What is your time worth? Just knowing this simple fact can boost your income.

I got an email today from someone trying to figure out if they were getting paid the proper amount for a one shot job they were doing.  She used the wrong term to describe the job she was talking about, so I had no idea of what the customary rate of pay should be.  But, the amount she was getting didn’t sound like a lot of money for any job.

No matter what the job was, I suggested first figuring out the value of her time and making sure whatever she does, she makes at least that that amount.  The quick explanation of how to figure out what I’m talking about is:

1. How much do you want to make in a year?
2. How many hours do you want to work (you can figure it weekly, but don’t forget to subtract vacation, sick time, etc.)?
3. Divide #1 by #2, and you should get your desired hourly income.

If someone offers you less than that doing some job, don’t do it, and tell them how much you should get based on the above results.  Notice, I didn’t say in #1 how much do you make, but how much do you WANT to make.  The idea is to always increase your income by cutting out the things for which you make less than the desired hourly wage.  Obviously, this doesn’t always work when you are working for someone else, as you may not be able to dictate your job responsibilities.  But, for us folks working for ourselves, it can be extremely valuable.  Anything that can be done by someone else for less than that hourly rate you calculate should be outsourced, and you should spend that time doing something that exceeds that rate.

My own philosophy is that the ‘going’ rate for a task is usually irrelevent as far as work I’m going to do.  It is not as important as my own rate.  For example, if I want to make 100,000 per year, working 40 hours per week with 2 weeks off, here’s how I’d figure my rate:

(40*52) – (40*2) = 2000 hours per year worked.  (working 52 weeks times 40 hours – 2 weeks of vacation time)
100,000/2000=50. per hour  (annual salary divided by hours worked)

So, in this example, my minimum rate for working is $50/hour.  If someone wants to hire me to be a babysitter, they are going to have to pay me my $50/hour instead of the $5 per hour they can pay the kid down the block.  If you can actually achieve the goal of not doing anything that pays you less than your minimum rate, you will earn much more than the goal, as some of those things you do will pay you more than your minimum.

Then, next year, when you figure out your rate, base it on what you made the previous year.  It will be a higher minimum, and your income will go up once again.

Whoever offers a job may not have enough money to pay you what you should should get.  It’s your decision to take the job on or not.  For example, if it is your family or a friend making the offer, you may want to do it anyway.  It isn’t worth a family fight in order to get paid a few extra dollars.

Chances are that some tasks you do will be less than your minimum rate.  It’s hard to avoid.  But, as long as you concentrate on cutting out the low value tasks and doing more of the high value ones, you can’t help but increase your income.

Using a Blog to Become an Expert Part 1

I was a member of Toastmasters a couple years ago, and recently rejoined the group. If you are unfamiliar with the group, Toastmasters is a club dedicated to improving the members’ public speaking abilities. You can find out more information about them, and probably even find a club near you at the Toastmasters website.

As part of the group, I have to get up in front of the other members and give speeches. Lately, I’ve been doing them in a series, and focusing on different aspects of becoming seen as an expert in your field. A number of the members requested notes on my speeches, especially when they got a little technical, or were a quick how to. So, that’s what this post is all about. I recently spoke on creating your own blog, and here are some of my notes and resources.

What is a blog?

A blog is simply a website in which someone keeps a log of their activities or thoughts. Like a diary or journal. Thus the term stands for web log – we(b log). At this point, it is often used interchangeably with software used for creating these weblogs. And, some of the software has become very sophisticated and is a good platform for all kinds of sites, not just journals.

Why Have a Blog?
Today, blogging has become popular as a means of promoting yourself or your business. Many companies have a corporate blog, and even top level executives keep them. It’s not just for teenage girls to talk about cute boys in school. Some of the reasons why blogging has become popular:

• Promote yourself
• Promote your company
• Rank well in the search engines
• Create a mailing list
• Content management
• Sell stuff
• Have people interact with what you write (comments)

Why use blog software instead of just a plain page?

There are two primary reasons why a blog is better than a standard page. First, it is really easy to add and manage content. Depending on the blogging software you use, you can add a post (that’s something you’ve written to the blog) by simply sending an email to the blog’s own email address. It doesn’t get much easier than that.

The second reason is because of RSS. The term RSS is generally translated as ‘Really Simple Syndication.’ This creates a file with a special format containing whatever you post to your blog. This is called a feed. People use software called a ‘feed reader’ to then ‘subscribe’ to your blog. This means that their software goes out and grabs the content of your blog and brings it back to their computer for them to read, watch, or listen to. It is extremely simple, and you can gain an audience of thousands pretty quickly.

Some people take these RSS feeds and take the content you’ve created and post it onto their own sites. Yes, your content was syndicated to these other sites, just like a television networks syndicates their programs to hundreds of tv stations. The feeds generally have your name and a link back to your website. So, people end up knowing you and visiting your blog because of the syndication of your content. An added benefit is that because it is linking back to your page, the search engines see those links and decide that your site must be pretty important. Your site ends up climbing to the number one spot on the search engines for your topics.