This One Word Should Be Your Best Mate If You Are Serious About Scaling…
Money can buy you a lot of things. Especially when you have a lot of it. But the one thing that money can never buy you is… Time.
One of the world’s most successful entrepreneur, with over $88 billion dollars to his name – Warren Buffet - says this:
“It’s the only thing you can’t buy. I mean, I can buy anything I want, basically, but I can’t buy time.”
As a small business owner, you are probably acutely aware of how important your time is. In fact, for a lot of you, your current income is probably directly linked to the amount of time you are able to allocate to working on and in your business. Trading time for money is a trap that a vast majority tend to fall into in the early stages of business growth.
Time is the one thing that will cap your business. It is a commodity that needs your attention. Understanding how to wisely invest this precious resource will determine how well you scale, how fast you can scale and how profitable your business becomes in the process.
So, what is the one word that will transform your calendar, your business and contribute significantly to your overall success, once you adopt it as your new best mate….?
‘No.’
This one little word will totally transform how you grow and scale.
Another quote from Warren Buffet puts this into perspective:
"The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything."
There is an interview he does with Bill Gates where he mentions that his calendar is pretty much empty, and has been for years.
People will always want your time. If you don’t respect your time, no one else will either.
Wise Investment of Time in Your Business
Your Best Spent Time – Daily Tasks
When it comes to your business, the first thing you need to do is clearly understand where your best time is spent on daily tasks.
There are many tasks that you do every day in your business that could be done by someone else. A good place to start is to list out all of the tasks you are doing, and allocate them into one of the four quadrants you see in this image:
Once you understand what the tasks are that you hate and are not good at, start looking for people you can hire who are able to take on those tasks.
DELEGATE! Saying ‘no’ to these tasks will free up your TIME to focus on areas where you can excel, and your business will profit almost immediately from it.
Your Best Spent Time – Client Acquisition
The second thing you need to identify is the people on whom your best time is spent.
Have you ever been sitting in a coffee catch-up chatting to someone who contacted you on LinkedIn stating that they are interested in your business, and realising that this person is never going to become your client? Frustrating!
I used to spend hours and hours every week shooting the breeze in these kinds of meetings. Not anymore. I now have a process where I pre-qualify new leads before investing a large amount of time in meetings, phone calls or any other meeting requests.
And you should too.
Before you can start pre-qualifying prospects, you need to get clarity around is who is your ideal client. How do you know who to say ‘no’ to if you don’t know who you want to say ‘yes’ to?
Start by looking at the problems your business solves for people. Then map out who the people are who have those problems. Develop up to three customer personas, mapping out who they are, where they live, what are their pain points, and what triggers them to engage and purchase.
Once you have this clear in your head, and you start saying ‘no’ to anyone who doesn’t fit this mould, you will be well on your way to being able to productise and systemise your business.
Scaling your business will then become much more feasible, and your calendar will start looking much more like Warren Buffet’s (and perhaps one day - your bank account!).
If you are keen to delve deeper into best practices around scaling your business, sign up for our next Roadmap to Scale – Strategic Planning Workshop in a city near you.
You can learn more and register here:
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