You don’t need to avoid exchanging time for money
I was reading a blog by a coach who, like me, helps solopreneurs.
They made the following claim:
“If you’re a consultant, there’s three ways to grow your revenue:
1. Charge more.
2. Employ junior staff to deliver the work.
3. Sell products that don’t require your time.”
This is pretty standard advice for people looking to grow their business, and all of it seems to make sense, however personally I think you should put almost all your effort into ‘Strategy 1 - charge more’, and here’s why.
Strategy 2 - employ staff, completely changes the nature of your business, and your role in it. When you employ others to actually provide the value to the client, you step out of your role as a technician, provider, teacher, coach… and step into a new role as an administrator and manager.
Now, if you’re naturally good at administration and management, good for you! Employ a bunch of folks and thrive together.
If you’re more like me, however, promoting yourself out of the client-serving role is a moronic move and you should resist it at all costs. If you’re running a solo business and you’re enjoying the freedom it offers, beware the risks of turning it into an organisation, with all the baggage that entails.
Strategy 3 - sell products, is something that I’m more amenable to, with some stern warnings. The idea of people being able to buy products that are valuable to them, but don’t take much (or any) of your time to deliver is extremely attractive. What we have to be very, very careful of, however, is while those products don’t take any time to deliver once they’re ready, they can take an absolutely overwhelming amount of time to prepare in the first place.
If you pour thousands of hours into developing a product and it doesn’t sell, you’ve managed to do the exact opposite of save yourself time.
This happens more often than it doesn’t.
Most products are unsuccessful. Most of the time solo pros invest into developing products is wasted (or, at the very least, transpires to be very low-value time).
That’s why I’m the strongest advocate for Strategy 1.
Be really good at what you do, and then charge in the top 10% of everyone in your industry to deliver your value to the market.
People who say “you shouldn’t trade your time for money” only say that because they’ve never made $5000 in an hour.
P.S.
Did you know you can sign up for the Solo Program and pay only $1,000 between now and February next year? This is a fantastic opportunity to set yourself up for an amazing new year. Spend the summer living meaningfully and freedomfully and join our supportive community of fellow solopreneurs. Don’t miss out on this chance to invest in your growth and success!