The Resources Gap

Identifying what’s keeping you stuck.

If you missed Part 3, check out last weeks email.

Today we’re talking The Resources Gap.

So far we’ve discussed Clarity, Belief, Alignment, Knowledge and Skills. If you’ve identified those gaps and filled them I think the two remaining (major) gaps you’ll find would be Resources.

The Resources Gap 

When you don’t know how to execute on the knowledge you have to accomplish your goal.

Here is how I think about the resources you have (or don’t) have to get to where you want to go:

1. Time

2. Money

When you’re scaling a business both of these are necessary. Having a surplus of time and money means you have capacity. Cycles of capacity is what you’re always looking for when scaling. That’l be another email.

Scaling from a lack of resources takes resourcefulness. Maximize everything you have at your disposal. In a good way.

If a business is continually lacking in time or money to the point of exhaustion and/or danger I’d say that’s an indicator that either it’s trying to grow too fast or something is broken.

Properly utilizing the resources you CURRENTLY have is about properly allocating the resources you have so let’s break it down. Also, this can apply to your team as well.

Time

The precious resource that we all have the exact same amount of.

24 hours / 7 days

Some people are way better at utilizing this resource than others.

A point I want to draw out here is perhaps becoming a better steward of the resources you currently hold and then at that point I believe it makes sense in discovery how to increase these resources for further expansion.

If you “lack time” there are a few options (which I believe originated from President Eisenhower):

• Do

• Delete

• Delegate

• Defer

1. Make a list of the things you’re doing

2. Attach a dollar value on all the the things you’re doing (are you doing something that is a $25/hr task or $1000/hr?)

3. Attach an enjoyment value

4. Attach a priority of “it needs to get done” (1, 2, 3, etc)

Now that you have your list which items come up to the top? What should you keep? You want to focus your energy on high value, enjoyment and priority.

Part of how we lose the resource of time is we stay in a pattern of not “backing ourselves out”.

For examples one of the first hires I made in Traffic and Funnels was a media buyer. I was dedicating a good amount of my time to our sales opportunity. I need more time so I identified that has a big needle mover.

I call this “levels” (that’ll be a newsletter by itself). The thing still needs to get done. However it doesn’t have to get done BY ME. I just need to make sure it gets done.

I was maybe spending 20 hours a week on that responsibility. I was able to bring in a qualified person and reduce that to about 2 hours which went into coaching and managing the outcome through my “level 1”.

In scaling and expanding the business you are always looking for ways to create more capacity. More time. More resource.

This comes through:

1. People

2. Processes

3. Productization

We have our list of things that need to get done right?

To find more time we’ve already deleted or deferred things that aren’t high importance (via our audit). Next, we’ll figure out what WE should do or what we should delegate.

After you have the “keep” list (your 80/20) ask:

1. Who do I need?

2. What process do I need to create?

3. How can I productize this? (that’s taking your ip and manual work and turning them into information, processes and content that someone can implement mostly without you)

If you feel maxed out on time in moving forward, expanding or growing your business this will help you.

NOTE: Do not try to “scale” if you and everybody else on your team are maxed out. You need capacity first. This is the way.

Follow these 3 steps:

1. Audit (what needs to be done / what am I doing)

2. Follow the 4 D’s

3. Utilize the 3 P’s

Filling the time gap is major in your next level of growth. I was able to use this process to get my time in our businesses down to 10ish hours a week. Now, there were things I missed / didn’t know that caused huge failure but that’s a story for another day.

If you want custom help with this reply to the email and let me know.

Money

Money is a resource. Nothing more and nothing less. That’s easier for me to type than to live tbh. haha. But it’s true. We have sooo much emotional and mental attachment to money.

The more we can “let go” of money the less attachment it will have on us. 

If we’re “lacking” money for expansion there are a few things I want us to consider.

1. Speed of growth (is it too fast)

2. Speed of money (is going out faster than its coming in)

3. Necessities (are they low, high or just right)

Above is the process to think about (especially if you have a team).

On speed: The rate of your speed will dictate how much money you need or don’t. The faster you want to grow means your speed of cash coming in needs to be fast.

Why? You have cash going out at a high rate.

For example if I’m spending $100,000 a month on ads right now and I’m doing $350,000 a month in revenue and I’m spending $275,000 on team and in 5 months I want to be at $600,000 in revenue then I’ll need to spend a bunch more in ads and theoretically on team as well.

Desire for more revenue + high rate of speed = higher necessity for cash (resource) therefore higher risk.

We tend to assume (especially in our online world) that it’s only going one way—-UP. 😁 

We don’t consider the fact that it could go the opposite direction $100,000 - $300,000 in ad spend going out with no recouping. That’s why I’m writing this.

All this to say: MIND YOUR SPEED of growth.

Your speed of growth will dictate your speed of money needed (resource). So if you’re lacking money what is your speed of growth (or desired growth)?

This is exactly why many fast-growth companies take investor money. Because the resources required for fast-growth are a lot.

If you have a steady and healthy speed of growth and your model is good then you shouldn’t have a money-resource problem. Speed is a BIG dictator of this resource.

Slow your role. OR have a high tolerance, like I did. Until I didn’t. 🙃 

Necessity. It’s easy to continually increase necessity without really good reason and without being tied to healthy identity, values and money rules.

I want you to consider and KEEP your necessity as low as possible. Again this is nuanced and depends on many factors.

How to do this:

• What is my max monthly allowable for Personal needs?

• What is my max monthly allowable for Business needs?

Create rules and stick to the rules. Maybe something like this. Our “bottom” is 20%. If we’re running a 20% net margin we don’t scale. If we’re at 35% we do scale. Again, these are generalities. I don’t know your business.

Just because you CAN spend the money doesn’t mean you should. Have and keep a scrappy resourceful mindset when it comes to laying out cash.

My business was good at producing cash and bringing in money for a long time. Because of that we would easily throw money at a problem rather than get creative to reserve capital. I also should have had better awareness of the money going out.

John Rockefeller was notorious for this. He knew where all the business money was going. He also didn’t spend money unless it was absolutely necessary.

In the online world when we figure out how to make money it’s easy think it will always be like this. It could be the case. It also could be wise to act prudently and practice a healthy paranoia. Your choice.

Reinvest into assets. Again, set rules. 😉 

Things to consider when thinking about your money…

1. Create a healthy value system around money

2. Create healthy rules around how you spend money

3. Create healthy rules in how you invest (dang I WISH I had this ughhh)

If your gap is the resource of money and your model is working then I’d have you consider:

1. Descaling - turning the business “down”

2. Plateauing - staying level

3. Slow down

You should find more margin or cash here. Again, it’s not a one size fits all. There are a lot of things to consider. But growing and scaling a broken model or business isn’t a good strategy.

Margin is there. Just need to find it.

I appreciate you guys for continuing to show up every week! This is maintaining a really solid open rate which I’m pumped about.

To the Overflow,

Chris

p.s. If you have any topics you want me to write about reply and let me know what your biggest challenge is and I’ll see if I can help you (and everybody else) via the newsletter.