This blog post is based on a webinar conducted by Emma Mills, focusing on productivity and time management strategies. Emma shared valuable insights specifically tailored for children’s activity providers to help streamline their processes and enhance efficiency.
Running a children’s activity business is rewarding but can also be overwhelming. Emma Mills, an award-winning entrepreneur, shares her insights on optimising your time, focusing on what truly matters, and growing your business effectively. In this blog, we’ll uncover the three secrets every children’s activity provider should know to work smarter, not harder.
1. Prioritise Where You Spend Your Time
Emma emphasises the importance of understanding where your time is going. It’s easy to get lost in daily tasks, but not all activities are equal. By focusing on high-value tasks—those that generate income, attract new customers, or enhance your business—you can significantly impact. Emma suggests using a productivity planner to track how you spend your time, even for a day or two. This might sound tedious, but it’s crucial for identifying where your efforts are best spent.
Once you’ve tracked your time, it can be eye-opening to see where your hours go. The data you gather helps you pinpoint tasks that others can take over, allowing you to focus on what you do best. Emma introduces the concept of setting an hourly rate as a reference point. For example, if your goal is to earn £7,000 a month, this translates to an hourly rate of £50. This rate helps you determine which tasks you should focus on and which can be delegated to others. If a task can be outsourced for less than your hourly rate, it’s time to hand it off. This approach ensures you’re spending your time on activities that drive your business forward.
2. Focus on the Fun Stuff
Another key insight from Emma is the concept of focusing on the tasks you enjoy and excel at. When you’re engaged in activities you love, you’re more productive and motivated. For many business owners, this might mean spending more time interacting with clients or being the creative force behind your offerings. Emma points out that not every task is created equal. For example, spending an hour responding to emails or doing bookkeeping might be necessary, but it’s not the best use of your time. Instead, delegate these tasks so you can concentrate on the high-value activities that only you can do, such as developing new business strategies or nurturing client relationships.
Emma also advises that at the start of each day, you should identify the top three tasks you want to accomplish—tasks that will have the most significant impact on your business. These could be actions like refining your customer journey, creating a new marketing strategy, or working on a Facebook ad. By focusing on these key tasks, you ensure that even on busy days, you’re making progress toward your larger goals.
3. Capture and Nurture Every Lead
Managing incoming leads can be overwhelming, especially when you’re juggling multiple roles. Emma advises setting up systems to ensure no lead slips through the cracks. Whether it’s a new inquiry or an existing client needing attention, having a framework to capture, respond, and follow up ensures that every opportunity is maximised. This helps grow your business and maintain high customer satisfaction.
Understanding the Value of Different Tasks
Emma introduces categorising tasks by their value—£10 tasks, £100 tasks, £1,000 tasks, and so on. The idea is to recognise that not all tasks are equal in their impact on your business. For example, responding to routine emails might be a £10 task, while developing a new client offer or forming a strategic partnership could be a £10,000 task. By focusing your time on the higher-value tasks, you can drive significant growth in your business.
Emma recommends using a time-tracking system, whether it’s a physical planner or software, to record where your time goes. By doing this for even just a few days, you can gain valuable insights into where you might be wasting time or getting distracted. This helps you identify tasks that can be outsourced, allowing you to focus on the high-impact activities that drive growth.
Emma also shares a valuable tip: plan your ideal day by focusing on the things you love and are good at. For her, this might mean spending time on marketing activities or creating content that helps her clients. By using the productivity planner, she tracks her daily activities and gradually offloads tasks to others, starting with one task per week. This strategy allows for a manageable transition of responsibilities, reducing overwhelm and freeing up time to focus on what truly matters.
Emma Mills’s insights provide a valuable blueprint for children’s activity providers looking to refine their business practices. By prioritising your time, focusing on tasks you love, and ensuring every lead is nurtured, you can create a more efficient and enjoyable business. These secrets aren’t just about working harder—they’re about working smarter, so you can spend more time doing what you love while still growing your business.
The insights from Emma Mills emphasise the importance of treating time with yourself as seriously as time with others. Many people tend to push back their own priorities in favour of immediate demands, which can hinder progress on meaningful work. Emma suggests scheduling focused, non-negotiable time in your calendar—whether it’s 45 minutes a day or a few hours a week—where distractions are minimised, and you can work on tasks that truly move your business forward. This dedicated time should be respected like any other meeting, with clear objectives planned ahead to ensure productivity during these slots. By systematically offloading smaller tasks and managing distractions like inbound communications, you can create more space for this focused work, ultimately leading to better business growth and personal balance.
Emma Mills’ insights highlight the importance of managing inbound communication effectively to reclaim valuable time. A case study she shared involves James, a business owner who was struggling to handle incoming calls, emails, and messages, particularly during evenings and weekends. His team was busy with day-to-day operations, leaving him to manage these tasks, leading to stress and missed opportunities.
To address this, James implemented a system to handle overflow calls during weekends and evenings, ensuring that inquiries were promptly managed without his direct involvement. This not only reduced his workload but also allowed his team to focus on new inquiries without neglecting older leads.
Emma emphasises that business owners, even with a team, should ensure that their operations are structured to function without them needing to be involved in every detail. By setting up systems for handling inbound communications and delegating tasks, James was able to regain time for himself, particularly after the birth of his second child, and reduce the stress associated with constant interruptions.
Emma’s advice is to look at how inbound communication is managed and consider using call handling services or other systems to capture leads and ensure they have a great experience. She also suggests using productivity tools to identify tasks that can be delegated, allowing business owners to focus on high-value work. This approach not only alleviates stress but also drives business growth by ensuring that critical tasks are given the attention they deserve.
ICAP members can access the recording of the webinar by clicking here. If you are not an ICAP member yet please sign up here.
