He used to be an out of work, drowning in debt, actor. Who was so broke he passed out chocolates as a job in New York Times Square. Now, he is a financially fit husband and dad living a kick ass life of travel and fun, and will never have to punch a time clock again. Delivering only the best business tips to the pros. Buckle your chin strap, you just stepped into training camp with Coach Jimmy.
A Little Bit About Dave and Monica
Jimmy: Hey there and welcome to training camp with Coach Jimmy. Where we give you the secret home business tips from the pros. I am stoked about kicking this series off with two very good friends of mine, giants in the industry. When I say giants, I don’t mean giant people, but their performance and their hearts! They are really good people and so when I wanted to kick this off, I wanted to do this right. I wanted to bring you value with people I knew had a big message, but would give you some actual tips, some things to take away from this episode. So first and foremost, they have earned multimillion dollars with their home based business. Neither had a background in this type of business. You will hear a little more of their story in just a second, they are coming to you live from their beautiful new home in California. Help me welcome Dave and Monica Ward! Thank you guys for joining me today.
Dave: Thank you
Monica: Thank you for having us.
Jimmy: Awesome, well I just want to jump right in here and for the people that are watching, can you give us a little bit of what your backgrounds were career wise before you started your home based business.
Dave: Monica, why don’t you start
Monica: Alright, well I was an elementary school teacher and I taught for 12 years before I decided to start a home based business.
Jimmy: Awesome! What about you Dave?
Dave: I was a lawyer, I practiced for about 10 years. Monica was in the business before I was, I think that is pretty common, we will probably talk a little bit about being spouses in a business together. She was having fun and I wasn’t. So I had to change that *Laughs*
Jimmy:Well, the things we are going to touch on today are definitely setting priorities, time management skills, and this concept that, you know when I was talking to the Wards before we started was this concept of buying your career back. That we will get to here in a little bit, But I just wanted to start right where you left off there Dave. Was this something that you both jumped into together and were both onboard with initially?
Dave: No, actually it really wasn’t, you know, when Monica first came up with the idea to start a home based business, I thought she was nuts and I thought that it was this huge time waster as I saw it at the time. And this would take away from like cooking dinner and doing my laundry. You know, the normal sort of slave behavior men are subjective too *Monica Laughing*. So, no in the beginning I really wasn’t onboard, but let Monica talk a little bit about the beginning.
Jimmy: Yeah, what was appealing to you Monica to start as a teacher, that you saw something like I could do this.
Monica: So, my situation changed, What happened was I used to like to teach elementary summer school. Then when my kids were born, I didn’t have the freedom and flexibility to, if I decided to take on summer school I would have to find a babysitter for them because they weren’t going to be able to continue on in child care. And I have to deduct any of those costs from the earnings, and I missed them terribly during the school year during the school day, and I didn’t want to be away from them. So I liked the idea of starting a home based business because it was something I could squeeze in during hours that wouldn’t interfere with laundry or cooking dinner, and even reading to my children. All of the things that matter to us, we are poking fun of the situation
Dave: We are.
Time Management Skills
Jimmy:I think that’s great. Because the people that are watching this are probably either in a home based business or are thinking about it, and time is a big bug-a-boo, the promise of starting something at home a lot of times is start a business you can build part time and gain your freedom back, yet we hear over and over and over again, that time management is this issue because you know, they are working a career and they are coming home and working on it when they are supposed to be spending time with their family. And they are taking away from that. So what have you guys found as far as maybe some time management tips, maybe some mistakes that you made early, and how did you correct those to preserve your marriage most of all, but also have success with the business?
Dave: I mean I think from my perspective anyway, Monica is really the expert with this, I tend to be a workaholic, I will work work work and Monica is a lot more grounded and really clear about priorities. That has been really good for me to have a business partner who is that way. So why don’t you talk a little bit about priorities Monica and kind of how you do that and how you keep us on track to have a balanced life instead of just work all the time.* Laughs*
Monica: I am more social, I need to be around people, and I need to connect. Obviously that starts with our family and then I love to hang around with friends and our extended family. Now we happen to live like one mile from his parents, my parents, his grandparents, so everybody matters. We want to make time for everything, for physical activity, for getting out, having fun. The way I do it, and at first I wasn’t doing it, sorta just let whatever invite came my way, I would accept it. I would take on too much, and so then I would have these obligations, they are really not obligations obviously with your home based business, but these desires to create a certain goal or income out of the home based business. Then I would accept a 3 hour lunch date with a girlfriend, when I technically wrote them in as work hours.
“There is a time and a place for everything.” – Monica Ward (Click toF Tweet )
So I started needing to stick to a schedule, just like I would be obligated to if I worked for the man. I looked at my week in a glance. I love the vertical week at a glance calendar. I am a total paper and pencil girl, and I would just write in valuable dates like if I wanted to spend time with my grandmother or a girlfriend or go out, see a movie. I would schedule those things in. Other things, I would schedule days to get the laundry done. I didn’t have to have a completely empty laundry basket. I mean it was more important to me to buy those important moments of our time then to consistently always have everything finished And then, you know I just wanted to prioritize. There is a time and a place for everything. I don’t have to catch my favorite television show at the hour that it airs. Now everything is genius, you can watch everything. I know it is dated to say DVR it, but you can watch anything online at any time for two episodes back to back if you have time. If you choose to watch television.
Jimmy: Stay off twitter because that is where your spoilers are going to happen there. But I think that is great how you said you don’t have to do everything, everyday. There is a day where we are going to catch up on laundry. Maybe that is a day you are not working your home based business as hard. Because I know that the trap I used to fall into was I needed to try to do everything everyday. What we do around here now, is there are days that are more business oriented and there are days that are more kind of around the house oriented and we try not to overlap those.
But Dave, I want to touch on kind of what you mentioned, because I think so many people get caught into that they have this big vision for what they want their home based business to be. Maybe they want to get out of a career. Obviously you were a successful lawyer, but you found once you got onboard you saw this as a potential to get out of that, whatever you were dissatisfied with and maybe you want to touch on that for just a moment. But how do you even now prevent yourself from staying in that work work work mode? As we have talked about before, literally you can fill up your calendar with things to do with a home based business all the time. How do you prevent that from happening?
Dave: I think once you really get involved in it and start to take ownership of a home based business, you realize that you are an entrepreneur and what that basically means is you are responsible. So if it happens it is because you did it, if it doesn’t happen it is because you didn’t do it. When you really want to make it happen, it is really tempting to try to work all the time. When I was practicing law, they give you one specified task, and it was like ok go do this. When that was done, you could just go home. I could literally sit here and give myself tasks all day long.
“Your inbox is other people’s agenda, your sent items are your agenda.” – Dave Ward (Click to Tweet )
I am a big fan of football, I like football analogies and the way I think about time management is kind of like football. You can spend all your time on defense and that is what I think a lot of people do, they are on defense all day long. They are backpedaling, they are spending time in their inbox, or the news feed in Facebook or all these places where other people’s agendas come at me. Everybody else is on offense, your inbox is other people’s agenda, your sent items are your agenda. So people spend all this time, stop playing defense.
I think with time management what you have to do is you have to get on offense, you have to have a plan. You can score some points on defense, but you are going to score way more points on offense in football and it is true with time management as well. So when you sit down and you set a set amount of tasks for day to day. Everyday I start out with a todo list of items that I want to get done that day. I don’t always get all of them done, and some of them I carry over to the next day. Some of them, you know what happens? All of a sudden there is a turn over on the 10 yard line and I got to get on defense real quick and put a fire out.
Jimmy: Right
Dave: That happens, but you can be intentional about it. You can get on offense, and you can have a todo list. When I do that, I know the kids get out of school at 3 o’clock, That is when I want to be done with working. I don’t want to be working at 3, 4 or 5 o’clock. If the kids have practice that is different, but I want to be off by then. So my job is to get those tasks done and be efficient during the time period I set to do that.
Setting Your Priorities
Jimmy: And that gives some urgency, you know we talked about this is going to be about time management and priorities and obviously listening to both you guys, that your family time, time with the kids, that is really a priority for you. I think that when you know that 3 o’clock or whatever that cut off time is, that here is family time starting. The urgency in your work hours, that helps you stay on track, to stay on the offensive. And maybe you want to touch real briefly on the concept of being productive over being busy because I know alot of people in home based business, they get to the end of the day and they feel like they have been doing stuff all day, but it’s not the stuff that flips the needle. it’s not adding people to their team. It is not growing their business, but they are exhausted. And how do you guys go about figuring out what is busy, and what is a priority that really actually moves things forward?
Dave: Monica, Do you have any thoughts on that?
Monica: I do.
Dave: Ok, go for it.
Monica: You know I am super impressed I even followed your football thing. I am not a sports fan *laughs*.
Dave: Slowly but surely,just have to chip away.
Monica: yea I really think that it is just a common practice in a home based business that you are always looking to meet new people, and add them to your contact list. You are always looking to invite them to take a look at your products or you are inviting them to take a look at your business opportunity. Then you follow through and you get them to a decision and you train them properly, and you are just repeating. So if you sit there and spend a million hours perfecting the flyer and the flyer prevents you, while you may come out with a perfect product. I think the things I see people do now is get the cutesy instagram. Spending way too much time throwing things out there that are not actually touching one individual’s life for they can actually make a positive connection and from there leading them to a final decision.
Jimmy: Right.
Monica: That is really all you should be doing. And then if you wanted to do a little bit of gravy on top that is really relevant, is the personal development side of it. Like reading things to keep your mind right. Because you do get no’s when you are leading people down a decision making process. You are going to get no’s, that can be discouraging. So you definitely want to keep yourself positive, optimistic, and understand what your responsibility is, and that is to always be engaged and productive activity like you are talking about Jimmy. You know, you want to be meeting those new people. You are not responsible for their decision, but you are responsible for asking for a decision and presenting the information to them so they can make a thoughtful decision.
Jimmy: And I think it is also good to let the viewer know that you are talking to two individuals here with a very large organization. And I find that as people progress in their home based business, that they really get in this management mode. And I think that is so key that you guys are both saying “Hey look, you guys are doing the exact same things now with a very large organization that you did getting started. First, it was engaging with new people, it was establishing those new relationships, it was introducing them to give them an opportunity to look at what it is that you do to see if it is right for them for not. And I loved what you said, that it is not your responsibility what their response is, but it is your responsibility to at least present that. As a couple that now works together, obviously you said early on it wasn’t power couple from day one. *laughs* What have you found now working as a couple that makes you guys stronger as a team?
Dave: I guess I will start on that one and maybe Monica has some thoughts too. I think that, what makes us strong is our differences. I think one of the things we are always talk about is understanding personality types and understanding how to communicate with people. As we started to do that we realized really quickly, wow we are really different, and that explains a lot. I do certain things while she does certain things. Why I am not very good at certain things and why Monica is really good at certain things. And I think in the beginning, we were able to divide up those responsibilities, sort of say OK, I am good at the organization, task management, the project management, and those types of things. Monica is really good at relationships. So we kind of divvy those things up. After a while we sort of capped out at a certain level. I had to dive into her area and she had to dive into mine. It was the only way we were going to grow and get bigger.
“It is no surprise your business only grows as much as you do.” – Dave Ward (Click to Tweet)
So I think initially, it was definitely playing on our individual strengths and weaknesses and dividing things up. This divide and conquer sort of way to go about things. But, that only gets you so far. Monica mentioned personal development earlier and I think that is such a huge thing for us. Working together, one of the things that I think has been unique for us or maybe not unique is the wrong word. What has happened for us, is that because of the way this business works and for people that are in the home based businesses, it is not surprise that your business grows only as much as you do. We have been required to grow as people, and because we are business partners we have grown together. So I think it has not been just good for our business, but good for our marriage, good for our family. The business has really added to that. So what do you think hun?
Monica:I think that you are absolutely right, and the only advice I would give a couple that are taking on the skill sets that make them unique and can really propel their business forward, is don’t let your ego get in the middle of that. The fact that he is more organized than I am or the fact that I am a better people person, doesn’t make him any less of a person or me any less of a person or any less successful. On the contrary, that is where gratitude comes in and opportunity. For us,like Dave was saying, an opportunity to get uncomfortable, and to take on, like for me, to get more organized. I had to get a handle on my schedule. It wasn’t organic to me. I heard the words, to go “dork out” *laughs* I am saying “dork out” to set a schedule. But I will tell you what, when I made the decision to do it, and I resisted it at first, but as I begin to embrace it and let go of my ego and say that being disorganized wasn’t serving me. And when I started to stick to my schedule, my life and my joy exploded. I was able to take on more and do more things that were fruitful and exciting and fulfilling for me.
Get Some Momentum Going
Jimmy: So let’s say right now, we have somebody that has started or maybe is new, or maybe they have been in their home based business for a little while, and they just feel like they are drowning. They feel like they haven’t been able to get a hold on this, this idea of office hours or when I will be able to work this. Just real quick, what would be like two or three take aways that they could implement right now to maybe at least give themselves some momentum where they feel better in the next week then they do right now?
Monica: I mean I don’t know about two or three, but the most important thing I would say is to start small. Don’t schedule four hours a day of work. What you are doing is dealing with individuals in a home based business. So each individual is one interaction. So take one individual at a time. So if you need to meet one new person, meet one new person, and walk them through the steps of your home based business has laid out for you and don’t take on anymore. That overwhelms you. The only thing that I can tell you with that is that your business is going to grow. I didn’t come up with this, this is from your first year in home based business, but your business is going to grow indirect proportion to the number of people you interact with. So, just take it one person at a time. Schedule your day in chunks, smaller chunks. Maybe fifteen minutes, maybe half an hour,maybe an hour. And then over time you are going to master that one transaction that you are going to have to walk them through, and you will be able to take on two people. And five people, and ten people.
“Don’t multitask, do one task at a time.” – Dave Ward (Click to Tweet )
Dave: I think my number one tip for people is don’t multitask. We have created this monster of multitasking because we have all these little things that distract us and we are trying to do ten things at once. Your brain can’t handle that, your brain just can’t handle that. Do one thing at a time. Sit down, make a todo list and do one thing at a time. I tried, I am notorious for having two browsers open, and nineteen tabs on each one. And when I am doing that, it is inevitably not productive time. And if I do get into a productive mode, what happens? I get a message on Facebook or a message via Google chat or something, and boom it is fifteen minutes to deal with that. It is some person or organization that has got a problem and they need a fire put out and they need it done now. At least that is the perception that I have of it, it’s not really true. But that is the importance I place on it.
So instead of doing that, I try to just check my email twice a day, once in the morning. once at night. If I am on Facebook or social media sites, I am trying to be posting on them. So again it is offense versus defense. You know, you got to be offense. If you are just on the website, you are probably on someone else’s agenda and that is not moving your to-do list. Don’t multitask, do one task at a time. Do one thing at a time and when it is done, move on to something else. If you need to schedule down time, do it. I am not telling you all my time is super efficient. I have time where I just sit here and surf the news feed, but I don’t count that as productive time.
Jimmy:I totally find that Facebook messenger can be the biggest derailer of anything. I love this concept of, and maybe just because I am as big as football dork, but I love this concept of offense versus defense. Because it really is, I heard a stat somewhere, maybe it was Darren Hardy, but people that check their inbox within like 3 hours of waking up are like 30% or 40% less productive. Because you are starting your day on someone else’s agenda. So I think that is fantastic. Dave and Monica, this has been awesome. I think these tips are fantastic. I think these are actual things that people can apply. They are not just these concepts, this is exactly what you do. And I think so many people in home based business, this is exactly what they need. If people are checking this out and are like, I like this couple, I want to know about them, I want to know more about these guys, how can people find you?
Connect with Dave and Monica Ward
Dave: The best way is through our website, which is www.thefitclubnetwork.com
Jimmy: That is awesome, www.thefitclubnetwork.com, you can plug in with these two amazing people, Dave and Monica Ward. Thank you guys for taking the time to share your insights and your expertise with the rest of us that are working to get where you guys are with your business right now. What I love about this industry is so many successful people willing to pay it forward and share exactly what they have done. So gang, that is it for this episode, I really hope you enjoyed it,I can’t wait to hear the comments and the feedback of how you are applying the things you learned here and let us know about your success.
Remember, if you are digging this show, subscribe, share with your friends, and we will see you again real soon. Take care.
- Check out Vertical At a Glance Calendar that Monica loves
- Connect with Dave and Monica Ward: Website| Dave’s Instagram |Monica’s Instagram | Dave’s Twitter| Monica’s Twitter | Facebook
“Always be engaged in productive activity.” – Monica Ward (Click to Tweet)