$100 Per Hour Work

Bill Gates walks down the street and a $50 bill falls out of his pocket. In the second that it takes him to pick up that $50, he will earn more than $100 from interest.

Unless you are Mr. Gates himself, it's hard to imagine that picking up a $50 bill would be a waste of time. Yet, chances are you are wasting time like this all day. When you could be earning your business $100 from an hour of sales, you're spending that hour making way less. Did you become a business owner so you could make $15/hour doing the same job as your crew?

Probably not.

Read on, and we will fix that.

 Service is King, but Growth is Heir to the Throne

When you're running short on crews, and your clients are threatening to switch to another company, it's not a bad idea to step in and help your crews catch up.

It can be hard, however, to grow out of that start-up phase that all service companies go through. You're in this mindset that you need to be working with your crews - all of the time.

Think about this: if you could hire someone to do the field work for $15 an hour, then the work you are doing is only worth $15 an hour. That makes you the bottleneck to your own growth.

Clearly, you're smart. You've founded or manage your own business, you're reading blogs on how to improve your company, and you're trying to grow. You are worth more than $15 an hour. Your company needs your bigger skill set, or else it won't grow. You want to spend as much of your time as possible doing the really high value work.

Here's some advice to get you thinking about the right things in your business:

Put a sticky note on your desk, or write this on your whiteboard - wherever you'll see it every day. Write down these numbers:

• $10
• $20
• $50
• $100
• $1000

Every time you look at this note, remind yourself that you need to be doing the higher value work, because you are the boss. Your skills and knowledge are more valuable. Ask yourself, "What am I working on, right now?"

It doesn't matter if you don't know what $1000 an hour work looks like; the values are important to keep you pushing yourself.

Growing isn't easy.  You can tread water all day, but that's never going to get you to the beach. When you put yourself in this high value mindset, you'll find it easier to focus on what really matters for you and your business.

Thanks for reading!