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The saying “trading hours for dollars” refers to the practice of exchanging one’s time and labor, usually within an established organization, for a fixed monetary compensation, typically in the form of an hourly wage or salary.
While many people enjoy and thrive in this type of job, entrepreneurs are different: They create and manage their own business ventures, which, for most founders, involves myriad responsibilities and loads of pressure.
For an entrepreneur, “trading hours for dollars” can limit the scalability of their business and its potential growth, hindering their ability to create passive income streams and build a sustainable business model. Below, members of Forbes Coaches Council share effective ways for busy entrepreneurs to stop misusing their precious time and focus on the bigger picture.
- Remove Yourself From Day-To-Day Operations
The most effective thing an entrepreneur who wants to stop trading time for money can do is to focus on removing themselves from the day-to-day operations of their business. This means focusing on creating a high-functioning team, letting go of some control, creating standard operating procedures and ensuring the company can deliver products and services without depending on the founder. – Sunny Smith, Empowering Women Physicians
- Create Scalable Passive Income Streams
Develop products or services that generate revenue independently of your time, such as digital products and subscription services, or offer your knowledge through a learning management system, selling access to your on-demand courses. Build once, sell many. – Nigel Thurlow, The Flow Consortium
- Follow These Three Key Steps
It’s the entrepreneur’s dilemma; trading time for money is a behavior that sticks with us even after we’ve scaled our businesses. The top three steps to stop trading hours for dollars are: 1. Empower your employees to do your job and delegate to the most junior members. 2. Use the 80/20 rule by focusing on the 20% of your job that delivers 80% of the results. 3. Stop managing (doing, helping, solving) and start leading (listening). – Chris Averill, Northford Capital
