If you’re at a point where you are doing a lot of work, but continue to see your income at a plateau, people throwing around the term “work less, earn more” can feel like a pipe dream.
“HOW is that even possible?”
Well, this week we’re getting into the nitty gritty of it today with exactly how simplistic this concept can be to apply to your business – and how you can start applying it TODAY to change your current situation.
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The Hard Truth of Where Your Time is Going
As any successful business owner will tell you, when it comes down to sustainable growth, it is never about doing more.
It is about getting laser-focused on the right activities that create growth.
When you first started your business, a few of these activities were your daily habit. You were acting on them consistently because didn’t have any other noise in front of you.
But then, as you got more experienced in business, you started to add more to your plate.
And more, and more, and more.
In the process, you’ve convinced yourself that you need more shiny things like everyone else has.
What happens to the things that created the most growth?
They start to get lost.
And your business begins to plateau as a result.
Any successful business boils down to three core activities:
- Sales: Letting people know you have something to offer and offering it to them.
- Visibility: Getting out in front of people so that they actually know you’re there and have something that can help them.
- Service: Providing the promised product, service or support to buyers and giving them a great experience in the process.
When you have these three things in alignment, you are setting yourself up for continuous growth.
However, the more you add activities that don’t fit in these areas and allow them to take up your time, the more you unintentionally stall your growth.
In order to earn more, we need to take your time back.
Finding Where Your Income Block Is Coming From
Grab a piece of paper and make three columns, titling each as sales, visibility, and service.
In thinking of your past week, you’re going to list down every activity you’ve completed in your business, in the appropriate category.
What activity is considered a sales activity?
What is visibility?
What is service?
Anything you did that does not fit one of these three columns, write it on the back of the paper.
NOTE: If you have any doubt about what category an activity goes into, it most likely should be on the back of the paper.
I don’t want you to overthink this but, instead, give yourself fifteen minutes to list out everything you can think of from the past week.
From there, you’re going to do an honest review of what’s in front of you.
Which of the three categories are the heaviest with activities? Which are the lightest? Are they pretty even?
These questions will allow you to see where the gap is in your business right now.
Is so much of your time being spent on visibility that you’re not actually selling your offers? OR are you spending all your time in sales but very little in visibility, which has you selling to the same non-buyers over and over again? Are you serving those who have already purchased from you in a way that leads to a great experience and has them coming back for more or leaving them hanging for more sales generating activity?
The goal here is to identify the area in your business that is lacking attention, because it’s what actually needs your time, not the 393939 other things on your to-do list.
How do you focus on these areas, without increasing your hours?
The answers are on the back of that paper.
These are the activities that either need to be outsourced or removed from your business.
Not in the position to outsource?
The truth is it’s because you’re spending more time on those activities than the ones that promote your growth.
The more you hold onto them, the more you will repeat the cycle.
Business is Easy, We Are the Ones that Make it Difficult
Business growth is pretty basic.
However, we live in a society that can overcomplicate it.
Which is exactly why we’re getting back to the basics here because, if you’re hitting these three areas, you will continue to growth.
Not with more time, but with less.
Next Steps
I’d love to hear from you. Come on over to @freedomdrivensuccess on Instagram and let me know if you are doing this exercise in your business.
And if so, what came up for you?
This is something we did in Clients to Courses™, and it was so great to have these conversations so we could see what was coming up for others and how to best navigate them.
It starts with getting honest about the basics in your business and if they are being honored.
Final thoughts