From Subconscious to Success: Daily Rituals That Transform Your Business

From Subconscious to Success: Daily Rituals That Transform Your Business

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 135 of the business development podcast. And today we're chatting about all of our daily rituals, conscious or unconscious. I don't know about you, but I've been sabotaged by my unconscious plenty of times. We're going to chat. All about it today and hopefully set you up for future success.

Stick with us.

Intro: Great Mark Cuban once said business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal. And we couldn't agree more. This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world.

You'll get expert business development, advice, tips, and experiences. And you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs. And business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business brought to you by capital business development, capitalbd.ca let's do it. Welcome to the business development podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 135 of the business development podcast. My gosh, 135 episodes. We have just crossed 161, 000 downloads in roughly 15 and a half months, which is absolutely amazing. Just speaks to the testament of our amazing listenership. You guys telling your friends, family, co workers. about the business development podcast and we appreciate it immensely.

The show could not continue to grow without your support. Our amazing Rockstar listenership, our expert guests, you guys are absolutely amazing and it really is because of you that this show continues to grow week over week, month over month, and year over year. Quill Podcast Awards winners are this Thursday.

So this is Wednesday. You're hearing it on Wednesday. We're recording it on Tuesday, but I am like fingers crossed. We're up for podcast of the year and best interview podcast 2024. So super, super cool. Cool to even be considered. We're one of three shows on each award. So, you know. To whoever wins, it's going to be awesome.

And you know, I sure hope that we get at least one of them. That'd be pretty, pretty great. It was pretty cool winning best business podcast 2023. So I think it'd be pretty over the moon to win something again here in 2024. I wanted to just give an announcement saying welcome back to atWork Office Furniture.

Rodney Lover he is the CEO of atWork Office Furniture and they left for a little while on the sponsorship. We are very happy to welcome them back here for starting in June. And guys, our sponsors are amazing. Honestly, this show could not continue to grow without sponsorships. Sponsorship helps to pay a lot of our fees, a lot of our advertising just a lot of our growth here is really.

Funded by our amazing, amazing sponsors. And we don't rope any of them in at the business development podcast. We want all of our sponsors to want to be here. So none of our contracts are locked in. What they are is there they're stick with us. You can leave at any time, but we ultimately hope that our sponsors will stick with us and support our mission, support our journey, and help us to inspire and educate the future of entrepreneurs.

And I think a lot of them do stay for that very reason. They see what we're doing here. They see the value in it. They've experienced the value in it. And they know that by contributing to the business development podcast, they are also contributing to the future of entrepreneurs around the world. So super cool.

Our sponsors on this show are amazing. And I just wanted to give a gigantic welcome back and thank you to atWork Office Furniture. It is great to have you back, Rodney. All right. I wanted to also chat before we started our show today about community questions. So guys, Please, we do need your community questions.

We want to do more community questions episodes. So if you have a question about business development, entrepreneurship, feel free to shoot it over to us. podcast@capitalbd.ca that's podcast@capitalbd.ca. We will make sure that we address it for you on a future community questions episode. We haven't had any for a couple of months now, actually, just, we haven't been getting a whole lot of questions.

So. Feel free to shoot some through. We look forward to the next community questions episode. I wanted to do an episode today, chatting a little bit about ritual, about business development, ritual in our life, call it whatever you want, habit, ritual, just things that we do on a consistent basis. And I really wanted to spend some time today chatting about it.

And the reason being is that so many of the rituals and the habits that we do on a day to day basis are completely on autopilot. We are not even conscious. They are unconscious. They are in our subconscious. There are things that we're doing that we don't even recognize it. And I think, If we can take control of some of these unconscious habits, we can implement new ritual that is more successful for us over time.

And so I don't want to sit today and preach because guess what? I have been guilty of probably not doing each and every one of these things at one point or another, but I did want to spend some time today and just chat about maybe some of the rituals that I have, that Kelly Kennedy has, that I do on a daily basis that has made me successful over time.

Because what do I talk about on this show? all the time. Consistency breeds success. That is what makes all business development people who are incredibly successful, successful, because they have a process that they follow on a consistent basis. And the more that you can bake in good ritual, good habit, on a daily basis, the better that you are going to be.

And so much of our challenge as business development people, as humans, not even just business development people, as business people, is that we struggle with time. We struggle with managing our time. And in a time where we are competing against LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, so much distraction all the time.

We have to be more diligent than ever with our rituals, with our time to not end up in this loop of Mediocrity, really, because what will end up happening is if you just, if you just keep flying by the whims and you keep checking LinkedIn, you keep checking your emails, keep watching that YouTube clip or that, that Instagram clip, whatever it is, it is going to wrap you in and you are going to waste infinite amounts of time and and so again, we are going to wrap up in a minute.

Strategic with our time being strategic with our rituals as we move forward is going to become more and more critical. And I am by no means saying that I am a pro at this. I just know enough. I'm recognizing enough in my entrepreneurial journey, my own journey, that these are things that even I need to improve at, that I need to get better at because time management has never been more critical than it is today for me.

This may not be your point. This may not be your moment where we're managing your time has become so critical, but as an entrepreneur, as a podcaster, as a parent, as a, as a partner, trying to manage my time effectively in a way that I'm getting everything done as efficiently and to my standard as possible is becoming more and more challenging all the time.

And so time management, really success rituals, finding things to. Implement that make me more effective that keep me on track are more and more important. And so today I just wanted to do a show on success rituals. I wanted to do a show on. Here's some of the things that I am doing that I have done to make myself successful over time.

And maybe you can implement some of these and heck, maybe even you can suggest some better ones. Maybe you guys can even write to me and let me know here what do you do on a daily basis to make sure that you're staying successful, that you're staying ahead, that you're not, that you're not getting left behind, that there's not things that you're missing.

So, I'm just going to go over some of the things today that, that I have found success in. That are part of Kelly Kennedy's daily rituals to keep me moving forward and to keep me on track and things that I'm working on. And yeah, let's just see if some of them are able to help you over time because I think there are things that have helped me immensely.

There are things that have become a part of every workday for Kelly Kennedy, and maybe they can be that for you as well. But my main goal. The big goal with today's show is I want you to, I want you to be aware. I want you to get aware of all of the subconscious rituals and things that you are doing that are killing you, that are killing the time, that are killing your efficiency, that are stealing from your success.

So that once you are aware of them, it's hard to pretend they don't exist. There's something about being aware of a problem that makes it go away. Why? Because once we are aware, once we can see it, We can't unsee it. It's a great human trait, actually. Some people would say, that's horrible, Kelly, because now I know there's a problem and I can't forget about it.

That's great. What that does is it makes you take action. It makes you do it better. It makes you find a solution that you would not have found otherwise. Let's shine a big bright light on all these unconscious habits that we are doing. And I'm, I'm included. I'm right there with you guys. I got many, many, and how can we improve them?

How can we get just a little bit better today? Okay. All right, let's do it. Success in business development comes down to the consistency that you follow on a daily basis. It's time to evaluate your unconscious habits and bake in new ones. That gear you for success. Let's discuss today. Some daily rituals that make you better at BD.

Number one, before your day even starts, and this is from experience, check your calendars, everybody. You are in business development. You likely have meetings. You likely have things that you need to do today that are in your calendar. How many times have you forgot to check your calendar and damn near missed that meeting?

I have my hand, I have three hands up. I don't even know where this third one came from. This has happened to me more times than I would like to admit. And so now what I recommend to each and every one of you is before you check your email on your phone, check your calendar. Your calendars, it's there for a reason.

It's there to tell you what you have scheduled for that day. And I know, I know you're like, Kelly, you know, I don't use a calendar every day. Well, trust me. One of the, one of the takeaways from this is going to be start to use your calendar and live by it. This is something that I'm actually going to do a future show on.

It might be sooner rather than later, but calendars are absolutely critical to your success in entrepreneurship, business development, or business in general. Take your pick. You need to live by a calendar. A calendar is like this schedule for your life that will make you more efficient and make you better.

And starting your day by checking that calendar is the best thing to do. Before your email, before your LinkedIn, before your coffee, check your calendar and don't ever miss a meeting again and make sure that whenever you are booking anything that it is going into your calendar, that a calendar just becomes this daily part of your life and a daily part of your schedule that you can live by and trust.

Okay. Calendars are critical. I did not always live by one and I don't even know how, I don't know how I didn't do it. I don't know how I ever got by before the time of calendars, but I schedule everything now. Okay. So, we always want to check our calendar for meetings scheduled. Obviously, time banked for critical tasks.

We can chat about this later. Don't be the person who forgets a meeting. Guys, we never want to be that person. We never want to be, oh, I didn't check my calendar and now I forgot that critical meeting. Whether that's just a meeting with your boss, whether that's your BD meeting for the week, whether that's a meeting with a client.

It does not matter. You do not want to miss anything. Check your calendar. And if you are like me, you may run multiple calendars. You can sync them up. So feel free to sync up your calendars. Find a calendar program or an email program that you could have multiple calendars running in if you run multiple calendars and try to make your life a little bit easier.

But the reality is, You need to be living by your calendar and you need to check it first thing in the morning. It needs to be the very first thing you check on your phone because it really sets the pace for the rest of your day. Okay. Okay. And since we've spent a little bit of time here on calendars, I'm not going to go too deep into this.

Like I said, this is its own show calendars. It should have its own show. I will be doing a future show on calendars. So I'm not going to dive too crazy deep into this today, but. We have to use our calendars effectively, right? Calendars are useless if we're not putting everything into them. And I really do want you guys to start doing that.

All meetings, right? The very first thing you should do when you book a meeting, send the calendar invite. Accept the calendar invite on your side and make sure that it is done correctly and it is entered right on everybody's side so that nobody misses it, okay? The moment you get a yes, let's book that meeting.

You don't waste another second. You book it right there in that moment. You make sure that the email invites are out to everybody and you make sure that you accept it in your calendar. And after that, it is rule. It is law. You are going to make it meetings need to go directly into your calendars. Okay.

Okay. Let's chat briefly about critical tasks. I talked about this a little bit earlier. I did not always live my life. by scheduled time. Okay. Scheduling time is something that I'm learning as an entrepreneur. I'm not saying that I'm a pro at it by any means. What I'm saying is I am now recognizing the absolute criticality of scheduling my time when I'm as busy as I am running a company.

Handling clients, running this podcast, making sure everything needs to be done. And we're not even talking about the non critical tasks. You guys know there's a million non critical tasks. If you run a company, if you're doing podcast stuff, if you're advertising, if you're doing anything like that, there's a thousand things to do at any given time.

Some are critical, some are not, but it doesn't really matter. You need to make sure that all of those things are being scheduled. Okay. The secret to being successful. And like I said, this is something that I am learning that I'm doing a lot better at now. I was not always great at this, but. I try to schedule everything.

If I have critical tasks for the day, I set a time slot in my calendar to make sure that I am banking that time on all days that I'm working on stuff that's capital related, podcast related, things that just need to get done. I will forget because there's so many things. But if I schedule that slot of time, if I hop into my calendar and I schedule an actual slot of time and say, in this time I am doing show production, in this time I am making calls.

I will forget. In this time, I'm doing website edits. If I do this, guess what? It gets done. Things get done because I know exactly what I am supposed to do between 1 and 2 p. m. in the afternoon because it's in my calendar. I want you guys to try it. If you've never lived like this, if you've never Try to schedule your time.

And I'm speaking to my entrepreneurs. I'm speaking to my CEOs, my presidents my up and coming entrepreneurs. Okay. If you have not lived by a calendar and scheduling time, the next time that you guys do your top five things to do today lists, I want you guys just to book the time. What time are you going to do those top five things?

Are you going to do your digital introductions between eight and nine a. m? Are you going to do your calls between 11 and noon? Are you going to do right? Like What are you going to do? And when are you going to do them? But trust me, if you start to schedule this, you're going to find that you get more done and you have more time than you have ever had before, because you are wasting so much time.

Trust me, trust me. You are wasting so much time. Much time, you could probably be five times more effective than you are today. If you just scheduled your time, we're going to get into this. Like I said, a whole nother, a whole nother show, a whole nother show, but I am learning. And these are things that I am learning that I can be even more effective by scheduling my time, by getting better and more, Diligent and deliberate about the time that I spend on certain tasks and making sure that I am prioritizing the tasks that are going to move the needle the most if I can prioritize the tasks that are going to move the needle the most, I am going to be more efficient, more effective with less time.

And the busier that I get, the more tasks that I take on, I have to become more effective with my time. I have to become more efficient with my time. Trust me on this. You can do this and it will change your life. Okay, All right, schedule everything and watch your productivity spike. Use a notepad. Okay, I get it.

I get it. I know I rag this a bit. I use notepads all the time. Okay, I'm not talking about anything fancy. You can get a fancy notepad or you can get a blank sheet, a blank lined paper pad. Okay? I've used a blank lined paper pad for years. But I want you guys to start scheduling your day and writing things down on your notepads.

Okay? Before I start any workday, what I do is I always write down, for instance, am I working for myself today? So if I'm working for myself, I write capital BD at the top of the page. If I'm working for a client, client name goes on the top of the page. Date, first thing I write, top things to do today, okay?

This is a great thing to do. First thing in the morning. First thing. You don't mean you're sitting there. You're sitting at the table, right? You've checked your calendar. Now I want you to grab your coffee and I want you to write out the top things to do today. Okay? The calendars already told you what you have to do today.

The one critical meeting or the two or three critical meetings you may have. So you know what they are. So you know that's going on the top things to do today. But yeah, What else is going on the top things to do today? Have you sent your digital introductions? Have you made your phone calls for the day?

What are the critical tasks that you have to do to move the needle today, okay? Start to write these down. You know, I like to start with, say, five. But yeah, you can go up to ten if you think you can do it. Maybe some of them you can always bounce to the next day. But if you guys get in the habit of writing the top things to do today and checking them off as you go and then heck, even better, scheduling the time that you're going to complete those tasks in.

Holy crap. You are about to turn into a productivity powerhouse. There's no way about it. If you can do this on a consistent basis, you will do more. You will have more success. You will book more meetings. You will move the needle further. Okay. Mark my words. This is really the difference between being incredibly successful or not.

People that don't live like this, that are just kind of flying by the seat of their pants, they're letting their subconscious control them. They're letting the world control them. And every challenge that is inevitably going to come by their desk, right? You and me both know if you run a business, there's, there's probably five challenges coming to your desk.

every day, if not more. And if you don't have a strict outline on how you're going to handle the things that are actually important versus deal with all these challenges, you're going to find that you're spinning your tires and dealing with stuff that doesn't matter all the time. Okay. By, by writing these things down, using a notepad, doing your top five things today, scheduling the time to do it, you are going to be more effective.

You're going to get more done. And when those inevitable Things that don't move the needle come to your desk, you're either going to delegate them, or you're going to find a time that's better to deal with them or an appropriate time to deal with them, instead of the appropriate time to get the things done that will actually move the needle for you.

Okay, so start to write your top things to do today. So typically on a note of paper for me, if I'm doing digital introductions that day, if I'm making calls, if I'll have my top five or top 10 things to do today at the top, Then I'll have my digital introductions, which, you know, those are all my LinkedIn introductions for those of you who aren't aren't sure what that is yet.

And then I will have my calls and emails on the right hand side. And so I'm tracking all of these things. If I have a BD meeting or a meeting with notes, I'll have it in the top right hand side. But the way that I do this is, I'm constantly taking notes, writing things down all day long. I'm looking at my top five things to do.

I'm seeing where we're at. I'm looking at my scheduled time and I'm making sure that I am delegating the appropriate amount of time to the most important things. And if I can spend the most time on the most important things, what do you think happens? The needle moves. We have success. We get the things done that we had to get done from the beginning.

And so if we can start to prioritize these things, we just get better and better and better with them. Okay. So using a notepad daily, and I really do recommend a notepad guys. It's just, there's something about writing something down that makes it more effective. That makes you better at completing it.

Okay. I know, I know some of you guys are living by digital notes. I know you're living your days by your smartphone and that's where you enter your notes, but trust me guys. Trust me, if you guys want to take a picture of that and transcribe it later, whatever, but during your day, write it down. Use a notepad.

I know it sounds crazy. I go, I go through probably four to five notepads every single year, guys. I rip through them and I keep them because some of them are important. Some of them have all my show planning and everything else. But point is, is that I use a notepad for everything. I keep it with me all the time.

Like it's with me at meetings. It's with me atWork. It's with me at home. It's with me everywhere I go, and they really are amazing. Trust me, start to live by your notepad and watch your productivity spike. Notepads will change your life. Okay? Utilize your CRM Daily. Okay? CRMs are Absolutely critical. You guys know, I pushed them huge on the show.

I've been talking about them since like episode four. It's been a while. CRMs are absolutely critical and they are no less critical in 2024. So make sure that we are, we are entering our data you know, at a specific time. So for instance, the reason that I was talking about this in a ritual size is that I talk about writing down all my digital introductions on my page, right?

But I don't actually do my, my, my CRM. entry, my digital introduction entries until the end of the week. And so I would recommend just keeping notes and picking one time at the end of the week to add all of your new contacts and new companies into your CRM. This just makes it a little more effective, kind of keeps you on track and it allows you to make sure that you're using the best case of your time.

You're not constantly doing data entry. So I always recommend to write all your notes down. figure out all your digital introductions for the week and then add them to your CRM later. However, when you are making your calls, this is where I advocate for you to just enter the data as you go. So we already have these people in our CRM by the time we're making our weekly calls, right?

So always make sure that you're doing accurate data entry after each call and then putting in that you're also going to follow up with them in a week or two weeks or whatever it's going to be for you. Okay? But make sure that we are entering our call data in the moment, but don't necessarily enter in all the new data until the end of the week.

Pick a time, pick an hour, an hour and a half at the end of the week to just do the data entry to get all the new companies in and it will make you more efficient. And that way you're not wasting a whole bunch of time during the week. During those more critical hours that you'd be doing something that really moves the needle calls and emails, right?

We have to make sure once again that we're budgeting, we're spending our time, that our rituals, our daily habits and rituals are productive and leading to our productivity. Because if we do not plan these things, your world will be planned for you by your subconscious. And your subconscious doesn't necessarily want to do these productive things.

It wants to scroll LinkedIn. It wants to check out Instagram. It wants to watch YouTube. It wants to do pretty much everything but the things that are going to move the needle. And so you have to. to take control. You have to take control of your daily rituals, your daily habits, and you have to start to implement new ones that will be more effective for you and lead to productivity over time.

Because mark my words, if you let your subconscious do it, it's not going to do the right things for you. It's not going to do the things. It's going to do the things that give it a dopamine hit. Okay? And sometimes, as much as I hate to say it, sitting down and making those calls, it's not going to give you that dopamine hit you really wanted.

You will hit a cold call cadence after five or six calls, but trust me, your subconscious is running the show if you aren't running the show. And so you have to take control and run the show. And the way that we can do this is by starting these rituals, by doing these things on a daily basis that start to become habit, good habit.

Productive habit. Okay, and if we can start to use notes and things like that to get us on the right track, we will have success. Okay, so let's utilize our CRM's daily to do our data entry for phone calls and emails and then once per week to do the new inputs. Okay, and schedule that time. You know, if Friday afternoon is the best time for you to do that, then Friday afternoon is the best time for you to do that.

figure it out, figure out what the time is, schedule it, mark it in your calendar. Every week you do it at the same time and you will find success. Okay. It kind of makes sense to do it at the end of the week, because hopefully you're also doing your weekly reports at the same time. And that way you can just do your dad, do your LinkedIn entries, and then you can do your weekly report and away you go, all that data entry is done at the same time every week.

And you don't have to worry about trying to get it done. You know, exactly when it's going to get done. Okay. Let's talk quickly about utilizing LinkedIn effectively. Okay, LinkedIn, you guys know, I talk about this all the time. You get 100 invites a week. 100 invites every single week. If you do not use them, you lose them.

If you are a LinkedIn premium member, you get 100 digital invites a week. And we have to make sure that we are using it. Make it a habit. Make it a habit to send your 100. And you know, some people will say, Well, I don't know who I'm going to add. Well, you have 100 invites. You probably know the contacts or the type of contacts you need to reach out to for your organization to get success.

Start by adding 75. Okay, like you're probably only going to pick 25 random that you've met along the week. So let's just start by sending 75 every Monday. Monday morning, let's say, let's say, let's call it Monday morning, you've checked your calendar, you've done your top things to do today, you've drank your coffee.

Now add 75 contacts off LinkedIn who meet your ideal customer profile. Add them, search them, add them. Add 75 on Monday. Use the rest of your week and the remaining 25 to add the people you meet along the way. But trust me, if you do this on a consistent basis, you will always have a list in your digital introduction stage, a massive list of people to reach out to, keeping that funnel full and keeping your list of prospects always readily available and helping you to really spread that brand awareness of who your organization is.

Far and wide, okay? Far and wide. Don't get distracted by all the noise, okay? There's noise everywhere. Calls and emails are what lead to meetings, which lead to more business. Most other tasks are just noise. Don't kid yourself. Guys, we have to stop kidding ourselves. What are the things that are really going to move the needle for us?

Right? Calls and emails. Calls and emails lead to meetings, which lead to business. Everything else is just noise. Everything else is just to get us to calls and emails. And I think we forget that. Your social media strategy, all of those messages you're sending, all the digital introductions, they are to hopefully get to a stage where you can call them or email them and ask them for a meeting, a team's meeting, an in person meeting when possible. And that's where the business is done. Okay. The business is done in person. We know this, we know this, everything else is just noise. Stop getting lost in the noise. We're all getting lost in noise. I'm getting lost in noise.

We're all getting lost in the noise. I am the first to say that these are all realizations that are. They're hitting home. They're hitting home for me, too, because I also get lost in the noise. You know, running a podcast, do we try to do as much advertising as possible to get our name out there? But a lot of that, too, is just noise, right?

Sometimes it's really hard to tell where all of our listens come from or where people are listening from and what platforms they're on. It's like we can feel like we're doing things, but we don't always know that what we're doing is effective. Let me tell you, when you make a direct email or a direct phone call, It is effective.

It does not get more effective than that for booking face to face meetings. Okay. We do business in person. We build relationship in person. So we have to stop getting so distracted by all the noise, by all the things that don't matter, that don't move the needle. And I am included in this and I am also preaching to the choir, but I am working to improve and so can you, okay.

All right, and finally, last but not least, make your own rituals and follow them, okay? You know what's best for you. You know your challenges. You know your work style. But rituals make your world go round, and if you don't set them, your subconscious is. You need to take control and decide today to control them.

And watch your actions. Business thrive. That takes us to the end of the show today, guys. Thank you so much. Shout outs this week. Shawn Sooley, Colin Harms, Rodney Lover, Shawn Neels, David Fair, Dirk Zee, Susan Poseika, Aaron Haberman, Troy Kahler, Bryan Hayes, Dominick Rotella, Jesse Kerr, Mike Fata, and Peter Englert.

Until next time, this has been the business development podcast, and we will catch you on the road. The flip side.

Outro: This has been the business development podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020.

His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development. Your business development specialists. For more, we invite you to the website@www.capital bd.ca. See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.