Why 10% Isn't Enough 🏛️

There’s One Unbreakable Rule In Business

Over the years, I’ve learned many things about being self-employed, but perhaps the most important one was taught by my dad.

When I went into business for myself two decades ago, he told me that I should spend 10% of my time working on new business development. I.e. selling or marketing myself for at least 4 hours a week, even when I was too busy with client work or focused elsewhere.

That’s the best advice you could give someone who wants to make their work sustainable over the long haul. Lumpy revenue (i.e., getting paid a lot one month and nothing the next month) is more of a choice than you might think.

Usually, revenue lumps occur when a business owner focuses 100% on business development when they don’t have clients and then turns off the flywheel as soon as they get too busy with implementing what they’ve sold. 

When the flow of leads is coming in, it’s natural to think it will always be this way. But that’s not how cycles work. When things are good, they are great. 

When things are bad, they get really bad. That’s when you wish that you had spent more time on business development or building up a flow of leads and opportunities. 

The 10% rule helped me survive long enough in this game to be considered a success. But I also believe my dad got it wrong.

Spending 10% of your time on business development is too little. That number should be 20% or higher. That’s 8 hours a week focused on forming relationships and finding new opportunities if you’re a solopreneur. 

The good news is that as your company grows, the 20% requirement applies to the company, not just the owners. So you can hire roles that spend 100% of their time finding and nurturing customers while still adhering to the 20% rule.

If you’re not sure you can make this possible, might I suggest you check out my new book, Service Stacking? In it, I show you the simplest way to add new premium customers by solidifying your offer structure—this is what all the big service providers do. 

The book will be released next week, so stay tuned to this space for details on how to get your free copy!

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