Entrepreneurs, startup consultants, business owners all share at least one thing in common. They are constantly busy, but part of what makes someone successful at their job is not the roles and responsibilities they hold rather it’s how efficient they are while on the job. For most professionals, finding a comfort zone in juggling those roles and responsibilities can be intimidating and time-consuming. The key to productivity is recognizing your limitations and understanding how to develop the “brain hacks” that are needed in becoming a more efficient professional.

Franchise business owners, in particular, are ultimately forced to learn these hacks upon signing their franchise due to the many roles they’re initially playing the first few years of ownership. Many have developed a strategy for running their day-to-day duties while also overseeing their operations, client relations, compliance and sales departments. We’ve compiled the best productivity hacks from Franchise Owners across the country. Here are a few that may help you navigate the fast-paced world of owning a business or starting your own company.

1. Be aware of your productive hours. If you know you’re a morning person, then schedule your meetings during that time. Also, try working on all of your creative projects within that block of time. This will yield the best results.
2. Hire a compliance coordinator. This is key to streamlining your financial paperwork, especially for franchises. A coordinator can do the heavy lifting and sift through the changes while you approve, creating a seamless process.
3. Use your Fridays as a research day. If you feel like most of your time is being spent prospecting, utilize your Fridays as a day to get the most research done based on the sales goals you put in place during the week. This helps in keeping you creative and sharp when it comes to Monday’s big pitch meeting.
4. Host educational workshops and webinars for your sales team. With all the work that needs to be done with selling your services or products, many times sales teams will either feel burnt out or stagnant in their efforts. Re-educating them on new tools and techniques can help them become more efficient in the sales process.
5. Dedicate 90 minutes to meetings. According to research, people lose focus after 90 minutes. Try and keep all meetings to a maximum of 90, that way you keep your team and your guests engaged.
6. Only check emails that are pertinent to your day. This is critical and one that many of our Franchise Owners have found to be pertinent to their productivity. According to McKinsey Global Institute Report, the average worker spends 13 hours on answering emails. Use follow up folders and subfolders to categorize the immediacy of each email.

As one of the largest commercial cleaning franchises, we felt the need to deliver a platform to our Master Franchise Owners and Unit Franchisees that created a more streamlined approach to sales and operations. Our tech development team designed a proprietary cloud-based system that is perfect for managing sales and organizing all operations. This ultimately leaves more time to focus on other pertinent tasks for your business. If you’re interested in learning more about becoming a business owner, please contact us!