Stewart McCure

Writer, performer, management consultant

England

An Australian living in London.  A self-employed training consultant to the global health care industry.  A producer, director and performer of improv comedy.  A trustee of an adult education charity in West London.  A writer and occaisional blogger

 

 

Lead Times

April 13, 2008  /  Stewart McCure

My business operates on extremely long lead times.  I have worked out that the average time between first contact with a client and project delivery is just over sixteen months.  In Good to Great Jim Collins talks about reducing an organisation's focus to a small number of readily meaningful metrics to drive performance.  'Time-to-job' is certainly meaningful to my business.


In the past I've tried any number of initiatives to reduce this sixteen-month lag but of late I've come to accept that it's an immutable part of the industry I work in.  Understanding (and accepting) 'time-to-job' has empowered me in a lot of different ways.
  • It has a relaxing effect when I mention it to clients - I'm not going to pester individuals to force the pace on decision cycles
  • It gives me a very clear link between client list and cash flow
  • It forces me to face up to the fact that the only way for me to force the pace of growth is to have as many clients as possible - all at different stages of that sixteen-month cycle
Another positive effect is that it stops me from fretting (too much) over unreturned emails.  It helps if you can accept that that unreturned emails from a potential client and unsolicited approaches from unknown ones are two sides of the same karmic coin.

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tags / Client perception, Momentum