Professional athletes lead busy lives. How do they fit things like cooking and cleaning into a day already filled up with practice, working out, and studying? Most of them don’t—they hire people (i.e., they buy time) to do those tasks for them.
While most of us aren’t professional athletes, we lead busy lives, too. If we can, we hire help. Think about it. Think about how much money you make per hour at work. If you can hire someone to do your laundry for less than that and don’t, basically, you’re taking a pay cut to wash your own clothes. Unless you really like laundry, that’s a bad deal.
So, take a company like laundry service that comes by your house, picks up your laundry, and drops it off when they’re done. They do your laundry, but their real business is selling time. You pay them money, and in return, you get a free hour (or 2 or 3) you would otherwise have had to spend doing laundry.
If you think of time in this way, you can increase your efficiency at work by looking for ways you can both buy and sell time.
When you delegate tasks to people who can do them better than you, you buy time from them.
When you work to save your client hours, you sell time. For example, say you sell real estate. Learn what kind of property your client wants, then narrow the options for them. Then, instead of showing 50 houses, you show them five. Time is a very valuable commodity, so selling time increases the value of the service you offer.
When an internet page takes too long to load, you click on something else. If a restaurant takes too long to bring your food, you don’t go back. If there is a long line at a grocery store, you complain. We’re all looking for a little more time.
Time is what people want. Buy it and sell it.
Eric Kasimov is the founder of SportsEpreneur, part of the KazSource media network. Since launching the platform in 2015, he has hosted over 500 podcast episodes, written and published more than 1,500 articles, and advised business leaders, founders, and creators on building authority through media strategy.
Through his brands — KazSource, KazCM, SportsEpreneur, and QuietLoud Studios — Eric leads teams that produce podcasts, develop brand platforms, and help companies grow through modern content ecosystems. He also scaled KazSource Insurance into a seven-figure boutique agency, providing the foundation for the broader media network he operates today.
His work has been featured in Forbes, Axios, and Front Office Sports, and his podcasts have included conversations with top founders, investors, and athletes turned entrepreneurs.