Is it Time to Invest in Your Business? A Guide to Saving Time and Scaling.
Jun 27, 2023
Let's talk about scaling and what we have invested in so far in 2023 and why. If you haven't heard my full story, I started this business in January 2020 by hiring a business coach and joining a mastermind before I had a business. Then six months in I hired a virtual assistant and a podcast editor to help me. I reinvested everything I made and more. Why? Because time and the ability to get to my goal quickly were my #1 focus.
Project Triangle
In the project management world, there is this concept of the project triangle. It consists of time, cost, and scope (i.e. what you need to do) with quality being in the middle. These factors are often considered constraints because they have a direct impact on each other, and any change in one of them can affect the other two. The project management triangle is helpful in entrepreneurship as it provides a framework for decision-making and prioritization.
Example: If you want to go fast, you have to decrease your scope or decrease time (which means hiring). If you want to get more done, you have to increase the time (your schedule) and increase the cost (aka hire someone).
So when you are looking at a goal, which for me as a business strategist was income to replace my corporate job, I knew I didn't have time. I only had 8-10 hours a week and I wanted to get there fast. So I had to focus on what the "scope" was - the income-producing activities AND how to do the work. This brings me back to today's topic, investing back in your business.
The Smartest Hires I Made in Business
Before I get into the 2023 investments (aka what we are doing right now) the two smartest hires I made in our business at the beginning were #1) A VA to repurpose content. I created an entire plan where I would create one piece of content (the podcast in our case) and then had someone working 10 hours a month with the sole purpose of being as visible as possible. The efficiency of that really helped us scale fast. The second best hire (aside from a podcast editing team because that is NOT my jam) was having a website designed on retainer. All the hours I spent trying to fix a silly button was now not my responsibility. Between these two hires, my guess is I was saving up to 10+ hours of time each week. In the beginning, these tasks simply weren't getting done because I didn't have time.
How do I know if I am ready to outsource?
I also get the question a lot "How do I know if I am ready to outsource?" If you are asking, you probably are. Even if it's just two hours a week on a focused task, that is two hours of time that frees you up to do other income-generating activities.
My FAVORITE resource for outsourcing is the book "Who Not How" by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy. The book suggests that by shifting our focus from "how" to "who," we can tap into the expertise, skills, and resources of others to accelerate our progress and achieve greater success. Hardy introduces the concept of the "Multiplier Mindset," which involves leveraging the strengths and talents of others to accomplish tasks more efficiently and effectively. It encourages a shift in mindset from trying to do everything ourselves to leveraging the expertise and support of others, ultimately leading to greater productivity, innovation, and fulfillment.
The idea:
- "Your job is to protect your time and energy for the things that matter most. You don't need to know how. You need to know who."
- "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others."
- "No one has ever achieved great things alone. The power of many always surpasses the power of one."
- "When you stop trying to do everything yourself, you create space for the right opportunities and people to come into your life."
These are the Post-it note quotes I have on my desk from this book.
Hopefully, you are motivated now on why outsourcing is important. Here's what our strategy looks like this year so far, including three outsourcing shifts we've made.
Our Outsourcing Strategy
From a team perspective, I hired my husband last year but gave him a promotion in January.
He does all our books, taxes, finances, etc. But we took it a step further. Every month we have a financial planning meeting where we talk about the health of the business, but also, what I want to invest in and what we want to do as a family.
As an example, we look at our revenue and then divide it up into buckets.
- Pay our taxes first
- Then we pay ourselves
- 20% goes back into the business (so when I want to hire coaches, etc I can)
- A portion goes into our "travel fund" to align with our goal to travel more
- The rest goes into savings
This has been a HUGE shift for us because it makes numbers and financial discussions easy. In the beginning, we didn't have a lot to re-invest so I used my corporate salary to help grow the business. The point is though, this year, adding in a travel fund and being consistent with paying ourselves and saving has been super motivating. Even if you don't have a lot of profit each month, move $5. Or $10.
The practice makes a huge impact.
Do you love these tips? Take the Productivity Personality Quiz to get a Netflix-style binge-worthy resource list to help you find your focus and is customized to you! Take the quiz here.
Investment #2: Copywriting and SEO
The second investment we made was copywriting and SEO for our website. I have quarterly audits done of keywords and trending topics so we can better align our content to what is being searched, as well as use the words that you are looking for. So far we have rolled out one new page on the website. The homepage and a few others are coming soon. The goal is to make it easy to find resources on auto-pilot and better use the funnels and systems we already have set up.
With that, we started using "Many Chat" which is not really outsourcing a person but is a system that helps streamline DMS and messages. This goes back to our website goals and creating a visibility strategy to reach more people and grow our email list.
Investment #3: Hiring a Coach
The third investment I have made this year starting in January was hiring a coach. So far I have had two coaches this year. One on mindset and just overall alignment on business strategy and one on really focusing on how to scale our business model and sales. You can read how this has turned out here.
The biggest piece of advice I can give when it comes to hiring a coach or mentor is to hire the person that has the business model you want AND who makes up for your weaknesses.
The last thing we are doing, which hasn't been an investment yet, but a project internally is realigning our team with what they love to do and their strengths. This also includes making sure that we are being as efficient as possible with what work needs to be done each month and serving our clients at the highest capacity. The goal is that I can step more into the visionary role and the team works as integrators.
So six months into the year, that is what we have focused on so far when it comes to investing. It's definitely a mix of personal support and investing back into the business, but it feels very aligned with where we want to go.
As Dan Sullivan says. "When you find the right 'who,' you can achieve things you never thought possible. Collaboration unlocks exponential growth."
Looking to scale and not sure what the next step is? I have a brand new masterclass and dream income quiz you can take to help you discover your next step.
I am happy to answer any of your outsourcing questions anytime, just send me a DM. I used to run multi-million dollar teams in my corporate life, so this is something I am excited to dig back into!
Looking for more on this topic and your High-Level Action items? Check out the Strategy Lab in the Crush the Rush Club!
Resources
- Read my post on the 5 reasons your business needs a strategy coach
- My favorite book on outsourcing: Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy
- How I use leap weeks to scale
- Not sure what to do next? Check out my brand new masterclass + quiz that will help you discover the next step.
