{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "description": "The feast-or-famine cycle doesn't have to end in panic — if you budget for it, slow periods become freedom to work on your own business instead of a client's.",
  "path": "/articles/fuck-feast-famine/",
  "publishedAt": "2017-02-14T00:39:36.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:jznynyzgerlqmdbbj33o7wfs/site.standard.publication/3mnll3icujb2z",
  "tags": [
    "Getting Clients"
  ],
  "textContent": "I have a bone to pick with a phase in the consulting industry: feast or famine.\n\nFeast: When work is good. You’re booked solid.\nFamine: When work is bad. Your pipeline is dry.\n\nI think there’s another part here that we aren’t seeing: the time and attention we’re able to put towards working on our own business.\n\nWhen you’re in feast mode, you’re booked solid and turning away work. And it’s very tempting when the work keeps coming to say ‘yes’ to ‘just one more’ project — and skip the time you’d spend working on your business.\n\nFeast is good. Making money is good. But there is a cost here that a lot of consultants, myself included, often pay without realizing it: we give up the time we’d be spending on our business and focus on the client’s business.\n\nMeanwhile, in famine, we switch from having a scarcity of time to having an abundance of time available to work on our business. However, the critical question is if you have enough cash to sustain a week, a month, or a quarter with no incoming client work.\n\nIf you don’t, then focusing on a strategy to get more clients makes the most sense.\n\nBut if you do have that cash, if you can afford to take a month off form client work, you’re now in the position to spend time working on your business (or not working, if you like).\n\nThis break, sebatical, walkabout, or vacation is time that you can spend:\n\nWorking on your own products (ebooks, courses, trainings, software...)\nWorking on improving your business (reading books, taking courses, attending trainings, improving operations, making a marketing plan, updating your website...)\nImproving your underlying business systems (marketing, sales, funnel optimization, service optimization, messaging...)\nNot working (book that ticket to Costa Rica and send a month in a condo on the beach, swimming in the ocean every day...)\n\nI think there’s a freedom in taking time off from client work. And the trick, I think, is to budget for it. Heck, think of it as ‘hiring’ yourself for a week or a month to work on your business.\n\nThat sounds fun to me.\n\nIt doesn’t have to be ‘feast’ or ‘famine.’\n\nIt can be ‘feast’ or ‘freedom.’\n\nExcelsior!\n\nKai",
  "title": "Fuck Feast or Famine"
}