Plan to Succeed With Matthew Pollard

Rapid Growth Speaker & Coach. Executive Director of Small Business Festival, Internationally Award Winning Blogger and Host of Better Business Coach Podcast – Matthew Pollard

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I recently sat down with my friend Matthew Pollard, known as The Rapid Growth Guy and the author of The Introvert’s Edge.

We’ve known each other for years, and it was awesome chatting with him.

Matthew is known for being productive and efficient. He’s created business systems and processes that support his desired lifestyle. He shared the top four productivity principles he’s used to create a thriving company.

1. Plan well for productivity.

Small business owners like Matthew and me are always in search of tools we can use to grow our businesses quickly, so we can increase productivity and efficiency.

After building successful businesses in Australia, he moved to the U.S. to start building businesses here and looked for a credit card to support his new business. Chase was the first company that issued him a credit card. Chase’s investment in him helped him plan wise investments to grow his business rapidly.

2. Set an independence goal.

Create an income goal that revolves around your family and your life. When Matthew first came to the U.S., he knew nobody but his fiancée and was determined to recreate the success he had in Australia to support their desired lifestyle without draining his savings. Within twelve months, he was a six-figure business coach.

He didn’t stop there. Every time a client became successful, he asked them to record a testimonial case study video. He collected eight full hours of videos that year hard evidence that his methods worked.

Matthew used those videos as case studies to promote a group coaching program. By growing his group program instead of one-to-one coaching, he effectively bought back personal time for his fiancée.

3. Preplan your goals and learning as you go using ‘just in time’ learning.

Matthew has a huge following on Twitter and LinkedIn, so I asked him how he created this crew of raving fans. His response?

First, he set a goal to have a large engaged Twitter following. He reasoned having an engaged audience would help him grow his business. But he wasn’t sure exactly what it would take to leverage the power of Twitter to do that.

To avoid getting information overload, he first learned how to build an engaged audience. Only after he achieved that goal did he learn how to leverage the power of Twitter.

By preplanning what he wanted and learning in chunks, one step at a time, he ensured his time was used wisely.

4. Get laser-focused on your goals.

Make sure your goals are crystal-clear and concrete. That will make them easy to understand and implement. Also, understand WHY hitting your goals is important. Do they lead you toward something important, such as building a better life for your family? Having a strong reason WHY your goal is important to you is really the most important part! It will keep you going in tough times.

With that in place, write out your goals and read them every morning. It sounds simple but things that are simple get done! You’ll also start to feel anxious when you’re out of alignment with your main objectives. That anxious feeling will push you back on track.

BONUS TIP:

Just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s easy. Forgive yourself when you make a decision that isn’t moving you toward your goals. (Beating yourself up will only decrease your productivity.)

Incorporating even ONE of these principles will bring increased efficiency in your business.

If you’re looking for a committed financial partner dedicated to helping your small business grow, make sure to check out all the services offered by Chase for Business. One thing that Matthew and I both love about the new Chase Ink Business Unlimited Card is its simplicity. The card offers 1.5% cashback, which can help any entrepreneur streamline his or her business while also reaping cash rewards.

Matthews’s Website:

MatthewPollard.com

Transcript: Download

Video Transcription provided by GMR Transcription Services.

Jaime Masters:	Welcome to Eventual Millionaire! I?m Jaime Masters, and for the third time back I?m having my very good friend Matthew Pollard. He is the rapid growth guy and what?s amazing way back when ? we actually did more research on you this time than I think we ever have before, by the way ? so when you started in 2015, and you have to sit there and look like you don?t ? you?re humble, okay, right now ? back in 2015 you claimed a spot in the International Best Sales Blogger Award Hall of Fame only nine months after you started your blog. 

You and me have had a mano a mano on Twitter followers when you started with 200 Twitter followers, now you?re the 43rd most re-tweeted business coach on Twitter in seven months, and I took years to get there. You also helped small business owners brainstorm realistic ways to skyrocket business and their income using your rapid growth process. It is pivotal to your and your client?s success. Thanks so much for coming on the show today! And I wanna say before, you?re actually doing this from Harper Collins because he?s so busy in October ? in November, that we went through and made sure everything was all set and ready to go. Thanks so much for coming on the show today. 

Matthew Pollard:	I?m super excited! A little bummed though. I mean the last two recordings we did, we were like in studio together and that was amazing fun, so I?m sorry I gotta do these ones from Nashville, but we?ll persevere, right? I remember last time it was like two hours of them trying to get us to stop gossiping before we actually got to do the recording but this time we?re so into business. 

Jaime Masters:	Well yeah except for the tech problems that we had beforehand, but yes.  

Matthew Pollard:	Yeah we?re not mentioning those right? That was out of my control. 

Jaime Masters:	I love it, I love it. So let?s dive in because you are one of the most productive guys. You don?t talk about productivity and that?s actually what I appreciate about it. The way that you run your life with strategy behind everything is impeccable, especially like the way we?ve met. You like did your research. You?re so good at that. How do you squeeze all that in to the time that you have?   

Matthew Pollard:	Well I feel like most people kind of waste their time on the tactics and the doing. And if they?ve got their strategy right, then they wouldn?t waste so much time in the tactics and the doing. They?d be a lot more specific about what they?re doing. I mean the way you and I met was ? yeah I ran my strategy and it worked. But otherwise I guess I probably would have been one of the other people that met you at the internet marketing party and never got to see you again, and never got to foster a relationship. I see people go to hundreds of networking events to say networking doesn?t work. 

It?s not true; they?re just doing it wrong. They speak from stage, but they do that wrong, so then that doesn?t work out too well, and they might have spent thousands of dollars to get on that stage. I mean, it just ? what I find is that most people wanna focus so much on the doing because we live in this instant gratification society of I?ve gotta always be doing something and seeing results that they won?t spend ? you know sometimes it?s a matter of half a day worth of planning can save you months? worth of work over the space of a couple of years, just most people won?t do it. 

Jaime Masters:	Well so why don?t we do it? Why do you think that most people won?t do it?  

Matthew Pollard:	Well I think talking to ? your podcast is called the Eventual Millionaire, right? So everybody is in such a hurry to get to a million dollars that they?ve gotta get there tomorrow. Right, so it?s all about setting these ? I?m gonna hit a million dollars by the end of the 12 month period ? by the way they?ve only earned $26,000.00 in the last 12 months. Right, so they don?t even have a realistic goal. Right, now I?m not saying you can?t hit $1 million in 12 months, but build self-efficacy around hitting 70,000 first. 

Then, once you knock that out of the park, then call it 120, then call it 300, then call it 500, and by the way you might realize halfway through that what you are doing to make the first $75,000.00 may not be what you?re willing to do to make the $1 million because a lot of times ?we had Derrick Lewis, the guy that ghost wrote the Introvert?s Edge with me here today, and when I first asked him the question, I was like well how much do you wanna make? And he was like I wanna make $1 million by the end of this year. I?m like mate, it?s October you?ve made 12,000 so far this year. 

So we set this what we call the Independence goal, which was 56,000 and I said I?m not saying you won?t get to a million but start there. Well his goal of hitting $1 million was that he was gonna have ten ghost writers working for him, and they were all gonna make $200,000.00, and he was gonna make 100,000 off that. But in truth he couldn?t do that, so how was he gonna have a team that did that? This was just ? we like to believe ? we like to tell our friends this story about how we?re gonna be millionaires at some stage. Right, so it makes ourselves feel better even though we don?t truly believe it. 

But as soon as he hit 56,000 the 120 was an easy goal for him to believe he could do, and he knocked that out of the park in like less than four months. And then as soon as he hit 120, I asked him the question do you still want ten people working for you, and his response, ?Oh God no. No, then I?d have to manage them and that?s stressful. I really wanna create digital products to teach people because then I can go anywhere I want.? So what I always find is that people that aren?t earning enough money generally wanna make the million dollars, but they haven?t really ? firstly, sure we can all go out and buy fancy cars, but that?s not really what we want. 

We just wanna create a great six figure income that revolves around our family and our life. Once we hit that yes we would like to make a million dollars, but what we?re willing to trade off at that point is a lot less, so then we can make more specific decisions. So for me, I came to America, knew no one outside my fianc?e and less than 12 months later I was this six figure business coach, right? But at that point I didn?t say oh now I?m so busy I need to create leverage products, I made that decision upfront. So I started to plan, okay every single client that I have, as soon as they tell me they?re successful, I?m gonna get them on recording, and I?m gonna start creating case studies. 

I had eight hours? worth of case study evidence with my clients by that 12 month period. So when I built the curriculum for my rapid growth academy I already had it backed up by eight hours? worth of case studies. Now I?m sitting down and talking about multiple books with my publisher Harper Collins, and they?re like how do we know you have this much content. And I?m like well I got it all pre-recorded, just watch some of it. Right, it?s easy because I start with strategy, so for a lot of people that are watching, they?re like alright I get it strategy, but how do I start? And I?ve actually mentioned this on your podcast before. 

There?s a podcast episode called Forget about Goals, What is the Key to Success? It?s episode 17 of Better Business Coach, and the goal of that is what I find is people tend to inherit their goals from their mother, their father, their ? I don?t know their drunk roommate they had in college.  They just hear these goals, and they?re like, ?Yes! That?s exactly what I want. I?m gonna charge towards it.? And a lot of times we don?t because it wasn?t that important to us, so we don?t muster that fire in our belly to go and get it. It?s just something nice we tell our friends not to feel bad about ourselves not doing anything. 

Or we charge at the goal, and then we obtain it ? and I mean Jamie you?ve interviewed hundreds of millionaires. You know how many millionaires that are like, ?Gosh I don?t like the business that I?m in, so I need to put someone in so that I can get the hell away from it.?  I mean the thing that I?ve learned is I can create rapid growth out of anything, but first you wanna make sure that you haven?t created a rapid growth business with customers you can?t stand in a business you don?t wanna be around. 

Jaime Masters:	A million times yes. Not worse than money when that happens. Do you do that same process though to get the accolades on Twitter or when you started your blog? How do you actually go back through because everybody as a business owner gets a million things thrown at them every single day? How do you create that quick growth ? I know rapid, where that quick growth in that short of a time frame when you?re like oh, no, no I don?t wanna go after the big numbers, but it looks like you did? 

Matthew Pollard:	Yeah so, but what?s interesting is my first goal was to figure out what Twitter was for, and I set that goal as a really finite process. Then I spen ? I set myself a month long goal that I would read X number of blog posts on Twitter, about Twitter, and a couple of books on the topic. Right, I became an expert in it and then I crafted my own strategy. I mean one of the things that a lot of digital marketers are impressed about with what I do is that I launched my brand in like February of 2014 ? by October I spent less than half an hour a week marketing. Everything that I did was automated, and yet I still hit all of these reports. I think that the last post I just did on LinkedIn had 21,000 views. 

It was just a little article that I posted, but the reason for that is that I focus on strategy first working out what ? firstly, I work out what I want and more importantly why I want it. Because most people just find out I want Twitter followers. Well if they?re not the right type of Twitter followers, if they don?t have purchasing intent, if they?re not interested in the topic that I wanna be talking about, what?s the point? So for me it was like, alright let?s go back first and work out what exactly do I wanna be doing. And then I said ok, well what I really love, I mean I was responsible for five multimillion dollar businesses in Australia, everything from telecommunications to education, but what I truly love ? well the answer is I get bored super quick. 

So I wanna be involved in helping people get that unified message that separates them, so when they go to a networking event they?re not, ?Oh I?m a sales trainer,? where people are like, ?Oh I?ve had that? or ? I don?t want that.? They?re like, ?No, I?m different!? And now they wanna shove something down someone?s throat. Instead they?re like, ?Oh, I?m the rapid growth guy? or ?I?m the narrative strategist?, and people are like, ?What? I?ve never heard about that before.? It doesn?t fit in a commodity box, so instead it?s kind of, ?What exactly is that? Can you explain?? Now I get their invitation. That?s a real productivity tip. 

Have something to say at networking events that separates yourself. But once I realized that I enjoyed doing that. Helping people pick a niche that works, packaging pricing stories, and the sales process, I realized that I can do that in like three sessions. So I went I only wanna coach people for like ? sorry in six hours. So I only wanna coach people for six hours. And then the first question I got was you can?t make money doing that. Most coaches can?t get clients. When you get a client, you gotta hold onto them for dear life. 

And I?m like yeah but I don?t wanna do that. I wanna give them the strategy, help them implement it, send them on their way, and ? they?re already implementing it, they?re already getting it, I know why they don?t need me anymore. And they?re like, ?Well you?re never gonna make money out of doing that.? Now I?d written my goals that said this is what I want and here is why I want it. And then while other people will say, ?that?s not possible.? My response is always, but if it was possible, how would I do it? And the answer was that in the past, all I?d ever done was bricks and mortar based business. 

Bricks and mortar stores, telemarketing centers, direct sales, that?s all I?d ever done. Now if somebody ? I?m embarrassed to say this now ? but if somebody had come to me and said, ?Hey Matt I?d really like to talk to you about digital marketing or email marketing, or doing social videos on LinkedIn, because I think you could make a lot of money,? my response would have been, look mate you?re obviously too scared to just get out from behind your computer and go and speak to someone, so I?m not gonna take advice from you. Again I?m ashamed that I used to say that because when I ask myself the question if it was possible how would I do it? 

The answer was that I couldn?t have a sales team that prospected for this because it was too expensive to acquire the client. So because of that, I needed to find an online method that drove people to my brand. The other thing is that you can tell ? I mean for the people that are hearing me for the first time, I?m not from America, I was born in Melbourne, Australia, and my family?s there. So I like the fact that ? well I had to go back down to Australia in April, so I want and my laptop went with me, and I could go. And in February next year I?m doing a speaking tour in the Asia-Pacific region. It doesn?t matter where I am, as long as I can get a good internet connection, you can still ?

Jaime Masters:	Make it work, right?  

Matthew Pollard:	But the thing is that that was one of my goals. Because of that I had to find an online way of doing it. So because of that my strategy was not hey I really wanna have 10,000 followers on Twitter, it was I need to create a way of engaging people online that?s forever leverageable to drive people to a way that they can make contact with me and then have an automated process that gets them on the phone to me where I can sell to them. 

So what I did is I started to focus on all the social profiles, but then I went okay I?m getting all this following on Twitter, I knew exactly what I wanted to teach them, so I was winning awards and getting a lot of followership, but I?m like what I am I doing with all of these people? Well if they?re not coming to my website, that?s pointless. So I need to focus on bringing them to my website. People love getting traffic to their website. They like to brag about the fact that they?ve got 10,000 visitors a month. Who cares, if they?re not subscribing.  So I then focused on, well how am I gonna get them to subscribe? 

And then how am I going to get them to engage with me to book a phone call, and then once they?ve booked the phone call, how am I going to sell to them? And then after I?ve figured that out, how am I going to automate the process of me selling once it gets much bigger. So I mapped all this strategy out and set a two month deadline to make it happen. 

Jaime Masters:	Okay, so that?s where I wanna break this down because I think this is the piece where it sounds like you?re doing a ton. And everyone?s like well I wanna do that too but I have a thousand other things going on. So what?s impressive about what you do ? and I wanna pull out what you actually do brass tacks too, like are you meeting every single week to make sure you hit those goals? How are you making it that simple? 

Because it?s simple when you talk about the framework, but most of the time business owners will get thrown and be like, Oh yeah I had to do this strategy. I totally forgot that I was working on that piece because of this fire or whatever it was.? So how do you not get pulled into a million different directions and stay on the simple plan that you had scheduled? 

Matthew Pollard:	Okay, so the first thing is to remember you?re gonna make mistakes and to forgive yourself quickly. Okay so the amount of times ? I can tell you I?ve jumped onto business ideas and then gone hang on no, the only thing I care about is things that help small businesses rapidly grow. So while this recycling product is super awesome it?s not my thing. Right, so I?ve jumped on the idea, I?m having conversations with ? I?ll catch myself, I shouldn?t be doing that. See here?s the thing, in neurolinguistics programming we learn we?re presented with 2 billion bits of information every single second. Our brain the supercomputer that it is processes like 1/26th. 

So what we tend to do is delete, distort, and generalize everything that we see, feel, hear, and smell based on our beliefs, past experiences ? a subset of that is our goals. So I?d like to think I?m an amazing coach or I?m really productive in short just getting laser focused allows you to see opportunities that were right there in front of you. So people say a lot of the times, Matt how did you see that opportunity or how did you make that happen? And they take it as I?ve got this innate ability, and in truth I could see it because I was focused. So how do you get that focused? 

So what I do is, and yeah I talked about it in my podcast, so I find three business goals, three personal goals ones selfish to myself because let?s be honest if you?re not selfish, you?re not gonna be as driven. And then I summarize those goals using ? well it doesn?t really matter, I say use SMART criteria, but it doesn?t really matter. It?s a means to an end to then summarize each one of those goals in 250 words or less, including why it?s important to you. Now this is why this is critical because a lot of people wanna write a 1000 words and the reason for that is they?re trying to fit 20 goals into one thing. 

Right, so they?re trying to build it and they try to build in escape clauses and all sorts of things. 250 limits you and it keeps it concise. A lot of people can only write like 50 words and that?s because it?s not really that important to them, which means they?re gonna have shiny object syndrome. Which means that they?re not gonna be very productive at all. So by going laser focused and having it in 250 words or less, what I find is your body feels anxious when it?s not doing activities that are aligned with your goals. So if you have goals and you?re starting to feel anxious, the first thing I do is that I emotionally regulate myself, and I ask myself the question, ?why am I feeling anxious?? 

That?s right; anxiety is the natural body?s response to doing things that are incongruent with what I truly want. So I pull out my goals, and I?m like the reason why I?m feeling overwhelmed is I?m doing a bunch of stuff I shouldn?t be focused on right now. I?ve become sidetracked, and I get myself online. For people that have never done this before, I suggest once you?ve written the goals, the first thing you should do every morning is read the goals, and say okay so what are the things ? I know my inbox has got 27 things in it and one of them is this email from Matthew Pollard saying I really should buy this book. 

But that?s not important to me right now, what?s important is that this is my goal and this is the thing that I need to be doing. Right? So it?s very easy to watch a podcast with you and go, ?That sounds like it could be a great idea?, and then do that. And then tomorrow it?s something else, and then the next day it?s something else. And now I?m really busy doing nothing at all. So instead if you know what your goals are, still listen to the podcast, but if it?s not one that?s congruent with your goals right now click next and go to the next one, and hopefully they don?t do it on this episode. 

Jaime Masters:	Exactly! No keep listening to this one because the whole point of this is making things simple so you actually do them too. I mean like we were talking about before how Chase is actually the sponsor of this and making sure that it is simple, so you actually do it because if it?s not, a business owner can?t add more to their plate. 

The problem though is when you talk about in the morning, when you?re bringing the morning to look at the goals, people forget to do that too. So how do you even put something like goals ? do you put it up on your computer screen, do you have it texted to you in the morning, like how would we actually get into a habit of actually doing that, especially when we?re not great at habits, raise hand? 

Matthew Pollard:	So the first thing that I tend to do because remember I had the reading span of a sixth grader in high school, so because of that reading?s not exactly my favorite thing in the world to do. So because of that what I do is I have somebody else read my goals to me. Right? And I record it, and then when I?m walking the dog in the morning I play the goals in my earbuds. And I hear them. So I?m still productive, I mean I can?t not take the dog for a walk, and as much as I try to avoid it, the dog tells me I gotta take the dog for a walk. So because of that, I use that time efficiently, and I listen to my goals. And it automatically gets me in alignment. For the people that are readers, print them out. 

And if you have a laptop, or even if you don?t, put them on your keyboard before you go to bed, and then when you wake up in the morning, the goals are there and don?t throw them. Just train yourself. Don?t throw them on the floor, don?t just do whatever, have them there and practice every single day just reading them. But if you have to, I mean productivity is a lot about self-discipline, and for me if you can?t force yourself to read your goals, there are one of two things happening. You either know them so, so well in which case it?s time to stop doing that task, or they?re not that important to you. And if they?re not that important to you, get back to the writing. 

Jaime Masters:	Interesting! Okay, that?s an interesting caveat for that because most of the time, I?d be like, ?Oh I forget? or something else comes up or there?s another fire. But you?re saying because the why wasn?t there then we don?t feel compelled to go after them. 

Matthew Pollard:	What?s interested is one of the very first questions that my staff learns when they come and work with me is not to create artificial deadlines. Right? Because what I find is because something is urgent to them in their inbox, right ? I need this answer right now, they?re like, ?Oh I?ll call you and I?ll email you? because this person has said that it?s important, and they need it by Thursday. Now Jaime, I?m sure you get asked to write blogs for people all the time, to be on podcasts, interviews. One of the things that I?ve learned is that while it may be important to them, it?s not necessarily important to me. 

And if somebody?s like, ?Oh, I need you to write this article and I need it by Thursday?, well I?m like why didn?t you reach out to me six months ago and tell me that you had this deadline? And generally it?s, ?Oh, I?m sorry I should have? or ? that?s fine, but you can?t tell me you need it by Thursday. And a lot of times my staff will come to me and say, ?Oh I need this?, and I say is it something that you could have emailed me that I could have got back to at any time or is it something that I could get back to ? or is it something you need right away? 

And if their response is, ?Oh no this is any time?, I said just put it in my inbox, and I?ll get back to it in time, but if it?s something that you need urgent, my next question is always why exactly is it urgent? And when they tell me the reason, I help them reframe, and I say is that 100 percent urgent to the success of the business or is it urgent because this is a task that you?re working on right now? So creating artificial deadlines is something teams do all the time, and it?s something that I?m so focused on making sure doesn?t happen. 

Jaime Masters:	Do you just have that awareness? Like the prospecting awareness or the time awareness of that?s not a real deadline. How do you actually tell when it?s coming in especially when you?re the driver of a lot of this stuff?   

Matthew Pollard:	Yeah and I do that. I mean so ? and I?ll put it in an example, when I first came to America I made the decision that if I?m going to successfully go out and coach clients, and tell them how to rapidly grow a business from nothing, I need to start a rapidly growing business from nothing. So because of that when I started coaching, I only invested back into the business what I made on the business after I took out living expenses. And I lived a cost-effective lifestyle, but I still paid for my own living expenses. 

And for me then, things that became really important was speaking at events so that I could turn those into coaching clients or making sure the email system was set to convert or making sure that I responded to customer inquiries. Now I have a system that ? where people can still book a phone call with me, but it?s down to like two to three months in advance sometimes. And I?ve had to become okay with that. In the past it would have been we need to get more people to call right now. To me now I?m like I gotta be putting more content out, otherwise the rides going to be coming to a screaming halt. 

And I see that happen all the time where you see people in business they?re like pushing like crazy to get clients, and then they?ve got clients, and then they focus 100 percent of their time on those clients. And then they finish that project, and then they don?t have clients, and now they?re crazy hustling again. And I read an article for CEO magazine which was dedicate 20 percent of your time to higher prices and less stress, because if you del ? instead of saying  you?ll deliver the project in four weeks say you?ll deliver it in five. The customer won?t care, and now you can dedicate a day a week to marketing so that you don?t have to discount your prices in a hustle at the end because you need work. 

Right? So it?s just about creating a mindset for understanding what your priorities are. Now there?s a ? this isn?t my strategy, but it works amazingly well. One of the things that I suggest to a lot of people that they do is ? basically it?s four quadrants, right so what they do is write down everything they do for an entire week. And this is ? you?re gonna hate me for telling you this because if I tell you to write down everything you do including the things that take you a couple of minutes, that?s a real productivity killer, but I get you to write it down for the entire week. Once you?ve done that the next thing I get you to do is I get you to write the word urgent or not urgent next to each one of those tasks. 

Then I get you to write important or not important next to those tasks. Now if it?s not urgent or not important, I think that you can understand those are the things you shouldn?t have been doing, that?s like answering those sales pitch emails and things like that. Those things you just get rid of. Then you?ll find these other things called urgent and not important. Now the things that fit into that category, these are urgent to other people, but not to you. Therefore, you shouldn?t really worry about it. You shouldn?t spend your time doing them at all either. And a lot of times your staff can be coming in and go we need to do this right now. Well then why didn?t you schedule a time because you weren?t thinking?

So let?s now train you so this doesn?t happen again. Then you?ve got things that are urgently important. These are generally and I know Jaime you?re a big push on systems, and I?ve seen your owner box stuff and a lot of business owners really need this stuff. I mean they don?t have great systems, and because of that everything?s a fire that they?re trying to put out. But in truth once they build the systems, they shouldn?t have fires, which means everything fits in this important, but not urgent category. And that?s where you wanna spend all of your life. The next thing that I do though is I then tell people to get out a green highlighter and highlight all the things that they could outsource. 

And once they?ve highlighted all of those things, then they could start to either decide to hire new staff to outsource those things or hire out external contractors to do those things. And what you?ll find is there are a lot of things that you can very easily outsource that you assume isn?t possible. I mean when I worked with ? I?ll give you an example ? with Derrick, right, when we were talking about writing the book, he?s like getting a lot more work, because we were working together at that time. And he said, ?One of the problems is I can only do a certain number of books a year.? I said explain to me why that is. He said ?Because I?ve got to write them and then I?ve got to perfect them.? 

I said you just have to get somebody else to write them. He said, ?No, my clients are paying for me to write these books.? I said, yeah but Derrick, they?re paying for you to make the book perfect. Let me ask you a question, if you were to write a chapter all by yourself, how long would it take? He?s like well it would take me a couple of weeks. I said well how long would it take ? but what if you got somebody else to write? He said, ?Then it would take me two or three days to fix it.? I said well three days sounds a lot better than three weeks. What have we just done? We?ve just increased his effectiveness like five times. 

Now he can take on five times more clients just by utilizing some people to do some of the grunt work behind our LYP. So there?s so many different ways to look at productivity and say how can I go about making sure that I use my time for the stuff that matters? I mean this book was written by me, but I had a ghost writer write it because it?s my stories, it?s my ideas, but while I?d written all my own blog posts, no one wants to be yelled at for 1500 words. I write persuasive content, and I wanted it to be a natural step by step process that excited people, and they enjoyed the stories, they just happened to learn styles while they were doing it. Derrick had that skill set, so I worked with him. 

Now  sure I could have learned to write in that style, but instead I worked with somebody who allowed that to be possible. My website, I spent ? we wrote 70,000 words of copy for my website. I worked with an internal writer to get that done. Every time somebody writes something, I write heaps of comments and things, but then I push them to fix it as opposed to me doing it myself. The biggest thing about being productive is learning what to let go of and what you can?t. And everything still comes to me for final approval so I know before it represents my brand, I?ve approved it. 

Jaime Masters:	So I love that you have this opinion or it seems like you have this opinion. So tell me if this is true or not, that there?s always a better way, right? There?s gotta be a better way, a more effective way. Something that doesn?t take as much effort or as much time or makes things more simple, so that way we can actually get the results that we want, not he how, the how doesn?t matter as much. We want the end result to be simple and effective, right?  

Matthew Pollard:	Yeah and I think that this is a really important topic actually because we become so entrenched on ? but you don?t understand it?s different for me, and I have to touch everything. And we?re so focused on the fact that it?s not possible to find another way out of this problem, that we don?t start to open our mind and say, well if we were to find, another way how would it be possible? And I remember when I was younger and I used to tell my father about how hard everything in my life was, and I used to complain ? I said I?m never gonna be able to achieve this thing and I really gotta a focus on achieving this thing. 

My father would say, what would be the worst case scenario if I didn?t achieve this thing? And the outcome, the answer was actually who cares? Or it wouldn?t be that bad at all. And we just become so focused ? remember we talked about the what I said before the 126 bits of information? If your 126 bits are so focused on the fact that only you can do this and there?s no better way and it?s harder for you and your story is different, then you?re not going to have the time in your day to focus on how to fix that situation. 

And so many people I find that they get so built up and so anxious, and then they stress out about the fact that their problem is different and that there?s no way to fix their problem, which leads them to spending all their time worrying. All that energy could be much better spent on finding a solution. 

Jaime Masters:	And knowing that there probably is a better solution out there I think is really, really important. Even talking about Chase Inc. and their brand new business card, points have always been sort of the way that everybody does it. Nobody even realizes that there?s a new way, there?s a better way. And so no matter what we do, in terms of whether it be business, sales calls, or digital marketing, there?s usually a better, more effective way. 

How do we find out those ways though, especially if we?re sitting ? like if you thought digital marketing was stupid for a really long period of time, you wouldn?t go and take a look and be like that?s the better way, right because you thought it was dumb. How do you find those new better ways when you are shut off? 

Matthew Pollard:	See the problem that I find with a lot of people is that they set 20 objectives, and they try and do them all at once. So for me I wanted to learn how to develop an audience on social media, so I focused on that first. Then I wanted to focus on converting them to my website ?

Jaime Masters:	Well question ? 


Matthew Pollard:	One step at a time ?

Jaime Masters:	How would you ? you don?t do that for a whole entire week or two weeks, do you? You?re like that?s the only thing I?m working on. No nothing else coming in because we do have so many other things. So how do you actually do that piece? 

Matthew Pollard:	You have to time block time. The answer is in ? like let?s say I spend 80 percent of my time running my business. The 20 percent of the time I?m learning the things that I need well how to work on my business. I?m focusing on one thing. Right? I?ll give you an example, we launched ? my social campaign in the past used to be just images and links to articles, and then I decided that I wanted to post ? I share one or two videos on LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter and Instagram everyday now. And I decided that I wanted to do that now because the whole world?s going to these mediums. 

And all these people kept telling me all these things to do, and I went no I?m going to block out three days and I?m going to research exactly how I?m going to do it and then how I?m going to project manage that. And what I did is I found this great technology that would allow me to project manage it called Monday.com, the most stupid name in the world, but great product. And the ? I focused on the project management and all the steps in the process and who would be my contractors for each one of those and which things that I would insource. And then I launched the system. 

Now, I didn?t do three consecutive days because I have lots of other things going on, but I time blocked a few hour increments to focus on A: what system I was going to use to project manage, and then B: how I was ? what ? the time length that the videos needed to be, and then what technology I was going to use to post it on social media. And then finding the right contractors for everything, and then I looked at what things I could outsource to other people to help me with finding those contractors. So I blocked ? what I did is set an objective and then I estimated how long that objective would take. 

And then I time blocked into my schedule the three days, which is how long it took me to create this whole strategy and implement it over the space of about two months, and then I implemented it. 

Jaime Masters:	See that?s an owner ? that?s you being the owner going all in and figuring out what that result is that you want instead of ? I feel like people sort of half do it. They?re like, ?I?m gonna kind of go like this ? oh no!? No we want them to commit to the end result, and it took three days. People, it doesn?t take that much time even though a feels like everything will take forever when you actually focus you?ll have a lot more energy behind one thing and therefore you actually get results faster. I love this. I know we have ? go ahead. 

Matthew Pollard:	Let me just cut her off on one thing, so this is really important. Remember how I talked about other people?s demands? Remember that sales people have their own demands, all the time and so does everybody that?s trying to give you advice because what they?re doing is the most important thing for you right now to them. What you?ve gotta do is you have to listen and make those decisions yourself. I?ll give you an example: To this day I?ve maybe spent a couple of hundred dollars on social ads just to dabble and have a bit of fun, but everything ? most of my brand was completely built organically, right? 

Everything was through social posting on social media, going on podcast interviews, speaking from stages, everything was organic. And people kept telling me Matt, if you were just to double down on Facebook and LinkedIn ads, you?d make so much more money. And I?m like yeah, but that?s not the most important step right now. At the moment, this is the most important step, and I?m focusing on that. Digital advertising however is on my agenda, and I have it planned for March and April of 2019. 

That?s when I?m going to focus on the four days that I think learning and mastering digital advertising, working out whether I?m going to outsource it or whether I?m gonna make it my own IP, and implement the strategy. Because otherwise what happens is you?ve got this external company that comes in and sells you on it. You don?t even have time to validate they know what they?re doing and you hire them and then you?ve blown $15,000.00 on digital ads and you haven?t got an outcome. So focus on what your objectives are and then project plan on one objective at a time and time block that. 

That?s how you get to a successful business. That?s how eventually, if you like, you?ll get to that million dollars. 

Jaime Masters:	I love it, and that?s perfect for my last question. And I love the way that you do that because it?s not as though you have to do everything right now. We as business owners are like but I ? it has to be now. You already planned until next year and that?s huge. Everyone that?s listening make sure you go, okay so next year I?ll do these, now I need to do the things that I?m working on that are important right now. And it builds and we forget we have time that isn?t right now. So right now I need to ask you the last question and it?s what?s one action listeners can take this week to help move them forward towards their goal of a million? 

Matthew Pollard:	To me I would think that the best thing for you to do is go back ? as we said go back and do that podcast episode Better Business Coach Episode 17 Forget about Goals, What is the Key to Success because until you know truly what you want and why you want it, it doesn?t make sense to do anything else. You might even be in the wrong business or you might be focusing on building all these additional products, and what you really wanna do is double down on the one you?ve got and go deep into a specific niche. So until you?ve got that laser focused you won?t know ? your 126 bits of information will be focused in the wrong direction. 

Once you?ve done that, then you?ve gotta focus on what your overall strategy will be and the outcomes that you need. But again, focus on one thing at a time. Hitting one outcome and then focus on the next. And if you?ve gotta create I really wanna do digital advertising, I really wanna have a webinar, I really wanna go out and network more, well say let?s network first and I?m gonna spend two months mastering that. 

Then I?m gonna spend two months mastering this and then two months mastering that over the course of running my business you still might be moving leaps and bounds faster than everybody else because they?re spending so much time on each one of them, they?re working incredibly hard going nowhere. 

Jaime Masters:	You?re the tortoise instead of the hare. That is the best productivity hack that there is. Awesome, thank you so much Matthew. Tell us where we can find out you, and thank you Chase Inc. Business Unlimited for having Matthew back on the show for the third time. Where can we find out more about you, Matthew? 

Matthew Pollard:	Yeah definitely, and I?m excited about Chase because obviously I use Chase credit cards myself so I?m a big fan of their product. But yeah you can totally find me on ? I mean type in Matthew Pollard into google and you?ll find me everywhere, but check out Matthew Pollard.com, and I think that the people that are watching today should probably check out ? I can?t remember the episode numbers, but we did some pretty good episodes, the last two. I think we covered off on introverted sales, and how to create a unified message that separates you, so maybe just double down on Jaime?s podcast, and listen to the other two episodes that we did together that are packed full of content. 

Jaime Masters:	Love it, thank you so much for taking time out of your very busy full on purpose schedule and doing this with us today. Thanks!

Matthew Pollard:	Happy to, thanks very much Jaime.

Tags: Business Owner, chase ink business, entrepreneur podcast, eventual millionaire, introvert's edge, jaime masters, just in time learning, Matthew Pollard, millionaire entrepreneurs, plan to succeed, podcast, start-ups / startups, startup entrepreneur, top entrepreneurs

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Hi I’m Jaime. Each and every week I bring you the top business advice from the people who know best.

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