0:02

This simple exercise saves one

0:04

of my clients 15 hours per

0:06

week and not only that but

0:09

made him $4,000 back in payroll

0:11

expenses. Another one of our clients

0:14

was about to hire a full-time

0:16

social media manager and with this

0:18

exercise didn't need to spend $60,000

0:21

next year on that hire. The

0:23

way that I've designed this exercise

0:25

is to give every single person

0:28

on your team, including yourself, five

0:30

hours per week back guaranteed. This

0:33

exercise is going to help you

0:35

boost productivity, help your team make

0:37

you more money and get your

0:39

clients happier. And what's amazing about

0:41

this is depending on how big

0:43

your team is, it could save

0:45

you 20, 40, 60, 80, 100

0:47

hours per week. So in this

0:49

video, I'm going to show you

0:51

what this exercise is, how to

0:53

get your team excited about actually

0:55

implementing it. and help you make

0:57

more money with who you already

0:59

currently have on the team. But

1:02

before I tell you what

1:04

this exercise is, you have to

1:06

understand the biggest obstacle currently in

1:08

your business. At some point early

1:10

on, you realize you need help.

1:13

You're exhausted, you're overwhelmed, and by

1:15

solving that problem you think I

1:17

need to hire someone. But the

1:19

problem is, you're busy. and you don't

1:21

know how to train and you don't

1:24

have time to train. So these people

1:26

that you thought would be your magic

1:28

bullet are now sucking the profits out

1:30

of your business and you're wondering what

1:33

are they even doing all day every

1:35

day? Which is crazy because what you

1:37

thought would solve your problem actually made

1:39

your problem much worse. What I can

1:42

tell you from managing over 60 employees

1:44

in both of my businesses is you

1:46

start to become less and less efficient

1:48

as time goes on. So even though

1:50

we want great retention, we want people

1:53

with us for a year, three, five

1:55

years, ten years, etc. the longer they're

1:57

here, the more you start to do

1:59

things. we've always done it

2:01

that way, right? And all of a

2:03

sudden, our efficiency goes down and you

2:06

are getting less bang for your buck.

2:08

So the big solution is we need

2:10

to stop the cycle of having you

2:12

and everybody on your team being busy

2:15

and start really focusing on productivity. And

2:17

one of the ways we do this

2:19

is something called the five-hour challenge. So

2:21

here's how I figured this out. I

2:23

have been right where you are. I

2:26

had been overwhelmed, overworked, wanting to get

2:28

help but not thinking I could actually

2:30

afford help and I had to really

2:32

look at what what do I do

2:34

now if I can't hire. But I

2:37

need more help, what do I do?

2:39

So I came up with this five

2:41

hour challenge idea to get more out

2:43

of my current team before I actually

2:46

hired somebody. And I was able to

2:48

uncover five hours per week of everybody

2:50

working for me at the time. There

2:52

was six of us. So I uncovered

2:54

30 hours of productivity. And what's amazing

2:57

is I didn't have to be able

2:59

to afford to hire somebody new for

3:01

40 hours. I just gave, right. The

3:03

team that all of a sudden opened

3:05

up 30 hours. I was able to

3:08

delegate and get more out of who

3:10

I already had. So let me break

3:12

this down and tell you what this

3:14

look like. The five hour challenge consists

3:17

of three main steps. Number one is

3:19

our task audit. exercise. Now you probably

3:21

have already heard of a time audit

3:23

exercise, right? Very very common. It's something

3:25

we have all of our well oiled

3:28

operations clients do. But a task audit

3:30

is actually where we start to look

3:32

at the specific tasks of what are

3:34

you doing and evaluating. What is it

3:37

actually producing? So you're going to do

3:39

this first as the owner and then

3:41

you're going to have everybody on your

3:43

team do one as well. And don't

3:45

worry, your team is actually going to

3:48

love doing this and I'll tell you

3:50

why in just a second. So as

3:52

far as a time audit, we're trying

3:54

to figure out how much you're working

3:56

and like where that calendar is. being

3:59

split up. With this, it's not necessarily

4:01

about how much you're working, it's about

4:03

what you're working on. How long are

4:05

certain things taking you? And we're just

4:08

starting to brain dump some of the

4:10

things you have on your plate that

4:12

maybe I, the CEO, the owner, I

4:14

don't even remember that I delegated that

4:16

to you a year ago and you're

4:19

still doing it. So this is where

4:21

you get to say to your team

4:23

members. I want to hear what you

4:25

believe is unnecessary or inefficient. So this

4:27

is why they're actually going to want

4:30

to do it because every person working for

4:32

you believes that some of the things they're

4:34

doing are a waste of time. and you

4:36

are finally for the first time giving your

4:38

permission for them to tell you. So you

4:40

want to pull out of them what do

4:43

you believe is dated or we're doing it

4:45

in a very manual way and we could

4:47

automate it or update it. What are you

4:49

doing where maybe like I said I assigned

4:51

it to a year ago and you don't

4:53

even think we're doing anything with it. as

4:55

the owner, I will warn you, you are

4:58

going to be blown away by some of

5:00

the things your team is doing that

5:02

you didn't even know they were doing

5:04

and it will be your fault. You

5:06

will have told them to track this

5:08

one KPI or do this one thing

5:10

on a recurring basis and they know

5:12

you're not even looking at the document.

5:14

They know you're not even doing anything

5:16

with it. And they're going to finally

5:18

bring this to your attention. We have

5:20

a client example where somebody was working

5:22

for this owner and they were just

5:24

doing what they were told and it.

5:26

manual data entry and finally by doing

5:28

this activity they were giving permission to

5:30

say who's got a better idea and this

5:33

person kind of raised their hand and said

5:35

well the thing that you have me doing

5:37

every Friday that takes me about four hours

5:39

I actually know what software and how to

5:41

automate this and and I think I can

5:43

make this faster for you so they let

5:45

them try it and it went from four

5:48

hours every Friday to 30 minutes a week

5:50

okay so sometimes your team members are afraid

5:52

to tell the boss Hey, you're doing this

5:54

in a slow way. You're doing this in

5:56

a dated way, right? So they don't want

5:58

to tell you to. your face, they're

6:00

just trying to do a good job

6:03

with what you've assigned them. And by

6:05

giving them permission to say, no, tell

6:07

me, I want to hear, right? They're

6:10

going to tell you things you didn't

6:12

know was actually going on. So step

6:14

one is just brain dumping every single

6:16

thing that they are actually doing. Step

6:19

number two is where we identify the

6:21

low value work. So I actually said

6:23

to them, if you had to cut

6:25

out five hours next week next week.

6:28

What do you believe must have to

6:30

go? So this actually works for somebody

6:32

who doesn't want to tell you anything

6:35

negative. Everything's great. I love working here.

6:37

You're the best boss ever. No, there's

6:39

nothing you need to change. The assignment

6:41

is... You must tell me your five

6:44

hours of your lowest value work. Okay?

6:46

This is where it gets really, really

6:48

good because that's where they're going to

6:50

start to tell you what they believe

6:53

is the least effective part of their

6:55

job. My one and only rule was

6:57

it could not impact the client experience.

6:59

So sometimes you're going to hear things

7:02

like, well, this takes a lot of

7:04

time and it's kind of dumb and

7:06

I think we should get rid of

7:09

it. Well, the clients love that and

7:11

they would be really upset with that,

7:13

right? So you want to make sure

7:15

that the one person we are thinking

7:18

about is how will this impact the

7:20

client? And as long as you can

7:22

say the client's not even going to

7:24

notice or the client's actually going to

7:27

love this change because it's going to

7:29

get them the result faster, whatever it

7:31

is, we have to be client focused

7:33

first. So that might mean that instead

7:36

of writing down, let's get rid of

7:38

the handwritten cards and go back to

7:40

the typed up letters, right. It might

7:43

be something that is strategically taking longer

7:45

because it's more impactful. So you really

7:47

want to ask yourself, okay, by doing

7:49

this activity and getting rid of it,

7:52

how will the client feel? How will

7:54

they be impacted? So the two questions

7:56

you want to ask is, what problems

7:58

are we solving by doing this activity?

8:01

are we creating by getting rid of

8:03

this activity? Those two questions will be

8:05

a game changer in how every single

8:08

person answers what they believe they should

8:10

get off. Now before I go and

8:12

actually do this with my team, I

8:14

talk about. impact versus effort and what

8:17

that matrix looks like with four quadrants.

8:19

So I want to explain it here

8:21

and please feel free to share this

8:23

video with them. So they understand how

8:26

to do this activity specifically. So there

8:28

are four major types of activities. I

8:30

want you to start to categorize everything

8:32

you do. So number one is something

8:35

we call a quick win, right? And

8:37

I think you can understand what that

8:39

means. So a quick win can be

8:42

high impact. but low effort. Something you

8:44

can very quickly cross off today's to-do

8:46

list, but you will feel the result

8:48

very soon. These are top priority tasks

8:51

that are actually not going to take

8:53

a lot of time. And it could

8:55

be sending a quick email to a

8:58

client who's waiting for a response. It's

9:00

important, but very low time-consuming.

9:02

Number two, major projects. So this

9:05

is high impact. high effort. This is

9:07

not a quick two minute task where

9:09

you're shooting an email over, right? This

9:11

is something that might be very time

9:14

intensive, resource intensive. This might require really

9:16

careful planning and big long-term commitment. You're

9:18

not looking at just today's win, but

9:21

you're looking at wins 90 days from

9:23

now, a year from now, etc. So

9:25

when you have that to-do list. Our

9:28

brain just wants to check off as

9:30

many things as we can. So sometimes

9:32

I think it's easy to go to

9:35

the quick wins first because we can

9:37

see, okay, this is fast and I'll get

9:39

the result. When we look at the big

9:41

projects, it's like, I don't really want to

9:43

squeeze it in. I'm wrapping up my day.

9:45

So what do we do? We fill in

9:47

to look busy, but we're not being

9:49

productive. We're not producing. So these fill-ins

9:51

have low impact. low effort. So these

9:54

are things that are really easy to

9:56

complete, very fast to complete, but you're

9:58

not going to see. a significant

10:00

boost in your business. We want

10:03

to teach our team that this

10:05

can be very dangerous to fill

10:07

in with these small really meaningless

10:09

tasks. And this is definitely an

10:12

area we're going to want to

10:14

look at when we decide what

10:16

are our five least valuable hours

10:19

of our week. And then there's

10:21

number four. Low impact, my effort.

10:23

I see people working way too

10:25

hard. all the time. So we

10:27

coach hundreds and hundreds of small

10:29

business owners all around the world

10:31

and we work with their employees

10:33

as well. So we will see

10:35

sometimes people putting 10 hours a

10:37

week into a specific social media

10:39

platform and nothing's happening. They're not

10:41

growing followers, they're not making sales,

10:43

they're just posting because they think

10:45

they're supposed to post, right? But

10:47

there's no strategy behind it. So

10:49

sometimes, yes, it might be a

10:51

great idea to add Instagram to your

10:54

platform of choice, right? But it might

10:56

be a not right now strategy if

10:58

you're doing it to do it But

11:00

it's just not working. Why are you

11:02

wasting your time? I actually would

11:04

have put YouTube in that category for

11:07

me a few years ago It was

11:09

one of those things where It was

11:11

low impact for me, very high effort. It

11:13

was taking a lot of my time and

11:16

energy, but we didn't understand YouTube. And nothing

11:18

was really coming from it, right? But in

11:20

my mind, it was like, but I have

11:22

to be on YouTube. Everybody's on YouTube. Trust

11:25

me when I say, when I say time

11:27

wasters, you're like, oh, we don't do that.

11:29

you are doing this and your team is

11:31

doing this. So you want to start to

11:34

have them look at what they're doing and

11:36

put them into one of these four quadrants.

11:38

And then with this data, we number three

11:41

reallocate that time to high impact tasks.

11:43

So we want to take the fill-ins

11:45

and the time wasters and get rid

11:47

of them. Now when they have this

11:49

five hours of what they think is

11:52

this low impact, right, high effort, low

11:54

effort, whatever it is, but low impact,

11:56

we want them to bring that to

11:58

our attention. So no. Nobody should be

12:00

shaving off five hours a week without

12:03

their manager approval. Now what do you

12:05

do with those five hours per week?

12:07

Well, there's two things I want you

12:09

to understand. Number one is there are

12:11

people on your team that are just.

12:13

overworked. They are working more than they

12:15

are actually getting paid for or maybe

12:17

they're working 50 hours a week for

12:19

a full-time job that they were hoping

12:22

was just going to be 40 hours

12:24

per week. So some of you that

12:26

are listening, you want to make sure

12:28

you you ask your team, how many

12:30

hours are you working? We have seen

12:32

with many of the businesses we help

12:34

coach that the owner thinks that I'm

12:36

paying her for 20 hours per week

12:38

and then we look at her task

12:40

audit. and she's working 30 hours a

12:42

week just working more and not getting

12:44

paid for it. No one is going

12:46

to want to stay with you long

12:48

term when you aren't paying them for

12:50

what they're actually producing in the company.

12:52

So make sure to help them get

12:55

down. And in fact, maybe you will

12:57

reduce five hours, but they're 10 hours

12:59

a week over. Do this again in

13:01

just a week or so and really

13:03

get them to understand, hey, we've got

13:05

to figure out what is at your bottom

13:07

priority list. Now for the second type of

13:09

person, they are working 30 hours a week,

13:12

you're paying them 30 hours a week, and

13:14

you just chopped off five hours. Now you'll

13:16

want to make sure that when you start

13:18

to assign this challenge. hours a week out

13:21

of their schedule because they might go no

13:23

no I want to work 30 hours a

13:25

week I don't want to work 25 hours

13:28

great we want you working 30 hours too

13:30

so what we're going to do is we're

13:32

gonna figure out those five hours and we're

13:34

going to reallocate them to more

13:36

of the quick wins, more of

13:39

the big projects that are actually

13:41

going to move the needle. So

13:43

we're going to make the team

13:45

stronger and replace those hours with

13:47

those high value, high impact tasks.

13:49

Here is where you want to

13:51

focus on activities that actually directly

13:53

impact the revenue. You want to

13:56

be asking yourself, how can we

13:58

make this a better customer? experience,

14:00

customer satisfaction. Why would that matter?

14:02

Because you're going to get more

14:04

people to buy again, refer more

14:06

people. So these activities become money-making

14:08

activities. And here's the bonus tip

14:10

that I want to share. The

14:13

first time you do this will

14:15

actually be the worst time you

14:17

do this, the least effective. And

14:19

even with it being the least

14:21

effective, I still am guaranteeing you

14:23

five hours per week back. How

14:25

can I guarantee this? Well, because

14:27

here's the deal. Because with the

14:30

hundreds of clients we've worked with

14:32

and all of their employees that

14:34

they've employed, we have never found

14:36

somebody to say, wow, this team

14:38

member is 100% efficient. Every single

14:41

thing they're doing is 100% high

14:43

impact. Never. And even CEOs, we've

14:45

never found them to be working

14:47

at 100% efficiency. So I am

14:50

guaranteeing five hours back. per person

14:52

that takes this challenge. Now what's

14:54

amazing about this is you can

14:56

do it again every 90 days.

14:59

At the very minimum I would

15:01

do it on an annual basis.

15:03

Now another time that I love

15:05

to do an activity like this

15:07

is when I'm ready to hire

15:09

and bring somebody new on. but I'm

15:11

not quite sure the budget is

15:13

really prepared for it. I might

15:15

go back to a specific department

15:17

and have them take the five-hour

15:19

challenge, magically get an extra 20

15:21

hours back and I have the

15:23

job description in my head for

15:26

the new hire, I can now

15:28

start delegating to each person that

15:30

just got rid of five hours

15:32

of low-value work. We just had

15:34

a client actually let go of

15:36

three underperformers. The reason he was

15:38

able to do this activity. everybody,

15:40

the A players, more efficient and was

15:42

like, I don't even need the underperformers.

15:45

So it actually saved him, these were

15:47

part-time workers, it actually saved him almost

15:49

$5,000 a month in payroll. Now here's

15:52

what I'll tell you. Not only does

15:54

it save you time and make you

15:56

money, but the headaches and the frustration.

15:59

Think about it. He got rid

16:01

of his least performing people on

16:03

his team. Now he's only working

16:05

with the high performers. The less

16:07

amount of emails and tax and

16:09

interruptions and slack messages he's getting,

16:11

right? That is a really, really

16:13

impactful difference when you start to

16:15

do this effectively. Now, if this

16:17

video just feels like another task

16:19

on your never ending to do

16:21

list, I have a video. I

16:23

think you're going to enjoy all

16:25

about prioritization. Click here to start

16:28

watching that video now.