This is an interesting way of looking at it… I’ll use hypothetical numbers for the illustration.
This post is aimed at those thinking in terms of work or business, but the type of thinking can apply to anyone… I came up with a few creative ideas on how outsourcing can help ANYONE in this blog post, and there will be more along those lines. But have a look through this strategy – The hourly rate excercise alone is an interesting one.
Working Out Your Productive Hourly Rate (PHR)
What do you get paid per year? $52,000
Divide your yearly wage by 52 to get your weekly wage. $1,000 per week
How many hours do you work per week? 40 hours
How many of these hours are actually productive per week? 10 hours
Divide your weekly wage by your productive hours per week to get your your productive hourly rate. $1,000 per week / 10 hours = $100 per hour << Remember this figure.
Now – this is the fun bit.
Removing Yourself From Your Own Life
Over the course of a week make a list of EVERYTHING you do. Checking emails, making breakfast, ironing shirts, posting blogs, buying a train ticket… Researching things on the internet, updating Facebook, talking to your Mum, etc etc.
Take that list and circle everything that you do more than once over the course of the week.The idea here is to pick up all of the recurring tasks that can be made into a process and outsourced.
Create three columns: Column 1 is Me Tasks. Column 2 is Outsourced Tasks. Column 3 is Want To Do’s.
Firstly, move all the things that you like and want to keep doing into the Want To Do column. Stuff like calling your wife or girlfriend for a chat during the day, exercise (although you may not WANT to… you get the idea), etc… The things you enjoy.
With what’s left, apply this: ANYTHING YOU CAN OUTSOURCE FOR LESS THAN A QUARTER OF YOUR PRODUCTIVE HOURLY RATE SHOULD BE OUTSOURCED.
How to do it from there? I’ll cover that in another blog post on systematization. It sounds boring, but the time, brain space, and productive potential it frees up is phenomenal…
A couple of good places to hire people to do your work are:
oDesk – www.odesk.com
Elance – www.elance.com
And then there’s your friendly credit card provider. Both Visa and AMEX provide concierge services which can be used to outsource both ad hoc (i.e. once of things like finding concert tickets or looking for a price on something) and recurring tasks.
Is this useful? Share your thoughts – I’d be interested to hear from anyone who is putting this into action (or even just thinking about implementing it).
I’ve been meeting up with some very cool people of late. One person in particular got me to thinking about the idea of venture capital and equity sharing.
I find myself in the position sometimes (in fact, often times) where I have more ideas than I have disposable resource to invest. Perhaps the answer is to find people who can execute for a share in the potential return?
One day I’d like the Tall Poppy group to be an organization that can identify brilliant ideas and seed fund them. Until that day, I think it’s time to become a client of my own goals.
This is one of my favourite blogs… This post talks about some of the things one needs to consider when working a part-time “on the side” (or a “5 to 9″ as I like to call it).
There are some very interesting points to consider about liability, how to treat your employer, when to exit, etc… Definitely worth the read.
Being a part-time entrepreneur is hard work. It stretches you in many directions. But doing other things on top of your day job is also a great way of teaching you what you can and can’t do, what some would say you are destined to do. As Richard Branson famously said: “I wanted to be an editor or a journalist, I wasn’t really interested in being an entrepreneur, but I soon found I had to become an entrepreneur in order to keep my magazine going.”
One of my guys sent me this “Cheat Sheet” about the comparative value of the different social media platform for marketing and brand exposure. It’s a pretty cool breakdown of what the different platforms do well, and not so well, for your business or brand.
The single greatest personal skill in business is the ability to learn.
The second greatest personal skill in business is to be able to adapt and apply that learning into any given situation.
A person who knows stuff, but refuses to learn stuff will not be able to adapt to a changing environment. A person who doesn’t know stuff, but is a skilled learner and possesses the wisdom to apply that learning will adapt, master, and conquer any environment. I’m talking about all areas here – technical skills, people skills, diplomacy skills, sales skills, whatever. He who can adapt, wins.
Here’s a challenge for you. One of the life principles I work off is this:
“You can learn something from every single person you interact with.”
So, try it. Every person you interact with. Tomorrow.
What’s amazing is the things you learn about yourself doing this, your prejudices, your insights (and lack of insight in certain areas), the things that hold you back from progress which are hidden away in the lives of people you have not yet made a decision to glean from.
I heard a speaker at a business seminar today so something quite simple, but I quite a profound way:
“When the perceived value is an issue, the cost becomes a problem.”
This is basically Sales 101: Establish an understanding of the value of what you are selling to your prospect before you discuss price.
The thing it made me think about though was along a different vein – the decision to become an entrepreneur or a businessman in general.
I love the ride I’m on. I love what I’m learning, I love the success of it, I love the people I’m doing it with, I love the feeling or being a part of building something significant… Except for when its boring. Or I lose. Or the people I’m doing it with just don’t quite “get it”, or there are what seems to be insurmountable roadblocks.
Then what do you do? Enthusiasm, passion and excitement is fantastic, but it is meant to get you though the start, not sustain you in the long run. For the long haul you need a vision, you need a dream. I have a belief system that is pretty big on dreams and life’s purpose – When ever I get the the place where my passion is not carrying me I just go back to why I got into this thing in the first place.
I’ll put it to you – being an Entrepreneur to “be rich” or being in business to “get out from under the man” is not enough. Riches are lovely to have, but at various points in a persons journey there are times when the purpose of all they are building will be challenged, and the size of their bank balance or asset base alone will not be enough to justify the effort they’re expending on their business pursuits.
What is your dream?
Do you have one?
Is it big enough? Here’s a thought – If you have a $5 million dream but are working to build a $50 million business – why would you do that? A $50 million dollar business has exponentially more hassle involved in it than a $5 million one. Could it be that you are dreaming too small?
Can you whisper your dream in retort to the arguments that challenge your progress?
I know for me, at this juncture of my life and professional development, having my dream on the tip of my tongue will mean the difference between abdication and victory. Time to go grab the journal.
