Most entrepreneurs start their business out of passion or because they see a gap in the market.
And, let’s be honest, because we’re not built for the 9-5. We think the whole world must be playing some huge joke – who in their right mind thinks working 40 hours a week for the bulk of your life, with a few weeks off, is normal?
So, we start the business!
Most of us won’t get past an income ceiling because we run out of time and get stuck in the day-to-day.
It was in my first businesses that I learnt something that got me the elusive financial, time and location freedom all business wonders get into it for.
Something that helped me scale multiple businesses to over $1 million in revenue while working under 20 hours a week.
The thing: more work, more hours, and more hustle is not the only way to success.
When you start a business, instead of longer hours, wearing all the hats, and avoiding hiring staff to run lean, set it up as a multi-million-dollar enterprise from day one.
One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is only hiring for roles to grow their business. You need to hire to buy back your own time by duplicating yourself!
You cannot scale if you are the bottleneck in your business – if you are responsible for most revenue, processes and customer satisfaction.
And it’s not about waiting until ‘when’. When you make more sales, when you get more clients, when you’re more established. If you clone yourself now, you are going to get ‘there’ ten times faster.
Imagine someone else doing ten hours of lead generation a week, twenty hours ticking off the endless to-do list, and ten invested in client nurture. What would this do for your revenue?
What needle-moving tasks could you focus on?
If I were starting again today, this is exactly what I would do:
1. Source the right people from the start
What do you hate doing? What tasks don’t directly make income? What have you ever done more than once? These are all responsibilities that can be outsourced immediately. I encourage you to begin with an offshore virtual assistant for obvious economical reasons. All V.A.s I hire from the Philippines are remunerated with a highly ethical rate of around $7 an hour, plus a thirteenth month bonus. Many sites that can corroborate this data, including hiring platform www.onlinejobs.ph. Use an extensive triage process including a video cover letter, sense checks available on this site, portfolios, etc.
2. Time-saving team training and management
Instead of giving your team steps as a training and managing methodology, give them outcomes. If the outcome is achieved, brilliant! And if not, then work with them to critique their steps to see where the hole is. Giving an outcome takes mere seconds, whereas outlining intricate steps can take hours. Also, get your team to train themselves. I bet the owner of Starbucks doesn’t know how to make a frappacino!
3. Leaders create leaders
Your team should be empowered to delegate up. When there is a problem or uncertainty, they should not be coming to you with questions for you to delegate down. They should present to you the problem, context, potential consequences and several solutions for you to quickly approve. Not only is this fostering this ecosystem of leadership, but you’re also condensing time.
In summary: stick to the things you love, find A-players to do the rest, and buy back your time.
