Most founders reach a point where the business is growing but their calendar never gets lighter. Revenue climbs. The team gets bigger. But the founder is still doing work that someone at a fraction of their hourly rate could handle better.
This episode walks through a straightforward way to find out where your time is actually going and what to do about it.
The task audit
The system is four columns tracked over two weeks. Task, time, value, and energy. Value is what it would cost to outsource. Energy is whether the task fires you up or drains you.
Most founders skip the energy column. That’s a mistake. A high-value task that drains you is still worth handing off if someone else would do it better and enjoy it more.
Effective hourly rate
Take your annual income and divide by 2,000. That’s your benchmark. Every task below that rate is costing you the difference.
A founder billing $400 an hour was spending 10 hours a week on admin. That’s $4,000 a week on $20 an hour work. The audit made the problem impossible to ignore.
The hiring sequence
There’s an order that works for most businesses.
First hire is a VA or admin to clear the low-cost work. Second is delivery, so you’re not the only person who can do the core work. Third depends on team size. Under five people, hire marketing. Over five, hire an operator. Last to go is sales.
Starting at the bottom and working up avoids the trap of hiring exciting roles while still drowning in spreadsheets.
Three common mistakes:
- Never doing the audit in the first place.
- Only looking at cost and ignoring energy.
- Hiring in the wrong order by going for senior roles before clearing admin.
