How to Get the Best Return on Your Investments
Applying the concept of ‘ROI’ to more than just money is vital to your success.
In today’s article, the Divas explore the concept of ‘ROI’ or Return On Investment. They look at the idea of getting the best ROI on our Time, our Money and the investments we make in Ourselves.
We each have ONLY 1,440 minutes every day – that’s it! How are you investing those minutes? Are you investing them wisely?
The Divas recently explore the ideas in a book called ‘The 12 Week Year’ by Brian P Moran & Michael Lennington. The 12 Week Year takes the 80/20 principle or Pareto principle to new levels of effectiveness. Not only do the authors encourage us to identify the 20% (on average) of activities in our business that generate 80% of our results, they help us to understand how to structure our TIME to ensure we’re actually engaging in those activities every week and therefore bettering our chances of reaching the goals we set for ourselves.
Oh yeah - and they want us to think in terms of 12 weeks being equivalent to 1 whole calendar year!
Here’s the theory in a nutshell:
annualised (yearly) planning is holding us back from truly achieving what we’re capable of
We set goals at the beginning of the year.
We find we’re falling behind on those goals already by the middle of February.
We fall into the trap of annualised thinking and say to ourselves, ‘It’s only February. I’ve got plenty of time to reach those goals by the end of the year! I’m not worried.’
We get to 30 September and we’re hopelessly behind budget BUT we somehow think we’ll pull out a miracle in the last 3 months of the year. INSIDER TIP: if you haven’t managed to make magic happen in the first 9 months, you’re unlikely to make it happen during the last 3!
the 12 Week Year is the key to planning in such as way that keeps us in productive motion
12 weeks = 1 ‘annualised’ year; 1 week = 1 ‘annualised’ month; 1 day = 1 ‘annualised’ week. What we do EVERY DAY becomes critically important to reaching our 12 week goals.
We set our overall or long-term goal, then break it down into 12-week ‘blocks’ where each 12 week block has its own individual goal. Then, we break that goal down into 12 x 1-week action plans.
We EXECUTE for 12 weeks, then use week 13 to EITHER finish up or take a well-deserved break.
We set a new 12-week goal that helps us get closer to the overall long-term goal. Rinse and repeat.
The Divas will be using the 12 Week Year strategy moving forward for our own planning, and we highly encourage YOU to give it a good go yourself!
When it comes to ROI on your MONEY…
We are NOT financial advisors and aren’t holding out what we’ll say next as financial advice; however, we do highly encourage you to access someone who is well-qualified to help you sort out your financial goals and how to reach them! TODAY, what we want to discuss is the concept of your Financial Values. What the heck are financial values? Well, they’re the guidelines or parameters by which you weigh up financial opportunities in your business and life. Because we know money is in constant motion, don’t we? You have money, you buy or invest in something and that money you had flows into someone else’s hands for a while until they spend or invest it in something, and on and on. We need to embrace the concept of being good ‘stewards’ of the money we have while it’s in our possession - taking care of it and putting it to its highest and best use.
Every person has their own desires, dreams, goals, risk tolerances and timeframes. Your financial values are unique to YOU, so you need to first determine what financial game you’re playing! What are YOUR goals, YOUR dreams, YOUR risk tolerance and YOUR timeframe for achieving your goals? There are so many books and programmes out in the world that want to show you how to play the money game - but it’s THEIR financial game. While some of their strategies might make sense for you, don’t blindly play someone else’s financial game. Because their goals, dreams, risk tolerance and timeframe could be (and likely are) completely different to yours.
Instead, get in touch with what’s REALLY important to you, what will help you live your fullest life and what feels good in your core. Here are a couple of interesting statistics:
peak happiness occurs at around $70K - 80K USD per year in income (that’s $113K - $130K NZD) (Princeton University study)
work performance falls off a cliff after about 30 hours / week - especially if you’re over 40 years of age (‘Why a 30-hour Workweek is Good for Business’ by Leigh Stringer)
How much do you really need to earn in order to be happy? Once you know the rules of your own financial game, apply them to your investment and purchase decisions. One concept the Divas like is this: ‘If your employee were asking you for permission to spend money on that THING (that new piece of office equipment, that car, that subscription), would you approve it?’
Remember to get your EGO out of the way! Less ego = more long-term wealth. We humans are funny. We like to show off and ensure people around us know we’re doing well. The problem is when we spend too much on short-term, ego-stroking STUFF, we may end up disappointed down the road that we didn’t wait and invest that money a bit more wisely.
When was the last time you invested in YOURSELF?
Warren Buffet said, “The best investment you can make is an investment in yourself – the more you learn, the more you will earn.”
In the Divas’ experience, NOTHING gives a greater return than investing in our own personal and professional development. Investing in expanding our knowledge base, investing in up-skilling and building mastery in an area of strength, investing in getting the right people and support around us to help us BE more, DO more and HAVE more - now THAT’s working smarter, not harder.
Sometimes, we need to give ourselves permission to invest in ourselves instead of constantly putting ourselves last. Let us tell you something now - YOU ARE WORTH IT. Your business will never out-perform YOU as the owner. You set the pace and the example to others. When you level up, the whole situation improves.
You have a choice every day…spend your hard-earned money on things that don’t really matter in the grand scheme (another latte, that new pair of shoes) or waste part of your precious 1,440 minutes each day scrolling through social media feeds; OR you can invest that time by listening to an audiobook that teaches you something new; you can invest that money on a course that will help you level up your business or in a mentor to help you shorten the learning curve. The choice is yours, but the consequences of your choice will stay with you for years to come either way.
Here’s how to take action on investing in yourself:
Set a budget - Decide how much time you’ll invest and the amount of money you’ll invest. We set aside money for holidays, new clothes, cars - the list is endless - but we rarely think to budget for our own growth. Join that very small % of high achievers in this world who DO!
Create a plan - Identify which specific programmes you want to participate in or which books you want to read. Block out time in your diary each week (as per your time budget) - ‘FOCUS TIME’! Ensure your environment and the people around you are set up to support you to honour your focus time.
Work that plan!
Do you feel like you could be doing SO MUCH MORE with your business? Do you have an idea for a business you’d like to LAUNCH but have no idea where to start?
Then, you need to INVEST IN YOURSELF by joining our 90 Day Business Blueprint programme. In it, we’ll show you how to get your mindset sorted so that you feel unstoppable, how to clarify what you really want from your business, how to clearly express what it is you offer and to whom AND we’ll even help you perfect an email template to introduce people to what you do and how you can serve them. And that’s not all - go HERE to read more and learn how to Identify what your ‘next best step’ is.
