Don Wetmore is a certified executive coach and author of “The Productivity Handbook.” Don’s an expert on using time wisely and boosting productivity. Recently our own productivity enthusiast Michael Neuendorff had an opportunity to sit down with Don and find out how Don helps his clients get much more out of their professional lives.
Michael Neuendorff: I’d like to start by setting the stage. How did you establish your niche to focus mainly on productivity?
Don Wetmore: I was on the faculty at Mercy College in New York, and this goes back about 30 years. My boss, the department chair, asked me to put together a course on time management for our students. They were mostly business students who had never been taught how to manage their time.
So, I got the materials together and was preparing to teach a course about overcoming procrastination and prioritizing tasks. I began to look at all of the different things that keep us from being productive. It really starts with what Stephen Covey and other authors talked about over the years: having the end in mind before you start. The course never happened due to a lack of funding. So, I started teaching it on my own.
Michael Neuendorff: Just so we’re very clear about this, what’s your definition of “personal productivity?”
Don Wetmore: Personal productivity is just that. It’s whatever you want it to be in this context. The most productive person I can think of is the person who can take a look at each one of those seven vital areas Covey talks about in “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and rate their performance on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest number. If everything’s a 10, then they’re the most productive person on the planet. If you can get up in the morning and say: “My health is really ideal, my family situation is ideal, and additional income wouldn’t really make a difference to me,” how can anyone tell that individual: “you’re not productive unless you’re doing such and such.” It’s an individual thing, and that’s the beauty of personal productivity.
Michael Neuendorff : If that’s the case Don, maybe people have the wrong idea about productivity. So many people are frustrated, and feeling they’re unproductive. Why do you think people find it so hard to be productive?
Don Wetmore: There are several reasons, and I’ll just share a couple of statistics on that. About 80% of the people who go to work on Monday morning don’t want to be there. That’s according to the U.S. Department of Labor. So, what’s with that? Why is there such resistance to working?
There are a couple of reasons. Number one is: everyone we come in contact with 24-7 has a better idea about how we ought to be spending our time than we do. And I don’t mean that in the negative sense.
If you have 5 coaching clients all sitting in front of you, which one of them thinks they’re the most important person and deserves your full attention? Each one of them does, that’s human nature. And now you couple that feeling with the notion that we’ve all been taught to habitually say “yes” to accommodate and to get along. You don’t get too far in this world by saying “no” to everything all time, But, without a compass, a blueprint, if you will, going forward, it’s very difficult to say “no” because you don’t have an alternative in mind.
This goes back to the issue of defining personal productivity. I don’t think there’s any intrinsic value in being an attorney, a coach, a parent, an author, a salesperson, or anything in life unless it’s meaningful and important to you, unless it’s getting you to where you want to be. When I’m working, and especially doing group coaching, clients often react to the 80% statistic of workers who aren’t happy about being at work on Monday morning. As employers, they’re concerned about that because that statistic represents a big productivity drain in terms of performance. So, if I can help them reduce that 80% to 40% among their workforce, that’s the equivalent of literally doubling their staff’s productivity. The return on investment I can create when I’m coaching can be remarkable.
Michael Neuendorff: I know that a positive attitude makes quite a big difference because when I want to be at work, I’m more focused, and more enthusiastic, and more productive.
Don Wetmore: I’ll give you one case study. My client was an engineer working for one of the local power companies. When I shared the 80% statistic about the people who don’t want to go work on Monday morning, he raised his hand and said: “Don, I’m one of the guys who’s part of that 80% because I hate going to work on Monday morning!” And I responded: “OK, so why do you hate going in?” And he replied: “You don’t understand my circumstances.”
So many people talk about that, “my circumstances.” I often hear comments from clients like: “I didn’t have the support of my parents, I didn’t have an ideal education. I’m a byproduct of my circumstances.”
I’ve been taught early on that our circumstances don’t make us. Our circumstances reveal us. It’s what we do with what we have. So I asked this client:: “So what are your circumstances?” We got into a discussion about that and I suggested: “Fast forward to the last day of your life and look back on why you went to work day after day to a job that you hated. Is that what you want to read in your book of life on the last day of life?”
And he said: “Well, of course not. Who would want that?” and I said “I wouldn’t either. But that’s the story you’re writing page after page.
How would you rate your productivity on a scale of 0 to 10 knowing the whole story? It’s a zero or maybe a 1.” And I continued: “Here’s the trick, if you’ll put away all these underlying circumstances, you’ll probably get much higher productivity numbers.”
Another thing he said was that he never has time for anything, and that’s another complaint many people have. But when you think about it everybody’s got the same amount of time, 24 hours, in a day. The time is out there but if you’re waiting for it to find you it may not happen. The only way to “get time” is to take the time. And one of the tips I share when coaching people is to take control of just one hour a day. Start there.
Think about how time gets away from you. Maybe you’re going out to lunch with the same people every day and that’s just kind of boring. Maybe you’re watching” Wheel of Fortune” or “Jeopardy” too much, although my wife and I like to watch both those shows too. No harm in any of that, but maybe that’s taking time away from where you want to go in life. So, just set aside an hour of what I call “me time.”
Getting back to the client, he said: “OK, I can do that. Now, what am I supposed to do with it?” I said: “I want you to do anything you’re not doing now because you didn’t think you had the time to do it. Write The Great American Novel, teach a Sunday school class or start a side business or whatever. Okay?”
The thing he wanted to work on was improving his communication skills. He was an engineer by background with kind of an introverted personality, so that was a self-improvement area he felt could make a big difference in his life and career.
Everything else stays the same but he invests one hour a day to focus on his communication skills. He got the Dale Carnegie books and he got involved in Toastmasters and speaking competitions, and he gained a lot of confidence. He also started to do some writing on speaking tips and that sort of thing. He decided to go online, he got a website, and he offered some products that he put together himself. Now he markets himself as a public speaking coach.
Long story short, 5 years out from the time we met him, he was making more money than he was as an engineer, more than double his engineering income. His relationship with his wife had also improved. Now that’s being productive. That’s a good example of what productivity is all about.
Michael Neuendorff: One of the things I thought about, as you were telling that story, was the idea of setting aside an hour a day. That reminds me of the principle: pay yourself first. People will say, “I just don’t have enough money to save.” But if you wait until after you’ve spent all your money to save, then you’ll never be able to save. And if you wait until the end of your day to set aside time for yourself, then you’ll probably never have it. So that idea of just setting aside an hour a day of your time, I think makes a whole lot of sense.
Can you offer productivity tips or ideas that someone can use to be more productive?
Don Wetmore: Well there are a bunch of tools I can share. There are time logs and interruptions logs and crisis management logs. Most of the folks coming to me feel overwhelmed, and, as a result, they’re stressed out, and that has to do with their performance and all of that.
I attack the concept of: “I don’t have time to do whatever, fill in the blank.” I want people to abandon that notion because if you believe that you’re never going to find the time, you never will. It really comes down to this: life is a series of choices.
The average person has 5,000 decisions to make daily, everything from choosing what to eat to choosing the right words. There are choices we make and choices we fail to make and choices we make for others and choices they make for us. That’s what it comes down to.
Michael Neuendorff: That reminds me of an earlier answer where you were talking about the ability to say “no,” and it certainly doesn’t feel comfortable, and we weren’t brought up to say “no.” But at some point, if we don’t become comfortable with it and learn an elegant way to say it, we’ll probably find ourselves saying “yes” far too often.
Don Wetmore: That’s so true. If you never say “no” then you’re always saying “yes.” Like the song says: “If you don’t stand for something, you fall for everything” because we’re trained to be people-pleasers. And I don’t mean that as a criticism. I certainly like to please others, but somewhere there’s a line in the sand I can’t go over, and I won’t.
Michael Neuendorff: Sometimes I get in touch with these leaders who say: “I’m just going crazy every day because of email.” I’ve heard that some leaders get 200 to 300 emails per day. Have you encountered that and what are your thoughts around that?
Don Wetmore: What I recommend is: don’t get caught up in a blizzard of paperwork. I remember I was working with the vice president of marketing at a software company just outside of Washington, D.C. After we came back from lunch, he said: “Do you mind if I check my emails?” He got maybe a half a dozen emails over the lunch break. A lot of it was spam he got rid of immediately and there were a few that warranted a short response. And then he put 2 or 3 into a save file. 
I asked: “What’s in the save file?” And it was over 3,000 emails. I said: “This has got to stop. You need to fix this.” Step 1 of my advice to him was to clean it all out. We calculated that he was spending on average the better part of several hours a day going through email. That’s the equivalent of one full workday of unproductive time [per week]. The bottom line was that we got it all cleared up. And then I said: “As new messages come in, whether they’re voicemails, emails, all of that sort of thing, I want you to do 1 of 3 things.
Number 1, if it has no vetting, get rid of it. That’s what the trash icon is for.
Number 2, ask yourself, ‘is this the best use of my time?’ If it’s not the best use of your time, delegate it to somebody who can handle it.
Number 3: if it’s a quick item, go ahead and respond to it.” For example: “What time is the meeting tomorrow? It’s 10:00 AM.” That’s a quick exchange that’s over fast. If it’s something that’s going to take any period of time then my suggestion is to put it in your planner when you’re going to get to it, and then put it away.
Michael Neuendorff: This idea of churning is what takes up a lot of people’s time, not being deliberate about handling their email or handling voicemail, and churning through them again and again. creating these open loops in our minds of “I’ve got to get back to that person. I’ve got to deal with that email.” Nothing is actually scheduled, it’s just this open loop in our minds.
Don Wetmore: It becomes what I call the “great time management suck.” So, it’s just working with getting control of that. I get anywhere from 300 to 500 emails a day. There’s a lot of spam and that sort of thing in there, but because I really want to talk and to utilize the tools I share with people, it doesn’t become a big-time suck to me.
Michael Neuendorff: One thing I heard you say is delegate. If you see things that are unimportant, that are not the best use of your time, you should delegate them. And is that something you see leaders challenged with and does this become a time and productivity issue?
Don Wetmore: There’s very little correlation between the quantity of time that we put in over here with the output over there. I learned this lesson early on and here’s an example of how this works. After I graduated from law school I went to work for a law firm and for about a year and a half I was required to work about 70 hours a week. If you want to make it as a lawyer you have to put in those 70 hour weeks, it’s like your apprenticeship. Those who did succeeded in the profession, those who didn’t dropped out.
So fast forward about a year and a half. I want to go out and open up my own law firm. I talked to a lot of senior members of the Bar, and asked them: “how long does it take to develop a business, a law practice?” And back then the gold standard of success was a $100,000 per year practice.
I was told over and over again it’s going to take 7 to 10 years from when you first hang out your shingle to achieve that. And you’ve got to put in about 70 hours a week. When an elderly woman comes in and you do her will, you should treat her nicely and she’ll tell her nephew, and that’s how your practice will grow.
I talked to others in the Bar association and found 2 or 3 who built a $100,000 a year practice in less than 7 years. I asked them how they did it. Long story short, I built up my own $100,000 practice in one year.
And I made another decision upfront because I could see myself going back to working 70 hours a week. I set a time budget just like you might set a financial budget. I thought: I want to have $100,000 a year practice. That’s my goal, and here’s what I’m willing to do to get it.”
I didn’t want to violate my time budget because I had a lot of other things I was doing. I was teaching full time and running some other businesses that we had. My wife and I were starting our family at that time, too.
So, I hired people and associates. After 10 years my practice grew to $400,000 a year, and I wasn’t even putting in 35 hours a week. I was putting in 5 hours a week, about an hour a day. I had a well-oiled machine. There’s a big difference between “I do it myself” and “it just gets done.” If your goal is to be the center of your whole business and deliver every piece of service, you can do that, but it’s going to cost you a lot in terms of time. But if your objective is: “I want a business model that creates a certain level of income, ethically and professionally” and so on, there are choices to be made. And I made them. 
Michael Neuendorff I love that story, Don. That’s fantastic. It makes me think of Tim Ferriss, who had the idea of: “why talk to people who have taken much longer to achieve the results that you like? Talk to people who’ve done it in less time and find out what they did!” So, Don, I’m sure some people are curious about working with you. What does a coaching plan with you look like?
Don Wetmore: We start with an hour face-to-face meeting or a Zoom call or in person, just to kind of find out where they’re at and where the prospect client wants to go. There’s only 3 reasons for engaging a coach if you think about it. The client is at point A but they want to be somewhere else, let’s get really creative and call that point B.
They are in 1 of 3 situations. First, they don’t really have clarity as to what point B is. Second, they know what point B is, but they really don’t know how to get there. And third, they know what point B is and they know how to get there, but they can’t do it on their own. They need an accountability partner, if you will.
So, we have a conversation and talk about where they are. We go over what’s missing, what are the challenges keeping them from advancing. And I go through those 3 scenarios, and ask: “Where do you fit?” And occasionally at the end of that conversation someone says to me: “Look, I know where point A is and where point B is, I know how to get there and I can do it on my own.” When that happens I just say: “Thank you very much, there’s no need for you to get a coach.”
Most of the time it’s just 1 or more of those 3, that gives me good clarity. And then we set up the schedule. Typically, I meet with a client once a week. I do recommend, and almost all clients agree with me, to a 3-month commitment, and I require the retainer be paid upfront. It isn’t so much of a cash flow issue as I’ve found the stronger the commitment upfront, the more the client wants to make it work. It’s just human nature.
We meet on a weekly basis. We write a new agenda at the conclusion of each meeting. There’s always action steps A, B and C, for accountability. We identify action steps and really pin them to a return on investment. I like to, whenever possible, quantify and identify a 10 to 1 payback for the coaching.
Michael Neuendorff: So you’ve been in the coaching field for a while, Don, what advice do you have for new coaches entering the field?
Don Wetmore: Two things. Number 1 is to get properly trained. It’s very easy to slap on a title and say, “I’m a coach” and go on out there. But there’s an art and a science to this, it’s a profession. It’s not a question of getting certain designations or degrees, although that’s helpful, but getting the right training and having the right mentors. The kinds of programs that you run at Bay Area Executive Coach Training are extremely helpful in establishing that foundation. There’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. And you know, as coaches, all of us, we should do no harm. So that’s step number 1.
Step number 2 is creating, very quickly, a full pipeline of client opportunities, and there’s any number of programs out there for accomplishing that. If you don’t have much in the client pipeline and you don’t have a system for filling that pipeline then you’re out there just like the golden retriever: maybe I’ll fetch this or try that.
I’d also recommend spending some money on social media. Post something on Facebook. Getting a system in place where you have a constant flow of good people coming into your coaching practice is what you want.
I devised 3 questions to start a conversation when I sense a coaching prospect. Here’s an example. I just happened to be sitting next to this gentleman, Fred, and I heard he was a sales manager at a real estate office. So I asked him: “Fred, on a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with the productivity of your sales staff?”
The wording is kind of important because if I had simply asked: “How are they doing?” or “How are you doing with them? – that’s a personal question and he may not respond to that. But if I ask him: “How satisfied are you on a scale of 1 to 10?”, 80% of the people I pose this question to will answer: 6 or 7.
Anything less than a 10 is a deficiency. When he’s planted a “deficiency tree” in front of him, that begins to establish the need for what I do and I want to solidify the need. The second question is: “What are some of the issues keeping you from being at a higher number?” And I hear all kinds of responses. When he’s done talking, he’s put a lot of “flesh” on that tree, it’s really solidified.
The third question is: “Is it enough of an issue that you would like to sit down and chat with me?” And if the prospect says no, I say “Fine, I’m not into sales.” But most of the time it’s: “Yeah, what do you have in mind?” I say: “I’m an executive coach and work on those kinds of issues. If you have a few minutes, let’s chat and I can give you some tips.” Quite honestly, sometimes they do convert to a professional relationship, and that’s just a good example of a way of keeping a flow of possible candidates coming through.
Michael Neuendorff: Very good advice. I like that funnel approach:: “How satisfied are you? What’s leading to this dissatisfaction? Would you like to do something about it?” That’s the kind of a funnel concept that can happen through a website, through a conversation, through reading an email, watching a video, however.
It identifies them as prospects worth working with. What is your website, where people can learn more about you and the work you do?
Don Wetmore: Balancetime.com. All one word. I wrote my first book called “Beat the Clock” many, many moons ago and I have It as a PDF. Anyone reading this interview who’d like to get a complimentary copy of that, I’d be pleased to send it to them. Just shoot me an email at ctsem@msn.com. Or better still, just pick up the phone and call me on my cell: (203) 394-8216.
Michael Neuendorff: And knowing Don, he’ll see your email and he’ll reply to it right away.
Don Wetmore: I make a point of that.
Michael Neuendorff: It’s been a real pleasure talking with you today. Thank you very much for sharing so many great ideas that go way beyond simple time management techniques, but really get us thinking about what we want out of life to get a better idea of how to be more productive.
Don Wetmore: It’s been my pleasure Michael.
To view the video version of this interview, click this link.
