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Getting to the Bottom Line: Conversations to help business owners maximize revenue, profit, and cash flow
Whether you're looking to boost your profits or simply gain a clearer understanding what drives business success, "Getting to the Bottom Line" is your ultimate guide to unlocking the strategies and secrets behind sustainable growth and the financial freedom you deserve. Tune in and discover how to turn your business goals into tangible results, one insightful conversation at a time.
Getting to the Bottom Line: Conversations to help business owners maximize revenue, profit, and cash flow
CEO Hacks for Small Business Success with Donna Dube
Unlock the secrets to optimizing your business with actionable strategies from the experts! In this episode of Getting to the Bottom Line, I'm thrilled to welcome Donna Dube, owner of CEO Amplify, who shares her remarkable journey from project management to becoming an operational consulting guru. We dive into the essentials of strategic planning and foundational processes that are crucial for any business aiming to enhance revenue and profitability. Donna introduces the innovative "idea parking lot" system, a practical tool designed to help manage new ideas and maintain focus on core business goals.
Discover the art of effective delegation and how it can transform your business growth. We shed light on distinguishing between maintenance and growth tasks, emphasizing the importance of delegating routine work to focus on activities that drive your business forward. Donna and I discuss the common hurdles in delegation, including reluctance and delayed hiring, offering proactive hiring strategies and the significance of clear communication and documentation to ensure seamless operations.
We also tackle the critical aspects of hiring and data analysis for business growth. Learn why letting go of perfection is key to effective delegation and how to determine the right time to hire additional help. Financial readiness is crucial, and we explore the importance of financial planning and having a buffer for payroll management. Lastly, we delve into the power of time management strategies like time tracking and calendar blocking, sharing practical tools like the CEO Power Hour Playbook to help you focus on growth-level activities and achieve long-term success. Join us and equip yourself with the knowledge to optimize your business operations effectively!
To learn more about my guest, Donna Dube, visit her online at www.ceoamplify.ca and don't forget to crab a copy of her CEO Power Hour Playbook here: www.ceoamplify.ca/powerhour
We want to hear from you! Send us a message.
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My name is Stephanie Smith, owner of New Light Financial Solutions, and we help business owners walk the one clear path to generating more cash in their business. To learn more, visit us online at https://newlightfs.com/
Sign up for our newsletter for more great tips on how to keep the cash flowing in your business: https://newlightfs.com/newsletter/
Need help generating more cash in your business? Book a right fit call with us today: https://newlightfs.com/rightfit
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Getting to the Bottom Line. I am your host, stephanie Smith, owner of New Light Financial Solutions, where we offer outsourced CFO services to help business owners generate more cash in their business, and the goal of my podcast is to help put into perspective the various things that impact your business's revenue, profit and cash flow. And I'm excited to have with me here today Donna Dubé, who is the owner of CEO Amplify and also the host of the CEO Amplify podcast. So thank you for joining me today, donna.
Speaker 2:Thank you, stephanie, so happy to be here.
Speaker 1:I'm excited. So Donna is passionate about helping business owners work smarter, not harder, escape the hustle and grind culture and go from stressed out to confident CEO. With several years of experience in project planning and strategic growth planning with six and seven figure businesses, she has seen the momentum that can happen in a business when the CEO leverages their time, talent and tactics. I'm so excited, donna, because before we get started, I just want you to know we consult with our clients on the financial drivers that impact their revenue, profit and cash flow.
Speaker 1:So these are the different things that you can leverage to increase your cash, and one of those is your operational costs, right? So I feel like what you do fits into that bucket really well of making sure you're efficient with your time and making sure you're not. You know, I feel like one of the challenges is that we spend our time doing things we shouldn't be doing, when we could be doing, things that I don't know maybe revenue generating or things that we should be doing. So I'm excited to have a conversation about what you do and your opinions on. You know how we can optimize ourselves as business owners, so tell me a little bit about you and your business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2:So, yes, you're very true about the fact that we have to be measuring how we're using our time, and we'll get into that further today.
Speaker 2:But in terms of my business, I really I started in this online world in the project management space and so came into businesses on the back end to help them manage a certain project, whether that was, you know, a launch of a new product or writing a book or whatever that was and while I enjoyed that side of things I or writing a book or whatever that was and while I enjoyed that side of things, I'm very much a planner, very strategic I found that there were so many business owners drowning if that's the right word where on the front end, things were looking great, but on the back end of their business, things were falling apart.
Speaker 2:They didn't have that solid foundation, and so as they started to grow that operations, that back foundation became much more needed, and we had to. It got to a point where you just had to spend attention and time on it, and so that's when I kind of dove more into that operation space to really be able to help those business owners say, okay, here's what I've got now how can I improve this foundation? How can I set up systems and processes to be more efficient, to have my team more autonomous and, at the end of the day, improve my bottom line?
Speaker 1:That sounds amazing. We could all use more structure and processes. I know and it's a constant thing I'm constantly working on how do we optimize it or how do we even put it in place and write it down?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Especially if you're looking to grow and add team members. Like you got to document stuff and it's hard when you're busy as a business owner?
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. And then you know a lot of the clients I work with, and your listeners are probably the same way. Their minds are more on the visionary, more on the creative, being able to come up with good ideas, strategic ideas, really quickly. But then the following through and implementing on those ideas is the harder part, right, because they get an idea. Oh, we're going to do this. I might tell the team about it. Team starts working next time. Oh, no, we're going to do this instead, they've got so many ideas, and so just being able to rein that in and say what is really our vision and our mission for the next year, for the next three years, whatever that is, and does this project, does this idea really align with where we want to go? Because we'll find that some do.
Speaker 2:Some projects align really well. Great, let's find a time, you know, make sure we have capacity to have the right team members to make this happen. And other projects don't align specifically with where we want to go. And so it's not that those projects have to be thrown now. I like to put them in what I call an idea parking lot, and so, whether that's a Google Doc, whether that's in your project management tool, like the place doesn't matter, but to have a place where you can go and put those ideas when you have them and they don't 100% align with what you want to go. And then we have a process for checking in on the idea parking lot every 90 days so that those don't get forgotten because maybe 90 days from now one of those projects is relevant and we want to bring it forward.
Speaker 1:I love that. First, I have two thoughts about this. First of all, I want to say I am subject to shiny object syndrome a lot. You can ask my husband we run the business together and I'm like, oh, I just saw this, like we need to go look into that, and I'm like that's me. I do that a lot. So I love that you have a process in place for that. But I also love what you're doing in the process of keeping people on track, cause that's what we do with our clients from the financial side is like okay, what lever are we looking to pull and what steps do we need to get there? And let's make sure we stay on track Right, because otherwise easily distracted people just like me will be easily distracted. So I love that you're doing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm sure you see it too on the financial side, but certainly as business owners, it's easy to implement a new strategy, roll with it for a little while and not actually take the time to go back and measure its impact. Right, is this actually revenue generating for me? How much time is it taking for me and or my team? If it is revenue generating, is there a way we can make it more efficient? Or maybe it's a process that you and the team are struggling with? You haven't found a smooth way to make that happen and it's not revenue generating. Let's stop it. But taking that time to go back and actually analyze is this making a difference, rather than just piling one strategy on top of another without knowing if they're really making a difference?
Speaker 1:I also feel like I've worked in corporate for a long time and I've seen this a lot Like it's like all right, we have this great idea and we're going to do it for like six months, oh, and then it's like I don't know if it's shiny object syndrome. It's like not quite working as well as you think it is. It's like let's completely abandon ship and do something else. And it's like did we ever figure out, like you're saying, did it work to begin with, or should we have given it more time? Like how do you, how do you help people measure of whether things are effective?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, good question. Well, certainly time matters, right, and it's more time usually than we think. So for us, the business owner, if you imagine you've got the idea and then there's all the time, you know, putting it into place and actually getting out into the world, that time is not counted in terms of your return on investment. You can't start measuring that until you know you're actually doing the marketing right, whatever that looks like for you. So, allowing a good three to six months to see that strategy, you know, roll out and take place, but many times we're counting maybe the three months that it took to get ready for it beforehand, right, and we cannot start until we've actually put it out into that world. So, you know, letting it go that three to six months. Now, again, that depends on the strategy and it depends on what we're doing right. Obviously, if you're putting money towards paid ads, you're not going to wait three or six months to see if that's working right. But you know, in general we need to give that time.
Speaker 1:That makes sense, definitely makes sense. Yeah, I guess it's all pretty situational just of what you're doing, which you would want it to be, and that makes sense too. So I'm curious what I don't know if we should start with, like what, what are the biggest mistakes you see people make in this area?
Speaker 2:Yes, I would say, from the business owner's perspective, couple mistakes. Most people who come to me are overworked and overwhelmed, right, so they have this dream, this idea to start the business in the first place. Obviously, most of us start as solopreneurs. We don't have anyone helping us and we are doing literally everything right. And where I see we fall into a trap is that once we grow a little bit, even if we bring on one team member that's part-time five, 10 hours a week we have to then look at our job description and take out those things that we've now delegated to that team member. Right, every time we bring someone on, something else comes off our plate and we may add something more strategic, you know, more growth level tasks to our plate. But actually taking the time to look at our job description and say, okay, now how am I acting different? I hired Susie. She's going to work five hours a week for me. What am I doing in those five hours that I now have taken off my plate? Right, maybe you just need a rest and that's fair.
Speaker 2:But if you're going to put something on your plate, what is it going to be and is it strategic? And so, a nice way I like to sort of help clients think about. This is if you look at all the tasks in your business, they can fall into two buckets maintenance and growth. And so maintenance tasks are those things like sending out your invoices sorry, but doing your bookkeeping, doing your social media right, changing something on a landing page, setting up emails for a launch. All those things are more maintenance tasks. Do they have to happen? Definitely they have to happen, and most have to happen on some sort of regular occurrence. But the question is, do you, as business owner, have to do them Right? And those growth level tasks, that's where you're going to see that real return on investment. That's where you're going to see moving the needle forward. So those are things like your partnerships, getting in front of other audiences and teaching or sharing your knowledge right, podcast guesting, setting up new content for a program or service that you have One-to-many sales, one-to-one sales calls.
Speaker 2:If you're still doing those things, those are things that you can't delegate to another team member unless you get quite big in terms of your size. And so, as business owner, you want to be making sure that you're spending time each and every week on those growth level tasks, and what happens to many of us is. We get pulled into those day-to-day maintenance tasks and that starts to take up our day. The end of the day we say, oh, I didn't have time to do X, y, z today, right, and if that thing you didn't have time for are those growth level tasks, then inevitably your business is gonna be stuck, you're gonna plateau. And so really flipping that script and saying At least do it at the beginning of the day if that works for you, but at least have time blocked off in your day for those growth level tasks so that you are continuing to work on those on a routine basis.
Speaker 1:That makes sense and I'm sure you've seen business owners struggle with. We talk about delegation right Like just handing stuff off, especially when you're that person starting out like it's mine, it's my baby.
Speaker 1:You hear people talk about that and just trying to bring someone else on to help is like I can just do it faster if I do it by myself and take the time to teach you on how to do it. But I know that has to be a big struggle that you see with business owners that I'm sure once they overcome it is like oh, now I do have more time.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, a hundred percent. And there's a few areas here where I think we sometimes go wrong Again. Sometimes we wait too long, so we wait until we're over capacity, we're stressed out, we can't actually deliver on the promises that we've made to our clients and we quickly put up an ad somewhere or ask a business bestie, I need a VA tomorrow, who do you know? Right. And so that's not following best practices for hiring and unfortunately, sometimes we get what we asked for in that situation. So, being proactive and looking at okay, I'm going to hire in the next three to six months, what's that going to look like? What kind of tasks can I have this person to do? Start making a running list right. Look at the things you're in the next three to six months. What's that going to look like? What kind of tasks can I have this person to do? Start making your running list right. Look at the things you're doing weekly over and over that you may not enjoy doing and that are taking your time. And how could we group that together into a job description? Right, it might not all fit into one, it might need two people, but just starting to work on that before you actually need the person makes a big difference being clear with your values when you're hiring, so having your company's values in that job description, talking about them when you do an interview, so that you are attracting people with like-mind values and repelling those whose values may not match. And you may be thinking, okay, but I'm hiring someone to implement, like, I just need this person to do tasks, the values don't matter. But they so do matter, because we can always teach someone how to use a piece of software, how to do a certain task. We can't teach them values. And so you'll hear people say, well, I hired and it just didn't work out. And nine times out of 10, we haven't taken that time to make sure there's a match in values first. Right, because if that matches there, the friction can go away and now we can actually deal with okay, I want you to use this software or do this, or on Tuesdays has to go like that, whatever the details are. But sort of being proactive in that hiring process really makes a difference before you even get to the delegating.
Speaker 2:And then, once you bring someone on, you have to keep in mind they can't read your mind right, and so documenting as much as you can beforehand, even if it's doing a video while you do the process right, it can be scrappy. It doesn't have to be a professional looking video, it's just you doing the process right. It can be scrappy. It doesn't have to be a professional looking video, it's just you doing the process. So the person can see okay, we click there, we grab this, we do this and then they can write a formal SOP from that video.
Speaker 2:But at least you've given them something to start with and ensure that when you're giving them tasks, it's clear. So the task is clear, the deadline's clear and the expectations what does success look like? Right? So then when they go to do it, they can be like okay, this is what I'm supposed to match, and here's what I've produced. Yeah, it's pretty close. Let me send it to the business owner and, you know, get some feedback right. And then, from the business owner's perspective and this is a big one believing that if I hire someone else to do it and it's 75 or 80% as good as I would have done it, we're golden right? We're not looking for perfection. We're not. Most of the situations we have in our online business world are not life and death. What?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like we make it bigger than it is Right yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:They might have a wrong link one time. But guess what? So do you? Yeah, right, so we're all humans, let's, you know. Let that guard down a little bit and appreciate the fact that you know they've got it almost where you want it. Give some feedback and they're going to improve over time. So it's some extra work on your part at the beginning, but I like to say you know it's short-term pain for long-term gain.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and I I feel like I have lots of comments, but I have a follow-up question which I'll come back to first. But I, everything you're talking about makes me think about, like, okay, so I'm married my relationship with my husband he doesn't just know what's in my head right? And I think that communication in general is a challenge for all of us. We're not really taught to be really direct. So I love your advice of just you have to tell people what you want and there should be no surprises. You know, being from my corporate background, it's always like if you go into a review, you should know if your review is going to be good or bad, right, because someone should set that expectation up for you in advance. Like I know I'm doing it well or I'm not. So I love I'm also a very direct person. So, like, just tell me what you want when you want it, and I'll get it done.
Speaker 1:Yes, but I think that's important too, just to lay that foundation. I like that. But let me ask you a follow-up question when is the right time to hire that first person or second person? Like how do people know? Because I feel like there's this challenge of, well, I don't have enough money. I can't afford it, but I really need somebody. So there's got to be this line in the sand that you're like all right, I'm going to just take the leap and make the investment.
Speaker 2:Right, yes. So I like to approach it from a couple of ways. One, looking at your capacity, right? So are there certain tasks that you're doing in your business each and every week, and because you're doing that, you don't have time for some of those growth level tasks. And so, when you get to that point, what could you be offloading? And if there's enough that you could be offloading, even for, you know, two, three hours a week again, doesn't have to be a full time employee. You can start small. That's worth doing at the beginning.
Speaker 2:It also gives you some buffer room to be able to work with that person and get an idea of what you're going to have to do up front when you hire someone, right? So that's number one is looking at your capacity. Number two, of course, is looking at your budget, right, and so I always suggest clients take a look at your budget and say, okay, if I hire this person at X amount per month, how much is that going to be? And do I have three months of their salary already banked? And you may say, oh, three months, that's a lot. I don't know your opinion on this, stephanie, but the online world changes, right? Our revenue ebbs and flows, and so you want to make sure that you have that bank so that there's not pressure to have to go borrow money or to do something to be able to pay your new staff that you just brought on.
Speaker 2:So that gives you buffer room, so that if revenue dips, you know right after you hire them you still have some space there and you know you can pay them and feel ethically right about it, right, yeah? So looking at your budget, and then number three is okay, if I take that five hours off my plate, what can I do? That's revenue generating, because if you look at it that way, in a couple of months you may be able to then bring on more revenue that's now paying for this person, right, right, that person is now up to speed, so the time you need to spend with them is less. They can now do work more autonomously and you now have other revenue generating activities that you have time for each week to actually bring in that revenue and help pay for them. So again, it's like that short term period where I want to make sure I have a buffer both for my time and my budget. But then you know, in three to six months I have to see something different.
Speaker 1:Right, that makes sense. Yeah, I think it's good advice to have the buffer room there, because you definitely don't want especially if you're in a higher, like a full-time person right, you don't want to bring them on and you're paying them the salary and then it's like, oh, we just ran out of money and, um, a lot of people have problems, you know, making payroll because they don't have good cashflow. So I think making sure you have all your financials in order makes perfect sense before you bring someone else on. Yeah, Now I'm curious um your opinion, cause we're talking about impacting your bottom line and everything. What kind of changes do you see or benefits do you see with people who are willing to get their processes in order, maybe delegate tasks to other people and hire people to benefit their companies, right, and make that money extra money in the long term? Have you seen any success stories with that?
Speaker 2:Yes, for sure For sure. So, excuse me, just in terms of clients, I'll give you a couple examples. I was working with a client who was a course creator and selling courses to young people newly out of university or college, and so she had a social media assistant on her team who was working at capacity for that person. She couldn't work any more hours and the client was saying we're selling courses to young people, young people are on all the social media channels. I think I need to hire another social media assistant, but I don't have money for it, right, right. And so she asked me what should I do? How do you think we should handle this? And so I said to her I want to look at the data, I want to see your return on investment on the social media channels that you're posting on now, and, to be honest with you, it was most of them Right, trying to be everywhere.
Speaker 2:And we got in the back end of Google Analytics and, really surprising, there were actually two channels out of all the ones that she was working with that stood out, one for brand awareness, and one people were actually taking action, right, clicking the link, signing up for things, whatever the action was on the post. And so the other channels were hardly getting any traction. So when you put it that way, you're like, okay, I'm paying someone to make all these posts and post on these channels and keep up with all these algorithms, but actually I'm not getting a return on investment in there. And so we stopped posting like crazy on those others and double down on the two channels that worked. We now didn't have to hire someone else because the social media assistant had capacity to just focus on those two channels, right, keep on talking about what's changing, what's new, and have regular posts going out to those and let the other ones go.
Speaker 2:And so we didn't have to affect her budget. We didn't have to hire someone else. She felt more relief because she knew she was getting in front of her audience with objective data. She wasn't just thinking it, we had actual data. And, to be honest with you, the social media assistant was less stressed too, because it was pushing her beyond what she was able to do. And so just really taking that step back and again, looking at the data and making an informed decision before jumping ahead, and and you know, spending more, hiring more, trying a new thing really does make a difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which obviously would send you, save you money in the long run If you're going to hire someone else to invest in a channels that aren't really working for you anyway, unless you, I guess, found someone to specialize in one of those channels which could be a project for the future. But I love that you focus on the data right. Like I am a very analytical person, I went to school for math. I love math. It's very you know, it is what. It is right To find the data to say like this worked or this doesn't work, or it is working or isn't working.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of business owners struggle with that, because you just bring what is the ROI? You're like I don't know, like Google Analytics, Someone else handles that for me. I don't even look at it. I see that in the financial space too, Like I don't really know what my numbers are P&L, what, yes. So I think there is this level of us, as business owners have to get comfortable looking at the data and finding the data and being curious about whether or not it makes sense and something's actually working, with proof. You would want that proof in other areas of your life.
Speaker 2:Yep, you should want that in your business too. Yes, a hundred percent, and I think you're right. Like people shy away from it and then we just guess what we think is happening, right? But I like to tell my clients the data are just numbers, they're just telling a story, right? Let's make an informed decision from that story.
Speaker 2:So get curious, ask questions, okay, well, we just made a new lead magnet, you know are. Is it converting? How many people are going to the page? Are they actually signing up for this new thing and getting on my email list? Right? Are they unsubscribing right after they get it? Because the rest of the information I'm talking about isn't in line with with my new freebie, right? And so just really looking at those numbers and again, it's you as business owner don't have to pull those numbers, but you have to give direction to someone to say can you find for me how this landing page is converting? Can you find for me this piece of data? Right? You gather those pieces of data and then that's when you're strategic and make those informed decisions. So, sort of looking at it from the higher level, you're putting on your CEO hat and really thinking like a CEO.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. I think if you were a CEO of a large corporation, you're not going to just make decisions by the seat of your pants hopefully, I hope not, and it would be data like they would be asking for. Let's look at the analytics, let's see the data, and I think it's hard sometimes because you don't know what to ask for. But you think part of that is finding the right person to ask that question, or you have to learn right. Owning a business is a lot about learning the things you don't know yes, yes and finding people that can help you do those things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and you know what. You can start simple. So if you're in a position right now and you're like, well, I don't really look at the data, then let's start simple. You're bringing new people into your world. However way you're marketing to get in front of new people, is it working Right? How many new people are getting on your email list or booking a call with you every month, right? Is that working? Trend that out for you know, three to six months and let's see, is that working? And then, once those people come into your world, you have to have a way of continuing the conversation with them right, of nurturing them. So what is your strategy for that? Is it working Right? And then, of course, the big one the revenue. Right. So, looking, we set revenue goals frequently at the beginning of the year or the end of the previous year, but then how many business owners actually track that?
Speaker 1:regularly? I think little to none. Let me just say that. And then, like we talk about the, I mentioned the drivers that we look at and one of the things I like to say is, like everyone thinks that your financials is going to tell the whole story, or your P&L, your balance sheet, and they don't have those numbers. So some of the drivers that we look at on the revenue side are your number of leads right and your conversion rate and your financial systems, like QuickBooks, is not going to tell you that. They don't tell you your leads. You have to go find that information somewhere else and write it down. So it is trying to find that bigger picture that isn't necessarily on a financial report. Like you have to do it on your own. Maybe, maybe one day. Maybe one day there'll be a system that'll track all this stuff for you um but you got to start somewhere, so I love that you just write it down.
Speaker 1:Start with all the things you've got going on and see how people are learning about who you are yeah, yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 2:You know many business owners say, oh, my website, I'm paying someone to do SEO. Great, that's not a bad thing. But then are you actually tracking? Are people finding your website Right, and what keywords are they using to find your website? Like? That's useful information if you are working on SEO as a strategy. Right, yeah, so a simple spreadsheet doesn't have to be fancy, right, right, put the months and put you know write it down on a piece of paper.
Speaker 1:Even that, yeah Right, who needs?
Speaker 2:a computer, exactly, exactly. But I would start with when you're asking yourself about your business, like where am I trying to grow? Well, I'm trying to do this, I'm trying to do that, and then let's measure those areas, right, like you say, they're not on your P&L and so you have to go into the software tools that you're using to find those numbers.
Speaker 1:So true, I love that. Well, this has been such a great conversation, so I want to ask what if someone listening today? What's the one takeaway you think they should get from this conversation, or one way to get started that? Would be most impactful for them.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, okay. Well, I would say the one thing is looking at your time, and so we didn't spend a lot of time on this, but we touched on it and it's really just leveraging your time as the business owner, as the CEO, whether you're a solopreneur or not, your time matters, and so being really intentional and purposeful with your time makes a world of difference. And for me and for a lot of my clients, that starting point is actually doing a time tracker. Yes, I know, I said it, it's painful, I get it, but you get so many golden nuggets from doing that and seeing how am I actually spending my time. And you know, thinking about it and flipping the script for many of us on how we're spending our time is the biggest transformation you can see.
Speaker 1:I do. I love that idea of time tracking your own time just to see I'm, I am, I'm, I'm the person that goes down the rabbit hole all the time, like I came upstairs to work on this and then I went down this rabbit hole and I didn't do that at all and I did this other thing that was not important at all.
Speaker 2:So I love.
Speaker 1:I love that. I think that's a great tip and I'm sure, like calendar blocking, falls into something of like making sure you're spending the right amount of time Once you figure out what you're spending your time on right. I'm not a calendar blocker I feel like I should be but I know a lot of people that do that. Your time is valuable. Right Time is money.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent. Yes, yes, and you know from for many businesses. I remember working with a client and she was very creative and liked to get in the backend of Canva and make images and that type of thing Right. But when we're actually looking at how she's using her time, she'd come to me and say, oh, I'm so busy, I'm overworked. I got you know I need to work less hours, okay, good. But when we're looking at how much was my time, she could easily spend two or three hours a week in Canva. Oh, but I like it. I understand that. But what's your hourly rate that you would charge a customer, right? Well, this amount. Okay, now multiply that by the two or three hours that you're spending every week. How much in a month, like you're not actually paying yourself this, but how much in a month would that cost you when you're doing those things, rather than doing those growth level tasks and having someone who you're paying at a lower rate and just as competent to make those images, do it for you, right? So, finding that balance.
Speaker 1:It's hard. It's hard when it's something you love, but then you schedule that and if something you really want to work on, you schedule that into your time, making sure you're doing the other things that are more important. More important, right? Awesome, well, I think. Let's see my takeaway definitely, measurement. I'm I'm big on the numbers. You got to measure or you won't know if it's working or not, and I feel like you also need to measure to make better decisions, right, to see where you want to go in the future, to see if you've even met the goal. Do you have goals? Did you meet those goals? Right, if you don't write it down or figure it out, like you would never know if you're on track to do the things you want to do, to even set new goals to grow, if you weren't figuring out how you're doing to begin with. So, yes, measurement is such a big key. Well, this has been such a great conversation. If someone wanted to learn more about you or your business, where can they find you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my website is CEOamplifyca and when they go there, there is a resource a free resource they can download if they wish, which is called the CEO Power Hour Playbook, and it's really just helping you institute one hour each and every week in your business to really focus on where you're going. So you're reviewing, you're reflecting and setting your top three priorities for the week. So there's a couple of exercises in there you can do. Yes, measurement is part of it. So you're looking at a couple of your metrics and then looking at your goals and saying, okay, what do I need to do to get one step closer to meeting that goal? That's what I'm doing this week and getting it in your calendar.
Speaker 1:I love that. I'm going to go download it myself and I, you know, we could all use more organization like process in our lives, so I love that. And anyone looking to find more more to find out more about me and my business, you can find us at wwwnewlightfscom. That's our website. Sign up for our newsletter. You can also stay tuned for another episode of Getting to the Bottom Line, but that is it for this episode, so I just want to say thank you again. So much for joining me, donna.
Speaker 2:Thank you, so happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, everyone. I will see you on the next episode. Bye.
