Scientific Marketing – May Entrepreneur Book
As a follow-up to last month’s read, we decided to cover a little more on marketing for the month. It’s something everyone should know more about so why not spend some extra focus there?
Check out the video below, I introduce the book, tell ya why I think it’s a good pick for the month, and share some great marketing tips as well.
Wanna Join Our Monthly Entrepreneurship Book Club?
Awesome! This book club started locally here with our young entrepreneurs group… and we decided to open it up to people outside of our area too because we kept getting emails from people who wanted to read the books we were doing.
So, it’s FREE. You just have to buy the book each month on your own.
But, sign up to the email list below… we’ll send you the details about the book each month, and the conference call in details for the end of the month ‘Decompression Chat” on the book.
Look forward to hearing all of your thoughts and insights into this incredible book.
- Trevor
Entrepreneur Book for March and April 2013
After a long drawn out search through my library here at The Loft we finally picked a book for our Entrepreneur Book Club to read this month. We decided we didn’t want to cover any of the major things that Jim Rohn covered in our last book (The 5 Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle) and wanted to read about something a little different but equally as valuable.
The book we chose is written by someone who is always easy to read, because not only is he hilarious but full of incredible information. Intrigued?
Check out the video below, I introduce the book, tell ya why I think it’s a good pick for the month, and share some great marketing tips as well.
Wanna Join Our Monthly Entrepreneurship Book Club?
Awesome! This book club started locally here with our young entrepreneurs group… and we decided to open it up to people outside of our area too because we kept getting emails from people who wanted to read the books we were doing.
So, it’s FREE. You just have to buy the book each month on your own.
But, sign up to the email list below… we’ll send you the details about the book each month, and the conference call in details for the end of the month ‘Decompression Chat” on the book.
Look forward to hearing all of your thoughts and insights into this incredible book.
- Trevor
My Favorite Book From 2012 – And January Entrepreneur Book Club Book
I started an entrepreneur club a little over a year ago and we recently launched a book club. We are kicking off 2013 with a great book that I read recently that really helped me change focus and think differently about a lot of things. I wanted to be sure to share the book with as many people as possible so decided to read it this month again with the Young Entrepreneur Society (YES).
Check out this video, I’ll introduce the book and share a few of my take aways:
Wanna Join Our Monthly Entrepreneurship Book Club?
Awesome! This book club started locally here with our young entrepreneurs group… and we decided to open it up to people outside of our area too because we kept getting emails from people who wanted to read the books we were doing.
So, it’s FREE. You just have to buy the book each month on your own.
But, sign up to the email list below… we’ll send you the details about the book each month, and the conference call in details for the end of the month ‘Decompression Chat” on the book.
Look forward to hearing all of your thoughts and insights into this incredible book.
- Trevor
One Big Thing
Have you ever wondered when too much as an entrepreneur is too much? Or heck, even if you haven’t started a business yet… have you ever wondered when taking on too much in life is too much?
Ya, I think we all have. And, most of us have probably at one point or another looked at what we have going on in life or business and thought… “damn! I’m doing way too much stuff… so much that I can’t get anything done”. Heck, this might even be you right now.
I know I have. In fact, just in the past 18 months I’ve gone through this struggle and while the answer seems to be clear and right there in front of your face (that you should be working on fewer “things”)… for some reason it’s easy to justify all of the stuff we’re doing and say that “I can handle it all”.
You see, a funny thing happens when you see a bit of success… or even before you see success but everything clicks mindset wise and you see everything out there as a legitimate opportunity that you know you can take advantage of. Heck, after I had a couple business successes… people started coming to me with ideas… ideas that I loved and knew that if I would get behind would work and be home runs.
Opportunity breeds optimism. And optimism breeds opportunity. They feed off of each other. The more you see the world for what it is… FULL OF OPPORTUNITY for those of us looking for it and optimistic about the outlook of the word… the easier it is to fall into this trap that I’m about to lay out below.
Ever Heard Of Too Much Opportunity?
It sounds like a contradiction right? Too much opportunity?
It’s like too much ice cream (I have had too much ice cream before, it wasn’t pretty). Some people struggle seeing opportunity in anything (if that’s you, you can turn it around. It’s all mindset, gratitude, and surrounding yourself with the right people). Some people see opportunity in everything… almost to a fault (that’s me).
Going into last year I had 2 thriving businesses (by thriving I mean both providing a more than full-time income on a fraction of the hours normal people work each week). Then half way through that year my income dropped by nearly half.
Why?
It wasn’t a lack of opportunity. It wasn’t that customers weren’t there. It wasn’t that the industry had changed. None of that.
What it was… was in the previous year I had seen so much damn opportunity… and said YES to so many projects… I flooded myself with a workload and responsibilities I couldn’t keep up with.
Deadlines here. Deadlines there. Getting missed.
Splitting my focus on project A with projects B, C, and a new D project.
If you can picture a juggler juggling 1 ball… it’s easy for them right? You add another ball… still easy… the juggler needs to concentrate a bit more… but even 3 balls that juggler can do pretty much without problem. But, as you add on new balls into the mix… the juggler starts to lose focus on each individual ball. Balls get dropped… the arcs the juggler throws the balls on get sloppy… and before you know it, every single ball the juggler is tossing in the air gets less and less attention and eventually they all fall down.
That was me.
So, How Do You Know When It’s Too Much?
I always struggled with this until a mentor and mastermind member told me this.
“Always be working on the main thing and 1 big thing”.
What he means by the “main thing” is whatever you’re doing that is bringing in the money right now. For me, the business that was my “main thing” had slid down the list to number 2 or 3 on the focus ladder sometimes. So my income there started to hurt.
And since I was working on 2 or 3 “main things” at once… the “big thing” I wanted to work on really never got off the ground the way it should have.
So, this past 4 months has been my time to remove balls from the juggling routine… and to really decide what is my “main thing” that will get the vast majority of my attention… and what is the 1 “big thing” I’ll be working on on the side to do something big.
For me, it wasn’t easy. My passions have changed in the last 2 years and what was once my “main thing” is now being taken completely off the table by me making the tough decision to sell the company (even though it’s a great company and can be highly profitable). Now I’m forced to focus on growing the main company only… and still be able to push forward 1 epic project at the same time. All without overwhelm… and with a clarity I haven’t had in 2 years. It feels darn great 
What’s Your One Big Thing?
So I ask you… do you feel like you’re spinning your wheels? Do you feel like you’re working on a lot of great high opportunity projects but none of them are getting pushed forward like you know they can and should? If that’s the case, you’re probably juggling too many balls.
Sit down today and figure out what your 1 “main thing” is that you’ll spend the vast majority of your time focusing on. Then, what is the 1 “big thing” you want to push forward on the side? It could be another business, a book you want to write, a non-profit, etc.
Always be working on something big, and something that brings home the bacon today. Nothing more, nothing less.
Email Marketing Strategies Interview With Ben Settle
In this podcast I interview Ben Settle and get some great tips on email marketing and Ben’s unique email marketing strategies like…
Why your subscribers want you to email them every single day (and what happens if you don’t)- How to shift into pitching in emails in a cool way people love
- How important is it really to check email stats?
- The value of a great subject line
- Action steps to start your own email marketing campaign, or making the one you already have better
Like stuff like this? Join my email newsletter. You’re gonna love it.
When To Launch A New Business
So, the past 3 years I’ve had a project “on the sidelines” waiting to launch.
You probably ask… “For 3 years? Seriously? Why’d you wait so long?”
Truthfully, I never intended on it. Originally I had planned on launching this new service (more on it later in this post) in 2010.
But didn’t.
Until last week.
Here’s why.
How Many Rabbits Are You Chasing?
Today I was reading a post from Tim Berry on his blog. Great post by the way. You should read it.
He shows a quote from this article... which reminded me of really why I’d waited so darn long to launch this service that I know will absolutely crush it with the approach we’re taking… in a market that needs disrupting.
To boil it down, this passage says it well…
Remember this: More companies die of indigestion than starvation. When you look back five years from now, your success will based much more on the times you said “no” rather than the times you said “yes.” As the old Chinese proverb states wisely, “Chase two rabbits and both will escape.”
When A Business Idea Is Ready To Roll
For me, this idea was ready to roll in 2009. But the problem was that I wasn’t ready to roll until the last couple months.
There’s a big difference.
In 2009, 2010, and 2011 my team wasn’t built out enough to be able to handle it. I was working on running my online publishing company (which I sold actually June 1st of this year to my crazy awesome business partner Patrick Riddle who is taking it over 100% to grow and prosper), starting our software company Automize, our entrepreneur co-workspace The Loft here in Roseburg, and just couldn’t add another rabbit to the mix.
But, once the sale of my publishing company happened… the timing was right. 3 years after I not only had the idea but a fully working beta system with 300 beta users in the hacked together system. 3 years.
When I was 12 I remember my mom driving up to this drive through ATM machine off the busiest street in our small town of Klamath Falls, Oregon. She drove up, put in her card… punched some numbers… and out popped some cash.
But, 15 minutes before that we were at the video rental store getting a movie.
While at the ATM the idea came to me that it would be really cool if I could drive up and get a movie the same way people drive up and get cash. Cool right? Ya, Redbox has made a billion dollar industry out of that one idea.
The idea was right, but the timing for me when I was 12… wasn’t (but I wish it was .
What I Need To Be Ready To Launch A New Business
I didn’t realize this when I started my first company… really I didn’t realize this stuff until the last year or so. But, now after starting 4 companies… selling 1… and currently growing 2… I’ve figured out what I need to keep me sane in the business, having fun, and make it profitable.
- Focus: For me, I get distracted pretty easily by new ideas. I’m getting better now… but still am a pretty darn optimistic guy who sees opportunity everywhere. So, for me I can’t have more than 1 main focus… and no more than 2 side projects. That’s it. Anymore and I start to drop balls everywhere and end up wasting time juggling stuff and buried in planning and email all day. It sucks. So, for me… it’s one main project that I focus 80% of my time on (or more)… and at most 2 side projects to grow… with a team helping me. Right now Automize is my main thing (we have big plans for it)… and my 2 side projects are this new service currently called REItheme and my local entrepreneur things (the Young Entrepreneur Society and The Loft entrepreneur co-workspace).
- Help: I used to get off on thinking I could do things myself. I’m a quick learner and tend to do a pretty darn good job at most things. But, it took me a few years to learn that asking for help is a good thing. Especially when I can solve the problem with a bit of money… that would give me leverage so I could focus on better stuff. Now, I can’t launch a new venture without having a team ready to take on the bulk of the dirty work. This new service is a software as a service currently aimed at the real estate investor market (we’ll be quickly growing outside of this market in the next 18 months too). Before I was ready to launch it this year I recruited my brother, Kyle Mauch to dive in as the head of operations, secured our lead tech person for the build outs and tech side of the support, and the next move is bringing in support staff and then eventually a sales/marketing lead so I can step away and just run the business from the strategy side of things.
It’s not easy for me to pass things off. I’m getting better at it… but this new business would never have been ready to launch last week if we didn’t have at least a skeleton of a team ready to roll so I wasn’t doing everything.
- A Leverage-able Advantage: For me this is a biggie. This new service would have fell by the wayside long ago if this didn’t exist for me. It’s not easy to launch a new business or service into a market that you don’t have a foothold in already. Can it be done? Yep, I’ve done it. But it took some damn hard work and didn’t happen quickly. But, now I look for places where I have leverage in the market that I can play toward my advantage to get the business launched more quickly. In this particular market, the real estate investor world, I’ve built up a lot of knowledge in this world as an investor myself (so know the product and customer inside and out), I’ve built up a lot of goodwill and relationships with people in the market who have influence, and we have assets (i.e. – websites and email lists) in this market already that we can immediately spread the word to about our new service. But, let me be clear on this… the real estate investor market isn’t our main goal with this service. In fact, we see it being a small part of the business long-term. But, it’s where we can come out of the gates quickly… grow the business and the team… provide a lot of value to the customers… then we can roll out in a bigger way with the momentum we’ve already created in a market I know well.
For me, thats what I look for now.
It makes starting a new business or launching a new service a heck of a lot easier, quicker, and more profitable.
Time To Grow.
So, here on my blog I’ll chronicle the growth of this company as we go. It should be fun. It’ll be my first business working with my brother which will be awesome. This business has a huge upside exit potential (you’re probably thinking “how?”… we’ve got some big plans. More on that later). And I’m excited as heck to roll this puppy out in a big way.
We’ll be learning a ton as we grow this company… and I’ll pass on the good stuff to ya.
So, are you waiting for the right time to launch a new company? First off, if you already have a company or two… wait until you don’t have so many rabbits in the race (or until you have more people with you on your team to chase the rabbits) to launch. If you don’t have a company yet… that’s called procrastination 
. Get started, hit it hard, and stay focused.
Quick video tour of our Entrepreneur Co-Workspace, The Loft
We’re coming up on our 1 year anniversary here at The Loft… our entrepreneur co-workspace I started last year in Downtown Roseburg.
We were lucky as heck to find such a great space… work out a big time win-win for the building owner and me… and get a group of great businesses to move into the 8,000sq ft space.
Just a little bit of creative thinking is all it took.
Thanks for all of the support… and the next 12 months at The Loft we’re going to really start doing some cool stuff.
Stop by at 950 SE Oak Street in Roseburg, Oregon if you’re ever in our neck of the woods.
- Trevor
How To Earn 2x More Income and Work 33% Less – Part 2: How To Find People To Do Work For You On The Cheap
When I got started as an entrepreneur and investor I didn’t have a ton of cash to pay people for everything. I had to do a good bit myself still… like mowing the lawns at my properties, doing my books, buying stamps, etc. But, if I would have known what I know now… I would have found someone to do all of that for me years sooner, earning me tens of thousands more (and making life more fun and fulfilling).
FIRST, we need to root out the wrong thoughts you have on “outsourcing” or “hiring” that are holding you back.
1) It’s expensive to pay people to do things
WRONG: It’s more expensive for you waste hours doing a task you could pay someone $8-10/hr to do for you. Your hours should be spent marketing and bringing in revenue, not doing medial tasks. Don’t worry about creating a logo, updating your website, or stuffing letters because it’s “cheaper”. Nope. I’ll show you ways to get it done cheap so youcan spend that time creating new marketing, talking to sellers/buyers, making offers, so you can earn 10x more new income than it costs you to pay for your new outsourced workers.
2) I don’t have any money to pay people
WRONG: I’ve had people work with me for free for up to 3 months before… as interns, or just because they wanted the experience in the real business world. Upwards of 22% of working age Americans don’t have a full-time job right now. They’re motivated to earn anything, and many are motivated to just get any new experience they can put on their resume… even if they don’t get paid for it.
3) I don’t know what I would have people do for me
WRONG: It’s not usually that you don’t have enough things to hand off to other people, its that you’re not CLEAR enough on your goals and what you’re doing (and why) to be clear on what steps you need to be taking in your business… to be clear on what you should be doing yourself (high value stuff that makes you money) and what you should have someone else do. If this is you, you need to get clear on your goals, your “why”, and your specific 30-60-90 day plan for what you need to do in your business. Once you’re clear and your taking action w/ a clear plan… a billion things will show themselves that you need to find someone else to do for you.
4) I hate managing people
WRONG: I read in a book recently, the roles of a leader are to “ predict the future/set the vision and to delegate”. If you’re not charting out the vision and path of your company and delegating tasks to other people… you’re not a leader. If you hate managing people, find someone who you can partner with in your business who can manage people. Or even better, if you’re going to be successful in business and really take hold of your life, you NEED to sharpen your leadership skills. I find working with the right people is actually fun and MORE rewarding than working by myself. The “fear of managing people” I feel is more of a fear that you won’t live up to your or their expectations as a leader… so you blame it on the other people being tough to manage. I’ve done that myself, that’s why I know.
How and Where To Find People On The Cheap
Most people tell you that you need to look “online” on places like elance.com or guru.com. Those are good places for specific things (random low skill web work, decent logos, finding someone to update your website for you, etc.), but I’ve found other places are better. Here are some great places to start.
Small Online Type Tasks – Image editing, editing audios, simple logos, random stuff
- § Fiverr.com – Can get quick image edits, mp3 recordings cleaned up, etc for $5.
- § Craigslist.org – Tons of local people w/o work who can edit videos, post content to your site, help run your facebook and twitter, post properties to listing sites, etc… for under $10/hr.
- § 399design.com – We use them for many of our new sites now. Under $400 and you get great sites and great service
- § Your Local College – If you have a college in your town, find the department in the school that teaches what you need to get done (graphics, writing, web work, etc.) and talk to the teachers in that department, have them refer to you the kids in those classes who want work. I did this, my logos now cost me $45 from a college kid… rather than $300 at a logo service.
Offline / Local Stuff – Personal assistant stuff, stuffing envelopes, mailing things, putting up signs, etc.
- Craigslist.org – Same as above. Tons of off work people eager to do your random tasks for under $10/hr. I have a gal doing my grocery shopping, mailing things, hanging art in my office, etc for only $12/hr. Frees me up to do high value work that earns me money (that I actually love doing)
- Local Networking Groups – Don’t have one? Create one. I hired 2 people recently through referrals from a networking group I created locally for young entrepreneurs. Referrals are the best.
- Local College – College students are looking for internships. Create an internship program (www.internprofits.com shows you how) and submit it to your local college. I’ve done that twice. Free work
- Mentor an Up and Coming Investor – There’s tons of people who want to invest in real estate. If you’ve done a few deals and have a bit of experience, go to the local REIA and find an eager person who wants to learn. Have them work for free for you learning the biz.
I could throw some more places at ya… but truthfully, all of the best people I’ve got to do work for me have come from those places above. The biggest thing is you have to make the mind-shift from what I call “victim hiring” to “empowered hiring”. Too many people are afraid if they hire people, that they’ll train them, only to have that person leave within a few months… wasting your time with them. It’s a valid concern.
The solution is just making sure to truly screen people well.
If you get 4 people that respond to an ad on craigslist to do a video editing project, create a “mini-project” (something easy that will take them maybe an hour or two) and have all 4 do that same project at the same time. Give them all the same specs, the same deadline, and hire the one that does the best. Then create systems in your business so you only train one time ever, then your systems do it all for you in the future. On the next “work less – make more” topic I’ll dive into the simple as heck systems we use in my businesses so I only train once, and our systems take over and do it for me if that person ever leaves my company. Great stuff. That training alone has saved friends of mine well over $10k and countless hours… you’ll get it in the SI Insider issue after next. So, get your goals down now (and your life list), get clear on things, and aim to outsource at least one tiny thing in the next 2 weeks. Once you do, you’ll wonder why you hadn’t sooner. This alone can cut your work time by 20% or more
-Trevor
How To Make 3x Your Current Income Working 1/3 LESS Hours A Week – Part 1
It was probably 4 years ago… my wife and I lived up in Portland, OR at the time and I was growing my companies (multi-family rental units and my marketing company) mainly working by myself.
You know the gig. I’d wake up, go through my normal “morning routine” (which at the time probably did more harm to my productivity than good), I’d write out my long list of things to do that day,… then I’d get to work doing the things I thought I needed to do.
When you start your own company YOU are the man (or woman). Often times we take on a ton of roles. YOU are the marketer. YOU are the bookkeeper. YOU manage your properties. YOU run errands. YOU are your own website guy. YOU answer every phone call. YOU write thank you notes to people. YOU get your own coffee. YOU drive to properties to check them out. YOU try to make your own logo (don’t tell me you’ve never tried . YOU are the center of your company and YOU do everything.
That’s a heck of a lot of YOU’s.
You see, I did everything in my businesses for almost 2 years thinking I was doing myself a favor by “saving money” and “learning cool skills to have”. Yes, when I first got started, I had NO money, so yes… I had to get creative and doing pretty much everything in my business myself was my only option. But, when I started to make some good profits… a weird thing happened… I was still doing everything.
Yep, I was still hacking away at my websites myself… I was still doing my bookkeeping for my properties and my marketing business… I was still taking tenant calls… I was still going down to the post office to mail letters. I was still doing it all… and was working more than ever (but I felt good about it because I was staying “busy” and thought “busy” = efficient).
Does any of this sound familiar? I bet it does.
Now, fast forward to today.
Today I make 3x – 4x more than I did 4 years ago… and I work literally 1/3 less hours than I did back then when I was working my ass off “saving money” left and right by doing everything myself.
What was the big change? What mind-shift and specific actions did I take that tripled my income and let me work less?
Simple, I figured out what I was truly worth… and started only doing things that paid me what I was worth, which were the top 5% of things I did every day. Sounds too simple right? Do you want to triple your income and work less at the same time? (ha, how fast did you mentally say “yes”?).
Alrighty, now… lets go through the same exercise I went through 4 years ago that helped me make that mindshift and realize what I SHOULD and more importantly… SHOULD NOT be doing in my businesses and life.
First, grab a piece of paper and at the top write down how much money you want to make in the next 12 months. Be realistic and make it attainable… but make it a goal that gets you excited. Just so I can work along w/ ya on this exercise… lets say it’s the nice round number of $100,000.
Next, ideally… how many hours a week do you want to work?
For me, I still work 30-40 hours a week, mainly because I want to. But, before I did this exercise I was working 60+ hours every single week and hating it. For this example lets say you stuck w/ the standard 40 hours a week number.
Now lets do a little math and work backwards to find out how much you’re worth each hour if your goal is to make $100,000/yr working 40 hours a week.
Fancy Dancy Math Time:
40 hours x 52 weeks in a year = 2,080 hours per year
$100,000 divided by 2,080 hours = $48.07 per hour
So, if you want to make $100,000 per year working 40 hours per week, on average you’ll have to make $48.07 every hour you work. Now of course some hours you’ll make way way more (like when you close a deal)… and some hours you’ll make way way less (like doing random crap tasks you shouldn’t be doing).
So, What Do You Do With This Number Now?
Now that you’ve got your number of what your time is worth if you want to reach those goals… you need to write down all of the things you do every day that can be outsourced to someone else for less than $48.07 (or in your case, the number you came up with for how much your time is worth).
For me it was… the technical side of creating my website or uploading my blog posts… answering phone calls everyday for my business… formatting my letters… going to the post office or running random errands… booking my hotels for my business trips… collecting rent checks and taking tenant calls… doing my bookkeeping… and a bunch of other things that someone else can do for cheaper than my own time is worth.
Now, this is the BIGGIE that you NEED to get 100% to make this work.
While you have other people doing the lower value things for you, you should be doing the things that bring in money for you. Creating a new marketing piece. Meeting with sellers or private lenders. Doing an interview for a new hire. Making offers on properties. Creating systems in your business that other people execute for you. Researching ways to invest your money so it grows. Test new ads and places to advertise. Call your buyers or private lenders to build that relationship. Create a referral campaign to bring in referrals from your current clients. That kind of stuff.
As a rule of thumb, about 90-95% of everything you’re doing right now in your business can (and a good majority of it should) be outsourced. Then that other 5% – 10% should be things that you love to do, are really good at, and directly bring in cash to your business that you focus on.
Now, post that magic number that you came up with in this exercise on your wall… and consciously start to track the things you’re doing over the next week that you know someone else can do for you for less than that number.
-Trevor
It was probably 4 years ago… my wife and I lived up in Portland, OR at the time and I was growing my companies (multi-family rental units and my marketing company) mainly working by myself.
You know the gig. I’d wake up, go through my normal “morning routine” (which at the time probably did more harm to my productivity than good), I’d write out my long list of things to do that day,… then I’d get to work doing the things I thought I needed to do.
When you start your own company YOU are the man (or woman). Often times we take on a ton of roles. YOU are the marketer. YOU are the bookkeeper. YOU manage your properties. YOU run errands. YOU are your own website guy. YOU answer every phone call. YOU write thank you notes to people. YOU get your own coffee. YOU drive to properties to check them out. YOU try to make your own logo (don’t tell me you’ve never tried . YOU are the center of your company and YOU do everything.
That’s a heck of a lot of YOU’s.
You see, I did everything in my businesses for almost 2 years thinking I was doing myself a favor by “saving money” and “learning cool skills to have”. Yes, when I first got started, I had NO money, so yes… I had to get creative and doing pretty much everything in my business myself was my only option. But, when I started to make some good profits… a weird thing happened… I was still doing everything.
Yep, I was still hacking away at my websites myself… I was still doing my bookkeeping for my properties and my marketing business… I was still taking tenant calls… I was still going down to the post office to mail letters. I was still doing it all… and was working more than ever (but I felt good about it because I was staying “busy” and thought “busy” = efficient).
Does any of this sound familiar? I bet it does.
Now, fast forward to today.
Today I make 3x – 4x more than I did 4 years ago… and I work literally 1/3 less hours than I did back then when I was working my ass off “saving money” left and right by doing everything myself.
What was the big change? What mind-shift and specific actions did I take that tripled my income and let me work less?
Simple, I figured out what I was truly worth… and started only doing things that paid me what I was worth, which were the top 5% of things I did every day. Sounds too simple right? Do you want to triple your income and work less at the same time? (ha, how fast did you mentally say “yes”?).
Alrighty, now… lets go through the same exercise I went through 4 years ago that helped me make that mindshift and realize what I SHOULD and more importantly… SHOULD NOT be doing in my businesses and life.
First, grab a piece of paper and at the top write down how much money you want to make in the next 12 months. Be realistic and make it attainable… but make it a goal that gets you excited. Just so I can work along w/ ya on this exercise… lets say it’s the nice round number of $100,000.
Next, ideally… how many hours a week do you want to work? For me, I still work 30-40 hours a week, mainly because I want to. But, before I did this exercise I was working 60+ hours every single week and hating it. For this example lets say you stuck w/ the standard 40 hours a week number.
Now lets do a little math and work backwards to find out how much you’re worth each hour if your goal is to make $100,000/yr working 40 hours a week.
Fancy Dancy Math Time:
40 hours x 52 weeks in a year = 2,080 hours per year
$100,000 divided by 2,080 hours = $48.07 per hour
So, if you want to make $100,000 per year working 40 hours per week, on average you’ll have to make $48.07 every hour you work. Now of course some hours you’ll make way way more (like when you close a deal)… and some hours you’ll make way way less (like doing random crap tasks you shouldn’t be doing).
So, What Do You Do With This Number Now?
Now that you’ve got your number of what your time is worth if you want to reach those goals… you need to write down all of the things you do every day that can be outsourced to someone else for less than $48.07 (or in your case, the number you came up with for how much your time is worth).
For me it was… the technical side of creating my website or uploading my blog posts… answering phone calls everyday for my business… formatting my letters… going to the post office or running random errands… booking my hotels for my business trips… collecting rent checks and taking tenant calls… doing my bookkeeping… and a bunch of other things that someone else can do for cheaper than my own time is worth.
Now, this is the BIGGIE that you NEED to get 100% to make this work.
While you have other people doing the lower value things for you, you should be doing the things that bring in money for you. Creating a new marketing piece. Meeting with sellers or private lenders. Doing an interview for a new hire. Making offers on properties. Creating systems in your business that other people execute for you. Researching ways to invest your money so it grows. Test new ads and places to advertise. Call your buyers or private lenders to build that relationship. Create a referral campaign to bring in referrals from your current clients. That kind of stuff.
As a rule of thumb, about 90-95% of everything you’re doing right now in your business can (and a good majority of it should) be outsourced. Then that other 5% – 10% should be things that you love to do, are really good at, and directly bring in cash to your business that you focus on.
Now, post that magic number that you came up with in this exercise on your wall… and consciously start to track the things you’re doing over the next week that you know someone else can do for you for less than that number. Then next month I’ll show you how to find the right people to outsource things too… and how it’ll essentially be FREE for you to have the right people working for you J See ya next month!
Audio Interview I Did On How I Built My Businesses To 7 Figures In Sales Before I Turned 28
I did an interview w/ John Corcoran a few weeks back over at www.CaLawReport.com . John is a young dude… a business attorney… and sharp guy.
In the interview we chatted about business
- how I started and grew my online based companies to $1million+ in sales before I was 28
- How we have systematized our online companies so our team drives things forward for us
- How we’ve launched new companies based on the “by-products” of our main companies
- What I feel are the most important things that successful people do vs. those who struggle
…
… and a bunch more
Head over and check out the interview at Johns site <<
Enjoy
- Trevor