“Do not hire a man (or woman) who does your work for money, but him (or her) who does it for the love of it.”- Henry David Thoreau
I’ve never worked for money – only love.
Whether it was being a full time musician, franchise owner, real estate investor, writer, teacher or coach, my first priority is to only do what I love.
As my business becomes more successful and as I acquire more knowledge and skills, my time becomes more valuable.
I’m good at almost everything I put my mind to – I love to learn. But just because I have developed skills and enjoy doing work like search engine optimization, web design or copywriting, doesn’t mean I should spend my valuable time doing these tasks.
I notice that when I spread myself too thin it reduces my focus, increases stress, and it lowers my overall performance.
If you want to build a highly profitable business, you need to consistently and systematically do the important things for your business.
So it becomes important to look at what you do and ask yourself if these tasks could be hired out, outsourced or delegated.
What Are You Born To Do?
I hate accounting and bookkeeping. When tax time rolls around, I’d rather have a root canal than work on my taxes.
But I can read blogs about online marketing, business or personal development all day long. I have no problem devoting my entire day helping clients with their marketing or writing new content that will add value for others.
In short, I’d rather spend my time on high-pay-off activities and hire an expert to do what they were born to do.
Identify Your Top Strengths
As a self-reflective conscious entrepreneur I regularly check in and ask myself, “What are my top strengths?”
Adding value, creating products, teaching and offering spiritual and business services are my top strengths.
When I ask my clients what are their top strengths – they often hesitate. They don’t really know. They’ve never stopped to think about their top strengths.
Take a few minutes right NOW and write down your top strengths in order of priority.
Your chances for success are much better when you build on your strengths rather than on your weaknesses.
2 Simple Steps for Prioritizing My Time So that I Can Build a Profitable Business
So I’ve decided to optimize my time and focus everyday on two distinct areas:
1) Improve my products or services by adding massive value so that my customers becoming raving fans
2) Schedule time everyday on marketing my products or services.
Hot Tip: Your chances for actually getting a task accomplished increases exponentially if you simply “SCHEDULE” the task. Commit now and schedule one hour every day for marketing your business. Put it on your calendar.
As for the other tasks involved in building my business… I’ll hire an expert, delegate or outsource it out.
Hire An Expert
As small business owners, we think we can do everything ourselves. Either we think nobody can do it better than we can or we’re too cheap to hire somebody.
Maybe you became an entrepreneur because you wanted to call the shots. Many entrepreneurs are control freaks and think that nobody can do it better than they can.
But think of the energy you’ll free up when you hire others to do the task for you. Just think of what you could do with that free time!
Some of the best money you can spend is to hire an expert that will get the job done quickly and efficiently.
I’ve spent countless hours fooling around with web design code trying to figure out a simple detail for a web page where an expert could have gone in and figured it out in seconds flat!
Quick, I Need a Brain Surgeon
If you needed an operation to have a brain tumor removed and started shopping around for a brain surgeon, would you look for someone that had a 75% success rate?
What if the brain surgeon told you that he was new to brain surgery, that he just got out of medical school and knew all the latest tips, procedures and technologies.
Would you hire him over an older, more experienced brain surgeon that has logged thousands of hours operating on various types of brain issues?
You’d probably go with the more experienced person, right?
Hit It With a Hammer
Have you heard the story about a homeowner whose furnace went out in the middle of the winter?
He called the repairman who came over and went down to the basement. The repairman took out a measuring tape and began measuring a certain distance from the furnace to the duct work.
He then took out a hammer and whacked the side of the furnace. The furnace suddenly started working!
He handed the home owner the following invoice:
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How long would it take you to KNOW WHERE TO HIT? What would you have to learn?
Club Versus Swing
Imagine if you were given an opportunity to play golf in the prestigious Masters Golf Tournament.
And you were given a choice between a $5,000 set of golf clubs OR a pro golf coach that would help you with your swing.
Which one would you choose?
Correcting your swing will improve your game more than any club ever will.
I’m sure most of us would choose help with our swing.
Simplify Your Business
Have you noticed? Life and business is getting more complicated and changing more rapidly everyday. Life is picking up speed.
With every new gadget you buy or new technology you adopt all come with more responsibility. These responsibilities require maintenance and learning curves. These days, as soon as you adopt a new technology – it’s outdated.
Wouldn’t it be nice to re-think and simplify your life and business so that everything works more efficiently?
When I hire or delegate a task it simplifies my life. It frees up more time for my high-pay-off, high-delight activities like building and marketing my business, adding value to my customers, playing the guitar or hanging out with my friends and loved ones.
Green Light Living
Imagine driving your car through a green light. You approach the next light and suddenly it turns green. Up ahead you see the next traffic light and it’s red. But as you get closer, it also turns green. To your surprise the next one is green and so is the next one!
All green lights. How does that make you feel?
The word “affluent” means to flow in abundance. Being in the “flow” state requires you to surrender and live supremely in the only moment – now.
This feeling that you are in perfect alignment with what you were born to do allows you to contribute to the world in the highest and best way. I call this green light living.
Isn’t this system a beautiful thing? Why resist it?
Time: The New Wealth
What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.
When you hire an expert to do what they were born to do and delegate tasks to folks who can do it better and faster than you can, or outsource projects that free up your time – you win and so does your business.
I’ve run my franchise businesses, real estate investments and coaching practice for the past 30 years using ideas in this article.
If you got one iota of value from this article, please share it so that others may benefit. I enjoy connecting. So if you have any questions, comments or just want to say hi… add a comment below and I promise to reply.
