Shownotes

You first need to map out what you currently do in each area of your business, what your current way of working is, your current way of operating. 

To promote your business. To get clients. Or sell your products or services. To deliver your products or services. To manage the ‘behind-the-scenes’ admin and finances and team. 

And then, once you have a clear map laid out, of exactly what happens in order for you to put a new podcast episode out into the world, or book a potential client in for a consult, or submit your tax return, scrutinise each and every area to see if there is a better way to do it. A shorter route. A process with fewer steps. A process requiring less resources. Less time. Less manpower. Or if not, an alternative way to achieve the same result – requiring fewer resources. Perhaps by using software to automate part of the process. 

Now part of this process needs to also be factoring in how effective each system you have for each area of your business is. Because I totally agree with Peter Drucker in this instant. “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all”. 

So the first step really needs to be establishing whether or not the overall system is working. And this is why evaluating where your time is going, and where your results are coming from is crucial in helping determine this. 

And then the second step is to look for ways to improve the processes within that system. 

Ways to reduce how much of your time is spent at each stage of the process. 

Sometimes we can argue that saving as much money as you can at early stages of your business is sensible. I wanted to grow my campsite business organically, from the money I made. And I didn’t want to sink my own savings into it more. But if I am honest, I think this is where I was going wrong. From day one. And I see it in the coaching industry a lot now too. 

The mentality that because we can start a business at home from our laptop with little to no start-up capital. That we should. 

That we shouldn’t risk our savings. Or invest upfront. That we should grow it organically. 

I see it all the time – coaches boasting about not having used paid advertising. About doing it all themselves up to 6 figures or beyond. 

And making others wrong for deciding to invest sooner. 

But the truth is, there is a cost to saving money earlier on in your business. And that cost is usually much more pricey. It just isn’t talked about as much. 

It is time. Your time. Your health, your relationships, your sanity – as you try to work all the hours to scrimp and save on the pennies spent. 

That limited pot that each of us have in our lives. Time. 

Now – don’t get me wrong. Of course, if there is no way to start out by investing in things that will save you time, then you do your thing. 

But as soon as you can, if it makes sense to you, to your business growth, to your sanity, then invest in things that will save you time. 

That will cut out steps from your processes. 

And start thinking about investing in your business differently. 

If you had started a cafe – you wouldn’t think twice about hiring someone to help you on your very first day of business. Or about investing in a payment card processing machine. You wouldn’t be just taking cash, to save the pennies on the fees. And you would have worked that cost into your business plan. 

You would have priced accordingly. And you wouldn’t have trapped yourself in the mindset of saving over investing. 

Like I did. 

It took me a lot of coaching from several other LCS coaches I had hired, and the encouragment and strategic guidance of a mentor, Skye Barbour, who is the systems and hiring guru, to get me to finally invest in a system that made bookings and emails simpler and easier, and to get me to hire a bookkeeper and have a bookkeeping system set up. 

And boy has it made a difference. 

Now, if you are earlier in your business, still do this exercise – because there might be just a couple of simple things, simple tweaks you can make to save you immediate time now – and they might not cost you a thing (for example, deciding to have one place to go to book a call in with you, instead of offering 4 different ways, or just adding a simple FAQ page to your website and an autoresponder on your email if you get asked the same questions a lot). 

And some of them might cost you a little bit, but will be worth every penny. For instance, having a scheduler that will save you having the back and forth of messages to find when you have mutually agreeable times to fit a call in.    

You can literally save time in every area if you look for it. So ask yourself today, am I  doing this in the most efficient way? Are my systems and processes optimised in my business? 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Skye Barbour : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/full-freedom-for-entrepreneurs-with-skye-barbour/id1603622436