Recently I’ve had similar conversations with a bunch of people on the topic of opening a business.
Billible Hours
One of my friends is a videographer, shooting commercials for established brands in the local community.
His way of thinking about getting more work was to market himself more, in order to book more gigs & increase billable hours.
But when I asked him what would you want to do with that money & when will you spend it, since all you’re time is booked in that scenario, he looked at me dumbfounded.
This is a conversation I have at least once a year with people that are currently running some kind of consulting/freelancing business. You charge for time but have a finite amount of hours you can bill for, so naturally once fully booked you start raising prices.
Now you’re making more, but the thought of having freedom when opening your own thing is now gone since your time is tied up.
Delegation
This brings me to that one skill that people always feel uneasy about, delegating.
Delegating allows you to all of a sudden cut down on the amount of time you spend on mundane tasks & focus only on where you’re expertise really comes into play.
In the case of my friend from above, it’s shooting the actual footage, editing & color-grading could be outsourced to someone else. Allowing him to focus more on doing things he enjoys as well as selling more projects.
Where & How to Find Help
With websites like UpWork, Fiverr & other marketplaces, it’s never been easier to find the right person at a price point you can afford to help support & grow your business.
Knowing when to hire & fire people is a skill on its own, but a simple rule of thumb I’d boil it down to is to journal for one week exactly the time you spend on the various tasks related to your business & then analyze those tasks that you can systematize & delegate to someone else.
With a clear list of tasks & responsibilities that a person needs to meet it’s much easier to look for the right candidate.
In my case, with the growing portfolio of apps under NoMoonshots I’m getting to the point that I’ll need some help from content writers & a marketer to keep the flywheel going on certain projects.
If you’d like to hear more on how I’m going go to about it, hit me up on Twitter at @wesleyross.