What’s Stopping You from Making More Money? (Part 2)

In my last blog, I talked about three out of the five problems that cost you money, success, and peace. Now, let's go onto the other two. 

Problem 4: Not valuing your time. 

There are 3 ways you could be not valuing your time:

1. You’re not using all of your time in the most efficient way
   
2. You're being too generous with your time or
   
3. You’re giving your time away
   

And then the problem could be…
                          You’re letting people take advantage of your time.

The trouble is that when you don't value your time, it shows up in your negotiations with others, in your schedule, with the amount of stress you have and in your bank account. When you don't value your time, you could also squander it on things that don't matter as much. 

What I look at with my clients is, what is the return on investment (ROI) for your time? If it's an income-producing time, then how much is an hour worth? Is it $100, $200, $1,000?

When you're not doing income-producing activities, meaning you're not working with a client that you can bill, and you're not making a sale to a customer, it’s all the other tasks that keep the business going.

But when you don't value your time, you would say “Yes” to doing tasks you should delegate. If I looked at your day and all the tasks you did, are they all $100, $200, or $500 an hour activities? I'm guessing not. 

Do you know the expression “time is money”? I feel that time is everything. Time is not a renewable resource. You cannot get it back. Time is so precious. 

You could help more people if you were focusing your time on supporting your clients and customers rather than all the other stuff.

I understand the belief that when you’re not earning a lot or youre a small company you can’t delegate.  I challenge that. There are activities that are below your pay level and frankly not your core skills and talents, so they must be delegated if you want to grow and have life balance. For example, if you can make some calls and sell $100 in product or trade 1 hour of your expertise for $100 then you can pay $25 an hour for 3 hours for a cleaner to clean your house or a Content Creator to make some social media graphics.  You still have $25 in your pocket and it saved you 2 hours.Then if you used those 2 hours to do what you did to make the $100 you are now up $225. 

The key thing is to use those hours you saved to do things only you can do. ​

Problem 5: You think you need cash to make cash. 

You think you need to have money in the business or money in your life to be able to make more money in your business or make more profit. 

But there are actually six ways to increase wealth when you don't have any money. These are strategies I brought in when I started out in business. They're things that I bring in continuously to be able to earn more money without spending more money. These are things I teach in the Million Dollar Woman Program. 

Now, let's just actually look at that word for a moment - Spending. Spending means to give and not get back. But every time we have money come out of our hands, it's investing. Now if you are going out and buying Tim Hortons or McDonald's breakfast every day, that's spending and not investing. But if you were to buy a really nice coffee machine, so you can make your own coffee at home, that can be seen as investing because by buying that you can bring money back to you.

Investing in a coach to help you to get ahead faster and not make mistakes can have a great ROI, so can investing in software that helps keep track of leads or a FB ad specialist you can build your list and bring you leads.

Everything that you do in business and in life should have some Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of 

• How is this going? 
• Is this something I should keep doing? 
• Is this getting me the results that I need?

They also need ROI. If I'm putting in $1, can I get $5 back? If I'm putting in $1, can I be moving my business forward and save myself some time? 

You might think that you don't have the money so you can't invest. That’s BS! As Les Brown said, “When you're in the frame you can't see the picture.” The only way that you can learn how to do these six things or how to be able to move ahead without money is by being able to be creative and learning from someone who has done it or who can help you to see it. 

One example is barter, trades or contra. I have been able to acquire many things in my business without putting out money. 

• I've had event, personal, professional and lifestyle photography. 
• I've received products that I used in my business or personally or even gave as gifts. 
• I've been able to use professional services like a personal chef, graphic design and marketing support. 
• Many different things to move my business forward. ​

There are a lot of strategies around this, and everybody's business is different. But there are six different strategies that I do almost all the time, so that my expenses are lower, and so that I can move my business forward. It doesn’t mean all these six things instantly give me money, but each of these six things eventually has a return on investment. If I'm investing nothing and then I'm getting something back, isn’t that amazing? 

Over the past two blogs, I’ve covered the five things that I see in my clients that’s stopping them from making more money. I work with female business owners. I work with female leaders. I work with women, and these five things are costing them not only money, but their time and their peace. It's not helping them get ahead, and at the end of the day, money is not everything, but money makes things easier. It can make life more peaceful and enjoyable. 

If you want to learn more about how you can make more money, schedule a complimentary 15 min chat with me by emailing diane@dianrolston.com. 

Read more of my blogs here:

• What’s Stopping You From Making More Money (Part 1)
• Where to Focus YOUR Resources for the BEST results
• How I Made $18k in a Few Hours