Do you know how to value your time and spend it appropriately? Or are you stuck doing everything, from sales meetings with high-value clients, to mundane admin by yourself? Whether you’re just getting started or are a seasoned coach, one of the best ways to leverage your time is by hiring a kick-butt personal assistant.
Look at it this way…
Imagine you’re a commission-only salesperson. Every morning you show up for work at 8 a.m. and give your boss $800 in cash. In return, you receive a bucket with eight gallons of liquid time that you have to resell for more than $100 per gallon to make a profit that day. If you don’t re-sell it, you’ll have no cash to buy your bucket of liquid time the next day.
Now, here’s an insidious twist. Your bucket has a hole in it! You lose a gallon of inventory every single hour and there’s absolutely NOTHING you can do about it, other than to scoop it out and sell it as fast as you can!
It’s a funny visual, maybe, but conveys a powerful truth: time is your inventory. You can never get it back. And to succeed as a business coach you need to prevent your inventory from draining away before you can sell it.
That’s why I tell every business coach, once they’ve got a bit of cash flow, to invest in a solid personal assistant.
Given that you’ll be billing out at $250 to $750 per hour, this is a no-brainer.
How to Find a Quality Personal Assistant
You can find quality local personal assistants on Craigslist, through referrals from your local network, or even by posting that you’re looking for one on Facebook and LinkedIn. However, don’t limit yourself to local talent. In this virtual world, hiring a remote PA is a definite possibility. Look on Upwork to find an experienced candidate.
Here’s what to look for…
- A personality with a penchant for details. Have candidates take the Profiles Performance Indicator™ (PPI) Assessment… and look for someone with a scale “IV” rating (measured precision and analytical/quality orientation).
- An independent contractor with his or her own PA business. Don’t go through a firm, but get someone who’s running their own show. This kind of person really understands entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship.
- A passion for business and helping entrepreneurs. Choose a person who is passionate about their work. It will make all the difference.
- A great, fun personality. See if you can find someone who is high scale “II” (social influence and positive expectancy) on the PPI profile. Scale IV & II combos can be rare, but they’re worth their weight in gold. In addition to helping you manage the details, high “IV’s” can help you sell and market as well.
When you’ve got a great PA, pay them a modest base rate with a performance bonus that allows share in the upside based on new clients secured. Every time you land a new client they get $50 to $100. You’ll be amazed at how impassioned they become about your marketing and sales when you incentivize them this way!
Stop wasting your most precious resource: your time! Outsource what can be done better by a quality PA. It will help you take your business coaching practice to the next level.
