9
Proven Steps to Overcome
Being Overworked and Underpaid
Do you want more
Money + more Time?
Overwhelmed, overworked, and underpaid – these are some of the most common challenges we face as entrepreneurs.
When we started our company, we experienced first-hand, how we were spinning our wheels – hustling day and night to get our business up and running. As our business grew, we continued to work long hours and stretched ourselves thin. What became clear to us is working more hours did not result in more income.
In our quest to finding to solution for being overworked and underpaid, we decided to set aside time to work ON the business, as opposed to IN the business. In this process, we uncovered what kept us spinning our wheels. We were offering multiple services, we were accepted non-ideal clients, we had multiple marketing strategies that were not landing the number of clients we wanted, and we took on business opportunities that deviated from our core offering.
We got focussed and we fixed our problem of being overworked and underpaid. As we progress, we started to mentor clients with similar issues.
And here are some of the common symptoms we see with entrepreneurs:
If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, we can tell you that there is a solution for it.
Your first step is reflection. It’s a friendly reminder of why you got into business for yourself in the first place. Here are some important questions to ask yourself:
And as you’re about to make any decision in your business, insert an inflection point to ask yourself – how this going to contribute to making the income I deserve or freeing up my time?
Once you’ve taken the time to reflect, you can start to implement a system that we’ve been using for ourselves and for our clients, to free up more TIME for yourself, and to give yourself a pay raise.
9 Steps to Overcome Being Overworked and
Underpaid
Set a Meaningful Income Goal
This number factors in the personal income that you want to pay yourself from the business and the amount of time that you want to work.
From this number, you can determine the net revenue your business needs to make to deliver your income goal.
Explore Your Money Mindset
What if we told you that your money personality could be keeping you overworked and underpaid? Here are some of the signs of how it’s showing up:
If you can relate to one of these statements above, it’s time for you to explore how you relate to money and to work through your money blocks and money stories.
Consider working with a Money Coach or Money Mentor.
Stop Wearing Multiple Hats
Make a list of all the daily activities you do in your business
Place a check mark on the activities that you cannot hire for, and where you cannot replace yourself.
Place a checkmark on the activities that you enjoy doing
Now it’s time to define your role, the only activities you will be doing going forward. Hire for the rest!
Get in Tune with Your Revenue
- It’s important to understand which services are profitable for you, and which ones are not
- Create a list of all your services
- Determine the amount of revenue you are making from each type of service for the year
- Estimate the amount of time needed to deliver each service
- Calculate hourly rate for each type of service
- Consider tweaking, re-pricing or removing services that are not paying you the hourly rate that you want and deserve
Get in Tune with Your Expenses
- Summarize the list of all your business expenses for the year
- Bucket each item into categories that will help you to understand where your money is being spent. Categories would include:
Sales and
Marketing
Your
Team
Operating
Costs
- Assess how each of expense is either making you money or freeing up your time.
- Consider removing or changing expenses that are not delivering the results that you want.
Your Business Processes
- Review your business processes, such has your client acquisition or servicing process.
- Describe where in your processes, you are having breakdowns, inefficiencies, and wasting time.
- Assess if people, software, and systems can alleviate your current challenges.
- Choose the solution based on how it will save you time or bring you more money.
Setting Your Priorities
- After completing the first 6 steps, make a list of all your findings and decide which changes will have the biggest impact in freeing up your time or making you more money.
- Prioritize and decide which changes you want to implement immediately.
- Determine your time investment and the cost to take on these projects.
Revenue and Expense Projections
- Create a Revenue and Expense Worksheet to input the changes you are about to make.
- Assess the impact of these changes to your Net Revenue and to the time you spend in the business.
- Now you can decide on which changes to implement.
Making it Happen
- Map out your time and other resources needed for these projects and input into your calendar.
- Do you have the knowledge, skillset, accountability and ability to change your habits?
- Consider working with an accountability partner, business partner, mentor/coach to make it happen.
Until now, you might be feeling like you’ve been throwing spaghetti at a wall to solve your issue of being overworked and underpaid. You are not alone. As business owners, we have the tendency to look for quick solutions to fix our pain. And without hesitation, we start to implement immediately.
The value of this 9-step process is to help you pinpoint the exact area in your business that is causing you to overwork and be underpaid. With this knowledge, you’ll feel empowered to make changes in your business that will deliver the income that you deserve and the time freedom you’ve been dreaming of.
We would love to hear from you about any changes you’ve decided to make your business to free up your time or make you more money.
We are curious – what specific area in your business had the greatest impact on your time or money?? Leave us a comment and share your findings.
With love and gratitude,
Marlene and Thuy
Do you want more
Money + more Time?
Marlene & Thuy
Marlene and Thuy have spent over 20 years in the financial industry helping individuals with their investment, insurances, lending needs and are former Financial Planner. Since then, they’ve discovered the missing link to money freedom because as they said: “Making more money and being financially savvy won’t necessarily give you the life you want – because money goes deeper than the numbers.” When you work with Marlene and Thuy, they will guide you through the deeper inner work to remove what is keeping you from having the life that they want.