What Are You Really Doing with Your Business?

Sometime you need to sit back and analyze what you are doing with your business.  There is a whole area of activity that can suck up time and funds without the business owner truly being aware of the drain it can have on your bottom line.  I called this activity “Non-Revenue Generating Actions”

As a business owner, you can easily get caught up in doing things that don’t make any money for your business. Usually we classify things like:

• getting the mail
• paying bills
• paperwork
• building websites
• answering email or the phone

as things that need to be outsourced and not “important” for a business owner to handle. The craze right now is to outsource everything. That is fine, if you are outsourcing the

• right things
• to the right people
• for the right projects.

But there is a bigger hole in your business that is beyond outsourcing. It is the thinking that chooses the projects that you work on.

Thinking About Project Selection

Are you one of those people who works on projects based on potential income?

The whole “get rich quick” industry is built on the idea of potential. But let’s bring this closer to home.

• How many projects are you working on right now that are potential income projects, not “get-the-revenue-now-I-know-it-is-coming-in-fact-it-is-already-here” projects?
• How many projects are you working on that are a “favor” for a friend?
• How many projects are you working on that are long-shots?  Are you spending time and effort to make them work when it is clear that there is something amiss in the model?

The projects themselves are not the problem. The real problem is that you are spending precious time and effort working in areas that are not designed to give you the returns that you desire. Again, it is the time and the effort that is the real sticking point.

These are called “opportunity costs.”  While you are working on these projects, you are limiting the time you can spend on actual revenue-generating activity.  What you are doing is not bringing your closer to your goal.

Do this for me. Get a piece of paper and write down everything that you are working on (or thinking about working on).

Let me help you… Be sure to include all the:

• domain names that you have purchased with the idea of doing this cool project.
• projects for friends just to help them out.
• those joint venture projects that you are working on that are half-done and half-baked.
• all those long-shot unproven projects that you just want to do.

Go ahead. Take a moment and write them down. And write down the time you have already spent thinking and working on “half-dones,” “kinda-dones” and “maybe I’ll get to it” projects.

Guess what? All of these things are stealing your energy, time and brain space. No wonder you are not getting anything done. You are all over the place and getting no where. Seeing the list is pretty alarming.

We are all familiar with Product Margin, Low Cost, and High Margin.

But what about Time Margin.  Never heard about that one?

Usually it is called opportunity costs. But today I am calling it time margin. Because time is the only thing that we really have and your time has to yield a result. Outsourcing can multiply your efforts, yes, but if you are working on the wrong projects then you are multiplying your waste.

Take a few minutes to think about your time margin. I am telling you now, you are going to wrestle with the idea.  Everything you work on is going to seem important. And I can hear the folks saying, “You can’t do everything for money.”  I agree - you can’t, and I don’t.

But…

If I am working on a project that is supposed to yield a profit, then I need to see the profit. If I am working on a project that is not profit driven or profitable, it is in my best interest to recognize what is not working and make a decision not to be carried away by the idea of potential profit.

Very easy to say. Very hard to do.

Enjoy, folks. This thinking changed me and I hope it will change you.

Side note: This time margin thinking transfers to all areas of life. Think about the best way to spend your time with family and friends. Be deliberate on getting the most happiness, joy and smiles from the people you care about. It is not about business all the time. It is about life and getting the most out of it.