management
MAKING TIME TO GROW STRUCTURING NON-BILLABLE TIME By Mike Davids
H
ow many professional service companies encourage non-billable time? Not many. It tends to be viewed as coming right off the bottom line.
And it’s a large chunk indeed! Various industry estimates place non-billable time between 30 and 60 percent of all time spent at work. And of that time, less than half is planned and scheduled. However, a healthy, growing firm should not only encourage non-billable time, but demand it of all their attorneys and billing employees by creating specific, structured projects for that time—includ-
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ing marketing, education and professional development.
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Non-billable time should never be “lost” time when it can become time to grow.
management
If non-billable time is required, organized, and intentional, it becomes time for building the firm’s intellectual capital such as training time for new associates. It’s also a time to market the business, building brand (reputation), community relations, and developing new or potential client relationships. To start, do an accounting of your firm’s current non-billable time—how much is there? Discuss this amount in a meeting of all billing employees. Is the amount excessive or in the normal range? How can the time be put to better use? Create a blue-ribbon committee to find investment uses for this time. If the firm’s growth is stagnant, there may be too little non-billable time. Or, the time is not being organized successfully. Assume a time loss of between five and ten percent for the trivial daily administrative tasks of office management, reading e-mail, filing, and of course talking at the water cooler. Assume another ten percent as non-billable, but essential to client contacts. After that, how much time should be devoted to education and communication—both internal and external? How much should be devoted to outside business and community work? How much should be devoted to marketing and public relations? The answers to these questions will vary depending on the size and primary business of the firm. However, while the percent of time will vary, the importance of these efforts for the firm’s future should not be underestimated.
STRUCTURED TIME Can non-billable time be scheduled in advance with assigned projects? How can it be used to develop the talent level of the newer associates? How can it be used to market the firm? Is marketing and communications something that would be better handled by an outside consultant or a new hire? At most firms, associates put in a great deal of time, often at the cost of personal time. Therefore asking them to take on even more responsibility can seem unnecessarily burdensome. However, it is true that people can be much more productive when their time is organized and when they have concrete goals to accomplish during their non-billable time. People tend to accomplish more and feel less burdened when they have specific tasks that need to be accomplished within specific timelines. The concept of “triage” comes
into play. Imagine the pressure a surgeon would feel with dozens of dying people waiting for his or her help—triage helps prioritize patients so that the surgeon can focus on one at a time. Triage is derived from the French tier, meaning "to sort." When projects are organized, prioritized, and sorted— people focus better and get a great deal more accomplished.
RAINMAKING 101 In most firms, marketing to new clients is often left as an informal task. A senior partner who is particularly skilled at bringing in new clients is known as the “rainmaker” and is looked on with awe and reverence. Like the name suggests, the art of rainmaking is looked on as “magic” rather than a skill that can be practiced and learned. Savvy firms today are sending new associates to marketing seminars to help them learn this “magic.” Other firms are encouraging as many as twenty hours a month to be devoted to non-billable hours for training and practice in the skill of rainmaking. This non-billable time has the potential for creating more billable hours as it generates new business. One way to develop the skills of rainmaking within a firm is to develop a team approach, where young professionals team up with the firm’s best rainmaker to act as assistants and protégés. The result is a mentor relationship where lessexperienced team members also learn the important industry issues with which the senior member specializes. Smaller firms have accepted team-building programs as a way of better competing with larger companies and bringing junior partners along more quickly. The highly fragmented pool of non-billable time can seem like a great waste of time and money if the firm doesn’t gain a handle on it. However, once this time is assigned to “investment” purposes, and begins to have its intended effect of bringing in more billable time, the result could be a serious shortage of non-billable time.
Mike Davids a member of Newcomb Marketing Solutions’ Creative Team, with over 20 years of experience in marketing and print communications. 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@mikedavids.us or at 800-921-1221.
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Think of billable time as your firm’s’ current income, but non-billable time as the future of your firm. In fact, a simple name change from non-billable to “investment” or “asset-building” could go a long way toward helping your firm understand the best purpose of this time.
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