674: The 20 Hour Week Doesn’t Come From Better Time Management

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If you’ve ever said “I want to work less” and then immediately felt that little surge of panic about money dropping… you’re not broken. You’re just trying to force a time goal onto a business model that can’t hold it.

In this episode, Sam and Leon break down why a 20 hour week isn’t something you hustle your way into with better planning. It’s something you build. And it starts by changing the structure underneath your business so it can keep moving without your brain having to carry everything.

You’ll hear the five shifts that make reduced hours possible without tanking your income. Moving beyond one on one being the ceiling. Building content that acts like a pipeline, not a hobby. Creating systems and automation that reduce the constant mental load. Locking in a weekly rhythm that shows you what’s actually moving the needle. And bringing in support so you’re not trying to do CEO work with an inbox full of admin.

Find the one lever that’s keeping you stuck, then build, calmly and deliberately, without burning yourself out in the messy middle.

WHAT YOU’LL DISCOVER IN THIS EPISODE:

• 00:51 – Why a 20 hour coaching business is a business model, not a time goal
• 05:27 – The leverage move most coaches avoid when income feels unsafe
• 07:43 – Why group coaching can sharpen delivery and improve results
• 13:24 – Content as a pipeline, not a hobby
• 16:08 – Organic plus paid for speed and momentum
• 17:56 – Why long form builds trust faster than short form alone
• 20:30 – The CTA mistake that quietly costs you sales
• 23:24 – When your business runs on your minute to minute decisions
• 31:50 – Weekly KPI rhythm that exposes needle movers and noise
• 34:22 – Why repeatable tasks should stop living in your head
• 37:35 – Why support is not a luxury and how a VA becomes the bridge
• 40:51 – How to pinpoint your real bottleneck fast and choose your next three

Resources

• Instantly Discover The #1 Thing Holding You Back From Scaling – The Bottleneck Audit
• 611: Build Trust To Sell More on Instagram with Brock Johnson
• 596: Mastering Sales With Trust, Not Deals with John Lester
• 554: Exploring the Impact of AI in Trust and Marketing
• 667: Don’t Have Enough Time? Make These 3 Shifts to Scale
• 636: Scale With a Lean Team For More Money and Freedom
• 635: You Can’t Scale If You’re Still Doing Everything Yourself with David Anderson

CONNECT WITH SAMANTHA RILEY

CONNECT WITH LEON FLITTON

TRANSCRIPTION

Samantha Riley 0:00
I just want to work 20 hours. And in their brain, what they’re thinking is, I want to work less. But what’s actually happening is, in their brain, they’re thinking, I want to look work less without my income collapsing, which puts them in a tailspin of keeping on doing the same thing they’ve always done which just keeps that going. Rather than taking a stop and a breather and going, hang on a minute, what I’m currently doing isn’t going to get me to a 20 hour business, and that’s what we want to talk about. Because if you just have a goal of I want to work 20 hours, but you’re afraid that you’re going to lose income, you’re going to just be in a tailspin forever.

Leon Flitton 0:46
Now I know change is hard, but we need to talk about some of these things.

Samantha Riley 0:49
Change can be hard, but if you know where you’re heading, at least you understand why you’re making the change. I think that change is harder when you don’t understand the context.

I’m Samantha Riley, and welcome to the Business Growth Lab, where visionary entrepreneurs come to experiment, evolve and expand what’s possible. Welcome to today’s episode of business growth lab. Leon, thanks for joining me for another episode. We’re back in the hot seat. Have we been back in the hot seat for January? I can’t even remember.

Leon Flitton 1:24
I’m not sure, but it feels like January is almost over, but because it is,

Samantha Riley 1:31
I know, and technically, the Year of the Fire horse hasn’t even started. I think going to going to be a speedy one. I was chatting to my coach about it, and we were having a little bit of a laugh saying, oh my god, it hasn’t even started. Doesn’t come. Think the end, gee, like Chinese New Year, I think 17th of February. And we were saying, oh my goodness, hasn’t even started. It feels like it has. We’re like, how is this going to go moving forward? I think

Leon Flitton 2:00
I missed that part because I thought it started already.

Samantha Riley 2:04
We’re in the one universal years that started, but the actual fire horse energy hasn’t come in yet. Anyway, let’s jump into today’s episode because we want to, like, just like, really get into it today, because we want to talk about a topic that has been coming up over and over in our conversations lately, and that’s around creating a coaching business and working only 20 hour weeks. And there is a lot of marketers that are talking about it being possible. There’s a lot of people that say it’s not possible. And we want to break this down, but I want to start off by saying that 20 hour a week coaching business isn’t actually a time goal. We’re going to shift your perspective here. It’s actually a business model. So if you want to have a 20 hour a week coaching business, you need to listen to this episode, because it really is about creating the business model that supports your goal. And I think this is the piece that people miss,

Leon Flitton 3:05
yeah, yeah. I think there’s a lot of stigma around this whole thing as well, because marketers, I think, have probably killed some of it, you know, the whole 20 hour week thing. I think there’s probably some there’s some probably sticking points in people’s brains around, like, how to actually get it to a 20 hour work week as well. But what do you think is, like, one of the biggest things that like, stop people from actually, like, leaning into it,

Samantha Riley 3:30
I think because they try and plan it from the beginning, it’s like, well, here’s where I am today, and I just want to work 20 hours. And in their brain, what they’re thinking is, I want to work less. But what’s actually happening is, in their brain, they’re thinking, I want to look work less without my income collapsing, which puts them in a tailspin of keeping on doing the same thing they’ve always done, which just keeps that going, rather than taking a stop and a breather and going, hang on a minute, what I’m currently doing isn’t going to get me to a 20 hour business. And that’s what we want to talk about. We want to talk about the changes that you need to make. Because if you just have a goal of, I want to work 20 hours, but you’re afraid that you’re going to lose income, you’re going to just be in a tailspin forever, yeah?

Leon Flitton 4:26
And I can see how that could be totally the like, the wrong mindset in the back of your brain all the time about losing your income or income collapsing. So I think coming from the wrong place there totally.

Samantha Riley 4:39
And let’s face it, we do see this with some of our clients. They’re like, but hang on a minute. I need to do all these things to keep the income going without thinking. Hang on a minute. What do I need to like insert so I can pull that other stuff out first, because just keeping on doing the same thing isn’t going to work. So I think we should just dive into it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Leon Flitton 5:01
Now, I know change is hard, but we need to talk about some of these

Samantha Riley 5:05
things, absolutely, absolutely. Well, here’s the thing, right? Change can be hard, but if you know where you’re heading, at least you understand why you’re making the change. I think that change is harder when you don’t understand the context. You’re laughing at me. What did I say?

Leon Flitton 5:22
Coach I was waiting for the change is hard, but what if it wasn’t? Yeah, well, maybe No, I wasn’t

Samantha Riley 5:33
going to coach you. Because I think, I think that that is right. Change is hard, and the reason it is hard is because it’s like that in your brain and that and that doesn’t feel comfortable, and let’s not pretend like some of these things, they can be difficult, because you’ve got to change a whole heap of belief patterns. You need to change a whole heap of ways you’re doing, things you you know have to, I guess, essentially, go through an ego death of, Hey, I like, this is the way I did it. And, you know, you think I don’t want to be wrong, or I don’t want to, you know, anyway, all the things, yes, so it is hard, but when you know where you’re heading, at least you’ve got the Okay, this is hard, but it’s going to be worth it in the long run.

Leon Flitton 6:26
Yeah, yeah. So first thing we wanted to bring up, and this is a good one, and I always find it’s a very interesting conversation with clients, is going from one on one to group coaching leverage. You could call that

Samantha Riley 6:41
yes, absolutely. Because when you’re only doing one on one, your calendar is your ceiling. So when we have clients coming to us saying, hey, we want more leads, but we don’t want to work more, and then dig their heels in the sand and say they only want to do one on one, it’s like, well, yeah, you can’t have it all.

Leon Flitton 7:02
It’s almost like the next step from selling time for money, like it’s it’s almost like you have, like, an hourly rate, well, you kind of do because you’re capped, like, you can’t go any bigger with it, like, once you’re maxed out hours, that’s your cap. So you’re not far off being on a wage. Essentially, you’re capped, and that’s what you can do

Samantha Riley 7:21
totally, absolutely. So yes, it’s moving from that one on one model to a group model. I would say the biggest problem that we hear back from our clients regarding moving from one on one to group was, I wish I had have done it sooner. If, as you know, they spend weeks and weeks and sometimes months, going, I can’t do it, I can’t do it, I can’t do it. I’m too scared. I’m too scared. I’m going to lose clients. I’m too scared. I can’t figure out how to do it, even though, you know, we’re coaching them along the way. This is how you do it. And then suddenly, when they actually make the change, they’re like, Oh, that was it. I wish I had have done that sooner. So that’s the biggest, the biggest problem that we see is they wish they had have done this sooner.

Leon Flitton 8:08
I think the other thing as well is that you can help more people this way. For me, it’s a big thing because I helping people. And I think if you realize how much you can actually help a lot more people and have, like, a greater net effect on a whole people. So I think that’s one of the things I look at. So that’s why I like it as well. Yeah.

Samantha Riley 8:27
Do you know what I noticed going from one on one to group, is that when I moved to group, I had to become a better coach. I had to come up with an actual system to be able to take my clients through. So it made me a better coach, because when you coach one on one, essentially you don’t need to prepare that much. Someone comes onto the call, they tell you what their problem is, and you work it out in real time. Where you can’t do that when you’re in a group, you need to have some sort of framework. So it actually made me a better coach, and it made me pull all of the IP out of my head, instead of like just going with the flow and coming up with a system to walk people through. So the delivery is different from that perspective, but also facilitating a group is different, so you have to up your skill set, because it’s a lot easier to deliver one on one than it is to a group. What I’ve found with group coaching, both from an attendee, we’ve been in group programs for well over 10 years now, and also for my clients, is that I feel you learn more in a group program, like I get on the coaching calls where we’re being coached, and other people ask questions, and you’re like, Oh, holy moly, I didn’t see it that way, or I didn’t think about that, or I didn’t even understand that was a question. And you learn so much more in a one on one, I find you’re only living. Your own little reality, right? When you’re in a group program, you realize that there, there’s all of this whole other world that you didn’t even know existed. Also, as a coach, I find it really beneficial for the same reason, because when someone asks that question, you can help facilitate the rest of the group understanding, oh, actually, you know, I didn’t see it that way, and helping them to kind of integrate it further. So I love group coaching. I personally think it’s better than one on one, yeah.

Leon Flitton 10:31
So a couple of things there you did talk about the fact that there’s more people, well, asking questions. And I say that, as in, people ask questions that you might not thought about as someone that’s in the group program. And the other thing is, it gives you way more data as well. So as the coach yourself, you’re actually gaining way more data to be actually even more effective in what you’re delivering as well. So I think that’s it’s definitely like it’s a win win for both sides. Absolutely.

Samantha Riley 11:04
Let’s talk about item number two, and that’s content. Because you do need to create content for your organic social media, for your paid ads. You need to create content that goes out there, even if you’re not on social media, you still need content, right? Whether it’s blogs or whether it’s some sort of marketing, you cannot run a business with zero content. Gosh, I was creating content in the 90s, before we even were using the internet, because I was writing articles for newspapers and I was writing advertisements that went out on letterbox, you know, deliveries or editorials or whatever it is, yeah, so you do need to create content however. You can build content either as a hobby or as a pipeline. So you need a content plan that is a system so that it stops that daily. What should I post like spiral and creates consistency without burnout, which must have message repetition, which is how buyers actually decide to buy from you, and it must have a direct route to leads, not just likes. So you need to create content that brings all of those pieces into place.

Leon Flitton 12:18
Yeah. Now we just talked about the group coaching before as well, and one of the things that I want to bring up is knowing your niche and your message so that your content is going in the right direction. Now, we were chatting this morning as we went got coffee, and we were talking about so in the 90s, right? You paid for like, yellow pages, you paid for advertising, you paid for letterbox drops, all that kind of thing. Now there’s some kind of weird thing at the moment where people go that the barrier to entry to getting online with online business is really low. You can do it from your phone. You don’t need a laptop, and you don’t even need a website, and all this kind of stuff. Well, that’s great, but I think what you might find is that speed becomes a question of money, and you putting, like, some money behind it. So yes, you can grow organically. Yes, you can get lucky, which is what you might find a lot of people do. But the point we’re at now with the way the world is in the social media world, is that you need to have organic plus paid to actually get moving. So I think that’s something to be aware of, and particularly if you want to be, you know, growing a business, then you might need to put some leverage into that.

Samantha Riley 13:32
Absolutely, yeah, when you’re putting money behind it, that creates time, that creates speed. I’d forgotten that we had that question, because we were talking about someone that spent multiple multiple six figures in his first six months but earned multiple multiple millions very quickly. So by hot if he had have held back and not put that money in, yeah, he would still be a business, but it wouldn’t be where it is now, yes, you know, you do hold yourself back. No, let’s not, you know, we’re not suggesting you’re putting hundreds of 1000s of dollars into your business. That’s not what we’re suggesting at all. But what we are saying is that you do need to put money into paid marketing. Yeah, absolutely, like we said, you need to have a plan for that content. You need to be very clear on who your ideal client is, what your message is. Create your content in advance. So it has that that pipeline from people finding you through to getting a lead like bringing them through when you’re creating on the fly, it’s very hard to do that daily. You need to plan out in advance so you know exactly. What am I promoting? How am I bringing people through? What are all of these stages of the pipeline? How are you getting people to know you exist? How are you getting people to raise their hand and saying, I’m interested. How are you going to bring them through and. Educate them and what you do. How do you build that know, like and trust? How do you get them to take the next step so that they then say, Hey, I’d love to work with you, and, yeah, that definitely needs a system. It doesn’t just happen by accident. I You can’t, you can’t just expect that to happen. So I think that in, and we’ve talked about this a lot in multiple episodes recently, is the trust factor is a lot harder to get now. Yeah, so I do, or we do, recommend that you have some sort of long form content as well as your short form. So by short form, we’re meaning your social media, your your reels, your posts, your carousels, all of that. We also recommend a Long Form platform. So whether that’s a podcast or whether it’s YouTube, you need somewhere to bring people through so that they can learn more about you, to get a to get a feel for who you are, what you know, the way you do things, what makes you unique. Because if people can do that, it does speed up the process of getting them to know you.

Leon Flitton 16:10
Yeah, yeah. Content is like, it’s like the yellow pages now, isn’t it? That’s what it is, yeah. And that trust factory is huge, but the amount of time you need to be in front of someone saying the same thing is quite long, and I’ve heard from 47 minutes to seven hours. So you know exactly what it is, is probably different for each person, by the way, but you know, like you said, as well, different things hit for different people, because some people might be short form consumers and some people might be long form consumers. And particular types of people like me, for example, is I want to watch a long form when I want to know all the details, all things about it, and that’s the way I am. So I would need to see your long form content before I go and work with you kind of thing, because that’s

Samantha Riley 16:54
what I want to see. Let’s just talk really, really quickly before we move on about how we found our last coach. They’d been in our world for, actually, quite a few years, yeah, and we both consumed their short form content, and then we went on a road trip and we listened to three podcast episodes and went, That’s them. Yeah, 100% so that was how it worked for us, and we find that that’s generally how it works for the clients that come to us as well, yeah, yeah. It’s that organic. It’s that short form that brings you into the world until you go, all right, I need to know more. You move to the long form, and that’s when you make the decision. It’s either a yes or a no, yeah.

Leon Flitton 17:33
So as an example, that would have been hours of content, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Samantha Riley 17:37
It was a few hours of content, wasn’t it? Yeah, totally, yeah. And make sure that, I think the other piece, so we’ve talked about the short form, the long form, that’s how people find you, the messaging. But also make sure that your content points somewhere, that they moving into your DMS. You know, is it a lead magnet? Is it a webinar or an online workshop? Is it a sales call like, I think this is just my take on it. I think that a lot of people took Gary V’s. I don’t know how many years ago it was his Jab, Jab, Jab, Right, hook. That could have even been 10 years ago now, maybe even back in like 2014 2015 I think it was, I can’t remember, but it was a while ago. And I think people took it too far and went, Jab, Jab, Jab, Jab, Jab, Jab, Jab, Jab, Jab, and then go, Oh, now I feel a bit weird doing a right. I honestly think you need to write hook more than every third jab, to be honest, because you don’t know when someone’s watching your content. You know they don’t go, oh, well, you’ve just turned the lights out on me. Like, essentially, what if I want to go and find more about you? I don’t think it’s we’re business owners. I think it’s quite okay to say we’re trying. We’re here trying to make a

Leon Flitton 18:52
say, Well, that’s what I was about to say. Like, we’re business owners, so if you don’t want to buy the thing, then that’s okay as well. Yeah, that’s it. But how do you know? Like, you know if certain percentage of people are ready to buy now and certain amount of people are ready to buy later, but you don’t know where they are on the journey too, because someone could have also binge the hell out of whatever your podcast is, for example, and they might be ready to buy, and if you don’t ask them for the sale for another six months, they’re gonna go somewhere else. They were, you

Samantha Riley 19:22
lost 100% so yeah, was it’s essentially, it’s like walking into a shop and there’s no one behind the counter, like there’s no one to serve you at all. Now, if someone comes to says, Hey, can I help you? You just go, oh, no, thanks. I’m good. Or, Hey, this is what I’m looking for. Can you help me? That’s essentially what a call to action is. So if you don’t provide some sort of call to action, it’s like this person’s walking into your shop and there’s no one even there, which happened to me the other day in nor ahead. And it was very weird. There was literally no one in the store. I was like, I’m a bit freaked out now. I’m scared that someone thought I was going to steal something so they didn’t get the say, Well, I was there to buy That’s right. That’s what it would feel

Leon Flitton 20:10
like, yeah, yeah. And so this can also feel a bit overwhelming sometimes. But as you just talked about it and you mentioned it before, was you can have a system for that, which is our next point.

Samantha Riley 20:21
That’s what it’s all about. Thanks for looping us back. So let’s talk about number three. The third item is that you need to have multiple systems in your business. So your business runs without your brain. Because if your business is running on the decisions that you’re making by the minute, your business is you, and it can’t be, yeah, to work 20 hours a week. It has to be systems. And I remember years ago, Leon we this was before we even lived in Noosa. We went we went on a recce tour, we went up to Noosa, and we went camping with some other family members, and we went up and I didn’t even check in with my team for the week. Like we went up there for a week. Our team ran out our clients at the time didn’t even know we’d gone away, because the business was running on the systems. The team knew exactly what needed to happen every single day. And I think this is the UN sexy part that buys your freedom. Like, people are like, Oh, it’s really hard. Like, I’m so sick of hearing it’s really hard to build systems. Well, yeah, you can either Oh no, because it annoys me. It’s like, well, either build the systems or keep working in your business. Like, your choice. I’m not going to make you do anything, but it’s these systems that make your business repeatable. They make it trainable, like less emotionally heavy. It’s it’s the unsexy part, and it’s the part that sometimes isn’t that fun. But I can tell you what on the other side of creating them is really fun. So it’s like, do the sprint of creating the systems and then take the rest, or do the marathon that’s attached to the cross country that’s attached to the 800 meters. You just get to decide which run you’re going on. And I’ll take the sprint and the rest any day.

Leon Flitton 22:17
Thanks. Yeah, the biggest thing for me with the systems is scalability, and the other part is the ability for you to move into the CEO mode. Yeah, like the leadership mode of it, because if you have all your cognitive load absolutely chocked full of admin tasks, where is the CEO mode, where you’re actually going, well, what’s the things that my clients need? How do I improve them? What can we do better? You know, how can I serve my clients? But all that kind of thing, if you’re not moving into that section and you’re stuck back in the admin task, then you’re not really going to be going anywhere. So you can’t scale, you can’t grow, and I don’t think you’re really providing your clients with the best possible trainings and that kind of thing as well. So totally given them,

Samantha Riley 23:11
totally so let’s talk about the minimums of the systems that you need. Number one is lead capture. Like, where do how do you bring leads in? Where do they go? How are they tagged? How are they nurtured? You know, it’s that whole Lead Pipeline sales, from how leads are moving, or how someone’s turning, from a lead into the sale to the conversation. How are you getting them to make a decision, and how are you bringing them through cleanly into delivery, because it’s not like sales and then delivery. It’s actually like this continuum that goes from all right, I’m going to give you my credit card. You move into delivery at that time that you get that little green tick on The Checkout, right? They come straight in or straight through, because then it’s like, well, how are we onboarding them? How are they getting access to your curriculum? What’s the call cadence? How does that work? What’s the delivery and the support? And then there’s like, retention, referrals, like it goes on. Think about everything that happens in your business. And how is that a system? Yeah, so,

Leon Flitton 24:21
so just mentioning those parts as well, you can see how many systems you need to have, because if you try to think about all those things together every day, you’re gonna have a meltdown totally.

Samantha Riley 24:31
Can I just say there’s one thing that I didn’t mention, because what we’ve done is we’ve said, All right, well, to get from where you are now to the point where you can take a week off, and essentially your business runs, which is a business, it’s meant to be that, right? It doesn’t happen overnight. And this is the piece I think that people miss. They’re like, Oh, my God, I’m in the operator role, yeah, because you need to build these systems so you can get out of it. It’s not like, one day I’m in, I’m in an operator role, and the next day I’m in a CEO. Role. All right, it does require a change over period. It doesn’t just happen overnight. In my first business, it took me five years. And the reason it took five years is because that was a traditional business, and it took me that long to bring enough team in, piece by piece by piece, to be able to say, All right, well, that’s what this person does, because that’s that their role. That’s what you know Person B does, because it’s their role in a coaching business, it doesn’t take five years. It can be done much, much quicker, and we did it much quicker, but it’s still, there’s still that messy middle. There’s still that process in the middle, and sometimes, and I think that this is a piece that marketers lie about. There can be some really long hours in there some really long hours, and there can be some real I was about to swear. I can’t think of a way to say it without swearing like it messes with your head, like, you know, you can butt up against you can really push up against a wall. There are things where you’re like, I don’t know how to do this, or I can’t figure the way through, but it’s just part of the process. But if you don’t persevere with that, you end up being in a job forever. So it’s like, you do get to choose.

Leon Flitton 26:16
Yeah, I think I’d like to say just there quickly before we move on, is that you might need to do the things that other people won’t to get what they haven’t got, if that makes sense. Because you want to be the business owner, we don’t want to be the worker, the wage. You know, take a kind of person, and you might need to do the hustle to get to where you need to go.

Samantha Riley 26:40
So, and that doesn’t mean that we’re suggesting that you work 20 hours a week for five years. That’s not what we’re suggesting at all. But there are some days where you just have to push through.

Leon Flitton 26:51
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Just before we move on to the next point, one of the things with systems is is that anything that’s repeatable needs to have a sop. And I know you’re very well versed in that from being mackers,

Samantha Riley 27:06
yeah, being a mackers chick, and McDonald’s definitely is just they’ve got more SOPs. I don’t know if it’s still the case, but certainly back in the 90s, early, 2000s most companies, this was the gold standard. I remember my uncle was very high up in National Australia Bank, and he was in training and development. And I remember he came to me and my ex husband, who was also mackers, and he was quite high up in management, going, What can I do to pay you for one of those manuals, which we didn’t do for anyone. We did not hand them over. We didn’t do that. We did not do that, but that’s how highly regarded they were.

Leon Flitton 27:51
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s something I also learned from my years in corporate as well. The other thing is, I find it’s really good just to is to work your way into a rhythm as the CEO, to make sure you spend the time doing things you need to do. And lastly, I think you want to have a chat about this quickly. And this is about data and the important role.

Samantha Riley 28:12
This is off the back of your rhythm comment. There’s two things that we do in our business, and we do with our clients every single week, and that’s number one, is we start the week with two documents. Number one our weekly KPI scorecard. And the reason that we start the week with a weekly KPI scorecard is you start to learn as you’re entering your data, as you’re entering what’s what’s there, you actually start to see what’s moving the needle. And you start to learn, oh, those other 20 things that I was doing that was keeping me busy actually isn’t moving the needle. So what about I don’t do those things? So you start to see very, very clearly. It takes a little while and a little bit of practice, but you you start to see what’s moving the needle? That’s number one, and the second, the second document we use is called win the week. And when the week is just a document where it’s reflecting on the week past, looking forward into the week ahead, being very clear about spending time on the needle movers. And the needle movers are the things that are going to move your business forward. And the reason that we start the week with those two documents is it’s like sharpening the AX so you can just get it done. It helps you to understand what’s moving the needle. It helps you to get really clear, especially as you move into the week and you start getting more tired, or, you know, you start having 40 different people asking for different things, and it’s like, you know, you can get off track when you’ve got your win the week. You’re like, Ah, today, these are the three projects that we’re working on. And let’s just work on these three projects. And all of those other people that are putting their hand up saying, This is urgent. It’s like, no, no, it’s actually not. So it helps you to. It really, really clear. So we suggest 110% there was, there was a week over Christmas that we didn’t do this early in the year, right? Leon, where we’re like, Ah, it’s early in the year. It doesn’t matter. We won’t do our KPIs and our win the week this year. Ah, that was such a mistake. And we know this stuff. But I think it, what it did was really prove how important this is, because that week was just wasted. We may as well just have been down the beach really. Yep. So yeah, start the week by sharpening your ax. Do your KPIs? Get really clear on the week ahead, and that’ll set you up for success. Yeah.

Leon Flitton 30:39
So one of the things that, and what you’re talking about there with, with the data, particularly, is that it allows you to see things that you can then automate. All right, so this is our next point. And anything that you do that’s repetitive, that can be done by well, either someone else or something else should be done by someone else or something else. So in this case, if it’s something that you can automate, you should do that straight away to give you the time back that you need to do the more of the CEO work. So I mean, in this case, it could be, you know, let’s look at things like new lead, follow up, for example, you know, rather than you saying, like, I’ll email them later on, and then you forget about it because you’re too busy doing some busy doing something else, or you’ve got to drive for so you’ve got to go and, you know, see clients, or whatever it is, you know. So you get busy, right? So then you don’t get back to it. Maybe it’s post webinar sequence that you might want it sent out like you shouldn’t be doing it manually. It should be automated. So you have to think about it, so the lower that cognitive load. So I know you’re a fan of automation, Sam,

Samantha Riley 31:45
I am, and I think automation where you mentioned a few things, but you know, Client Onboarding, getting testimonials, sales, booking, confirmations, all of those things. Automation doesn’t necessarily mean it gets done by a piece of software, or, you know, an app it. It might even be the automation is that a little note gets flicked off by someone on your team, so they take over. But it’s still automated in that it just flows off to where it needs to go. So the goal here isn’t to automate a relationship, it’s to automate the admin around the relationship so the relationship can be nurtured or, you know, supported. So if you want to be working just 20 hours a week, you definitely need some sort of automation to nurture leads and follow up with leads. Definitely sales follow ups are scheduled. It’s absolutely crucial, because if you want to work the 20 hours without losing your income, you need those sales to be coming in. So that’s why it’s so important. It’s not optional. You also need your onboarding to be automatic and not manual. So yeah, they’re definitely must haves awesome. So I mentioned that automation doesn’t need to be software and app. It can be a team. Which brings us to point number five. And our final point is you will need some sort of support, so a VA that will eventually, or could eventually, turn into a tiny team. Now, I know that there are some people out there that have seven figure businesses just with one team member. I prefer to have multiple team members because I like people to be well versed in different parts of the business. I don’t think there’s any one person that’s like a superhero that can do everything, and I feel like I like to have different people in my team that makes me feel a little bit safer when someone’s on holidays or when they’re sick, or, you know, someone that is really good at web development, For example, is not the right person for admin, but essentially, it doesn’t matter whether you choose one VA and you want it to turn into a tiny team, or if you just want to stick with one VA, it isn’t a luxury. It’s actually the bridge out of being the bottleneck in your business, and that VA will remove that massive invisible time drain. And I say invisible because you feel it, but you can’t see it. Of all that time you’re spending in your inbox or scheduling calls in your calendar, follow ups, uploading stuff, posting stuff, repurposing stuff. I don’t think this is someone that should be creating your content. I am a big believer that you should be creating your own content, because right now in this world of like, tacky AI, because we’re not into like, super, super duper AI yet for creating content, I think that your superpower needs to be your own words. But once you’ve created those words, hand it to someone else that all needs. To be done. Yeah, someone else helping you out with that admin, that uploading kind of stuff.

Leon Flitton 35:05
Yeah, I’m a fan of also running main and lean, which I don’t think is actually a problem. But there is a point where you go that you need to have the right people there to help you as well. And even considering things like, yes, there is a, we know the people are out there that do have, like one VA and run a seven figure business, stuff like that, depending on what your business model is as well. It can be different. But there’s also nothing wrong with having part timers rather than full timers. So you might have, you know, two part timers rather than one full timer. And it also gives you more stability as well, because you have, you know that well, there’s two people rather than one. So that that also helps. Now, the other part of it is, this is where the hustle comes in. And if you do it knowing that it’s hustling for the right reason, of getting up to speed quickly, and, you know, making sure that you’ve got the task handed over to them the right way. The first time, yes, it’s a bit of hustle. Yes, it’s a bit of time, but the long run is just so much better because they got that, they’ll get that first task, the second task, the third task, the fourth task. For you know, they’re really supporting you, and you can go do what you need to do. So they’re still hustle, but it’s so worth it.

Samantha Riley 36:11
Oh so much. So if you’re listening to this and you’re the person doing all the small stuff, just understand you’ll never get your 20 hour business without losing that income that we’re talking about, because that it, that’s the small stuff that multiplies. What you want to happen, or what you want to work through is you want your VA to own your operations lane, so that you can stay in the creation and the delivery lane, okay? Because that’s, that’s your zone of genius as a as a coach. So as we mentioned before, you need all of these five areas in your business, and you need to create that weekly operating rhythm so that you can get there. Now, if you’re, if you want the 20 hours, but you don’t really know what your bottleneck is. Like you may have been listening to the episode and thought, oh, it’s all five, and you don’t know which one to work on first, because please, please, please, don’t work on all five first. You will end up just spinning your wheels forever if you don’t know what to work on first, or if you’ve been listening and saying, I don’t even understand, like which one needs to change or how to change it. Then we’ve put together a free bottleneck audit. It’s just 14 quick questions. It takes about two minutes to do. Go through this quiz, it will spit out your answer, and it will give you your next three next right moves to make. So all you need to do is go to Samantha Riley, dot global, forward slash audit. And like I said, it takes two minutes to go through, and it will give you a little bit of a breakdown of how it’s playing out in your business and exactly what to do next. So link will be down below so that you can jump in and do that. Leon, thanks so much for joining me for another episode. I actually really love this topic, and I get passionate about it. You probably hear it at certain times of the episode, because when we can create a business that not only gives us our time back, but gives us the income that we need to be able to create this life that we really want, like, how much would the world change? How much less road rage would there be at nine o’clock in the morning because people are running late for work like it literally changes the world. It makes it better for us, for our partners, for our families, for our children, for our friends, yes, and that’s why I’m so passionate about

Leon Flitton 38:38
for sure. And you know what some of these topics that we just talked about today, I feel like we could do like, a couple more podcast episodes on each one of them. I just love talking about them as well so but I think you’re right. Just I think how much help and how much difference it can make to your life and your your family and your clients lives and all those kind of things as well, like how much more you can offer by just implementing some of these things Absolutely.

Samantha Riley 39:00
Thanks so much for listening. We’ll catch you next week on another episode of Business Growth Lab.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai