m a r k e t i n g

If your main interest in life is growing businesses, then yougenerally study businessin college or skip college all together in order to get directly involved as anentrepreneur from the get go. Those of us inprofessions—law, accounting, medicine,engineering, and manyothers—are more interested in practicing our professional growththan growing our professional practice.

BBEECCOOMMIINNGG AANNEENNTTRREEPPRREENNEEUURRIIAALL SSYYSSTTEEMM BBUUIILLDDEERR——MOVING FROM PPRROOFFEESSSSIIOONNAALL PPRROOBBLLEEMM SSOOLLVVEERRTO BBUUSSIINNEESSSS BBUUIILLDDEERRby Mike Davids, Newcomb Marketing Solutions

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For example, a lawyer who is training his or her employees,working on the company’s benefits plan or developing amarketing plan, isn’t practicing law and working on his orher clients’ cases. Great business-building activities mayseem like a real distraction to great professionals because itis not what you do best and what you were trained to do.

When I’m busy writing a business article, for example anda client calls to ask if I can write something else, I try tohide my annoyance, but I definitely feel it. (If I could justget my clients to leave me alone, I could get more workdone!) Thankfully, they continue to call or I’d be out ofwork. Like any professional, I am motivated by my love forwhat I do and for doing it to the best of my ability.However, if I am going to grow my business and earn moremoney, I have to find time for both doing my work andbuilding my client base. Since I can’t do my job well if Ican’t concentrate on one thing at a time… the two tasks arein conflict. I suspect this is true for many professionals.

True entrepreneurs avoid such conflicts because they aremore interested in creating systems than actually doing thework. For example, if Ray Kroc, the founder ofMcDonalds, had gone into the hamburger businessbecause he really loved flipping burgers and doing it to thebest of his ability, he would have never gotten beyond hisfirst store.

Most professionals would rather hide in their comfortzones, than develop a self-sustaining business. While it has

been said that entrepreneurs see every problem as anopportunity, I believe that professionals see every problemas a challenge. The difference is significant.

Yes, we become professionals in the first place because wecan’t resist a challenge. However, after a while challengescan well, lose their “challenge.” As we become more experienced and highly skilled, problem-solvers, the problems start to become so similar that they begin to feeltoo much like work… too much like flipping hamburgersfor instance.

If you are starting to get to this point in your professionalcareer, perhaps it’s time to step out of your professionalcomfort zone and start thinking more like an entrepreneur. True entrepreneurs never flip burgers for long. They devisesystems that can be implemented by their employees.Professionals, on the other hand may have trouble step-ping away from the grill. More like a great chef, we believethat there is something so special about what we do andhow we do it, that stepping away would somehow ruin theproduct.

On the contrary, it may be possible to improve the finaloutcome for your clients if you only take a step back and examine exactly what it is you do, and how you do itso well.

(continued on page 18)

True entrepreneursnever flip burgers for long. They devise systems that can be implementedby their employees.

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We can fulfill more clients needs more of the time, and takeon additional clients, if we look at what we do from a sys-tems approach and try to decide what parts of the systemwe can teach others to do.

Ray Kroc didn’t want to create the perfect hamburger, hewanted to create a system for making the perfect hamburg-er every time. This allowed him to share his skill with bil-lions rather than hundreds.

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You may be the greatest professional the worldhas ever known, but until you take a systemsapproach to your work, you will never maximizethe number of individuals who will benefit fromyour expertise.

Think for example how different the process isbetween a heart surgeon in a modern urban hos-pital versus a country doctor in a small town.The country doctor may have the skills for heartsurgery, but does he have the resources? Howmany patients can he help if he has to do every-thing from sterilizing the equipment, to takingthe x-rays, to performing the surgery, to handlingthe billing? When a heart surgeon enters anoperating room, a great deal is already done.Even the surgery may be started and the rib cageopened by someone else. The surgeon only doeswhat he or she does best and then leaves the restto others. The surgeon’s time and skill is opti-mized so that he or she can perform that specialskill for the greatest number of patients.

To start looking at your profession as a system, agood place to start is to keep a running diary ofeverything you do in a day. The diary should

consist of detailed notes jotted into a day planner over atypical four-week period. Create abbreviations for thethings you do most often, for example: F for filing, PCCfor phone conversation with client, R for research, T fortravel, etc. Most professionals already track time for billingpurposes. Activity tracking just takes it one step furtherexpanding the detail.

Once you have a few weeks of detail entered, take time tochart your activity. See how much of your time is actuallytaken by work that could be done as well or better by some-one other than yourself.

If you are like most professionals, you’ll begin to see anapproximate 80/20 pattern forming. This is called thePareto Principle after an 18th century Italian mathemati-cian who noticed this pattern in many natural systems. Youcan expect to find approximately 20 percent of your workto generate 80 percent of your income. The 20

percent is the high leverage, high skill work that you as aprofessional are uniquely qualified to perform. The other80 percent of your work is best handled by others with lessprofessional training, less experience and less cost per hourto your business and your clients.

Just imagine how much more high-leverage work youcould accomplish if you could train others to do the 80percent of your work that doesn’t need your skill level?

So how can you afford to hire talented staff to cover the 80percent that doesn’t need you? Or, how can you justify anew hire to your boss or partners? Having all the detail ina chart is good evidence. Starting small by simply delegat-ing more to current support staff may also be an appropri-ate strategy. And, if you run your own business, you mayhave to accept making less money for a short time whileyou hire and/or train others. However, within a year ortwo, as you begin to take on more high-leverage work andspend less time doing the busy work, you’ll certainly makeup the difference. By doing 40, 60, or 80 percent high-leverage professional work, versus the 20 percent you maybe doing now, you have the capability to double, triple, orquadruple your earning potential. And, you’ll be doingmore of the thing that made you want to become a profes-sional in the first place.

Should you feel guilty about not rolling up your sleeves anddoing some of the photocopying yourself? You may thinkyou are dumping the less interesting work on your subor-dinates. But in many cases, you’ll actually be increasingtheir earning potential along with yours by giving themmore responsibility. You’ll also be spending more timetraining and teaching which will improve the lives of yourstaff and increase their abilities to earn more.

Finally, if you ever want to step away from the grill com-pletely, you can hire other highly skilled professionals to doyour professional work too. And, that’s how you enter theranks of the idle rich. If I can just find someone to writethese articles for me, then I’ll see you at the country club.

Mike Davids, member of Newcomb Marketing

Solutions’ Creative Team, has more than 20 years

of experience in marketing and print communica-

tions. Mike has a graduate certificate in Direct

Marketing from DePaul University, Chicago, an MA

from Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, and a BA from the

University of Iowa. He can be reached at mike@mdavids.us or

at 800-921-1221.

BBEECCOOMMIINNGG AANN EENNTTRREEPPRREENNEEUURRIIAALLSSYYSSTTEEMM BBUUIILLDDEERR(continued from page 17)

Just imagine howmuch more high-leverage work youcould accomplish if

you could train others to do the 80percent of your work

that doesn’t needyour skill level?

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