Michelle Bridges gives brokers a challenge

“If you start work at nine, don’t check your emails until 10. Instead, use that hour to be creative and be working on your business rather than in your business,” she said at the summit yesterday.

The fitness guru – who has previously highlighted the value of brokers – tasked attendees to come up with one thing they will implement in their week for their personal time, customer relations, relationships with referral partners and their brand.

Ms Bridges likened business planning to training. “It’s the early morning exercisers that are more regular. They get it done before life starts,” she said.

She also urged attendees to ditch the hours spent each morning clearing your inbox, saying, “it kills creativity”.

“I recently read a study that found the average worker spends 6.3 hours on email a day, which equates to 30 hours a week, not counting the weekends,” Ms Bridges said.

“I challenge you to spend an hour in the morning, not even every day, just a few times each week putting some creativity into your business.

“It’s exciting to think that you can step back and take a bird’s eye view to discover what is going on in your business.”

Ms Bridges believes that when people look after themselves, everything else runs smoothly. After getting almost 400 brokers to stand up and knock out 10 squats, she challenged them to uncover what they really want.

“Within your businesses, what do you want? A lot of people know what they don’t want,” she said.

“Do you want to start a small business if you haven’t already? Do you want some staff training? Do you want to be more organised? Do you want more customers? Do you want to build a brand? Do you want to have kids? Do you want to lose weight? What do you want?

“You need to have a plan, but having a plan isn’t enough. You also need action. What action will you take to achieve your goal?”

If you want to uncover an action plan that will turbocharge your business, be sure to catch Michelle Bridges as the Better Business Summit continues across the country. The summit, and Better Business awards night, will be next visiting Sydney (23 February), followed by Melbourne (2 March), Adelaide (9 March) and Perth (16 March).

Now in its fourth consecutive year, the award-winning Better Business Summit features an agenda crammed with practical tips, tools and strategies to help all brokers grow their business.

The day culminates in the Better Business Awards, where each state’s best brokers, aggregator BDMs, lender BDMs, loan administrators and those running community engagement programs are honoured. A list of finalists for the state-based awards is out now.

With limited tickets remaining in each state, book your seat now to make sure you don’t miss out.

[Related: Better Business Summit 2017 agenda revealed]