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Episode 148: Automating Your Life and Work: The system Graham uses to work only 5 hours a Week
628 Plays3 years ago
The entrepreneur, YouTuber, and Business Coach Graham Cochran joins me on the podcast to discuss how to automate and optimize your life and work. He shares with me the framework he uses to grow his business while only working five hours per week. If you don't know Graham I highly recommend checking out episode three of the podcast to learn more about his story because it's a remarkable one. I'm really excited about his latest project to the release of his book, “How to Get Paid for What You Know,” which will be available on March 22nd. I've included a link to it in the show notes and if you pre-order the book you could also get access to some pre-order bonuses. I’ve included that information in the show notes as well and listen I don't get any kickback for promoting his book I just learned a lot from Graham I believe that this book is going to be awesome and potentially a game-changer for a lot of people.
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Transcript
Challenging Business Practices
00:00:05
Speaker
One is you start by eliminating the things that you really don't need. And most people skip that. They just assume everything they're doing is important, and then they're like, how can I do it faster or get someone else to do it? And I think those are bad assumptions to start with. I think you should start with challenging everything you do in your business. Does this actually make a difference? And if so, does it make much of a difference? So one good example is social media. For most businesses, I would venture to say that social media is a giant waste of time.
00:00:32
Speaker
I think it has a role to play, but I think just posting to social, I think people feel like they have to post all the time. But I challenge anybody to give me data in the business of how they're posting to social drives income in the business, puts money in the bank account.
Graham Cochran's 5-Hour Work Week Strategy
00:00:48
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands That Book Show, where we help creative, service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
00:00:57
Speaker
Entrepreneur, YouTuber and business coach Graham Cochran joins me on the podcast to discuss how to automate and optimize your life and work.
Introduction to 'How to Get Paid for What You Know'
00:01:05
Speaker
He shares with me the framework he uses to grow his business while only working five hours per week. If you don't know Graham, I highly recommend checking out episode three of the podcast to learn more about his story because it's a remarkable one.
00:01:19
Speaker
I'm really excited about his latest project too, the release of his book, How to Get Paid for What You Know, which will be available on March 22nd. I've included a link to it in the show notes, and if you pre-order the book, you can also get access to some pre-order bonuses. I've included that information in the show notes as well. And listen, I don't get any kickback for promoting his book. I've just learned a lot from Graham, and I believe that this book is going to be awesome, and potentially a game changer for a lot of people.
00:01:47
Speaker
I highly, highly, highly recommend checking it out. As always, be sure to check out the show notes at DavianChrista.com for the resources that we mentioned during the episode, and we want to hear from you. Let us know what kind of content you'd like to see in the Brands Like Book Podcast as we move forward. To leave your feedback, just send us a DM on Instagram, at DavianChrista. And if you have a moment, leave us a review on iTunes. Now, on to the episode.
Balancing Productivity and Personal Life
00:02:14
Speaker
All right, Graham, welcome back to the Brands of the Book podcast. I'm really excited to chat with you about all you have going on. Yeah, man, it's good to be back. I appreciate you having me on, brother. It is always such a treat to talk with you or Shay, for that matter. Shay's been on the podcast twice. And for those of you who are listening, Graham was one of the original guests of the podcast back in episode three. So one of the first five episodes that I released, I think all at once. So it's been way too long since we've had you back on the podcast.
00:02:44
Speaker
I'm honored to come back. And whenever you're a repeat guest, I feel like that says something. That's like my goal is to be somebody to repeat guests all the time. Otherwise, I don't know what it says if they don't want you back. So thanks for having me back. Yeah, of course. I just think there's so many different things that we could talk about. I did coaching with Graham pre-2020.
00:03:03
Speaker
sometime in two thousand eighteen two thousand nineteen some not some time back then so i feel like i've just learned so much from you and so i'm excited to share a little bit of that with our audience here today we're talking specifically about how you managed to be so productive
00:03:19
Speaker
but also balance that with, you know, just a full life, right? So I'm excited to dive into that and just talk a little bit about how you automate your life and work. And you've had, you know, quite a bit happen in the last few years. Maybe you could fill us in on some of the high points. I know you, like us, you've built a house and moved. There's a lot that's changed.
00:03:37
Speaker
That was the big push all last year. So we're on the other side of that, and that was an interesting process. But I would say overall good, because that was a big family thing. That really has helped sort of lifestyle, because we were commuting into the city for our girls' school the last three years. So we're a lot closer to everything now, which is awesome. Simultaneously, last year I spent most of the year writing a book.
The Power of Books and Knowledge Commerce
00:03:57
Speaker
So this has been something I've wanted to do for a while, just as a personal challenge, but also because books have changed my life.
00:04:03
Speaker
And as much as I love online courses or coaching or any of those things that I create or am a part of. There's nothing like a book and it's fascinating how books have not gone out of style and the books are still a thing. And I think in this digital space being able to have a physical book you can take on vacation or you can sit and you know in a comfy chair in your house and just like look at it or
00:04:26
Speaker
Everything's contained in it. I think books change people's lives. I've heard it said only two things change people's lives, people and books. And books are basically people's ideas packaged up in an easy to consume way. So my dream was to always write a book that influenced people the way other books have helped me. And I just never did it or got around to it. It just seemed, it seemed like everyone's writing a book. So I didn't want to be that guy that's like, oh, I'm writing a book. But it felt like something I wanted to do. And so I got serious about it in 2020.
00:04:54
Speaker
And I really felt like everything I do is digital and there's no one telling me what to do so I kind of. Self publish everything so I didn't want to self publish a book I wanted to try to get traditionally published and have editors and have people who have money at stake that they need the book to do well so they're going to make sure that it's better than if I just created on my own.
00:05:14
Speaker
And so that was been a great process. The book is coming out March 22nd. It's called How to Get Paid for What You Know. And it's all about the fact that every one of us has a business inside of us that we have something we know, something we're good at, something we can share that will help the world. And it teaches you how to build an audience, monetize that, and turn it into an income stream.
00:05:33
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. And there's no one, I think, better to write a book on that topic than you. And if you haven't listened to my first interview with Graham, go back and listen to that. And we talk a little bit about a recording revolution and all that you've done in the online space to get paid for what you know. How difficult was it? I'm sure there's all sorts of difficulties in writing a book. I'm thinking about content specifically for you because this is something that you've been essentially teaching for at least the last decade, right? More than that, decade plus at least, right?
00:06:03
Speaker
So how – did you find it challenging kind of figuring out the best way to present the content or even just to fit all of that content into a book? Yeah, I mean in some ways it was easy because I've taught this stuff for so long that it's not – I don't have to do a bunch of new research or how could I fill a whole book with this? It was the opposite. It was like how do I pare it down into a book that –
00:06:23
Speaker
Somebody actually wants to read some of my favorite books are the ones that feel engaging from start to finish as a nonfiction book because a lot of nonfiction books have good information, but they're boring or they're dense or they make you feel stupid for not knowing stuff. And so the best nonfiction books in my mind, whether the personal development or business or
00:06:43
Speaker
Finance or investing or whatever the best ones are the ones that feel like you breeze through them and you're like, oh that was that felt fun that felt effortless and because then it leaves you a you'll get through it which is important to read the whole thing and be I think a good book leaves you feeling empowered to then actually go take some action on the book and
00:07:01
Speaker
otherwise it just stays in the book. So my challenge I think was how do I write a book that's not too long, that is didactic enough that teaches I literally want this book to give you the model. So there's six steps to building an online business and I walk through all of them. I mean everything from building an audience to writing sales copy to launching like there's a lot in here. So I want it to be substantive enough that you could go build a multi six figure business off of this book.
00:07:26
Speaker
And yet, like, you could just read it on vacation and feel like it was light and approachable and inspirational and fun. So that I think was the challenge. It's funny, I read the audiobook version of how to record that. And that was the first time I had read it start to finish. And I was like, wow, this is
00:07:41
Speaker
actually a really good book and I felt like I as best as I could I feel like we arrived at that perfect combination of you could pick it up and go wow this is fun I feel like I can do this but also I could come back and reference this when I'm in the middle of the launch or writing my sales copy or building out my YouTube channel or whatever would be I think it strikes that balance pretty well
00:07:59
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. And there is an audio version then. Yes, it's going to drop on Audible too the day it drops. All right, awesome. I was looking for that. I love to listen to books like this, you know, on long runs or driving Jack back and forth to school or, you know, whatever. So really excited to hear about a audio version. Could you maybe give us a little insight into what the book is about? I mean, specifically, you're writing about the knowledge economy for people who, you know, that might be sort of a foreign term or a new term for them. You know, what is the knowledge economy?
00:08:27
Speaker
Yeah, so we're at a point in time where this is something called... People have different names for it. The term I like the most is knowledge commerce, and you could call it the knowledge economy, but it's approaching a $300 billion a year industry. So this is a massive industry in terms of money changing hands, and what it is is people buying knowledge. So that could either be they're buying an online course to learn how to do something,
00:08:51
Speaker
or they're paying to be in somebody's membership or community where there's some coaching or access and there's community. It could be one-on-one online coaching or a group coaching product or joining a mastermind. Any one of these things would be good examples of e-books as well, but it's kind of a dated term, but I would say it's more of like digital video courses.
00:09:13
Speaker
That's an industry that's been around for a while and it's now becoming more mainstream and that from what we see in terms of the data and the growth is like. The way I see it is we're at the front of a massive 30 to 40 year wave in terms of this being it might become the main way people learn stuff and advance in their lives or careers because you see university model kind of dying out and.
00:09:37
Speaker
and people aren't seeing the pros outweigh the cons and the costs and all that kind of stuff so it's really that's what the knowledge economy is sharing what you know and packaging up and selling it in a way that's the interesting thing because everyone thinks well how why would people pay me for my knowledge when there's so much youtube content or podcast like this for free i think that's a lot of what i try to expose in the book early on because that's an objection people have and i have to try to
00:10:00
Speaker
to tackle it early on and show people that know they go hand in hand. You're gonna see both growing. To sell more digital products of your knowledge, you have to give more away and build an audience that way and really you're gonna see a proliferation of both. You're gonna see more YouTube content and blogs and podcasts and you're gonna see more courses and memberships and it's only gonna expand in terms of how much money you could make or carving out your space on the internet.
Automating Work and Life for Efficiency
00:10:23
Speaker
So that's what it's all about, sharing what you know, teaching people and helping people get results.
00:10:28
Speaker
Yeah, and that's so interesting, right? I mean, our business, for instance, has only grown since starting the podcast and, you know, giving away a lot of content for free and a lot of people come in the door and I feel like they trust us because of the content that we've created and then want to pay us for either our services or products. And then the other, you know, objection that I think you tackled that I think is maybe for whatever reason in people's minds, you know, I kind of laughed when you said that, oh, you know, it feels like everybody's writing a book, you know, where I'm like,
00:10:52
Speaker
Is everybody writing a book? But I think we can feel the same way about maybe jumping into the online space and maybe creating a digital product or entering into the knowledge economy as like, oh, well, this seems like more of a mainstream thing or everybody's doing it is the room for me, that sort of objection. But I think you would agree that we're just on the front end of this. I think there's a lot of growth left to happen before this is truly here for good.
00:11:17
Speaker
for sure if I'm being bullish I would say it's not going anywhere ever because education and knowledge has always been a draw for humankind and so this is just the next evolution of it is doing it online and it's more democratized you don't have to have credentials at the end of your name to be able to be quote-unquote
00:11:36
Speaker
expert enough to teach so it's just that this is the new way right just like anybody can release a song and you have to have a record label to have their song published or anyone can be a videographer and produce a movie without having to have a movie studio behind you so it's just a new there's no more middleman and there's no more gatekeepers that's just the future but if i'm bullish like this is never going away worst case it's at least a thirty forty year run and we're at the beginning of it we're not it's not past
00:12:02
Speaker
I was talking to Shay about this last night. I think a lot of people are like, oh, I'm so sick of online courses and all these YouTube channels. I don't think that's the reality that most people experience. I think there's a thirst that's not quenched for learning more stuff. So whatever you're into, you're going to get online right now and try to learn as much as you can about it. Whether it's like, well, should I be into cryptocurrency? I don't know. If you're going to learn all about that, there's going to be a YouTuber somewhere or a podcaster somewhere to go teach you how to do that. And then he probably has a course as well
00:12:30
Speaker
and they're going to benefit from that. Or if you want to lose weight, you're probably getting on the internet right now learning how to lose weight, or maybe it's a specific model or specific diet. You're never going to not want to learn something. And so that's always going to be true. And so that's why I think if you have any inkling of doing creative work or getting out of the rut that you're in, or maybe you have a business and it's successful, but it takes up all your time and you're kind of a slave to this thing you've built, which is a lot of people I talk to, that's one of their problems too.
00:12:57
Speaker
then maybe pivot and build this kind of business where you can serve people and have more autonomy with your time. You just have to ignore those voices in your head because they're just excuses or mental blocks. There's going to be someone that's going to go out and make money in your niche if you don't. So you might as well go do it.
00:13:12
Speaker
And that's the perfect segue to get really into our topic for today, which is talking about automating our lives and our work, and specifically talking about a system that you've built that really allows you to work five hours per week, all right? So everybody listening out there, five hours per week, which is pretty incredible. I mean, just from the outside looking in, I think it'd be easy for people to maybe say,
00:13:32
Speaker
Does Graham work all the time just based on the amount of content that you're able to produce? I know that's not true. Tell us a little bit about what your typical work week looks like. You're living this life, making money from sharing what you know online. What does your typical work week look like?
00:13:50
Speaker
Yeah. So it's a little different each year, but right now I work two days a week. I work Mondays and Wednesdays and really it's two half days. So I'll come in on Mondays. I'll drop the kids off at school and I'll come in and I'll get started maybe nine, 10 o'clock and I'll go till, till lunch. Like pretty much nine to 12 is what I'm doing on Mondays and I'm creating content. So I'm shooting a video podcast. I'm shooting another video for my YouTube channel. Now we're experimenting with some YouTube shorts, but I'll spend a couple hours just creating some content.
00:14:20
Speaker
Then I just dive in a little bit of email and interact with some members of my community that's about three hours on a Monday and then I leave like Monday afternoons open to do whether it's an interview like this or like now like this season I'm doing a lot more interviews for the pot the book and so I leave just spots open for that kind of stuff and then Wednesdays I come in and I pretty much work the back half of the day so usually
00:14:41
Speaker
11 or 12, I get started and I go to about three o'clock and I have sometimes some coaching calls for my membership and I have a weekly mastermind that I facilitate. And so those members, we jump on a call every Wednesday for 90 minutes. So I'm coaching them and that's, that's all I'm really doing. And so it's on average five to six hours a week of time, man hours for me to run the business Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, I'm off weekends. I'm off with a family.
00:15:07
Speaker
So unless I'm in a season of like where I was writing the book last year I would write a couple hours a day or you know getting this book out there or building a product in those seasons I spend a little bit more time on my off days or in the pockets of time like building those things out but to run the business day to day it's it's max six hours.
00:15:26
Speaker
How do you prioritize your time? You have no less tasks, I think, than anybody else in running a business. There's just things that have to be done. What are those things that you really focus on when you're going to sit down and work? What's most important?
00:15:40
Speaker
Yeah, so for my kind of business, the most important thing is content creation, weekly video podcasts or weekly videos on YouTube or a blog post. So that's the most important thing because that's the front end of the system that drives leads. So every business needs leads. And so you can get those either by word of mouth, you can get those by running ads, or you can get those through content marketing, which is basically creating content.
00:16:05
Speaker
that people see when they Google or YouTube something and it shows up and they go, that's helpful. And then there's a strategic pathway for that person to follow you deeper and hear about your products. And that's what I do is content marketing. So that's about the most important thing I do. Other than that, it's a little bit of email. I'm probably in my inbox one hour a week max, and then some interaction with my community that have a paid community. And so we have a, it's like a Facebook group, but it's all private group on a platform called Kajabi.
00:16:32
Speaker
I interact with them, I answer people's questions, that's maybe about an hour a week. And then I do have a high ticket group of people that pay to be in this mastermind with me and that's a 90 minute call every Wednesday. So that's a standing thing right now and they have access to me outside of that if they need anything. So those are the most important things I'm doing because everything else is already built, like I've already built my products, my system is all automated. The system for capturing leads, selling to them is all automated. I have a very small team to do some other things.
00:17:00
Speaker
that are important but less important for me to do but beyond that man that's how i'm prioritizing my time is what's the thing that drives business and for me it's content. So would you say that this is something that can work for anyone i think the common objection and you probably hear this which is like you know that's great that works for you.
00:17:18
Speaker
but you know i don't have this business built when i even have to spend more time i can really hustle forty plus hours a week to get off the ground what would you say to that person or you know again somebody who's built a business but just feels like it runs on their back. Two different people but similar problems so.
00:17:35
Speaker
For the person who's starting, one thing you have to just be okay with is it growing slower. There's a lot of assumptions that like, well, I've got to grind it out to get this thing off the ground. Maybe if you want it to start sooner and if you want to make money sooner, but if you're okay with it not happening as fast,
00:17:50
Speaker
You're in control of how much you work so there's no one saying you have to work 40 hours a week so you have to realize that is a choice and it's sometimes misinformed so I think being willing to like I tell people like the subtitle of the book is turning your knowledge passion and experience into an online income stream in your spare time there's a reason why that's the subtitles because
Maintaining Balance and Focusing on Impactful Tasks
00:18:10
Speaker
Most people are already at a job or running a business that's sucking up all their time and so they don't have the opportunity to quit everything and then build this new business. And I don't recommend they do that either because then they would have no money. And so I'd rather you have an income stream while you build this on the side. So I just tell people how much time can you find in your week?
00:18:28
Speaker
That's your limitation, but I don't think that it's a real limitation. It's just the reality of your life. Everyone has a different season. I don't know if you have kids or if you're married or you're single, you might have more or less time, but whatever you have, I tell people minimum, you need 30 minutes a day, which is about three hours a week. I think you really, you can't do much in less than three hours a week, but that could be a little bit each day. That could be getting up early, going to bed later, or just banging it out on the weekends, but three to six hours a week is plenty of time in your life to build this business out. It just might be slow, but
00:18:57
Speaker
Here's the reality of most people's lives in their work lives is we're horribly inefficient. We say, I got to do all these things. I don't think most of the things we're doing in our lives or businesses are really that valuable, to be honest. So Tim Ferriss talks about this a lot in his book, The 4-Hour Workweek, which I think is due for a revival, a resurgence of some of the concepts in that book, at least the section on elimination. And to his point, there's really only three ways to look at any of the tasks you do in a given week for your life or business. One is
00:19:26
Speaker
you start by eliminating the things that you really don't need and most people skip that they just assume everything they're doing is important and then they're like how can i do it faster or get someone else to do it and i think those are bad assumptions to start with i think you should start with a challenging everything you do in your business does this actually make a difference and if so like doesn't make much of a difference so one a good example is social media. For most businesses i would venture to say the social media is a giant waste of time.
00:19:52
Speaker
I think it has a role to play, but I think just posting to social, I think people feel like they have to post all the time, but I challenge anybody to give me data in their business of how they're posting to social drives income in their business, puts money in their bank account. If it does, in some people's businesses it does, meaning they're sliding into people's DMs quote unquote, and they're pitching coaching, and they're literally getting coaching clients from interacting with people in direct messaging. Okay, if you can point to that, great.
00:20:20
Speaker
or if you are an influencer and you got a big following and you literally get paid to talk to your social media followers okay great i see the direct connection there to you making money that's fine if that's what you want to do most of us. It's just something we feel like we should do and it's like a feeling i feel like it's working or i feel like i've got engagement but if you can't point to it making money you really should challenge whether it's a good use of your time.
00:20:41
Speaker
And even if it leads to some money, does it lead to much? Does it lead to the majority? You really want to challenge all those tasks and eliminate the ones that just really don't make much of a difference. The 80-20 rule will tell us that 80% of what we're doing only generates 20% of our income. I'm willing to lose that 20% of my income and free up 80% of my time.
00:21:00
Speaker
Cause that gives me like so much more freedom to double down on the things that are working and that's the story of my business. I'm always eliminating and that's the best place to start. So eliminate tasks that just shouldn't even be done by anybody and whatever you can't eliminate, you should try to automate. That's the second thing.
00:21:16
Speaker
because it doesn't mean you have to do it or a human being has to do it. So I use a lot of tools to automate the sales process, the lead capture process, following up with people, all that kind of stuff you can automate a lot of tools. And then whatever can't be eliminated, like it has to be done in your business and it cannot be automated, being a human has to do it. That doesn't mean you have to do it. And that's where delegation come and you can delegate to somebody else. And you don't have to have full time employees. You can have part time contractors, you can just
00:21:44
Speaker
hit up somebody on Fiverr from time to time or Upwork or just have someone that's on retainer for 10 hours a week to do your customer service or whatever it would be. These can be low cost things that someone else can do. And if you can eliminate, automate and delegate most of the things on your list, you're left with the things that truly matter. And that's how you get down to four or five, six to 10 hours a week in your business. Because honestly, if you know what drives your business, it's probably not much of your time needed in it. But so many of us are
00:22:12
Speaker
lazily working too much, which sounds conflicting. But I think people are like, oh, I've just got so much to do. I think you're just lazy if you've got too much to do because you haven't stopped to do the hard work of looking at what you really need to do in your business. And it takes more effort to do that initially. The payoff is then you don't have much you have to do after you get those things in place.
00:22:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think what I need to do is I need to take that, the last two minutes or so of you talk and I just need to play it every morning, you know? Because that's the hardest thing, right? Is elimination, I think. I think there are so many things that can be done. I mean, this is probably, this is true, I think, outside of work too, just in personal lives as well. There are so many things that can be done, but I do think that's the hardest thing. So maybe you could walk us through just a quick framework for how to figure out what we should eliminate or what's not important before we get onto automation and delegation.
00:22:57
Speaker
Again, I'll toss it back to Tim Ferriss. He asks two really good questions in the four-hour work week, and there's scenarios. So ask yourself this scenario. Imagine you are stressed out because you're just running your business or your life like a crazy person like most of us are, and so you have a heart attack.
00:23:12
Speaker
and you have this sneak heart attack and you're in the hospital and you're recovering and the doctor comes in and says, good news, you're going to be fine. You're going to get over this and recover, but you're just pushing too hard. And so for the next month or two, like you have to take it easy at least. And so doctor's orders, you can only work two hours a day. Okay. You can only work two hours a day. Otherwise, you know, it's just bad for your health.
00:23:36
Speaker
If that were the doctor's orders and your life dependent on it, you could only work two hours a day, what would you do during those two hours to keep revenue coming in? Obviously, you would be disappointed and obviously things would fall through the cracks, but that's the point of the exercise is what could fall through the cracks and you could still make revenue. That's the framework or the deciding factor. So that would be an exercise to go through and think, okay, well, I could not post to TikTok. I could not, okay, I could not do that thing.
00:24:03
Speaker
whatever it would be, you could just like, okay, I could eliminate that and maybe people would be disappointed. Maybe we lose some sales. But honestly, as long as I'm doing that, like that's the framework you want to be in that mindset and see what is left on that list. And then he has a follow up question and he says, okay, imagine you have a second heart attack now and you're back in the hospital and the doctor's like, you have got to stop doctor's orders. You can only work two hours a week. Okay. No more. Are you going to die?
00:24:29
Speaker
What would you do if you only had two hours a week to keep money coming in? What would you do during those two hours? To me, that scenario is the most helpful thing I've ever asked myself in my business because I go, well, I would probably get out at least one piece of content, but it might be
00:24:51
Speaker
real short or it might be you know not polished if it's a video i might not shoot any b roll i might not edit it i might just like talk to the camera and just hit record to be done i probably have to check email once a week but i probably just look for like problems or customer service issues and i might like email my list and ask them to buy something like i know when i make money when i promote to my list will probably promote like it really gets bare bones and that reveals to you.
00:25:18
Speaker
what you should already know, which most of us don't, is what really drives revenue. And if you're a CEO, if you're a small business owner, you have multiple hats, but when you put on your CEO hat, your job, your responsibility to the shareholders, and you're probably the only shareholder, if you're a single person company, your job to the shareholders is to maximize profit.
00:25:37
Speaker
And then if you have a soul, it's to do that with integrity. So not at all costs, but maximize profit with integrity. It's not to be on Instagram. That's not the goal unless that's the most important thing you could do to make profit.
Questioning Social Media's Business Value
00:25:50
Speaker
I mean, maybe it is, but most people can't show that to me as being true. But if it is, then do that. I have nothing against social media.
00:25:56
Speaker
I just don't believe it drives revenue for most people. And it's also a time suck. So I'm just like, oh, there's a double negative there. Why would I do it if it's gonna be a black hole and doesn't put money in my pocket? What can I do that doesn't take up any time but will drive revenue for the business? And that's your responsibility as a CEO is to figure those things out and then tell your employees, AKA yourself, what to be doing every day in your business.
00:26:16
Speaker
I love that you're saying that because just as a side note, I'm giving up my phone. I'm just getting rid of it. And I think that's one of the biggest things people say is like, what about social media? And also, I think an excuse that I've used for so long is like, what about I can't get this, you know, on this app or whatever, right? I'm hoping that that assumption ends up being the case. But last question about elimination.
00:26:36
Speaker
Do you ask yourself at set times during the year these questions? All that sounds great, but I could see it being a situation for people being like, you know, they have that in the back of their mind, but they don't make time to actually ask those questions. So do you do activity quarterly where you're actually calling tasks for your business? What does that look like for you?
00:26:55
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question. I think every six months minimum, you need to check in on this. So I do this in January, the beginning of the year, or if it's the end of December, I always have like an annual planning day where I get away for 24 hours and plan the year. And I'll do it then. I'll reevaluate all the tasks.
00:27:12
Speaker
Because it changes, like your business might change and seasons change, so it can't be static. But I would say do that in January and do that in the middle of the summer. Summer's a great time. A lot of things slow down. Not every business, of course, some businesses ramp up. But if you have a slower season or just a chance to get away on vacation, then just take a few hours while you're somewhere nice and just open up that same document and look at everything and go through that framework again. So at least twice a year. But if you can do it quarterly, I think that's even better. I think the more you can check in
00:27:41
Speaker
either things will change so then you want to acknowledge that or to your point is just a reminder because we drift.
Correcting Drift and Ensuring Business Efficiency
00:27:47
Speaker
We drift into doing what's comfortable to do it like if something's hard we're gonna go do a task that's not hard but makes us feel like we did something that day and that's what social media is i'm picking on social media it could be anything other social media is that's what a lot of things are like it feels like i did something that day but that's a lot easier to do then.
00:28:05
Speaker
writing a killer sales page or looking at your funnel and seeing if it's converting well. Like I don't really want to do that. That takes a lot of brain effort to do that. So I get it, but I think maybe just having it front of top of mind in front of your, your eyes reminds you of what's important and what's not. And I do, I drift. So I definitely have to come back to it regularly.
00:28:23
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I've talked about on the podcast too, you know, I used to be the king of creating a to-do list just so I can cross things off, even like, you know, it'd be like, put groceries away, cross that, you know, as if that, you know, would be meaningful. Alright, so automate, delegate. I want to get through those real quick. On the automation side, what are the things that you found are just, you know, kind of easy to automate for you or you just typically recommend to everybody, okay, you know, this is definitely something in your life that you're able to automate.
00:28:50
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, so my type of business, I'm selling products online. The best thing I can do is take advantage of all my content. I'm always asking people to go deeper with me and I'm always offering them more free content in exchange for their email address to get them on my email list. And part of that is so I can follow up with them and I send out my weekly content to all my people on my list.
00:29:10
Speaker
Part of that is also to have an email funnel, which is just a series of pre-written emails that you can automate in a bunch of tools, right? The MailChimp is one or ConvertKit or Kajabi or ActiveCampaign or any of these tools will automate sending out emails and email marketing that's automated is one of the greatest inventions ever because that allows someone
00:29:30
Speaker
who's just found your stuff or found your website and like when you go to any of these websites, Banana Republic or they offer you 10% off your first order trying to capture your email address because they're going to do the exact same thing that I'm talking about. They want to follow up with you and own that relationship in case you don't buy something because then they at least can follow up and let you know about a sale or something new. And so that follow up is automated. That's just emails that are pre-written
00:29:53
Speaker
That's my opportunity to show people that I have value to offer. I usually over deliver in those emails. I show credibility and then I offer my products strategically. That's where the bulk of the revenue is coming from. So automated emails is one. Another one is having some form of recurring product, recurring revenue product or income stream in your business.
00:30:14
Speaker
So, for me, it's membership sites which are these, you know, you join to be a part of a community and you're going to get content and coaching and access to this private group. But I make the sale once and then their card is being charged every month, right? So, we talked about this at one point with you, Davey, about having, like, if people are buying, you know, a website template from you or they're doing a one-off service, can you have a recurring back-end product for them of, like, being a retainer for helping them out or answering questions or technical stuff where they
00:30:40
Speaker
They moved from a one-off purchase to a recurring product, and now you're using automation to just get money every single month. Not for nothing, but for a service or for access to something. That's what a SaaS product is, right? Software as a service. They're automating the sales process every month to somebody without having to
00:30:58
Speaker
Refine a new lead and repitch to them and and so those are simple ways to automate So I use that but there's tools to automate social media posting right like you can have meet Edgar or any of these tools that will pull your RSS feed or pull your Your blog post and push out your latest piece of content automatically for you on Twitter or wherever any kind of tool that the great news is we're in an era where everyone's making an app because they want to make a product and
00:31:22
Speaker
And so you as a business owner get to benefit from them wanting to be a business owner, which is there's more and more tools now that can automate things that you used to have to either do yourself or pay someone on your team to do. And so you really want to automate in as many of those things as you can. They're usually lower level tasks. Gosh, even content creation now, there's so many AI tools that are automating. Riverside does this where you can have an interview like this and it pre chops up clips for you based off of like facial expressions and it can know when to flip the screen from you talking versus me talking and put a frame around it. So you can just sort of like,
00:31:52
Speaker
If you're done with the interview and it's seconds later you can post content to social without having to go through it so that type of stuff is helpful if it's you know a tool that helps you get a task that you actually need to get done done but yeah it's just a great time for that kind of things i'm just looking for software free or pay that will do those regular tasks and get them off my chest.
00:32:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, the AI stuff coming out too is pretty wild, just in general. Jasper is another tool used to be called Jarvis, I think, but it will literally AI to write blog posts, just wild stuff.
Delegation in Business for Time Management
00:32:24
Speaker
All right, so we have eliminate, automate. Last step of the system, right, is delegate. So what is delegation? What are the different types of delegation look like? You know, I'm sure you have people on your team, they work for your business, but then you probably use a lot of contractors as well. How do you navigate what you're delegating?
00:32:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think everybody should delegate at least one thing. I generally am helping people who are solopreneurs, and so they're like me, they don't want to have a team. But I think at some point it's a good exercise to hire somebody to do something so that you experience that freedom of not having to do it all yourself.
00:32:56
Speaker
And then you get a taste of it and you realize, oh, that pressure that I was putting on myself, oh, I have to do it all. That kind of goes away. And then, you know, it's up to you to ramp it up or keep it light. So I say like at the very minimum, like my first hire was a buddy of mine eight or nine years ago where my email load was getting just too high. Like my inbox was overflowing with fan mail, which is cool. Hate mail, which is not cool. And then people eating like a refund or cancel a membership or whatever. And I just had to take care of people because there's money involved.
00:33:26
Speaker
And it was just like taking two to three hours a day to just clean out my inbox and respond to everybody. And I felt trapped. And I remember being on a vacation, just a short little three-day vacation to the panhandle of Florida to the beach with my family. And I had to open up my inbox and open up my laptop because I knew there was people waiting for a refund that would have been pissed if it was four or five days had gone by. And I remember Shay saying like, you really, you had to bring your laptop on this trip?
00:33:51
Speaker
And that's when I realized, oh crap, this is where someone had a job, and I could actually leave the office and go on a real vacation. Because now I'm responsible for everything. And I was like, this can't continue. So I hired a buddy of mine for 10 hours a week remotely, two hours a day, which ended up dropping once we got into a rhythm. I was like, can you just check my email and go through? You can do it in the evening while you're watching Netflix with your wife, or you can do it whenever. I don't care. But I'll pay you.
00:34:17
Speaker
to just try to get in there at some point each day, Monday through Friday, forget the weekends, because nobody should work on the weekends, and I don't care if someone's angry, but Monday through Friday, just get in there, and I explained how to take care of emails, and I was really afraid that he wouldn't be able to do it, like only I could do it, but it was the greatest thing I ever did because it was low cost, just a few hundred bucks a month, and it's like my buddy got some extra cash, and what I got was my time back,
00:34:41
Speaker
And then not only that, I got my mental space back because when I opened up my inbox, I realized, wow, I don't see any of the hate mail because I instructed him to just delete all of it. I only see the thank you fan mail, which made me feel good about myself. And then I didn't have to deal with any of the refunds or cancellations or any of that kind of stuff. There's just less clutter physically in the inbox. And so that was my first taste. So I say reach out to a friend, hire a friend because there's already a trust factor. And if not, yeah, I've got contractors I've hired for graphic design work or
00:35:06
Speaker
video editing. There's a season where I had all my videos edited by somebody else. And then I've had like bigger partnerships where I have ongoing relationship with people. I wouldn't call them full-time employees, but marketing, copywriting. I hired a guy last year who was like a super fan. I just hired because he was awesome and I wanted him on the team to be in my YouTube analytics and to be content ideation and come up with ideas because he just really understands.
00:35:28
Speaker
my content and my audience, he's just sort of like a catch-all for all kinds of cool stuff. And that wasn't a need. That was like, man, I really want this guy on the team because he's got really good ideas and I'll just pay him to be on the team. And I have that luxury now where that's not a problem. But I think it's just more of if you feel uncomfortable hiring a stranger, hire a friend and start small and ramp it up and just have clear expectations and just you're just testing out the idea of could I delegate something? I don't think I actually need to delegate anything in my business. I could run my business by myself and it'd be fine.
00:35:58
Speaker
but I've gotten more accustomed to having other people help me, and I've realized that I can benefit. I'm a lone wolf. I don't feel like anybody can do it as good as me, so I struggle. This is my struggle. This isn't everybody's struggle, and I don't like managing people, but I've gotten to a rhythm where I've got people who are doing stuff for me that I no longer want to do, and I just want to hire them so that I don't have to do it anymore, and that's been great. Otherwise, I'd probably be working 20 hours a week, but so far, now I don't have to do that, and that's more of the mental burden is off of me, and I appreciate that.
00:36:28
Speaker
I do like that challenge for everyone across the board, no matter where you are in business, to try to outsource at least one thing. I immediately thought, Krista, she always cleaned the house. She's very organized. I remember she hired somebody to clean the house once and she felt guilty about it. It feels extravagant, but the amount of time it gave her back for the week
00:36:50
Speaker
was amazing, and she just never went back. It's one of those things. It wasn't even that feeling of, oh, no one can do this as well as I can, as much of it was, oh, this just feels like I can do it, so I should do it, right? That's just a little example, but I wish that that's something that I practiced from day one of running a business, was just saying, can I pay somebody else to do this, even if it's a small one hour, like you said, go to Fiverr type task, just to learn delegation.
00:37:16
Speaker
I do think it's one of those things that you have to learn to a certain extent and remind yourself constantly like, yeah, it turns out that a lot of things that I did get off my shoulders that I thought no one could do better than me, they not only do as well as I was doing, but they've improved that system tenfold.
Where to Get Graham's Book and Notable Endorsements
00:37:30
Speaker
Now I'm like, man, if I wasn't so stubborn, my business probably would have grown a whole lot way faster just by getting some of this stuff off of my plate.
00:37:39
Speaker
I know we're coming up on our time here. I do want to make sure that people know where to get the book, what the best place is to get the book. I know that you have, there might even be some bonuses for pre-ordering the book, right? So can you tell us a little bit about that? You can pre-order the book anywhere books are sold. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books and Million. So I don't really care where you pre-order it, but if you want more details and you want to know about how to get some bonuses, go to grahamcocker.com slash book.
00:38:04
Speaker
and there's information about the book there. You can see some of the awesome people that endorsed the book. It's been a crazy roller coaster. I got some of my heroes. Michael Hyatt endorsed it. Dan Miller, who wrote 48 Days to the Work You Love, just a perennial bestseller. I mean, there's some amazing people who endorsed it, but you can sort of see what they have to say about the book and hear a little bit about what it's about. But if you pre-order the book,
00:38:24
Speaker
anywhere and then bring your receipt to that page and entered in there i'll give you a hundred dollars worth of pre-order bonuses including the first two chapters you can read right away digitally and then some video training audio training some cool stuff there so including i'm giving away a ninety minute coaching session with me to one lucky person who pre-orders the book so that'll be awesome but it's all gram cochran dot com slash book but you can pre-order anywhere it's called how to get paid for what you know
00:38:47
Speaker
Awesome. And of course, make sure that that's available in the show notes as well. So if you're driving, you're running, you know, however you listen to this podcast, you can head on over to the show notes. We'll make sure that we have a link to that. And I highly recommend it. And what I would do too is go back, listen to Graham's first interview with me, go and listen to Shay's interviews as well with Shay. I think we actually talked about the end of year business retreat, and I'm sure hers probably looks similar to yours. So if you want to learn a little bit more about that,
00:39:15
Speaker
go and check out some of these other interviews. Every time I sit down with you, Graham, I'm always thinking, man, time's too short. I wish I was like, you know, have one of those Joe Rogan podcasts where we could get together in person, talk for three hours, right? But you know what? You can spend three hours with Graham by buying his book. And Ed really did that, right? So thank you so much, Graham. Really appreciate it. And we look forward to the book coming out. Yeah, thanks for having me on, Davey. It was a fun conversation.
00:39:43
Speaker
Thanks for tuning into the Brands That Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review in iTunes. For show notes and other resources, head on over to dvandchrista.com.