How much is your time worth?

How much is your time worth? It’s hard to put a dollar figure on it. If you’re a parent every minute you can spend with your kids is priceless. Some severely lack in having that luxury. They might have to travel a lot, have a work schedule that is very demanding, or have too many responsibilities. Sadly this makes seeing your family a rare occasion.

If you are a business owner your time is usually best spent growing your business. You might be the one that does the work yourself, such as a handyman. You might have employees to do the work but you are the one that goes out and gets all the new business. Without that you have no future business growth. Most business owners are also responsible for making sure their existing customers stay happy. Keeping a customer is just as important as getting new ones. All of these things are critical in keeping you in business.

With that being said it is obvious that your time is invaluable. If you sat down and made  a list of everything you had to do to keep it all going, then prioritized it, you would see that there are certain things only you can do and those things are usually at the top of the list. Then there are the things that are further down the list. Things you could delegate or maybe hire someone else to do. Things that still have to get done but not things that you have to do. This is where a virtual assistant comes in handy.

A virtual assistant can do all of the administrative work your business needs. They can provide the much-needed assistance you need to keep your business running smoothly so you can keep going. You might not need a full-time or even part-time employee to take care of things. They will cost a guaranteed amount every week and possibly even more if you have a full-time employee entitled to company benefits, vacation pay, sick pay, etc… You might not even have an actual office for someone to work out of. A virtual assistant can take care of what you need done, as you need it done, saving you both time and money. You might need some invoicing done, someone to make sure your customers are paying. You might just be crazy busy one day and need someone to return some phone calls or emails for you. Maybe you want to keep in touch with your existing customers and want some email marketing blasts to go out. There is no job too small… or to big when properly managed… that a virtual assistant can’t help with.

With the right person helping, you might just find the time to make that little league game, dance recital, or just plain sit down and realize how good that feels. So how much is your time worth? Hire a virtual assistant, focus on the important things, and your will see just how valuable their time is to you, and how invaluable yours is.

How to start over… in the middle

I guess you could say I am in the middle of my working life… maybe a little further. We won’t discuss actual numbers. The job I have had almost my entire adult life has ended and I am the sole owner of a new company. It is all up to me to make it happen. So…… where to start?

It was almost instinctual for me to just get things going. The thought of it not happening was not even a possibility in my mind. It never occurred to me that what I was doing might not succeed. Looking back I knew that if I had even started to think that way it would have never worked. It’s like when you are doing something that you have done a million times and you know what you are doing… you know you will get it done. You have done it so many times the possibility of it not getting done doesn’t even enter your mind. It’s like washing clothes, checking and returning email, going to the grocery store. These are all every day tasks that we don’t even think about. That’s how I was when I was setting up and starting my business. I had done these kinds of jobs for so many years, done them so many times, that all I could think about was “how many clients I could handle” at once. I didn’t think “if” I would get any clients. I didn’t think “when” would the clients start calling. As I set up my phone service, my thoughts were making sure I didn’t miss any phone calls from “all” of the clients that would be calling. As I set up my post office box I wondered if it would be big enough to hold all of the mail I would get… like checks from clients, etc.

It was this way of thinking that kept me driven to keep going until what I considered success was reached. I didn’t slow down. I didn’t get nervous if I didn’t get any calls for a few days. I knew if I kept pushing hard enough I would be making money in no time. Every day I thought of new ideas to get new business. I decided to improve my website, go to networking meetings with other businesses, create a presence on social media like Facebook , LinkedIn, and Twitter. I worked hard and I worked fast because I couldn’t afford to just sit around without any income.

Now my perseverance in finally paying off. I have several clients, some on a regular basis. I am generating income. I am still…and probably always will be… thinking of new ways to help my business as well as my client’s business grow . It’s solely up to me now to make it happen. There can’t be any excuses. There is no one else to help. It wasn’t easy, but despite what could have happened I was able to start over…in the middle.

 

P.S.

Since I am just starting this ritual of blogging please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this page. I would appreciate any feedback anyone has.

Thank you!