💡 Techniques For Overcoming The Day-To-Day Challenges In Your Business 📈
Running a business can be difficult, especially for entrepreneurs. The day-to-day challenges can be tough, but knowing these tips from Sherell Slaise will help you out! Adrienne Hill and Sherell get into powering through whatever comes your way. From scheduling, setting routines, and taking time for yourself, they take a look at some powerful tips for entrepreneurs. Take a load off and listen in and learn how to take advantage of these skills for your business.
Helpful Links:
✅ Connect with Sherell Slaise:
✅ Sherell’s Lead Magnet Survival Guide: https://page.co/usoecc
✅ Book a 6-Figure Strategy Session - Adrienne’s free gift for you: https://www.buildalifebydesign.com/courses
✅ Adrienne’s Entrepreneur Community on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/profitablepassiveincomestrategies
#impactfulentrepreneurshow #guestinterview #productivity #workfromhome
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💡 Techniques For Overcoming The Day-To-Day Challenges In Your Business 📈
Impactful Entrepreneur Show Guest Interview
Have you ever thought building a business is a constant uphill battle? Everything feels hard, like getting up in the morning, keeping a calendar and a schedule, getting your family to protect and respect your business hours. You feel like you’re fighting a constant battle all day long. We’ve all been there. I have my moments where I felt that way. I’m sure you can relate.
In this episode, we have something special for you. My business bestie is going to join me on the show. We’re going to break down the techniques that she uses to overcome a lot of these obstacles and challenges. The great news is that they’re all super simple and actionable if you just do it and implement them. Set some timers on your phone, set some reminders, and put some things in your calendar. Try it and see how much your business changes and how much more energy and motivation you have to bring to your table. Let’s do this.
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My name is Sherell Slaise. I am an entrepreneur and a work-from-home mother to three children. Their names are Carter, Parker, and Tandrea. We affectionately call her Tess. I will be sharing with you my tips on how to stay productive while working from home. I get into this conversation a lot because I seem to have mastered a strategy that works for me.
I have shared the strategy with a lot of other people that I lead and it seems to be working for them as well. I figured this would be a perfect topic to share with other small business entrepreneurs and network marketers that are looking to automate their system, grow a big team, and build good and strong, profitable income, still while working from home.
Let's get into it. I came from a corporate background. I like to say I'm a corporate evacuee. I went into entrepreneurship at the age of 30. I did that because I was looking for more freedom, time, and independence. In doing that, I had a great career in real estate, where I owned and operated that business for nine years.
My father introduced me to the network marketing industry. While I was transitioning from corporate into entrepreneurship, real estate, and network marketing, I did this all the while getting married and raising children. When I got started in entrepreneurship, I had a 1-year-old and I was 8 months pregnant. Very quickly, my third child came along who is Tandrea (Tess). This all happened within 2.5, 3 years.
Day-To-Day Challenges: When you wake up in the morning or you're just not your optimal self, you can become very optimal and get where you need to go and where you need to be just by generating your own energy.
I had 3 babies under the age of 3 years old, running 2 businesses while working a full-time job. People say, "How did you do that?" I'm going to give you tips on what I did. Grab a pen and paper because I'm going to give you some tips that you can live on and you can use to really strategize your life, day, business, and get some good meat out of what I'm going to share with you.
Number one, the biggest tip that I can give you that I continuously do is get ready for the day. The way that you get ready for the day is you have to generate your own energy. You have a dynamic body that God gave you that allows you to generate your own energy. When you're feeling down, when you're not where you want to be, when your mindset is not where it needs to be or your body is feeling sluggish, when you wake up in the morning or you're not your optimal self, you can become very optimal and get where you need to go and where you need to be by generating your own energy.
How do I do that? Early in the morning, I always grab some hot beverages. I'm not a coffee drinker but I like to drink hot water with lemon in it. That wakes up my mind and sensory system. It gets me going. That's the first thing.
The other thing is you generate your own energy by exercising and moving. I do this first thing in the morning. You've heard the model that if you win your morning, you will win your day. It's the same thing here. If you exercise first thing in the morning, it is so very helpful. Your adrenaline gets pumping and your heart rate increases.
Another thing you want to do in the morning is to honor your routine. Often as entrepreneurs and network marketers, we don't honor ourselves. This falls in the category of personal leadership. What are you doing to plan your morning and honor the time that you give to yourself?
You should have a routine that should form into a habit. Previously, in the working world before social distancing and working from home, you probably had a routine. You honored that routine because you worked for someone else. Just because you're working from home doesn't mean that everything goes up in the air. It doesn't mean, "I'm going to watch Netflix or Hulu in the middle of the day." You don't usually do that. You usually work during the day. Don't do this when you're home and away from your office. If you usually watch Netflix at night, stay watching Netflix. Make certain that during the day you stay on your routine, that was previously scheduled by you.
Get ready for the day by generating energy and knowing that you create that energy. We all have the opportunity to create our own energy.
If you don't have a routine, you need to establish a routine. When you establish that routine, remember to honor it but also get up and take a shower. When you get up, you wash your body, brush your teeth, throw some water on your face, and get dressed, it honestly does help and wakes you up. I do this routinely. It might sound very minor but how you start your day does make a difference. Eating breakfast first thing in the morning as well generates that energy. My first tip for you is to get ready for the day by generating energy and knowing that you create that energy. We all have the opportunity to create our own energy.
Number two is to set boundaries and expectations for yourself. I have a family of five. I have three children. I'm mostly responsible for the kids' school day and daily activities. If you have a family, you need to communicate your work needs to them. If you're at home and you've got other constituents, people that may need you, maybe it's not three children and a husband, maybe you're caring for parents, anyone in the house who might need food or help with their homework, you need to set boundaries and communicate to them what your actual work needs are.
This is so key and we don't do it often. We say, "I have this job. I have this side business or I'm building a new business." You're thinking everybody's going to leave you alone. If you're planning, which is the foundation of this talk, getting prepared and ready, having a routine in place, and communicating those work needs to your family, then say, "I have to work. I need to put in some hours before I sit down with you."
I had my daughter in here who was doing my hair, making certain I look pretty. I was like, "I'm doing a show. Go tell your brothers that this is what I'm doing." Communicate that to everybody. That way, everybody's on the same page as you. If you disappear and you start working, everybody's going to be pulling at you all day long, guaranteed. It's always going to be at the time when you're not ready for them. They're going to be interrupting you.
Communicate your work needs to the people around you. Those people will respect and appreciate you for doing that. I've been married for 14 years with three children. There was not always a time that I was generating an income that my husband expected me to bring in or my kids were hoping we'd get so that we could go on that Disney World trip. When I communicated to them what my goals were and where I was going, the expectations, and established those boundaries, I was able to onboard them to my mission and the scheduled work hours I had set up for myself.
This is also about setting boundaries and expectations. As you're thinking about those values or boundaries, we are usually strongest if we've got specific deadlines and work to do. Honoring your time is important and figuring out what that time is going to be during the day. Where are you strongest? If you've got something important that you need to get done, when are you strongest during the day? For me, I'm strongest and brightest in the morning. Most of the things that are important to me, I try and get done in the morning.
Day-To-Day Challenges: Communicate your work needs to the people around you. Those people will respect you and they will appreciate you for doing that.
If you're more of a 2:00 PM person, that's when you're going to schedule your most important project, in the middle of the day. This is like TikTok for me. It becomes a habit when you set it up and start doing it over and over again. Another boundary trick is to set up space in your home that is completely separate from everyone else. We all have that luxury to do this.
Let me give you some ideas. I'm in my dining room. This is my dedicated workspace. I have been doing a lot of work and filming in this room because it's got two closed doors and no one comes in here. You can find a corner in your room or a separate room altogether. It might be your kitchen table. Depending on the size of your home, it might be the corner of the sofa.
You have to put a boundary right there. You say, "I've got work to do. I'm going to be sitting at this kitchen table. While I'm at this kitchen table, I'm going to be working. Don't bother me. This is where I'm going to be for the next 2 or 3 hours." That's setting your boundaries and finding that space that you can set up that's distinctively yours. It's no one else's. This dedicated space will help you tremendously because you can keep working there. You put work there, keep work there, and walk away so that you can have that break that you are going to need.
I also establish the one thing, goal, and focus area that should push the needle along in my business. I identified that the night before. I double-check in the morning if that's the same thing that I want to do. I don't like to be scheduled, although I have a pretty clear idea of what I'm going to be doing throughout the whole week because I time-block my calendar.
The night before, I suggest to myself what my focus is going to be the next day. That next day, because I'm such a fly-by-night and like to be flexible, I never want anybody to tell me what to do, including myself sometimes, I relook at what my focus is and agree as to whether I'm going to do it or not or I'll ship it to another day. Having that flexibility in there is also key.
At the very beginning of the day, you do that so that you know what you're working towards. Sometimes, we identify too many goals in a day and we don't feel accomplished at the end of that day. This reminds me of Gary Keller. He teaches in his great book, The ONE Thing, "What's the one thing that if I complete, nothing else matters?" I follow that same concept.
Set boundaries for yourself and set expectations for yourself.
Number three is about taking breaks. You’ve got to do this because you will burn out if you don't take breaks. Schedule those breaks into your day. I'm a multitasked parent because I have three kids. I'm working from home and got three businesses that I still run. I have an online business, a network marketing business, and a real estate business. How am I doing all of these?
I do take breaks during my day. I keep a planner. I went from an electronic planner to using a paper planner. I use my electronic planner specifically for the notifications for meetings so I can get buzzed when it's time to go and do the next thing. I brought back a paper planner into my life because I feel like with it, I'm able to see where I'm going and where I've been.
When I was using the electronic planner, I would take notes online or on my phone and file them away nicely. Once I filed it away on my phone or my electronic device, it was gone forever. I never looked at it again. That's what I realized was happening. I felt like things were missing. I would have captured that but conceptually, for me, I needed to be able to see it on paper. Finally, in 2020, I was like, “Things seemed so scattered." I ended up purchasing a planner again. I have it in front of me. I got my paper planner back in my life again. It's working for me and I love it.
My point is to schedule breaks throughout the day. Make certain that you have white space in your calendar. As much as those color blocks, the white spaces are just as important, where you have the flexibility to take those breaks such as mini-breaks, tea breaks, power naps, or walks outside. Make sure you take breaks.
Number four, when it comes to working from home, it is not business and life as usual. When I talk about working from home, I normally say, "Business as usual," but it's not. You can try and convince yourself that nothing has changed, but things are different. There is another layer of stress in our lives due to what's happening in the world. In March 2021, there is still a pandemic. We are still fighting racial unjust. I'm aware of that.
Children are still at home, transitioning, hybrid, working from home, not working from home. There's stuff going on and that's still there. You have new home responsibilities that complement the circumstances that are going on. Some of those home responsibilities are very basic, like cleaning more than you ever had before because people are home-worn. They make certain that when everyone comes in, their hands are washed and all that stuff.
Day-To-Day Challenges: Take breaks. You will burn out if you don't take breaks.
It's these little extra things we’ve got to think about that we weren't thinking about before. These things interrupt your business day. It's something new that's being incorporated into all of our lives that are impacting some more than others. We have to allow space and time for this as well. As a home business entrepreneur, which all of you are, your business is also impacted. It's not business as usual, which is why this topic fits so nicely with the summit that Adrienne is sponsoring.
It brings me to number five. As a home business entrepreneur, as you're home already and transitioning in this new way of building a successful business that has systems and automation in it, I also don't want you to be hard on yourself as you're setting yourself up for this success. The idea is progress and moving forward. I decided to talk about this topic because we're not innately equipped to be able to take on all of what I described with everything that's going on. In the drop of a dime in 2020, the world changed, shifted, and evolved. We have to figure out how to live and operate in this new world and grow a business in it.
I've chosen to do it online and create processes and systems, not just in my business, but also in my routine as an entrepreneur who has responsibility and personal leadership. The systems and routines also have to be ingrained inside of me as well. Your systems on your computer and the automation for your business and the technology, all of that is great. but if you're not in order, it doesn't matter.
It's time to evolve. I hope you still have deadlines and goals. With everything that's going on, some people are out there nailing and grinding it out. There's so much opportunity with all of our respective businesses but there may be some others who aren't grinding it out. I want to speak to those people as well. I don't want you to beat yourself up. Forgive yourself for what you didn't do in 2021. The opportunity is now. It’s getting those systems in place but it starts with you.
I have got a special gift for you all that will sum up everything that I said but it will take what I said one step further. It's called my Home Business Survival Guide: How to Increase Your Productivity While Working from Home. I'm getting it to you for free. I hope you enjoy it. Go grab it. If you have questions about that free resource, If it brings up some other ideas for you, I'd love to hear from you and figure out what you are doing in business that is working for you. You may see a tool I use and have some questions on how I implement that tool. I'll be very happy to share that with you as well.
Important Links:
About Sherell Slaise
Sherell is an entrepreneur and owns several businesses today in online and network marketing and real estate. She is a business mentor to 1000's of home-based business entrepreneurs supporting them in the industries where she dwells. Sherell’s authentic communication and inspirational messages of personal leadership create strong connections with all who are mentored and led by her.
These attributes have piloted her accomplishments in network marketing where she holds accolades as a top 1% rank, a 6-figure income earner, and she leads a community of over 4 thousand business owners seeking knowledge to grow an online audience and find the right people for their businesses. As the former owner of the largest certified minority and women-owned real estate business in Chicago, Sherell continues to reside there with her husband and 3 school-aged children.