195. How do you know when to invest in yourself?
Wish you could put yourself first? 🥇 In this speedy episode, hosts and brand strategists Phil and Lauren discuss the types of investments that make sense for businesses. The two discuss when to invest in contractors or team members, when to invest in supplementary education, and more! If you have aspirations of becoming a better and smarter business owner, you’ll love this episode.
Episode transcription
Phil
Investing.
lauren
We're not talking about Roth IRAs on this call.
phil
Oh, heck, no, we're talking about time and money, investing in yourself investing in you. This has come up on two separate conversations today, one with a client who hired us for a brand audit only. And halfway through going through that experience said guys, I think I need more than just this. And is now in the process of justifying, you know, spending more money than originally planned seeing the value in that. So we'll explore that.
But it's a quick episode, because we're fitting this episode recording in between calls. So we're not going to send me long, but it's going to be punchy, you're going to be happy to listen. It came up a second time, because we are talking about how both you and I are investing in different ways to grow this business. And it's thoughts around that it's kind of interesting to talk about.
lauren
Yeah. So I think that when you're a business owner, it can be really challenging to know, what is actually worth investing in. Especially if you aren't completely sure, when your next client project is going to be happening. It can feel really scary to invest in other people and other things.
Phil
Yeah, cuz it's easy. It's easy to spend money. It is not easy to make money. Yeah. Right. So it's really easy to spend money on an online core sauna, group coaching program, one to one consulting.
Lauren
Yes, yeah, yes. So the way that I see it, there are really kind of three to four different groups of investments that you can make as a business owner. And there are reasons to hire or invest in each of those things. So the first thing that I can think about is investing in someone who can do work that does not create value, or lead to money or work that you don't want to be doing yourself. That's number one. That's the easiest low hanging fruit invest in a VA. In our case, we invested in Jess on our team to make SOPs, because it didn't make sense for me to be spending time writing out step by step how I do everything when there are paying clients who could use my time instead. So I'd say that investing in someone who can do something you don't want to do and or do something that would be lower billable. For you, that's like below your hourly rate. That's number one,
Phil
You really need in this case, to think about the value of your time. And that's very hard to do as a business of one, or as a business of just a handful of you. Because you think, oh, I'm actually saving money by not hiring someone to do these things. But at least in our experience, the more you sub in yourself to do, the less likely you are to move towards some of those bigger goals or bigger to do list items. Because you're so busy working down your immediate to do list. And you simply won't get to those longer term, potentially more lucrative initiatives that take more time to develop. I feel that what I'm saying resonates with me right now, you know?
Lauren
Yep. Yep. I think the second kind of investment that's just as important that business owners should think about making is investing in someone who is better at doing something than you are. So Phil, I think about with Costya, you hired him to do a brand identity.
Phil
Yes, Cosyta who designs now all of our brand identities, the first project we ever did with him, I was actually the client, I hired him to design my own brand, I thought, that's an investment that I'm making in a brand new designer to go to not only get an output because I loved his aesthetic, but also go through the experience of me being the client, and to make sure that that experience feels good. So that then I would feel confident having him work on a client. Absolutely.
Lauren
And you continue to invest in him, because he's really amazing at doing brand identities so that in this case, it wouldn't make sense for you, Phil to be doing the brands because cautious, really, in my opinion, the best designer in the world. So yes, so I'm sure you could do you would do fine.
Phil
No, I wouldn't I wouldn't even come close to the ability of what he's able to do because that's what he focuses on. And he's an absolute expert.
Lauren
By you investing in him you've been able to expand the business and take on way more clients than you would if you were just doing on your own.
Phil
Exactly. And that you know, combined with a lot of other specialists that work in our business, I mean add that up and that is a successful business and that's really cool.
Lauren
Now the other two investments I was thinking of that are potentially worthwhile for someone to make are related to knowledge and or skills. So the first one is investing in something that you could potentially sell or make money off of with that information. So an example of this is SEO for Squarespace. I mean, Squarespace has basic SEO practice best practices that we follow with every client. But in reality, designing and developing a website is very, very different from SEO. And there's a lot of clients out there who don't understand the difference. SEO is a totally different ballgame. And normally, it's just not something we touch. However, we realized that because clients think that SEO is all part of the website, aside from like, the best practices, of course, Phil, you decided to invest in a session with an SEO expert for Squarespace, which is great.
Phil
I think of it like continuing education, which every other professional industry is required to do if you're a doctor, if you're a lawyer, right is actually required in most cases. I mean, even I think of interior designers going to summits and events, routinely. I mean, we do this because we expand our knowledge. And I think that's really important to do. And me as a business owner, I think that it's my obligation to, in some cases provide that opportunity for people that are loyal to me within my organization. It's just how I feel it also I mean it's a win win. Because I think it does help build that loyalty. And it also likely generates ideas on how business can grow. So it's really, you know, yeah, it costs money, so you have to spend money on it. But chances are, it doesn't seem like a high risk to me, I think the chances of it turning into something fruitful are high,
LaUREN
Completely. And if you think about it, as you know, how many billable hours would I need to work to make up this investment, that could be a really good way of discerning whether or not something is worth it. So if someone were going to be investing in, let's say, a, I don't know, like a web coding boot camp, and it's $5,000, well, chances are with one website project after that coding boot camp, you could already get a return on your investment. So it might be worth it.
PHIL
Absolutely.
LAUREN
The final one is a bit more challenging to decide whether or not it's worth the investment. But I still think it's, it's important to at least explore it. And I think sometimes we need guidance on how to get our business where we want it to go. And if you lack the experience or exposure in a business of the structure that you want to get to, then it can be really, really helpful to work with someone or take a program that can really teach you the tools to be able to work on your business instead of for your business.
I have an example that I did recently, Phil, you invested essentially in me to do a program that was fantastic on how to streamline our entire branding process. Instead of it being a free for all with, you know, 20 plus clients simultaneously. We're now doing one to two clients at a time. And people are basically putting down a deposit and booking in advance and we're working really, really focused on that project at a time. It's super overwhelming. And it's a gigantic change for our business, and so it was beyond helpful to take a program that actually taught you how to do that. So I could just get the information needed from someone who's done it already understand how to adopt it for our business and put it into practice way faster.
phil
Yeah, that's a really good point. Also, I think, to think you don't necessarily have to be the one leading this charge. There's someone on your team, pay for that opportunity or that course or whatever and have them do it on your behalf. I would say it's not within my wheelhouse right now to think about client timelines, when I'm focused on other areas in the business, for example. Sponsored content, I have a ton of projects right now. But by doing those, I'm able to then earn money that I can invest back in some of these ways that you were describing. So it all kind of works out.
lauren
Our clients. Ashley and Jolene, I think are really good examples of investments that could be worth making. If you're a business owner. Yes. So both Ashley Hahn and Jolene Bingham were micro gym owners. They didn't know each other. And they each bought local gyms and quickly realize that they were in way over their heads. They had no idea how to make money. The infrastructures just simply weren't there and they didn't know what to do. And after kind of fumbling and realizing that this was way harder than they thought it was going to be, they each sought out business mentors to help them understand how to run a gym business, how to get people to sign up for personal training, how to get clients to say yes faster, how to keep customers for longer, how to decide when it's time to invest in gym equipment, how to set financial goals and all of those details that are, you will learn ultimately by doing business. But if you hire a mentor who's already been there, you'll be able to get where you want to go faster, faster. Yeah, not much faster. Yes. And both of them had immense success with their business mentors, helping their businesses to the point where they actually became business mentors themselves to be able to help other gym owners, and now businesses of all shapes and sizes, be able to really like flourish. And again, accomplish your goals faster with the guidance of someone who's already been there.
phil
Those are some good ideas I feel on investing. If anything, hopefully listening to this discussion, hearing us giving you permission to make that investment that you might be thinking about, but you're scared to pull the trigger. I don't have any investments that we've described that I've regretted. Y
Lauren
You don't?
phil
No, I don't have any. lauren
Lauren
There you have it. No regrets.
Phil
Yeah, I haven't regretted any of those investments. Do you have any regrets?
lauren
No. In fact, when I get out of the day to day and actually take time to learn things, I realize how deeply important it is. Because I get so caught up in my frickin inbox. And my all my late Asana tasks, when really, I should be thinking more big picture about how to fix things that are broken, how to not repeat mistakes, or how to create systems or efficiencies where that take up time and eat up minutes. And also just thinking again, big picture about how to get the business to where we want to go. So every time I do any of these endeavors, I always learned so much and ends up being positive not only for Phil Pallen Collective, but also for our clients because they can learn from that too.
Phil
Absolutely. Listener hopefully you have the inspiration, the motivation to go and invest in yourself. Let us know what you're going to invest in. What were you on the fence about? What are you gonna go and do keep us posted? We're on social media. We want to hear from you. If you take the time to listen to our podcast. Please take a few extra seconds and just let us know what's on your mind. We'd love to hear from you. I’m @philpallen.
Lauren
I’m @ thelaurenmoore
Phil
#brandtherapy helps us find that chatter and social online. Also, if you've enjoyed this episode, or other episodes you've listened to recently, please help us by leaving a review on Apple podcasts five star, five star that helps other people discover those podcasts we work hard to create for you. And we've got a few more episodes that we'll release before we just take a little bit of a break this summer. More on that coming up. We look forward to you hanging out with us next week on Brand Therapy. See you then.
Lauren
Bye bye
