Productivity Management Is Your Fuel To Excellent Entrepreneurship
“Sunday Sit-Downs”? Yes, you heard that right!
At Kaivalya.me, our experience of over five years in multiple business industries has helped us make some serious contacts with successful entrepreneurs who have steered what was once a start-up into a successful, revenue-loaded business!
And a great man once said, “What’s the use of contacts if you never use them?” And we thought
Indeed, it’s so true and yet it never strikes anyone before. But now we’re on it!
One new successful entrepreneur, each Sunday! We’re recording our podcast conversations with them, converting them to hilariously informative text, and presenting them to your new-to-business-need-help mindset!
And this week, we’ve got a superstar business entrepreneur who's shown that the gifts industry brings too many return gifts to the gift shop owners!
Welcome Akshay Gavhane, the founder of FotoVilla! And our conversation revolved heavily around productivity and how that’s the one thing which separates a falling startup from a successful, established business!
Welcome, to Sunday Sit-Downs at Kaivalya.me, let’s dive right in!
Why Productivity Management Is Your Fuel To Excellent Entrepreneurship
What Is Productivity?
More than anyone realizes it, this is a bamboozling question. We always strive to be more productive. But what does that mean?
Getting more work done? Alright. Your road to managing personal and business life? Maybe.
But here’s the catch… productivity shouldn’t be defined to anything. Ironically, that would be counter-productive!
Instead of going to Bing and looking up what productivity really means, you should be the one defining what productivity means for you. That’s the one thing Akshay got damn ironed into our brains.
For Akshay, his priority list was: Work > Family > Friends > The Rest. Now, for this model, he defined productivity as finishing up as much work as possible (with the highest quality), with the same 86,400 seconds we all are gifted with.
If you’re spending 3600 of those seconds reading this post and digesting it, that’ll surely count as productive. Alternatively, if you’re doing 4000 seconds on Instagram, you’re not cool enough for our Free Audit And Consultation services 🐒.
But don’t follow Akshay. Just get inspired.
What’s productivity for you? Does family come as important to you as does business (and it’s totally fine that it does). In that case, productivity means getting as much work done in the day while also getting as many diapers changed without bailing out!
You see, productivity management starts when you decide what’s your goal. Once you have it straight in your head, “this is what I want to do… and I’m sure I do!” that’s the moment you’re 50% through productivity management!
Optimizing Productivity
Now that you know what you want to do, it’s time to really dive deeper into how you can become more productive.
To begin with, you need to have the right set of tools. And we’ll get to the details of productivity tools in a little bit. But before we do, we need to optimize our productivity to make the most out of the tools.
Wait… what? We need to optimize our productivity to make the most out of productivity tools which are supposed to optimize our productivity? (Keep reading that till you get to the bottom of it)!
Optimizing your productivity comes in two parts:
- Recognizing your ‘production’ you want to get done and what’s the most efficient way to get it done
- Adding tools to your work cycle to increase your efficiency and time taking for a unit of production
Productivity 01: Recognizing Work
Clearly, the second part requires tools, but we’re here to see the first segment. Let’s say you’re a budding entrepreneur looking to start a website development company.
Now, your day is going to be very packed if you really take your work seriously. You know that to make websites, first you need a set of talented marketing and web development team members, then you need to to let people know you’re there and tell them why they should choose you over the others, then you need management for incoming orders and offers, and finally you need an organic working cycle for the product development itself.
Now, this process can be optimized in the following ways: what if, while we’re a startup, we just look for freelancers and interns doing web development for us and simply maintain a very strong marketing team.
That way, we’re making sure people know we’re there, and impactfully so, while we’re still getting quality work done - but just through freelancers and not through in-house staff. Many successful companies such as Internshala started this way, and now they’re touching the sky!
That way, the product development cycle is off your hook and you’re also free of hiring developers. Now, all you need to do is hire a great marketing team and just look into product management. Isn’t that a hundred times more productive, without any tool?
And that’s just a simple example without getting into too many specifics. As you can see, a lot of productivity can be optimized by just making smart business decisions without touching a single tool!
Think clearly… what process you’re following, what process some successful (and unsuccessful) companies have followed, what will and won’t work for you (and why so), and prepare your cycle. Once this cycle is prepared, repeat this thinking process to keep optimizing your productivity. In just a day of proper brainstorming, you’re going to see massive results!
Once you’re done with that, it is indeed time to get into the tools!
Productivity 02: Productivity Tools
These are very important, and they’re different for everyone.
In the video conference between Akshay + team and Kaivalya + team, the two sides spent a huge time debating the ‘Asana vs. Trello’ clash.
Indeed, both the software have some really nice bonuses which the other doesn’t, and by the end of it, we realized that there isn’t any “best productivity tool”, there’s just the “right” productivity tool, and it varies with who is using it.
At Fotovilla, their team relies a great deal on project planning with timelines, milestones, and the types. At that one, Trello is clearly a winner as not only does it provide those services free, but it also has a better and easier to use interface for the same.
Conversely, we at Kaivalya.me aren’t as timeline based as we’re task-based. We look to create quality content. I’m not saying “On 31st December, I’m doing to publish this post.” Rather, I’m saying, “By 31st December, I need to publish these many posts on these topics” and I’m flexibly working with the time.
Clearly, Fotovilla is a gifting eCommerce business while we’re a high quality consultation and website development company, so we’ve got different ideas of productivity, and therefore we’ve got different tools.
So, again, in this post, we’re not going to pinpoint to you what tools you should use, but rather we’re going to give you a basic framework on which you must build. Plus, if you really want to be an entrepreneur, you must always be inspired but never follow someone else!
So, unlike all other posts, we’re going to tell you to use tools and not tell you which tools to use!
My Day Today
To begin with, Akshay highlighted a critical tool which we all use without realizing: a notepad and a pencil. Before starting a day, all successful entrepreneurs know in their head what they’re going to do this day.
They take a notepad and a pencil, scribble out what they’re going to do, how they’ll do, and make a priority list. Indeed, that’s the best software. You get everything sorted in a flash!
Just in case you’re uncomfortable with the traditional writing style, use some great apps such as Microsoft To-Do, Tick Tick, etc. which will help you get sorted in the head what you want to achieve today.
Communicating With Team
Once you’ve done that, you’re going to dump work onto your teammates. It is extremely important that you nail this segment. If you know what to do but those who work with you don’t, you’re never going to make your day productive!
For this, there are many tools such as Trello, Asana, Range, Microsoft Lists, etc. which are all great. See which fits perfectly into your workcycle!
Work Review
Now that the work day’s over (for your employees, because work day is never over for an entrepreneur), you need to review their work, understand their pros and cons, and let them know!
For your web developer team, websites such as Google PageSpeed Insights will let you know how well your team has prepared the site, what they could work on, etc.
For content writing, you’ve got Grammarly and similar websites to check for plagiarism, grammar, quality of writing, etc. You’ve also got UberSuggest and similar websites which check the SEO and content quality, and how it compares to your competitor’s websites.
Clearly, depending on what you and your team is working on, the tools you use for work review will differ. Except one tool: your brain. Use it to review their work first, then search for great tools and use them to review.
That way, you’re building your own organic work cycle on our framework, and not copying us or ignoring us. That’s the sign of a perfect entrepreneur!
Productivity 03: Time Management
This should probably be Productivity 01, it is critical. As an entrepreneur, you’re going to be dumped with work.
In the start, it will be overwhelming and most of the ordinary Joes out there will feel like quitting. That’s why 90% businesses fail: before they never start. The workload is immense and if you’re not in the top 10%, you’re out of luck!
But what if we could cheat luck just a little bit? It doesn’t really take that much brain power and intelligence to get into the top 10%, just the right time management!
If you don’t trust my words on it, we’ve got confirmation from Akshay and Bill Gates! Here’s a short video that’ll get you a neat framework on time management, on which you can build your business!
Final Thoughts
In our interaction with Akshay, we realized that he sets the lighting of his room to orange as it keeps him the most productive. Many of his stationery and furniture is yellow to keep him the most creative.
He meditates before sleeping to clear his head, just as Kaivalya just focuses on his breathing for the same. He doesn’t sleep anywhere near 8 hours. His idea is to fit as much work as possible in the time he’s got, and he doesn’t want to waste a third of his day with his eyes shut.
Now these are some very obsessive techniques many entrepreneurs use, but there’s a reason why Akshay’s Fotovilla business is making a ton of money for him: he didn’t copy anyone.
He spends a huge chunk of his life just experimenting with the many productivity tools and techniques surrounding him, and finally he’s found his sweet spot. And on the way, his business got very successful!
While talking with this team, we realized that his team was extremely familiar with him and his ways of working, almost like a family. His communication is excellent, his thinking capacity is off the charts, and his dedication - the one word which changed everything - is seen right through the shine in his eye.
It was a great time, and we hope our podcast will help you convert your budding entrepreneurial dream into a successful business. If you’re dedicated, get inspired, don’t copy, and experiment, you’ll be just perfectly set for productivity management!
But then there’s also the business side. You need to create a really neat interface which your clients will love. You need to persuade people that you’re a person of your word and you create some quality product no one else can do just as good as you do.
And for that, there is no hiring process in the world which will allow you to nail it. It comes with years of experience and working capacity. But don’t stress. Instead of spending years in the industry before reaching that level, you can leverage on your experience of over five years!
Our extremely talented and experienced team of web developers and content writers can get your business front-face sorted in no time and make your business look world-class within its first month!
If you’re interested in starting a successful business journey, check out our services right now!
Wish you the best of luck. See you next Sunday!
