Seeking Help

Where does the time go? Billable time. As a consultant, your practice may be doing reasonably well; you're charging $100-150 an hour. As an independent consultant, you're probably also doing everything from grinding the coffee to editing the umpteenth draft of your brochure.

To understand where you spend your time, list and categorize all your activities into clerical, professional and other suitable groups. Calculate how many hours you're spending on each-daily, weekly, monthly, annually. Some you enjoy, some you're really good at, some are a pain in the neck The point is, no one is paying you to do them. The more time you spend on client work, the more you bill. The more you bill, the more money you have available to pay someone else to take care of the stuff you'd rather not do or should not be doing yourself.

The time you spend on unbillable tasks makes you a very expensive clerical worker. Keeping the cash to yourself sounds good, until you really think about it. You wouldn't pay a secretary $150 an hour, but that's precisely what you're paying yourself. Your time is valuable and should be spent earning money or on activities that grow your business like marketing or product development. The rest is just overhead-costly overhead. Can you afford not to hire someone?

And, it's not just the on-going clerical and administrative stuff you can be helped with. Many of our own clients come only after having spent hundreds of hours trying to create their own marketing materials.

Entrepreneurs strongly resist giving up any responsibility. You know the refrain, "If it's going to be done right, I've got to do it myself." They struggle endlessly with business plans, and similar activities unrelated to their field of expertise.

You may indeed ask, who better? The answer is, your professional colleagues. They may charge the same hourly fee, but the job is done in much less time and they bring objectivity and fresh ideas.

This is not only less expensive in the long run, but these things will also be done better. The repercussions of doing a inadequate job on your business plan, marketing materials, accounting, etc. can be severe.

Certainly, keep an eye on things; but don't spend more time than you must. Leave the grunt work to others. Hiring clerical and professional help is practical, and necessary-if you want to squeeze the most out of your practice.

Keith Thirgood, Creative Director, Editor Thrive-on-Line http://www.capstonecomm.com Capstone Communications Group Helping businesses get more business through innovative marketing Markham, Ontario, Canada 905-472-2330 Subscribe to Thrive-on-line http://list.capstonecomm.com/ma il.cgi?f=list&l=thrive_on_line

---

The Most Important Thing Youll Ever Do

The wellspring of confidence is belief. When you believe in... Read More

How Your Feelings and Those of Your Employees Can Make The Difference

How we feel is really more important than what we... Read More

The Silent Assassin - What to Do When They Visit You?

IntroductionThere are a group of people in the community that... Read More

Doing More With Less

This is a bottom-line environment.Decreasing the downtime of revenue producing... Read More

Hows Your HUB?

Marketing gurus are always coming up with new lingo but... Read More

Close the Performance Gap

One of the most difficult and emotionally draining situations you... Read More

Stop Going to Meetings - 10 Questions to Ask Before Attending a Meeting - Get More Productive

We get invited to attend so many "meetings" but do... Read More

How To Learn Great Management from Our Kids

Learning comes from many places. And one of the most... Read More

Creating a Team Working Environment

TEAM DECISION MAKING: Managers who invite participation believe that people... Read More

Business Innovation ? Tacit Knowledge

Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation... Read More

Never Wrestle with a PIG

The business books at the library and book stores fill... Read More

On the Road to Assertiveness

Learning to be assertive takes time, courage and the ability... Read More

Print Buying Consultant

Ten Money Saving Tips for Print ManagersDespite their stated desire... Read More

What To Do When Your IT Project Is Late, Over Budget, and Looks Like It?s Never Going To Work

Here's a scary statistic. According to four prominent research firms,... Read More

The Compliance Officers Killer Application

It used to be that only the largest multi-nationals needed... Read More

Team Motivation - Tough Enough to Care

Sir Alex Ferguson has just celebrated his 1000 game in... Read More

Satisfied Employees, A Powerful Marketing Strategy

Even in today's still uncertain economic times, there are companies... Read More

Dont Get Caught With Your PR Down

Why risk the embarassment when with a little basic PR... Read More

Morale Boosters: Feed the Troops First

When economic conditions turn tough or when the heavy work... Read More

Top 10 Things Every Business Should Provide for Every Worker - Including the Boss!

Doing business and meeting the needs of workers is increasingly... Read More

Change Management

"It is not the strongest species that survives, nor the... Read More

Take Your Firm to the Next Level

So you did such a good job in 2003 at... Read More

What Every Manager Should Know About How to Conduct Successful Training Activities

Whether you are training preschoolers in the classroom or executives... Read More

Unveiling the Value of Your Expertise

All of us have knowledge, expertise, and experience that others... Read More

4 Simple Steps to Successful Delegation

Last month, my featured article was about creating a "Stop... Read More