Improve your bottom line by working less By Aaron Nasseh Finical, Inc.

For as long as I can remember I have been told that the secret to success is simply hard work. We still hear it daily on TV, or see a quote on social media, it’s everywhere, and for most of my life I subscribed to the same philosophy. In fact, much like many of my fellow entrepreneurs I took pride in my work ethic, my 12-14 hour days in the office away from my family, sacrificing my health and precious time working on building a successful company. However, when I started my own ISO several years ago, I never thought that it would someday reshape that philosophy. This bold venture proved to be the best decision that I have made in my professional career, as I have learned many invaluable lessons,and I would like to share one of them with you today.

 As an Entrepreneur, I expected to work very long hours, seven days a week, because at the beginning of a startup you have to wear many hats, from the CEO of the company to the mail room clerk, and everything in between. While the company was immediately successful and kept growing,after a couple of years I found myself working harder and longer just to keep up with the daily demands, but something was missing, I never seemed to have enough time to implement new sales initiatives, and I had become a prisoner of my own creation. 

After some deep thinking, I came to the realization that I had stretched myself too thin, and that if I am working 14 hours a day, then I’m not doing the most important job that an entrepreneur should be doing, and that is innovating, planning and executing new strategies. The sad reality was that I was so caught up in the day to day operations of the company that there was no time for me to do anything else.

I know some believe that this could have been solved by hiring additional help, but we had no shortage of good help. If headcount were the answer then we wouldn’t have companies in our industry generating over $600 Million in annual revenue, yet reporting millions of dollars in losses! The problem lied within me, and the reality was that I had lost touch with what I called my Entrepreneur's mind. What is the Entrepreneur’s mind? Most Entrepreneurs’ know exactly what I’m referring to, but essentially it’s the ability to innovate, inspire, visualize, create, stay one step ahead of the competition, execute new initiatives, and above all stay hungry. In short, it’s the mentality everyone has the day before they start their business.

So I took a step back and started working less hours, mainly because I was burnt out, but something magical happened when I did this. My mind started operating like the ambitious entrepreneur that I was prior to starting my ISO, and my energy was restored, so instead of just operating more as an operations manager who is only concerned with getting through all of the daily applications, calls, deployments, emails and etc, I decided to go back to being not just the Chief Executive officer, but also the Chief Visionary officer.

The first step I took was to conduct an analysis of areas affected most by my lack of involvement. I recognized that we could operate more efficiently by restructuring certain departments, and reducing headcount. I also learned that I needed to be directly involved in business development and marketing. Next, I drafted a new vision statement, and set new goals for the company.

Once that task was completed, I immediately began outsourcing many of the less than critical tasks that were previously being done in-house. I know “outsourcing” may sound like a bad word to many, but it’s a fact of business today, and if you are working with a good team then it will drastically increase your productivity, not to mention saving your company a ton of money on payroll. And with the margin compression that our industry has been experiencing, a dollar saved is truly a dollar earned.

Next, I renegotiated our pricing with our processing partners in order to improve our margins, which would enable us to have a more attractive offering than our competitors. We also ventured out and began offering other services such as Merchant Cash Advance and consumer financing. All of this being done with a lower headcount.

I became far more efficient in my work day, and at this point I had cut down my work day to an average of 6-hours per day, and focused primarily on business development. Business immediately began growing as I implemented these new sales initiatives. Within a matter of 7 months our production had more than tripled, with fewer employees in the office, and a bottom line that was looking better each day. In the following months I secured a seven figure line of credit, commenced negotiations in some strategic acquisitions, signed some larger ISO and surpassed our 24 month plan in only 9 months. Needless to say that I was very happy.

Today, on average I work no more than 5-6 hours per day. I am able to spend much more time with my family and good friends, and I am able to take part in other activities that I enjoy, all while the company is setting record numbers.

All of this to say that as an Entrepreneur you simplification to lose your Entrepreneur’s mind, and it’s very easy to do so when you are caught up in the day to day operations of a business. Allow yourself the freedom to take more time for yourself; it’s an investment that pays very high dividends.

The days of reaching high level of success through sheer had work seem to be behind us? We live in a digital age in which you are not rewarded for how much you work, but for how efficiently you work. I hope that this chapter of my life helps you to take a step back so that you may take 2 steps forward. As the legendary hockey player Wayne Gretzky said “Skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been.”

Aaron Nasseh is the founder and Chief Executive Officer at Finical Inc. His extensive sales and management experience includes having previously served as the General Manager ofCardPayment Solutions and Vice President of Sales at payment Inc.