I was talking with my brother-in-law, Jon on Saturday and he was telling me proudly about how his son has decided that he wants to work for himself. The quote out of Jon’s mouth was “it’s hard to be successful working for someone else….of course you and your wife have done very well.” It kind of ticked me off and woke me up……simply because he was wrong and I let him know it. I’ve not been an employee of any company for almost 7 years now.
I’ve been self-employed as an independent consultant! I’m not anyone’s employee!!
(Yes, I do ok for myself…I’m a good communicator and I can lead my clients & facilitate through their problems. But, with my industry, I’ve peaked at my billing rate…..I really need to expand my business and get my experience to more clients!)…….All of this shot through my mind in about a minute after I corrected Jon.
Then it hit me like a ton of bricks….I’ve really been self employed for 7 years! I’ve been an ‘S’ on the cashflow quadrant for 7 years and I have NOT made the migration to being a business owner . I’m trying to do it with my other projects, but not with my consulting business! I’ve had to be that business. Writing this, it sounds strange as it’s so obvious now, but up until then, I was just thinking of it as a job and a means to get by. I had some plans to write a book about my experiences and hopefully expand that business, but I haven’t made much headway.
So, this week, I decided to start acting like a business owner for EVERYTHING I’m doing, including my consulting business. I looked at what needed to get done on expanding my consultancy and the book hit me square in the face. Immediately I thought about how I needed to edit the book, revise it, review it, etc…..then I thought SCREW THAT!! What would a business owner do? Fortunately, I was listing to the MoneyMasters Elite conversation with Russell Brunson…he was talking about how he had hired some writers to write books and other content for him. I had looked into this on O-Desk a while back, but I was looking for more of an editor than a writer and I didn’t like what I was seeing. Russell had mention Guru.com in his interview. I was on that site years ago, but hadn’t been back in a while. Fortunately, I went back and checked it out…..right there was what I was looking for: WRITERS!
I’ll be honest, Guru has a better selection of writers & marketers than oDesk does. At least as of today.
I posted a job yesterday and interviewed and hired a writer today. For about $450 I’ll have my book written and ready to distribute. Yes, $450 is a little high, but the notes I’ve provided really need some work, and I’m comfortable with that price. Plus, it will give me a FINAL piece of content, ready to be marketed and distributed to my target customers. I plan on selling the book at a higher price point, so the ROI should be good.
So, why is this important to you? Well, if you’re on the same journey I am, learn from my mistake. Think like a business owner ALL of the time on EVERYTHING you’re working on. What is the opportunity cost of you having to do something yourself vs having someone else do it for you?
Take a good hard look around and practice outsourcing what you can, you’ll be happy with the free time and the weight it takes off of your back with feeling like you have to do everything!