What’s Your Career Best Effort?

Sep 3

I think I've said this before, but I am a HUGE basketball fan. A huge sports fan, really, but it all started with watching the Lakers with my mom when I was little. There's a training tactic that Lakers coach Pat Riley used to build the championship team of the 80s called Career Best Effort. He would record each of his players' average, normal stats, and then ask them to increase their performance by 1% over the course of the season.

One percent better, whether that's in points made, rebounds, turnovers, the goal was to to make their career best effort in every game. And it paid off, making the Lakers the first back-to-back NBA champions in 20 years.

I love the 1% better concept, that it doesn't take a huge effort to raise your "game", just a thoughtful and sustained one. I love it. I love finding and new systems and tricks that make running a business easier. When it's easier for you to manage, then it's easier for your clients to work with you, full stop. That's why using Honeybook was a no-brainer for me, starting with the simple truth that having to sending out one email to get booked and paid was better than sending out two, and having a system that would track that all for me was better than reminding myself to do it. A little more than 1% better! Plus all the business automations, scheduling, etc., it's been a, well, game changer.

If you have Honeybook or Dubado, and you don't feel like you're saving 15-20 hours a month in your business, OR you don't have either and you really want to find out how to save 15- 20 hours a month (especially these days), contact me, and we'll get you to your career best effort there.

Anyway:

This summer I've been interviewing wedding and creative professionals on Instagram about how they're incrementally improving their business for themselves and their clients, behind the scenes and in person. On Wednesday I talked to my friend and uber wedding planner Tina Li, about some of the new stuff she's done this year to make on-site coordination easier. Here's the video:

Summing up her 2021 wedding tricks:

1.Actually, this is not a new one, she turned me on this a couple of years ago: Upload wedding timeline into your ical or google calendar with alerts, and run the wedding through your smartwatch. The day moves pretty face, and this helps you keep track of it.

2.Take a picture of the vendor holding their tip envelope as a confirmation.

3.Sending checklists, questionnaires and mockups through Tave (it's like Honeybook or Dubsado) that capture the sticky wedding stuff - DIY elements, reception set-up, end of the night duties. You'd be surprised by how many things can be turned into a contract! Towards the end of the video she shows a canva rendering of the wedding procession, and it's very cool.

How are you pushing to make your business performance at least 1% better now? If you'd like to share, I have two IG live slots up this month, just email me at elizabethcoopersmith@gmail.com