How do I find the balance point: working on my business vs delivering to customers?

The key to achieving a balance between working on one's business and delivering value to customers is Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Incorporating these three principles into your business can result in a much healthier business eco-system, one that will generate a healthy living for you.

Reduce. The first principle in finding a balance point is to reduce unnecessary expenditures of time and money.
The best business people I know are experts at making do. This is not to be confused with cheaping out, for the very same people are willing to part with significant chunks of time and cash when they feel it is worthwhile. On the other hand, they don't spend a dime on promotion, packaging, or presentation without knowing that it will bring a return on investment.

There are countless businesses that make money by selling something to other businesses. Some of them use a technique I call “shaming up.” That is, they build a case that you deserve to fail if you aren’t willing to spend money on their product or service. If you walk away from their offer, you are branded a loser.

Frequently these companies talk about leverage and needing to spend money to make money. That’s nonsense. A lever only works when there is a fulcrum, a stable object across which the lever rests. Without a fulcrum (money in the bank, for example) the longest lever in the world is useless.

Reuse. The second principle in finding a balance point is to reuse work you have done before. In this way, your work products become assets.
Here's an example. Jim does fine finish carpentry. His current project is a remodel, and the existing trim uses an exotic wood that the client prefers not to use for environmental reasons. Jim works with the client to choose a new trim that coordinates with the existing trim but has a lower environmental impact.

Applying the principle of reuse, Jim writes a blog post on choosing environmentally friendly trim and illustrates it with a snapshot from the project. In this way, he uses work he does for a client to build credibility and visibility for his business.

Recycle. The third principles in finding a balance point is to recycle resources in one form into another form.
Let's look at Jim again. If he reuses the experiences and learning he gathers in his work as material for blog posts, in time he will end up with quite a body of information. Jim can recycle this information into e-courses, ebooks, and pamphlets.

These materials can be given away or sold, depending on Jim's business strategy. For example, he might provide a free e-course on environmentally friendly construction to build a mailing list of people who might want to pay for a class on the same topic.

Technorati Tags: Marketing microbusiness