The Freelancing Trap by Chris Barrow

In my blog during December 2016 I waxed lyrical about a Seth Godin “Value Creation Masterclass” – an online course for just £47.00 and downloadable from Udemy (I’m not on any commission here – it is just great value for money). One of the most important lessons taken from the course was to emphasise the difference between a freelancer and an entrepreneur. As well as asking myself the question, it occurred to me that many of the dental owners I work with are susceptible to the same confusion.

Let me start with some of Godin’s words of wisdom:

I make no apology for the extensive quotation as, for all the business books I have read in the last few years, these few paragraphs may be the most brilliant, thought-provoking and telling.

I could easily fill the rest of this article with examples of times that I have fallen into the traps mentioned by Godin (darn it – why didn’t I realise at the time?).

I have hired freelancers to resell my IP and then become stressed by their inability to either close sales or deliver to my standards.

I have also tried to freelance my way to entrepreneurial success, hiring myself to do most of the work as well as the delivery and using or borrowing my own money.

More relevant to this article, however, are the examples I meet every day of hard-working and talented dentists who are making the same mistakes:

• Hiring other freelancers (associates, travelling specialists, therapists, hygienists) and then bemoaning the fact that the freelancers seldom generate additional new business and may have clinical and communication standards that are not in line with the owner’s core values and skills.
• Paying said freelancers more than they are worth and suffering the resulting cash flow problems.
• Owners who are trying to freelance their way to entrepreneurial success by generating 40%-60% of the sales themselves.
• Hiring themselves as financial manager and business development manager and trying to fit a 35-hour clinical week PLUS a 20-hour management week into an already strained work/life imbalance.
• Using their own money, running out of cash or failing to expand and innovate due to their inability to attract investors

To this day, most dentists are highly trained and regulated freelancers, many of whom are still falling into the freelancer trap because of the peer pressure that exists for them to own a practice.

The minority are realising that they must make a clear choice (as have I):

• Accept that they are freelancers and freelance. Don’t even consider owning your own practice. Focus on an area of clinical expertise or specialisation and become the best in your field. Research the best entrepreneurs to whom you can offer your services. Don’t EVER get entrepreneur envy, no matter how much your alumni tell you their practice(s) are worth.
• Accept that they are entrepreneurs and search for
  • Other people’s money to finance investment
  • An unbeatable set of systems and protocols
  • A superb team of managers who can make sure that the work gets done
  • Either salaried clinicians (read “apprentices”) or specialist freelancers who are paid at the correct rate and will agree to follow your brand standards
  • A business that will run itself successfully if you take a 3-month sabbatical

I get a lot of enquiries from dentists stuck in the freelancer trap – they know that there are things to do but they don’t have the time, the money or the people to get them done.

They are overwhelmed by “it all”, exhausted, sometimes scared.

Years ago, I used to coach freelancers to become better organised, so that they could endure the freelancer trap with somewhat less pain. Lessons in time management, getting through the paperwork, building personal efficiency systems.

I’ve stopped doing that now.

My coaching goes something like this:

1. Do you want to be a freelancer or an entrepreneur?
2. If you want to be a freelancer, I’ll work with you on becoming personally more connected, smarter and effective.
3. If you want to be an entrepreneur, I’ll help you to recruit, train, coach and mentor a fantastic management team.
4. Once we have the management team in place, I don’t need to see you – I want to see them. I’ll help them build and deploy the systems that will enable a self-managing business that operates while you sleep – a business that is bigger than you.
5. If you want to see me, I’ll work with you on:
   1. Leadership skills
   2. Strategic planning
   3. Finance for your business
   4. Acquisitions and Squats
   5. Future expansion and disposal

The older I get, the more focused I become on how I can make the biggest difference to my clients.

P.S. Seth created his course at a £47.00 price point and it has been downloaded over 2,200 times – good freelancing eh?

Chris Barrow