Masterminding Projects and Taking Massive Action

Last weekend I attended the Info Product Summit Seminar with Eben Pagan here in Los Angeles. The event was incredibly informative and gave me tons of insights that are definitely going to help me continue building my niche marketing information product business…

At the end of the conference, Eben arranged all of us into small groups of about 6 people each. Each group was somewhat organized around industry or business niche. But the most important goal was to help us create our very own mastermind team to create some accountability after leaving the conference.

My group already held our very first mastermind phone call the first day after the conference. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to be first in the “hot seat” and present my greatest challenge and my greatest opportunity to the group. After presenting my current business scenario to the group, each of my group members made a 5 minute maximum reply with their best insights and advice. 30 minutes later I had some of the best ideas to solve my greatest challenge and to leverage my greatest opportunity that I could ever have imagined!

Amateurs See Many Options, Professionals Recognize Few

As I continue to grow my business, it has become increasingly necessary to get super focused on what I’m trying to achieve and to pick only the most promising projects and follow them to completion. As you can imagine, it doesn’t always go this way…

First, I’ve found that as my success grows, the number of opportunities available to me increases. Every time I turn around, there’s a new idea or a potential source of new revenue I could be chasing. It’s not the worst of problems to have but it can and does make it very challenging to keep singularity of focus when working on projects.

During the mastermind session, one of my cohorts made an excellent point with a simple but powerful quote…

“To amateurs there are many options, to professionals there are few.”

Suddenly I realized that I had failed to apply all of my existing success knowledge to my growing list of projects. Just because an opportunity presents itself does NOT mean it’s viable or even worth my time. For that matter, just because an option is viable doesn’t mean it’s the right or the best option for me…

The Project Matrix – Project Management for Entrepreneurs

Another suggestion from the group was to get my potential projects under control by creating a system to rate, analyze, and evaluate potential new business ideas. It’s amazing how powerful an idea becomes when it’s actually worked for other people. I’ve tried to create project evaluation or management systems in the past but nothing ever did the job. But now I had a clear system.

Before the mastermind group, I used the popular “Things” to-do time management GTD software for organizing my projects. But for some strange reason, it never occurred to me that some of my projects might not even be worth my time. I know that sounds bizarre, but when you’re coming up with ideas left-and-right you’re generally most concerned with putting them into action and getting them sorted out — the “how” somehow overshadows the “why.”

Here’s how I created a project matrix based on a spreadsheet sample sent to me by a group member…

1. Open up a new spreadsheet using Excel or Google Docs or any similar program.
2. List all of your considered projects in one column.
3. List the estimated financial cost of each project in the next column.
4. List the estimated Time cost (hours) of each project in the next column.
5. List the projected financial Return in the next column. (Note: You can use monthly or annual returns, just be consistent with all projects.)
6. Create a Return/Cost formula in the next column to calculate how many dollars you will get back for every dollar you invest.
7. Create a Return/Time formula in the next column to calculate how many dollars you will get back for every hour you invest.

And voila!

When you finish the project matrix, I think you may be very surprised. I certainly was. But be sure to spend time tweaking and playing with the numbers. Really think about how much time a project will cost. Really consider how much of a financial return you expect to get back — and be realistic!

The more honest and realistic you are with the spreadsheet, the more accurate and revealing the final picture will be.

Crack That Whip – Zeroing in On Projects

Once you’ve completed the project matrix, you’ll begin to see where you should really be investing your time. You’ll also see about how much time each project should take so you can make some educated guesses about what you could realistically complete this month, next month and so on.

Remember: the goal here is to line things up so you can take action! Don’t fall into the “paralysis by analysis” trap where you end up overanalyzing everything. Let the project matrix inspire you to unleash your energy in the right direction.

And most important of all, make this system work for you!

Download the Project Matrix

I want to share the project matrix with you, so I am making the download freely available here. The file includes some generic samples so please be sure to make changes based on your unique projects.

Click Here to Download the Projects Matrix

Let me know what you think…

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