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Amazon Selling Expert & Internet Marketing Thought Leader

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How I manage multiple businesses & a big family

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Before I can give you any advice, I need to give you a simple choice.

Choose A or B:

A: You can have $1,000 cash right now, but you will have to work hard for 20 hours in exchange.

OR

B: You get the same $1,000 but you can pay someone else $850 to do those same 20 hours of work for you.

Your answer tells me a lot about where you are in life.

Those who are the masters of their time and money choose option “B” EVERY TIME.
Those who view the world through an optimistic lens that sees opportunity everywhere answer “B”.
Long term thinkers choose option “B”.

however…

Those who are desperate will choose “A”.
Those who have planned poorly or haven’t yet overcome tough circumstances choose “A”.
Those caught in the rat race choose “A”.
Those who live a life centered around instant gain and immediate pleasure choose “A”

While I’m often asked how I manage it all, my answer to that question is only helpful to those in category “B” or those striving to reach category “B”.

People who are content to be category “A” people will find the following info virtually useless and you are probably finding yourself feeling insulted right now (please re-read my words carefully – there’s no insult to be found).

I’m making no judgements here. Which type are you?

Until I was about 25 years old I was an “A” person who was DETERMINED to become a “B” person. We all start somewhere! It doesn’t happen overnight. It takes work and sacrifice.

The rewards and lessons are here for you if you are interested:

  •  Limit Your Hours: I limit my hours to about 20 per week so I can spend time on the things I truly find important in life…like my family and my health. This also gives my brain time to come up with great ideas. If your business isn’t profitable enough to hire help and outsource, then it’s either a bad business model or you are a control freak. Either way – fix it or drop it and move on. Need great biz ideas?  I have some great ideas for you (read my “Silent Sales Machine” book).
  •  Use Great Tools: Tools such as aweber, basecamp, paypal, clickbank, odesk, nanacast and facebook help automation and communication. TIME (not money) is your most limited asset. Respect it, master it and take no prisoners in using it the way you WANT to use it.
  • Email and “tech” is outsourced: nearly all email is answered by my trusted support team and I don’t do “tech”. Stop focusing on adding new “techie” skills to your resume. Any “techie” task you are doing now could be getting done by someone better, faster and cheaper. Same goes for customer support etc.
  •  Relationships and Customer Service Matter: I have paid moderators making sure that our membership sites with thousands of members maintain top notch advice and response times.
  •  Trust Your Team: Trusted partners do the heavy lifting on highly profitable win/win projects while seeking my advice only on necessary details. I’ll work with over 50 partners this year, but I have no employees. Get over your control issues. The fact is, you are unlikely to be the best person to be doing most of what you are doing in your business right now. Embrace that fact and fix it (don’t add new skills, add great people).
  • Automate Everything – Even Marketing: my list of fans, readers and customers grows daily even on days I don’t do anything. How? I even automate finding new customers by constantly putting out quality content that appeals to my target audiences. This article is an example. Over the next 2 years hundreds of new potential clients will join my free email list because of this article.  (check out 101freemarketing.com)
  •  Partner With The Best: the list of good people who want to work with me grows literally daily. Reputation matters. The phrase “build it and they will come” rarely applies in business, but it DOES apply to reputation! Also, if you are the one with all the big ideas in your biz, then your box is too small and it needs stretched.
  • Have good filters: I say “no” to almost all of the invitations, ideas, people, calls, emails and distractions that get in between my goals and me. Embrace the word “no” and use it often. A sign of success in life is that you are using that little two letter word often (or even paying others to say it for you). Lazy underachievers rarely use that word. How do I identify good ideas? Pay attention to what’s working well for others and duplicate their efforts without getting bogged down in the parts of their system that are broken.

Let’s chat about it – leave a comment using the comment button.

Comments

  1. Jim, thank you for this post. I have been struggling with this lately as I find more and more tasks adding up daily. I have been trying to decide if having someone handle my email would be beneficial. After reading this, I would say YES!

      • How do you begin to outsource this task? I’m like Wayne above, now I want to outsource everything that doesn’t bring value to my life. My very first ever cleaning lady is coming tomorrow!

        • Unless your cleaning lady charges you $350 per hour, she’s worth every penny. As well as I know you Kat, your time is worth AT LEAST that much per hour. 🙂

        • Kat,
          I had to chuckle on that one. I just hired someone to clean the house as well…

  2. Hi Jim,
    Another great post! In the past, I confess I was a bit of a control freak, but I’m learning to “let go” and the funny thing is that once you do…you really do make more money by doing less. Thanks for sharing!

  3. Jim – Thanks for the great ideas. I will share them! Blessings to you and your family – Barbara 🙂 PTL Jeremiah 29:11

  5. Hi Jim,

    Great post and very helpful info, I appreciate you constantly reminding us how important it is to outsource. I hope to be embracing outsourcing as soon as I can get enough business going, to warrant it.

    Thanks for caring about our success and for always reaching out to us with helpful tips.

    God bless you and your family,
    Kevin

  6. Very useful post, but unfortunately it does not apply to me. My business is not profitable enough to hire help. I’ve been selling on Amazon FBA for a year and It seems that Azon is taking most of my profits. I try to find items that I can resell for at least double and most of the time I do find those items, Before buying I look at the ratings, revenue calculator, item quantity, etc. , but most of my items are still sitting there. The most I’ve earned is $425 net in December. My average inventory is 85-150 products and I understand I need to have a lot more inventory, but the problem is I have no room for all those boxes and shipping material and between printing all those labels and buying every day, boxes all over my house, it gets really stressful and overwhelming. So with me, it’s a paradox: I need more inventory to earn enough to hire someone, but it is overwhelming for me to do enough shopping to see decent earnings. You bet I’m desperate, I’m running off of savings and don’t have any other income. I just don’t know how people manage to be successful at doing this.

    • Kel – Have you ever met someone who was willing to drive across town in order to use a $5 coupon? It’s a basic math problem to determine it’s a waste of time, money and energy right? The fact is, you make your money when you BUY your inventory…not when you sell it. If you are working hard to pull down $400 in your best month, then you are buying the wrong stuff! There’s no paradox here – it’s math. Stop throwing money at product that you aren’t sure about. “Double your money” isn’t good enough. Triple your money is the LOWEST inventory you should buy. I’ve got a new course coming out soon teaching how to source product locally from yardsales, estate sales, thrifts etc. Because you took time to leave a comment I’ll get you free access…drop me an email. That’s a good next step for where you are at. With very little investment you can get a $5K per month biz up and running fast. jimcockrum(@)gmail.com

      • Hi Jim – Could you post a link to the sourcing at yard sale, thrift store, etc.? I would love to get started this way. Small investment and great ROI. Thank you!

        • we have a new course coming out soon called “buy local sell to the world” that will blow you away – it’s everything you need to be a local sourcing powerhouse. Look for it in an upcoming newsletter very soon!

          Free newsletter: SilentJim.com

  7. Outsource It:

    It took a long time for that message to sink in but, oh how I thank you for pounding it in.

    Once you get the hang of it you want to outsource everything!

    Thanks Jim,
    Wayne

  8. Jim,

    Thanks for the post. Excellent information.

    I saw the response you left Kel. I was curious about the business you can set up fast to 5 k per month. Am very interested. Can you share a link or should I visit one of your sites?
    Thanks Eric

  9. 100% with you. I am battling to find who I can get to do the work. Firstly I am not sure of what needs to be done , but even where I do know, how/where do I find people/companies that I can relay on to do the work. So many of them understand “web pages etc.” but not manking money on the web, and so we do not connect. Can you point me to a good place to start or to find outsourcing partners?
    Frustrated.

  10. Don’t try to do everything and never do anything for 1 reason. There are many worthy things than you can do for 2 or 3 or even more reasons. Even they will be best managed by prioritization. Yet still, many of them will still never reach the top priority, that is, what you’re doing right now. Your time is your capital. Invest wisely.

  11. twenty hours a week of in the trenches day to day work or 20 hours of delegating and creating new ideas, projects etc.?

  12. Jim,

    I get the point here but there is a much more likely “C” senario that goes like this: What if your best projections say you think you can have $1000 (but not guaranteed) but must pay $850 for the “hard labor” now in order to find out? Would you do it?

    This is in fact, the situation most find themselves. They have a product, perhaps that they created, but are more “creators” vs. “marketers”. They really don’t want to get into the “20 hours of hard work” and would prefer to hire someone else to do it. So they are looking at $850 of expense with no guarantee that they will make a dime from the effort and with a buck, fifty-seven in the checking account!

    So now, in Senario C, it does, in fact, look more like you’ve become an employer, because your success is dependent on your partners’ abilities. If they don’t perform, then you don’t make it and you just spent $850 for nothing or little return.

    So maybe the question is either (1) Do you role the dice for your “labor-free” $150 or maybe the better question, (2) How do you go about finding those partners that pretty much assures you that you are, in fact, going to get your $1000?

    I hope this makes sense. Obviously, I’ve been struggling with this very issue for a while. I’m open and searching for some answers here.

    Russell (aka an A trying to become a B)

    • You don’t yet see the world through the lens of unlimited opportunity….that’s what I’m seeing. I see $100 blowing around in the wind. It’s a world view that serves me well – and it’s accurate as well. We are taught that money is elusive and reserved for the lucky and greedy. That’s simply not true. Money flows to those who create value and ANYONE can begin creating value at any time if they live in a nation of free markets (which we still do even though the system has plenty of enemies with power).

  13. I new to this forum but not to the Internet. However most of my money seems to going out to scams. I’m looking for something solid, that doesn’t cost a lot of money because I just don’t have it and something that won’t take years to learn. Is that what Mr Cockrum is all about?
    Thanks,
    Bernie.

  14. Jim, Saw you at Rhea Perry’s HBC this weekend in Huntsville. Read three chapters in your eBook already, and can’t wait to get started in your program.
    My Added Motivation: I woke up in a panic this morning because I forgot to sign into my employer’s website on Friday to complete my timesheet for last week. UG !!!

  15. Very well put, Jim. This is deep. Very deep. My first business failed because of my inability to say “no” and over-accommodating losers. I was too nice. But I learned from it. Thank you very much Jim.

  16. I guess I am an A type person striving to be a B. The problem is I’m not a control freak I just know it will only take 1.5 days to do the work and make $1000 leaving me with 5.5 days in the week for other stuff and now I would have the money so I could do other stuff. Of course it would only take a few minutes to hire someone and make $150.00 and that would be great if I could repeat it a few times during the week.

  17. Thanks, Jim!

    You are inspiring. I, too, seek that online business to set me free from my 9-5 software enginering job. I, too, homeschool my children.

    I have read your Warrior Forum responses to members and am reading your ebook now. As soon as I’m done with it, I will be purchasing your PAC system.

    Thank you for all the valuable content you provide. Because of your content, I now have no doubt I will succeed!

  18. Hi Jim, so I started about 18mo ago and have done ok with RA and OA and WS, I am a coaching client of yours by the way, have 3 PL’s that are a “Harvard Education” one I gave to Amazon directly (I was thinking that they will market the “heck” out of it and i can keep a small profit, NOT SO, it’s sitting there like a dud) another is a supplement which is way too competitive and costly therefore and a third (all are different try outs in different categories) is a piece of jewelry and it goes very well. I am reading your book just now. . . need to scale my business, where do i start to outsource? I can and love handling my business, it’s fun. But not scaleable alone. Any suggestions??? Thank you!