Companion to "The trigger math" and "Your decision on paper."
| Column | What counts | Your hours/week |
|---|---|---|
| Only-me hours | Sales conversations, pricing decisions, quality standards, key client relationships, judgment calls | |
| Buyable hours | Delivery a trained person could do to your standard, scheduling, confirmations, supply runs, invoicing, inbox, setup and teardown, scripted follow-ups | |
| Wasted hours | Fixing your own mistakes, doing things the long way, work that exists only because a system does not |
| Work turned away this month, priced | $ |
| Refused work above your buy-back cost, twice your payroll line: green light | ☐ Met ☐ Not met |
Working rule: a first hire without benefits costs about 1.15 to 1.3 times the wage. Worked example as taught: a $25 wage buys back at about $29 loaded; 8 hours at $29 is $232 a week bought; redeployed into delivery at a $65 rate it earns $520; net +$288 a week before the hire sells a single extra thing. In soft demand the same 8 hours drifting into $15 busywork earns $120 and the hire costs $112 a week plus management attention.
| Market wage for the buyable work | $ / hr |
| Loaded hour (wage × 1.15 to 1.3) | $ / hr |
| Your rate (or your priced sales hour) | $ / hr |
| Freed hours per week, named destination (not "more capacity") | hrs → |
| Buy side: freed hours × loaded hour | $ / wk |
| Earn side: freed hours × your rate (demand exists to absorb them ☐) | $ / wk |
| Net per week | $ |
If you cannot name where the freed hours go and what those hours earn, you do not have a hiring case. You have a hope case, and hope does not clear payroll.
| Quality slipping on only-me work: cost of one lost client vs a month of payroll | $ vs $ |
| Growth work starved: last sales hour priced; the math is done talking above about four loaded hours of help cost | $ / hr |
| Fake triggers checked off as rejected: fatigue, the write-off myth, wanting to feel like a real company | ☐ Rejected |
| Redeployed value clearly clears the loaded cost, and demand exists | ☐ Go ☐ Not yet |
| Decided on this day | |
| Re-run on this day (every quarter is a new trigger test; refused revenue, your rate, and the market wage all move) | |
| If not yet: cheaper lever first (raise prices, cut scope, automate the recurring task, batch it) | ☐ |