Running the firm
You cannot decide what to delegate without this number
Every outsourcing decision is a comparison against the value of your time. Most principals have never calculated it.
Published
The simplest version
Firm revenue attributable to you, divided by the hours you work. It is crude and it is a starting point.
Most founders are startled by the result, which is the point of computing it.
The better version
What an additional hour spent on your highest-value activity would produce. Usually client work or business development.
That marginal number is what a delegation decision should be compared against, not the average.
What it makes obvious
Tasks you have been doing because they seemed too small to hand over turn out to cost several times what paying someone would.
The bookkeeping, the scheduling, the report formatting, the portfolio operations.
Doing it yourself is only free if your time is worth nothing.
The objection
That you would not actually use the freed hour productively. That is a fair challenge and it is answerable: decide in advance what the hour is for, and put it in the calendar.
An hour freed with no destination gets absorbed by whatever is loudest.
Where the calculation breaks
Work that appears low-value but carries judgment or relationship weight. Reviewing a client’s plan personally looks like something a paraplanner could prepare, and the review itself frequently is not.
Separate preparation from judgment. Delegate the first, keep the second.
Apply it to platform decisions too
This is the number missing from most TAMP cost comparisons. Firms compare a fee against zero rather than against the founder hours it replaces.