The Side-Hustle Dad

Ep23
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Stop Doing Everything
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​[00:00:00]

Bryan Steele: Hey, welcome back to the podcast. I'm really excited to talk to you today because I think one of the traps that's really easy to fall into with any business, side hustle, full-time, is that we've got to do everything. There's just a constant busyness of everything that needs to be achieved. And what's really true is that not all activity is beneficial.

In fact, not all activity needs to be done at all, or at least not done by us.

80 20 Focus
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Bryan Steele: There's a principle, it's called Pareto's principle or the 80/20 rule, and it states simply this: 80% of the results you achieve in your business are going to come from [00:01:00] 20% of your efforts. Now, think about that for a second 80% of the results, 20% of the effort.

So that means if you can regularly do an inventory of where you're spending your time, your energy, your effort, your talent, and see where you're getting the most traction and continue to refine and double down on those efforts, you're gonna continue to move forward and build your business. And this is something I think is absolutely critical, is to continuously reassess and see what's going on.

Easy Ates Framework
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Bryan Steele: So today, we're gonna go through a framework that I've heard called Easy Ates. ~Um,~ there's some other similar ones that you may have heard, Do Delegate Dump, but I like the ates because we're gonna go through three ways you can evaluate your business to free up more time so that you can focus on that 20%.

Because the truth is, the most [00:02:00] profitable, the most profitable place in your business is a small slice of it, your zone of genius, where you have the greatest impact and benefit that is possible. So we're gonna talk about that today. So what this is, the ates is... And it took me, I was like, "What are the eights?

Like, the number eight? I don't get it." A-T-E. A-T-E-S. Ates. And it comes down to eliminate, delegate, and automate. And so what you have to do, what you h- must start with, is looking at your business, seeing where you're spending your time and your effort, and then using this framework as this filter to see where you can be freeing up capacity for yourself to focus on those major items.

Now, you might think, "Ah, there's no way. Like, I'm just doing this on the [00:03:00] side. There's no way I am... You know, there's much to, to shave out of my business." And maybe that's true, but it's likely not. There's probably ways you can be more efficient. So we're gonna talk about today.

Eliminate Busywork
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Bryan Steele: So the first ate, eliminate.

There are things which you do in business, which I do in business, that are not beneficial at all. So when you look at the activities you do, what I would suggest just cutting out entirely, so it's called non-revenue generating activity, something that doesn't lead to work. This is continuously working on your website.

Now, building a website's important, but going back to it over and over, tweaking it, scrolling on social media is one that really is just not benefiting you anymore. ~Um, hang on~

If you're [00:04:00] doing busy work, so research, reading, some is better, and honestly, much of it isn't. You may be consuming too much information. In fact, I mean, maybe, maybe I'm not the only podcast you're listening to. Maybe you're listening to ten other podcasts about business, and you're trying to figure out what you should be doing.

You might be better served putting that effort into something more valuable. So even if that's the case, and you go, "You know what? I need to cut out content consumption, whether that's social media, podcasts, books. I need to just focus on the work and building something that's valuable," that might be something that's worth eliminating.

But what you're trying to get out of there is the low-value work that really just has no direct generation of revenue, doesn't build trust with existing or potential clients. Just drop it. There's no reason to keep it around. [00:05:00] Just let it go. So I, I think those are the big ones. But if, if... This is just the fat.

This is just the unnecessary stuff. And you could just lop it off, say, "We're not gonna do this anymore 'cause it adds no value, doesn't help, doesn't move the business forward." Just say, "No, I'm not gonna do that anymore." That's eliminate.

Delegate for Growth
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Bryan Steele: The second one is the hard one, delegate. Passing the baton on to somebody else.

This might look like hiring freelancers. ~Uh,~ this might look like getting a business coach. This might look like getting a CPA. I mean, is bookkeeping really the best use of your time? Is an admin possibly a way to respond to email inquiries or manage your schedule or look for opportunities for... There's a lot of things that go on that could potentially be delegated, and this is honestly [00:06:00] where I think most people should spend the bulk of their time.

Who is it that could help me get this done faster, more efficiently? Yes, it will cost you some money. But I would argue you should be setting aside some level of operational expenses anyways. ~So, you know, I, I With the operational expenses you've got, I would be thinking about software scr- I'd be... I don't like this This is where I think you sp- should sp-~ This is where I think you should spend most of your time because this is where you could get the most traction.

You should have some level of operating expenses. I mean, you're already going to have maybe software subscriptions, ~uh,~ maybe you're paying for Zoom for client calls, maybe you're paying for different equipment that you might use. You're paying for materials. So you're already going to have an operational expense budget.

So look at that. Do you have the opportunity to bring on some amount of help? This could be an admin to respond to inquiries. This could be a freelancer who does a bit of work for you. Now, what you might be saying is, [00:07:00] "Well, I do this far better," and that's probably true, but could they do good enough?

Likely. Especially with some coaching, they could likely do it. What I like to hear is if somebody else can do it eighty percent as good as you, they can probably take on the task, and with some coaching and encouragement and guidance, can probably get ninety, ninety-five percent of the way where you are.

So thinking about that delegation task, how you're gonna pass that baton on to somebody else. And then look at things that you're not really good at, that you've just been doing yourself. Are you the one maintaining and building your website? Well, maybe there's somebody else who can make a way better website than you that is going to result in better conversions.

Do you need somebody to manage your social media accounts for you so that they can respond to people? That could just be an admin, honestly, to be able to post things for you, put graphics up. That can be a fantastic way of delegating [00:08:00] something that is not necessarily your zone of genius and is honestly too expensive.

Because you can pay somebody else fifteen, twenty dollars an hour to do something better than you because they are focusing on it, but it's costing you time where you could actually go add fifty, a hundred dollars an hour of value to somebody else through work with clients, building better systems, developing a team, developing new offers.

Those are the things that really get the traction, so we want to carve out space. Oftentimes, we look at something and we go, "I'll just do it myself. I don't wanna spend the money on having somebody else do it." We get very much into a scarcity mindset. And I do it myself. I think, "Oh, can I, can I afford this?

Can I really hire somebody else to do this part-time?" We're not necessarily trying to create a career. So go get a freelancer. Find somebody who can help, because often, once you've got that space, that capacity, [00:09:00] another principle follows up. Another principle shows up, which is nature abhors a vacuum, which is you have capacity, which things are going to start filling those spaces.

So if you can delegate the right things, then the right space is created for valuable opportunities that you can take advantage of. And that's really what we're looking for. So think about the admins, freelancers, CPAs. Those different members can be part of your team to take stuff off of your plate in a way that gives you the space you need.

So delegate. Spend time here. Lean into the discomfort a little bit. Obviously, you can't spend money you don't have, but look at your income. You look at your revenue. What could you afford? Because odds are there's a college student out there who would do some things that you hate for peanuts comparatively.

So think about those opportunities you can [00:10:00] take advantage of.

Automate Repeats
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Bryan Steele: And the final one, the final eight that I think a lot of people miss is automate. So many times we're doing the same thing from scratch every time, and we do not learn. You're going through a repeatable process over and over and over again.

You don't need to necessarily do that manually. A good example is somebody sends you an email, says, "Hey, I'm interested in learning more." And so you get on there and you go, "Okay, yeah, this would be great. Love to meet with you. What's your schedule look like?" And then you get into email back and forth, five, six different messages.

I don't know, just to find a time to meet. That can be very simply automated. You can get a Calendly calendar, give it your availability, sync it with your Google calendar, and now you-- when somebody says, "Hey, I'm interested in working [00:11:00] with you," you can send them that calendar. You can say, "Hey, great. Here's a link to my calendar.

Book a time that works for you." One message. A single message. And we can go a step further. You shouldn't even have to write that email each time. There should be a template email in your Gmail, in your email account, where when somebody sends you a message, you just go template, grab, put their name in, send.

And what used to take minutes, maybe five or six messages back and forth, you've turned into a three-second task. That's a powerful automation Now, once you've got those pieces in, you've got some email templates that you've built out. Maybe it's an onboarding process where you give somebody, you know, these tools, and that's all built out into an email that's automated, you know, or a template that you can send Grab it, send it to them real easy.

Love that. Email templates [00:12:00] are a fantastic way.

Forms and Zapier
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Bryan Steele: Level up that a little bit more, you can automate some of this through forms. So you can put a form on your website to know before someone ever talks to you if they are a good fit. I did this all the time for my music production. I had a form that said, "Hey, are you interested in working with me?"

Had your very simple fields: name, email, phone number. But then I asked a couple of key questions. What type of music do you make? Rock, country, hip-hop, rap, pop, singer-songwriter? I would ask them to self-identify a genre. I would also ask them what their ~bu-~ budget was. Now, this was bucketed. Like, I didn't necessarily care a giant budget, but I had a small number, and then I had a medium, and then I ~had,~ had a high.

That's... But really, there's only two things I was looking for out of this form. If they [00:13:00] sent back and said they do hip-hop or rap, I had an automation using Zapier that basically said, "Hey, appreciate you reaching out. I'm not really the right fit, not because I don't know that I would have the skills to do the work, but I don't listen to that music regularly.

I'm not the right person to produce hip-hop because it's not music I listen to regularly. So I don't know what's modern, what's working in that space. I'm just not the right person to do that music." Second, if it's a small budget, I don't wanna waste my time talking to these people on a sales call. Even if I get there in five minutes, I don't even wanna get on that chat.

I just wanna move on and be polite and be kind. Just say, "Hey, this budget really isn't sufficient." And so through one form on my website, I was able to create several automations that said, "Hey, we're not really a good fit for working together." [00:14:00] But if they pass those two, and really it was only a couple things it was kicking people out for, it would then automatically say, "Hey, I would love to talk to you about your project and learn more.

Here is my calendar link. Please schedule a time that works for you." And then when they did that step, ~so th-~ I haven't done a thing. They've gone to my website, they've filled out the form, automation sends them an email where they can schedule a meeting with me. I don't even know they exist yet. I don't even know what's going on.

So they fill it out, they schedule the meeting on their own, and then it's on my calendar. And all I have to do is five minutes before I get on the call, I look at what they filled out on the form, so I know their name, I know what their budget is Maybe if there was some pertinent information, I've captured that.

But now that entire initial process was simplified and streamlined, and I didn't have to spend any time on it. Now, this is something that [00:15:00] takes some time to develop, but it can be very powerful at the end because there are things that I don't have to do that I used to have to do over and over again. So building that system was incredibly powerful.

You can do those sorts of things with proposals and contracts and onboarding and file delivery. There's lots of opportunities to streamline your process, streamline your delivery, and take things that used to be manual and automate them. You just have to create the time to work on those things.

Recap and Assignment
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Bryan Steele: So let me recap.

Three eights, the easy eights. Eliminate, take the fat, take the stuff that is not value added, and cut it. Delegate, find all the things that either somebody is already better than you at or that somebody can be hired to do at least eighty percent as good as you and delegate it to them, right? [00:16:00] This is the part where you really start to be able to scale what it is you do.

And finally, automate those things which you have to do manually over and over and over again. You have to create some space and some time. So my encouragement would be initially, here's your assignment. Take ten minutes and write down those things. When you look at what your week was, what things you worked on in your business, in your side hustle, what were the things you were doing?

What were the things that should be eliminated? The social media, the working on your website, changing your logo Eliminate, eliminate those. Look at the things that somebody else could do. What could you delegate? And then finally, what are the things which you're doing repeatedly over and over that could be automated?

Take those ten minutes, write those down, because now that you've got a list, you've got a list of what it is you can work on, now we can find solutions for those things to create capacity. If you know there's a task [00:17:00] you should delegate, or you need a CPA, or you, you can go find those things. You can, one at a time, you don't have to do this all at once.

One at a time, go fill those gaps. Go find those opportunities to simplify your life so you can focus on what's most important.

Use AI to Streamline
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Bryan Steele: Automation is one that seems intimidating, but honestly, with a lot of the tools out there right now, you can just work with AI or a tool like Zapier, and they've got processes already nailed down, at least an initial skeleton or template that you can work from.

So that's where I would recommend going to build any sort of automation. And when you're not sure, I love to just have AI ask me questions. "Hey, I want to simplify how much time I'm spending on this." So go to ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini, say, "I want to save myself some time and automate some things in my business.

Ask me some questions and help me find out what those things are." [00:18:00] And once you find them, just ask a question, "I want to automate this. This is what I'm doing over and over, and I want to find an easy, repeatable way to automate it, which is gonna be reliable and consistent." And it will come up with ideas, it may ask you some questions, and then you can work with it to come up with a solution to those problems.

These are the things that I actually think AI is really useful for. It's hard to replace us as a human, but as far as looking at the things we do and helping us streamline our processes, streamline those things so we can focus on our zone of genius, that's where the power really is.

Final Takeaways
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Bryan Steele: So take that today.

Do those steps. Eliminate, automate, delegate. Spend ten minutes, identify those things which are not getting you any traction in your business, and start to work through that framework to simplify your life, give you some more capacity. Thanks for tuning in. I will see you on another episode real soon.​ [00:19:00]