Save timeIf you are running your own business, chances are there are tasks that are sapping the life out of you AND your business.

I’ve spoken at a few events about working with Virtual Assistants (VAs) and when I start off I always ask the participants if $50 per hour for a VA sounds like a lot of money; something that they simply cannot afford. I get big nods of the head and looks of “you know it baby!” from all sides. It sure does sound expensive!

Now I want you to ask yourself, when you are working on your most valuable task (MVT), what are you worth per hour? On average, I usually get people saying about $100 per hour. So in effect, when they are actively bringing in an income, they are worth $100 each hour. Let’s explore that.

I propose that when you are working on a “life sapping task” it’s actually costing you MORE per hour than your MVT would be bringing in. As much as two or three times the amount in many cases.

By life sapping task (or LST as I’m going to call it) I am talking about work that doesn’t actively bring in the money and doesn’t inspire or ignite you. These tasks are unique to every business owner – but most business owners have at least a handful of tasks that fall under this category.

Because your LST isn’t inspiring or igniting, often you will find that it takes you longer to do than it would take someone else who thrives on that sort of work. Mathematically, that is dooming.

Let’s use, as an example, database management as your own life sapping task.

Every time you work on database management, you are costing your business at least $100 per hour.

Not only that, but because this is something that doesn’t energise you and is probably not  easy for you, you are probably somewhat slow at it compared to someone who is an expert in this area. So you may be spending 3 hours on something that a specialist could do in 1 hour.

If that’s the case – your LST is costing you $300 on a regular basis instead of the $50 or so that it may cost for an expert VA. You are $250 down on potential income each and every time you undertake that LST.

You are PAYING $250 per hour for the privilege of working on your LSTs! Is that good business sense? Is that cost effective? Well the obvious answer is a resounding NO.

So imagine this.

You’ve identified you LSTs.

You’ve delegated those to someone who finds your LSTs are their MVTs (yay for everyone!)

You are focusing on your own MTVs and those tasks that ignite a business fire in your belly.

You know you can now MAKE the money (and more) that you need to pay your specialist to do your LSTs quickly and professionally.

 

How does that feel?

I know many of you have ONE BIG BUT. And no I am not taking a stab at your physical shape.

“But Rosie, I don’t have the time or knowledge to even FIND and work with the right VA for me!”

Many people fear delegating and the process of finding and setting up a Virtual Assistant or a Virtual Assistant team.

Not to worry – we are going to look at that in our next article!