This year, I believe the single most important thing you can do is give yourself a big, fat raise!
After all, you work hard, and you deserve it!
How is this possible, you ask?
Easy
Say you want to earn one million dollars this year. Thats a lot of money to think about in one lump sum, so break it down to something more reasonable:
- How many days a week do you want to work? Well say five, which is realistic.
- How many hours a day do you want to work? Well say five because we dont like to work very much.
- How much per hour does that come out to? In this case its 260 days times five hours divided into one million dollars, or $769.23 per hour.
Hold that thought for a minute.
Now, make a list of the actions you perform when you get into the office or start your day (and be honest with yourself). Everything from administrative duties to copywriting to answering the phone.
Put a dollar amount next to the task that represents what an independent contractor or employee would charge to do the job properly.
If its something only you can do (like creating a new product), note how much revenue the task is likely to generate based on your effort.
Our chart looks something like this:
Employee and contractor tasks:
- Responding to e-mail and phone calls: $20/hour
- Accounting and Bookkeeping: $50/hour
- Programming HTML and Java: $75/hour
- Backing up computer system: $10/hour
- Picking up office supplies: $7/hour Profit-oriented tasks:
- Developing new products: $1,000/hour
- Setting up large joint ventures: $2,000/hour
- Developing new affiliates: $1,000/hour
- Rewriting sales letters: $1,500/hour
Heres the million dollar a year secret: In order to achieve your financial goals, all you need to do is spend your time on activities that generate more than $769.23 an hour!
Get it? Only do the expensive work, the sales, copywriting, business development, and production (or whatever the high dollar tasks are in your own business).
What about the other stuff that needs to be done every day? Easy, since there are daily tasks that need to be done in every business, either automate them using technology, or hire someone else (employee or contractor) to do them for you!
The end result is more revenue per hour of work, which means:
- More profits.
- Better customer service.
- More innovative products.
- More free time.
And that, my friend, is how you give yourself a raise!
Jonathan Mizel is President of Cyberwave Media and publisher of The Online Marketing Letter, the longest-running Internet business newsletter in the short history of the Internet (since 1993). He is an innovative direct response maven who has developed online marketing campaigns for companies like Microsoft, Intel, American Express, and BMG Music Club, and isnt afraid to push the marketing envelope.
