by Ahmed Muzammil | Dec 23, 2015 | Business, Development, Startup |
Ok, today is my 5th post and the 5th day since I committed to writing one blog post every day. I was procrastinating on writing posts and sharing knowledge for a very long time. For years, I’d say.
Then I found this concept called Tiny Habits framed by BJ Fogg. It was a recommendation to me by one of my mentors Amy Hoy.
That pointed me to this concept called micro-commitments. The idea goes like this: If you set a micro-commitment, then you are likely to follow through and finish the task. That’s how the science of the human brain works.
The concept of Tiny Habits goes like this; you set micro-commitments with a trigger to do every day. Like:
- “AFTER I get up from the bed, I will do three push-ups.”
- “AFTER I lay down at night, I will think of one thing for which I’m grateful for.”
So, I broke down the Tiny Habit into a Tiny Goal. As I’m on a full-time job, it varies when I can write the blog post.
Should I write it in the morning or the evening, that doesn’t matter. My goal is to get that done within the day.
Another thing I got introduced to recently is setting Key 3s and Big 3s by my sales coach Jeremy DeMerchant of Permission To Sell. His advice me to write down and commit to the Key 3s for the week when I have my weekly coaching call with him.
I took the advice and applied to my everyday life. So I started writing a list of Key 3s for every day.
Initially, I failed with my Key 3s consistently because I always set staggering big goals, which will take a lot of time to complete. It was counterproductive in a way. This week I tried something different. I said I will write tiny goals instead of writing the big goals.
BEFORE:
My Key 3 looked like this: (Which made me procrastinate)
- Write one blog post, write one outline
- Design 10 slides
- Do 20 Push-ups
AFTER:
My key 3 for a day looks like this: (Which made me just to do it)
- Write 50 words for your blog
- Design one slide
- Do three push-ups
What happens is that these are not a biggie kinda goals for that day. So I end up convincing my procrastinator mind to say let’s do it. The good thing is that the other part of the brain that is my perfectionist will say, “Hey Ahmed, you can do more!”. That makes me complete what I started and eventually
- I’m churning out one blog post a day
- I have even designed an entire slide deck for my upcoming youtube series.
- I end up doing 15 or sometimes even 45 push-ups
It’s true, wait and see me doing wonders with this new tiny habit of mine to set my key 3s every day. It feels fulfilling to have these wins every day. And makes me more motivated towards my “Huge Goals” that I wrote down after reading “The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure” book by Grant Cardone.
There is a free email course at the Tiny Habits website that runs for five daytime. There will be a personal coach working with you to implement a few tiny habits. So, go ahead and sign-up for it if you want to learn more about tiny habits and also to give it a shot.
If you are not convinced yet about setting tiny habits to get stuff done, you can watch this TEDx Talk by BJ Fogg to get a detailed understanding of the power of tiny habits.
by Ahmed Muzammil | Dec 18, 2015 | Business, Development, Entrepreneurship, Startup |
Jamie runs a business, and she wants it to grow and make a full-time income. She started her business out of a passion. She got frustrated about having the worst customer service at the local retail store and went to build her own retail store with the best ever customer service.
She gathered her savings, rented a space, stocked it up and all the things went well, she got customers visiting the store. She happily served the customers, then she hired a few employees. She trained them, she managed her employees and propagated the customer service ideas to them. All was going well.
Now, it’s the holiday season. And she started running a few promotions in her store. Jamie starts her car to go on a vacation. Suddenly she gets a call.
A call from her regular customer complaining about the long queue at her store’s cash counter. He’s really frustrated about the level of service he received from Jamie’s store. Jamie talks to the customer cool him down and rushes to the store instead of the vacation.
When she enters, she found chaos everywhere. Things were not kept properly in the racks. A long queue of customers standing at one of the counters, the other two counters don’t have cashiers. Everything is out of order.
What happened? Jamie is a very cool person. So, she calls her manager Dorothy and asks her what happened. Dorothy said, Jamie, that there was a huge influx of customers.
That’s fine, But Dorothy… “Why is there no cashier in the other two counters?”. Dorothy says that her cashiers were re-routed to the warehouse to pick some things up and re-stock them.
If Jamie would’ve been there, then things would’ve been completely different. The priority would’ve been to clear the queue first, rather than to re-stock. At least Jamie would’ve stepped into the cash counter.
Welcome to the chaotic world. Where nothing happens as you want it to happen. Jamie thought that Dorothy is capable of delivering the level of service that Jamie wanted to provide to her customers.
Jamie starts to lose confidence as she dwells in the chaos. Suddenly her vision of having the best retail store with the best customer service is fading away…
So what are the options for Jamie to have a seamless operation, for everything to be in order, for her employees to deliver her vision to her customers, to make sure your manager thinks like you want them to think, to ensure that proper training has been provided?
Jamie is smart and seeks the help of a business coach. Mr.Business Coach now steps into the business. He understands what’s going on and what her real mission and vision are about her business.
Mr. Business Coach finds that Jamie wanted to travel and take a lot of vacations. He advises that Jamie needs to systemize her business. So that when Jamie steps away, her systems can work in such a way that Jamie can ensure that employees follow without errors. Her job will be to keep the systems up-to-date, train, and to keep her employees happy. And her systems will take care of the customer service and other things.
The coach teaches her how to “work ON her business” and not “work IN her business!”. Working ON the business freed up a lot of time for Jamie, so that she could focus on bigger problems and business growth. And what not, to take the long pending vacation plan.
Systemization also makes the business a rapidly scalable one, Jamie went on to open her store in almost all parts of the city. She now never visits all her stores. Her profits went higher, her customer service goals were achieved regardless of whether she’s present or not.
Finally, Jamie’s dream of building her own retail store with the best ever customer service and also make a full-time income became a reality.
How to systemize your business in 3 simple steps:
- Note down the repeated jobs that are there in your business every-day
- Write down a step by step procedure on how to do those repeated jobs
- Prepare a checklist of outcomes of each of those repeated jobs
Examples Repeated Jobs for Jamie’s Case:
- Cleaning the glass door every hour
- Check whether all the things are properly placed in the racks
- Clean the bathroom every hour
Example Step by Step Procedure to clean the glass door every hour:
- Spray on an all-purpose cleaner
- Scrub off the stains and dirt
- Finish it off with a basic glass cleaner
Example Checklist:
- The door has no water stains
- The door doesn’t have any fog
- The open/close sign is in place
Stay tuned, I’ll dig into detailed systemization techniques, automation techniques, and using technology to take your business into auto-pilot mode in my upcoming posts. So hit the Follow button and subscribe to my posts.
by Ahmed Muzammil | Aug 30, 2015 | Marketing, Startup |
Don’t work on the basics every day? You’ll fail.
Don’t market constantly? You’ll fail.
Don’t solve your customer’s pains? You’ll fail.
Don’t ship? Ha!
There you go business in four sentences.
Amy Hoy, Author Just F**ing Ship It
by Ahmed Muzammil | Jul 30, 2014 | Business, Startup |
“Problems cannot be solved by thinking within the framework in which the problems were created.” – Albert Einstein
1. Identify
Specify the problem and the desired outcome (Think divergently and then convergently Focus to define the problem)
Use How to. method prepare multiple problem definitions starts with How to Make leading how-tos
eg.
How to make me lose weight?
By eating less
How to make me eat less?
By taking fewer calories
How to make me take fewer calories?
Well better exercise more
How to make me exercise more?
Go to the gym!
2. Search
Search for ideas, solutions, options (Think divergently list as many options as possible brainstorm)
Two methods to search for ideas/solutions:
i) Associate to a superhero (eg. Spiderman)
a) Derive the superheroes characteristics (Brainstorm)
b) Associate the superheroes characteristics to the context of the problem
ii) Reverse the problem eg. How to make me fat?
a) Derive ways to reverse the problem / make the problem worse eg. Eat more cheesecake
b) Reverse and associate the ways to worsen the problem of finding solutions for the actual problem eg. Stop eating cheesecakes
3. Evaluate
Weigh, Judge, Evaluate each alternative option (Converge)
4. Select
Commit to a solution and implement it
by Ahmed Muzammil | May 26, 2014 | Startup |
Came across a fantastic inspiration today. Read below:
He got rejections after rejections but did not give up. In fact, he got over 1000 rejections.
He got 1009 NOs before he got his first YES to open his franchise. With that one success, Colonel Hartland Sanders changed the eating habits of the whole world with Kentucky Fried Chicken, popularly known as KFC.
Read More here: https://qr.ae/K5t3a
