Have you ever asked yourself, “How can I get it all done and get my business to the next level?”  This is a common question I get from my new small business clients.  In fact, recently, I received an email that read, “How do you manage to keep up with your emails, clients, customers and travel?   You are just amazing and my hero!”  When at a meeting last week, I got a similar question from a networking colleague, too.

So if it seems effortless, a lot of it is!  However, it wasn’t always that way.  It was only after I adopted the L word:  leverage.  What do I mean by leverage?   By definition, leverage is a lever allowing you to lift or move a heavy object with a lesser amount of energy. 

The truth is leverage is a mindset and separates an ordinary business from a highly profitable one.  If you’re not leveraged, you are working way too hard.  It is one of the most important elements that helped me to grow my business each year. 

Your business cannot be dependent on just you.  If you do everything yourself, there is no leverage.   When applied, leverage works like magic.   Unfortunately, most people don’t apply it or believe they need lots and lots of money to start and run a profitable business or expand an existing one.   This is a common self-limiting belief many entrepreneurs have.  In many cases, they are leaving a lot of money on the table because they aren’t taking advantage of things they already have.   

While it is important to invest in yourself and in your business, you may have a lot of leverage slipping through your fingertips that won’t require any additional investment.   While going through one of the leverage exercises we cover in my annual three-day intensive workshop, a client remembered a long-forgotten program she created.  She immediately realized she could start marketing it and instantly brought in income for herself.

It’s actually very easy to apply leverage to a small business, get more done, and make more money.  If you’ve been in my reader community, then you know that I rely on systems to do my heavy lifting.  But systems are only one of many ways to leverage your small business.  In this article, I’ll get you started in leveraging your business so you get more done starting today:

First, list all of the activities you can automate or outsource that aren’t directly related to generating income or clients.   This includes administrative tasks that are necessary but can be outsourced or automated.

Second, determine the amount of time it takes for you to do these activities yourself.  Identify which ones you can outsource.  Think of all of the resources you have at your disposal, including interns at the local college or stay-at-home mothers who are looking for work they can do from home.

With just these two steps, one of my clients freed up more time on his schedule when he outsourced a process.   He was sending letters to each new networking contact but this activity was administrative in nature.  Although it was necessary, it wasn’t directly related to bringing in income or clients.  Instead of sending out the letter himself after attending a networking meeting, he notifies his virtual assistant who then sends a letter to his new network colleague.  He now spends more time on revenue-generating activities and other relationship-building activities with his clients.  In just the first couple of weeks, he brought in two new clients considerably offsetting what he paid his virtual assistant.

There are many exciting forms of leverage, including licensing products, automating, and using the latest technology to take over manual processes.  Leverage is an essential tool to catapult your business to the next level and grow your business exponentially with a lot less effort.