As an entrepreneur, the “grind” is what we’re after. We excel in the grind. We opened our business because we love the grind. The “hustle” of being a business owner is something we wear as a badge of honour. “Team No Sleep” is our war cry.
I’m sure you’ve caught yourself saying those things before. What a slippery slope that is!
This is what the “hustle” truly looks like from the inside workings of your business:
You’re opening your doors at the crack of dawn. You’re doing all the bookkeeping, all the reporting, all the back end book work that’s been piled up for weeks and weeks. You’re working with all the customers – every single one. You’re cleaning the bathrooms at night before you leave, and then locking the door and going home. The same darkness you came here in, you’re now leaving in. All types of thoughts running through your head as you walk to your car – You’re not sure when the last time you had dinner with your family was. You hope your daughter won her soccer game.
That’s the “hustle.”
And guess what? It sucks. It’s actually not helping you achieve your goals, despite what you might think. You’re glamourizing something that isn’t even helping you.
It’s not conducive to growing your business, and here’s why.
It Prevents You From What You Should Be Doing
Just because you can clean the bathrooms, doesn’t mean you should be. There are many roles and tasks within your business that you don’t need to be doing, but we catch ourselves saying things like, “Well, it’s just easier and faster if I do it.” That’s NOT the answer. Systemizing your business and hiring out lower-valued tasks for things exactly like cleaning the bathroom will free up your time so you can allocate it on higher-valued tasks that will actually grow your business like sales and marketing related tasks.
You’re Doing Your Customers And Staff A Disservice
The busy-ness you put yourself through doing these mindless, low-valued tasks means you’re taking away time and energy that you could be spending focusing on the retention of your customers, or even better, developing your staff. When you could be focused on doing customer check-ins, calling old customers who you haven’t seen in awhile, or doing quarterly evaluations with your staff, you’re too busy doing things that pull that time away from these crucial actions.
Work Expands To The Time Allocated To It
The most common response is, “Well, I just don’t have time to be doing xyz because someone has to clean the bathrooms.” This response isn’t because you don’t have anyone hired to do it – it’s actually because the role hasn’t been systemized. The SOP (instructions) for how to perform that role are stuck in your head. Get them out onto paper and then hire for that role. Teach those instructions to that person, and then you’ve now freed up that time.
The key to making this work for you and to actually grow your business is to then turn around and reinvest that bought time into something growth productive. Doing things that will actually generate revenue for your business are important. Working with customers, opening and closing your shop, doing the bookkeeping are all tasks that won’t directly grow your business. But following up with leads, sending promotion emails, and talking with your best clients, will.
Start with 20 minutes every day. Write down 1 growth task to do, and focus only on completing it in that 20 minutes. When you build this routine and this habit for awhile, you will see the direct ROI on that 20 minute window. Over time, you can slowly increase that time to a window that works for you and your schedule.
The key to all of that? Not convincing yourself that the “hustle” is what grows your business.
You’re a hard worker – we all are. That’s why we’re in this position in the first place.
But the hustle isn’t what grows your business. The hustle keeps you from doing what matters.
If you need help filtering out what you should be doing, and how to make time to get the stuff done that will actually grow your business — book a FREE Strategy Call with our team here.