3 Ways To Invest in Your Business to Double Your Profits

This blog post was first published on 18 May 2020

When you’re an entrepreneur it can be really hard to know where to best spend your time and money. Every penny is usually already accounted for so you definitely don’t want to invest and get it wrong. In this post I’ve shared two completely free ways to double your income and one which is almost always worth your investment.

1. Focus on One Thing

Have you ever heard the phrase, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”? It’s a phrase that means it’s better to hold on to what you’ve got than go after something new. Well staying with the bird analogies you need to be more eagle and less magpie. Stick with something and make it work. If it isn’t working perhaps you aren’t doing it right. I’ve heard people say that Instagram isn’t a proper revenue stream. I would say that I got at least £10k in revenue from Instagram last year and I’m not sure about you but I would say that means it works. If you don’t feel like it works for you then take a step back and re-focus.

Instagram is your shop window. It isn’t a place to sell. It’s a place to network and be sociable and find potential new clients. It’s a place to excite your community and make them fall in love with your offering. Instagram is a place to give tonnes of value. People use the platform for either education or entertainment so bear that in mind when you are using it. Don’t forget calls to action regularly to encourage people to head onto your site and learn more about you and your offering.

2. Learn and Do It Yourself

One mistake a lot of people make when starting out in business is they outsource everything. They want a logo or some branding doing. They hire someone instead of learning how to use Canva for free. They want a website building they pay fees starting in the region of £500 plus instead of learning how to use SquareSpace. I’m not saying there isn’t a place for investing in these things (see below) but actually we can learn a heck of a lot when we do things ourselves.

Take email marketing for example, sure you can pay someone to write your copy and build your email funnel but if you’ve never even tried to do these tasks yourself, how will you know if what you’re getting is worth the money or delivering the right results? Never outsource your blind spots. Sometimes when we actually get into tasks ourselves we realise that they are not that hard at all and that the idea of the task was worse than the task itself. More importantly, taking the time to learn how to do things can save a lot of money. Imagine not being able to update your own website. Every time you wanted to add something or update an offer you would have to plan it in advance and speak to your web designer. Whereas most pre-made websites have apps now so you can literally design and update on the go and pay a fraction of the cost meaning more money in the bank for you.

3. Outsource the Tasks That Take Your Time

Following on from task two, I know what your’re thinking, “But Lucy, if I do it myself it will take me ages”. You might just be right there. I very much stand by my point above of not outsourcing your blind spots, as a business owner we have to know how each part of our businesses work and be accountable. There are some things however where an expert is probably better. Take legal for example, you don’t know what you don’t know, right. You can follow step two and learn yourself but not many people have time to spend four years studying to be a lawyer. It is important however that you take time to research what you need and where your exposure is.

Similarly, when it comes to graphic design you might know that if you spent three hours working on a free opt-in workbook it would never look as good as a designer could produce in half the time. If that’s the case with certain elements of your business I highly recommend following step two until you feel confident you know enough to know what you’re doing (for example, Facebook Ads are like a different language at the start you need to know whether the cost per click is high or low for your industry) then compare the hourly rate of your own time to complete a task vs. the cost for an expert. If a graphic designer can create a workbook in two hours for £100 but it would take you six and your hourly rate is usually £100 you have your answer. Your time is better spent on working with your clients.

Perhaps you don’t want to spend a whole day Googling all of the legal stuff and you just want a done for you template, I’ve got you covered. My best selling template download, GET LEGIT - Legal Essentials, does just that. Helps you cover yourself with the essential legal documents. No more worrying whether the contract you downloaded off that free site will cover you. You can find my entire contract template shop here.

So there you have it, two completely free ways to increase your profits and one simple method to ensure you aren’t spending your chargeable time on non-chargeable tasks. What about you? Do you have any profit making tips you could share? Feel free to add them to the comments below. If you’ve liked this post and would like to hear more from me then pop your email address here and I’ll be in your inbox each week with legal and business tips.

Lucy x