Small Business Owner? How To Give Yourself A Pay Increase.

What do Henry Ford, Oprah Winfrey, Richard Branson and Elon Musk have in common with you? In fact they have two things in common with you. Firstly they, like you, are business owners. People who have decided to take the plunge and set up their own business.

And like you they have 1440 minutes in a day.

Time for many of these people is their most precious resource. The thing that they guard most carefully. Indeed Warren Buffett is quoted as saying, “I mean, I can buy anything I want, basically, but I can’t buy time.”

Research suggests that different entrepreneurs take a different approach to their time management. Elon Musk is reported to plan his day in 5-minute intervals. However, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates take a different approach. Both have said that the secret to their time management is leaving plenty of blank spaces in their diary so they can handle any unforeseen issues that arise.

Whatever their approach, these people have built their business sufficiently to pay themselves to a level that they are millionaires, and in some instance, billionaires.

If you are looking to give yourself a pay rise, then you almost certainly need to increase sales. And that means you need to do things differently.

Before we get to that, the first question is how much do you want to earn over the next year? What level of income would cover everything all your wants and desires for you and your family?

Take this number and divide it by 12 so you know how much you want to earn every month.

The next question is how many hours do you want to work? Do you want to reduce your hours perhaps to spend more time with your family. Or can you now increase your hours because you’ve got more help at home. How many hours do you want to work per month.

The next step is to divide the amount you want to earn per month by the hours that you want to work per month. This will give you the hourly rate that you need to earn per hour.

This next step is optional but one that is highly recommended. For the next week, take a note of everything that you do for your business. You can use a notebook, an excel spreadsheet, an online tool. Whatever suits you. Note the tasks that you do and how long each takes you.

If you decide not to undertake this step, then use your best guess to recall what you do and how long each tasks takes. Either route will show you the vast range of tasks that you undertake.

Once you have the list, you can start to take steps to increase sales and give yourself a pay rise.

Split these tasks into three lists. Things you will either Do, Ditch or Delegate.

1. Do – what are the tasks that you will continue to do. These are areas where you add real value to your business and can’t be done by anyone else. This is likely to be areas such a new product development, business development, sales and attending networking opportunities.

These might well be the areas that you excelled at and were the reason you went into business.

2. Ditch – having reviewed the list, you will no doubt see tasks that are no longer required. Consider the direction in which you plan to take your business and prune the unnecessary tasks. Be tough and have an eye on the future.

For example are you still servicing customers that no longer make you money? Are there products that could be pruned from the range?

3. Delegate – this is where the magic happens. What tasks should you delegate? This is for some business owner a bold step. A step that takes them out of the comfort zone but really is necessary.

Asking others to do things that you know that you could do yourself seems counterintuitive when thinking about giving yourself a pay rise. But its what you do with the time that you free up that is crucial.

You should use this time on the tasks that you outlined in point 1. The tasks that will drive your business forward and increase sales.

Outsource the tasks that you can purchase from others at a lower hourly rate that you want to pay yourself. These are typically jobs such as book keeping, social media posting, customer services, order pick and packing.

How do you find people to outsource jobs to?

Of course you need to find reliable, talented people to outsource these tasks to.  A first step to enquire locally for referrals. What do fellow local business owners cover these tasks?

If this doesn’t give you the results that you need, then look at websites such as airtasker.com, freelancer.co.uk or peopleperhour.com. These sites are full of people who can help. They will be ranked by previous users of their services so you can outsource with confidence.

You don’t need to do it outsource all these tasks at once. Why not free up say 2 hours and spend it on a key area for your business. You can then build up from this base. As sales increase you can confidently outsource all the tasks on your ‘delegate’ list.

This isn’t a ‘once and done’ job. Repeat this task periodically so that overtime you move your focus on the things that add the most value to your business.

For more help in this area, please download my free report 6 Steps To Defining Your Goals. This will help you get super clear on your goals