A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by a student from the US, asking me for help with her thesis.
Her questions mostly revolved around business valuations, with a secondary focus on ratio analysis.
I usually refrain from helping others on a one-to-one basis, because, practically speaking, if I said “yes” to every such request that I received I would be working 24/7, without being able to feed my family. Thus, when I help people, I prefer to do it on a group basis, so that I can give back to society, without committing a disproportionately large amount of my (limited) time.
Nevertheless, I decided to make an exception for that young lady. Don’t ask why – I don’t know. Probably I was just in a good mood when I saw the email through my website.
The help that she requested was very basic to me. She needed help with the exact same stuff that I was studying at her age. I knew how she was feeling. Corporate finance was overwhelming for me too, when I first encountered the discipline. However, when I later discovered that it was the perfect specialization to match with my passion for computer programming, which, in its own turn, led me to become a proficient financial modeler, everything changed. I started studying zealously anything even remotely related to corporate finance. As a result, when that student asked me for help, it took me about 30’ max to explain all the concepts that, in her words, “would take ages to understand.” I didn’t even realize how the time had passed.
When we were done, she asked how much I wanted for my services. I pointed out that I hadn’t asked for payment when she first contacted me, because I didn’t want any.
The next morning, I found on my website an order for two copies of my book, along with a note: “I don’t want the books. It was the only way for me to give you some money as a token of appreciation.”
What was a trivial task for me, was a matter of life and death in her eyes. It’s all relative.
In the same sense, I have oftentimes come across professionals, who, when asked to provide their services, include in their proposals everything but the kitchen sink. It is one thing to try to address the real needs of a client (as opposed to just addressing their requests) and it is a completely different thing to provide everything that you know in just one project – Keep it relative to the needs.
Many executives try to perfect their subordinates’ work all the time, by constantly amending every trivial detail. They thus manage to work all the time, without producing much, all the while complaining and reducing their peoples’ commitment to abysmal levels. (“If he’s going to change it anyway, why bother with the details?”) Is every minute detail worth a highly paid executive’s time? I don’t think so. They just fail to keep their contribution relative to the nature of the deliverable.
So next time you find your self at a crossroads of whether you are overdelivering, just sit down and think: “Is my deliverable relative to the need?” 90% of the time, you will estimate correctly. But only provided that you accept to slow down a bit and think this through.