It’s hard to figure out how to be a productive entrepreneur.
For me, effective communication is EVERYTHING in productive entrepreneurship.
This means you have to be rather careful about your time, and what you spend it on.
Many times, however, it’s hard to recognize whether offers thrown your way are worth that time.
They’re either nebulous, promise the moon, or are structured to seem enticing, but end up being completely irrelevant once you meet the other side.
And unfortunately, you won’t gain the time you’ve just lost back.
"Effective communication is EVERYTHING in productive entrepreneurship."
I try to avoid this by asking the other side what it is they’d like to speak about ahead of time. Especially when the other side wants to “work together “, it’s always nebulous to me.
For example, the other side could want you to work for them for free. Which isn’t automatically a bad thing, but the exchange has to make sense.
In “How Much Should I Be Paid for My Speaking?”, for example, I refer to examples in which being courted to speak without pay could actually make sense. In a nutshell, there are more ways to pay someone than just in the financial sense. Read that article here.
The other side may want to work together in some capacity that yields no return whatsoever for you. It may make sense to them. They may even be genuinely eager about what they have to offer, but in your circumstances, it just doesn’t work.
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What I’ve learned over the years is that it’s perfectly OK to ask for more specifics before you agree to give your time away, even on a call.
It is valuable to do so, and can save you a ton of time, effort, and even aggravation.
Being stingy with your time is not just OK, it’s a smart move by a productive entrepreneur.
What I’m saying here is that it’s ok to be stingy in some instances.
When it comes to time especially, being stingy can mean freeing up time you would have spent on something else. Even if it’s walking your dog. Or finishing that puzzle with your child. Or getting those charts finally done.
Time, after all, is money. Especially for professionals like us.
