Before my business evolved into what it is now, I was trading my time for money, dollars for hours. As a website designer and developer, I charged by the hour. As a writer/editor, I charged by the hour. As a public relations and marketing consultant, I charged by the hour.
Do you see the problem here?
There are only so many hours in the day, right? And if I wanted to pay the rent, I needed the majority of them to be billable hours, which left little to no time for marketing. As you can imagine, without the time to market my business, I struggled to get clients.
But I don't struggle anymore, and here's why: it's called leverged income – multiple streams of leveraged income – that enables me to work with much fewer (but more of my ideal) clients one-on-one, and gives me much more time for marketing and growing my business with a lot less effort.
Okay, so what exactly can YOU do to step struggling, to stop trading time for money, so you can actually work less and make more?
Here are three quick tips Im delighted to share with you:
(For even more details on how I broke the 6-figure mark while only working about 8 hours a week this past year, leaving me plenty of time to spend with my preschooler, her baby brother, and my husband, join me for a FREE one-time-only teleseminar Tuesday, February 17th. Register here:
http://www.clientabundance.com/tagpreviewcall.htm)
(more…)
What's a Niffler, you ask?
Well, if you've read Happy Potter and the Goblet of Fire, you might remember that a Niffler is a critter that hunts treasure. Once it finds one treasure, it moves on quickly in search of the next prize.
Do you do the same thing in your business? Meaning, are you a constant gatherer of the things that you think will move your business ahead, but not so much the implementer of them? Do you get distracted by anything and everything that's new in your industry? Do you come up with one great idea after another, but you never fully commit to completing one of them?
Yes? I hate to break it to you, but there's probably a bit of Niffler in you! You could also call it distractibility-disorder or failure-to-follow-through or fear-of-success/failure, or focus-challenged… but personally, I like having a bit of Niffler in me. It means I'm still passionate about what I'm doing, I'm still excited about learning new things, and I'm still interested in what's happening in my industry, which lends to my ultimate success.
But what can happen is that all those ideas and thoughts and half-completed projects don't move my business forward. For example, when I started my own business almsot 8 years ago ago, there was a fraction of the business-building technology and tools available that there are now. And it's so easy to want to jump on the cutting-edge bandwagon. But at some point, if I didn't focus on actually completing things, I'd still be spinning my wheels instead of driving in the fast lane.
So, how do you tame the Niffler in you?
The strategy that has worked the best for me (not 100% of the time, but close enough) has been to keep an Idea Log. The one I have now is just an old-fashioned composition book, and whenever I have a new idea or thought about something I want to do related to my business, I just jot it down in my Idea Log. Then I go back to working on my current project that I am committed to completing. I know my ideas are saved there for me so I won't forget them, and eventually I do go back and refer to what I've written and choose some to work on.
What this also does, besides helping me to maintain my focus, is it stops me from wasting time on ideas that ultimately don't fit into my business. Many ideas end up almost self-selecting themselves out by virtue of time. So by keeping my focus on the ultimate treasure, I don't get side-tracked by fool's gold… 🙂
If you think you have a little Niffler in you, try this idea and enjoy a dramatic increase in your own productivity!
© 2008 Alicia M Forest and ClientAbundance.com
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