort where we teach people how to start their cleaning businesses within the next eight weeks. You work with us on a more intimate basis. The link will be below If you are interested in that, let us know. But Jason was one of our eight week students. He went through it and launched his cleaning business, and this is just a snippet into one of our live coaching calls, so hope you guys enjoy it. Please leave us a five star review. Now let's get to the episode.

Speaker 2: 1:17

Yes, sir. So yeah, I I I launched in like early February and so it was a little slow rolling, you know, just working on building my online presence, and that's what I started doing started uploading pictures to Google, yelp, facebook, instagram, twitter, thumbtack, nextdoor, craigslist, like all these areas. I started just trying to grow it as much as possible, just so that Google can recognize that my platform is growing. That's legit, it's real, and so that's helped. And I've been able to get some clients that have been following that have found me on Google, my business and I've had them leave reviews and, of course, the more reviews and the more pictures that I post, the more people that have been calling me.

Speaker 2: 2:00

So it's been growing steadily, thank God. It's been nothing too crazy that I can't handle, but I feel like we're getting to that point. So I'm working on maybe like looking into a virtual assistant to help me throughout the day to take care of those calls and text messages so I can focus more on marketing, advertising and actually growing the business and building out those SOPs, processes and procedures. So it's been a journey. I've learned a lot, made a ton of mistakes, but I've been learning from each and every one of them and I've been growing and it's been a journey. I've really been enjoying it, for sure.

Speaker 1: 2:36

Okay, well, appreciate you. So now let us know where are some of the constraints setting your business right now and let's start the call from there.

Speaker 2: 2:46

Yeah. So I would say my biggest dilemma right now is that I work in a facility. It's a secured facility, it's a government facility where I'm not allowed to have my phone on me, so it's difficult to answer calls. Luckily I've been able to set it up on my work computer. Hopefully nobody from my job is listening. Luckily I've been able to set it up on my work computer. Hopefully nobody from my job is listening.

Speaker 2: 3:08

But I've been able to set it up on my work computer where I can see incoming calls, incoming text messages. I can respond to text messages, but I can't respond to calls. So if my cleaner has an issue, if somebody's trying to book, I got to run outside and I got to book them real quick and hustle back to my desk and so, like on Monday, I feel like I left my desk at least like five to seven times and running out, putting out fires, coming back and then just like pretending like I'd ever left my desk. So that's I would say that's my biggest dilemma. So that's why I'm looking to onboard a VA that can help me with that.

Speaker 2: 3:39

So then yes, I want to.

Speaker 1: 3:41

I want to. I want to start there. So are you so? People, people come to us with that all the time. It's like when is the right time to hire someone to help me in my business, whether it's a full-time employee or whether it's part-time? So my question for you is right now, with your, with your um, your business hour, your job hours, are you feeling like you're losing money because you can't get to people fast enough, or is it more of just a burden, just because it's just busy right now?

Speaker 2: 4:09

No, I would say, uh, if I'm not able to get to them within a timely manner, uh, they'll move on. And it's happened before. Like I waited just a little too long to get back to somebody, I ran outside to get my phone. Oh, you know, I already booked somebody else. I was like crap.

Speaker 2: 4:22

Okay, so it definitely. You know it's, it's whoever. Whoever responds first, whoever answers first is usually the one who gets it. And that's what I've kind of noticed. When people call me and I answer immediately, I have like a script and it works. It's like a good sales pitch and it gets them and I'm usually able to get them on that first call able to get them on that first call. But if I missed that first call, the statistics of getting them as a client it drops drastically, especially the longer it takes for me to get back to them. But does that answer the question?

Speaker 1: 4:54

Yes, yes, it does. I was just on mute because of Alani. But in regards to just the business hours right now, where are you seeing the majority of your calls coming in?

Speaker 2: 5:03

Yes, the funny thing is, come in uh, sometimes like first thing in the morning, like 8 am, sometimes like around lunch time. I see that and then my business, I have it say it closes at five. But people are calling me like at 5, 15, 5, 30 when I'm on the way home, so I'm like crap.

Speaker 2: 5:19

I'm pulling over, I'm trying to, I'm trying to answer the call, trying to pull up my booking form so I can schedule them. So usually it's at all times of the day, nothing crazy in the evening, but usually like first thing in the morning between eight to nine, usually between lunchtime and then like right after work around four or 5 pm, because I think that's when people are getting off of work as well and that's when they're able to actually go on their phones and look for it, and so that's when they're going to call when they're available. So I try to make myself available when they're available.

Speaker 1: 5:47

So one of the things that we've noticed, especially in the business, at the top of the morning, that's when we're going to be busy. I'm now nine to fives, probably as well. So what I would ask you now is, in regards to hiring, what is your biggest? Because obviously there's some reservations there, or you would have done it by now, but what is your biggest?

Speaker 2: 6:11

reservation with hiring someone to help you in a business when it comes to just answering the phones.

Speaker 2: 6:14

So originally I haven't really had SOPs built out, Like I have it all in my head, Like I know how to do it, but I haven't got it down on the paper where I somebody else could follow it. So that's the one thing I've been working on lately. I got my whole sales pitch call. It's like I extended out like five to seven pages, kind of just going into detail why I asked each question and what like, and then maybe a possible retort, Like if the client says this, well then you can respond with this. So it kind of just really breaking it down into answering phone calls. And so now that I have that and even I have SOPs for how to respond to a text message or how to assign the cleaner to the booking, so I feel like now that I have these, I feel like I'm much more ready to onboard a virtual assistant who can just like jump right in. And of course it's an onboarding process, it takes time, but I feel like I'm much more ready now that I have those SOPs there for them.

Speaker 1: 7:15

So I'm going to just share this grid. We just went through this same exercise with someone recently. I'm going to share this grid with you guys. The four D's of time management has been let me hope you guys can see my screen, but this is something that I would highly recommend everyone do as exercising their business. The four D's of time management Do delegate, delete or, essentially, don't do it at all.

Speaker 1: 7:36

So you got urgent and important. So do do it now. Urgent and important To the right part of this grid. We got not urgent, but it's important. Well, what the heck? I don't need to understand more about business. Not urgent and delayed. So you would come through and fill out this grid, right. So, in your business, no matter what business you have, whether it's your cleaning business or we got people on Instagram live for a little bit too there's going to be some things that you have to do now, right, so those are going to be the things that have to be done. Or you're going to lose money, right, so you got the revenue generating activities. So we're talking about the answering phone calls, answering leads, answering text messages. Those are some things that we have to do right now. Now we have some things that are important but not urgent. So what would be something that's important but not urgent in your business, jason? Something that's important but not?

Speaker 2: 8:31

urgent in your business, jason, something that's important, so something that has to get done, but it doesn't have to get done right now. Yeah, I know that. Um like, for example, uh, I just got a booking, but it might be later in the evening. Um, but it may be said, if it's a couple days away, well, I can wait till like the next day to reach out to my, my ic, my independent contractors, to see if they're available for it. Like gives me some time. But you know, of course my client is trying to book next day. Then it makes it more urgent.

Speaker 2: 8:52

But if I have, a bit more time to respond to those kinds of situations. Um then I don't have to respond to right now, I can wait till the next day.

Speaker 1: 9:01

So that's important but it's not urgent. I agree with you. So if you look at the bottom left quadrant here we got something called delegate. So not important but urgent. So what I would say that's not important but urgent would be something like let's say, a lead comes in and it's on Yelp. Right, we know Yelp are just you know they're the probably the bottom when it comes to getting quotes and stuff like that. Your VA is going to spend time with it, but no one's going to say, oh, you were the fastest on Yelp, let me book you. Very once in a while very seldomly you'll get that, but those are the things that can be delegated. So I would start thinking about those, those low hanging fruits that you could, just you could give to your virtual assistant. Yeah, then what are some things that are not important and not urgent that you could just remove from your schedule completely?

Speaker 2: 9:49

Not important and not I know when we started business.

Speaker 1: 9:52

You think everything's important. So what are some things that are not important and not urgent that you, that you would think about and you guys could drop them in? Yo yo, you guys know we love a good side hustle and this episode is sponsored by the Survey Plug, thesurveyplugcom. Did you guys know? And one of the ways that we paid off $114,000 of debt was with paid surveys? Now we were only making $20, $25, maybe $50 an hour, but the Survey Plug teaches you how to do upwards of $100 per hour with paid surveys. That's right, $100 an hour with paid surveys. Make sure you guys check out the survey plug if you want more information and tell them that the heart dog sent you over. All right, let's get back to the episode Chat too, if you have any.

Speaker 2: 10:43

Yeah, no, that's a good point. Point, and what's something that's not important and not urgent? Do you have an example, maybe that'll fresh my memory, of maybe something I'm doing that's not important, so not urgent?

Speaker 1: 10:54

so for us, I mean, we're at a different. We're at a different state of people dropping some things in the chat, posting on ig, so we're looking for a quote, before and after photos, right. So those are actually some amazing ones, right? So those are things that they're not urgent and they're also not important for today, but these are things that you can offset to a VA. So, instead of thinking about the SOPs like that's something that make sure you guys take this down to four Ds of time management as an exercise. I recommend every business owner do that and if you're here, you're a business owner, obviously but instead of thinking about the SOPs because that's going to hold you up, standard operating procedures is something that holds everyone up, right? We've gone through this and I don't think that's a priority in your business right now. If you go through the four Ds of time management and you start writing down the tasks that you do on your daily basis and you put them in those four quadrants, you could say all right, I'm going to take the bottom right quadrant that says delete and the bottom left that says delegate, I'm going to hand those to a VA immediately. You don't need an SOP to say how to post on Instagram for right now or get before and after photos or post those to Google. We don't need an SLP for those tasks. Now, when you get to the more important tasks, like answering the phones, you're going to need a script. By the way, we gave you guys our sales scripts as well. Because you're here, we gave you guys our sales scripts. Everybody should have that well, the different versions of it. We gave you guys some sales scripts. So those are things that you could use and give to your VAs, but we know that's going to take more time.

Speaker 1: 12:29

One of the challenges we also see is that you bring a VA in today in your business. You think they're going to make you money tomorrow. That is not going to be the case. They are going to lose you money for a little bit. They're going to be making mistakes. They are not going to be closing as good as you, because I'm assuming you think you're the best, closer, brand new in business two months. Nobody could do it like you, right? So there's going to be tasks that they're going to need to do, but they're not going to make you money immediately. So I would say pause on the SOPs. But if you have a really good VA. They could build those SOPs along with you.

Speaker 2: 13:04

That's a good point, yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:05

So if you're like, all right, we're going through this, now they're going to start doing screen shares, we like to say, use Loom or Zoom, just record the video, and that could be your SOP, you can literally go to loomcom, record your screen share as you're doing things in your CRM, launch 27, and that could be literally your SOP. You give a VA Because what's going to happen is you're going to say I need to document this, this, this, this and this, and it will never be perfect. So at that point you'll be losing money in your business. So I would say figure out what are the most important hours. You need someone in your business, whether it's the first couple hours. Scribe is a good one, actually too, and snag it, those are good. Uh, those are good tools to create um documentation.

Speaker 1: 13:48

So what are the? What are the pressing hours? I would say probably 8 to 12, and then maybe you might do 3 to 5 or something like that, and then I will hire someone definitely to come in and start building my business around that. Or you could just do half a day part-time. You don't have to have a full-time VA in your business. For us, our first VAs, they were part-time.

Speaker 2: 14:12

Yeah, no, that's a great point Because I have noticed, like between the hours of like one to three after lunch and then to the time I'm like leaving the office, there's not that many requests coming in, not that many quotes and whatnot.

Speaker 1: 14:24

And would you be able to handle that during those hours?

Speaker 2: 14:26

Yeah, yeah, definitely I can.

Speaker 1: 14:28

So if you have a VA coming in your business from about eight to 12, and then the rest of the day, you're like I got it by that point your first couple of cleaners. They've arrived to their jobs, they've. They've had some questions. They're going back and forth with the VA.

Speaker 2: 14:43

Now you're getting towards the end of the day, and you could probably manage it a little bit better at that point.

Speaker 1: 14:48

Yeah, no, that's a great point, yeah definitely part-time would probably be the best option starting off. All right, so we got the VA stuff. What do you feel like is another constraint that's a big one in a lot of people's businesses when do I hire, when do I bring someone on? But I think you're at a place right now. If you're losing money in your business, this is for everyone on the call. If you're losing money in your business, you're like I'm missing calls, I'm missing leads, and you're recognizing that that's the perfect time to bring somebody on, Because now they're going to be able to at least they may not make up all of that money, but they can save you some Cool. What else you got?

Speaker 2: 15:29

Like any other difficulties that I'm facing.

Speaker 3: 15:32

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:34

Let's see. I mean, there's like just like, like I would say like little things that come out throughout the day that just take up my time, like putting out fires, like for example yesterday. I think that was a good example. The client like reaches out to me and he's like hey, do you allow toddlers on the job? I was like what?

Speaker 1: 15:52

do you mean? Is this the one you sent me? Yeah, that's the one I sent you, okay? Yeah, let's talk to that one. That would be a good one.

Speaker 2: 16:02

Yeah, I was like what do you mean toddlers? And he calls me and he's like, hey, I think one on the stool and like over him and like, dude, if anything happens, that's a liability issue. And I'm like you've got to be freaking, kidding me, like there's no way this is happening. So I called the lead technician and she was just like, oh, I'm sorry about that, let me take care of that, cause it was one of her helpers, and so they get the kid out there. And uh, I was able to avoid any. Luckily nothing happened. There was no liability or any issues like that.

Speaker 2: 16:30

But if something did happen, it would have been a big issue. But the problem is it took me away from the desk. Like I just had to go put out that random fire, and little things like that come up, like the maybe the client is asking the cleaner to do a little more than what was originally in the scope of work, and so now I got to go deal with the client. I got to say, hey, you know, this wasn't exactly agreed upon. If you want to do that, it'd be an upcharge, or I got. I got to deal with the client, or the cleaner, like hey, I wasn't able to get in the home. Nobody's answering the door and now I got to go out and figure that fire, figure that issue.

Speaker 2: 17:01

So it's just like small fires throughout the day.

Speaker 1: 17:04

I'll chime in on that part right there. When it comes to so the larger issue you're going to face not not a larger issue, but the one that's going to take more of those SOPs are going to be the things that what happens when this happens? Right, what is a? What is? You bring someone into your business and they're not going to know every single nuance of your business as you do, but there are things that they will be able to handle from day, almost day one. So a lockout when a cleaner's locked out, they can't get in. They're going to the client, they're going to find out. Okay, I'm going to reach out to the client. So those are things you don't need SOPs for. So that's something that could come off your plate almost today. Now, they won't be able to handle what happens when I get to a home and the client says that. The client calls me and says there's a toddler in the house. They're not going to know what to do with that. I don't even know what to do with that, right, but these are things that you'll have someone that's able to manage your business from that. It may not be at the same level that you can, but it goes back to that delegation piece. Now, I did want to answer that part about what happens when a client calls and they said you were asking about should you fire them, and things like that.

Speaker 1: 18:14

I think that comes back down to the hiring process. I'm always say we always say always be hiring for this reason, because there are things that you're going to come across in your business where you know I'm firing you, there is no conversation. This might not be that because you said it was the helper's child. Right, that's correct. So this might not be something that might be termination worthy, but it would be a conversation. We can't have kids in people's homes, especially without their permission. You mentioned they were running around and things like that.

Speaker 1: 18:44

One of the things we tell our cleaners before they even come on board is we let them know that our clients have cameras in their house. So you need to act like there is a client home because they do have cameras in their homes. It's 2024. We got a baby, we got the ring. We got a ring inside the house. We got a ring outside the house. We got the alarms that we could hear things. So that's one of the things in the hiring process that we tell our cleaners that, hey, you need to act like all of our clients have a camera in their home, because a lot of them do so.

Speaker 1: 19:12

Once they understand that and you bring them on board in a situation like this, I probably wouldn't terminate them. It would probably be a conversation where we're talking about okay, client, and this is where I'm not even calling the cleaner, I'm texting, or my VA's texting the cleaner saying, hey, the client said there's a baby in the house, is that the case? And the VA and the cleaner could probably go back and forth. Yeah, we had some issues, blah, blah, blah. We talk about it after business hours, after I leave for the day, right, but that might not be a termination offense for me.

Speaker 1: 19:40

That might be a very stern conversation letting them know hey, client, let us know this would be an issue. But then also, more importantly, how do we keep that client happy? So I would do something like I told you this in the chat, but I would do something along the lines of all right, we're going to give you a discount if they were satisfied, we're going to give you a discount on your next cleaning to come back on board and we will send out another team just to make sure you're satisfied, and then me as a business owner. I'll give you a call after that cleaning to confirm your satisfaction. You give them a little incentive to come back on board and you kept them on board for another cleaning so that wouldn't be a.

Speaker 3: 20:13

I wouldn't terminate someone for that but it would be a conversation, and then you mentioned it. This is where we differ, because I probably would terminate someone for that. I think it just depends on like how many I don't know if you said this already, but how long they've been with you. Is it their first clean about how long they've been with you? Is it their first clean? But bringing a child to any job you just don't do. So I mean, hey, me and Tony have different strictness, and just in general.

Speaker 1: 20:40

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 20:40

So that may be a termination for me, though, but I think there's multiple factors that may go into it, though.

Speaker 1: 20:46

So that actually is a question how long has they been, had they been with you? How many five-star reviews have they gotten you? How much business have they kept recurring as well, like things like that?

Speaker 2: 20:55

Yeah, so they're relatively new. I believe I onboarded them maybe like a month, a month ago, and they have been able to accept the bigger jobs. Because they have been able to accept the bigger jobs because there is more, they have like two or three cleaners and so that there we go, so now there is value there so now you're going to let them get away with more shit Excuse my language, Lonnie.

Speaker 1: 21:22

You're going to let them get away with more stuff because they have a team, because you're like, you know they could do what's saying.

Speaker 1: 21:25

No, no. Once they get the business, once you get your business up and running a lot more fully, when you have bookings coming in, you could send them to three, four or five jobs a day. So there's a little bit of leeway there. She's she's not telling me, but there's gonna be some leeway there, based on how much value they could bring your company. And it wasn't the lead cleaner, it was our partner, so that that for me that'd be a conversation.

Speaker 2: 21:46

Yeah, no, I definitely agree. I did have that conversation with them. I'm still deciding exactly what to do because there was that incident. But then the same day another incident happened with that same helper. So I All right, so it's the helper that seems like it's the issue. Then something in Spanish that the client understood but misinterpreted in another way, because there's more than one way to to understand, like to, I guess, to interpret what she said. But the client took it offensively and so I'm like, okay, that's two things that happen on the same job. So I talked to my lead cleaner and I said, hey, most likely we'll just not have, most likely I'm going to decide, I'll let you know, but we're most likely just not going to allow this one helper to come with you to future jobs. But this is not a termination on your part. And she said she understood, she's totally, really respectable and really understandable. And she said she has other helpers that she can tap into if she needs the help. So I was like, okay, it seems like a good balance.

Speaker 2: 22:47

So it's like I'm not like screwing her over because she does have more help, but I'm also protecting my business because the guy did say that he oh he said he was gonna leave a review based on his experience and he said the way I dealt with him was very professional. He really enjoyed that. I was on top of it.

Speaker 2: 23:03

I called him right after the clean and he was like well, I'm glad you reached out to me first, because I was going to call you tomorrow, but I reached out to him first. I dealt with the whole thing. I told him, hey, I'm going to take care of this, I was on it, and so he was really appreciative of that, and he hasn't left a review yet, so I'm hoping he doesn't.

Speaker 1: 23:19

So I definitely want to say I think you handled that situation very well. This is why we tell you guys always call to every single cleaning because you want to get in front of a negative review before it happens, and this is how you can leverage your ownership as the CEO of your business. People see that and they see it as an issue, and they see that the owner reached out or the CEO reached out. They're going to now think about that negative review, knowing that, okay, this person reached out to me. They handled it well. I think you've done extremely well in that situation. So good job. And yeah, we're going to move on because I want to make sure we get somebody else in here. But was that helpful for you, jason?

Speaker 2: 24:00

It was very helpful, especially what we went over in the beginning. That was over the four D's of time management. Definitely going to implement that all over, all that. Overall, that was really great.

Speaker 1: 24:05

All right, thank you, jason, good luck.

Speaker 2: 24:06

Thank you.

Speaker 3: 24:08

Thank you for tapping in with us again. As you know, we always ask if you guys can, please, please, go ahead and leave us five star review. Go ahead and write something. If you're enjoying what we speak about, if you listen to us week to week, please be sure to let us know that helps us to continue to grow and for other people to listen to our show as well.

Speaker 1: 24:25

We appreciate it.