What Is the Invisible Spend?

The Invisible Spend is the cost of an owner's time spent on low-value work someone else could do, paid for with the high-value work that never gets done.

It never shows up on your P&L. Every hour you spend reclaiming screens, chasing art approvals, or answering "where's my order?" is an hour not spent on pricing, training your people, or building sales.

I call it being a $200 brain doing $20 work. If you spend 15 hours a week on tasks you could pay someone $20 an hour to handle, your shop isn't saving $300. It's losing 15 hours of the only person who can fix pricing, set direction, and land the big accounts.

How do you find your Invisible Spend?

Track your time for 1 week. Mark every task as either something only you can do, or something someone else could do with training. The second list is your Invisible Spend.

What did you do yesterday that you could pay someone $20 an hour to do?