For small business and practice owners everywhere, there’s a persistent tension that keeps many awake at night: every hour spent on business development is an hour not billing clients, yet without business development, there may one day be no clients to bill.

This challenge is particularly acute in professional services – whether you’re running a legal practice in Sandton, an accounting firm in Cape Town, or a consulting business in Durban.

The billable hour trap is seductive. When you’re charging a good hourly rate, it’s not easy to step away from client work to attend networking events, update your website, or nurture potential leads. But this short-term thinking is precisely what keeps many businesses stuck at their current size, unable to grow beyond what the owner can personally deliver.

The South African Context

The challenge is amplified in the SA market. Our economy has faced headwinds in recent years, making every rand of revenue precious. Load shedding for example disrupted planned schedules, making it harder to carve out consistent time for non-billable activities. And in a market where personal relationships and trust carry enormous weight, business development can’t be rushed or automated – it requires genuine, sustained effort.

Yet successful business owners understand that development isn’t optional. It’s the difference between a practice that depends entirely on you and one that can scale, provide employment, and eventually give you choices regarding your own involvement.

The 70-20-10 Framework

A practical approach many owners have adopted is the 70-20-10 rule for time allocation. Aim to spend roughly 70% of your time on billable client work, 20% on business development, and 10% on practice management and systems improvement.

This isn’t a rigid formula – during particularly busy periods, you might shift to 80-15-5, while quieter times allow for 60-30-10. The key is maintaining awareness and intentionality about where your time goes.

Making Business Development Work in Your Practice

Start with leverage. Not all business development activities are equal. Speaking at an industry conference might reach 200 potential clients in an hour. A well-crafted article in your industry publication could generate inquiries for months. Focus on activities that multiply your reach rather than one-on-one approaches that don’t scale.

Build systems, not heroics. Set up recurring blocks in your calendar for business development before client work fills every gap. Monday mornings or Friday afternoons work well for this. Treat these appointments with yourself as sacred as client meetings.

Integrate, don’t separate. Some of the most effective business development happens within client work itself. Delivering exceptional results, asking for referrals at project completion, and staying in touch with past clients all blend business development with billable activities.

Delegate intelligently. As your practice grows, you don’t need to do everything yourself. A junior associate can draft the blog post you’ll refine and publish under your name. An administrative assistant can manage your LinkedIn presence and identify networking opportunities. This frees your business development time for high-value activities only you can do – like meeting those potential clients or speaking at engagements.

The Hidden Cost of Neglect

Consider what happens when you focus exclusively on billable hours. Your pipeline dries up gradually, and when a big client leaves or a key project ends, you’re left scrambling, accepting whatever work comes along rather than choosing ideal clients. You’re constantly stressed about where next month’s revenue will come from.

In contrast, practices that invest consistently in business development build momentum. They have waiting lists. They can be selective about clients. They command premium fees because they’re perceived as successful and in-demand. The time invested in business development ultimately creates more billable hours at better rates.

Practical Steps for This Month

If you’ve been neglecting business development, start small. Block out two hours this week – not for client work, but for reaching out to three past or prospective clients, updating your LinkedIn profile, or writing an article on a topic your ideal clients care about.

Track where your current clients came from. Understanding your most effective sources of business helps you focus your limited business development time on what actually works in your market.

Finally, remember that business development isn’t a cost – it’s an investment. The question isn’t whether you can afford to spend time on it, but whether you can afford not to.

The most successful business owners out there have all learned this lesson: take care of business development during the good times, so that it can take care of you during the challenging ones.