As you know, there are several types of work:
- Work you’re paid for on an hourly basis
- Work you’re paid for on a value basis (totally subjective and a matter of perception)
- Leveraged work
- Work that can be scaled into consistently higher leveraged work
- Work that gives you a negative return because you significantly procrastinated or focused on the wrong thing
Let’s focus on work that can be scaled.
If you’re a direct service provider you have a limited ability to scale. There are only so many appointments a doctor or lawyer can have, only so many massages a therapist can give, only so many hours you can coach or consult.
If you don’t hire others, you need to become very popular in order to generate significant revenue. That allows you to charge more and you’re still limited by the number of hours you can work.
4 ways you can scale your business:
- Hire others to perform the service/do the work (for example, I used to own a virtual assistant boutique agency)
- Create a membership/subscription program — it needs to be ongoing as a fixed term program requires you to start over with members at the end of each term or have no program
- Create something consumable that people use often and want more of
- Create a paid ad that’s profitable for something that’s leveraged. That is, for any of the previous 3 bullets. If the ad is profitable, you’re making $1+ for every $1 spent.
Which of the above interests you?