How entrepreneurs give themselves raises.

A business owner doesn’t get a pay bump at a one year review.

Two of the quickest ways for an entrepreneur to increase their income are: 1. figuring out a more efficient way to do a regular task, and 2. selling.

I’m a natural at sharing things that matter to me, so I have always been good at convincing folks to participate or buy, but I don’t love sales for the sake of selling.

Tweaking business systems and witnessing the results, however, really gets me ticking.

We have a beautiful stamp that we apply to our egg cartons, and it essentially takes an hour a week just for labeling cartons. I we work with Bill to come up entire-carton artwork, and have them custom printed (at likely a better price from the source than where we currently get egg cartons), and we’re making the same, but spending less time and money on cartons, we just increased our wage.

And then there is the long run, building a business that is valuable itself, and growing. Your systems build value for other people, and intrinsically cultivates more. The operations you designs earns you raises, and for all the stakeholders involved.