Stop Trading Time for Money

A few quotes from Sagan Passport members (click to watch their full video case studies):

• "It's a no brainer to work with Sagan. Their ability...to find good people is just better than any other service. And the pricing is more affordable (Link)."

• "I was really unsure of how to start. You don't know what you don't know. And it was clear to me that Sagan had a team well experienced in this, to walk alongside me through the process (Link)."

• "We will absolutely be adding additional Global Talent through Sagan. It's just been too easy and too successful not to. It's forcing us to think differently about how we structure our business (Link)."

• "My current staff really embraced [our Global Talent hired through Sagan]. It's made us stronger in that we can now add more value and compete at a higher level with other bigger brands in our market (Link)."

• "The quality of talent...you have to see it to believe it...The person who answers our phones is in Belize! (Link)"

“Modern Leverage” is the focus of this newsletter.

“Fortunes require leverage.

Business leverage comes from capital, people, and products with no marginal cost of replication (code and media).”

This isn’t leverage like “debt” this is leverage like “Lever Arm”… meaning - “small input to create a big output.” (More Here)

I’ve written my thoughts about each category many times - but I had a “no shit Sherlock” moment the other day.

Initially, when I thought about media, I imagined social media or other external channels.

Leverage like TV Shows, radio programs, magazines, Twitter profiles…whatever.

Make the content once - and it is viewed forever by customers.

But there’s a deeper layer to media leverage, one that’s not just about reaching an audience but about creating SYSTEMIZATION.

It stems from the first principle of code & media leverage - specifically, they have no marginal cost of replication.

This means they scale very very quickly.

My “aha” moment came sometime ago after I wrote a simple customer service guide - on how to troubleshoot a delay in producing products.

Weeks after creating and storing this guide (in Notion, where my team could find it), the issue reoccurred.

To my surprise, the guide was used by several team members to resolve the problem… without my involvement.

I paid zero “marginal cost” for them to solve this problem… based on work I did months ago.

This simple interaction reshaped my thinking…about INTERNAL media leverage.

I was thinking about media too narrowly - media should include pretty much all operational documentation, training content, looms, FAQs, templates, whatever - its all media… and its all high leverage!

Build once - and then pay no marginal cost for usage.

Of course, the challenge lies in the upfront commitment.

Building a system or guide or whatever requires an initial investment of time and energy.

It’s far easier to answer a question directly than to build a reusable media resource.

Take the example of creating SOPs for a task like newsletter uploads.

Initially, it takes 25 minutes to document the process, which seemed inefficient compared to the 60 seconds needed to do it myself.

But as we produced more newsletters, the time saved by having a clear, replicable process added up exponentially.

This approach transforms operations, allowing me to focus on higher-level tasks while maintaining consistent quality and efficiency.

ie LEVERAGE.

The results are clear:

Creating “internal media” (ie SYSTEMS) frees up my time and energy.

Instead of spending time repeatedly on the same task, I invest once in creating a system and then reap the benefits with no marginal cost!

This kind of leverage allows for scaled outputs without degrading quality.

For those still viewing media leverage through a narrow lens, I offer this advice: zoom out.

Consider how you can invest time NOW to save exponentially more in the future.

Think about building “media assets” (loom, SOPs, guides, templates, whatever) that can be used repeatedly(by your team, customers, vendors, etc) at no additional cost.

Looking ahead, the evolution of media leverage will only accelerate.

The barriers to capturing and creating media assets are lowering.

What once required a film crew can now be done with a few clicks… and don’t even get me started on what impact AI will have on this.

This trend will only continue, enabling smart individuals to build faster and better than ever before.

Summarized - “internal media leverage” (ie SYSTEMS) isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s a key part of “leverage building.”

So, start investing in media leverage today and watch your business transform.

Yallah Habibi,

Jon

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