The Return of The Ten-Minute Tasks

For those of you who used to follow my daily emails, you might remember I used to send out a ten-minute task every Tuesday.

When I replaced my daily emails with these weekly emails, the plan was to start a Discord channel and I'd pop the ten-minute tasks in there.

Unfortunately, I underestimated the amount of work needed to get three new platforms up and running for my experiment, so the idea of the Discord channel is on hold.

But a couple of days ago it hit me that I could just add the ten-minute tasks to the bottom of these weekly emails. And now I've thought of it, I'm absolutely baffled as to why I didn't just include them from the start. It seems so obvious.

It's funny how that happens sometimes, isn't it? Things that seem so obvious just aren't all that obvious. Certainly not when you are too close to something.

I hear it all the time during my 90-minute consultations—"I can't believe I've never thought of that!"

It just goes to show that we don't always need big, detailed or complicated strategies to get things back on track. Sometimes we just need someone to point out a few obvious things we could do to improve our business and move forward.

And that's the point of my consultations. I want everyone who has one to leave with some actionable points that will help them make progress.

It's also the point of my ten-minute tasks. They are simple tasks that will take around ten minutes to complete (although you can spend longer on them if you want to). The aim is to help you improve your marketing or business in some way, even if it's just a tiny improvement.

And since I'm bringing back the weekly ten-minute tasks, I'm going to bring back the weekly anagrams too. A few people have asked about these, so why not?

So that's what you can expect from me going forward. Every Monday around lunchtime, I'll hit your inbox with some general chat, a weekly task (for when you're feeling productive), and some anagrams (for when you want to procrastinate).

I'll also be adding a post to the site every Wednesday. Last week's was all about deciding what success looks like for you. If you missed it, you can check it out here:

You Get To Decide What Success Looks Like

When I started freelancing, I had no idea what I wanted my business to look like - all I knew was that I wanted to work for myself. But shortly after leaving my job to go all in on self-employment, I went to an event. The speaker talked about the

The Freelance Fairytale NewsletterLisa Slater

Your weekly ten-minute task

The weekly ten-minute tasks are short simple tasks that should take around ten minutes to complete (although you can spend longer if you want to). The goal is to help you improve your sales and marketing processes.

Completing these tasks won't magically transform your business, but doing one small thing each week to improve is better than doing nothing. So block out ten minutes in the next few days and complete the below task.

Review your monthly figures

This is something you should do at the end of every month to check whether your marketing and sales processes are working. So this week, I want you to answer the following questions for the month of January:

• How many enquiries did you get?
• How many of those enquiries were good enquiries (the type of work you want)?
• How many of your total enquiries converted into paying clients?
• What was your total invoice amount for the month?
• How many hours did you work?

Looking at these figures can help you figure out what needs to change. If you got lots of enquiries but only a small percentage were good, then your marketing isn't attracting the right people.

If you got a lot of good enquiries but not many converted into clients, your sales process needs work.

If you worked more hours than you wanted and didn't earn as much as you'd like, then your prices need to go up.

So what will you do differently next month? Let me know.

Weekly anagrams

Sometimes you need a little break from work or something to get your brain going while you have your morning brew. That's where the weekly anagrams come in.

And this week they are all types of coffee:

• cap cup icon
• nice aroma
• a doctor
• lift wheat
• am chaotic

If you are unfamiliar with how anagrams work: An anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase, using all the original letters only once.

Feel free to send me your answers once you’ve got them all – there’s no prize, but it’s always good to share your achievements. I'll give you the answers in next week's email.

Thanks for reading

That's it from me this week. As always, if you'd like my help with anything sales, marketing or business-related, you can book 90 minutes with me.

Starter Session - Lisa Slater

Let’s find out what’s holding you back so you can start attracting more of the clients you want and building a business that makes you happy.

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