Everyone is having a tougher time making ends meet these days, so it makes good sense to find ways to either make more or spend less money. That may seem to make sense, but many smart business make more money by spending more money. It may seem somewhat backwards, but I’m sure we’ve all heard the expression that it takes money to make money. Well, it kind of does, and it’s very true. When it comes to business, most people think and see how effective this can be, but for some reason, they never apply it to their personal life. Well, maybe you should give it a try.
One of the ways business make more money, is by focusing on the core competencies. Usually, every business has something they’re really good at and makes them lots of money. It’s probably the reason the founder started the business in the first place. It could be making pottery, selling cars, or designing state of the art audio sound systems. The thing is though, there are a lot of other aspects to running a business besides that one thing a business is really good at. Stuff like accounting, payroll, building maintenance, computers, billing and buying photocopiers. Every business has to make the decision as to who they should have doing that work. Either their own staff, or an external company. Using an external company to handle this work, is often called outsourcing. In the case of invoice outsourcing, it’s also called factoring. It makes a lot of sense for some business, as it allows their staff to devote all their energy to what they’re really good at, and what makes them the most money.
Now, I sure your getting some ideas as to how that can make sense in your personal financial life. If not, then start by asking yourself , “What are my core competencies”. “What do I make the most money doing?”. If you have a regular job, then that should be an easy question to answer. Hopefully you enjoy your work, as I’m sure you know this is leading up to spending more time doing what your good at, and less time at the things you don’t get paid for. As a matter of fact, you should spend some money to outsource all those non paying jobs you have like lawn cutting, house cleaning, snow removal, and grocery shopping. By paying other people to do this kind of work, it frees up more of your time to do what it is your good at. Hopefully, what it is your good at is worth more money than paying the neighborhood kid to cut the grass.
I should also point out, that the extra paid work you do, doesn’t have to be your regular job. Sure, if your an engineer, I’m sure you could spend an extra 10 hours per week consulting for a few small businesses, but you could also use this as an opportunity to branch out a bit. Maybe your a photography buff. This could give you time to start doing some freelance photography work. That’s almost like starting your own little side business on it’s own. Who knows where those opportunities could lead?
