Today, I wanna talk to you about intentionality.
And as I was trying to think of the perfect analogy for this, a
few crossed my mind. Is it like playing
a poker game where you have a limited amount of chips and you need to
increase those chips and win more hands to make it to the end of the
game? Kinda.
Is it like going to a grocery store except you don't
have a shopping list, and you're just wandering
around hoping you get everything you need.
Yeah. That's pretty close. But I settled
on an old standby, getting in a car
and driving someplace. Maybe you know the
destination. Maybe you even have done the drive before and you think you know
it. So you decide to not
put on the GPS, and you end up wandering
around. That road that you thought you could take was closed.
There's construction in another place. You took a wrong
turn, and you end up wasting time
and resources, gas and wear and tear on the car,
when you could have had a clear plan? You could have
turned on the GPS. You could have known exactly where you
were going. You could have known the traffic that you
would have avoided. And, yes, even
with the GPS, you may not make it to your destination when you think you
will. Maybe you get a flat tire.
Maybe bad weather means you have to turn around. Or the
first leg of the journey took a lot longer and you need to stop at
a motel overnight. But the GPS gives
you the best chance of making it to your destination as
efficiently as possible. It gives you that intentionality.
And that's what I wanna talk to you about today.
See, my yearly theme is the year of control, and one of
those tenants of control
is control over my schedule, which means I need to
make sure I'm spending my time right.
And I've been thinking about how I can spend
my time right, how I can be more intentional. And I think it really comes
down to a few things. I'm time tracking more.
I have decided what my high leverage tasks are.
I'm gonna talk about the difference between goals and values. That's gonna be a little
bit of in a mousse bush for next week's episode with Tanya Alvarez. I
thought it was really good, and I wanna give you a little preview. And then
I'm gonna talk about how all of these things led
me to the decision to kill my membership and why
that's actually the best thing right now for my business.
Then in the pro show, I'm going to answer the question,
why does this even exist if I'm killing my
membership? And I'll give you some more concrete
data on what I've learned time tracking. So I really
hope you enjoy this episode. My goal is to grow my
business this year, and I need to be more intentional
if I'm gonna hit the goals I want. Stick around and
listen. I'd love to hear your feedback.
You can get all of the show notes for this episode over at
how I built dot it slash 408. But for now, let's get to
the intro and then the episode.
Hey everybody and welcome to How I Built It, the podcast
that helps busy solopreneurs and creators grow their
business without spending too much time on it. I'm
your host, Joe Casaubona, and each week, I bring you
interviews and case studies on how to build a better business through
smarter processes, time management, and effective
content creation. It's like getting free coaching calls
from successful solopreneurs. By the end of each
episode, you'll have 1 to 3 takeaways you can implement
today to stop spending time in your business and
more time on your business or with your friends,
your family, reading, or however you choose
to spend your free time.
Alright. Welcome welcome everybody. Thanks so much for being
here. I'm excited to talk about this because it's
not something I have spent a lot of time on
which is a little wild to think about considering I've
been in business in some way, shape, or form
for 24 years.
And, yeah, I know. I was in high school, and sometimes I
was gainfully employed. I was in college and grad
school, and it was all usually pretty low
stakes. I had a pretty rude awakening
at the end of the pandemic and through maybe mid last year
where I thought that my business
skills, like the things that helped me in web design, were
immutable, we'll say. And I could just
change my niche from WordPress developer
to podcaster, and I'd have no issues,
which is wild. Right? There's,
you know, there's a reason that certain authors can only write certain books
or certain actors can only be in certain
types of movies. But that's what I attempted to do,
and it bit me pretty
hard in the butt. Now I bounced back last
year, and I'm happy to say I didn't fold my business, and I'm
still happily self employed as a solopreneur.
But I didn't wanna make those same mistakes going into 2024.
And so at the top of the show, I talked all about intentionality.
And there's a few ways that I'm being more intentional
starting with time tracking. I've always danced around the
idea of time tracking. I like the idea of it, but
I never kind of built in the proper
habits to do it. And I decided
to really make a concerted effort starting in
November, December. So I configured
my Stream Deck to have all the right buttons. I have a bunch
of time tracking widgets on my various
devices, so it's very hard for me to
forget to time track. I'm using
Timery, which is an iOS app and then, Mac app that sits
on top of Toggle because Toggle's
apps are not very good, and Timerys apps have
shortcuts. And so for example, when I enable
certain focus modes, I can start certain timers.
Or when I open Ecamm Live, I start
the recording timer. When I open Logic Pro, I
start the podcast production
timer. All these things that I could do thanks to shortcuts and
and Timery. And it's been really eye opening
because I know roughly how much I wanna make per
hour. And so if I'm time
tracking, not even aggressively time tracking, just kind of
loosely tracking the amount of time I spend on stuff,
I can determine where I'm spending
my time appropriately. And
so one big question again, I'll dive deep into these reports in in the
pro show. But one big question for me
was, are LinkedIn Learning courses
worth it strictly from a time
to upfront dollar investment.
Right? And for those who don't know,
LinkedIn Learning was lynda.com.
Lynda.com used to be a book publisher. And so all of
their course instructor
payment plans, I guess, their compensation
packages are based on that where you get a certain amount
upfront that's called an advance, and then you get royalties after
that advance is paid off. And so if you're
lucky, the course that you put out will
pay back the advance, and then you'll start making royalties.
And you can choose to get a lower
advance because that means that you'll start generating
royalties faster. I found that for the
courses I was developing, my preference is a higher upfront
advance. And so I know how much my advance
is and time tracking the last two courses,
I determined that, yes, if if I just get the advance,
it's actually worth my time. And so the royalties
are gravy. They're just extra. Now I will say that most of my
courses aren't generating the royalties I
hope they would. I had a couple of courses when I first started that were
very popular that made up for the lion's share of my royalties.
And so, you know, I've made some decisions around that to
not do any LinkedIn Learning courses for the rest of the year
unless the next couple of courses I release, right, the ones that
I just wrapped on, unless they really start generating royalties,
it's it's not worth it from me from, like, a mental health
or kind of focus point of view, if that makes
sense. Like, yes, the LinkedIn Learning courses, if
we're strictly doing, like, hourly rate, how much it takes me how much time it
takes me to make the course against my hourly rate,
yes. Yes. It makes sense. But from the intentionality
point of view, I'm spending time on the LinkedIn Learning courses that
aren't necessarily podcasting based.
And so that's taking away from other podcasting based things I could
do. So I've I made the decision to not do
those anymore. But it was that was one
exercise that was really eye opening for me. I I thought for sure
it definitely wasn't worth it for me to do the courses. And it
turns out, if I'm just looking at how many
hours I'm spending versus how much I'm getting paid, then, yes, it it definitely is
worth it. But from other aspects, it's not necessarily.
So I won't, again, I won't dive into all of this here. I'll I'll save
that for the pro show. But tracking everything
from my contract
work to producing this show and my other
show to writing and then the
kind of management side of the house, I'm
learning a lot about how how I'm spending my time,
how much time I'm spending on things. And it's it's
pretty clear, like, when I have an unproductive day and
why I had an unproductive day. And so using
this data, I can take control
of my schedule and structure my days in a
way that assists me in being as productive as
possible for the amount of time that I
want to be productive. And this is even more important as we
go into the summer because my wife and I made the decision not to send
our kids to summer camp because summer
camp is getting pro almost prohibitively
expensive, and we both can have kind
of flexible schedules. Right? She's she's a nurse, and she
makes her schedule. And so she's maybe picking up an a couple of extra
weekend days, and I'm I've decided I'm not gonna work a full week,
by day. And we are getting an assist from family.
But I know I'm gonna have fewer hours
over the summer to work, and
that intentionality is going to be really important to me.
Because I know if I know I only have, let's say,
24 or 30 hours I guess 30 is almost a full
work week anyway, but let's say I have 26 hours.
I know the I will know by that point the best way for
me to spend that time. And so that's the
first part of taking control of my schedule.
The other part of that is
determining what my high leverage tasks are.
And so I will talk about that in a minute.
First, I do want to take a break to hear
from our sponsors.
Okay. And we're back. So
what are high leverage tasks? I'm sure, if
you've listened to I mean, if you've listened to this show, you'll know the
high leverage tasks. There's also the idea of the product ladder,
where there are certain things you do that are definitely worth your time
from, again, from an info, from an income or
mental health point of view. Right? And so, like I said, I could
keep doing LinkedIn Learning courses, and I know that, you know, it takes me about
20 to 24 hours to produce a LinkedIn Learning course
based on the hourly rate. I know that the royalty they pay me is
worth it for just those costs. But I
also know that there's a lot of stuff around
that which makes the
actual project not worth it for me. So when I'm doing a LinkedIn
Learning course, if I'm trying to get it done in 24 in in
20 hours, that's basically all I'm doing for
10 days to 14 days. Because I'm writing
scripts, I'm taking breaks, I'm thinking through stuff.
And so the actual work is not is not the only, like, brain like,
you know, if I track 20 hours, I'm spending more
than 20 hours in in brainpower. Right? And then I
switch my computer to the recording setup that works
best for LinkedIn. I have to set up LinkedIn's recording
stuff. And so my computer is basically unusable
for 1 or 2 days because that's all I'm focusing
on. And then after I ship the course, you know, I have, like, that work
hangover. Right? And I'm not I'm not picking on LinkedIn for any reason except for
it's a it's a big task. Like, it's a big project. I just
finished one. But this could be any project that takes a lot of your
time. Right? And so anyway, I have that work
hangover, which basically kills a day
or 2 for me while I try to switch back
into, like, a completely different context that's not LinkedIn Learning
instructor. And so and that's really important, by
the way. Like, I'm glad I do that because when I'm in that
mindset, it makes it helps me deliver the best course
possible, the best raw video for the
editors to make their lives easier and my producer's life easier.
And, you know, if it takes me a day or 2 to get out of
that mindset, then then so be it. Right? Because I I wanna produce the
best course possible. But that's not necessarily
high leverage work. Right? Just like, oh, I can do, like, one off
coaching calls or free discovery calls. Free discovery calls is another thing
that I'm eliminating
because none of the free discovery calls that I did last year led
to any appreciable work. And it led to more
wasted time where people would book a free discovery call,
share that in a future episode. But
that's not high leverage work. Just like,
you know, doing workshops is not high
leverage work for me. Doing, like, one
off coaching calls may not necessarily be
high leverage work for me. Live streams may not be high
leverage work for me. So
I wrote down everything I do, everything I offer. I
created my product ladder. Right? The product ladder is
membership that starts at $7 a month. I have
automation templates on sale for $39. I can sell
workshops at $99, miscellaneous courses for anywhere from
47 to, like, $200. I have the
playbook for $397, one off
coaching calls, planning sessions, done for
my done for you podcast launch service, and
my coaching program, which is, like, $2,000
a month. I looked at all of these things,
and I determined what what is my high leverage work? What is
the work that gives me the best bang for my
buck, right, or the best bang for my time, really.
And it's the coaching, and it's the done for
you launch, which roughly aligns to a certain amount of
coaching. Like, it's basically the same hourly rate. The planning sessions
and the coaching calls, they're good as well.
They're they're good lead ins to the bigger program. So I'm gonna keep
those. But those are the high leverage things. The playbook is out
there, and it's for sale. But
it's not something that has been worth me actively
updating. And it hasn't been something that
is worth me marketing at this point.
Same thing with the miscellaneous courses. I was
kinda trying to do, like, a land grab and and go for, like, the cheaper,
someone who wasn't ready to spend, like, $500 with me, but maybe they spend $50
with me. And I realized that those people are not ready for the high leverage
work. Right? And so all of this
led me to determine that starting
in March, right, actually, this month as this episode comes out,
I'm really gonna focus on on promoting my coaching program and my done for
you service because that's the high leverage work, which
means I'm killing my membership.
And by the time this episode comes out, my members who were part
of, the the membership will know this.
A couple of them have churned out already, reasonably so,
because it hasn't been a focus of mine. And so
if you don't know, the way my membership worked was this. It was
the pro version of the show, right, ad free extended episodes and bonus
episodes of this show, a weekly newsletter,
any live streams. And at the higher level,
there would be workshops. Right?
But I spent
too much time writing
those extra newsletters.
And producing the show, yes, but that's different, and I'll explain that in a second,
and figuring out what the workshop's gonna be. And where like, what's
the platform I'm going to sell my membership on?
Do I wanna use WordPress? Maybe I should use Substack or I sell over
here. I also sell in Thrivecart. Like, that was
taking up so much unnecessary mental energy.
Right? And I talked about in a in a previous episode my be everywhere strategy.
That was an incredible failure. Like, I'm I'm
barely 2 months into it, and I can already tell you, like, it was a
terrible idea. And the reason it was a terrible idea is because I was
trying to copy somebody who's who is a creator, who's
much, much bigger than me. Right? It's, I
would never try to run track because I like Usain Bolt.
Right? I would never try to swim because I like Michael Phelps.
I'll never try to sing because I like Taylor Swift. Those
things are not in my skill set,
and they're not. I'm not built for those things.
So the fact that I was trying to copy CGP Grey just
didn't make any sense. Right? He has, like, a team, and it's worth it for
him to be everywhere and diversify, because
his income, like, really relied on YouTube, and he didn't like that.
That doesn't make sense for me. Right? And I learned that. And,
like, my my conversation with Natalie Luthier
helped that as well. Right? And at I I think I gave the impression
at the end of that conversation that I was gonna go all in on Substack
and what I really came away with. Thanks to that conversation and
the high leverage work and my Electric City Mastermind, which is
a bunch of friends of mine. Shout out to them. We meet every couple of
weeks. All of that was like, hey,
Joe. You're spending too much time on this membership, and it's not
paying dividends for you. And it probably
won't. Like, I read an article that I'd like to do a a longer
piece on that a small
dollar substack membership
with a massive audience, those are all the top earning
substacks. The low like, the
small audience high dollar memberships don't do well on
Substack. And I'm not saying there's not space for those. I'm
exploring that this year as well. I I mentioned that in podcast
Advent. But
the way I positioned it was not the
right way to position it. I think Alexian Flippo from PodMatch
is positioning a high dollar membership
the right way. They're different things. Right? Molly Patterson, a
couple weeks ago, talked about this. Right?
You're you're either doing, a one to one business or a one to
one or a one to many business, and those are
different things. And you can't run them the same way.
So all of that is to say that, yeah, I'm I'm killing the
membership. Everything except for the pro version of this
show. And the the reason for that,
I guess I said I would talk about this in the pro show, but it
feels very relevant right now. So, the reason for that is
that it's low effort still. Right? I
talk with a guest for a little bit of extra time, and
then everything else is done in editing, which my editor
does. So I don't,
you know, I don't think that that's a very low effort for me,
and it does offer a an additional way for people to support this
show. So it's not fully reliant on sponsorship
money. So, you know, again,
I've reached out to the members. Anybody who's on that
anybody who is on, like, the the $10 a month plan plan who is getting
all the extras, like, I just dropped them down a few bucks to the $7
a month plan for just this show. So
they'll continue to get this show. Anybody at the $25 a month level,
I basically told them what was happening. I dropped them to $7 a
month and then I made it
right however they felt fit, like either a refund or I gave them access to
a different thing. And so
this was not, an easy decision because I really wanna make my membership work, but
I also know that moving into March,
I can better focus on my goals. Right? And I
think I I tease this in the reverse way, because I just talked
about killing the membership. But I had a great conversation with Tanya
Alvarez that's coming out next week as you hear this, so it'll be episode
409, where she she tells us the difference
between goals and values. And,
you know, I always thought one of my goals was spend more time with my
family, But that's really a value. I value
time with my family, and my goals need
to adhere to those values.
And doing the membership and the LinkedIn learning
courses and and kind of that hustle of, like, anything that'll get me to a
certain monthly amount, That's what
I was doing, and that didn't adhere to the values because there were times when
I had to work on a Saturday to get the LinkedIn learning course just off
my plate. Or there were times where I had
some downtime, and I fell into a rabbit hole of, like, oh, should I use
this platform for the membership? What am I possibly gonna talk about? And that
stole time away from my family.
And so bringing all of this together, the time
tracking, what I know is my high leverage work,
thinking about my goals and values, and killing
my membership and deciding not to do the LinkedIn learning courses anymore,
I have made so much space in my
month to focus on bringing in more coaching
clients and doing more done for you work. And it's already paying
off. I'm still doing the rss.com evangelist stuff. Like, that
is good high leverage work for me,
and it keeps me really connected to the podcast community. I love
what they're doing over there. And so it it makes
sense for me to do that as well. I'm still doing coaching
for Justin Moore. I don't know if I've ever officially announced that, but I'm a
brand deal wizard or a Wizards Guild coach for Justin Moore.
And I'm still doing that because it's in my
wheelhouse of helping creators
get sponsors, and I'm bringing my expertise to that. And those are both really
smart, things to do. And
the rest of the time, I'm really gonna focus on the done for you
clients and the coaching program because those are my high leverage
work. And so because I need
to give you actionable advice, I'm going to challenge
you to think of these things or
maybe write down these things. May cons consider this stuff.
What is your high leverage work? You don't
need to have 4 or 5
or 7 or 12 months worth of time tracking data
to understand that. If you're doing stuff
and it takes you an hour and you're getting paid a $100 and you wanna
get paid $200, then you know that's not your high leverage work.
What's the stuff that comes easiest to you
that people are willing to pay you the most for?
You know? I think in Maggie Patterson's episode,
we talked about seemingly this
myth that everybody, every creator, every
solopreneur, every business needed to start a
membership or a community. And I've learned
that, no. No. You don't. If you
don't have a massive audience, then a membership
is probably not the right thing for you, to be honest.
It could be. It has to be very high dollar, though. And at that
point, it's almost like a one to one business, right, versus a one to
many business. So this is advice I
got over and over again. My friend Austin Church said the same thing. Like, Like,
you know, he's like, you have a list of at the time, it was a
1,000 people. He's like, you're not gonna make any money, selling
somebody a $10 a month product. You
need to sell them a $10,000 product or a $10,000
service. Right? Then only 10 of those people on
your list need to buy it for you to hit a 100 k. And
so I have, I have an income goal in mind. I know how much I
need to make per month. And focusing on my high leverage
work, I know exactly how many of things those
things I need to sell. And most importantly, it's
attainable. So that's what I would challenge you to do. Make a
list of all the all the ways you make money, all the
products, all the services. If you have a membership,
if you have a sponsorships, write those down.
Then honestly give it a grade between,
let's say, f up to s. Right? Like the s tier
style. How much effort are you putting into
those things? You want the inverse
of amount of money it makes versus effort. That's your high
leverage work. Then you consider,
okay. I want to make x amount of dollars per month. I need to
sell this many of this product and this many of this service
every month to hit that goal.
And I think you'll be happier with your
business. You'll have that intentionality. You'll have
the GPS guiding you, helping you
avoid the traffic jam that is shiny object
syndrome, having you avoid
the closed road that is product that nobody except you wants
to get to your destination that is your income goal.
Alright. That's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening.
If you are a member, stick around because I'll I'll give you the real since
I gave away why the membership still exists. I'll
give you my actual income goals and and what high leverage work is gonna get
me there, And then I'll dive a little bit more into the time tracking side
of things, which I'm staring at right now. I'm looking at my teleprompter as if
my video is on and it's not, and I'm just staring at my time tracking
graphs. So if you want to become a member, you can
head over to howibuilt.it/408.
That is where all the show notes exist for this episode. And
there'll be a join the membership button where you can
get ad free, extended, and bonus episodes. If you're
listening in Apple Podcasts, you can you can just
become a member in Apple Podcasts, so you could subscribe right in the app.
So I hope you do that. I would really appreciate that support.
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, get out
there and build something.