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

To understand where you spend your time, list and categorize all your activities intoclerical, professional and other suitable groups. Calculate how many hours you'respending on each-daily, weekly, monthly, annually. Some you enjoy, some you'rereally good at, some are a pain in the neck The point is, no one is paying you to dothem. 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 stuffyou'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. Youwouldn't pay a secretary $150 an hour, but that's precisely what you're payingyourself. Your time is valuable and should be spent earning money or on activitiesthat grow your business like marketing or product development. The rest is justoverhead-costly overhead. Can you afford not to hire someone?

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

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

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

This is not only less expensive in the long run, but these things will also be donebetter. 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. Leavethe grunt work to others. Hiring clerical and professional help is practical, andnecessary-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 morebusiness through innovative marketing Markham, Ontario, Canada905-472-2330 Subscribe to Thrive-on-linehttp://list.capstonecomm.com/mail.cgi?f=list&l=thrive_on_line