Are You Trading Hours For Dollars?

Have you felt the “overwhelm” of too much business and not enough time?

I have. In fact, recently I have begun a campaign for my own business to get all the bits and pieces organized and systematized.

It’s an interesting position to be in – You have much work because you haven’t learned to say “NO”!

A few years ago – I started a coaching project with someone who was at the end of her “proverbial” rope.

I gave her a few encouraging words… and that opened a flood gate of “What Should I Do??” questions.

It’s natural to look for help from those that have more business experience under their belt. She knows I am a coach… but never realized until today – she really needed coaching.

This gal thought she had it all under control. She continued to try to juggle all the balls – but those balls were all starting to get less attention. Once you stop paying attention to just one ball… you are likely to drop them all into one big heap. Then you have really got a mess.

It’s called “being reactive” instead of “proactive”. The best of all business practices is doing two things.

1. Work “ON” your business – instead of “In” your business.

2. Being Proactive – means that you will not have a huge amount of problems you will have to “react” to. It’s better to prevent fires than to try to put out the fires after they have started.

BTW- Her biggest problem is that she has to turn business away because she can’t get it all done. And yet… she isn’t making much of a profit.

My starting point in helping to resolve her business problems:

Note – she already has a bookkeeper – a guy to handle technical issues – someone to handle some of the easy, routine projects.

She offers many services (she did this to try to capture as many potential clients as possible) and she doesn’t charge enough.

One of the reasons she has people banging down her door – is that she is good at what she does. And… she is ridiculously under priced.

She does do some work for me… so I hesitated to mention the “under price” point. But… as she really needed my help… I had to come clean.

I asked her to list all the things she does for her online business clients. She actually had to create two lists.

1. The things that she really enjoys doing consistently, does well, people know her for these services. This is work she would never hand off for someone else to do. This is work that will potentially make her the most money for her time.

2. All the rest. These are all the things that someone else can do. The idea is for her to outsource all the routine projects. She makes a bit on each project for herself.

That’s it. That’s the first step in streamlining a business. Honest – I wouldn’t lead you astray.

You won’t know what you need to do – until you make these lists.

The idea is to take list number one and start pushing those products or services as your core business. Evaluate the pricing structure and adjust so that you are making the most profit for your time.

Working with list number two takes a bit of attitude adjustment. You are going to have to get over the fact that you are not the only one who can do this type of work.

So what if you only make $15 for yourself on each of these “routine” work assignments? If you can outsource 50 of those assignments every week – you have added another $750 a week to your bottom line. And… the work on your part is just keeping track of the work and making sure it’s getting done – done well – and on time.

If you have an average of 50 weekly assignments and you can clear $15 each… you will have an extra $3000 in you pocket.

Plus… with this system… my student will have more time to do the creative work that makes her a much more per hour.

You’re going to *trade hours for dollars in any business. Choose to work on projects that give you the most profit for every hour. Let all the other work go to those that can’t do the creative stuff. They will do a fine job for you and be grateful for the work.

*Trading dollars for hours is what people in the “service” business do. My husband is a technical genius. He is good at his business. But he is getting really tired of it feeling like a JOB.

Me… on the other hand. I work my tail off. But I don’t get paid by the hour or the job. I get paid by multiple streams of income.

The idea is for you to be able to outsource as much of your business as you can. This way you make a tiny bit from a lot of other peoples work.

For instance… you will be trading one hour of your work time to monitor 50 “jobs” that others are doing for your clients – Instead of doing one hour of work for one hour’s payment. You can do one hour of work and leverage that into many multiple payments.