Earlier today, a wily ham sandwich (with sprouts, mustard and havarti cheese that is) made an assassination attempt on my life! I was eating lunch and the ham sandwich was looking sooo good – so I decided to stick the majority of it in my mouth at once. You know to get to the good stuff. The problem lies in that jamming a hand full of sammy into your mouth also blocks your airway – so you must choose: the sammy or your life. I chose life.

Afterwards I lay on the hardwood floor of my kitchen gasping and asking myself the question (as many often do) why do you eat so fast Maren? The answer is that I am greedy and I want instant satisfaction now. That and I want to get on to the next part of my day – but instead I should eat like I do business, that is breaking everything down into little manageable bites.

Some of you, probably who haven’t been reading this blog for long are like “What the Flip?” - but you others, the old timers, know that I’m going somewhere with this… promise.

How to build an empire…

Often when your in a business setting the over used phrase “Rome wasn’t built in a day” is thrown around when people try to get ahead of themselves. Rome wasn’t built in a day (duh) but it was built through a lot of persistent, goal orientated, actions orchestrated by several groups of people. This, as luck would have it, is also the exact recipe to build an extremely successful business empire.

I’m building an empire – not a freelance career – an empire. If I was a freelancer I would trade hours for dollars, instead because I leverage the use of virtual assistants and detailed project plans my income  goes up exponentially in relation to my hours worked.

Building an empire by delegation…

You can build an empire too, all it takes is passion, action and learning the magic of delegation. Delegation comes down to two factors: 1) how much is your time worth per hour and 2) what are you not excellent at.

If your time is worth say $100 an hour and your awful at copy writing than it’s far better to hire a copywriter at $30 an hour who does exceptional work and save your strength for what you are the best at. If you are amazing at website design but you know you can hire a pot smoking college kid for $25 an hour – you have a decision to make – I say since your amazing at it, just do it. But if you think the stoner will do as good of a job – have him do it and free up your valuable ($100 an hour) time.

Seeing your time as worth X dollars an hour is the best way to build an empire I know of. Not only is it an extreme self esteem building exercise (which is necessary for you to succeed), but it helps you delegate tasks and start thinking of yourself as a business – not a freelancer.

What ham has to do with it…

Also important to fulfilling your goals and building an empire is not eating your ham sandwich in one, jaw breaking bite. Instead take tiny nibbles at it and if necessary let the mice help you out (read: mice = small jobs you can delegate elsewhere).

So don’t choke to death business wise. I know you want to build the next Google, Youtube and Walmart combined, but instead focus on small goals while gunning for your major overarching goals. These ‘baby steps’ to success will get you there far faster than taking out a $500,000 loan and hiring 10 staff members.

Look to the most successful companies within your industry, nine times out of ten they all got there by eating their sammy in small, precise little bites. Walmart, Berkshire Hathaway and Google were not built in a bite… nor should you be.

(Told you I get back around to the sandwich analogy, Ye of little faith!)