ABUNDANCE
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time and money upgrading their infrastructure
and would keep running efficiently. Such upgrades
would be handled by the outsourcing company,
and since this would be their core competence,
they’ll be on top of keeping their technology and
infrastructure up to date at no additional cost to
their customers.
Miriam: Right. Now sometimes it’s challenging
to actually decide what your core competence is
because everybody really is all enthusiastic at the
start of a new company and gung ho about doing
everything. So how do you decide what factors you
really need to consider in deciding what you should
outsource, especially when funds are so tight at
the beginning? MJ, do you have any ideas on that?
MJ: I do, and actually I’d ask myself a couple ques-
tions. What is it that I love to do? Because typically
when people, entrepreneurs, people start a busi-
ness, the’re doing what they really want to be do-
ing. That’s their passion. And so what you love to do,
what you are focused on and what brings you joy is
a core competence. Also another question I ask is,
what do I know how to do? Is it something I already
know or is there going to be a learning curve there?
And then also, what could someone else do better
that me? I might know it, I might even love to do it,
but is there somebody else who could do it better
and free up time to do what I actually do love to do
for the business? So those are the questions that I
ask in terms of the core competence.
Now, some people may come into a business, let’s
say it’s an accounting business, and they love the
figures part of it. There are probably other parts of
it that they could do as well, but what is it that they
are doing the best; what do they bring to that busi-
ness that is their best skill and focus? So, that’s a
core competence.
On the flip side, ask yourself what is it you’re not
good at doing? When I first got into business, I
thought, “Oh well, I can do it all and save money!”
So, I was trying to do this and that, and I was going
to save $10 an hour here and $25 an hour there,
or whatever it was. But then that meant that I was
also not focusing on what I could do really well for
potentially quite a bit more income than what I
was actually saving.
23 | HAPI Guide
If I’m spending $10 trying
to save money on hiring a
bookkeeping service, for
example, then that means
I’m losing an hour that I
could be making maybe
$200-$300 on a coaching
call. So you have to weigh
what it is that you’re giving
up. You’ve got to switch that
perspective. It’s not about
what you’re saving by doing
that, it’s what are you losing
by doing that!
One quick way to calculate this is to look at all the
administrative and day-to-day tasks that you’re
doing. Get a piece of paper and in one column put
all the things that you’re doing that you would pay
somebody else to do if you could. In the next col-
umn put the income you could be generating in
those hours doing whatever is your main revenue
source.
So, for example in mine, coaching is my main big
ticket item. So if I’m spending $10 trying to save
money on hiring a bookkeeping service, for exam-
ple, then that means I’m losing an hour t hat I could
be making maybe $200-$300 on a coaching call. So
you have to weigh what it is that you’re giving up.
You’ve got to switch that perspective. It’s not about
what you’re saving by doing that, it’s what are you
losing by doing that! So you’ve got to switch that
perspective and really calculate the real cost. When
I did this calculation in a workshop, I realized that
if I expanded it over the whole year, I was actually
losing $30,000 a year instead of saving money be-
cause I didn’t have the time to put towards what
was really making me the money.