Your Biggest Business Problem Isn’t Your Structure. It’s Your Calendar.

In this episode, Mai and Lee explore why so many business owners feel overwhelmed as their business grows, even when everything appears successful on the outside. The issue isn’t always structure, staffing, or systems. It’s how time is being managed day‑to‑day.

Mai shares her own experience of reaching a point where growth no longer felt exciting, but instead felt heavy, reactive, and difficult to sustain. To address this, Mai introduces us to the DRIP framework: Delegate, Replace, Invest, and Produce. It’s a practical approach to help business owners regain control of their time, reduce bottlenecks, and build a business that can scale without relying entirely on them.

Using real examples from her own business, Mai explains how small shifts, like auditing where your time goes, removing low‑value tasks, and structuring your calendar intentionally, can significantly increase capacity, productivity, and profitability.

In this episode, Mai talks about:

• The importance of completing a time and energy audit
• How to identify and delegate low‑value tasks
• Understanding your “buyback rate” and where your time is being misused
• The replacement ladder and how to move from admin into leadership
• Why most business owners are stuck working in the business instead of leading it
• The role of investing in yourself to grow as a business owner
• How simple systems and structured calendars create consistency across a team
• Why a business that depends on you isn’t truly scalable

This episode is a reminder that scaling a business isn’t about doing more, it’s about doing the right work at the right level. When you take control of your calendar, you create the capacity to lead, think strategically, and grow your business in a sustainable way.

If you’d like a copy of Mai’s Replacement Ladder template, DM the word Ladder on Instagram at @the_maiharris.

You can also submit questions or topic ideas via the Ask Mai link at the top of the show notes.

Learn more about My Accounting Advantage

Disclaimer

The advice contained in this presentation is general in nature only and should not be acted on without first seeking professional advice.

Your personal circumstances have not been taken into account, and you should consider the appropriateness of the advice to your individual needs.

Transcript

Welcome And The Calendar Claim

Speaker 1 0:02

Hello and welcome back to the podcast My Accounting Advantage featuring Mai Harris. Today, as promised, we have episode nine. Your biggest business problem isn't your structure, it's your calendar. Let's bring her back in. Mai Harris, welcome back. Thank you, Lee. Yeah, Mai, everyone's thoroughly enjoying the podcast, but can I ask you, did you ever think you'd be a podcaster?

Speaker 0:28

No, not at all. This is so new to me. And you're so natural at it.

Speaker 1 0:33

You deliver the information so well, but it's quite a surreal thing. Here you are, this accountant with an accountancy firm, and then you're a podcaster.

Speaker 0:42

Yeah, it's it's such a a massive change. But you know what, it it's so nice to um have you as a co-host. So it makes it easier for me because you, you know, make it the conversation so natural. So thank you.

Speaker 1 0:59

And actually, this is connected to today's topic. You could go and learn podcasting or work with someone who's doing podcasting. I could go and study accountancy or just engage My Accounting Advantage and let the right people be in the right role at the right time. Take us into your biggest business problem isn't

Success Outside Panic Inside

Speaker 1 1:20

your structure, it's your calendar.

Speaker 1:22

Yes. So this is really something that I want to share to our listeners. You know, a lot of successful businesses, they have owners that struggles, and it's very real. When you get to the point where um your business is good, everything's going right for you, but you don't really feel it. You actually feel like you're drowning inside, and everyone's patting you on the back and go, that is so good, you know, your business is growing, and um, you're adding more team members and you've got more clients. And then on the inside, you feel like just it's just more and more and more. So um, and I have been there. Only 18 months ago that I felt like and I don't want to scale anymore. I don't want to um have any more work. Uh I didn't understand the way I felt, and I felt miserable that um I didn't celebrate, you know, that success. I realized that I didn't have the right framework to scale the business. So um I start searching for answers.

Speaker 1 2:28

Capacity is such an interesting word. And for every business owner listening to this podcast, if you're the business owner, you are the battery of the business. When people say my batteries are drained, that's what being a business owner is. And then you start to get better help or the coaching and training side that someone steps up in the business and takes that away from you. Whereas in the beginning, every hat's yours. CEO stands for Chief Everything Officer. Everything's on your plate. What did you do? What can our listener do?

Speaker 3:01

Yeah, so basically I got myself a business coach and I also read a lot of books. Now I I found the metrics that

The DRIP Framework Explained

Speaker 3:10

actually works really well, and I have implemented in my business as well. So, I follow the DRIP metrics. The DRIP metrics is about drip stands for Delegate, Replace, Invest, and Produce. So, I can go through um the DRIP metrics and just give the listeners a little bit more insight about how to implement that. Because once you actually master that, you have a recipe to scale your business.

Speaker 1 3:42

Approaching anything with that would work because it is a framework, it is a sequence. You're not overwhelmed by the problem, you just got to focus on the sequence.

Speaker 3:51

That's right. So it's easier to sort of follow the framework than just trying to figure things out. A lot of successful entrepreneurs, they don't just wing it, they follow a framework. So for business owners out there, you don't make it hard for yourself and think that, oh, I'll just figure it out, don't worry about it. No, you can save years and a lot of pain from trying to discover something that's already been done. So

Delegate With A Time Audit

Speaker 4:25

in this case, the DRIP metrics is um the first one is delegate. So you need to then have a look at what you use your time on and where um are the bottlenecks. So that's why the first thing to do is make do a time and energy audit and have a look at what low-value tasks are you doing. And a lot of the time, what I did, I was looking at um, you know, I did a time and energy audit. I went, wow, okay, I spent a lot of my time, like 26 hours a week, just doing my own emails. I'm going, well, no wonder why I have to work weekends. Because I was just flat out answering emails. And then I also was doing accounts payable and I was doing pays for staff. I um I don't have a dedicated time for staff to actually ask me questions that can come at any time. So no wonder why I was living in um chaos. That's about awareness now. So you need to um start off with, you know, doing time and energy audit and have a look at how you're spending your time. And time is everything.

Speaker 1 5:45

Everyone listening to this audio, you and I included, will only be successful due to our bookings. And bookings are everything. You and I are here in the Hit Record Studios today because it was booked. Yes. If it's booked, you can prepare, you can think, and you do it. Everyone listening to this audio knows exactly where they're going to be on December 25th. It's it's a no-brainer because it's booked. And you turn up to bookings. Whereas the most scary thing for me in what you've just said there is a blank calendar. If I've got a blank calendar, everyone will find me. Yeah. Because it's loose. Oh, you've got nothing on, you we should do this. And you just whereas when I'm touring, I'm booked to be there, the flights are booked, the hotels are booked, uh, the stages are ready. Everything that's booked works. It's when it's loose and you have no structure at all and no time disciplines, everyone will get to you. Which means now you're just running around like a lunatic, exhausted, unhappy. It might look like it's going good on the outside, but you know yourself. You don't feel right.

Speaker 6:54

That's right. So the first thing first is, you know, understand how you want to spend your week. And I call that your ideal week. Cut out all the things that you can actually allocate to someone else. The low-value task, the task that would be done by someone who earns $35 an hour, and you as a um, you know, owner of the business, your buyback rate, which is what you're actually worth, could be, you know, over and above $150 an hour because you're getting, you know, um top wage and also the um share of the business profits. So you need to include all of that. Be aware of your buyback rate, which means that if your buyback rate is $150 and you're doing a $35 job, which is an admin job or something or processing job, well, you are losing money and you're taking money out of your own pocket there. So uh be intentional about how you spend your week. Audit your time, allocate those low-value tasks to someone else or hire another person. I did. I hire an EA and um I also allocate all the admin tasks to now the admin team. And I don't do any of that. I just, you know, um, I do things that light me up. So I have what I call ideal calendar. So your calendar is really important, and you design it intentionally, and you allocate the task that moved the needles the most in that calendar, and then everything else fits around it, and then also allocated certain amount of time for your team members to ask you questions, and that will help them as well, because they're a bit more intentional about what they're going to ask you when they come and see you at a dedicated time. So the next

Replace Yourself Using The Ladder

Speaker 8:50

thing that we move to is replace. So you need to understand what you need to replace yourself with. So it's called a replacement ladder. So there are five rungs of replacement ladder. The first one is is admin with the ladder. And then the second one is operation, and then the third one is marketing, the fourth one is sales, the fifth one is where you want to be as a business owner, leadership. You might be going, oh, what's she talking about? It's well, what I'm talking about is about framework that you have a look and assess where you are on that ladder. And trust me, I used to be in the admin ladder, in the admin, in the bottom, because I after I audited my time, I realized that I was doing everything admin. And um, I was only producing the high-level work. I le I left it to last.

Speaker 1 9:53

You know, we mentioned on a previous podcast about the colours of business, red, blue, and black. Red being admin, blue, dollar productive, black strategic thinking. Not many people spend time in black.

Speaker 10:04

No.

Speaker 1 10:05

And it's the most important one because you might nut something out there that completely changes the business. You might design something or do something with something you've already got. I was at a company called RealTare for three years. They acquired my original business and I had to stay on for three years, which was fine. It was all part of the deal. But they had a piece of technology that could be reshaped into a smaller version that I so they had a Big Mac and I made it a cheeseburger. And the cheeseburger was the reason the company got acquired by realestate.com.au. It was all there, but if you got some time to think in black, you think we've already got this. What if we just stripped it back and made it that and leave the other as it is and we've got no production costs, we're just switching a few things off, and it was the most important one. I think everyone in their business, quick story for you.

Speaker 11:04

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 11:04

There's a it was a business story from America about a sawmill, and the sawmill were cutting trees, making housing framework, and that's what they did. And the manager one day said, What do we do with the sawdust? And they said, We sweep it up and get rid of it. And the manager said, Let's make combustion logs out of it. There was more money in combustion logs than there was housing timber. Just by someone thinking the sawdust is dropping to the floor every day.

Speaker 11:32

Yeah.

Speaker 1 11:33

I I believe every business has sawdust. What is it? And that's that strategic thinking part that you're delving into now.

Speaker 11:41

That's right. And that's why I think if you can master, like exactly what you just said, it's so important to be, you know, the strategic leadership. Like you have that strategic leadership skills to lead the business to the next level. And that's how business scale. It's not because you feel bad, because you're not doing the work yourself. Don't feel bad. Because you want to build the business that can scale and can run without you. And I've been there. So um what I did, I realized where I was um in the replacement ladder. I intentionally replace myself, replace those tasks by allocating to, you know, the team members. I keep moving up the ladder. As a result, we have increased, you know, productivity level for the firm for like 25%. What does that mean? That means we have capacity to bring more clients in, helping more people, making more money. So really, uh, if you realize this now, it can really change the course of your business and you can scale. And

Invest To Raise Your Leadership Ceiling

Speaker 12:50

the next thing is invest. Invest is investing in yourself, investing in you because you're the leader. The business can only scale to the level of the leadership. And if you're actually investing yourself and don't feel that, you know, for example, a lot of clients now just realize that I do business coaching with intention to, you know, reduce their tax, as well as, you know, helping them with strategic planning and um and then help them grow as a business leader rather than just drowning in their own business and they're not quite sure where they're going. Go out there, search for the right person to help you, um, invest in yourself. And once you actually master the productivity part equals more profit, that means you have more funds to invest back into your business, into new equipment, into new resources, new team, or you know, just AI, for example, the new technology. That can be a game changer for you when you realize that you can buy back more of your time so that you can think strategically for your business.

Speaker 1 14:08

This is so powerful. And for everyone listening today, this is a test for you, a little quiz question. Is your business saleable without you in it? And if the answer is no, you have a job. You call it a business, but it's actually a job. I've been involved in four or five business sales. Quite often, the key person's taken out 12 months before the sale goes, so that they don't turn up and say, Oh, well, that person's not here, the whole thing doesn't work. You've got to get it to work without the original founder, the member. Uh McDonald's are still growing, but Ray's not there. It's a good example. For most people, I don't want to catch you off guard there, your business is probably not saleable without you. And that's why what you're saying, Mai, is such

Can The Business Sell Without You

Speaker 1 14:55

a leadership moment. The art of leadership is actually to not be needed.

Speaker 15:00

That's right.

Speaker 1 15:01

That everyone knows what they're doing and they can do it without you, and they do it better when you're not there. Like, what a moment, versus no, they all want me, they all want me. And I and I say that from a place of being the person that was that. Yeah. That if it wasn't me there, the thing wasn't worth anything. I think it's a great indicator. Is your business saleable without you? Is your business saleable? Would someone be excited to come in and take over that business because you've got all the processes, the frameworks? Like I'm not an accountant, but if I had to buy your accountancy firm, the frameworks are there. You've done the work that I could employ accountants myself and say this is the framework. And I could just lead the business because I won't be doing any accounting. If I did buy your business, the worst thing in the world that would slow me down is I'm actually an accountant because I'll probably get on the tools. Versus could I bring in 10 accountants with the frameworks? Because I could go out there and do the marketing side, which is what lights me up, which is that leadership moment for everyone. You know, I look at some great tradespeople and think, you're so good. But imagine if you were just the foreman winning the business and you had 10 of you performing the work. Oh no, no, but I need to do it, I'm the best concretor in the world. I know. But imagine if you could teach others that part because the quoting and winning of the business is really your skill, but you think you're a great concreter.

Speaker 16:24

That's right. That's so important to have the ability to teach and transfer what you do best. And you actually feel sense of accomplishment when someone else is doing the work, winning the work for you, and you can go on holidays and um don't have to worry about the business. And that's where you want to get up to. In um, you know, that's to me that's the pinnacle of owning a business, but not owning a job. And the last bit of the DRIP metrics is produce. So P stand for produce. And what is produce? Produce is about

Produce Simple Systems With Calendars

Speaker 17:05

making systems that can be easily followed. And also it's uh will be consistent across the business. Meaning put in place a system that you know will achieve the plan that you put together to replace you within the business and buy back more time. So in my business, for example, how I um, you know, complete the the P part, the produce, is to make everybody support the calendar system. So everyone in my team would need to complete their calendar, put all of the tasks that they need to do for the week, and populate the calendar a week ahead of time. When we have a meeting, a weekly meeting, I will um review the calendar. So that's an accountability part, and that's quite easy to do, and it's simple. So it's about putting a system in place that is simple to follow, and um it will be a framework for your team to become successful at achieving, achieving um, you know, their their week and achieving their tasks that they they want to complete for the week.

Speaker 1 18:34

Another amazing week of podcasting and a lot of leadership on the show today, which leadership's everywhere. It doesn't matter what job you do, you need to lead. And leading the way and growing people to be better than you is an even more exciting part. Mai, final words from you.

Speaker 18:54

Yes, so thank you for you know listening to you know this business framework, because I think once you master it, you'll find that scaling

Get The Template And Closing

Speaker 19:05

business is not impossible. I wanted to invite, you know, business owners out there. If you want a template of the replacement ladder, please DM the word ladder to my Instagram. Um, my Instagram is the _maiharris. So DM and we'll just send the template over to you.

Speaker 1 19:29

Thank you, and I look forward to next week. Today's podcast was brought to you by myaccountingadvantage.com.au. In New South Wales, 0243354909. My Accounting Advantage.