Buy Back Your Time: Get Unstuck, Reclaim Your Freedom, and Build Your Empire

by Dan Martell

A Buyback Loop occurs as you continually audit your time to determine the low-value tasks that are sucking your energy.

Then you transfer those tasks, optimally, to someone who’s better at them and enjoys them. Lastly, you fill your time with higher-value tasks that light you up and make you more money. Then you start the process over again. Did you catch it? Audit, transfer, fill.

Audit: What tasks do I hate doing that are easy and inexpensive to offer someone else? Transfer: Who do I have on my team—or who can I hire, even part-time—to take these over? Fill: What tasks should I focus on that I love doing that can immediately bring more money to my company?

“perseverance without passion isn’t grit, but merely a grind.”

Love this!

our passion is where our marketplace value lies.

It’s easy to think, They’re lucky, or They’re privileged. But the truth is, they built their lives following the Buyback Loop, investing time where it matters most, and reaping the rewards.

Successful people aren’t doing what they love because they’re rich. They’re rich because they’ve learned to do what they love, and only what they love.

Audit your time to find time- and energy-sucking tasks that others can do Reinvest that time in money-making initiatives and activities Set aside time to grow your business Invest only in tasks that make you the most money and light you up

Of course you should hire help, but you should only hire help with the right mindset. Remember, the Buyback Principle tells you exactly how to hire: Don’t hire to grow your business. Hire to buy back your time. Most entrepreneurs aren’t thinking about their time, they’re just thinking, I need some help to get something done. So you hire someone to help. The challenge is you now have another person to manage on top of all the work you were already doing. The way to grow is to START with your calendar (time).

80% done by someone else is 100% freaking awesome.

In his smash hit The Infinite Game, Simon Sinek discusses the power of a never-ending approach to life and business: “Infinite games have no finish line, and the goal is to keep the game going as long as possible.”[10] While some entrepreneurs think, One day, I can stop this madness if I work hard enough, smart entrepreneurs think, Today, I’ll build a game I want to play forever.

Your time is worth how much your business pays you divided by two thousand hours.

Many entrepreneurs hire away the parts of their business they love the most. This typically happens accidentally—as they grow, they don’t hire to buy back their time, they hire for a position or role, mistakenly making themselves the administrator of their own company. 80% done by someone else is 100% freaking awesome.

If every employee you hire sucks, it may be your training. If every client has the same complaint, maybe there’s a problem with your delivery. If you keep having the same business problems at the same intervals, it may be your strategy.

I’d told them what to do, but now I needed to let my team figure out how to do it—that was their responsibility.

When you crown someone else king or queen over a responsibility, you are abdicating your role, and that’s why you feel freedom. No longer is it your responsibility. Jump back in, and you assume the stress, and you lose the freedom.

Audit where you’re spending your time, energy, and resources. Do you love what you’re doing? Is it making you lots of money? Check your feelings—how do you

feel about your business right now? Freedom? Flow? Stuck? That’s a good indication of where you’re at on the Replacement Ladder. Transfer the tasks associated with that rung of the Replacement Ladder. Even if you technically have someone performing the work, if they aren’t responsible for the rung’s associated tasks, then you haven’t fully climbed that rung yet. Fill your new time with tasks that make you the most money and light you up. If you don’t remember what those are, refer to your Time and Energy Audit from earlier: look for green tasks with

lots of dolla...

Responding to emails Scheduling Project research Cleaning up data Updating reports Financial workflows Sending gifts to colleagues Travel arrangements Purchasing Administrative tasks Website updates Social media publishing

Make a rule for yourself: I am no longer ever, ever allowed to touch an email that wasn’t first checked by my assistant.

Unlimited predictability is more valuable than intermittent quality.

The most successful companies execute consistency, not just one-off quality. If you want to scale your company, you must learn how to repeat excellence throughout the organization.

When you plan, you have time for more spice, more fun, and far more creativity.

Hack 2: Sync Meetings with Repeat Agenda

Off-load: I keep my own separate list of to-dos, action items, and follow-ups. I update this list between my sync meetings. At the beginning of our sync meeting, I off-load all the items from this list to my administrative assistant, and she takes it from there. Calendar Review: Next, we review my calendar for the next two weeks. We consider what needs to be added or removed, and we discuss where I need more or less time for tasks. Past Meetings: My administrative assistant keeps a

list of all my meetings since we last spoke, so during our sync she can review them, and I can tell her about any action items that came out of those meetings. My Action Items: These are items I need to complete. Importantly, if there are supporting documents, emails, and messages, my administrative assistant provides all that information with the appropriate links in a live document. Feedback Loop on Projects: My administrative assistant brings up projects that I’ve assigned to her so she can update me on progress, discuss roadblocks, and inform me once they’ve been

completed. (Can you imagine never needing to ask yourself, Did this get done?) Emails: In this section, my administrative assistant links all the emails she wants me to review, such as opportunities that have come in, correspondence she’s unsure how to action on her own, and items that require my response. Questions for Dan: If we finish all the above before our thirty minutes are up, my administrative assistant asks these questions to build context about me and ways she could better support me: “Dan, how are you feeling right now?” “How are you decompressing?” “What recurring problems are keeping you up at night?” Over time, my administrative assistant learns how and why I make decisions. The number of items in the “Emails” and “Questions for Dan” sections goes down, while those in the “Feedback Loop” increase. The information lives in a live document my administrative assi...

crafting this sync meeting template, my administrative assistant recently said this: “Every possible item that could come...

Hack 4: The 1:3:1 Rule

1 Define the one problem that needs to be solved. 3 Offer three viable solutions.

1 Make one suggestion from that list of possible solutions.

You aren’t the best person to solve most problems anyway. Remember, your work is someone else’s play.

5 Buyback Rules I don’t love the word hack, but there are a few hacks that will save you immense time and energy: $50 Magic Pill: Give everyone on your team an amount of money they can spend to fix problems without your involvement. Sync Meetings with Repeat

Agenda: The final hack to unlocking massive scale with your administrative assistant is to have regularly scheduled sync meetings. Follow the Sync Meeting template on page 151 to optimize the time. Definition of Done (or DoD): Every time you transfer a task or responsibility, give your employee a DoD that puts you both on the same page about what “done” actually means. A DoD will typically include facts, feelings, and functionality. 1:3:1 Rule: (Thanks to Brad Pedersen for this one!) To avoid too much upward delegation in your company, require that every

person who brings you a problem defines the one problem, offers three solutions, and then gives their one recommendation. When you start using these time hacks, you’ll need to give up one thing: your ego. Overall, as you off-load responsibility to others, you are telling them “You can...

“A” players like to work with other “A” players.

Hey, Jennifer. It’s Dan from SaaS Academy. Your team said you’re the best sales manager around. I was wondering if you could give me five minutes of your time on how you’d build out our sales team. . . .

Why are you interested in this position? What do you know about our company? What is your ideal work environment? What are your strengths?

Where do you see yourself in five years?

5 | THE “TEST-FIRST” HIRING METHOD I opened this chapter with Seth Godin’s simple rule: “I can’t work with you until I work with you.”

I give them a project that is representative of the actual work we will do together. I always pay them. I don’t give many instructions.

Here’s an example of a real test project I’ve given to one of my

assistants: “Send a thoughtful gift to Kyle at Proposify.” Notice that I don’t give many instructions. I want to understand how my potential assistant uses resources and how independently they’ll work. I’m allowing them to bring their own creativity, and I’m also teasing out whether this candidate will save me time by figuring things out on their own or cost me time by stalling and refusing to make their own decisions. I’m less concerned with them “nailing it.” If they send me fourteen emails with questions, then we aren’t a match. If they research Kyle, then send him a thoughtful gift, now I

know this candidate has technical chops, creativity, and empathy—all m...

6 Buyback Rules This chapter, we’ve got six things to remember. Be clear: Remember to be certain about what you’re looking for in a candidate. Cast a wide net: Hiring ultimately comes down to numbers. To get a large number of qualified candidates, ask current employees, use job boards, and look for those who are currently working. Require a video: Ask all candidates to upload a three-minute video. Right here, many people who didn’t read the instructions will self-eliminate. Use profile assessments: Have each candidate (who’s made it this far) do a personality assessment. The “Test-First” Hiring Method: Don’t work with someone until you’ve worked with them. Have your final few candidates perform a test task. Sell the future: Once you’ve narrowed your list to the one right candidate, switch gears. Now you want to sell the role to them.

“Adam, if you need help, I’ll cancel meetings, brainstorm, do whatever’s necessary to support you. However, ultimately, this is why I hired you,”

If you want to have a high-performance team, learn how to coach successfully.

You build the people, and the people build the business.

5 Buyback Rules Smart leaders don’t tell others how to do something. They tell them the end results that need to be achieved. Then they allow the other person to use their individual creativity to figure out the how. Every person in your organization, from the frontline worker to the CEO, has responsibilities, their own individual “monkeys.” When given the chance, humans are prone to putting their monkeys onto others, and we’re all prone to adopting their monkeys too easily. Don’t. Ensure that each person is empowered to handle