"Work Smarter, Not Harder."

How many times have you heard the refrain: "Work Smarter, Not Harder." Sign me up, right? 🙋🏽‍♀️

But what does this really mean?

I know what I think it means—which I will share shortly—but I realized that I had never actually read a definition. So here’s what Sir Google had to say.

There is the productivity definition from the engineer credited with coining the term, meaning “a work simplification program to increase productivity using less effort.”

There is the energy optimization definition that tells you to “Focus on high-impact tasks. Know when to quit. Batch activities. Leverage your internal clock.”

There is the protecting your peace definition of prioritizing “the most important activities so you end each day feeling satisfied rather than overwhelmed, over-committed, frustrated, and overworked.”

For me, it is all of the above plus, for expertise-based business owners, the application of leverage strategies that are required to scale our businesses. Scale means increasing revenue and profit.

Increasing revenue without increasing profit is working harder, not smarter.

Leverage strategies include (but are not limited to):

• Delegate - Use employees who are less expensive than you to deliver the service.

• Automate - Use technology to aid delivery.

• Productize - Create a productized service that can sold and delivered efficiently.

• License - Create an asset that can be licensed to multiple third parties.

• Certify - Teach other professionals to use your assets.

• Outsource - Use subcontractors to deliver a part of the services.

Surprise, surprise; all of these strategies have at their core the development, protection and leveraging of intellectual property (lol, actually no surprise there😅).

If you are confused about what IP has to do with leverage strategies, then you need to listen to my podcast! IP is not just the outward-facing stuff like books and courses. It is also the internal tools, methodologies, and SOPs that you use to deliver superior results for your clients.

Allow me to paraphrase Janet Brady: IP! IP! IP!