Thomas Green here with ethical marketing service on the episode today we have Christoph Nauer. Christoph welcome. Thank you for having me Thomas.
It is my pleasure. Would you like to take a moment and tell the audience a bit about yourself and what you do? Absolutely be happy to. My name is Christoph Nauer and most folks, when I introduced myself, they think it’s Christopher or chris and so they stumble on my name to begin with. I always say my name became famous with the movie frozen. I’m originally from Switzerland. And so that’s why, you know, my name is Christopher Christopher. So just to put that at ease and in case people wonder about my accent, that’s where, that’s where it’s coming from. I’m a business coach specializing in time management. So what I do is I help business owners who are overwhelmed and work too much, I help them to clarify and prioritize their focus so that they can work less and make more money and in the process have a fulfilling home life as well. My motto is better life, better business. I believe that business and personal life are intimately interconnected and cannot be separated and so when people get into business for themselves, they’re usually good and passionate about something.
They have a great skill and they want to be their own boss and um what happened happened quite often is that the business starts to becoming their boss and driving them instead of the other way around and that can have really poor consequences on their health, their relationships um and the bottom line so and that’s why when I founded my, went through a rebranding process a few years ago my business name became balanced six because I believe the six that we need to balance our time money, health relationships, self improvement and higher power or spirituality. When you balance those six, that’s when we are our best, whether we are a business owner and entrepreneur, an employee and manager, a parent, the spouse, it’s all they are connected. So that’s in a nutshell, what I do, I got recently three years ago certified by brian Tracy, time management master and so I can use the skill set that I learned from him and apply it in my coaching practice as well.
Well thank you for the introduction. Um if you specialize in time management, my guess is you’ve got a good sort of definition of what that what that means or what that means to you. So if someone asks you because everyone has their own opinion, right? And what is time management? Well, I would say it’s utilizing our 24 hours that were given that the best of our ability make the best use of our time. We’re always going to make more money. We can never make more time. And warren buffet puts it perfectly. I can buy anything I want in the world except time. So we are given 24 hours every day. You and I, we have the same amount no matter what we do now, that’s why so critically important that we spend it the best way possible we spend, we focus on, you know what I say, what’s the biggest roo I you know, what’s the thing that only can be done by you to get your business to the next level and what could be done by somebody else. So focus on the things that only you can do and delegate outside everything else.
Don’t waste your time doing things and tasks that could be done by somebody else. Also make your own well being a top priority. Not an afterthought in our culture. That’s it. We are usually neglecting ourselves. The only time we get this correctly is on the airplane when we are asked to put our masks on ourselves first before we help somebody else. Now, I ask my clients to apply that principle in their own lives and their own business as well. So that’s kind of like the way I see, you know, dementia has become a word that can have all kinds of different connotations, but this is really the use of our time, that that’s critically important. So at the end of the day, we feel a sense of accomplishment and success and peace of mind that we can actually stop working and have quality time for with ourselves, with our family and loved ones without feeling guilty about, oh, I should have done this and that and this and that as well, thank you for that.
Um immediately what springs up for me is the the objection, okay, I’m sure you’ve heard this objection, and I’m very confident you have a good answer. So the objection is for those people who like to hoard tasks, I’m gonna hold on to all those tasks. I’m not going to give it to anyone else because I can do it better or they don’t do it to my standards. What do you say to those people? Well, um, I can say to them, yes, you can do that if you want, and if you prefer to work 80 hours a week and have no life outside your business, that’s your prerogative. You know, it’s your decision. However, I use examples that are relatively simple for instance doing your own book. If you’re not a bookkeeper, you know, doing your own books and accounting is a waste of your time. First of all you’re most likely not an expert in that particular field. That means you could make mistakes. It also probably takes you longer than when an expert does it. So while we usually what happens is when we’re not really good at something, we procrastinate on it and then it doesn’t get done.
So I look at it this way so you spent two hours doing your books and they might be done correctly. They might not be done correctly. That’s neither here or there. But if you feel like you can do it okay that’s fine. But those two hours are gone and you can’t get those back and during those two hours that you spend on your books you can’t do the things that could not be done by anybody else. So you’re using losing time but you’re also losing money because usually as the business owner you’re your hourly rate is probably higher than what you would pay a bookkeeper to do your time to do your books. So that’s what I try I try to show them examples and see that they’re actually losing time and money by doing those things that they could outsource themselves. That’s a great point. Um you mentioned a couple of people that have taken a great amount of inspiration from Warren Buffett and then obviously brian Tracy, what’s the, what’s the relationship there?
Did you meet brian? No, I never met him personally I wish, but ever since I started coaching, I’ve been on his mailing list and I followed him and but a lot of his stuff and I watched his videos and he’s just an inspiration, you know, an absolute inspiration and the leader in in the industry, in the self improvement industry. And the thing is, you know, nobody’s ever heard of christophe in our but brian Tracy is a well known person and if I can use his name in my marketing and I can say, hey, I got this guy actually certified me as a time management master, then that brings value to my clients. And that’s the other thing too is the whole idea of self improvement that are part of my business name, the more I improve my own skills set, the more value I bring to my clients. And so I encourage my clients to do the same thing. You know, there’s always more for you to learn and if you have the expertise in the field continued to improve on that expertise so that you can bring more value to your clients and your clients come to you knowing that you’re the expert in that particular industry and Warren Buffett and I have never met him either, but he, you know, he has some really great quotes in that particular one is one of them.
And and so I tried to use it because again, you know, people have heard of him and they know the guy you know that he has all the money in the world, he lives still a simple lifestyle, you know, he’s not, you know, but what he’s saying is you know, money is not everything. So time is the most precious commodity that we all have. So that’s why I think it’s so critically important that we use it wisely. Yeah. Another great point. Um in terms of what you learned from brian Tracy, two part question what you learn as a self development, the best self development stuff that you learn and then the time management principles, how would you answer that? I think is there’s a couple of things. One is the importance of clarity, he says that clarity is the most important concept in time management and that’s why so critically important to have clearly defined goals, you know? And for me in my line of work I focus on those six, the set goals in those six categories, not just you know, make more money when we looked at the whole idea of smart goals etcetera.
Um the other one is talking about is prioritizing, there’s there’s so many different ways you can do that. His method is the A B C D. E method. Um and I, you know, you can I can I would like to start at the end with the E. Stands for eliminate. What can you eliminate on your to do list the famous to do list. We all hear that over and over again have to make a to do list. But we usually put too much stuff on it to begin with. So before we even start prioritizing, go through it and see what we can eliminate and then we go up to D. That stands for. They don’t delegate quite often. That’s one of the suggestions I make to my clients put d on your computer a little sticky note to remind them to delegate. So look at all the stuff that thunder to lulu and what can you delegate? And then you can start with the abc, you know basically a task or what brian Tracy calls the frogs eat that frog. You may have heard that term has nothing to do with the culinary dish.
But he’s talking about taking the most challenging and daunting task on first and finishing them And the human nature is to procrastinate on them and do the easy stuff 1st. But what that does is the big task doesn’t go away and it actually zaps energy and motivation out of us because we know that thing, big thing is still there. The frog is actually getting bigger and bigger and heavier and heavier and wages down when we tackle the big thing first and we do it. We feel like a million bucks afterwards. We feel energized and motivated and just ready to tackle the next thing and that’s exactly what he’s talking about and then be tasked. The task that should be, yeah, they’re important but they’re not critical and never to do a b task as long as there’s a tasks to be done and the sea task based on those things that you know, they don’t really matter too much. And so those are a couple of, you know, there’s a lot more too. But those are a few takeaways that I got from him and I shared those with my clients and they are critically important in my opinion.
Thank you. Have you got some, shall we say some stories or some impact that’s influenced you based on how you applied those into your own life? Well I have my own coach, so to speak. Part of it is my wife, you know, she’s the one holding me accountable and say, hey when are we going to do this? Why don’t you take a day off? You know, so the things that I talk to my clients about, she kinda like reminds me, you know, and that’s quite often the case that we are in the self improvement industry, we have to apply the things that we share with our clients to our own lives as well. And so it’s it’s good to have somebody that to bounce things off myself, you know, and so that’s why we, you know, we take our time to go places, you know, there’s a time when I don’t work, I have set office hours. Um, I have a morning routine, which is something I encourage my clients to do as well, you know, it involves half hour of meditation than, you know, half hour of my stationary bike and then it’s shower time and after that my day starts, but that time, that morning routine is my time and nobody gets to interfere with them.
You know, there’s times that I’ve set aside that are mine, you know, and people calling me or emailing me on sunday, I’m sorry, I don’t work then on the weekends, you know, once in a while I said, okay, if you, if you, if you can’t do monday through friday, you know, I’m open to having a conversation on saturday, so because I don’t want to be richard, um, but I really tried to stick to my, to my office hours and I’m currently my client to do the same. You know, the idea of setting boundaries and what does a typical inquiry look like for you, usually what they want is getting more done in less time. They want to have more time with family or loved ones, they haven’t, they usually quite often work seven days a week and they don’t want to do that anymore. Um, so work less is what usually is the desire to have more time for family have time for to exercise, have time to sleep, you know so a lot of it is is that those are the desires that they wished they had, you know some time.
Yeah that’s that’s in a nutshell. Most of the struggles that they have and some clients, one client says to me after certain like a few months she said oh I’m getting really greedy about my time, you know, and another client says oh it’s so nice that you give me permission to put myself first. And that happens quite often, you know with you know like this particular client as a single mom with two kids and running her business and first of all as a mother you already come with the D. N. A. Of taking care of everybody else first and putting yourself last so that it’s a whole learning curve to switch gears there, you know your own well being. If you don’t do that it’s going to come back to bite you. It’s like the car stops if you run out of gas you know and so these are some, but most of the time that’s what people want that clients are looking for is more time um to have outside they’re running their business time for themselves, attempt for their own well being.
Have you got any stories or case studies that you’re particularly proud of? Yes, there is a one woman, she was in the insurance industry, she brought me in to train her team on time management. Not only did she end up, you know, I have, I’m in the bay area in san Francisco, so she not only uh was had the best year ever after that, but she, she was the top producer in, in the, in her company after that training and that earned her and her husband a free trip to Scotland. The other thing we found out during the training is I talked to the team, you know, what is it that you bring to the team? What’s your special gift and talent that that makes the team better because of you? And so we found out that one person was a really excellent lead generator but could not close the deal and then the other world team member was a great closer but could not change at any leads.
And so when that came out, you know, I said, well do you guys see potential here, you know, because in the industry was, you know, everybody was supposed to get their own leads and close to deals and then we have the commission, but here they had the team and they actually had used the skill set of the team members and that really helped them really close deals that they didn’t before they were losing before. So it was a great win win situation. Uh another Client, she was a single mom four kids and she was trying to start her real estate business. So she was always working. I mean, constantly, never a day off, always on the phone. Um, and so I introduced her to office hours and she said to me, well, you don’t understand my industry. And they said, you are correct, I don’t, I’m not a real time your coach, but I can tell you one thing if your kids don’t ever see you, if you’re never present to them, they will resent you. So it took a while for her for this to really sink in.
But eventually she didn’t implement office hours to the point where she had it in her email signature and outgoing voicemail message clearly stated when people could expect the call back now she is running a multimillion dollar business. She has about five or six people on her team. And just a couple of years ago she called me and said, you know that when you introduced that concept of business office hours, I know I fought you, but it’s the best thing you did I ever learned from you. And so um, that’s just a couple of them, you know, and I have more on my website. No, thank you for sharing them. That that last one just reminds me of setting expectations with people because I think especially people in business, they kind of attempt to be flexible so much and really all the other person wants to know, I mean it’s a generalization. I know, but typically people just want to know how they should deal with you. And if you set those boundaries as you said or the expectations is people will adjust to them, right?
Yes. And the thing is sometimes my clients come to me when they have already kind of somewhat trained their clients, their clients to expect immediate responses. So now they have to retrain them and say, hey, you know, I’d be happy to get back to you. But I’m not on call. You know, this is not my job to be on call for you. You know, and something quite often I use uh stories to illustrate my point. For instance, if you call your dentist, You’re not going to say that the doctor, the hate dentists, I need to see it tomorrow at 2:00. They just laugh at you. You know, they say, well sorry my next opening is and they give you a date in the future. So I say why should tent is more important than you? And usually that stops him in the tracks, you know, because I have a particular client of mine, he was a contract. And he wanted to see his attorney and the receptionist told him when the attorney had the next opening and he was all bent out of shape because he thought he could just call and get the conversation going with the attorney when you finally saw the attorney, he complained to him and he said no, that’s just that’s the only way I can run my business.
And so I said to him, you know, I would like you to do the same and he was floored to, it was like how could that be? I said yes, just what the attorney does. I want you to do the same. Yes. So it’s a great story and made me, made me laugh a little bit about the doctor I think is the even even worse over here is like you could wait two weeks to four weeks or something in order to speak to someone. But someone thing I always ask and I’m interested to know what your, what your answer will be. Um What does success mean to you? That is a very good question to actually have one of my clients asked her the same very same question. Um for me, I think it’s it’s what drives me is being able to help people, you know uh the more people I can help with the work life balance, which is overall the goal the better. I feel. That’s one of the reasons why I wrote my book, you know, from no time to free time, six steps to work life balance for business owners.
It’s currently as an e book available on amazon. Um because I can reach more people that way, if that book, whether they work with me one on one or not or in a group setting or read the book if that can change them and help them to free up some time, have more quality time with family and loved ones? That success and that’s what really drives me. You know, it’s material possessions and things and stuff that they don’t, that doesn’t matter to me, that’s not important. That’s for me, that’s not part of success. But being, having, feeling fulfilled at the end of the day, feeling like a sense of accomplishment and peace of mind. That is success. And that’s what I hope and want my clients to experience at the end of the day as well. So under that criteria criteria are you successful? I think. So, I can still be more successful by helping more people, you know, so that’s, you know, my my goal is to help a lot more people, you know, I’m working on finalizing the print version of my book and hope that that will be available in a couple of weeks or maybe next month.
Um One of my clients actually said she can’t wait for it because then she can actually highlight things and write in the margins right now in an e book that’s not possible. Um so yes, that’s and that’s one of the reasons I’m looking to be guests, be a guest on podcasts to get the word out and reach more people and help more people. I feel pretty successful and at the end of the day, I feel a sense of peace and accomplishment. That’s that’s what I like my clients to experience as well. Good answer. Um how is the writing process for you? It was very interesting. I I don’t want to be late with the process. But what happened is my coach has been telling me for years that I should be writing a book and I always had all kinds of excuses because I said, you know, I can talk no problem as you can tell. Um, but I’m not a writer. So let’s see, that was about maybe two years ago I did a training virtual training for uh the person who became my publisher and writing coach.
And then she said after the training, so, um, when are you going to write your book? And I said, I don’t know. So again, I had my usual excuses and then she said, well you just did a training for my team, right? And they said yes, and she said, and you recorded it right? I said yes, that’s your book. And I was like, oh, and so that’s how this came to be. You know, then I had it transcribed, the recording transcribed and a good friend of mine is is actually an editor and her business, my name is instructive, structural integrity. So she put then took that training that I did and turned it into a book with chapters, you know, etcetera, etcetera. So she gave it structure to it. So because of those two women, um I became a published author. Well, congratulations, thank you. And I would also add that. It’s based on the efficiency of that process.
It doesn’t, it’s not a disadvantage. So it can actually be um, an advantage to take something that you’re really passionate about and turn it from, as you say, speaking format to written format. And it’s just, you know, it’s a it’s a very efficient way to do it and it’s not a disadvantage at all. Have you, have you found that to be the case? Yes. Yes, definitely. As I would imagine based on that process, there’s more books in you yet, Is that fair to say? Well somebody told me that, but I don’t know, I mean I say let’s see, let’s get this finished first and get the print version done and and then we shall see, you know, um, but I don’t know yet, who knows? So have you got a time frame for the physical version? Uh yeah, I just emailed a couple, I’m adding a bonus chapter with some guest authors to the book. And so I just emailed that to my publisher and once that’s all done, you know, so um I have to wait to hear back from her some hopefully in april and if not then may because we usually try to do a book launch party, you know, tell everybody about it.
And and then give folks a chance to buy the the launch price instead of the regular price later those kinds of things. But that’s the that’s the stuff my publisher does, I’ll have to wait to hear from her. Well you’ve got a buyer, I’m interested in the book so let me know when that does happen. Absolutely be happy too. Sure. Is there anything that I should have asked you about today? I think you pretty much that yeah, I feel like you asked me a lot of questions and I did all the talking basically. So yeah, I I said beforehand um would you be able to share about what your goals are at the moment? Yes, I think as I mentioned briefly before it is I’d love to reach more people, you know, and that’s part of having the book and having guest authors and sponsors in my book. They will then promote the book too because it’s in their own interest. Um the guest authors, they wrote a little article in the book about topics that are pertinent and important for business owners and then they can read those articles and then reach out to those guest authors for a consultation.
So yes, reaching, reaching more people getting a bigger audience. Um at this point I’m pretty much limited to the U. S. Market and the UK, the english speaking market actually one of my ah uh guest office is actually from europe, she’s in Prague no two of them, one is in Prague and one is in Norway. So this new nuts and new reality, virtual reality has really opened up the market and and the connections, you know, if it wasn’t for Covid and it’s unfortunate but that it took Covid, I would not have met these actually all three of those guest authors. I would not have met him. I would not have met some of these books sponsors that I have in the book. So it’s truly an international version with with the with those two guest authors from europe. Well, congratulations again on becoming a an author is not not an easy thing.
Um, and a lot goes into it and you’ve got all your work ahead of you because the the writing, writing part of it is different from the promotion part of it. Right. But I’m sure you’ll do just fine. Have you got any closing thoughts for us today? Well, if if to get the listeners just take one thing away from this, you know, half a plan and schedule for your day, make yourself and own and your own well being a priority. One minute of planning can save you up to 10 minutes in execution. And I know I just talked to a client yesterday about that and she’s starting to realize that the careful planning actually there is value in that. And so many people feel like that’s a waste of time, but it’s not, you know, so have a plan ideally pick a day a week, you know, maybe friday night before you leave the office to carefully plan the next week because then you have peace of mind during the weekend.
You know exactly what you will be doing on monday. What do you do? 1st, 2nd half a Gps for the day. I have a Gps for the week. That will make a huge difference. And in there have stuff for yourself, for your family, for your loved ones. Um, and I have, I have a blog and I have also have a podcast that has my Youtube channel, has some great Information for folks. Each episode is only about 15 minutes but it’s packed full of golden nuggets. So if people want to just top on there on the podcast page, you can access it all from my, from my website which is balanced six dot biz that was the next, the next question. But that, that answer was, was brilliant. I am going to have to put that at the beginning of the episode rather than waiting until the end to make sure everyone sees that part. But yeah, just remind us of the, of the website address again and maybe your best best social Yes.
So it is balanced six dot base The word balanced the number six dot B I Z. That’s my website. You can access all my social media sites from that site. Uh and youtube channel is also there. That’s really the best way to, that’s the best place to start. Okay, well, um, for people who are watching or listening, please review the links in the description and christoph. Thank you for being a great guest today. Well, thank you so much for having me thomas, and we really appreciate it.