Value your time

As small business owners, we're notoriously bad at valuing our time. There's always a fire to put out or fairly menial tasks that always need doing in our businesses, so we may as well do them. What we should do, however, is regard our time as a cost to our businesses.

I cover this thought in my book, The Small Business Success Guide, but it was brought home to me yesterday as I was speaking with a small business owner friend. She mentioned she was spending part (if not all) of her work day finishing off painting a room in her house in preparation for the impending arrival of out-of-town visitors.

I couldn't help but smile at the image of her balancing the phone under her chin to answer calls from clients, with the paint tin precariously lodged on the ladder, as she schlopped the paintbrush against the walls.

I think we all need a friendly reminder now and then that we are the brain surgeons of our businesses. We're the ones with all the ideas and the expertise. Is your business paying a brain to lay out the scalpels and mop the floors (or paint the walls) after an operation?

If someone asked you to do a job for them, what would you charge yourself out at? Take this rate and start applying it to everything you do during your working hours. When you start applying the concept of your time being a valuable commodity to your business, you'll be on your way to working on your business, not just in your business.

Ask yourself: is there something else you should be doing that will really benefit your business' potential today?

All success,

Margie