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I hope you've had a productive week! If you are new here, welcome to our Friday Roundup.
What is the Friday Roundup?

A roundup of the best in productivity & systems for Entrepreneurs and small business owners with a ‘TLDR’ summary and our take on how to take action to systematize your business and your life.

Be on the lookout for our Tuesday Swipe file & Case study! Every Tuesday a free behind-the-scenes swipe file from an entrepreneur with the systems, tools, and hires that helped them build sustainable success.

-Jenae :)

The Rundown

• Easy Updates to Your Work-From-Home Strategy: 5 Ways to Work Remotely (and Effectively) for the Long Haul

• How Well Do You Know Your Core Customers? (Podcast)

• Managing Email: Effective Strategies for Entrepreneurs & Adults with ADHD

• Google Is Making Big Changes to Prevent Gmail Spam

• Book & product recommendations

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🔥Quote/Prompt

Use the quote as a writing or thinking prompt to finish your week strong.

A bit from mine:

(posted in our Doer Entrepreneurs Free Community — off social media)

Did someone forward this to you?

📈 Performance

5 Ways to Work Remotely (and Effectively) for the Long Haul

Even if you’ve worked from home for years, this article has some good tips that not all of us do (or some of us might get a little lazy on occasionally — including me!) Let’s dive in.

Key Insights:

• Dedicate a Workspace Away from Sleep Areas: Maintaining a distinct physical space for work activities, separate from areas of rest, supports mental focus and helps delineate between professional and personal time. This can even mean purchasing a room separator screen like this one that I have if you have no choice but to have your desk in your bedroom. Check out this article on how this can affect your sleep.

• Adopt a Professional Dress Code at Home: Engaging in a routine that includes dressing in work-appropriate attire, even while at home, fosters a professional mindset and enhances productivity and focus during work hours. Yes, this means ditching working in pajamas — I ditched PJs as work attire long ago and it has absolutely boosted my productivity.

• Ensure Robust Data Management and Backup: Regularly backing up data to various platforms, like the cloud or external hard drives, safeguards against potential data loss. Adopting a consistent file naming convention, which might include relevant dates, ensures clarity and ease of navigation through files and versions. This is especially helpful if you travel a lot and never know when you might need to access various files and/or how stable or strong the internet connections will be.

• Leverage Flexibility for Good, not Burnout: Identify and work during your most productive hours where possible. A client of mine mentioned when she was pregnant before starting her business, she had to sleep in the office bathroom stall to get a nap — remote work would have allowed a true rest and increased productivity. Likewise, remember to set boundaries so that you have plenty of time when you are truly off work. Flipping through emails on the couch while watching TV doesn’t count. 🙂 

⚙️ Optimization

How Well Do You Know Your Core Customers? (Podcast)

Harvard Business School professor Robert Simons, in a dialogue on HBR On Strategy, accentuates the criticality of accurately pinpointing and prioritizing a business's primary customer to unlock substantial value and steer strategy effectively. He underscores the imperative of aligning resources and strategies to optimally serve the primary customer, while also considering secondary and tertiary customers without destabilizing the core strategy. Sound complicated? Let’s break it down!

Key Insights:

• Identifying the Primary Customer is Crucial: 

  • Example: Amazon has been highlighted by Simons as a company that has astutely identified its primary customer: the consumer. Amazon prioritizes consumers’ needs, even above third-party sellers on their platform, ensuring that resources and strategies are consistently consumer-oriented.

  • Our take: A freelance graphic designer might identify small businesses as their primary customer. Tailoring services, pricing, and communication strategies to meet the specific needs and budget constraints of small businesses can create a niche and loyal customer base.

• Balancing Resources Among Different Customer Levels: 

  • Example: Mary Kay chooses independent beauty consultants as its primary customer, focusing its entire organization to meet and exceed their needs. Simons notes that while they prioritize beauty consultants, they also ensure that the end consumers (secondary customers) are reached and served effectively through them, illustrating a balance in resource allocation. For

  • Our take: A local cleaning service might primarily cater to corporate clients but can also serve residential clients during off-peak business hours. This ensures optimal resource utilization without compromising the focus on the primary customer.

• Continuous Validation of Customer Choice is Essential: 

  • Example: Federal Express employs a strategy of holding customer summits twice a year, as mentioned by Simons. This practice allows them to gather direct feedback and insights from their customers, ensuring that their choice of primary customer and the strategies employed remain valid and relevant in the evolving market.

  • Our take: A consulting firm might create a client advisory board, consisting of a diverse group of current clients, to gather regular feedback and insights on services, pricing, and emerging needs, ensuring that the firm’s offerings remain relevant and valuable.

• Understanding Customer Needs is Imperative: 

  • Example: Proctor and Gamble sends representatives to engage with consumers directly, participating in shopping trips and dinner table conversations to deeply understand their needs and preferences. Simons highlights this as a strategy to ensure that the products and services offered are closely aligned with what the customers value, even when it's not explicitly stated.

  • Our take: A fitness trainer might spend a day with a client to understand their daily routine, eating habits, and challenges, thereby designing a fitness plan that is not only effective but also practical and sustainable for the client.

⏲️ Time Management

Managing Email: Effective Strategies for Entrepreneurs & Adults with ADHD

This article targets adults with ADHD (not entrepreneurs), but in a world of a billion notifications and hundreds of emails per day (just me?), the insights are very relevant for business owners who have a LOT on their plate.

Key Insights:

• Establish a Structured Email Routine: A study in the Journal of Attention Disorders demonstrates that adults with ADHD significantly reduce email-related stress by establishing a structured email routine. This involves scheduling dedicated times for email check-ins, using timers to limit email management time, and applying sorting mechanisms to prioritize emails effectively.

• Minimize and Organize Email Influx: Actively unsubscribing from irrelevant email lists and using filters to organize the inbox can notably reduce email clutter and related stress, as indicated by a study in the Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings. Additionally, creating a separate email address for retail and using tools like Unroll.me can further manage subscription and promotional emails effectively.

• Engage in Mindful Email Communication: Engaging in mindful email communication involves avoiding impulsive responses, crafting thoughtful and clear messages, using concise subject lines, and adhering to professional email etiquette. This approach not only prevents misunderstandings but also ensures smooth and effective communication. Another way to think about this is trying to avoid using email as instant messaging and providing all of the information the person needs.

💻 Tools & Technology

Google is making big changes to prevent Gmail spam

Google is implementing stringent measures to combat spam emails in Gmail, including mandatory authentication for high-volume senders and potential non-delivery of emails that consistently hit spam thresholds. These changes, which also involve a one-click unsubscribe feature, will be enacted in February 2024 and have been adopted by Yahoo as well.

If you send email to Gmail addresses — take note of the key insights below.

Key Insights:

• Enhanced Sender Authentication: Google will require senders of over 5,000 daily emails to Gmail users to authenticate their email addresses, ensuring they own their domain name and are not using spoofed IP addresses.

• One-Click Unsubscribe: High-volume email senders will also be mandated to provide a one-click unsubscribe button in their messages, facilitating easier opt-out for users.

• Stricter Spam Thresholds: Emails from senders who consistently hit a "clear spam rate threshold" of 0.3% of messages sent may not be delivered, as per Google's Postmaster Tools.

• Potential Impact on Marketers: Legitimate marketers who utilize email extensively may also be affected, especially regarding the requirement to enable users to easily unsubscribe.

👀 Reading & Product Recommendations

This week’s awesome book and some ergonomic products I love.

The Inner Game of Stress: Outsmart Life's Challenges and Fulfill Your Potential (Book)

"The Inner Game of Stress" by W. Timothy Gallwey and two physicians is a pivotal guide to managing stress and enhancing mental health, especially in today's unpredictable world. Gallwey, a renowned sports psychology expert, provides practical tools and strategies, such as the STOP technique and the Attitude tool, to combat negative self-talk and build resilience against stress by leveraging our inherent abilities to learn new skills with joy. The book, part of the bestselling Inner Game series, is not just for athletes but for anyone aiming to maintain mental stability, manage stress effectively, and perform optimally in their lives.

Logitech Lift Vertical Ergonomic Mouse (Product)

I don’t often provide product recommendations but this thing is gold. As some of you know, I ended up with a severe overuse injury and this product (and the next one) have been crucial to my recovery and ability to work. I only wish I had both of them BEFORE I got hurt. Do yourself a favor and invest in your body if you are a heavy computer user. This one has a bonus: multiple Bluetooth channels so I can easily connect it to both of my laptops without a bunch of re-pairing nonsense.

KINESIS Freestyle2 USB-C Ergonomic Keyboard (Product)

Again, this has been key. It allows my elbows and arms to maintain a comfortable position. I had no idea that because of the way keyboards are built, our elbows are actually strained the whole time we are using a keyboard. Now my arms are at my side all day (as they should be!).

🔒Inner Circle: Events & Announcements

• Announcement: Deadline of the 90-day planning formula is Monday 9 AM PT!

• Monday: Doers Mastermind!

• Tuesday: Work ON Business. Theme: Money

• Monday/Friday: Goal Setting + Plan Your Week Party

• Accelerators: Oct 6 is office hours RSVP here

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I hope you found this valuable!

Wishing you much productivity!

- Jenae :)