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“I don’t have time”.
We get it. Clients, kids, content, team, and that’s only just the beginning. There’s so much to fit into every day.
As a business owner, it can feel like you’re constantly racing the clock and still not seeing the growth you want.
In this episode, Leon and I open up the real conversation we have with clients at every level of business: how to use your time as a strategic asset instead of something you’re always chasing.
We talk about the seasons where I built a multi–million–dollar business in tiny, imperfect pockets of time, and how the same principles apply whether you have three hours a day or thirty.
You’ll see why “no time” is almost never a sign that you’re failing. It’s usually a sign that your business model, boundaries, and support need an upgrade. We share 3 practical shifts you can start making this week to create more capacity, more space, and more growth.
If you’re craving more ease in your calendar and more consistency in your income, this conversation will give you clarity, relief, and a clear next step.
WHAT YOU’LL DISCOVER IN THIS EPISODE:
- 11:36 – What’s really happening when you say “I don’t have time,” and how you may already be paying the price in hidden ways.
- 19:36 – Why “no time” is often your clearest signal that you’re ready for more support, and how to recognise that moment before burnout hits.
- 27:07 – How a full calendar quietly caps your capacity, stalls your growth, and puts an invisible ceiling on your income.
- 28:56 – The Post-It Note test: a simple, 24-hour exercise that shows you exactly what you’re prioritising, and what needs to change.
- 32:48 – The true cost of busywork and how it can quietly replace your next $20K opportunity.
- 35:13 – How to start treating time as your greatest asset, and the practical boundaries that protect it so you can scale sustainably.
Join us for our free online workshop, “Plan Your 2026 for Consistent $30K Months” workshop.
Learn more and register here >> https://samanthariley.global/2026-plan-workshop
Want alignment as you scale? Let’s chat.
CONNECT WITH SAMANTHA RILEY
CONNECT WITH LEON FLITTON
TRANSCRIPTION
Samantha Riley 00:00
Time is the number one sign that you actually need help if you don’t have any time. Now, putting off support or putting off having coaching because you don’t have time is actually going to mean that you stay in that cycle forever. It feels productive because you’re really busy, but it’s actually the thing that’s stopping you from scaling. It’s the value that you can give in the time that you have if you don’t have any time now. It’s a signal that something needs to change. I’m Samantha Riley, and welcome to the business growth lab, where visionary entrepreneurs come to experiment, evolve and expand what’s possible.
Samantha Riley 00:53
Welcome to today’s episode of Business Growth Lab. I’m your co host for today, Samantha Riley, alongside my lovely husband and partner in everything.
Leon Flitton 01:05
I wondered what you’re going to say just then.
Samantha Riley 01:07
I know you’d think that by now I would like, why don’t we do a little bit of a plan? Sam, no, no, let’s just fly by the seat of our pants.
Leon Flitton 01:17
That’s the best way to do it. Well,
Samantha Riley 01:19
apparently we’re going to talk today about a topic that we are absolutely guaranteed 100% to hear on every single call we have. I think actually, let me have you ever had a call, Leon, where you haven’t discussed this topic?
Leon Flitton 01:34
No, I’m pretty sure it’s every call, every call.
Samantha Riley 01:38
It’s something that is, something that affects us all. It’s something that we need to have to be able to run our business, and it’s something that most people say they don’t have enough of, and that’s time. So that’s what we’re going to talk about. But Leon, I want to start off with something a little bit fun this morning. If you had to describe your business energy this week using only a song title, what would it be
Leon Flitton 02:07
great question. I’m going to go with TNT ACDC. Let’s go Oh,
Samantha Riley 02:16
not blow it up. After last week’s episode, I thought you were saying, Oh, you’re gonna blow you’re gonna
Leon Flitton 02:23
blow it up, maybe just explosive power.
Samantha Riley 02:27
Oh, wow, how much. Yeah, I was just about to say, I wish we were in Adelaide last week. Supercars were in Adelaide last week. That’s one of our favorite events of the year. And we actually didn’t go this year. And I’m pretty sure AC DC were playing, weren’t they?
Leon Flitton 02:43
Yes, they were, yes, yeah, bit of a bugger. Would like to have seen that and a
Samantha Riley 02:46
supercar, I would have been good. Oh, well, oh, well, we’ll have to go next year. That’s all I have to say. That’s for sure. I am going to go with shut up and dance by Walk the Moon, because I feel like it’s just so chaotic right now. There’s so many different projects on the go, and you would think that I’d be absolutely losing it, but I’m not. I’m having a whole heap of fun. And this morning, as we we did our win the week and our KPIs, like we always do every Monday morning first thing, and then we had a personal training session, and I was kind of scooting in there on the, you know, sliding in almost like sliding into base, just making sure that I was ready for our session, and you had the music on, and I was, like, dancing. And that’s how I feel, like this week’s going to be it’s like, Okay, we are just flying into this week. There’s lots going on, but you know what, let’s just have the, have a blast. Let’s just shut up and dance.
Leon Flitton 03:42
So that’s what I’m going with. Everything’s better when you’re having fun.
Samantha Riley 03:46
Absolutely 100% one of our clients actually reminded me of this just the other day. We were talking about our Word of the Year, and we were sort of having a little chat about how our word played out this year. And I was saying, I think that we nailed our word this year more than we ever have. And our word for this year was sustainability. And if you again, if you listen to last week’s episode, you’ll know that we, we’ve made some big changes in our business, and we again, we’re sliding in at the end of the year, always coming into to home base. But she was like, bang on a minute. Didn’t you have the word fun a few years ago? And I was like, oh yeah, we nailed that one too. That was a really fun year. So that reminds me, you’ve gotta have fun, awesome.
Leon Flitton 04:35
Well, I was just gonna say we’re doing well so far, because we’re doing all the things as you always do. You mentioned baseball, AC, DC, supercars. What else you mentioned dancing? All right?
Samantha Riley 04:46
Oh, my goodness, I have too. Oh, yeah. Here’s a look into my life. I like lots of different things. I like lots of different things. And I also, I didn’t even tell you this, I went online shopping last night and bought a cross stitch kit because I. Decided when I’m watching TV, let’s just do a little bit of Cross Stitching as well. So that will be turning up in the next couple of days, because I am a this is my dirty little secret. Now I am a die hard reality TV fan. I love watching trashy reality TV. And I think it’s because a I find it so freaking hilarious that people take this stuff seriously, like it’s so manufactured, it’s so ridiculous. It’s just the people are so funny, but it’s like, you don’t have to concentrate because it’s just so stupid. So that’s what I like to do at the end of the day. So now I’m going to be doing cross stitch, and it won’t be Big Brother, because Big Brother’s finished already. Geez, that was vast. Yeah, I know. Well, probably not for them in the house, but let’s just completely go past that. We’re going to talk about time. Let’s jump into it, because I think that, like, like I said at the beginning of the episode, every single person that we speak to always has an objection of, I don’t have time. And you know, there are people that run around saying, well, we all have 24 hours in the day. It’s just that some of us do more in our 24 hours a day. And I don’t actually think that’s 100% true, because I’ll tell you, when I was a mum with three young kids at home, the amount of time I had at my disposal was a lot less than what it is now, when I’ve got no kids at home and just a dog that’s creating havoc. So I don’t think it’s entirely true. Yes, we have 24 hours in a day, but we all have different things that we have to do, commitments. I would say commitments, that would be the right word. You know, when I think back to the early 2000s I had three kids who went to three different schools because they were all academic in different ways. They all did completely different extracurricular activities. I was doing a baseball drop off, a soccer drop off, and a dance drop off, all on the same car trip, and throwing some out the car late with it, with a dinner box, and some were getting there early. And I was shouting out to a parent, hey, can you just watch my kid for like 20 minutes? You know, like it was hectic. And at that same time, we also had three different locations for our businesses. Had my dance studio, and we had two retail stores that were on completely opposite sides of the city. So if we’re talking about someone that has not very much time, like I know the story. I’ve been there, I’ve done it like I said, life’s a little bit different for us now, but still, we only have 24 hours in the day, right? But what I learned from those years was the ability to focus the very little time that I had in a very, very tiny little window. So let me explain, a lot of people will will put off big projects because they don’t have, like, you know, I don’t have two days to do that project. I had this insane ability to break down projects into sometimes three or four or five minute blocks where I would put the oats on in the morning and I would be stirring with one hand and doing something tiny, maybe an email, while I was stirring the oats so that part of the project was done, or got the kids out of the bath, and while they were getting their pajamas on, I would do something else. So I really understood that I could do tiny amounts, and in the end it would get done. Like, don’t, you know, I didn’t have to wait for the big project. But the other thing I did really well was understand, if I’ve only got three minutes, how am I going to move the needle in this three minutes? Because I have to move the needle. And I was really, really, really good at this. You know, obviously we grew that, that business to multi, multi million dollars, and I did it in sometimes two or three minute increments while other things were happening. So if anyone’s listening and they’ve got kids and they’re like, I don’t have time, I truly, truly understand and I empathize, and yes, sometimes it’s exhausting, but you also have this hidden gift that other people don’t have in that you’ve got a small amount of time, and you can figure out how to do that task in that small amount of time. And it really is a gift, because it’ll make you super hyper focused.
Leon Flitton 09:31
Yeah, have you heard about the fence building? I told you this story.
Samantha Riley 09:35
I mean, I know what a fence is and I know what building is, but you might have to explain, because I’m not really required.
Leon Flitton 09:42
Okay, yes, a little bit more. So just picture this so you’re on the farm and the fence has been wrecked by whatever reason, maybe a flood knocked it over. So just so you’ve got kilometer of fence you got to replace. You never walk up and down the fence line. When you’re building it with nothing in your hands or doing nothing, because every time you walk, say, you walk from one end to the other, because you need the pliers to do the wire with, but then you walk right back down the other end to do something else without actually carrying anything or dragging something or doing something. So then you just chewed up like that walking time, for example. And so this is kind of like if you go up with wire, then you bring something else back, and then if you come up with another wire, you bring something else back, and you never have nothing in your hands or not doing anything. So you’re utilizing every minute of the day when you’re building a fence. Otherwise your fence takes twice as long to get built. So when you’re utilizing these pieces in between, you know, like you’re putting the oats on while you’re doing the dishes or whatever it was, or getting the kids out the door for school, you’re actually maximizing all your time in the day. So, and I just thinking about this, you know, you had, there was kids that were in different schools. There was driving. There’s a lot of time doing different things that really sucks up a lot of time, so you’ve really got to maximize that time. But that’s my best birthday story
Samantha Riley 11:08
anyway, for anyone that doesn’t know, Leon did grow up on a farm. How many times did your dad make you build the fence? Because I knew your dad, and I’m guessing you were out there building fences a lot, because he never stopped. Would I be correct in thinking
Leon Flitton 11:21
That’s correct? Yeah, he just kept going. And yeah, yeah, you’d kind of get up when it got light, and then, then you wouldn’t go home and got dark. You put the tractor lights on and keep going.
Samantha Riley 11:36
So today we’re going to talk about three things that if you’ve heard yourself say or even think I don’t have time, three little things to help you shift your perspective, to maybe see some opportunities that you hadn’t even realized that were at your disposal. So Leon, let’s dive in. I think the first thing I want to say is, if you’re saying this or thinking this, you’ve already got a problem, because if you don’t have time, you’re already paying the price, absolutely.
Leon Flitton 12:04
I think this is a great point that if you’re questioning it already, or you’re actually telling yourself this, you definitely are paying the price for this,
Samantha Riley 12:13
absolutely, because already your perception is, I can’t do that, that’s already, well, that’s what that’s saying if I don’t have time, which means that while you’re saying that and thinking, I can’t do it, someone else has figured out a different way to do it, right? So every time you say to yourself, I’ll get to that later, your income, your energy, your freedom, your time that you could be doing things that you’d rather be doing are all quietly paying for that delay?
Leon Flitton 12:49
Yeah, and that’s a good point, because it’s not just not talking about you’re not just paying for it with money. You’re paying it for with your your health or your family time. So really, really is something that’s going to hit hard. Because I don’t know about you, but I like my weekends as they are,
Samantha Riley 13:07
exactly right. And, you know, I like to sit down at the end of the night and watch crap on
13:16
crappy TV, right?
Samantha Riley 13:19
Because I just enjoy it, and I don’t have to explain that to anyone, but if I’m working because I’m trying to get things done, then I miss out on that. Or, you know, I miss out on whatever it is. We give priority to the things that are important in our life. And you know when, when you said we’re not always paying in money, in actual fact, time is like, way, way, way more important than money. Because when we’ve got money coming in, like you and I, and I think most people that we know, the thing that we spend our money on is actually buying our time back. We give it to the guy that mows our grass. We give it to the the guy that comes to fix the you know, or check the pool and make sure the pool’s full. We give it to the cleaner, and there’s all sorts of other different people that we give it to to buy back our time.
Leon Flitton 14:14
Yeah, yeah. I was just thinking as well there that it. There’s always a trade off as well. So if you’re thinking you don’t have time because you’re doing a particular task, for example, there’s always going to be a trade off of what you should have been doing. And I think that’s the trigger for then going, Okay, what’s the knock on effect of that? And that’s the effect of you don’t have enough cash flow now, or now you don’t have the job finished because you didn’t outsource it or whatever. And then now you’re going, well, I have no family time, and now I’m working on the weekend, and then I think it kind of snowballs. I think it goes on from there
Samantha Riley 14:46
totally but think about this, and I you and I have seen this before. I’m thinking back to different clients that we’ve had over the years, and this comes up a lot, where they’re doing activities, let’s just say, in their business. Companies that are really low value, like fiddling around with Canva or, you know, mucking around in a website, or redesigning their website for the fourth time before they’ve actually even launched a product. Yes, we’ve seen that happen. They think they’re avoiding a cost by doing it themselves, but they’re paying the price because they’re not able to make sales.
Leon Flitton 15:23
Yeah, it’s actually an expense, isn’t it? Which is crazy, but
Samantha Riley 15:28
yeah, so you’re you’re investing in something already, okay? And I say investing because time is something that when you invest it, you get a return on that investment, right? You put a certain amount of time into doing whatever it is, and it means that you get an like a return. So you can either invest and get a big return. And what I mean by that is you get a lot of money back, which means that you can pay for someone to do those low value tasks, which means you’re also buying time, so you’re getting a really high investment. I would call that a high worth investment. Or you’re actually investing in staying overwhelmed. You’re still making an investment. You just get to choose which one it is, right? And I think that when you realize that you’ve got choice, well, hopefully a few people have gone, oh my goodness, like, boom, I’ve just got it. I’m hoping that’s what that did. But you know, you’re already investing, invest into your business to bring in the money that so you can buy your time, or you’re investing in staying overwhelmed. And really, that’s the only two investments that you can make.
Leon Flitton 16:38
Yeah, do you think that business owners actually think that they need to be busy, but they’re just busy being busy, so therefore they think they’re doing valuable work.
Samantha Riley 16:49
I think so. I think that it can make you feel good at the end of the day, if you go, Oh my goodness, I’m so busy today, because we’ve been taught as children, it’s, it’s a belief system that’s been instilled in us, right, that when we’re busy, that that’s a good thing. And, gosh, I I can put my head up and say, I’m guilty of this. You know, there’s lots of time where I’m like, oh my goodness, I’m busy. And you can think about, Wow, that’s so amazing. But you know, there’s times where I’ve thought, hang on a minute. I’m not moving the needle as much as what I think I should be for being this busy. And what I’ve done is really taken stock and actually got a piece of paper and a pen beside me and written down a whole heap of crap that I was doing. I didn’t realize it at the time, but, you know, you look and go, Hmm, didn’t actually need to do 20 of those things that’s just busy work. So 100% Yeah, it’s about, I think, when you’re investing, you know, you check your numbers every month, right, or week, month year, like you’re looking and making sure that you’re not losing your your capital, or you’re making sure that you know that you’re getting the returns that you need to be getting, and if you’re not, you know you move your money, or you know, if you are, you might put some more money into it, whatever it is. Well, you should treat your time exactly the same. Are you checking every single week, every single month, every single year, and reviewing, where did I spend my time? What was the investment back on that time? Because I think that’s really, really important.
Leon Flitton 18:25
Yeah, what about this is a bit Savage, but if you’re a consultant, for example, and you’re doing anywhere from like, you know, three and a half to 10 grand for a consulting gig, it might be two three hours, whatever it is. If you’re then stuck back in Canva playing with images for like, two or three hours, which is, let’s face it, not a $3,000 an hour job. What was that trade off that you just lost in that 100% because if you’re like, Yeah, might be $6,000 right? Or more, yeah, like, Yeah, could be savage. So I think I always think about that and get what’s the trade off, you know, of that?
Samantha Riley 19:04
Yeah, it’s funny that you mentioned that, because just last week, our team came back and there was two images that were needed for a particular web page we were putting together. And one of the team reached out, went, Sam, can you just let me know what images you want to use? I went, you can read the text. Go find an image that matches. Like, no, I’m not going to go spend my time trying to find an image. Like, I’ve got way too much important stuff going on to do that. And guess what? The images came back. Just perfect.
Leon Flitton 19:34
They found them excellent, absolutely.
Samantha Riley 19:36
Yeah. Let’s talk about point number two. This is just as important. No time is the number one sign that you actually need help. Yeah, I’ll let that land for just a minute. No time is the number one sign that you actually need help. Yeah, I
Leon Flitton 19:53
always feel that this is it’s like a trigger to me when they say they don’t have the time and like, I get triggered. Mm. Good. That’s exactly why you need help,
Samantha Riley 20:03
exactly because if you don’t have any time now, putting off support or putting off having coaching because you don’t have time is actually going to mean that you’re going to stay in that cycle forever. Yeah, you’re totally stuck by doing the busy work that is comfortable now, because that’s why you’re in this loop, right? It’s comfortable because, you know it you are going to continue to be busy forever. It’s a signal that something needs to change. So if you’re super busy, and you’ve said, You know what, I can’t afford to do that program, course, project, whatever it is, something needs to change. Yeah.
Leon Flitton 20:47
So we just chatted before about the consultant and the business owner kind of part of it, whereas, you know, what’s the trade off that you’re doing? So what I was just thinking then was that, you know, you always give me those ideas as we chat, is that if you’re the business owner as well, you don’t have to be doing 40, 5060, hours a week like you’re the business owner. What are you doing? It all for what? That’s not how you do it. There’s a CEO from like Willies or Coles or somewhere. Do you see them on checkout? Exactly?
Samantha Riley 21:17
Oh, my goodness, I say that all the time. I bet the CEO of allies doesn’t even know how to use a checkout
Leon Flitton 21:24
exactly, and for very good reason, that’s not his job.
Samantha Riley 21:26
Absolutely, it’s not his job. That’s exactly right. Everyone has their place, and I’m so glad you brought this up, because I feel like there’s a lot of business owners that feel guilty that they might have team might be just one one person, like one virtual assistant, or it could be a whole team that are working 40 hour weeks, and they think that they also need to be working 40 hour weeks, and that is so far from the truth. It’s not funny, because a a lot of the things as a CEO that you do that you don’t feel like is work actually is, and that might be going out to lunch, it might be taking time away from your business for creativity, like going on retreat is what’s needed for your role, to be able to walk away from the business and and rest and and get your creative juices on. I think it’s Bill Bill Gates, once a year he takes, like, a whole heap of books and goes to this little lake house and just, and just reads and sits and ponders. And, as you and I know, like, when do the big decisions drop in. It’s when there’s no internet, when you’re in the shower, when you’re driving, when you’re going for a walk, like, it’s the times where you’re out there. So does that mean that that that’s not work? No, it very much. Is because, as the business owner, we are on 24/7 whether you like it or not, our brain is constantly thinking things through. Like right now I think I’m waking up 10 times a night because I’m dreaming about funnels and videos and all sorts of things, because my brain’s working it through as I’m sleeping like I’m on 24/7 so don’t get into the thought that you have to be busy for 40 hours a week just because your team is I don’t, I don’t know where that idea has come from, but
Leon Flitton 23:25
I think this comes from, like somewhere back in this I don’t at school or something, or wherever it is, but this thing is in some people think you have to be paid by the hour for what you do and not the result. And I think you know, as a business owner with your IP, and if you’re very experienced of what you do, it’s like, what’s that? When you tell me about with the guy with the ship, and like, they’re all trying to fix it, but the old guy comes in and fixes it in five minutes, because he
Samantha Riley 23:54
has the experience. Oh, let me tell this story. Yeah, totally. I don’t know where the ship came from, because it was actually, look, I honestly think this is an urban myth. But I grew up in Adelaide, where the Holden plant was, and you know, your one degree of separation from someone work that worked at the Holden plant in the 80s, like it was always like your dad or your brother or or your brother’s uncle or your friend from school like you always knew someone that that worked at the Holden plan, especially when they went on to a 24 hour shift. So I grew up in Adelaide, so that’s where this urban myth, I think, came about. But essentially, when there was the 24 hour shift at Holden, you couldn’t afford for the line to stop, because if the line stopped, it cost them some phenomenal amount just by having the line stopped for, you know, a few minutes, because it meant that you’ve got all the people down the line that that, you know, don’t get the car so, you know, the works not getting done. And the story goes that the line. Time stopped. They got all of all the people that were the team leads at the time to go and have a look. No one could figure out what was going on. They called the, you know, the big bosses down, oh my goodness. We don’t know what’s going on that. We can’t get the line back up and running. And by now, it’s been a couple of hours. So you can imagine, everyone’s freaking out. They’re just like, oh my god, time is money, tick, tick. We’re losing hundreds of 1000s of dollars here. And someone suggested, you know, there was, I’m going to make up his name, John, you know, he’d just retired the week before, but he’d been there for, you know, 50 years, and he knew everything about about the plant and about the line, and so he went in, he turned one little screw, like, you know, half a turn, and the line came back on. Essentially, this part of the story is you’re not paying for the hours, because there was plenty of workers there, right? That were being paid by the hour. Your worth isn’t around being paid by the hour. Your worth is around actually knowing what needs to be done. So when this guy put his bill in, he said, you know, I’ll have, you know, few $1,000 for that, please. And everyone went, hang on. A minute. Took you 30 seconds to go in and turn the screw. And he went, Yeah, but none of you clowns did none of you did that. I was the one that knew. So how much is it worth to you? Because I know that that line being stopped cost you hundreds of 1000s of dollars. So that $3,000 for me, like, that’s worth that 20,000 you know, 20 times over kind of thing.
Leon Flitton 26:30
So yeah, that was way better than my boat story.
Samantha Riley 26:34
Anyway. Well, actually, I was halfway through and I was thinking, I hope everyone gets where I’m going with this. And you don’t know what a Holden is, and you don’t know what a line is.
Leon Flitton 26:43
Well, they’re kind of historical now, but anyway,
Samantha Riley 26:47
they are historical. But yeah, so it’s not the time, it’s the value that you can give in the time that you have. Yeah, yeah.
Leon Flitton 26:56
If you think that you don’t have the time, that is actually the sign that you actually need help. So absolutely, yeah, it’s like a red flag to us, absolutely.
Samantha Riley 27:07
Let’s talk about number three. If your calendar is full, your capacity is capped, and so is your income. This is so important, because when there’s no room in your week. There’s no room for growth. You’ve already hit an invisible ceiling that you can’t outwork because there’s no hours left. Yeah? And I think this goes back to what you were saying, like, right at the beginning, right? Because it feels productive, because you’re really busy, but it’s actually the thing that’s stopping you from scaling, yeah?
Leon Flitton 27:41
But essentially you’re an employee there, because you’re essentially working by the hour. Because you’re capped out. You have to work all the hours. You can’t not work the hours because of the way, or in this case, if that’s where your business setup is, then you are going to be capped. You have to work the hours. You can’t take time off and go get a coffee. You need to keep working so you’re very, very stuck, and you’re going to work very hard, so it’s going to feel very, you know, oppressive,
Samantha Riley 28:06
yeah, well, it feels super oppressive, right? Because if everything depends on you, and this is really important, if everything depends on you, nothing can grow past you. You know, I was talking about it just then, with the the needing the images for the for the website, like you don’t need me to go find images. If I had to go find those images, there’s a whole heap of things that I wouldn’t be doing in my business. So think of a bucket, and let’s call it a day. So you’ve got 24 hours, and imagine you’ve got a post it note for every single hour. So eight or nine of those post it notes go straight in for sleep like, you know, for me it’s probably about 10. I sleep a lot, you know, I’m putting 10 post it notes in there for some sleep. There’s a few post it notes in there for eating. There might be a post it note for exercise or some sort of, you know, fitness. There’s going to be post it notes in there for driving children around, or going shopping, you know, going to the grocery store, the supermarket, whatever it is. And you’ve put all of these post it notes in the bucket. How many have you got left before you hit that? 24 there’s probably not many. So now imagine that you’ve only got, I don’t know, let’s say five or six post it notes left, and you’re trying to scale your business, and you’ve only got five left. Like, what are you using, or what are you putting on those post it notes to fill the bucket. Is it playing in? Canva, going to find stock photos for a website, writing content that has no strategy behind it, that doesn’t bring in leads. Oh, my goodness, that’s a massive one, just creating random content. What’s something else? Leon, I
Leon Flitton 29:55
was gonna say what the Cracker I always see is like finding jobs for your VA to do.
Samantha Riley 30:00
It, yeah, yep. So not having systems, I would put that in the bucket of not having systems, yeah, or doing things because it’s quicker to do yourself, yeah, or playing with tech, like, oh my goodness, all of these things, they make me tear my hair out.
Leon Flitton 30:17
Though I had this a boss when I was younger that used to be said. He said this, saying it was, it’s like having a dog and barking yourself, yeah?
Samantha Riley 30:27
My grandfather used to say that one as well, must be old school one, yeah, must be. I wonder if it was an old school Australian one. There’s lots of Australian isms like that, but totally because, and I did talk about content before, that doesn’t have a strategy, because, if you’re using that post it note to create no strategy, you’re not building your list, which means you have no leads coming in, you know, if you’re not making offers, which means you have no sales. However, if you use that post it note for creating content that has a strategy and grows your database that you know maybe drives to something so that people book a call with you, then that’s totally different. So it’s about being really strategic. Like, what are you actually what are you actually doing to grow your business? Is, are you emailing your list consistently? Are you repurposing your core content properly? Are you following up leads or making sure that you’re putting out offers or improving your one core offer, or up leveling your client experience, actually, even that last one you know, if you’re in a growth phase, I probably wouldn’t even touch that unless your offer needs a bit of a judge to be able to bring higher price clients in. But this all again comes back to the strategy, right? And everyone’s strategy is going to be slightly different for where they are. There’s no cookie cutter strategy for how or what you need to do next to scale your business.
Leon Flitton 32:05
Yeah, I think if you put a value on some of these as well, like, there’s the Canva task, right, which is always the example that we use. Like you’re playing in Canva, that’s, you know, X amount of dollars per hour, so to speak, even though we should be thinking in hours, but at this stage, well, you might be,
Samantha Riley 32:22
well, just to get, just to give an idea of what that picture looks like, right?
Leon Flitton 32:26
Yeah, yeah. But if you should have been doing sales calls instead of playing in Canva, what was that net value that you just lost there? So, like you think about affecting your sales and your income, you know that playing in Canva, that trade off was, you know, you kind of spent 2550 bucks, whatever it was, in playing in Canva, but you weren’t earning so many hundreds of 1000s of dollars.
Samantha Riley 32:48
Let’s, let’s actually make this super clear. Imagine, in that same amount of time, you signed a client that was worth 15 or $20,000 a year to you, and you didn’t sign that client because you were playing in Canva. That hour in Canva, that someone could have been doing that cost, that you could be paying them somewhere between five and $50 an hour has just cost you $20,000 minus $50 $19,950 No. Right? Did I get that? Right?
Leon Flitton 33:25
I’m shocking at that. I’ll take the sales call. Thanks.
Samantha Riley 33:28
Yeah, exactly, absolutely. So that’s what we’re talking about. And I think a lot of people, they they hear, Oh, like, I’m, you know, I’m playing in Canva, or I can’t afford someone to fix that lead page. And, you know, I can do it for free, but they’re not thinking about it that if I did this other thing at the same time, that the return would be, you know, 19,000% 19,900 I have no idea if any of that maths was math thing. Everyone gets the idea. Don’t, don’t reach out. Tell me my maths. It wasn’t mapping.
Leon Flitton 34:11
Well, one thing, it is all jokes aside, one thing is clear, though, that if you’re already saying some of these things in your mind, you can forget about growing your business and scaling it because you’ve already stuck yourself into the I don’t have time bucket.
Samantha Riley 34:26
So, yeah, absolutely. So let’s just recap them. If you’re saying that these things, or if you’re thinking these things, I don’t have time, you’re already paying the price. If you have no time, it’s the absolute number one, sign, it’s a red flag that you actually need help. And number three, if your calendar is full, your capacity is already capped, and so is your income. Well, we hope we’ve brought these shifts in perspective to you, because unless something changes, everything will be exactly the same. Same next year, if you keep repeating the same things, you will get the same results. Isn’t that something about insanity?
Leon Flitton 35:08
I think that’s the definition of insanity, through the same thing, expecting a different result.
Samantha Riley 35:13
Yeah? Like, you’re not going to earn more money just by creating a vision board in December and still doing the same thing. Like, yeah, the vision board is great, don’t get me wrong, but there’s got to be some different actions as well. So now might be a really good time, Leon to mention that we are running a workshop this Thursday around planning your 2026 for consistent 30k months. We’re going to talk about the 30k per month money map and exactly how to map out the numbers that you need to hit to be able to hit those consistent 30k months. We’re going to talk about the 2026, lead map, so that you can ditch that be everywhere advice that people are talking about, and build a focused lead engine. So you’ve got leads coming in every day, and, of course, leads coming in every day. And how do you convert those into sales, build that sales pathway. And we’re also going to talk about the sustainability map, because it isn’t all just about strategy. We also need to be really aware what our design is and how we’re wired to, you know, communicate and react in the world, how to act in the world, so that we can hold space for that business and to be able to hold those consistent 30k months. So we’re talking about different boundaries, decisions, your different creative expression, and we’ll talk about what weekly rhythm that you need to get into to be able to honor that energy and that creativity and the artistry that you want to bring into your business to make it yours. And we’ll also talk about the framework that we use in our business, the win the week, framework that we use to really understand how we split our time in our business between that marketing, the sales, the delivery and the CEO time that we were talking about, you know, being able to take time out to put our heads together and talk about the strategy. We would love to have you on that workshop. So please go and register your seat. It’s free. It’s live. We’re going to roll our seat our sleeves up together. We’re not going to roll our seats up together, our sleeves up together, for this live workshop, but head to Samantha, Riley dot global forward slash workshop and Leon we would love to see people there,
Leon Flitton 37:28
absolutely would. So I think it’s going to be really exciting, and I’m looking forward to
Samantha Riley 37:33
it me too. Thanks for joining me today, or thanks for joining us today to talk about time. It’s such an important topic to talk about. Hopefully it’s shifted your perspective a little bit
Leon Flitton 37:43
and just remember that time is your greatest asset, so it’s not to be squandered.
Samantha Riley 37:49
Oh, nice. Put boundaries around it. I like it. Thanks so much for joining us for today’s episode. Hopefully we’ve shifted your perspective a little bit given you some ideas. We’ll see you next week for another episode of business growth lab, ciao, you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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