Grow Your Business Without Working More Hours | Chris Wray
Does growing a business mean more hours and more chaos?
Most people think growing a business means more hours and more chaos. Here’s the real reason I help businesses automate, and how it buys your time back. I run my consulting business from a small island in the Pacific, capped at around four hours a day, and revenue still grows. In this video I share why I do it this way, and how you can build a business that runs without you. In this video you’ll see:
- The trap almost every business owner falls into
- Why I built the life first and the business second
- What automation actually buys you (it isn’t the beaches)
- The “ama” principle: why your systems are the thing that keeps you steady
- Your free next step to find where your time is leaking
Get the FREE Automation Audit mentioned in the video.
Transcript
The trap almost every business owner falls into
Most people think that being a successful consultant means more clients, longer days, and a calendar you
don’t really control. And for years, I believe that, too.
Today, I run my business from a small Pacific island or from here in the beautiful Czech countryside. I kept my
work around about 4 hours per day and the revenue still grows. And I’m not telling this to you to impress you. It’s
a decision that anyone watching can make too. And in this video, uh, I’ll show you exactly how I think about this
particular subject.
hello, I’m Here’s a trap that almost every business owner falls into.
Who I am
You start something and it works, so you take on more. So there can be more clients, more tools,
more follow-up um or more living in your head. And the cruel part of this is that reward for doing well is that your time
gradually disappears.
The moment I burned out
More success means more chaos and less time. I know this because I did this too. I built the business first and
tried to squeeze in life in the gaps that were left. I’m Chris Wray. I’ve been doing this for around about 25
years. I’ve helped over 400 businesses uh and getting their time back and growing revenue using practical systems
and automation. So, Notion, Pipe Drive, Asana, Airtable, Make and AI, and a whole host of other tools. But this
video isn’t about the tools. It’s why I did it this way. In a previous business, I totally burned out. I was the typical
consultant and fell for the typical consulting trap.
Why I built the life first
More clients, more calls, longer days to fit things in. The project work I simply stopped enjoying. I used to keep a post-it note
in a frame on my desk. It said work is supposed to be enjoyable. I’d got to the point where it had just stopped doing that.
On paper, it was working. So, the revenue was there, the clients were there, but I was running on empty and I’d stopped enjoying most of it. Every version of the future I could picture, it was just more of the same.
What this actually buys you
That was the moment I stopped asking how do I scale and I started asking a different question. So what do I actually want my
working days to look like? Most of us buy a course or follow someone online that we admire. We copy their model and
then accept whatever life that model hands us. We build the business firstand deal with life afterwards. I think that that’s now backwards. So, I flipped it. I decided the non-negotiables first.
I write in the morning. I get out on the water and paddle with the team. I have French lessons. I keep my weekends and I
built the business inside what was left.
The ama: why systems keep you steady
People assume 4 hours a day is actually a limitation, but it for me it’s the point. Capping my time forces every single part of the business to earn its place. Now I want to be clear about what this actually buys because it isn’t really about the beaches or the countryside,
lovely as they are. It’s about the leads that never get dropped. It’s about follow-up that happens automatically. A pipeline I can trust without me touching it and a business that keeps working even when I’m not sat at my desk.
That’s the real luxury. Not doing nothing, but knowing the important things still happen when you step away from the business.
What I do now
If you ever felt like the business only works when you’re glued to it, that feeling is fixable. Here’s the idea that everything I do is
built on. Where I live in the Cook Islands, people travel huge distances on outrigger canoes.
The thing that makes that possible is the ama, the small float on the outside of the boat. It’s not glamorous. It sits off to the side, but it’s the reason that the canoe doesn’t capsize, and the reason you can go the distance
Your next step
In a business, your systems and your automations are the ama. They’re the unglamorous thing on the side that keeps
you steady so you can paddle towards what actually matters and still get where you need to go. Freedom doesn’t
come from working harder. It comes from building things that keep working without you. So that’s what I do for a
living now. I build the same systems for my clients that I built for myself. We take a business that’s carrying a lot of
tools, a lot of manual work, and we turn it into a calm operating system that runs whether the lead is there or not.
The result my clients care about is simple. More revenue per hour, more hours of their time back. This is for you if you’re good at what you do, but the admin and the follow-up are eating into your week. If you’ve got tools that aren’t joined up yet, if you’re the
bottleneck and you know it, it’s not about adding more software. It’s about designing a business that gives you your life back when it grows.
If any of this sounds like the business you want, here’s your next step. Uh, and it’s free. I’ve built a business automation audit. Uh, it’s a short self diagnosis. Takes about 20 minutes. Uh, and it shows you where your time is leaking and how to fix it. You answer
the questions. You get a clear prioritised list of what it’s costing you in hours and what to do about it. The link is in the description go
and check it out now while this is fresh because that’s the fastest way to see what’s possible in your own business.
If you want my help when you’ve done that, you know exactly where to start. I’m not interested in building the biggest business. Um I’m interested in building one that quietly funds a life I actually want to live. If it’s that kind of business that you want too, I can help you build it. So, subscribe if you want more of this, and I’ll see you in the next one.
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