Work Less to Earn More!

I don’t know an entrepreneur that isn’t busy.  Especially those of us that want to try ALL the things and have trouble saying no to new projects ☺

But to do what you do well, and to reach success faster, it really is critical to take a step back and start being more selective about where you spend your time.  You are most likely spending time on things that don’t really deserve your attention, and that time could be put to much better use – even if the better use is just time off.

So we’re going to talk about three things you want to do to spend less time on getting better results.  

Work less and earn more – ready?

Okay – so let’s start with the easiest way to clear your plate.    

Step one is to map out all the tasks you have on your schedule – look at your to do lists and your upcoming weeks schedule and determine which tasks will have the biggest impact on your bottom line.  

Which tasks will make you the most money, get you the most subscribers, raise your profile the most?  What is on your list that is going to really make a difference?  Pick the top 5 or 6 things and highlight those.  

Then I want you to look at those lists again and decide what have the least impact?

What are the busy-work items, the projects you don’t really need to be working on right now, and the things you thought were important, but are finding now don’t really create sales or impact in your business, and you should probably end or cut back on.  Or even the things that don’t need to be done by you – what can you delegate or outsource or just put off altogether?  Pick 8 -10 of those items.

Now get those items off your list and off your schedule.  They are a waste of your time and you time could be much better spent elsewhere.  

Phew – how does that feels?  Can you breathe a little bit now?

So now you have some time and space to do two things.  

If you are working all hours, never take a weekend off, and are totally burning yourself out, then use that time to better balance your schedule.  Rearrange things so you end your workdays at a reasonable hour, and take some real breaks at the end of the week.  This is valuable time for you to recharge, and you will find taking those real breaks you will be more productive when you do work, and more creative and strategic overall.

If your schedule was already pretty balanced, and you don’t need to use this newly found spare time to take a break, then take those newly created white spaces, and add in more of those task you identified as your high impact items.

For example, if you determined that sales calls are a task that are high impact and you normally do 10 a week – take that new empty timeslot and do an extra 10 or 20 sales calls.  If you know that every time you submit and article or focus on your PR you get a ton of new followers, then spend 2 hours on its instead of 1.  You get the idea.

The key here is to actually schedule those items in, so you don’t fall into default mode and start doing those busywork items again.

So right now, remove those low priority items from your list and replace them with the high impact tasks.

So that’s step one – replace low impact items with high impact items or rest.

Step two is to look at the 80/20 rule.  If you’re not familiar that, it’s the general rule that 80 percent of your results are created by 20 percent of your work and that 80 percent of your sales is created by 20 percent of your clients.  

Look at where your revenue is coming from.  What’s that 20% for you?  What’s the 20% that generates 80% of results? Do you have a few clients that are supporting the bulk of your business?  How do you find more of that type of client?  How do you serve them better to make sure you keep them and grow them?  How much time are you spending or wasting on the other 80% of low spenders?  Could you use that better elsewhere?

Look at your marketing – what is your 20% there?  When you look at all the time you spend on marketing in a week, there is likely a couple of key items that are creating the bulk of your results.  What are those items and how can you do more of similar items, to generate similar results?

Determine which areas in your business you are getting big results from a small portion of the input and then figure out how to replicate that?

The final step in working less to earn more, is to analyze potential.   

To make the most of your time, you need to learn to pause and really look at every opportunity, every single thing that will take up your time, and analyze it to determine whether it’s a level 1 opportunity (very low or no return), level 10 (incredible return) or where it falls on that scale of 1 to 10.  You have a finite number of hours in the day.  If it’s less than a 5, you probably need to walk away.  If it’s a 5 or higher then look at it – but if you are adding it to your schedule, you need to be removing something that is a 5 or lower from what you already have booked.

So, let’s say a client calls and wants to have you work on a project for them.  It’s a lot of work but its stable and a decent financial return – you say it’s a 6 and you want to do it – then you need to find something lower to get rid of that’s a lower rated opportunity.

For every new opportunity or task that crosses your desk rate the opportunity on a scale of 1 to 10 and then decide whether you go for it or skip it.  And DON’T JUST ADD IT – that’s where we get in trouble – replace something lower on the scale that has less potential.

So those are three strategies to help you get the junk off your plate and really focus on the things that grow your business, and that includes rest and recovery for you.

Freeing up some space in your days is going to allow you focus, make the most of your time, and start being more strategic about how to create real impact in your business.

So your one step for this time is to choose one of the three strategies and do it.

Either

1. Identify your high impact and low impact items and remove up to 10 low impact and replace them with 5 high impact items and some time off.

1. Identify your 80/20 – so determine what 20% of your tasks or customers create 80% of your results and then do more of those and decide how to cut some of the rest.

1. Start rating your opportunities as they come in from 1 to 10 and deciding whether to walk away from the opportunity or take it and remove something of a lower rating.

I can’t wait to see what kind of change this creates for you.

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