hey it's patti scharf CPA and co-founder of catching clouds the leader in
e-commerce accounting and today I'm going to talk about something a little
bit different I'm not going to talk just about e-commerce businesses I want to
talk about something that applies to all businesses and actually I think to
everybody kind of in the world or at least in America I'm reading this book
called essentialism the disciplined pursuit of less by Greg McKee
sorry I know I butchered that but in any case it is it's a great book I'm not all
the way through it yet I'm not going to give you a book review I just want to
say that as I was reading this a few things came to mind so the gist of the
book is talking about how we as people can do less but better right now we're
living in a world of busyness so not business but busyness where people are
there they're just so busy being busy if you ask somebody in America hey how are
you doing they say something like I'm so busy and that's not actually how you're
doing that's or that's more I guess literally how you're doing but we want
to know how you are as a human being and being and doing is not the same thing
and I think with the increase in screens and you know everybody's just attached
to their phones all the time it increases this sense of anxiety people
don't have time to think they don't have time to plan what they want to do and
what's really important is that people have some time left over time to think
time to breathe time to exercise and eat right and sleep time just to recharge
and to be with their family and their friends and do the things that they
enjoy doing you know basically just enjoy the fruits of all their labor so
so that's busyness and I was kind of juxtaposing that against business a lot
of people that I know a lot of business owners they really focus on the gross
revenue of their business oh you know I've got a two million dollar business a
five million dollar business and I feel like they are
so much about maximizing their gross revenue so the the total amount of sales
that they get from operating their business and they're not focusing on
what they should be focusing on which is the net income for the business which is
the net income is the amount after you've paid your payroll and paid your
overhead and paid for the cost of products you're selling and things like
that and just like with time really the whole goal of having a business is to
have money left over because it's that money that's left over that really fuels
your dreams I mean it's it's the excess money that provides security so that
you've got extra money in the bank in case there are hard times it's that
extra money that gives you freedom so you don't have to go work for somebody
else and it's that extra money that helps you build your dreams let's you
launch that next project or the next business or whatever so my point here is
that when it comes to time people shouldn't be focused on how busy they
are when it comes to their business they shouldn't be focused on that top-line
revenue in both cases you should be thinking about what's left over the
leftover time that that you can spend doing the things you want and the
leftover money that you can use to spend doing the things you want and that
should really be your focus so you should be thinking about all the things
that you can do to leverage that time so that you can do more with less or as
Greg whose last name I'm not going to pronounce again in essentialism as
saying do less but better do figure out what the most important things you are
the most important things you need to do are so that you can use it as a lever to
maximize the things that will get you where you really want to go and I think
that all sounds great in theory I know the next question is probably great so
how do you propose I do that I would I would say just start by reading
essentialism I think it's a really worthwhile read I have a few links down
below to other YouTube videos that you might want to check out if you have a
business and you're thinking about getting rid of
things that you shouldn't be doing as a business owner you should be focused on
sourcing products you should be focused on marketing you shouldn't be doing the
accounting yourself I have a blog post and a video about how to find an
accountant to help you out I hope you like this video if you did please hit
the like button and comment share with your friends and if you haven't already
please subscribe and I'll catch you later