Are you “doing the thing” or leading your business?
As I talked with one of my clients last week, he said something that blew my mind.
Mike went to law school as a mid-career switcher. His background is in product development and engineering, but now he owns a law firm.
We talked about how things have changed for him during the last few years that we’ve been working together.
“I’m not even a lawyer anymore,” he said, “or at least I don’t do what lawyers do!”
Mike had found a way to use outreach to gain new clients consistently.
By sending just a few hundred direct mail letters each week, he could keep the phone ringing steadily with clients looking for his services. But to stay focused on the new clients, he knew that he couldn’t also do the lawyering!
“I used to have to jump whenever a judge told me to jump, or spend two-thirds of a day in a settlement conference, or writing a brief. All that ‘being a lawyer’ stuff meant that I could never consistently keep up with the new client calls.”
Lucky for him, there are lots of outstanding lawyers who also can’t stay consistent with their business development! So now he hires them to do the lawyering, and he does the business development.
Which do you want to be?
Are you looking to be the one doing the work, or do you want to hire other people to do the work?
Freelancers get paid when they work. Freelancers do the work for clients who need them.
The job of the entrepreneur isn’t to do the work, it’s to build a company that does the work. Mary Barra doesn’t make cars at GM. She organizes so that GM makes cars.
Which are you, a freelancer or an entrepreneur? Do you want to do the work, or would you be happy creating the systems and processes that enable other people to get the work done?
If you want to be an entrepreneur but you are living the life of a freelancer, hit reply, I’m looking for you!
P.S. I am forming a coaching cohort to focus on business development and lead generation. If you are interested get more information here: https://anchoradvisors.com/online-lead-generation-small-group-coaching/
