Baltimore HUD Homes Blog

What’s your number? You know that number in your head that represents what you’d like to be making in your business each year? I’d like to invite you to think about how much money you would like to make over the next 12 months. And then I want you to calculate how many weeks you want to work for that money.

So let’s say you want to make $250,000 next year, and you want to take 6 weeks off. So you’re going to do that in 46 weeks. If you want to work a 30-hour week, that means that you will be working for 1380 hours (46 multiplied by 30). If we break that down even further, that means that for every working hour you need to be generating $181.16 for your business ($250,000 divided by 1380 working hours).

So if we just think about what you’ve done already TODAY, are the things that you’ve spent your time on today worth $181? Would you pay someone $10 an hour to do the things that you’ve been doing today? Because if you’ve been doing things like admin, fixing the fax machine, ordering paper, refilling the stapler, if you’ve been doing any of those things those are all jobs that could be outsourced or that could be delegated to someone who costs a lot less than $10 per hour.

Your numbers may be different from the example I have shown you here, but I URGE you to take some time to do these calculations for yourself and come up with a clear, precise number of what YOUR time is worth, because I can tell you from experience that this little exercise can transform your business AND your life.

I first did this exercise myself 20 months ago, and since then my income has soared.

After I calculated my hourly number, I wrote it down on a post it note and stuck it above my desk as a permanent reminder to only focus on those tasks and activities that were worth at least that per hour. I keep it there today as a constant reminder because we’re all human and it’s easy to get distracted and it’s easy to fall by the wayside and end up spending our time on things that we shouldn’t be spending our time on. My little post-it note helps to keep me on track.

All day, everyday you need to ask yourself, “Is what I’m doing right now worth X per hour?” Don’t worry if the answer to this question is ‘no’ more often than it is ‘yes’ to start with. The point is that you have started to keep track, and once you start to keep track, you won’t look back.

If you’re serious about making decent money in your business you need to work out what that hourly rate is for you. And you need to stop being cheap and be willing to hire someone to take on those jobs and those tasks that you’re doing yourself.

I recently met someone who told me she collected a whole load of business cards at a conference and she had actually sat at her computer manually imputing all of those details herself. My reaction was ‘That’s madness. How on the one hand can you tell me that you want to make $250,000 this year and yet you just spent a whole morning doing a job that you could have paid someone $10 per hour to do?’

If you’re stuck working IN your business when you should be working ON your business, you need to recognize you’re not going to get wealthy doing administrative work. And there’s a good chance there’s a lot of things that you’re doing that aren’t best use of your time. Calculating your hourly number is the first step to identifying those things and then either delegating or eliminating them altogether.

For more on this subject, check out my FREE Masterclass download “Assembling Your ‘Dream Team’: Outsourcing Secrets, Finding The Right Vendors, Partners And Resources So You Don’t Have To Do It All Yourself!”

(c) Bernadette Doyle, 2008. Reprints welcome so long as by line and article are published intact and all links made live.

Bernadette Doyle publishes her weekly Client Magnets newsletter for trainers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. Download her FREE MASTERClASS “Assembling Your ‘Dream Team’: Outsourcing Secrets, Finding The Right Vendors, Partners And Resources So You Don’t Have To Do It All Yourself!”