My first job paid $5.30 an hour.
I was 15 and had to work Friday nights and Sundays. It was a retail job.
I loved and hated it in equal measure.
I hated the uniform, the boiling hot building and complaining customers.
I loved earning my own money and they let us eat the food that had damaged packaging. Coincidentally only the nice food seemed to get damaged on the shop floor…
The next job I moved to my pay went up to $13. When you’re 16 and your pay goes up 2.5x you feel like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates all rolled into one.
Frankly surprised I didn’t start shopping for a private jet.
At that age it’s all about the money. You accept that the jobs you are going to get kind of……suck.
But for some of us this never leaves us.
We get stuck in the tasks that…suck. Despite the fact there are people who can do them faster, better and cheaper than we can.
To make these decisions you need to decide your hourly rate.
Your time is the most precious commodity you have. It is categorically the most finite resource on earth.
Choosing how you spend that time is crucial to your happiness and productivity.
Cause you ain’t getting it back.
Putting a dollar figure on this helps you decide whether the thing you’re about to do. Many things are priceless but putting a number on it answers an important question;
Should I be doing this?
I regularly see business owners and leaders doing tasks that they just shouldn’t be doing.
Admin? Some, but not all of it.
Logistics? No thanks.
Marketing? Strategy yes but not spending 5 hours getting an email ‘perfect’.
There are people in your business who can do these things. and if there aren’t there’s a world of free lancers and businesses who can do it better than you.
There are plenty of ecommerce businesses out there spending 100 hours a month on adwords as they don’t want to pay an agency $1000 to manage it. Do the maths on that hourly rate.
I dont always get this right in my own businesses but I regularly try and get out of the way.
Choose your hourly rate.
Make it high. Make it higher than you think you’re worth as everyone is worth more than they think they are.
If you want to discover what you should be doing and what you shouldn’t be lets get together http://jameskempco.wpengine.com/schedule/