Joe Connolly’s Advice for 2017: Work Smarter and Remain Optimistic
In addition to a lengthy career in the media, Joe Connolly is known for hosting the Small Business Report on WCBS News Radio 880. The brief but informative show features one-minute discussions on topics relevant to the small business world, from sales and marketing to government and finance.
Although we’ve only entered the first few days of the New Year, the 2017 episodes show a definite theme that can become the mantra for small business owners this year: work smarter and remain optimistic.
[Tweet “Great #advice for making 2017 a #successful #business year from @joeconnollybiz”]Work Smarter
The January 5th episode featured Scott Forman of the Montvale Chamber of Commerce who says one goal for New Jersey business owners this year is to increase hiring efforts. When you hire someone to take care of your more mundane tasks, you can spend the time you saved in areas that will help you grow your business. In fact, one New Jersey real estate agent hired one worker for 20 hours per week. This freed up time for her to find more clients and with that, she was able to double her business.
In a follow-up episode on January 9th, Joe discussed the topic of delegating tasks in an effort to ‘work smarter not harder.’ He offered tips on how to do it including:
- Make a list of all regular, repetitive tasks that you do.
- Rate each task on a scale of 1 to 5 where 5 means only you can do this task.
- Tasks ranked 1-3 are probably things that other people could do.
- Hire someone and train them to do a few tasks on the list. This will allow you to gradually relinquish control while assessing skill and finding the right person who can handle more of these tasks.
Remain Optimistic
Other episodes of the Small Business Report have focused on the growing confidence among America’s business owners, perhaps in part because of the election of a president with business experience. Experts have noticed that businesses (even small businesses) are hiring more. Bank of America also says that more businesses started drawing on their lines of credit after the election.
Joe Connolly hosts new episodes every Monday through Friday, and you can listen to them here. Also, click play below to get a glimpse of Joe’s presentation at the 2016 Smart Hustle Conference.