GLOSS Issue 12 MAY 2014 | Page 32

be able to get to the FREEDOM I wanted. In truth I wanted to be FREE from the necessity of seeing clients 1:1 and to have the choice of who I saw, who I spent my time with and without feeling like I have to accept every client that came in the door because more clients means more hours to sell which means more money - RIGHT!?!WRONG! In reality, we all have 24 hours in a day. We can’t sell any more than 24 hours when we are selling our time for money (although I do know of some other professions where I am sure they have worked out how you can sell more, but that’s an article for another day). We have 24 hours a day, 7 days per week, for 365 days per year. That’s a total of 8760 hours available to sell in one year. Now if you are selling yourself at $200 per hour that becomes $1 752 000. Yes you did read this right that 1.7 Million dollars. Stop being excited by this. Because no one is going to sell 24 hours 365 days a year, day in and day out. So let’s be more realistic. Let’s say on average we can sell 6 hours in a day, and we work 48 weeks a year and we are now going to give ourselves two days off a week. That’s now 1440 hours we can sell, bringing us to the more realistic target of $288,000. Now this is not money to be sneezed at, but it’s still a BIG limitation. And it’s a far cry from $1.7M isn’t it. This also means you can have only 4 weeks away from work each year, so if you want to have 4 weeks of “holiday” then you are unable to get sick and your children, partners, parents, dogs are also not allowed to get sick and take you away from your selling time. They can be ill when you have “ billed” what you needed to “bill” to keep you on track to meet the financial commitments you have made for yourself because if you take even 1 hour away from the time to be sold then you are going to have to make that up somewhere and with all of the administration, bookkeeping, marketing, networking, and filing that you have to do goodness only knows when you are going to find that extra time to actually make it up – so guess what? You will settle for a pay cut. Now I am acutely aware that for many of us money is not the strongest motivator to be in business, and if that’s the only motivator we have we probably won’t last very long, because it’s an empty result. However if you want to build a business that provides for you and your family then the model of entrapment I have described above probably isn’t the best model for you. The day I reviewed the numbers in my business and saw in black and white that I no longer HAD to ever see another client again, and my business would still pay my wage and my lifestyle was the day I experienced FREEDOM! Two weeks later I was in Bali for another week. I love my clients, customers and consultants. I serve them with all of my heart, because I have made the informed choice to build a business that supports my desire to experience freedom. And guess what? My clients experience faster, better results; my customers are happier because I am achieving results quickly and my consultants know that I will have the time and energy they need from me to empower them to be the best they can be. I am no longer trapped, or enslaved. I AM FREE!