I have mentioned my dear friend and cleaning customer Dennis Gehman of Gehman Design Remodeling many times on this show. That's because he is such a blessing to me.  I thoroughly enjoy our breakfast conversations as we both leave sharper and more ready for our day when we do. We had the opportunity to meet for breakfast earlier this week for the first time in a few months, so we had a lot to catch up on. We usually pray to start our meal and toward the end for the Lord's favor on our lives and businesses. 

There was one segment of our conversation that was so rich that I had to pause to take some notes for a future podcast. Here's how it went.

"Dennis, I hear so many time management and business coaches teach us to maximize our output by delegating the tasks we don't need to be doing. It might cost $500 to have a graphic designer do a logo for me, but if I did it myself it would be 25% as good and take me at least 10 hours. My time is worth as a minimum $100-$200 per hour based on some of the higher rates I earn in cleaning and coaching. If I spend 10 hours to save $500, I actually am spending 10 hours. This 10 hours costs me $1,000 - $2,000 in lost income or opportunity cost. Therefore, do I delegate the logo or not. Clearly I do."

Dennis agreed with everything and wondered where I was going. I continued.

"When I was in high school, my Pop-Pop taught me how to refinish a dresser, basic gardening, and basic car maintenance. We'd buy the oil and filter at the part store and do oil changes in the garage by putting the car on the ramps. It cost about $10 in supplies in 1993 and 2-3 hours of our time. The same oil change cost $30 in the shop, so it saved me $20 and that was a lot as a 16-year-old. I continued changing my own oil and doing basic maintenance into my early 20's based on what my Pop-Pop taught me. But eventually, I got to the point where my time was more valuable and have been paying my mechanic to do my oil changes and maintenance. Last week, my rear window stopped working. I made an appointment to get it fixed knowing it would cost me $300 in parts and labor. My wife convinced me to do it myself to save $250 as the part was only $50 and there were YouTube videos teaching how to do it in an hour. I was further convinced when my friend Barry from church offered to help me do it at his house since he just completed the same repair on his exact same Honda Pilot. The job took 3 hours total in time from leaving my house to back again and $50 in parts. Again, my time is worth $100-$200 per hour, so I had an opportunity cost of  $400-$600 for a project that costs $300 in the shop. This was a mistake, right?"

Read the rest of this article at the Smart Cleaning School website