What's Your Time Worth?

Howdy from a very warm Texas, Wealthy Affiliates!

Today's lesson is really simple, but applying it to your life and business isn't as easy as it may seem (as with so many other things!).

I'm writing about this today because I reconnected with a follower a few weeks ago, who initially found his way to making money online here at WA, and is now making just shy of $20k per month.

Which is awesome, and I'm so proud of him and all of the hard work he continues to pour into his business. The dude is a beast, and he's absolutely kicking butt all-around in his IM business. But there was one small issue...

He's still managing every aspect of his business himself. Outside of occasionally outsourcing some not-so-important content, he's taking care of all administrative functions, basic Wordpress functions, other writing, etc. as a one-man-show.

You don't have to make $20k per month for this lesson to apply to you, just to be clear. And even if it doesn't apply to you now, it will apply to you somewhere down the road when you're successful.

If your hourly rate, whether it's through a job or through your business, is more than the hourly rate you would pay a highly-qualified, experienced contractor to do the same job (especially when they might even do a better job), you should consider taking that opportunity to invest in your business.

For example, this referral's hourly rate in his business was $80/hour conservatively. I hired a Filipino VA earlier this week that's incredibly well-reviewed, competent, and hardworking that only charges $3.50 an hour! She could probably take 10 hours per week off of his business easily, which he could use to relax or, as I typically do, reinvest more of his most valuable skills into his business!

This applies to personal errands/duties you have too! I obsess over my lawn and garden here at home, but ultimately I decided to hire someone to take care of these relatively unskilled tasks for me to buy back 3-5 hours per week that I can invest in my business. The house is still just as beautiful, but my business is growing that much faster thanks to their help.

At the end of the day, finding excellent writers, admins, programmers, etc. isn't difficult to do in this global economy. I have some excellent writers that I consider great friends, and every time I Skype with a team member we share a few laughs. But they save me hours upon hours each week, which I can use to expand into new projects, test new conversion opportunities in my sales funnels, and more.

Moral of the story: If your time is worth more than the work you're spending large chunks of time on, consider hiring a freelancer off of UpWork to help you out. Then reinvest the hours you just bought back doing something that's more valuable to your business.

Like I said, you may not be there right now, and that's fine! But don't be stingy with your business - reinvest your profits for passive growth and achieve exponentially more than you're capable of as a one-man-show.

Now I'm going to do something I very rarely do, and take the rest of the afternoon off! My team is still working and my business continues to grow in my absence, and I build a little more financial leverage every quarter. It wasn't an easy transition to make, but I'm glad I made it, and I hope you make it in your own business someday too!