If I told you that you could do one thing today that would revolutionize your business tomorrow, and for all the day-after-tomorrows to come, what would you say?
Most likely, you’d want to hear more. But then, if I parroted something you’d already heard many times – take time to make time –you’d roll your eyes (“what a cliché!”) and close this browser window in favor of one of the other dozen demanding your attention now, now, NOW.
But that would be a mistake.
Bear with me, for just the 1-minute it takes to finish this post. I promise I’ll get to the point quickly. And it’ll be a point that could change your business and your personal life.
How One Person Can Move a Mountain
Have you ever had to change a tire? With a small metal jack and miniscule amount of effort you can lift a 2.5-ton truck. It’s the magic of leverage.
When it comes to your business, the same principle applies. A small amount of effort can be magnified a thousand-fold. As a small business owner or solopreneur, trying to do everything yourself is like trying to lift the truck without a jack—your to-do list of key strategic tasks is going to keep getting longer and longer. Instead, by leveraging your time, you can get all the projects and tasks you want launched and completed.
So let’s cut to the chase: the leverage you need to get things done comes when you work with a specific kind of virtual assistant – a ‘business-grade’ assistant with the skills and experience that allows you to hand over skills-required, business-critical tasks: project management, marketing and social media, web development, back-office management and… well, you get the drift.
But this is nothing new. We’ve discussed this before (check out the posts on How to Save 15 Hours a Week and How to Save Another 15 Hours a Week).
What I want to convey now, is this: when you invest a small amount of time in onboarding a business-grade VA, you earn back your time investment over and over. For example, if you spend 5-10 hours orienting your VA to your customer service methods, standards, and procedures, you can easily save two hours a day on customer service tasks. That’s 10 hours a week or 40 hours a month or 480 hours a year – the equivalent of 10 extra work-weeks for you. That’s a ROTI (return on time investment) of 9600%. In the first year.
And that’s why virtual assistance is a gift that keeps on giving and giving, for as long as you work with your VA.
The Value of Making Time
But all those saved hours have little inherent value – they are what you make of them. And that’s where the business and personal-life-changing part of my promise comes into play.
I like to think of time in two separate categories: the monetary value of extra hours, and the wellness value of more time.
Monetary Value
On the monetary side, you have business potential – the time, finally, to put into action all those plans you’ve had on the backburner. To network with people who can help you build a better business. To research and plan and imagine. Your business-grade VA with project management skills can not only save you time, but also carry forward your ideas and help you implement your new plans.
Of course, there’s an actual monetary value to be calculated, too: just multiply your newly free hours (say, 10 per week) by your would-be hourly rate (say, $150 an hour), and subtract your VA’s hourly rate (say, $35 an hour), and the value of your free time is $1,150 a week. In other words, a very valuable $59,800 a year. If your VA helps implement new revenue generating projects, then increase that further.
Wellness Value
Freeing up time is about more than the zeroes it can add to your bottom line: It’s about an extra hour with your family in the morning. It’s about reduced stress. It’s about vacations. It’s about Sunday (or heck, even Tuesday) dinners you can sit down to enjoy. It’s about reading that book that’s been on your bedside table, or just getting a solid night’s sleep.
It’s about quality of life.
Because when you invest in the right VA, you invest in your overall wellness. You take a tiny bit of time right now, to gift yourself more and more and more time tomorrow.
