Do You Know How to Buy Time? I Do.

It is really funny how many times I hear somebody say “You can't buy time.”   I don't agree with this idea at all.  If you are anybody who is a business owner or wants to succeed in life you have to learn to buy time.  In fact I will make the statement that you have to go beyond buying time and learn how to leverage the time that you buy.

One of the great mistakes that many budding entrepreneurs make is spending too much money too soon and they run out of cash. At the other end of the spectrum is the guy who wants to do it all himself and save every penny he can. The guy that wants to do it all himself and save every penny he can is the guy that needs to learn how to buy time first and leverage time second.  Otherwise he will just struggle and never get ahead. 

Fly First Class – Buy Time

After all isn't somebody buying time when they buy a first-class airline ticket and get to go to the premium security line? Aren't they buying time when they get to arrive at the flight anytime they want? Isn't a first-class customer buying time because he can get on the airplane first and continue to work while everybody else is boarding and trying to find a place for their bags?

It isn't just flying at the airlines where you can buy time. Aren't you buying time you buy a prebaked cake from somebody like CakeTahoe.com instead of making your own cake from scratch? In fact aren’t you buying time every time you drive through for a meal at a fast food restaurant and don't make a sandwich yourself?

Are You Buying Time Because You Wasted It?

If we look at the fast food example problem is fairly obvious. This is usually buying time because we are hurried and frantic and behind schedule somewhere else. I mean let's face it wouldn't we all rather sit down and have a reasonably decent meal at every meal instead of driving through and stuffing our faces as we rush off to the next meeting? This is where you make now make the shift from buying time leveraging time.

Use The Holidays To Save Time

The holiday season is a great time to learn how to leverage time. We all have to send out Christmas cards to different people. And if you're in business or sales need to send out thank you cards to different people. If you are separated from your family during the year you might want to send your parents a thinking of you card. Sending out online cards are one method of doing this but the truth is there's nothing that replaces a real card.  Buying, signing, stamping and sending out all those cards can be very time-consuming.

Yesterday my wife and I bought and leveraged a lot of time. It  is pretty simple so I wanted to share this with you. We used Send Out Cards to connect to both of our computers and upload our contact managers. We selected four different holiday and thank you cards to send out, from the hundreds of designs Send Out Cards has online and added them to our favorites. The next step was pretty straightforward, we just selected a card from our favorites and then checked the boxes next to the names in the contact manager who we wanted to receive that specific card. We did this four times, and send out cards will print, add postage and mail all of them in the next couple of days.

For our customers we are able to add a small gift. For a couple of family members who we won't see this holiday season, we added a couple of photos. You just can't do this with an online card, and there isn't anything like a real card during holiday season.   With an online email card, your message might get lost in the thousands of messages that go out this time of year. 

Normally the process of sending out all of these cards would've taken two or three days worth of each of our time. For the full truth stuff, it is true that in order to do some of the really cool features we did have to fill out a handwriting card and send it in so that the cards first.  This way the cards we send out can be written in our own handwriting. We also had to upload the pictures. That little bit of an investment allowed us to leverage time, not just buy time or save time.

Buying Time v. Leveraging Time

The difference between buying time at the drive-through and leveraging time with send out cards should be pretty clear. At the drive-through you are the only person who benefits. With send out cards we benefit in time and future sales and our friends and customers benefit from the message you send.

This time of year send out cards servers are a little busy so you have to be patient. I still think the two hours time spent to send out over 200 custom cards, that were  signed in my handwriting, and personally addressed to each person or company as if I had handwritten the card, is an amazing accomplishment. Send Out Cards is as good as leveraging time with a virtual assistant who is dedicated to just keeping in touch with your family friends and customers. Send Out Cards even has automatic reminders for birthdays, anniversaries and other events. There are not that many tools in the business world that allow you to leverage this much time for so little money. If you haven't seen Send Out Cards, click here for the demo site or drop me an e-mail and I'll be happy to introduce you to Send Out Cards.

Send Out Cards is a unique opportunity on both a personal and a business level to leverage time and maintain communications channels that are than anything else I know of. So if you'd rather go out skiing instead of spending two days handwriting cards, click here or drop me a note.  Until I hear from you, I am going skiing.