6 Ways To Make More Money With Less Time
March 11, 2008
Wouldn’t it be nice to make more money and spend less time doing it? The trouble is, if you’re already working 80 hours a week just to keep a roof over your head, it may seem like an impossible dream. Yet it doesn’t need to be out of your reach and one of these ideas could be perfect for you.
Create a Muse Business
In The 4 Hour Work Week, Tim Ferris suggests creating a muse business and automating it. Once it’s up and running it should require little effort on your part.
Pros
Once you have the business up and running, the muse should make money for you while you sleep.
You’ll have more time to do other things.
If it’s successful you should be able to duplicate your system to work in other niches.
Cons
It will still take time to set up and you’ll probably need to operate in a small niche for it to work well.
It will need to be well automated, so you don’t have to spend time on continuous marketing aside from pay per click.
You’ll be heavily reliant on the services of other businesses – if they let you down, you could lose customers.
Useful Resources
The Recipe: 26 Practical Resources For Starting An Online Business
101 Useful Resources For Online Entrepreneurs
The Four Hour Work Week
Finding Your Muse Business
16 Types of Website You Can Create For Profit
Clone Yourself: Employ others to do the work you’re doing now. This will free up your time to concentrate on your business while others produce more work for you and also more profits.
Pros
You’ll have more time to spend actually growing your business.
You’ll make more money by using other people’s time.
Your business will still run when you’re on vacation.
Cons
Finding and employing the right staff can be a real pain.
Profits may be lower in the early days, when you have fewer staff because your costs will be higher.
You’ll have additional hassles such as payroll and health and safety.
Useful Resources
10 Interview Tips To Avoid Hiring An Idiot
The Emyth
13 Ways To Motivate Staff
Create a Royalty Machine: If you enjoy writing, you could write a book, ebook, or both. It might take a lot of time and effort, but if it stays in print, it could bring in royalties for years. For example, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill has sold 30 million copies since 1918. It continued to bring in royalties long after his death. And Doctor Spock’s Baby and Childcare has sold 50 million copies since 1946.
Pros
Once you’ve written your book it could bring you profits for years, with no further effort on your part.
If it’s successful you could write a series and bring in additional streams of income.
It could help establish you as an expert in your field.
Cons
If your book goes out of print quickly, you might make less than the minimum wage.
You’ll still need to spend time marketing the book.
You may not be able to sell it until it’s complete, so it could be a while before you make any money.
You may not find a publisher for it at all, which means you’ll make nothing.
Useful Resources
Write Your Own Ebook In 7 Days
Make $100k A Year Writing Niche Books
Franchise: Licence others to operate under your brand and charge them for set up costs and training. This will be cheaper than putting up the capital to expand and you will then earn ongoing royalties on all their sales.
Pros
It will cost you less than growing your business in the traditional way.
Less risk for you, as you’ll be passing the risk to the franchisees.
You can increase brand awareness with little costs, as your franchisees will be doing your marketing for you.
Cons
If one of your franchisees screws up badly, it could affect the whole company.
It may be difficulty and costly to recruit franchisees – especially in the early stages.
Difficulty in finding the right franchisees. Many people aren’t suited to being a franchisee – especially entrepreneurs.
Useful Resources
The Ten Commandments of a Genius Franchisor
The Franchise Kit
What It Takes To Franchise Your Business
Outsourcing: You could systemise all the menial tasks that take up the bulk of your time and outsource them to a Virtual Assistant. This would work well for someone in the early stages of running a business, or a freelancer, as it frees up your time to do more productive work and to market your business.
Pros
Should be cheaper than employing someone.
Avoids the hassles that come with employing permanent staff.
Cuts costs as you don’t need to provide office space and equipment.
Cons
Communicating over the phone or by email may not be as straightforward as face to face communication.
It will be harder to make workers feel like part of the team.
Language/cultural barriers and time difference could cause problems.
Licence Others To Sell Your Product
If you have a great product, you could licence others to sell it.
Pros
Reach more customers without the added marketing expense.
Make more profit without the need to employ additional staff.
You can expand with less risk.
Cons
Your product could be devalued if it reaches the wrong market, or too wide a market.
Your profit margins could be crippled if your licencees decide to undercut you.
Useful Resources
How To Licence Your Own Information Products
How To Rent Your Product to Fortune 500 Companies
Do you hope to make more money using less time? Which one of these methods would you prefer? Can you think of some better ones? Or would you prefer to carry on working as you are.
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19 Responses to “6 Ways To Make More Money With Less Time”
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“Which one of these methods would you prefer?”
That’s what I was wondering–which one’s best?
A muse business sounds appealing, but I read 4HWW and didn’t understand that part at all.
I suppose writing ebooks sounds the best to me. Now I just have to figure out what I can sell 50 million copies of.
BTW, do you have a preference between Cath and Catherine?
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Hi Hunter – I felt a bit like that about the muse business. I got the impression that it wasn’t as easy as Tim tried to make it sound.
I’m with you on books – that would be the ultimate way to make money.
I like both Cath and Catherine – so just whichever you like to call me best. The only one I don’t like is Cathy. The reason I changed the name on the blog header was because James from Men With Pens sounded a bit official sounding and reserved. Also, I suppose it made sense to have the name match the domain.
Catherine, Cath, Cat (haha)
What a great list of resources. I’ll have to come back when time permits and check them out.
A muse business sounds interesting, but I’m guessing the research and time needed to set one up must be fairly time consuming…hmmm How can I find more time each day?
Funny you should mention writing a book. Recently I was in our local “Dollar Tree” and there were many books, by some big name authors, on sale for $!.00. Is that what happens if you don’t make it to the “top ten” list?
I like “cloning” the best. Often we can employ others, delegate and then concentrate on that which we are best at.
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Hi Barbara – I’m guessing the muse will not be easy to set up. And I think it would take quite a bit of work before you could just leave it. The trouble is that things change so fast on the Internet. And pay per click requires a lot of monitoring.
The cloning is good, so long as you don’t get people you later wish had been drowned at birth.
Dawn at IowaHippieChick got a Martha Stewart at the Dollar Tree. They’re remaindered book stores. When a book goes out of print, they sell in those stores cheap to get rid of them.
Before they got rid of the net book agreement in the UK – it was the only way you were allowed to sell cheap books. Now stores can sell books for whatever price they want. And the trouble is, new authors can’t compete because places like Asda (Walmart) sell all the best selling books cheap. Thank God for Amazon – at least everyone gets a chance on there.
I think a bit of mixing and matching elements of these can make a great business. I love the E-Myth by Michael Gerber which talks about turning your business into a franchise.
Not that you necessarily have to. I suppose the closest to this in your list is the outsourcing option.
After we went bust, we started again with the slate wiped clean. Since then, we’ve been working on systems and fine-tuning them. In tandem with getting the right people, setting achievable targets, making sure we have fun, things are getting far easier.
The target in particular. Rather than have a whole bunch of targets and a many-page business with sub-targets, we chose just one.
Over the past week everything seems to have come together at once. The system with fine-tuning, the people, and suddenly the target we set, previously thought of as unachievable is being reached easily.
My point? Systemisation gives you options. And in particular the time to focus ON the business rather than working IN the business.
We have never before been down to zero outstanding contract calls. Today, we reached it for the first time ever. We had engineers waiting for the next IT support call from our clients.
Some days we’d end the day with maybe 20 outstanding. At worst, maybe as many as 35.
And we’d have to work really hard to catch up, and gradually over a few days we’d get it back down to manageable levels.
The introduction of the target of achieving an average fix time of 2 hours has really focused the team. And over the past 4 weeks, the headline figure has been declining, but not creeping back up.
Focusing on systemisation really frees you up to grow a business. It also gives your clients certainty if you have a structured process to handle everything that is thrown at you.
And by constantly fine-tuning and discovering ways to improve each stage, things get better and better. And you start to break away from your competitors. And other areas of the business that used to absorb time begin to disappear. All of a sudden, the business is working without you managing everything.
Sorry, I’m waffling!
I’m also very sad falling in love with systems and targets! Mainly because after nearly 10 years in our industry as a small business, I finally feel able to walk away from the office and know it will work without me being there.
Of course, I won’t. Instead I’ll focus on business growth now.
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Hi Ian – it’s great that you’re getting everything systemised. It must have been really stressful before when you were ending the day with 35 jobs outstanding. No wonder you have high blood pressure.
So much information to take in here, Cath. Great job and a bookmarkable resource, so thanks.
I haven’t read 4HWW yet. Do you recommend it, other than for inspiration? As an aspiring novelist, I would ideally like to be a successful writer/novelist/mentor who travels the world and writes wherever. Until that day comes, I’m keen to make a good living doing something online and from home so I can be a hands on mum. I’m just not sure what to do, but maybe an e-book.(?)
I hate feeling lost career wise. I wish I was happy to just be a mum and write, but I miss earning my own cash.
Kelly
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Hi Cath,
I like your question “Do you hope to make more money using less time?” I think we would all like to answer yes to this, but thats easier said than done.
I think out of them all, I prefer the Muse Business, I wouldn’t mind doing a bit of hard work at the beginning for the profits and easier life afterwards. But this is harder than it sounds.
Great list by the way.
Regards.
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Hi Kelly – you are welcome. You are a good writer so an ebook would be a good bet. You have similar plans to me – it would be brilliant to write novels and travel all the time.
I liked the 4 hour Work Week. It has quite a lot of info in it, including how to be perceived as an expert in a subject within a short time period. Also how to contact important people to ask questions. Tim Ferris even called John Grisham!
He also goes into quite a bit of detail on how to create a muse business – which is interesting.
It also has a good amount of info on how to live cheaply abroad for several months. I think you would like it. It was definitely one of the best books I read last year.
Hi Jeff – I think if you got a muse business right, it would be a bit like owning a toll booth wouldn’t it. But, as you say, it is probably quite hard putting it all into place to begin with. But, definitely worth the extra work if it keeps paying you indefinitely.
Insightful as always, Cath! The links make this article that much cooler. Good form.
Me, I’m going for the clone option. Oh, and if my wife is reading this:
It wasn’t me with that young blonde, it was my clone. No, really, I swear.
Sorry, feeling mischievous tonite folks.
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[...] 6 Ways to Make More Money with Less Time (CommentLuv) – Cath Lawson gives us 6 concrete ways of making money that don’t suck up all our time. She lists the pros and cons of each and provides a list of resources too. [...]
I like the one about outsourcing Maybe because I am a virtual assistant. I noticed you didn’t give any resources for that one so I thought I’d leave my comment. If anyone is looking for one they can click on my name. :}
Vicky’s last blog post..5 Ways To Earn Money At Home
Found your blog from Caroline Middlebrook.
Great post, I would love to write a book but I just don’t know what to write about.
Have you read “how to write an ebook in 7 days” or “make 100k a year writing niche books” I’m curious if either of them is worth reading.
Keep up the great work.
Mike
Hi Vicky – thank you. That was a huge oversight. I hope anyone looking for a VA will check you out.
Hi Mike – I must admit the niche books one is a personal favourite. I’ve had it for a few years and I still refer back to it. Also, it lists many books that were a huge success and you’d be surprised if you saw the range of topics.
You know, I bet if you made a list of things you are knowledgable on and interested in, you’d come up with a great idea for a book.
Hi Cath,
Found your blog via Caroline Middlebrook’s favorites post this week. Great topic! I enjoyed reading it and will be subscribing to your RSS.
4HWW is probably the best book I read last year as well. But yeah, I had a bit of trouble with the muse business too. Not really enough meat there for me to grasp the entire concept. His forum is really a great place, though. Lots of helpful people to point you in the right direction.
I’ll have to re-visit some of this later, there’s so many great ideas. For now, I’m concentrating on writing material (ebooks, books) and will add outsourcing here very soon. Licensing my ideas/products also has tremendous appeal to me.
Which of these ways are you using most?
Again, thanks for a great post!
~ Annie
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Hi Annie – thank you, I’m glad you like it. And now I’ve learned something new. I visit the 4HWW blog sometimes, but I didn’t realise there was a forum there too. I will check it out.
To answer your question – I still do use the clone me (employ people) quite a bit, but not to the extent I once did. I’m home based instead of office based now and no longer have admin support, so, I do outsource quite a few things. To be honest – recruiting people has always been my biggest weakness, so I’d love to do as little of it as possible.
But like you, I’m hoping to concentrate more on books in the future.
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I hate Franchises. I looked into Franchises for a long time using Franchoice and I hate the fact that you will become a slave to business since most of them require you to be onsite. I like the idea of a MUSE business because I can get it going then outsource it and look for other streams of income to start up.
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I’m looking forward to stopping my 80 hour work week, for now until I’m earning enough it’s going to have to stick.
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