A 🔑 Step in Hiring Smart Calculate Your Hourly Rate

Good Morning,

It's a good day to have a good day friends! ☀️

Welcome to another Sunday Sips, where we dive into small actions with big impacts! This week, I want to challenge you to dig into a number that often gets overlooked but is crucial for anyone looking to grow and hire effectively: your hourly rate.

Why Calculate Your Hourly Rate?

As a business owner, depending on the stage in business you're at, your time is worth more than you might think. But for this exercise, let’s calculate it on a full-time level to get a baseline. Knowing your hourly rate not only highlights where your time has the highest impact, but it also helps you pinpoint which tasks might be better handled by others.

This clarity isn’t just for you; it’s the foundation for understanding the true cost of your time and making smart hiring decisions, because like the image above says, build the people.

How to Find Your Hourly Rate:

Here’s a quick breakdown to get started:

1. Know Your Annual Profit Goal – This is the net profit you aim to take home by the end of the year. Note: if you take a W2 paycheck from the business, add that back in to profit.

2. Total Billable Hours – Estimate the number of hours you realistically work per year. Note: a full time job is roughly 2080 hours -- I know you work more but let's use that -- the more you work, the less your hourly rate is 🤯)

3. Calculate – Divide your profit by your hours.

For example, if you want to profit $100,000 this year and you estimate around 2,080 hours, your baseline hourly rate is roughly $48.07.

Note: As owners, our value is directly tied to profit -- if you are not happy with your hourly rate, we are giving you the tools to help increase it through READY for Growth and PRIMED for Growth. (insert shameless plug 😬)

Why This Matters for Hiring

When you know your hourly worth, you gain a clear benchmark for which tasks make sense for you to handle and which can be outsourced. If an admin task costs you $30 per hour, and your time is worth $48, passing it on is a smart financial move that frees you up for high-impact work.

This Week’s Challenge

Take 15 minutes this week to calculate your hourly rate. It’s a small action but an essential piece of the puzzle for any business owner who wants to grow without getting overwhelmed.

Hit reply and let me know if you discover any surprising insights along the way.

Don't forget -- you can still get signed up for READY for Growth. A FREE live training to start planning for 2025. Hope to see you there tomorrow to discuss how to understand your Profit and Loss better!

Here's to less hard days, constant growth, and a clear path forward. Proud to have you on #TeamLoseNoProfit as we build a business that works smarter to support our goals. Together, we thrive 🚀

Alicia Brentzel

Founder, From the Cut