How to Be More Productive (even when you have no time)

what michele did to be more productive

It’s hard to get stuff done when life gets in the way (as it has a tendency of doing!)… but that doesn’t mean that the time doesn’t exist, or that you can’t be more productive (in your personal OR your professional life). Instead, it’s all about maximizing your time and energy, figuring out your particular organizational style, getting past your personal obstacles, and taking action. 

The truth is, anyone has it in them to be more productive. You can be a busy mom juggling a side hustle with your full-time 9 to 5 job and still make progress… without sacrificing your time with loved ones or losing yourself in the process.

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A Year in the Life of Candid Conversations: book launch!

podcast book

Dan and I started our small business podcast, Candid Conversations, in March 2017, and pretty much exactly a year later, we went on an undetermined hiatus.

What goes into the making of a podcast? Who did we interview, what kind of stories do they have to share? How did our podcast lead to the creation of our business, and how did we navigate the juggling between our podcast and our business?

Well, now you can get the answers to all of the in my new e-book on the subject, A Year in the Life of Candid Conversations: behind the scenes of creating a podcast from scratch!

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Effective time management strategies: 21 days of better time management

They say it takes 21 days to build a habit. If time management is something you struggle with, then why not take the next three weeks to turn that all around? Use these effective time management strategies to make small changes, every day, that add up to big results! You’ll have better time management in your business in no time.

Even better? Each one of these effective time management strategies will take you just 10 or 20 minutes to accomplish, so regardless of how chaotic your day-to-day life is, you can absolutely carve out room for it. And by the end of the 21 days,

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Improve time management with these 7 questions

Managing a freelance business can be overwhelming for a number of reasons, but one of the biggest is that so many freelancers have no idea where they should spend their time… and, as a result, they end up wasting a lot of time. But no more! Ask yourself the 7 questions in this blog post to help you identify where YOU should spend your time, depending on your unique business and the type of services you offer… so you can finally improve time management in your business.

But first, a little tough love that you might need to hear: as a freelancer,

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How to automate your small business: step-by-step guide

You know you could save time and work more efficiently by streamlining and automating aspects of your small business… but how do you go about doing that? I’m breaking it all down for you in this article to teach you exactly how to automate your small business!

Automating and streamlining processes in your business is especially useful for navigating the busy times of your business, or when you’re going on holidays, or even when you have something stressful in your personal life that’s impacting your business.

The sooner you learn how to automate your small business,

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Client communication tips & best practices

The following is an adapted excerpt from Keep Your Clients. If you’d like more client communication tips and client retention strategies, and to learn exactly what you need to do to KEEP your clients once you’ve got them, then you’re going to love that program! Learn more about the Keep Your Clients e-course.

Once you’ve marketed your business, built a relationship, pitched your services, and been hired by clients, it doesn’t end there. You need to maintain strong, positive client communications throughout your work together if you want to have a successful and enjoyable relationship with your clients.

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Reduce business overwhelm in 15 minutes/day

Business overwhelm is a reality for all of us—regardless of how good you might be at time management. Luckily, there are strategies you can implement to help reduce business overwhelm in your life.

This blog post outlines what you can do, step by step, to reduce business overwhelm. As you’ll see, there are many things you can do… so to keep yourself from getting even more overwhelmed, consider breaking these ideas down by doing just one or two tasks each day!

Each of the tips below can be done in just 5—15 minutes each day,

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How to have more productive business meetings

Whether you’re a solopreneur, in a business partnership, or part of a larger team, business meetings matter. Productive business meetings can enable you to have more direction and clarity with your business, improve communication and business relationships, and increase your confidence, motivation, and excitement for moving forward with your business ideas.

The problem? Many business meetings aren’t streamlined enough to be worth it. You’ll know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever sat in a business meeting and asked yourself questions like,

  • “Why are we having this meeting?”
  • “Who’s leading this meeting?”

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5 Business Pitching Mistakes We’ve Made

So you’re getting ready to pitch a prospect—that’s awesome! When you’re preparing to make the pitch, it’s helpful to know some of the most common mistakes to avoid. We’ve made plenty of business pitching mistakes over the years that we don’t want you to have to repeat.

These are the top 5 biggest business pitch mistakes we’ve made, and how you can avoid them:
1) Cold-calling a prospect.

Let’s be real: no one likes to be “sold” to. If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of a cold-call sale, you know that it doesn’t feel good… and the chances are,

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10 things to know before you pitch clients

So you’re getting ready to go in for the pitch… but are you prepared for pitching a client? There are a few key things you need to know before you pitch clients! 

Getting clients for your freelance business goes something like this: first, you identify your ideal client and build a prospect list. Then, you cultivate relationships with clients, prepare for the pitch, and make the pitch.

(And then there’s a whole follow-up process.)

But many freelancers skip over the preparation part, and leap right into the pitch… and they wonder why their pitch isn’t successful.

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