Time Assets & Time Liabilities
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by Dave Crenshaw
Business Coach & Founder of Fresh Juice Strategy

What if you could give yourself a raise, simplify your work, and reduce your stress simultaneously?

Hi, I’m Dave Crenshaw, Business Coach and founder of Fresh Juice Strategy. I’d like to share a valuable principle—something I’ve taught to many business owners and executives I’ve worked with. Your investment in learning this principle will be about 12 minutes of active listening. Afterward I will also offer you something even more valuable, which you’ll be free to take action on or ignore. At the end of this seminar, at the very least, you will have learned a valuable principle, one that is likely new to you. Applying this new principle will be your return on your investment of 12 minutes time.

And that’s exactly what I like to talk to you about: your time…in particular: time assets and time liabilities. In working with hundreds of business owners & managerial executives, I’ve learned that before we can fix the inefficiencies in the business, we must fix the inefficiencies in the individual. Before we can build solid business systems, we must first build solid personal systems. So …. let’s begin with you.

Here is the question: Which of all your work activities is the most profitable?  There are many things that you could do with your time in the workplace:
You can sell, you can push papers, you can take out the trash, you can meet with customers, you can manage and motivate and bribe employees, you can advertise, you can market, you can work on growing your business, and you can scratch your nose and so on and so on. The choice is yours. There are clearly many varieties of activity you can perform at work. Of all of these activities, which is the most profitable use of YOUR time—to you and your business?  
For some, this question of the value of your time is a difficult question to answer. Some business professionals, however, know immediately what activity yields the most to themselves and their business. Knowing the answer to this is the first step to understanding the principle of time assets. Why?

Perhaps you’ve heard this famous quote by Earl Nightingale: "The amount of money you make will always be in direct proportion to [1] the demand for what you do, AND [2] your ability to do it, and [3] the difficulty of replacing you...”  For successful entrepreneurs, living this quote is a way of life. They almost instinctively seek to maximize their value to the world. [Repeat that quote] "The amount of money you make will always be in direct proportion to [1] the demand for what you do, AND [2] your ability to do it, and [3] the difficulty of replacing you.”

I’d like to restate Earl’s quote in simpler terms:  The amount of money you make will always be dependent upon your ability to focus your time and actions on your most profitable activities. I’ll repeat that for emphasis: The amount of money you make will always be dependent upon your ability to focus your time and actions on your most profitable activities.

There is a very famous, very valuable book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I’m a fan of it. In Rich Dad, Poor Dad, [Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter] discuss the differences between how truly wealthy people look at money versus how truly poor people look at money. One of the fundamental differences is how they spend money. Poor Dad spends his money on frivolous things and on luxury. Poor Dad buys liabilities. Liabilities take away money…the more he buys, the less money he has.

Rich Dad, on the other hand, spends his money on things that give money back to him. Rich Dad buys assets. Assets bring in money…the more he buys, the more money he has. It’s a very simple, yet very powerful concept.
Let’s compare this concept to the world of time. Are YOU time rich, or time poor? Do you feel on top of everything, or do you feel like you are always behind, always catching up. Do you feel in control of your time and tasks? If you’re like most everyone at the turn of this 21st Century, at least everyone I know, you would consider yourself time poor. Isn’t that ironic? Technology was designed to give us more time, yet it leaves the majority of us feeling like we have less.

Consider me your “Time Rich Dad”. My perspective is that you should invest in time assets. If you invest wisely in time assets, you simply will have more time and make more effective use of time. On the other hand, you may, like most Time Poor People do, buy Time Liabilities.  Time Poor People squander their time on time liabilities. I’ll share a story to illustrate this: the story of the 3-hole puncher.

Not to long ago, I was working with a business owner who was severely time poor. He was working in the ballpark of 90 to 100 hours per week, and his both his business and his family were suffering. During the course of our training, we calculated his per-hour worth. When he was doing just his most profitable activities, we was worth $500/hr or more. Yet we found that he was spending approximately half of his time, 45 hours or more per week, performing $25/hour, $10/hr, and even minimum wage type work! Why?  There were, of course, many factors, but a huge factor was that he was surrounded by Time Liabilities. At one point during our training he needed to punch holes in some paper for a three ring binder. Yet when he went to punch the paper, his paper puncher didn’t work well at all. He had bought a cheap model that had broken after a month or so. Now it only worked to punch 2 of the 3 holes in the paper. I watched as this respected business owner and leader kept turning his stack of papers around twice to punch. Of course, most often he kept misaligning the punch and ruining the stack! I watched carefully what he did next. He stood up from his desk, walked out of his office, marched down the hall to the accountant’s office, searched for their high-quality paper puncher, punched the holes in his stack, came back to the office and finally inserted them in the planner. While he went through this long process, I timed him without him knowing.  It took about 6 minutes. When he came back, I asked the question, “How many times per week do you repeat that activity of having to use someone else’s 3 hole puncher?” He replied, “I don’t know. Maybe 3 or 4.”  I responded, “We’ve established that your time, when spent on the most valuable activities, is worth $500/hr or more. Yet, in an average month, you’re losing more than an hour simply because you didn’t spend the extra $20 to get a quality 3 hole puncher?” His response, “I didn’t think of it like that at the time!” His cheap 3-hole puncher was potentially costing him nearly $500 per month…and that was just one time liability holding him back!

Are you also surrounded by time liabilities? The definitions of a time liability are: a) anything that consumes time unnecessarily or b) anything that causes you to spend time in activities that are less profitable than you most profitable activity.  If your filing system causes you to spend time doing $10 per hour clerical work trying to find that important document, then you have a time liability. If your workspace is so uncomfortable that you have to spend time at a chiropractor monthly to correct your problems, you DEFENITELY have a time liability!

The question for you, the listener, is: How much are your time liabilities costing you at work? If you know what you are worth per hour, you can quickly estimate the dollar-per hour impact of lost time. Any resource or system or behaviors at work that keeps you away from your profitable activities is a time liability. Replace Time liabilities with time assets. The sooner you replace them, the sooner your PERSONAL profitability will increase.

I define time assets as both: a) anything that enables you to focus more time doing your most profitable activity at work AND b) any purchase that pays for itself, in terms of dollar per working hour, within one month and lasts beyond that month.

I recently shared this principles of time assets with the owner of an auto repair company. When I taught him this principle of time assets, he remarked, “That’s what I teach my mechanics. If you just observe what happens on the repair floor, you can tell immediately who is making the most per hour. They’re the ones with all their tools organized and in front of them when they work on a car. They have everything they need and it’s in place. My employees who make the least are the ones who start to work on the car and walk back and forth repeatedly to get the things they need. They aren’t organized at all.”

As a One-to-One Consultant, I’ve found training is meaningless without personal application and clear action steps. Allow me to help you find some personal application and then we’ll wrap things up.

APPLICATION ONE: What is the most profitable work activity for you? Determine this by first listing the different activities you perform,  and then calculating the replacement wage per hour. The replacement wage per hour is what YOU would have to pay SOMEONE ELSE to perform that activity on your behalf, at the SAME level of effectiveness at which you perform it. Once you have that estimated replacement wage per hour, rank the different activities you do, starting with one for the highest cost per hour, 2 for the next highest, and so on. The first step is for you to make the list of activities you perform daily. Will you do it?

APPLICATION TWO: Are you surrounded by time liabilities? Think about your work tools and work environment… your desk, your planner, your computer, your staplers, your filing cabinets and so on. Like the profitable auto mechanic, are your tools in front of you? Do you have the tools you need? Do they all work properly? Is there a time liability there? Estimate how much profitability you’re losing because of that one time liability. You can do that by multiplying how much time the liability costs you, per month, and then multiplying that number by the per hour value of your most profitable activity. For example, if your most profitable work is worth $200/hour, and you’re losing 1 hour doing work that could be done by a $10/hr employee, then that Time Liability is costing you about $190. What would your return on investment be if you replaced that time liability with a time asset? Will it pay for itself in one month and last beyond that month? If so, then a new purchase may be a wise investment. The first step in this application is to check work environment for time liabilities. Will you do it?

When you take action on this principle, you’ll be able to calculate one more thing: your return on investment. When you take action, today, on what you’ve learned from this brief training, what will be your personal ROI for listening to this CD for 12 minutes? $50, $100, $5000? It all depends on what you’re worth per hour.

I’d now like to offer you a time asset. This time asset is particularly valuable if your business generates at least a $1 million in revenue per year, or if you, as an individual, make $60,000 or more per year.  My company, Fresh Juice Strategy offers what we call: The Personal Systems Boot Camp. The Time and Task Bootcamp is a significant time asset that will pay for itself over and over again.  Bootcamp clients drop 15 to 25% or more of their required working hours in 21 days.  How? In the Bootcamp, a Business Coach works with you on-site in your workspace. We guide you in crafting custom-fit, personal systems.  We monitor how you work, and then help you make subtle adjustments that help you uncover HOURS of lost time per week. Then we provide personalized follow-up for 21 Days. Why 21 Days? Because that’s the classic standard for creating a new habit. At Fresh Juice Strategy, our philosophy is not to give you a quick pick-me-up seminar where the results fade away in a week. We work with you One-to-One to help establish lasting change. Bootcamp clients gain significant amounts of time. They not only become more efficient and focused on their most profitable work, but their stress levels dropped like a rock.  Our Bootcamp clients no longer worry about the things that they have to do, because they have a personalize system that gives them control of their work environment, their time and their tasks.

Options for the Personal Systems Boot Camp range from $1000 to $1800. Based on our experience, Business Owners and CEO’s require a One and a half Day Boot Camp. The boot camp for Managers and other employees is one day. All Bootcamp options include personal 21-Day follow-up to ensure lasting habits are developed.

I should emphasize that the Bootcamp is not about organization (though increased organization is certainly a byproduct). The Personal Systems Bootcamp is about efficiency and profitability. It is about helping you reduce stress.

Remember: The amount of money you make will always be dependent upon your ability to focus your time and actions on your most profitable activities. That’s why we say that the Bootcamp is the fastest way to give yourself a raise.
The typical return on investment, based on increased productivity alone, is usually well over 300% after 90 days.

If you would like to reserve a date for your Personal Systems Boot Camp, please call Fresh Juice Strategy at 1-87-SYSTEMS-8. 1-87-SYSTEMS-8. Thank you for listening. I hope you’ve found this training valuable, and I hope to have the opportunity to serve you in the near future.

Dave Crenshaw is a Business Coach and President of Fresh Juice Strategy. He began his coaching career in 1998 by becoming the youngest independent consultant, formerly for E-Myth Worldwide. He had already coached business owners several times his age before receiving his degree in Business Management-Entrepreneurship. The creator of the Fresh Juice Strategy program, Dave has coached and consulted business owners from London to Manila and from San Francisco to New York. He is the author of The Myth of Multitasking, available nationwide in hardcover in August '08 by Jossey-Bass (publishers of Patrick Lencioni's fables). You may contact Dave at Fresh Juice Strategy by clicking here.