Improve Your Productivity with This Game-Changing Method
Hernan Vazquez quit multiple jobs after a simple paper exercise showed his digital marketing agency ScaleDriven earned him the most per hour and brought the most fulfillment. He spent the next three years growing it tenfold in revenue and to 30 employees. The framework ranks your projects by hourly rate and satisfaction, then you cut or delegate the rest.
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3 years ago, I was making the most amount of money that I've ever made in my entire life. I was making really, really good money every single month, but I was also feeling on the brink of burnout. I was also feeling super overwhelmed. I was so busy that I couldn't enjoy anything. And I made this one decision that changed my life forever. So if you're feeling overwhelmed and distracted as an entrepreneur or a business owner, this video is for you. Hey everybody, Hernan Vazquez here with scaledriven.com, and today I want to share with you guys a story that kind of changed my perspective 180 degrees when it comes to the power of focus. You see, 3 years ago I was feeling really overwhelmed. I was playing many and wearing many, many hats. I was marketing director for a couple of companies. I also had my own agency. I had a couple of companies out there. Training companies and whatnot. And I was making really good money. I was getting salary from 2, 3 companies. I was actually making really good money from my own ventures and my own businesses. But the reality is that I felt that I was on the brink of burnout. I wasn't feeling successful at all. I wasn't feeling good with where things were going. I wasn't feeling good at all with myself. You know, I was neglecting my health. I was neglecting a lot of things. And when that happened, I actually knew that I had to make a decision because that wasn't sustainable. I was super overwhelmed and super distracted. I was doing 15 things at the same time and nothing seemed to actually make sense anymore. So what I did was this really simple exercise that I wanna share with you if you're feeling overwhelmed or if you're feeling distracted as an entrepreneur, if you're feeling that you're spinning your wheels, if you're feeling that you're stuck or you've been stuck on the same revenue or on the same growth for a while, I want to share with you what I did that really helped me focus and hone in and actually made me a happier person. So the exercise that I put together was really, really simple. I just grabbed a piece of paper and I divided that in a couple of columns. Column number 1 was how many hours was I dedicating to each of these projects? Again, I was marketing director for a couple of companies. I was advising a couple of other companies. I also had my digital marketing agency and I was partnered with a couple of partners in many digital products. So I went ahead and I kind of laid this down. on that piece of paper. That was column number 1. What was the project that I was focusing time on? Column number 2 was how many hours per week I was dedicating to each of those projects. So client number 1 will take me X amount of hours per week. Client number 2 will take me X amount of hours per week. Client number 3 or project number 3 will take me X amount of hours per week. So I kind of laid it down and laid it all out on that column. so that I could have visibility on how many hours I was dedicating to each of these projects. The next thing that I did is how much money I was making for each of these projects. So this client was paying me $10K a month and this client was paying me $5K a month and the agency was making $15K a month and all of those things I was actually laying it all out in that piece of paper. So I went ahead and divided this column into how much money I was making for each of these clients and each of these projects that I was involved with. And then the next column was really simple. I divided the number of hours, the amount of hours that I was working for each of these clients, and I divided that by the amount of money that they were paying me every single month. So for example, if client A was paying me $10,000 a month and I was dedicating 100 hours per month, then that would mean that they were paying me $100 per hour, right? So I went ahead and did that with each of the clients. So that gave me my output or my worth per hour. For each of these clients. So again, divided the amount of money that I was receiving from that client or from that project every single month versus how much time I was dedicating to that particular project. And then the last column was something that was a little bit more subjective and arbitrary, if you would. I whip out a pencil and I grade it from 1 to 5. I actually use stars, 1 star to 5 stars, how successful and fulfilling I felt by doing those things because fulfillment and success are things that are really important to me. Maybe for you it's something else. Maybe for you it's how much free time you get from this customer or this client or this project that you're involved with, right? But for me, feeling successful and feeling fulfilled, it was a really, really big deal. So I went ahead and I put together all of these projects that I was involved with and I graded from 1 to 5. 1 star was I wasn't feeling fulfilled at all, I wasn't feeling successful at all, and 5 was I was really, I was feeling really successful and really fulfilled. So I went ahead and graded all of these projects that I was working on and that I was servicing so that I could grade them in terms of success and fulfillment. Now as a side note, you kind of need to understand what success looks like for you and fulfillment looks like for you. For each of us it's a little bit different, right? So you want to make sure that if this client or this project is making you feel successful and fulfilled, you actually want to define what that means to you so that you could do this last step successfully. So I went ahead and did all of this. So at this time, I had my 5 or 6 projects that I was involved with. I had how many hours I was dedicating to each project. I had how much money they were paying me to be part of those projects. I also had how much my time was worth for each of these projects. And I had how fulfilled I felt for each of these projects as well. And something really curious and interesting happened. The thing that was paying me the most amount per hour, not the most amount of money per overall, right, but the most amount per hour was my digital marketing agency. And funny enough, that was also the thing that was making me the most fulfilled and feeling the most successful of them all. So I wasn't necessarily deciding by how much money I was making from each of these projects, but I was deciding on how much my time was worth if I dedicated all of my time to that project. And number one, and number two, I was also thinking how fulfilled and successful I felt by actually doing that. And it was like magic. I realized after doing this exercise that My digital marketing agency that I've had for years, and I had a small team, was the number one thing that was making me the most successful, or that was making me feel the most fulfilled, but it was also the thing that was paying me the most money per hour. So my question next was like, what if I could dedicate myself 100% to this one thing that's paying me, A, the most amount of money per hour, but I'm not dedicating the most amount of hours to, Number one, but also number two, how successful and happy would I feel? So after seeing these really clearly on a piece of paper, I decided to go all in. I decided to go all in on that one thing, on that digital marketing agency that's now ScaleDriven, but I decided to go all in. So I went ahead, I called my clients, I told them that I wouldn't be servicing them anymore. I went ahead and, and demoted from a really good marketing director position I talked to my partners that I was kind of sharing some projects with and I told them, hey guys, listen, I'm out. Here's my share. If you want to buy it, that would be cool, but I'm out. So I went ahead and that took me around 3 to 4 weeks to kind of lay the stage for me to focus 100% on my digital marketing agency. And from there on out, this has been like 2 and a half, 3 years ago, and from there on out we experienced a 10x growth in terms of revenue that was coming from my digital marketing agency just by using the power of focus and the power of dedicating time to those things that made me feel really fulfilled. And most importantly, they were paying me the most amount of money per hour. Now, this doesn't mean that you can only do this exercise if you are, you know, if you're wearing many hats or if you're spinning many plates like I was. When I discovered the power of focus, I went ahead and my business grew 10 times. We went from just a handful of people to 30 people in the span of 2 and a half years, right? It doesn't mean that you need to be involved in many projects. In fact, if you only are involved in one project and you have, let's say, one business and whatnot, you could be splitting your time in many different projects or tasks inside that same business. So the difference between that and what I was doing is that I was an entrepreneur. I was Dedicating my time to many, many different projects. But if you dedicate yourself, your time to many different projects in the same company, that's called being an intrapreneur. And there's some migration and mindset shift that I need to make in order for, for me to become and to go from an entrepreneur to an intrapreneur. So now all of the things that I do, they impact ScaleDriven in one way, shape, or form. When I launch a new funnel, it impacts ScaleDriven. When I launch a new offer, it impacts ScaleDriven. When I'm making a partnership with somebody, it impacts ScaleDriven and the growth of that business. But again, you as an entrepreneur or as an intrapreneur, you might have many plates spinning. We all do, right? We are all involved in different projects and different verticals and different things. So what you need to do is to kind of rework and tweak this exercise that I just shared with you so that you can actually which activities are you doing on every single day on a daily basis, which activities are bringing the money to your business, right? And which activities are making you the most successful and feel the most fulfilled? Because if you only do those things, if you get rid of everything else, if you delegate or automate or eliminate all of those other things that you're doing and you only focus yourself on doing those activities that really move the needle, meaning they bring in the revenue for your business, number one, but number two, they make you feel the most fulfilled, you will feel the momentum. Your business will grow, and additionally, you will feel great with your business. So if you're feeling overwhelmed or if you're feeling distracted, if you're thinking that you're spinning your wheels, it might be because you're focusing on those things that are either not success or fulfilling for you, but also number 2, they don't bring the revenue for your business. So I strongly suggest that you go ahead and sit down and schedule some time to go through this. Take your time with this. It might take you 30 minutes, it might take you 2 hours, it doesn't matter. It's a high-yield, high-leverage exercise that you can do. You only need a piece of paper and your brain, and that's it. So I hope that this was helpful. If you find it helpful, please go ahead and share it with somebody that needs to see this. Share, comment, engage with this content so that more and more entrepreneurs can get out of the overwhelm mode and into the productive and fulfilling mode. And if you want more marketing tips, more marketing techniques, more business conversations in your feed, in your timeline, in your phone, make sure that you follow. And thank you guys so much for watching this. I'll talk to you guys next time. Bye-bye.
