Are you bootstrapping your business and feeling stuck, overwhelmed and frustrated?
Many of you have heard how I started my own business 4 years ago on my unemployment check. For a while, I prided myself in my frugality. I didn’t go into debt, in the beginning, to build my business but I worked my butt off-nights, weekends, and holidays. I did very well but not as good as, I wanted. After all the point of the business was to work less and make more!
Then one moment it all changed.
I was trying to teach a client how they could build their own website and save $1,000 (or more). After 3 hours of coaching them through what to do, they finally gave up in desperation and said “I’d rather pay someone $1,000 to do this type of work-I only want to do what I’m good at- I hate this technical stuff and it takes so long.”
They valued their time more than money.
What a valuable lesson I was just given. I was building this business so I could have more freedom and make more money but because I wasn’t valuing MY time and talents, I was trading MY precious time for money, ultimately keeping myself in a perpetual cycle of insanity.
So, I calculated things out. If I wanted my business to bring in $250K for the year and I wanted to work 20 hours per week, I needed to value myself at $240/hour. Anything that I could get help doing for less than $240/hour was a better value of my time.
Over the last few months, I’ve started taking a different approach to my money philosophy when it came to building my business and wanted to share these 3 insights with you.
Like Attracts Like – If you find yourself faced with prospect after prospect who only wants to hear about the price and makes no acknowledgement of value, it might be time to look in the mirror and see how you’re creating this situation in your own life with those that you buy from. You can’t expect to build your business on a shoestring if you want to attract clients who aren’t trying to do the same. Shortcuts Keep You Stalling Out Inches From the Finish Line – At the beginning of my business, I would buy whatever information product I could find that solved the problem I was having at the moment. I quickly found myself with a lot of great ideas, but no real plan to follow to get me from where I was to where I wanted to go. I thought that I could piece together what I needed myself. Only after I hired my own coach did I realize that having a strategic plan was far more valuable than any bright shiny new info product I could buy.
Hoarding Doesn’t Serve-Another ‘ah-ha’ I got from learning to focus on what I do best and hiring others to do the rest, was that I really was helping more people. My graphic designer, Morgan just got married and the work she did for me allowed her to pay for the flowers at her wedding. I had a lot of fun imagining what I was helping pay for. Now we’re working on keeping her marriage strong with lots of fun weekend get-a-ways! Besides Morgan, there is my programmer, my administrative assistant, my printer, my accountant, my copywriter and many more. Whom are you helping have a better life? What tasks can you take off your plate so that you have time to do what you do best?
Bootstrapping can work for a little bit but as the saying goes “what got you here won’t get you to where you want to go.” The real question is, are you really ready to take your business to the next level, step out of your comfort zone just a little and see what can really happen?
If there is one thing that this article can do for you today, it’s to help you value your time and talents more.
Start with yourself first and then you’ll start to see how people in your life show up differently than they used to and how you start to have different conversations about money and investing. I’d love to hear your thoughts and observations on the subject in the comment section below or over on my Facebook Fan Page.
Guest Writer: Mande White
Business Name: MandeWhite.com
Email: Mandewhite@gmail.com
Website: http://mandewhite.com
Short Bio:
Mande created her first information product in 2001 and has since spent the last 10 years behind the scenes of some of the most successful Internet Marketers advising on strategy, product offerings, traffic methods and conversion techniques.
Mande has helped generate over 1,000,000 leads resulting in over $5 million is additional revenue for her clients since 2001.
She served as President of the American Marketing Association South Florida for 3 years. She is also the Marketing Director for the Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s CircleTM Miami Chapter which regularly hosts more than 70+ entrepreneurs.
She is the co-author of the Ultimate Success Secret with Dan Kennedy.
She makes money 24/7/365 from the information products she has created like LinkedIn Magic Bullet, Client Magnet Blueprint, WordPress Magic Bullet, Traffic Magic Bullet, and High Altitude Marketing Academy.