How would you rather spend your workweek? At a 9-to-5 job that has you chained to your desk? Or would you rather have a lifestyle that involves you spending more time with your family, having more time for travel, and just allowing yourself to focus on doing what it is you enjoy doing? The latter sounds much more appealing, but most of us end up in the former. There is a way to change this though, through lifestyle design.
In his book, 4-Hour Workweek, Timothy Ferriss describes how lifestyle design, one of those life changing small business marketing strategies, allows you to decide what you really want from this life. If you are a small business owner, you have the opportunity and flexibility to have control of your work life. From choosing which projects to take on to deciding whether hiring a bookkeeping service would be a good solution to give yourself more vacation time, you can shape your lifestyle design to best suit you.
The first step to take in achieving your lifestyle goals is to consider how much profit you would like to earn, as well as how that would affect your personal and work life. Using the methods below, you can design the lifestyle and profit goals you have always dreamed of.
Redefine Your Idea of Wealth
So many of us fall victim to getting completely absorbed in work that we are unable to take the time to enjoy the profit we worked so hard to achieve. Instead of using profit as a measure of your success, consider marking down the hours you work and then look at how much profit you made per hour. Then set a goal to earn more per hour from that point forward.
To apply this to a company-wide level, think about tracking how much your team makes versus their individual hourly pay by bringing in outsourced accounting services to do so.
Build a Trustworthy Team
Your team has been hired to relieve you from the piles of work you have on your desk, not to add more work for you to manage. Remember that if you hover over your employees, that doesn't mean they will work more diligently and effectively. Give your staff space to perform the tasks you asked of them and then set aside some time every day to check in and make sure everything is going smoothly.
Another thing to keep in mind is to trust your vendors to do a good job. You can always let go your outsourced accounting services and other service providers, but you cannot get back the time you spent comparing your small business controller's results to the millions of others on the web. Don't focus on worrying, direct your attention towards doing what you can with the time you have.
Delegate, Delegate, Delegate
Let go of the need to be involved in every single thing that happens in your business. This is one of the most important small business marketing strategies you'll ever need to know and remember. Pass tasks, such as entering your daily expenses, to your small business controller. If having a full time accountant is too costly, train your receptionist to do those tasks or consider working with outsourced accounting services.
Use the mantra "delegate, delegate, delegate" as a way to go about handling your company's busy work. If another employee can take on those tasks, let them do it. This will ultimately make you a more effective and productive entrepreneur in the long run. Working ridiculously long hours per day could get in the way of your creativity.
Now, don't go giving everyone else tasks that they are unable to handle. There are certain things that you are mainly qualified to do as the business owner. Find out and then focus your time on those tasks. When you are able to find another person who can handle those tasks, hire them. This will allow yourself more time for your larger visionary undertakings.
By following this advice and other tips given by lifestyle development experts such as Timothy Ferriss and small business controller guru Greg Crabtree, you can achieve the life you have always wanted.
In his book, 4-Hour Workweek, Timothy Ferriss describes how lifestyle design, one of those life changing small business marketing strategies, allows you to decide what you really want from this life. If you are a small business owner, you have the opportunity and flexibility to have control of your work life. From choosing which projects to take on to deciding whether hiring a bookkeeping service would be a good solution to give yourself more vacation time, you can shape your lifestyle design to best suit you.
The first step to take in achieving your lifestyle goals is to consider how much profit you would like to earn, as well as how that would affect your personal and work life. Using the methods below, you can design the lifestyle and profit goals you have always dreamed of.
Redefine Your Idea of Wealth
So many of us fall victim to getting completely absorbed in work that we are unable to take the time to enjoy the profit we worked so hard to achieve. Instead of using profit as a measure of your success, consider marking down the hours you work and then look at how much profit you made per hour. Then set a goal to earn more per hour from that point forward.
To apply this to a company-wide level, think about tracking how much your team makes versus their individual hourly pay by bringing in outsourced accounting services to do so.
Build a Trustworthy Team
Your team has been hired to relieve you from the piles of work you have on your desk, not to add more work for you to manage. Remember that if you hover over your employees, that doesn't mean they will work more diligently and effectively. Give your staff space to perform the tasks you asked of them and then set aside some time every day to check in and make sure everything is going smoothly.
Another thing to keep in mind is to trust your vendors to do a good job. You can always let go your outsourced accounting services and other service providers, but you cannot get back the time you spent comparing your small business controller's results to the millions of others on the web. Don't focus on worrying, direct your attention towards doing what you can with the time you have.
Delegate, Delegate, Delegate
Let go of the need to be involved in every single thing that happens in your business. This is one of the most important small business marketing strategies you'll ever need to know and remember. Pass tasks, such as entering your daily expenses, to your small business controller. If having a full time accountant is too costly, train your receptionist to do those tasks or consider working with outsourced accounting services.
Use the mantra "delegate, delegate, delegate" as a way to go about handling your company's busy work. If another employee can take on those tasks, let them do it. This will ultimately make you a more effective and productive entrepreneur in the long run. Working ridiculously long hours per day could get in the way of your creativity.
Now, don't go giving everyone else tasks that they are unable to handle. There are certain things that you are mainly qualified to do as the business owner. Find out and then focus your time on those tasks. When you are able to find another person who can handle those tasks, hire them. This will allow yourself more time for your larger visionary undertakings.
By following this advice and other tips given by lifestyle development experts such as Timothy Ferriss and small business controller guru Greg Crabtree, you can achieve the life you have always wanted.
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