I love the book by Dan Martell, Buy Back Your Time, but its hard to begin the process of implementation. Some things I've done to buy back my time are:
Some things I'd love to implement to buy back my time, is truly hire someone who can estimate my jobs. Estimation companies are terrible, we've tried so many and each electrical job is truly different in every way that it takes time to price out jobs.
Great question. Here is my list, for context we are a 24 staff residential cleaning company:
This has gotten easier as we've grown, but literally anything I don't have the capacity for!
-Hiring our cleaning company to clean my house (kids aren't getting younger!)
-Hired a bookkeeper, multiple office admins, social media manager, and SEO/web
-Decided to walk away from my part-time job (I was a mental health therapist while also running my company)- I really had to reflect and ask myself if it was worth it from a financial and mental capacity standpoint
-AI! I have saved hours of my life building out AI employees to help fulfill various growth strategies within our company
I implemented TechLineSMS into my company, GHL automations, and also have a VA, Those two things saves me some serious headaches.. lol Next I think is estimations...
Hi! Love that you mentioned Dan Martell’s book. Implementation is always the hardest part. One of the best ways to "buy back time" is to stop doing manual reporting and data entry between Jobber and other tools. We are building an automation layer that handles the deep analytics and live calendar syncing automatically, so you do not have to hire a PT admin just to manage the data. We are launching a small beta group for owners focused on automation this week — would love to get your thoughts on it as someone who is already optimizing their workflow.
I hired a personal assistant. I've trained him on how to estimate small jobs using chat GPT so I can focus on the big ticket jobs and marketing. He also helps me keep random admin stuff organized. It's been such a huge help I wish I didn't wait so long to do it.
That's smart. The assistant angle works but there's a gap most people miss — even with a good assistant, estimates still die in the follow-up. Like your assistant sends out 10 quotes, and by next week half of them have gone cold because nobody's pushing back when they sit quiet for 48 hours. We've been looking at exactly this. Smart assistants are great for the front end but the back end (keeping deals warm) usually still falls on the owner. You dealing with that or does your assistant handle the follow-up too?
I have some trades that love to golf. They simply don’t work on Fridays through the summer and go out as a team. This puts a little more pressure to get things done during the week but they make it work. The hardest part is sticking to it.
keep in mind what is it that you want to do with that time you bought back ? Most entrepreneurs can’t sit around and “chill”. It’s not in their DNA so more than likely it’s something you want to do so figure out what that is and then it will be easier to carve or create space for it.
for me it has always been my kids and their sports. Which has meant shifting schedules and sometimes doing paperwork from arenas or pools while waiting for things to happen. I am still productive but in a different way.
