FIND YOUR HOURLY RATE
A. First, you'll have to calculate the amount of revenue you bring into your business for the year. How much revenue did you generate last year?
B. Let's estimate the total time you spent working list year. How many total hours did you work?
C. Determine how much money you're making every hour. Divide the total Euros by the total hours worked to find your revenue generated per hour with the following formula:
UNDERSTAND YOUR BILLABLE HOURS
It's good to know your revenue per hour, but it doesn't quite tell you what your time is worth.
Chances are some of the hours worked were sucked up by administrative tasks or other typical office duties - things that others who do not have your home remodelling and design expertise could be doing. A more accurate way to determine what your time is worth is to look at your revenue generated per 'billable hour'.
A billable hour is the time you spent doing the things only you can do - like working with clients, creating renderings, choosing furniture or materials, etc.
D. Look through work logs and invoices to see how much time you spent doing tasks only you could do or estimate if you didn't keep track. How many hours did you spend on those tasks?
E. Now take the total amount of revenue you generated (2) and divide it by number of billable hours. This formula will give you revenue generated per billable hour:
IDENTIFY OPPORTUNITY FOR DELEGATING
Chances are your revenue generated per billable hour (box 2) is higher than your revenue generated per hour (box 1). This is because you're spending time doing tasks that you're not getting paid for, like working on your website or making sure the books are balanced.
The next step is to find out just how much time you're spending on tasks that could be delegated.
F. Take the total amount of hours you worked last year (B)
G. Subtract your total billable hours (D)
OPTIMISED INCOME
The number of hours spent working on things that could have been delegated represents time you could be using to generate more revenue if you were to spend that time on tasks only you could do. Let's find out how much:
8. Take the total number of hours you spent working on tasks that could be delegated (Box 3)
9. Multiply that by your revenue generated per billable hour (Box 2)
This formula will give you an indication on your potential additional earnings you could be bringing in:
ACTION ITEMS
Is the amount of money you're leaving on the table because you're doing tasks that anyone else could do enough to think about delegating some of those jobs?
Here are a few steps you can take immediately to get the most value out of your time as a skilled professional.
- Identify the tasks you can delegate
- Find services or tools to handle those task
- Use the extra time to take on more projects
BEFORE YOU DELEGATE
While delegating tasks certainly frees up your schedule, keep in mind that this worksheet is simply an exercise to help you visualise what is possible in terms of revenue. Before you make outsource a task to a service or employee, ask yourself the following questions.
Will I be able to work as many hours as I delegate, or will I need to account for time spent training or managing?
If I outsource the task, will the cost of the service or employee to do the task be worth it?
Would I realistically be able to take on more work with my freed-up hours?
You can download these useful tips as a PDF document by clicking here.
