How Much Is Your Time Worth?

When do I hire something out rather than doing it myself? 

Why would I pay someone else to do the work that I know I can do?

Have you ever asked these questions when you had a project that you needed to tackle?

Now that I am into my 40’s I am really having to weigh out how much work I should be doing and how much I should be hiring out.  My father taught me quite a bit to be handy around the house.  I can change out electrical outlets, switches, lights, ceiling fans, tiling, roofs, plumbing, do spreadsheets, sell, etc. 

I can do even more now with all the experiences I have had with homes including flipping one while I did all of the work. Most of the time I would have extra experience as I would have to do it twice do to trying to short cut something.  A good rule of thumb in my experience is that a well performed project should not reveal extra screws, bolts, or other retention components when are you finished. 

What I have sometimes wondered is if I am at a deficit because I am capable of using my own hands and time to do quite a bit.  I struggle with that I can do the project, but is it the most beneficial use of my time.  I want to do it to show myself that I can, but is this approach worth it?  This has been hard because small projects are very therapeutic for me.  I can work on something that is completed in a small amount of time compared to most of my projects that take months upon months to work on.  It’s nice to be able to step back and look at something that I have created with my own hands.  The issue is that I am doing this at a cost that I have never previously rationalized.

My mentor when I first got into sales taught me that wealthy people put a value on TIME.  When working on projects, thinking about investments, they calculate the cost of their time that will be invested in the project.  Time is something that we have a limited supply of.  When we are born time seems to be ticking away until we finally expire.  We cannot add hours in the day, multiply our time, we can only invest our time into those areas that we feel most important.

Lately I have had to start hiring out the work on my house so I can keep moving my business and projects forward.  I have had to put a value per hour that I would have to pay myself to perform the task.  If the quotes from contractors come in lower, or even close to my cost, I typically hire them to perform the work even if I am capable of doing it.   Most of the time they can actually do the work faster as well. 

I had to have two foundation walls on my house dug up, pushed back straight, reinforced, sealed, and then back filled. Now I am fully capable in doing this work, but it would have taken me months to complete.  I did not have the time to do this on top of everything I am working on.  It took the contractor three weeks to complete and I was able to work on other projects.  The cost for them to do all this work and in the time they did it was less than it would have taken me.  Sure, I would have been able to use digging equipment which would have been fun, but they did it for cheaper than I could with all of the time that would have been involved from me to do the project.

When preparing for that next project, career change, purchase of a home, or moving dirt think about the cost of your time as a function of the investment.   Think about the amount of work and hours that you will need to complete.  Then think about how much it would cost for you to do the work compared to hiring it out so you can be freed up to do other things that are more important. 

For those of you looking for a new job, this should definitely be part of your decision if you are going to change companies.  If the new company that you are interviewing is for instance 15 minutes each way longer of a drive, you need to calculate that into your salary expectations?  See 15 minutes each way is 30 minutes a day.  Multiplied by five working days a week is 2 ½ hours a week more driving when you could be doing something else.  Now assuming you have to only work 48 weeks a year that is 120 hours a hear you will be in the car more than in your current position.  Say you make $25/ hour, that is $3000 a year that you are losing to driving.  That is also not calculating the operating costs of your vehicle or fuel.

Next time you are figuring out a budget for a project you are about to take part in make sure you are also figuring in how much your time is worth.  It may reveal that training someone else may be able to do the smaller items so that you can focus on the higher value items.  If you are looking for a new career figure out the time investment and keep the focus on if it will get you closer to where you want to be in the time frame you are working with. 

Time is a precious commodity and we need to protect it’s value! 

Have a great week!

“Businesses wonder why it is still hard to be thought of as the brand of choice with customers.  How can our business make more profitable transactions and stay out of the commodity battle with low profits?  I equip your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate explosive revenues with greater profits!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lWIVasmkFsoYL4h0AqIZgH6LC3qaw_gI/view?usp=sharing – client profile sheet

https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Process-Uncovered-Success-Influence/dp/0578421518 - Book

https://kevinsidebottom.kartra.com/page/5AF12 - Sales Process Uncovered Online Training

https://kevinsidebottom.kartra.com/page/68N10 - Trustworthy Online Training

Are You Using A Compass?

Naval Captains, and old explorers used these interesting yet simple tools called compasses to help navigate how to get where they wanted to go.  Yes, they used other tools, but this one tool helped them stay on track for their headings.   Even in storms they used these compasses to stay the course.

Today we use directions and a voice in our navigations tools to tell us turn by turn which way to go.  The early days had us sometimes driving on unpaved roads and some stories of people driving right into water because they believed the navigation units solely. 

In our everyday lives we need to use a tool that helps us stay on track.  There are many names for the tool like mission statement, vision statement, goals, etc.  I like to call it my compass.  I have a compass that I have created to help me use what I know about myself and how I am wired to make planning for the year have the best chance of success with my goals.

Yes, it is something from church, but it’s a took the DISC assessment, a gifts assessment, and our passions to help us make a purpose statement.  We need to live on purpose otherwise will just be drifting along with no direction.  Those that are intentional and lean into their compass do move forward with great speed and intentionality. 

By having a compass (purpose statement) we can eliminate detours that take away the most precious commodity we have available…TIME.  Yes, time is something that we are not able to add, multiple, but only subtract and sometimes divide.  We lose a lot of time and energy if we are doing tasks that don’t align with what fuels us forward.

Ever get to the end of day 30 and you are still worn out, tired, and with an empty tank?  Sure, we did something, but did that something actually get us closer to where we want to go?  Did it give us more tools to help us move faster in the future?

I have been in seasons where I was serving on countless non-profit activities, serving the community as a volunteer fire fighter, playing in adult flag football leagues, etc.  These all seemed fun, but did they help me get to my end goal?  I still support in some ways and have an active community, but I have chosen to put my energy in learning how to communicate better and help others through this blog, my Youtube channel, and my trainings to help businesses and leaders succeed. 

I have been intentional over the past decade to make sure my family will be taken care of, preparing for my later years, and how to help impact others for the better.  I have said no to good things in order to say yes to great things.  It has and is still a charted course I am on, but I know the path I need to take to get there.  Without my compass this would not be possible.

Having a compass to guide our path to the future selves we want to have, we need to be intentional and know what it is that we want to achieve.  It can be monetary, but it can also be relationally.  We should have a compass and a clear vision of where we want to go, before we just start moving because we only have a short period of time to get there before the sands of time run out for each one of us.

What does your compass look like?

Have a great week!

“Businesses wonder why it is still hard to be thought of as the brand of choice with customers.  How can our business make more profitable transactions and stay out of the commodity battle with low profits?  I equip your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate explosive revenues with greater profits!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lWIVasmkFsoYL4h0AqIZgH6LC3qaw_gI/view?usp=sharing – client profile sheet

https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Process-Uncovered-Success-Influence/dp/0578421518 - Book

https://kevinsidebottom.kartra.com/page/5AF12 - Sales Process Uncovered Online Training

https://kevinsidebottom.kartra.com/page/68N10 - Trustworthy Online Training

Why We Need Rest

Do you ever get back from a vacation and think that you need a vacation from your vacation?  Are you able to unplug when you are away from the office on vacation?  Do you feel truly rested after the weekend?  How often when you are supposed to rest are you checking emails for work behind your family’s back?  Like you have some secret mistress known as a J.O.B.

I have been spending the time to relax on my Sundays over the past year.  I take time to rest because I keep a pretty rigorous schedule.  I’m up between 5 and 6 am to get started on my day by prepping with reading, my devotions, and my goals.  This is all before I hop in the shower to get ready to work.  

I work hard and workout hard.  This means when it is time to rest, I need to rest.  Now I don’t have an oxygen chamber, freezing chamber, or any of that scientific stuff.  I take power naps, read, hang out with friends and family, take walks, relax on the boat, etc.   I need to unplug so that I can refresh my mind.  

When our mind is constantly going and firing on all cylinders it gets fatigued.  Our brain needs rest to repair and form new synapsis.  Which is why when we are rested we typically come up with the greatest break throughs for problems that we are trying to solve.   Our creativity goes up, our brain does not feel foggy, our decision making is more clear, etc.  Forbes did an article that is helpful with understanding why we need rest with some action steps we can take to accomplish rest.  

I know there are some of you reading that think that sleep is for the weak and the dead.  That is something my mother still says to this day.  The toughest people I have ever met are Navy Seals.  There we twenty years older than me and could outperform me.  These people actually go through something called Hell Week and they are up with no sleep for days.  Not hours, days.  They hallucinate, they have depleted testosterone levels, they have trouble making decisions, etc.  

A gentleman names Kirk Parsley was an active seal and studied health and he actually teaches high performing people on the effects of sleep.  I have put a link here for a quick video of him talking about sleep.  He briefly talks about how these high performers had testosterone levels of young girls because of the deprivation and constant fatigue from lack of rest.

If Seals and athletes need to make sure that they take time to rest, the rest of us humans should take notice.  We need to make sure we are having self care.  I know for some people may think they are stronger than the rest and can go without rest, but it is true.  We need to unplug and rest if we are going to continue to function at high levels.  

If we do not take time to rest then we will not function and it can impact our health with different diseases.  Not just being grouchy, but actual diseases that can kill us.  Do yourself a favor and take time to unplug to rest and recover so that you can get back into the fight rested with more capacity.  

Have a great week!

“Businesses wonder why it is still hard to be thought of as the brand of choice with customers.  How can our business make more profitable transactions and stay out of the commodity battle with low profits?  I equip your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate explosive revenues with greater profits!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lWIVasmkFsoYL4h0AqIZgH6LC3qaw_gI/view?usp=sharing – client profile sheet

https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Process-Uncovered-Success-Influence/dp/0578421518 - Book

https://kevinsidebottom.kartra.com/page/5AF12 - Sales Process Uncovered Online Training

https://kevinsidebottom.kartra.com/page/68N10 - Trustworthy Online Training

Do What Wealthy People Do

What do Wealthy individuals do?  That is a question the majority of our population have.

I have sat with quite a few millionaires and learned this some interesting things.  First thing I learned is that 99% of wealthy individuals did not inherit their wealth.  Yep, that is right, they built it from the ground up.  Almost all of them did not win the lottery either.  So how did they do it?

The main reason these wealthy individuals did it is by using a Budget.  Yep, I used the B-word! They use budgets financially, with their time, and when they decide to take on a new venture. 

Hardworking individuals believe the B-word as a taboo discussion topic.  I get it!  I fought against using budgets until I took a class that helped me understand that if I tell my money what to do, it actually does what I want it to do. 

When I learned how freeing budgets can be, I was left wondering why I did not do this sooner.  I would have had so much more money at the end of the pay period and would have been able to invest more of my hard, earned money.  Yes, budgeting can be freeing for you and your loved ones.  My wife can use her money to buy whatever she wants with it. 

My wife and I started out our marriage with the monthly budget meeting.  We go through all of the line items including clothing, vacations, gifts, food, electric, etc.  If she decides to buy a whole bunch of coffee, she is free to do so without me condemning her because it is her money to budget for whatever she wants!  Have you ever had a fight over your significant other buying something that you haven’t agreed on? 

The monthly budget has helped our communication greatly as a by-product.  If you are in a relationship then you already know communication is huge in a relationship. 

Budgeting has been one of the single most effective ways for my wife and I to prepare for emergencies, taking vacations, date nights, etc.  We have had times where we had emergencies and by having a budget, we were able to overcome those emergencies quickly.  We also need to buy a new roof for our house that we have been planning for.  Roofs are pretty expensive and we will be able to afford it because we put it in the budget. 

You know what else has been great?  We actually give our kids a budget for clothing and after school activities that they can manage how they choose.  They just need make sure they can afford it.  If they don’t have enough money, then they don’t do the activity.  Now the emotion is taken out of the discussion and the focus is on saving up so they can do that activity in the future.  My hope is that they will keep budgeting for the rest of their life so they can retire with even more money that my wife and I.

Had we started earlier on investing into retirement we would have millions more when we retire.  Not a million…Millions! 

If you want to be successful and have a great retirement, you need to start with a budget.  I do not make any money off of this, but I also highly recommend you take financial peace university from Ramsey Solutions!  It is the class that started me on my financial journey over a decade ago and has helped our family with getting on track for a better future.

What is keeping you from sitting down and doing a budget? 

Do you not have the time? 

Does it seem like you don’t know where to start? 

What if I told you that if you emailed me, I would send you a FREE excel file that you could use for your own budget?   It does all of the calculations for you.  

Would that be helpful? 

If you want to become wealthy and have HOPE for your future, email me today and I will send you a copy of the budget file we use so that you can get on the road for a better future.

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business.  I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

What Wealthy People Do

What do Wealthy individuals do that people living paycheck to paycheck do not?

I have sat with quite a few millionaires and learned this one cool thing. 99% of wealthy individuals did not inherit their wealth. Yep, that is right, they built it from the ground up.

One of the ways that wealthy individuals do this is by using a Budget. Yep, I used the B-word! I know that your hearts is beating faster and palms are getting sweaty, but keep reading.

The majority of people believe that budgeting as the equivalent of torture device that they don’t have time to mess with. People believe the B-word as a taboo discussion topic when it comes to family resources. I get it. I fought against using budgets until I took a class that helped me understand that if I tell my money what to do, it actually does what I want it to do.

When I learned how freeing budgets can be, I was pissed at myself that I didn’t do this when I graduated college. I would have had so much more money at the end of the pay period and would have been able to invest more money. Had I started earlier on investing into retirement I would have millions more when I retired. Not a million…Millions! Click this link to see how compound interest works.

My wife and I started out our marriage with the monthly budget meeting and the monthly budget has helped our communication greatly as a by-product. Communication is huge in relationships. We go through all of the line items including clothing budgets. What has been nice is that my wife gets a set amount of money that she can use to buy whatever clothes (shoes) she wants whenever she wants. It is freeing. Yes, budgeting can be freeing for you and your loved ones. A total contradiction to what people think about budgets.

She can use her money to buy whatever she wants with it. If she decides to buy a whole bunch of coffee, she is free to do so without me condemning her because it is her money to budget for whatever she wants! Have you ever had a fight over your significant other buying something that you haven’t agreed on? It sucks having those fights and ending up on the couch for the night, or worse the cold shoulder!

Budgeting has been one of the single most effective ways for my wife and I to prepare for emergencies, taking vacations, date nights, etc. This past Spring, we had to pay for the foundation for our house to be fixed which cost tens of thousands of dollars which we were able to pay cash for because we budgeted. It has brought us closer as we talk about our future dreams and budget to make it a reality. That is right budgeting gives you HOPE for a better future.

We give the kids a budget for clothing and after school activities that they can manage how they choose. They just need make sure they can afford it. If they don’t have enough money, then they don’t do the activity. Now the emotion is taken out of the discussion and the focus is on saving up so they can do that activity in the future. My hope is that they will keep budgeting for the rest of their life so they can retire with even more money that my wife and I.

What is keeping you from sitting down and doing a budget?

Do you not have the time?

Does it seem like you don’t know where to start?

What if I told you that if you emailed me, I would send you a FREE excel file that you could budget. It does all of the calculations for you.

Would that be helpful for you?

If you want to become wealthy and have HOPE for your future, email me today and I will send you a copy of the budget file we use so that you can get on the road for a better future.

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

www.kevinsidebottom.com