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Chapter 3

HOW DO I GET MY TIME BACK?

Myth: Teams take too much time and money to develop.

Truth: The function of a team is to provide more time and money with less expense and effort put in by the team leader. In fact, when done properly, effectively, and systematically, creating and running a team is highly profitable and frees up time for all team members, including you.

That admin support you hired took more of your time than your clients. I hear this reality every day from people who have tried to get help. Our team hears this hundreds of times a week. Hiring her added to your to-do list because you were walking an uphill battle before you started.

Trying to hire, build a job description, the systems and tasks associated with that job description, and train, all at once is basically impossible. People are told, every day, hiring support is the answer, and it is when you are prepared.

The buyer’s agent needs you constantly because he wants you to be happy. He wants the clients to be happy. He wants to know how to win, how to do a good job, and what to avoid, but lacks the deliberate strategy and clarity that duplication of values and standards requires of your team’s business. You’re always trying to keep deals together. You are busy enough. Eventually, if you have tried to hire, you may have decided that it seemed easier to just do it on your own, but now what?

It is true that it may be easier to run your business on your own in the short-term. Servicing clients yourself in your custom way is quicker than creating the tasks, job description, hiring, and training it takes to expand your team. But what happens to that same time trade-off after one, two, or three years—heck, even three months?

Just for fun, write a list of all the tasks that a support position could do for you. Now, write how long each of those tasks takes you per week. Now, add them up. You can now compare how many weeks of you personally doing those tasks it would take you to do it to equal the amount of time you are estimating it will take to hire, which will likely include creating the task list (which we just started), creating the job description, interviewing, and training. Your hiring process should be no more than two to three weeks at most. Beyond that, the amount of time to accomplish those tasks on your own becomes indefinite.

Over and above the time factor or the money factor, the reality is that doing it on your own is not going to help you make it home for dinner on time. If you want time to spend your nights and weekends with your children, spouse, and loved ones, you are going to need someone to help with the business. Most sales and service industries do not shut down in the evenings or on the weekends. There is more demand than ever for after-hours options in all industries. Do you expect timely answers when you need them from a lawyer, doctor, accountant, or when you need to make a business decision? Your clients feel the same way about wanting access to your level of wisdom and resources when they need them.

While you could develop a business model around the nine-to-five workweek, you will have some clients deciding to go elsewhere, which will be an overall hit to business volume. For most of us, this is not a realistic solution. We want to elevate client experience, not reduce it.

You will need help that actually makes a difference for your business and helps get your business organized and self-sufficient so everything doesn’t depend on you anymore. This relief will free up time and energy to do more of what you love and do best. The ability to do more of what you love, when done right, will increase your overall business earnings even after you bring in and pay support staff. Am I saying you will do less and make more? Yes, that is exactly what I am saying.

To have the time to confidently hire, and expand, and do less, you will need to get yourself to a place where you stop being on call 24/7. After you get some help, you will be close to taking an actual vacation—without your phone. The truth is that your business will likely be ready for you to take a vacation without your phone before you will be. You won’t need to be there for everything that comes up. You need to be able to let some things wait, condition your clients on when they can expect to hear from you, and free up your time so you can work on what is of the greatest importance that hour or day.

Right now, the ability to get some time back, get organized, and find some help you can rely on is of greatest importance. This is your eye of the storm. This is your moment to get the resources you need to step into a future version of you that already has more time, meals with your family, a life away from your phone, an organized office, and a business that does not rely on you every second of the day. This future version of you exists. All you must do is access the resources while they are available to you.

I am your guide on this journey to your future self and future business. I will take you through the steps to building this new reality sequentially. Don’t bother jumping ahead steps or chapters as this journey builds upon each step as we go. For example, you don’t want to use your current eyes to read the chapter on “No More Babysitting.” Your current eyes created the business you have now. We love those eyes. They got you here, but, point-blank, they are not the eyes that will get you the time and life you want in the future.

Together, I will help you expand on how you see your business, yourself, and your role in that business. You will carve out what you love to do most, take away what you dislike doing, and work to create the ultimate momentum maker: leverage.

Once you know what you love and how you will step into your next phase of leadership, we will carve out your unique values, allowing for the space and training to attract others to help you create these values and believe in them alongside you to serve your clients. This is the key to leverage that so many business owners miss. It is not enough to get more done or to get more done without needing you. The key to successful leverage is to elevate the end experience or product for everyone involved. We want to have a better experience and a more successful outcome for you, your team, and your clients. That is what leverage is all about. It is the ultimate unfair advantage!

Once you are ready to leverage your time, you will need some help. That means a process is needed to hire, recruit, and train. You will need to know how to build your business and how to thrive by creating a performance environment. A performance environment is part of the sales-speak that is rarely defined and often turns into lingo used by the coaching industry. Although rarely explained, performance environments do exist, and they are a make-or-break for your business. So, instead of just talking like you know what a performance environment is, you are going to carve out the exact ingredients you will need to build one. I will explain why you can hire someone of average talent and watch them kick butt in a performance environment compared to someone with exceptional talent who will struggle.

KBCC Ultimate Expansion Strategy

The following steps in the Kathleen Black Coaching & Consulting Inc. (KBCC) Ultimate Expansion Strategy will allow you to get help faster while avoiding common mistakes, which leave most leaders back at the beginning doing it all themselves. Expansion does not have to be painful, although it does have to be focused and brave. These steps will walk you through a tried, tested, and true process to safeguard your role, your time, your client experience, and your business as you grow.

Step 1: Bullseye! That is the Business I Want!

In this step, you will gain clarity before action and know exactly what you want and why to act with confidence.

Step 2: The Mindset Matrix to Stunningly Successful

You will learn the perspective of successful business owners to build with new eyes and go from overworked, under-achieving solopreneur to stunningly successful business owner.

Step 3: Addicted to Leverage: The GENIUS Method

Know your strengths and weaknesses as a leader. This step will allow you to delegate away tasks that cost you time and money in your business to capable team members. You will then have more time to focus on what you love, earn more money, and have more time overall.

Step 4: Your Values, Your Standards, Your Reputation, Done Your Way

In this step, I will show you how you can offer a better service and a superior result to clients by expanding your team and doing less yourself.

Step 5: Stop Babysitting! Get Help Without Hiring Sales Agents

In this step, I will show you how a hiring and recruitment system will save you time, money, and frustration. You will learn exactly what you have to offer to a potential recruit or hire and to stop trying to recreate the wheel by implementing a proven system instead.

Step 6: Avoiding Common and Costly Mistakes

In this step, you will discover the best plan for you to expand by following a tried, tested, and true path that saves you time, money, and frustration. Discover the power of “Model the Best: Forget the Rest” in your business.

Step 6: How to Create Performance Culture

In this step, you will learn the key ingredients in a performance culture, so you can structure your business to hold accountability for results and excel with a skilled sales team. You will also explore your ROI when you build a well-performing team and understand when to limit resources if a team member is not performing.

Step 7: Built to Win: Team Synergy

The world is changing. You are not alone in feeling this transition. The need to change is not limited to your business. This expansion is part of a vital shift toward greater professionalism and consulting and is demanded by consumers from the sales industry globally. Elevating your business means contributing to the personal development of your team, community, country, and the world.

The steps outlined above will make sense and provide you with a clear path for you to get the help you need and want. Even with such a clear strategy, it will be tempting to do some things differently. Every business owner has their unique approach, which we want to nurture. However, you do not want to get stuck in avoidable and common mistakes. The common mistakes are almost always the ones that we think make genuine good sense and are unique to us. Ninety-nine% of the time, the common mistakes are really common, and they pop up as genius ideas to avoid doing what we need to do to build a business people will stay in, thrive in, and love.

Today is the day to leave the “overworked underachiever” concept behind. You outgrew the long hours, the costs to your personal life, the effects on your health, and you might even realize that you outgrew the cost of delivering less than your best work to the world. No more diluting your gifts, your time, or your life. You watched others build a stunningly successful life, and now it’s time for you to do the same with the Ultimate Expansion Strategy leading the way.