One of the biggest keys to business success is…leverage.  John D. Rockefeller famously said “I would rather earn 1% off 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own efforts.”  As one of the founders of Standard Oil and the richest man of his time, John D. Rockefeller had successfully mastered the game of business through leverage.

So what is leverage, and how do you create it in business?  There are many ways to describe the term leverage…to achieve greater results with less effort…to create an advantage…to divide to multiple…however from a business or investment standpoint, my favorite definition of leverage is:

“Do the work once, get paid forever.”

So often I see business owners do the work in their business for which they get paid once, and if they want to get paid again, they do the work again and so the cycle goes.  Sell the work once, do the work once, get paid once…sell the work once, do the work once, get paid once.  What if you approached your business from a different perspective, and ask yourself the question, “How do I do this work one more time for which it will pay me forever?”

A simple example of how his works was quickly discovered by ActionCOACH founder and CEO, Bradley J. Sugars.  Brad spent many years traveling around the country delivering single seminars, teaching business owners his simple and guaranteed formula to increase your business profits by at least 61%.  Brad did the seminar once, and got paid once and if he wanted to get paid again, he did another seminar.  Brad realized, that there were more leveraged ways to teach business owners his profit building formula that would enable him to do the work once and get paid forever.  First, Brad wrote his best-selling book “Instant Cashflow” which is available online and in book stores around the world.  Secondly, Brad hired a team of business coaches to present his seminars for him.  Thirdly, Brad then created the ActionCOACH Business Coaching franchise system, enabling him to sell his profit building formula to entrepreneurs to present his seminars for him.

How many times did Brad write the book “Instant Cashflow?”  Once.  How many times did Brad have to create the hiring system to hire great business coaches?  Once.  How many times did Brad have to develop the ActionCOACH Business Coaching franchise system?  Once.  How often will these innovations pay Brad forever or for at least as long as he chooses to own the rights to them.  John D. Rockefeller, Brad Sugars, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Richard Branson all get paid in their sleep, because they understand how to create leverage in business.

It’s easy to say…’I’m not like Bill Gates‘ or ‘I don’t want to be the richest man in the world, I just want to be able to pay the bills and create a better life for myself and my family.’  Awesome…then you can use the principle of leverage in your business too, whatever the reason you went into business.  Here’s how…

There are 4 ways you can begin to create Leverage in your Business immediately through:

1. People & Education
2. Marketing
3. Systems & Technology
4. Finance

One of the fastest ways to create more leverage in your business is to hire people who have more skills than you do in the key areas of your business, and to continue to educate your employees on how to improve their attitude, their skills and their productivity.  The second way to create more leverage in your business is to learn to increase your number of Customers, your Revenue and your Profits.  The third way to create more leverage in your business is to standardize, document and automate how you do business, so you can teach anybody with the basic skills required how to get results in your business.  The fourth way to create more leverage in your business is to learn how to invest more of your money to make money, instead of investing your time to make money.

Your financial independence through your business comes from your ability to leverage your money to make more money and your ability to leverage other people’s time to make more money.