How I Structure My Time (Marketing, Sales & Client Delivery)

Let me share how I structure my hours, days, weeks, and months so that you can also optimize your time management to fit in with YOUR goals and dreams.?

The biggest struggle when you start or grow a business is finding time, and finding that somewhat elusive balance between work and life. This can be especially hard if you have other responsibilities outside of work and are a primary caregiver for children, parents, or other family and friends.

It can feel like a never-ending struggle to find time for yourself - time to breathe and recoup your energy. It can feel like you are always "on"; you must be doing something wrong because you feel overwhelmed with your huge to-do list.

I know because this is how I used to be, especially when the children were young.? You might not know about my past, and how I came to run my own businesses, so I will let you have a bit of the backstory right now. It is relevant to what we are covering today.

There is a saying that time is a great equalizer - it is the only thing you cannot get more of; it is finite. Finding time is hard when you are the one responsible for everything and everyone. You too often wear all the hats and do all the things.?

I have been in the advisory game for 15 years and have shown up as a consultant and agency owner since my youngest child, Annabelle, was 4 years old.?

When my children were just 4 and 7, I decided that I needed to start my own business. I was a single mum and sadly had got myself into a bit of a pickle with a bad relationship and was on housing benefit (housing assistance for my US readers). I was disappointed in getting myself into this position and knew that I had to get off assistance as fast as I could.

Here’s the thing:? In my past corporate life, I was an event director. I was responsible for a small team and running exhibitions all around the world. It involved me acting as a marketer, a salesperson, and a manager.??

I was also an innovator.? I had to go around the world and look at whether there were events that were suitable for buying for the business I was working for.?

When I was living on a housing benefit, at 35 years old, I was too far from London to go back into the corporate world, and I was far too responsible for my children as their full-time caregiver.?

I made the decision to start my own business, in the hope that I would be able to make enough income while my children were at school, so I could get off assistance.??

There are a lot of things I can share about this journey. I could go into how I had to learn new things like social media and digital marketing, how I had to get outside of my comfort zone and start networking, or how I set up a copywriting business and never moved past ￡25 an hour (until I got a mentor that showed me a better way of doing things).?

However, that is not what we are covering here. This chapter is all about how, over the past 15 years, I have run my diary in a way that has enabled me to grow to an agency with 1.5 million pounds in revenue. I will show you how I went from a single mum, who was able to still do the school run. through to today as a woman with adult children and a life of freedom.

Now that you know the backstory, I am going to share with you how I managed my time as I went from a Dream Up (where I had the idea of running my own business), to having a? Freedom Practice.?

The stages I have gone through are:?

1. Dream-Up - I had the idea of starting my own business.
2. Start-Up - I took the idea to the world and got a couple of clients.
3. Grow-Up - I dramatically grew my client base, my team, and my revenue to 1.5 million.
4. Scale-Up - I sorted out my business model, scaled my time without sacrificing my income, and created what I now call a Freedom Practice.

When I was in the Dream-Up stage, I had no money, but I had a lot of time. As I sat drinking my Diet Coke in the sun in my back garden, I mapped out what I thought might be a good idea. I started to think that I could set myself up as a copywriter and write copy for newsletters, magazines, and businesses that wanted to have press releases written, etc. I didn’t have any direct experience in this, but I knew that I could write; I could write fast.

?Additionally, I had my mother's help.? She was great at proofreading, so I knew that if I could get the clients, she could help me hone my skills. My dream was to get a few clients and work around the children.

This Dream-Up stage was about 6 months long. I started talking to people about my idea, and this is when people showed their true colors. Some supported me, but some of my friends were upset that I was going to be busy and not be around for the mothers’ meetings and tea and cake natters. Sadly, most of the naysayers are no longer in my life, and I learned the lesson that not everyone will support you very early on.?

This Dream-Up stage was all about conversations and research. I looked at who was doing something similar to what I wanted to do, bought myself a computer, and put content into a Word document with all of my ideas. It was a very exciting stage. My life consisted of getting the children out of bed in the morning, making them breakfast, and then working on my ideas.? When they were at school, I would knuckle down. I stopped when they came home from school and started again the next day.

?The children also went to their dad's every other weekend, so I built a lot of the foundations on the weekend. When my friends were out drinking and enjoying themselves, I sat in my front room, scouring the internet and reading business books.

Once I was sure that copywriting was going to be my thing, I moved into Start-Up mode. This mode was exhausting. Even when I had a corporate job with loads of pressure and a team, I didn't work as hard as when I was in Start-Up mode.?

This is where I went from no revenue to 100k revenue. This start-up mode lasted about 5 years, and my income fluctuated from ￡25 an hour through to the latter years, where I changed my business model from copywriting to being a social media trainer, and then marketing consultant.?

Getting from no revenue to 100k was about sacrificing my time. I would take the children to school at 8:15 a.m. every morning, so I would wake up at 6 a.m., and start marketing from 6:30 to 7:30 a.m. I would write blogs and social media content while the world slept.

I would then take the children to school and work through until school pickup time. Then I would stop working again to play mum. I had a strict bedtime routine, so the kiddies were in bed by 7:30 p.m. every night; this was when I went back to work, and I would work through to 2 a.m. some nights. On the weekend, the children would either be with me, and I would spend the days with them, or they would be with their father.? When they were with him, I would work.?

If you have ever heard the term ‘hustle’ used, this is what I did. Every moment of every day was hustling. I gave up going out; I didn't see my friends very often. When I did see them, I certainly didn't let my hair down and drink, as I had to be 100% switched on the next day to squeeze in some work.? If I had five minutes, I did something; there was no time for lollygagging!

At the time, I didn’t realize that I was doing what most people don’t do when they start a business. I went all in and gave up everything, apart from being a full-time mum. I managed to juggle that and being a start-up, but friends, drinking, and partying had to go. Not that partying was something I enjoyed that much anyway; I am a bit of an introvert.

To this day, I think one of the reasons I became successful was because I was at rock bottom. Being on housing benefit meant that I knew what the worst life could look like, and I didn't want to stay there. So I did what most people wouldn't do—I didn’t permit myself to have a break. I didn’t say I deserved to go out,? because I had no money and couldn’t give the children the future they wanted. I had to choose my hard. Did I want my hard to be working hard, or did I want my hard to be no money? I chose to work hard.? (FYI:? The average wage in the UK is just shy of ￡36,000 a year, and I was making ￡100,000.)

When I was in Start-Up mode, the first thing I did every day was marketing. The last thing I did every day was marketing. When the children were at school, I was networking face to face.? My weekends were spent learning and marketing. No one was coming to save me, so I had to do the work myself.

Once I had gotten to the stage where I was no longer needing help from the government, I moved into the Grow-Up stage. I had clients, but I did not have to get up at 6 a.m. or work till 2 a.m. anymore. There was a shift, so my day had to change. Most people I work with tend to be in the Grow-Up stage. They already have a few clients, so they are in the weeds doing the work; they now find juggling time more difficult than when in the Start-Up Stage. In the Start-Up Stage, you often have excitement and the thought of possibilities to fuel you.? In the Grow-Up Stage, you can often find you are exhausted and begging for breathing space.

You need to run your day differently. You might have a team, or you might be working with clients 5 days a week, and this is where you must introduce something I call Time Mapping.

I learned Tiime Mapping from my first marketing coach, a guy called Rob Scott, who was a super cool guy that I reached out to when I was shifting from start-up to grow-up. He taught me how to schedule my days so that I had time for everything.?

The first thing you have to do when you time map is work out everything you do in a day. The best way to do this is to spend two weeks jotting down what you’re working on every 30 minutes.?

This means that, at the end of every day, you will have 24 or more half-hour segments that document all the work you did.? Each segment might include client work, emails, marketing, talking to your friends, traveling, taking children to school, doing homework, or watching Netflix. This includes the whole lot; write down what you do all day, not just during work hours.?

Time Mapping is how you look for leaks of time, along with what activities can be grouped together.

I have a process called CDS for this, and my clients use it to see what they can Cut, Delegate, or Systemize—hence CDS. The process of Cutting, Delegating, and Systemizing enables us to get a clear picture of what you really should be working on. At the Grow-Up Stage, you need to move yourself into a position of marketer, salesperson, and probably advisor/coach.? Try and remove everything else from your plate.

Once you have worked out what you need to fit in a day, you need to schedule it.? The way I recommend scheduling everything is to pick focus days.?

When I was in the Grow-Up Stage, my days looked like this:

• Monday - Marketing
• Tuesday - Client Day
• Wednesday - Sales
• Thursday - Client Day
• Friday - Relationship Building - so still marketing, but this could involve face-to-face meetings and networking.

On top of this, I scheduled time every day to do three things.

First, I created a social media update as soon as I got back from the school run.?

Second, while getting around for the day, I would listen to podcasts and books to inspire me and give me ideas to talk about in either my video or my social media article.

Third, I would reach out to 20 people a day on social media, add them to my platforms, and start a conversation with them. This would take me about 90 minutes.

This meant I was spending the first two hours of every day working ON my business, not IN my business. This is the biggest struggle that people have when they are trying to grow. They are stuck in the weeds, so they can’t grow the business. This is why you have to do the CDS Process and get everything off your plate.

In growth mode, I was still working hard, but I wasn’t starting my day at 6 a.m. Instead, it was starting at 7 a.m., listening to and consuming ideas as I was getting the children ready for school.?

Once I got the children from school in the afternoon, I would leave them to their own devices; I would go back to work until about 5:30 p.m. Then I would make dinner while they pottered around me, and we talked.

During the Grow-Up Stage, I would still work weekends when the children were not around, and I would work some evenings if I was inspired. My life had changed by this point, and I was remarried, so I had a little more help in the evenings.

Let’s recap the Grow-Up Stage. I spent two hours doing marketing every day, without missing a day. Monday and Friday were exclusively for marketing; Wednesday was for sales calls; Tuesdays and Thursdays were client days.?

I ran my diary like this for a few years, and it worked wonders. I went from 100k a year to having 100k months.

This moves me on to how I scaled my business, but not in a way that you might imagine.? At this point in my business life, I was 10 years in; I was tired; I had a business with a big team and a lot of responsibility. My children were growing up, and I wanted more freedom in my life.?

My Scale-Up journey is slightly different from many and, instead of focusing on scaling up revenue, I decided to scale my profits and time.

?I built the foundations of my business for 10 years, and I was well-known in the accounting profession by this point. I had helped over 700 accountants get more clients, and a couple of firms had used my processes to add over 1 million to their revenue in a little over a year. I was nearer 50 than I was 40, and I had bought both a dream house and car.

This is where I made the shift to running a Freedom Practice. I didn't want a huge monster business anymore. I wanted to put the fun back in my life. I had chosen to put business first for a long time, so I had to shake up my diary and change the way I worked.?

Now my days, weeks, and months are far different from what they used to be.

I still do the CDS Process every quarter to make sure there are not things I can get off my plate.? I also have chosen to just offer advisory/consulting services. I no longer have a big team.

I haven't grown my revenue, but instead, I focus on profits and time off.

This is what my team and days look like now. My team is me. I am the coach and chief marketer - people buy people, so it is still my responsibility to show up and be the face of the business.

Then we have Matthew, who is in charge of tech. He runs our all-in-one marketing platform, which is called Uplevel.? We sell Uplevel to accountants and bookkeepers.?

Twice a week, he runs calls showing people how to use it and helps them. Matthew is a real tech whiz, and he builds our websites and sales funnels. Additionally, he helps our clients.

?Then we have Maria. I can’t put a label on what Maria is. She might be a bit of an integrator. She heads up operations, organizes the team, and makes sure there is a process for everything.? Most importantly, she organizes me!? She is an angel.?

Last but not least, we have Shola, who looks after the administration, schedules the marketing, and supports clients, too.?

The four of us run the business. (Remember, we are profit-focused, not revenue-focused.)

So, with the four key team members, my diary looks like this:

?Monday— I hang with Maria. We talk strategy, and we get stuff done. Additionally, I meet with my accountability buddy, Richard.? We evaluate how many people have come to our webinars, how many sales calls we have had, and how many sales we have made.? Then we discuss anything we are stuck on. This lasts for an hour and is highly valuable. I recommend you all get an accountability buddy.

Tuesday and Thursday— These are client days. This has never changed, but rather than having 1:1 advisory clients, I run group coaching sessions. I only ever have one or two 1:1 clients at any given time.?

Wednesday— We call it Webinar Wednesday. I run my own webinar for my audience, or I run a webinar for someone else's audience.

Friday— I try to say that I don’t work,? but I might book relationship-building meetings in the morning. However, the afternoons are free, so I can hang with the family.

Saturday/Sunday— These days are mine. No work happens.

Here is the thing. I still create content every day for social media platforms, and the first 2 hours of my day are mapping out my podcast episodes, going live online, and doing outreach to people on social media. I have also opened up my diary for sales calls, and these happen on client days when I am not coaching. It's all mapped out as a time map on my online calendar.

There are two more things I want to add:?

First of all, at 1-2 pm every day, I have blocked out my diary for Breathing and Lunch. I am an introvert, and I need to recoup my energy for the afternoon, so I can always bring my A-game for clients. This means I have an hour a day where I will not speak to anyone and have time to think.

Secondly, in the first full week of every month, I do not have any client calls in the diary. This means that for 5? working days, I can work on the business, not in the business. During this time, I can strategize and plan, meet with the team, or take time off (which I love to do). I can go away or hide in my house, and clients know that I am not as available as I am for the other 3-4 weeks of the month.?

This has been the most amazing thing I have ever done in my business. I miss my clients a lot during this week, but it makes serving them even more rewarding on the weeks I show up.

So that’s it...I have unpacked a lot here!

?If you are thinking of starting an advisory business, and wondering how to schedule your time, and what got me to have the financial and time freedom I have—well, this is it.

In Dream-Up, you are excited and are in research mode.

In Start-Up, you are in massive action mode. You have to do what others won't, so you can have what others don't.? I think a big mistake people make is that when they are in Start-Up or Grow-Up, they want to run their business like a Scale-Up, but this just means they can't get past Start-Up mode and struggle to make money.

Then in Grow-Up, you are still focused on marketing and sales, but you are building a team and growing revenue.

Scale-Up, for me, was different. It was about doing less and getting my life back, without affecting my income. Instead of getting ready to sell my business for retirement, I created freedom in my life now.

This is why running an advisory practice is so rewarding and exciting. Unlike a traditional business, life does get easier. You can turn your dream into freedom. I have done it, I have had many clients who have done it, and you can do it too.Want more content like this?

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