Are you looking to maximize your income this year in your business? Of course that’s a silly question you’d love to maximize your income this year.

It would be a dream come true. The hard part isn’t wanting it though. The hard part is what do you need to do to double your income this year.

Here are 3 ways to maximize your income in your business:

1. Look to systems not goals

Every year much of the world writes down their goals. They want to get fit or earn more or whatever. Fitness facilities see a huge bump in January and maybe even February but come March it’s pretty much back to the regulars. All those people with goals have dropped off and gone back to their old habits. The goal of dropping 20lbs is lost for another year.

In business we promise to send cards to our clients at the beginning of projects or we tell ourselves we’ll actually use the CRM to follow up with old prospects weekly instead of randomly when we have nothing better to do. Then after 2 clients we stop because it’s hard and we aren’t really seeing any benefit for all that work.

Systems trump goals because setting up a system to follow up with clients has two benefits. First it makes it easy to do the work. All you need to do is check a few boxes and the tasks are done. Second once you have a system you can delegate the work to someone else and make it their job.

Relentlessly pursuing systems in your business sets you up for delegating work and growing a team that doesn’t need your supervision. Systems bring consistency to the otherwise mostly random out of control world and over time that consistency is what’s going to put you ahead of your competition.

“Older people sit down and ask, ‘What is it?’ but the boy asks, ‘What can I do with it?'” – Steve Jobs

2. Say no to things that distract you from your goals

Yes is probably the most income limiting word we use. We say yes to a client we probably shouldn’t take or yes to a meeting that’s of little value to our business. We keep saying yes because we’ve been trained that doing so is being nice and we all want to be nice.

When we say yes to all these things that come our way we have no room in our life to say yes to the things that really matter. Even if we can squeeze that really important thing in we have no real time to prepare for it because it’s squeezed in between 3 things that steal our time.

You should only be working with clients where you provide the most value. Figure out what that client and project looks like and then say NO to everything else. Say no to all the meetings in a week and give yourself time to focus on the work you’re best at.

By only focusing where you bring the most value to the table you’re going to continually have more leverage. You’re going to keep having successfully launched projects with happy customers. Happy customers earning more money for their businesses are solid referral sources which means more business for you.

Make your first answer to any request no. Starting from there ask yourself why this opportunity is the best opportunity you could take. Only take the ones that you couldn’t imagine being without. The other opportunities are just a distraction.

3. Read actual books

Blogs are great, but they have a limitations. They’re bite sized so they can only barely touch on a topic. Even long posts of a few thousand words are minuscule compared to a book of 20,000 or more words. What a blog can reference in 1,000 words a book can spend 5,000 on and dive in to from all angles.

You need to read real books about business and your industry if you want to succeed. Since you’re saying no to so much more now you’ve got the time to dig in. Start with these 15 classic leadership books,then start to dig into the areas you need to work on in your business.

“Never lower your price, add value.” – Grant Cardone

If you can follow through on even one of these tips this year then you can increase your income. If you can truly devote focus to all of them merely doubling your income might be easy. Maybe you can 10x your income.

How are you going to maximize your income in your business? Please leave your thoughts in the comment section below!