Trading Time For Money – Do You Book Your Business By The Hour?

I still do book by the hour, but only one day per week at this point. Certain transitions need to happen gradually over time. But booking by the hour is ultimately going to be a thing of the past for me, and I would encourage you to examine the problems this business model is creating in your life right now.

The Non-Business Plan

In four years of college and five years of graduate training in clinical psychology, I cannot recall a five minute conversation about the business of being a professional in private practice. It was never treated as a business. So, here was my marketing plan when I came fresh out of graduate school:

1) Find An Office
2) Get Some Business Cards
3) Put An Ad In The Phone Book

I also recall numerous efforts at creating a brochure. Eventually, there came the momentous decision to create a website. A homemade, totally static website. I had never even heard of SEO – wasn't even on the radar.

Heck, I was a pretty shy and introverted guy, so networking was not even a part of my initial game plan back then.

And you know what? It "worked" in some very minimal sense of the word. I offered low rates and worked to fill slots on the calendar. I simply had no concept of doing anything else.

Now, while the world of marketing has been revolutionized by the Internet, and most recently (and most powerfully) by the evolution of Social Media – for the majority of professionals, The Underlying Business Model is not changing or even being questioned.

Well, together with my good friend Charlie Seymour Jr, I am here to challenge your business model. It has at least two fatal flaws that I sincerely doubt anyone is pointing out to you. But let's not spoil the end of the story just yet.

When you are a novice in your profession, you don't question the notion of Trading Time for Money – in fact, you take pride in it. If the person flipping burgers is making $7.50 an hour, then the $150 per hour you are getting paid becomes a source of pride and accomplishment. Why would you look to change it?

The Mid-Career Plateau

Here is why we talk about the TimeTrap Plateau.

Let's hit the fast forward button. Let's jump ahead five to ten years. It's taken a fair amount of hustle, but the calendar is fairly full and the hourly fee has become pretty competitive (and that's a word we will need to look at more closely later). Now what? How fast are you really paying down those student loans – you know, the second mortgage payment you are making every month for that piece of parchment hanging on the wall in your office?

Here is a painful little truth for your consideration: Remember that person flipping burgers? Well, there is a pretty good chance that person has more Freedom in his/her life than you do. See, because you are a professional who commands a great hourly rate, the business world has granted you credit. And you have needed to use that credit to build your business and build your life. It's not just student loans anymore is it? Can you feel the treadmill slowly but surely increasing in speed? It's subtle, but it's steady.

Flaw #1

It's very frustrating to me to see that most professional training programs continue to have this giant hole in the curriculum. Where are the business courses? Where is the discussion of different models around which to structure your business? Where are the basic courses on Marketing Your Business!?

Trading Time for Money is the default business model of most service professions. Whether you are a psychologist, a physician, an attorney, a CPA, an executive coach – we are all taught to deliver our technical skills one hour at a time and one client or patient at a time. Okay, you may bill that hour in 10 minute increments, but you get the point.

So, Flaw #1 is revealed when you have run out of hours and you have reached the fee that your market will bear. Because there has never been any exploration or discussion about your business model, no one warned you that by mid-career you will have painted yourself into a financial corner.

Flaw #2

Because no one taught us the difference between being self-employed and owning a business, most of us service professionals became self-employed. We built a business around ourselves because we WERE the business. We have the degree and the training and the license. You might be wondering what the heck I am even talking about at this point. What other option is there BUT to be at the center of the business.

The problem with being a self-employed professional is that you are Self-Employed. We did not create businesses – we created jobs. Just because we are both the boss and the employee does not make us OWNERS of a business.

If I own a business, it is an asset that has value independent of me and my physical presence. I hate to break it to you, but if you are self-employed, you have a JOB. Your boss can't fire you, but if you don't punch in and punch out, you don't get paid. If you go on vacation for two weeks, that is two weeks of no income.

You have a job with no benefits, no sick days, no vacation days. You don't own an asset. You get paid a fee for each unit of service that you deliver. You know this flaw with a great degree of intimacy, don't you?

I Don't Have Time For More In This Post!

I have probably gone on longer than the average blog post has a right to at this point. I can't write the book here. Charlie and I already wrote the book. Am I trying to get you to buy the book? You bet! Trust me when I tell you that this book is a labor of love. It's value to us will not come from book sale profits. In fact, our pledge to donate 10% of gross sales to a charity that we happen to love pretty much guarantees that we will not retire on book royalties!

We wrote the book for you and for us – because we ARE you. Professionals by mid-career need a new MAP, a new business plan. No one warned us ahead of time. So maybe we need a book for the novice professional, too to prevent them from getting stuck on the TimeTrap Plateau in the first place; but, we have not had a chance to write that one yet.

However, we do have a map for you. We have packaged it into as fun a story as we could come up with beginning with a medieval tale about Maximillion, a blacksmith's son. We like to have fun, and you will hear that most clearly in the audio version of the book. Charlie's stage and voice-over background is obvious when you hear him perform the book. I had a lot of fun with the sound effects and music score to make it feel like you are listening to a movie.

But, entertainment aside, we are on a mission. We have been the mid-career professional stuck on the TimeTrap Plateau. We have found the way off that plateau and we have created a map for you to follow. Read the book to see if you like the map and the direction we are offering to take you. You had a DreamDestination once upon a time…. Don't give up on it now!

Coming Soon!

Here is what you can expect from us in the very near future. We are going to be releasing a whole string of question and answer videos. In fact there are forty of them. We recently sat down with British businessman Andy Meehan (who was quite literally on his way to the airport to catch a plane to China), and he spent a whole morning interviewing us about a broad range of online marketing topics. We video taped the whole interview and then chopped it up into nice little, easily digestible single-question-and-answer videos.

Let's see… what else do we have in store for you…. We have begun work on what will become a great online course on the entire 40/20/40 System. Stay tuned for updates on our progress on this project and when the projected launch date will be.

We Want To Speak At Your Group's Next Event!

Just because we hate to have even a shred of a chance of getting bored, we are also working on our public speaking calendar. So look for the Dr. Marc and Charlie Show coming soon to a venue near you.

And, by the way, if you have a business or professional group that you think will benefit from what we are creating – then, by all means, let us know. Most people hate public speaking… but let's face it – we are a little unusual. We really have a ball doing it. When you watch our videos, you get a pretty good idea of what we are like on stage! Send us an email at PublicSpeaking@PersonalSuccessMarketing.com and let us know about your group.

Well… that's the news update for the moment. There is MUCH MUCH MORE TO COME! Stay Tuned.

Thanks For Reading,

Dr. Marc Kossmann

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Trading Time For Money – Do You Book Your Business By The Hour?