How I Run My Online Business in 5 Hours A Day

I want to share with you how and why I work 5 hours a day and not 8 or 9, and how I made it possible while also growing the business and earning a full-time income from the business. And this is a little off-topic from the norm here on my channel but this is real life for me, so I hope you’ll pick up a few bits of useful info so that you, too, can create some flexibility in the time you spend in your business or side-business.

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How I Run My Online Business in 5 Hours A Day

A couple of years ago, I drove by the car wash in my town, and I thought, “ya know, that’s like the ultimate business model right there.” People come on their own, wash their car either in the do-it-yourself bay or the touch-less automatic bay, vacuum it if they want to, and get an air freshener from the vending machine if they need it. It’s completely self-serve. The owner shows up to do some maintenance and upkeep. I could be wrong, but I feel like the most time-consuming part of the car wash business is counting the quarters and cash then taking them to the bank.

I started thinking about the ways that I could make my business operate more like a car wash, streamlined and systematized. We can do one thing in several different ways, and as long as we keep getting traffic, the business can almost run itself. The car wash concept has kept me in line over the last year or two. This made it possible to scale back the number of hours I spend working IN my business, but still make it grow.

A lot of people don’t do this. A lot of entrepreneur/business coach-type people don’t put the car wash model into context when they talk about scaling, growing, outsourcing, and defining success. All of those things can vary based on the business model, and how the business actually makes money. (I don’t actually own a car wash, this is a content creation business)

Breakdown of VidProMom’s Multiple Streams of Revenue

My business, VidProMom, has multiple streams of revenue, but they flow from one main source that involves eyeballs. I’m talking about traffic.

I create and publish videos on YouTube. When people watch them, YouTube pays me a cut of their ad revenue. I don’t have to publish a video every day or every week for that to happen because the whole library of videos on my channel is generating views and revenue, even though I published them months and years ago. This is a key point to the whole “working 5 hours a day” thing that I’m getting to.

Turning the videos into blog posts generates another revenue stream through the ads in the blog posts have. When I mention a product or software in my videos and blog, I use affiliated links to get a commission for viewers that make a purchase off of my recommendation. Plus, it doesn’t cost them any extra.

Sometimes, I work with a brand on a promoted video, where they pay me a lump sum in exchange for me creating a video featuring their product or service. Created these promoted videos can be time-consuming which is why O don’t do it a lot anymore. For me, I’d rather put my energy into creating content that leads people to my own products.

Another stream of income I have is a membership program called Video Pursuit Society (that’s a digital product). It supports content creators to start and grow their online business using YouTube. Video Pursuit Society is my signature program. We have a membership portal, a course on getting started with YouTube, monthly action plans, a FB group, and Q&A calls. It’s a really fun, supportive group of content creators, most of whom are doing it part-time, that I love spending time with and supporting. I have a couple of other courses like Social Video Pro which is a video editing for beginners course, and the Earn 1k/month with YouTube workshop.

I list all these revenue streams to see if I have something in my business model that you don’t see in yours, or you envision a business model similar to mine.

Working 5 Hours A Day On My Online Business

I only have 5 hours a day, so let’s talk about that.

After dropping my kids at school, I have exactly 5 hours of time each day in my office dedicated to working. Could I work in the evenings? Sometimes yes, but usually no. I’ll do some emailing or something on my iPad while watching TV sometimes but it’s not very effective for me. With a kid in high school sports and a spouse with work hours that don’t have a cut-off time, I don’t really have much time on my hands to work extra hours in the evenings.

While I was working, I started creating content 6 or 7 years ago then my job let me go. Instead of going to get a new job, I put all my time and energy into my online business. There have been years where I worked 8 or 9 hours a day. I like to work. Sometimes leaving my desk at 2 pm doesn’t feel good because I’m in the middle of something and I’m in the zone. However, for this season of my life, this is where we’re at. We’re at 5 hours a day.

Strategies On How I Get Everything Done

So how do I get everything done and still grow my online business working only 25 hours a week?

First of all, I have help. I have 3 virtual assistants, Elisha, Stephanie, and Cynthia. They all work part-time and have specific roles and tasks they’re responsible for. The things I don’t personally DO myself such as turning my videos into blog posts, repurposing them for IGTV, creating new video emails, managing my email inbox, and more are what my virtual assistants do. We have systems and processes in place for exactly how to do those things. Hiring help and managing a team has been a big learning curve for me, but without them, I wouldn’t be able to focus on growth.

This is where the carwash concept comes in. As a team, they keep all the moving parts running, not completely without me, but quite a bit of it is without me. Even if I don’t publish a YouTube video every week, they can update older blog posts, re-vamp some things, and improve our SEO. Running VPS, my membership program is the same process every month. I show up every day in the FB group and for our Q&A calls and everything, but it’s very much like “rinse and repeat” from month to month.

Mondays are what I like to call my CEO day. I take a look at what I got done last week and move over anything that we’re still working on (most of it is stuff I am working on). I check in via Zoom with my team to see what they are working on and what they need from me. For the rest of the week, I’m just checking things off my task list, creating content, and working on the challenges/workshops.

The second thing is managing my energy. I’ve been working on embodying my Human Design with the help of my friend Lauren. It’s been really eye-opening in terms of learning what works best for me in how I make decisions show up in my business, and what I should be working on myself vs outsourcing. The biggest BIGGEST breakthrough was recognizing that there’s a difference between outsourcing stuff that takes up lots of my time vs stuff that takes up lots of my energy.

The third thing is prioritizing focusing my energy on the revenue-generating stuff, while the team is keeping the car wash going. I’m setting up and running my 5-day challenge or revamping the core lessons inside of VPS. Recently, I created a whole workshop outlining How to earn 1k a month with your YouTube channel even if you’re just getting started or doing it part-time.

There are some things that people don’t say or talk about in terms of content when it comes to running an online business. One of those things is having a supportive spouse. I recognize my privilege of having another income-earning adult in my house. This allows me to focus on building a successful business not based solely on monetary success, but also on flexibility and being present as well. On the flip side, my husband also has the privilege of focusing on his job and knowing someone else is doing all the school pickups, sick days, doctor’s appointments, sports practice, etc. That kind of relationship and support is not something that everybody has, but it certainly helped make my business what it is.

Another thing is what constitutes full-time income for me is probably different than for you. It took me a good long while to get to where I was making more than my full-time job in my TAKE HOME pay from my business (TAKE HOME not revenue). It was not fast for me. I made a lot of mistakes, I learned a crapload of lessons, and I made TONS of mindset shifts along the way.

All of which brings me to what I said way back at the beginning of this blog. My YouTube channel and blog generate revenue whether I publish regularly or not is a key to the whole 5 hours a day thing. Since they are the source of passive income streams, it gives me the space to use my energy for growing my business rather than doing client work.

If you want to learn more about the 5 easiest YouTube revenue strategies that work together, so you can mix, match, and maximize your profit and discover which revenue streams are most lucrative for your niche or your business idea, join me for the Earn 1k a month with YouTube workshop.

VIDEO: How I Run My Online Business In 5 Hours A Day

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