537: This Quick Exercise Could Help You Massively Grow Your Business Over The Next 30 Days
As we approach the end of summer and find ourselves in a season of reflection, I believe it’s the perfect moment to dive into a subject that many entrepreneurs struggle with—their time management. In this episode, we’ll explore the importance of valuing our time as the most valuable asset we possess. I’ll be sharing an exercise that can make a significant difference in your business if you choose to implement it.
Remember that time is an invaluable and non-renewable resource. By aligning how we spend our time with our vision and goals, we can elevate our businesses to new heights. If you are struggling with valuing your time, tune in! You’ll leave this episode viewing time like the precious asset it truly is.
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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Emily Hirsh
Hello you guys, welcome back to the podcast happy Wednesday. I cannot believe we’re almost to the end of July. I was just talking with my team and we always set monthly goals and my name was like wait next week is our last week to finish all this. Um, that we had planned for July. I mean where is the time going? I am definitely feeling a little stretched this week for sure um and also reflecting on the continual lesson and um. I think a story that I continue to see repeated in my life of overloading myself to the point of over max capacity and why do I do that? Not even just in business. But um, we leave for Alaska in three days and I just have so much like coordination between dentist appointments and haircuts before I leave um like personal stuff and getting a quote on a pool in our house and it’s like why do I need to do this before the trip I don’t need to do this before but then on top of that of course. Um. Things for the team and making sure I’ve recorded all the content I’m not recording content while I’m on this trip I don’t always do that sometimes I’ll bring my mic but this trip is like very active with no set time that I know I’m going to be able to record a podcast or record a video so I just have to be really prepared for that. So it’s feeling Like a lot and with all of that my kids I want we’re going to Alaska without kids which is the longest I’ll ever have been away from them together. My husband and I’ve been away from them for a week before but um I want to like get in a special. Date with each one of them to get some 1 on 1 time before we go and so yeah, just reflecting on the fact that I put max pressure on myself always like I don’t have to take all my kids on a one on-one date but I set this expectation for myself to do it now if I don’t do it I’m going to feel bad. So. That is my reflection. Um, well I do know why it’s because my identity is wrapped up in being an overachiever and I’m working on it.
So that’s not what we’re talking about today. This will be a relatively quick episode but I’ve had this one planned for a while and I feel like. Now is the right time to sprinkle it in between a lot of the marketing podcasts that I did um and we are you know soon coming out of summer and just you know even with like soon. It’s a new month even with those times where you get to kind of have a little bit of space for reflection comes the opportunity to have that reflection. And this is inspired by sometimes I watch essential members or clients or even people participating in one of our free experiences realize how little they value their own time and I think this is a big struggle that entrepreneurs Have is we will jump in and solve everything take over things and actually spend our time on things that really aren’t the best use of our time and so this will be a short episode to just get you thinking about this and I actually have an exercise for you that I know will make a big difference in your business. If you are to execute it. So one of the things that I do regularly and actually our team does this. We do this every quarter. It’s inspired by my friend Alex Charfin but there’s a lot of people who teach this. Um and that’s actually doing a time study. It’s actually documenting how you spend your time. And then looking at that and making decisions and changes and shifts based on what you documented. So um, we will do a 2 week what we call 2 week time study where myself and the entire team will write out. Um, what we’re doing every 15 minutes which sounds like A lot and it sounds terrible. But it’s actually not that bad when you get into the groove of it. It’s really easy because it takes like literally one second to write what you did and it brings so much awareness to how you’re spending your time which We look at data for so many different things but we rarely look at data for our time when our time is probably the most valuable asset we have and we don’t value it enough and so we will go through this exercise where we we first look at how we’re spending our time. And then for my team we look at Okay, how could we get more efficient where are we wasting Time? What is a process or a shift that we could make for me specifically and for other entrepreneurs that I’ve either coached or worked with or even friends? What we do is look at okay If we were to take this and maybe summarize your time maybe put it into a couple of buckets of like tactical work strategic high level work. Um, and and basically categorize your time and see and then what percentage of your time is going into tactical work. Basically things that could be outsourced for an hourly rate or a monthly retainer. Um and looking at what those things are and how much if you look at the percentage of your time are you spending on the things that Could be outsourced for not even that much money and this comes up a lot for entrepreneurs with tech and funnel building and actual like ad execution and I think that a lot of people try to figure out and try to do it on their own. Running their ads, writing their copy, building their funnels like doing the integration of email sequences and all these things and ultimately like so you know sometimes there is a season. There’s a time in your business where maybe that is what you should be doing but very rarely Should you be putting your time into that and and looking at if I didn’t do that and I took that time what else could I be doing with that time and in an ultimate like best case scenario very rarely Are we here even me I’m not here you know, but when I look at my time. And ask myself am I The only one who could be doing these things and am I spending my time on the things that only I can actually do them which are and should be very few things so recording my podcast that’s something only I can do showing up on live video for our challenge. Um. Coming up with inspiration for our next experience making webinar slides connecting with my audience through a live training. Those are things that only I can do sitting down to brainstorm the vision for us for the next Quarter. Looking at Customer and client feedback and seeing what takeaways I get from those are things only I can do and so am I spending my time on that or am I spending my time on things that somebody else could do. Now Obviously with you know, depending on where you are in your business. You only have so much investment that you can outsource. But I think the correlation I Want you to make here is I Don’t think we connect our time with money enough. So if you look at okay if I was to outsource my copy that’s going to cost me x amount a month and you look at it as that expense but I want you to also look at what is that going to gain you how many hours is that taking you. Of your time and your energy that you now get back and you get to put it somewhere else and is the value of that higher than what you would spend so my exercise for you guys to consider is taking maybe this next week taking inventory of your time. Maybe you write down what you’re doing every 15 minutes, maybe it’s every 30 minutes and just looking at where your time is going and then once you have that kind of documented look at okay am I the only one who could do these things or could I actually get support with some of these things and then. Pulling out maybe the top. What’s taking you the most time or maybe it’s something that if somebody else did it they would do it way better. So I think marketing is a good example of that where you might be able to try all day long building a landing page or writing email copy. But you’ll never do it as well as someone who does that all day will do even for me like if I built a landing page. First of all, it would take me like 4 times the length of time it should take someone and it wouldn’t even look as good so I will never build my own landing pages now At the stage of where I’m at in my business did I do it a lot at the very beginning a little bit but not even then those type of things were some of the first things I outsourced so looking at 1 what is taking the most out of your out of your time that somebody else could do and then 2 what is something you’re doing that. You’re not even able to do it to the level that it should be done because you’re not an expert in it and if somebody else who was an expert in it was able to do it. You would get a way better. Output so that’s why marketing is a good example right? because if you’re already. Trying to create a marketing strategy and you’re diying it and you’re putting it together and then you go spend money on ads on that. But it’s like a 5 or maybe 7 out of 10 execution. You’re actually losing money because you’re spending. Money on ads to something that’s a 7 out of 10 execution when it could be a 10 out of 10 and you actually get results so take inventory of your time and ask yourself where are there areas that somebody else could do this and do it better. And then whatever comes from that list. Ask yourself? Okay, what’s one action I could take to get this support and then when it comes up when you start to be like oh my gosh, but it costs this much every month to do that ask yourself what am I buying back? What time am I buying back and where am I going to put that time that’s going to result in my growth and I think one of the biggest differentiators I see between successful and not successful. Stuck entrepreneurs is the speed at which they go and get support if you listen to my client interview series. It was last month we did 5 episodes and I was interviewing clients. The theme out of that was these clients would get a little bit of traction, a little bit of success and very quickly They would go invest in their business and get marketing support or get execution support with their tech or with their customer service. To get them out of that so that they could continue to be in the place that was growing the business and was doing the things only they could do. So if you take inventory of your time and you’re like crap I’m doing a bunch of stuff that somebody else could do. And I’m not really able to be in the strategic place in my business which for a lot of you is going to be making content connecting with your audience not in the sense of like literally being in your Dms all day but in taking time to observe and ask questions and reflect on those. That then can drive your actions and can drive your content or your strategy or a messaging angle or maybe even an offer because when entrepreneurs are so bogged down from the tactical. What happens is one burnout But 2 they start to lack direction for their business because they’re losing connection with their ideal customers and so they’re not able to drive. Oh we need to make this pivot, here’s a new training idea that we could do, here’s a new product idea, here’s a different offer and that connection is really the magic that a lot of founders have. That’s not really explainable and it happens through that energy and that connection and that alignment with you and I have it all the time I will witness just seeing people in a Facebook group or a response to a podcast or. I mean I can’t even describe it. It’s like a gut feeling and it’s like oh I know my audience needs this but I can only have that experience if I’m not bogged down in the tactical which has to be something that I constantly look at and face and am I truly valuing my time and my own energy. To save it and have the capacity for my business growth so that is the exercise I want you guys to consider and instead of looking at investing in support whatever that may be look at it as what is the like the cost don’t look at the cost look at the gain because. I think like for example, when clients come and hire us I want the return to obviously be you spend this on ads you make this back but even more than that I want there also to be a return on their time which is almost more valuable than the money Because where they put that time can grow their business beyond the next level and so that’s a big thing that I think a lot of our clients sometimes don’t realize as they come in and they’re like oh I’m going to get better results on the ad spend that I spend but I’m also getting back my time I don’t have to write my copy anymore. I don’t have to build my funnels I don’t have to run my ads I don’t have to worry about my strategy like you guys are telling me what to do and I think as you grow into a very like seasoned entrepreneur and I joke about this with my own team is I’m like they’re telling me what to do I’m telling you guys. This is the vision, this is where I want to be. This is where I see us in the future. This is my gut on like where the problems are where we could improve a new offer etc and then my team is telling me how we get there whether that be my marketing team. My delivery team operations I’m still driving but my team tells me tactically what to do. Record these podcasts and record these videos. This is what we’re doing right? and that’s the ultimate place that you want to be because my team is going to be able to execute that better than me. I need to stay in doing the things only I can do so take inventory of your time and look at any themes. And out of where you spend your time in the percentage that you spend your time really ask yourself could somebody else be doing this that gives me back my time but also potentially does it better than me. So therefore it gets the better output the better result and what is 1 action You can take from that over the next several months and When you look at the cost of investment in that the cost and investment and support. Also weigh the gain and you want the gain to be really high which is why you choose things that are either going to give you back a lot of time or are gonna be done way better than you could do them therefore you’re gonna gain that. Time but also execution is going to improve so I hope you guys found this helpful and it made you think a little bit. I think it’s a good thing to do like every quarter and just analyze and look at where am I spending my time. How could I shift because time is our greatest asset. If 1 thing. It’s true. It’s true that we all have the same amount of time, we all have the same amount of time in the day and the way we leverage that time is what sets us apart and what is able to. Continue your growth and for a lot of us if you continue doing the same exact thing that you have been doing the last 3 to 6 months you’re going to stay in the same exact place and I know for me in order to get to the next levels I have to change the way I’m spending my time and energy I have to change the way I’m showing up. If I actually want to be the 8 figure Ceo I have to show up as the 8 figure Ceo before I can be the 8 figure Ceo right? You don’t get to show up as I’m just starting my business energy but have the energy and the capacity of a 7 figure Ceo you got to start acting like the 7 figure Ceo or the 8 figure. Whatever your goal is. Before you can have that right?
All right everybody next week when you listen to the podcast I will be in Alaska having hopefully a trip of my dreams. Um, if you want to follow along I will definitely be posting on Instagram as much as I’m inspired to post on Instagram. Who knows I might be like I’m deleting social media this week to be present. You never know with me. Um, but I am very excited for this trip. We’re going to some really cool places and I’ll be sharing on Instagram if you want to follow along and if you also listen to this and you’re like okay I’m fine. You convince me to get help with my marketing. You guys know where to find me um, helpmystrategy.com will take you through our application and this can go to a done with you offer or a done for you offer? Um, whichever one is right for your business. But I’m also not just talking about marketing and support. This wasn’t the purpose of this, it wasn’t just to say hey hire us. Even though I do think a lot of times people don’t realize the toll it takes trying to run their entire marketing by themselves, you could look at your time and have a different takeaway of I need customer support help. Um, or I need help with our delivery or you know admin or tech on my team. So. Right? Everybody I will talk to you next week.