A recent survey found that “a lack of time” was voted the biggest challenge HR consultants faced when trying to grow their businesses.

It’s not surprising really. As the driving force behind your consultancy at an operational, you struggle to spend time working ON your business, because all of your time is spent working IN it.

And this creates some pretty stressful peaks and troughs that we’d prefer to smooth out, right?

I can’t create more time for you. I wish I could. What I can do though is help you look at your time a little differently based on what you want to achieve. Which can be very powerful.

So why start with asking yourself what the bigger picture is? When you’re a busy business owner, it’s really easy to get lost and think that doing client work is the only way you’re going to make money. And in that moment, it is, but it’s not the long-term view to have.

Because doing the day job and getting lost in the day job isn’t how you’re going to grow the business and get new clients. Which is why I called my book “Firing people doesn’t grow your HR consultancy”. It’s the quick guide to marketing and growing your business, while still making time for the things you love.

So, when I start working with consultants, I’ll always start by asking them what the bigger picture is. This makes you take a step back. And this is very much linked to your life vision.

Forget about your business for a second and think about your life, lifestyle, your family, your friends, your hobbies, balance and cash. The stuff that makes you tick; the stuff that makes you the happiest.

Your life vision is what should drive you. Your life vision is what should drive the goals for your business. And therefore, what should drive your daily actions and how you manage your time.

If you don’t have a vision board, it’s worth giving one a try. It doesn’t have to be all ‘la-di-da’ and ‘arts and crafts’ like you might think. It can be a simple list in your diary or phone, or it can be more visual.

The power of a vision board, or at least clarity on what your life vision looks like, is that you have visualised what you want from life and what will make you happiest.

These types of intangible goals can be suitable for your life vision, but your business goals should be tangible. They should be hard goals, with a clear understanding of exactly what it is you are wanting to achieve, by when and how.

And that’s why you should create SMART goals:

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Relevant

Time-bound

Here’s an example of a SMART goal: “I want to increase my profits”

Specific: I will increase revenue, while reducing overheads and operational costs.

Measurable: I will get 3 more new clients every single month. We will also reduce operational costs by giving notice on our office contract and change to remote working permanently.

Attainable: I know our appointment-to-sale conversion rate is 62%. To get an extra 3 new clients a month, we need 5 more meetings a month which is achievable. Our office contract is due to renew in 3 months, so we can serve notice now.

Relevant: Increasing profits in this way will allow us to invest more money into our marketing and increase personal wage, in line with personal vision.

Time-bound: In 4 months, we will see a considerable rise in profit on the P&L.

Creating SMART goals, like this, for your business is very powerful.

Think about what you want from the business, how it supports your life vision and create SMART goals to help you achieve it.

Your daily actions and habits will help you achieve your business goals and life vision. It’s hard for me to predict exactly what yours are, but it’s safe to say that you probably want to grow the business, get more cash, and spend less time being stuck in the business doing client work. (Everyone says this).

To help you do this, try and implement this four-step plan to help you manage your time better:

One: Ask yourself every single morning, what can you do today to help reach your goals? It's a really simple exercise in the morning or I do it the night before, just so that I'm very clear that when I wake up, I know exactly what I'm doing and that gives me the kick up the bum, ready to get out of bed, go down to the office and start working on my business.

Two: Spend 60 to 90 minutes a day working on your business. So that may be at the end of the day, the middle of the day, but what I always advise is just do it first thing. Get up a couple of hours earlier than what you normally do to start working on your business. Ignore your emails, ignore all distractions, and do something that helps you achieve your business goals and your life vision.

Three: DOA. It's delegate, outsource and automate. Look at your business, look at you, look at how you're bottlenecking process. Look at what jobs you're doing that you don't need to be doing. Look at jobs that you need to do, that you don't have the skill or the expertise to do, and find someone to delegate it to, to outsource it or automate it using software.

Four: Use organisational software. This isn't a CRM. This is more project management. I use Basecamp and the reason why I use Basecamp is I have quite a messy head. And Basecamp is a really easy tool to help me make a note of everything and prioritise it.

Another reason why marketing your business is so tough when you have very little time, is the time it takes to create all the marketing material.

Whether that’s blogs, Linkedin posts, educational guides and social media content. It takes up LOADS of time.

And this is why I created the Monthly Marketing Content service for HR consultants. It provides you with all of the marketing tools you need to grow your business and get new clients.

Your first month is just £1. You get 3 incredible bonuses. It’s just £99 a month after that. And you can cancel at any time.

To check if your area is still available, please visit: www.marketingforhrconsultants.com/monthly-marketing-content