How To Make More Money By Working Fewer Hours
If you’re like most small business owners, you have a small staff. Your staff mainly consists of you, you, and you. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you can get your spouse or kids to come in for a few hours on a Saturday to help out, but mainly it’s just you by your lonesome.
In order to serve your clients effectively and run the day to day operations and marketing of your OWN business, you’re forced to work longer and longer hours to get everything done. Forty hour weeks are a thing of the past, you’re now working 60 hour weeks, but your billable hours are dropping.
Many small business owners face this situation, and have been forced to either work less hours and bring in less money, or go back to the daily 9-5 grind where at least they’re not spending all their time working with no return.
Business owners have numerous options available to them to help them get their work done, while still having a life outside of the office.
One option is to hire an additional consultant to come in and help supplement the hours you spend working on your company. Send them out to do the consulting work, and maybe you’ll be able to get out there and do some consulting yourself a few hours a week. The downside to this is that while you’ll be bringing in more billing hours, most of the money will be going to pay the other consultant, and you’ll wind up making less money.
Another option available is to hire administrative help. This would allow you to get out of the office more often to meet your clients and do the things that need to be done. The downside to this agreement is maybe you need a variety of tasks done. In order to get someone with that kind of experience, they’re going to want full-time hours. Maybe you don’t have full-time hours to offer, or maybe you’d like to split their day up into a few morning hours and a few late evening hours. With full-time help, your employees expect 8 hours in a row, not scattered throughout the day.
A third option available to you is to hire a virtual assistant. A virtual assistant is not merely an administrative assistant who waits for you to assign tasks, does them, then plays solitaire until the next set of directions are given. Virtual Assistants are highly trained administrative professionals who are business owners and understand the daily demands of running an office. They do not require direct supervision, and can draw upon their experience to help you run your business more effectively.
Only have 4 hours of work you need done a day, but you’d like to split it up, no problem! With a Virtual Assistant, you only pay for the time the VA spends working on your projects, and because a VA offers more hours than a standard employee does; splitting up the time in various increments throughout the day is easily done.
So, you may be asking, how do I make more money by working fewer hours?
Think about it:
- You go into your office in the morning and go through messages your VA has marked as priority or needing your attention.
- Throughout the day, the VA responds to client enquiries and emails, works on researching and preparing reports for your clients, sets up meetings for your with your clients, makes reservations for your upcoming trip to visit a client, and invoices and records payments from your clients.
- You arrive back to your office at the end of the day and see what matters need your attention and do any follow-up with clients.
- You go home and see your family with all your work completed.
What would have been a 14 hour day has now been dramatically reduced, and for the first time in ages, you’re actually caught up! The hours you are putting in to your business now are hours that can be directly charged to your clients. This increases the amount of revenue your company brings in, while shaving hours a day off your schedule.
The next time you’re working another late night at the office, buried under a pile of ever-growing paperwork, wondering why you’re not making as much money as you would like, think about using a Virtual Assistant to help you make more money and work less hours.
Author : Jennifer Irving
Jennifer Irving, owner of Executive Administrative Solutions, assists management consultants with the running of their businesses by providing executive-level virtual office assistance. Sign up for her free newsletter to receive more tips and information to run your business more effectively. |
