Every professional that bills by the hour has drastically overshot his or her estimates on how many billable hours he or she will be able to accomplish in a given time period. This does not happen because they are too optimistic or because they are not finding potential clients. It happens because they underestimated how much small and sporadic interactions can affect their day’s efficiency.
We have compiled a list of tips that will help you increase your billable hours by rethinking your operation and making small changes that can have big impacts to your profits.
Read along:
Work a Schedule
To increase your billable hours, you must first identify the time of the day you will allot to activities that you can bill for. Find a calendar and make a list of your weekly activities. Consider the activities that do not produce income and try to put them together in a way they complement themselves to make your day more efficient. For example: going to the bank, running particular errands, running vendor payments, bookkeeping. The remaining time in your calendar can be used for tending to clients and doing billable work.
Understand your Scope of Work
Sometimes professionals sell themselves short. When you do a job, think of all the different tasks that the job requires. Are you billing for all those tasks? For example, if you are an attorney, and need to drive one hour each way to represent your client in a courthouse on a different county; are you billing for the commute? Because you should!
Limiting unscheduled client interactions
This may sound counterintuitive if you are also striving to improve your customer service. However, the aim is to limit YOUR unscheduled client interactions. Clients are often calling professionals for “one quick question” that evolves into a 30-minute phone call that you may just not feel right about putting in the bill. Adding an answering service to your team can help by making your clients feel well taken care of while keeping your schedule pristine. A good answering service can schedule your clients so next time you talk to them they are aware they are on the clock.
As you get back into the groove of things, your schedule may start getting a bit packed. Get your customer communication off your schedule by hiring Easybee! Easybee’s virtual receptionist solution will make sure that your calls are answered 24/7 so you do not miss any messages or potential clients. Easybee can also assist you in relaying information about your business to your existing clients, thus opening your calendar to more potential for billing hours. If you would like to know more about Easybee, you can sign up for a 2 week free trial!
