It’s been said before that not all of your work hours are
created equal, even though you bill them as if they were. Many of your hours
are what I call “factory” hours. You know, the time you spend going through the
normal routine, following the procedures and exerting minimal thought. Yes, you
work long hours, but they aren’t hard hours.

For instance, once you begin a new engagement (tax
return, brief, design, etc.), at some point you push it along the assembly line
to the next person who should touch it. Eventually it will come back to you for
final approval. Once the product is complete and finalized, you get it to the
client and get started on the next job.

This kind of work requires that you remain focused and
concentrate on the task at hand, but doesn’t require much “think time.” The
cognitive processing you use is to be efficient, not creative. Interestingly, it’s
the work that clients have less appreciation for don’t understand why it costs
so much.

But those hours aren’t nearly as valuable or important to
your clients as what your product means. What’s the story being told? What are
the critical points? How can you explain it quickly and clearly? This is the
hard work.

Once you explain the whole story, they have questions.

What should I do next?

What are my options?

What will they require of me now (filings, dollars, timing)?

How will they affect me later?

What other risks should I keep in mind?

If you do the hard work, you make yourself invaluable to your client because now they KNOW they can’t do
it without you. By interspersing the hard work within your long hours, your
clients will look to you as their advisor, not their vendor.  Nicely done.