Archive for the ‘Clients’ Category


    Cash Flow Monitoring is Overrated

    November 23rd, 2010

    As entrepreneurs, we constantly hear the accountant’s refrain,  ”monitor your cash flow”,  ”cash flow is the life-blood of your business”.  All true.  But if you find yourself constantly worrying about finding cash to pay bills, contractors, and employees, you may be treating the symptom, not the disease.

    Most service businesses that I have encountered with poor cash flow, suffer from two basic problems.  Cure these, and cash flow monitoring ceases to become a concern.  What are the problems?

    Low Margins

    If the spread between what you charge for a service and what it costs you is small, there is very little cash left over to buffer unforeseen cash drains.

    Bad Terms and Slow Collections

    Make your payment terms too lenient, and you will be paying project costs out of pocket before the receivables come in.  Further, not being diligent about collecting past due receivables, puts you farther behind the cash flow eight ball.

    Check yourself.  Are you spending a lot of time monitoring cash flow due to some fundamental flaws in your business model?


    The One Thing You Need to Do to Win More Business

    September 24th, 2010

    Q. What is the single most important thing you must do to land a new client?

    A. Establish a personal connection. You must take a genuine interest in them, as a person. This cannot be faked.

    Connecting with people on a personal level promotes a level of intimacy and trust. People do business with people they like, trust, and respect.

    Before pitching your services, ask yourself how much you know about the person seated across from you. What’s their “story”?

    Do they have children?
    Where did they go to school?
    How long have they worked at the company?
    What’s great about their job?
    What gives them headaches?

    What do you have in common? Look for areas to explore deeper. Enjoy the exploration. Relax. Let the conversation flow.


    Honor, Dedication, and…Dracula?

    August 10th, 2010

    I just spent a week on the annual family beach vacation, where I had promised myself that I’d read a classic instead of the usual John Grisham novel. Since I’m also a huge True Blood fan, I chose Bram Stoker’s Dracula over Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Just seemed lighter somehow, better beach reading. Now I hadn’t read a “classic” in at least 10 years, when I think I suffered through Moby Dick, and the language and vibe were very different back then. So were the attitudes about everything. And THAT is what I want to discuss.

    250px LugosiDracula2 Honor, Dedication, and...Dracula?In the late 19th and very early 20th centuries, everything was still far more formal than today. Honor, both personal and professional, was paramount. Respect and decency in discourse was expected, and when someone made a commitment to do something, man they made a COMMITMENT. As I followed the story of Count Dracula, his spread from the Baltics into England and his subsequent demise, I could not help but be impressed by the small but dedicated group of friends led by the famous Professor Van Helsing, who dedicated their lives to stalking and eradicating their ghastly foe. They went to great lengths, facing and even insisting on death, to honor their commitment to the cause and to each other.
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    What Clients Should You “Quit”?

    July 12th, 2010

    Are all clients good clients?  Rarely.  But how often do we take a step back from the business to assess the individual quality of our clients?  It is much easier to continue to plow ahead and perform work.

    What are some of the qualities of a good client?

    * Clients who pay on time.

    * Clients who value our services.

    * Clients who speak well of us in the marketplace, and refer others to us.

    * Clients who treat us as humans.

    What are the costs of doing business with bad clients?  In addition to exposure to bad Accounts Receivable, and the emotional drain of dealing with a troublesome person, the biggest cost is one of lost opportunity.  Every minute we spend servicing a problem client, is time we are not spending with a quality client or pursuing another quality relationship.  Unfortunately, this cost does not show up on our financial statements or bank account.

    Read the rest of this entry »


    10 Tips to Improve Your Bottom Line

    June 25th, 2010
    10 Tips To Improve Your Bottom Line

    View more presentations from B2Bee.

    Sell Value

    June 9th, 2010

    Seth Godin has a good post today about selling value. He drives home the point of making offers to clients that solve a problem and deliver unusual value in the marketplace.

    Unfortunately, selling value is usually not top of mind for service professionals and freelancers. Services are typically presented to a client as “# of hours times rate”. “It will take 50 hours to do this project and my billable rate is $100 per hour.” When we position our offer like this, we set ourselves up for a price war from competitors. Instead, why not stay away from selling your time and sell value instead. Here’s an example:

    “For $12,000 I will deliver a sales training program. At the end of the program your sales people will be competent in three skills:

    * asking customers qualifying questions
    * probing for unmet needs
    * writing proposals that resonate with the customer

    Keep selling value!

    Your thoughts?


    The best way to resolve disputes with clients

    June 2nd, 2010

    Recently we came across what we consider to be a bad use of technology for service entrepreneurs.  It is a case of using technology to conduct a “conversation” that needs to happen verbally, not electronically.  Here’s the case.

    A SaaS provider of billing software has a feature in their software that allows the service provider’s clients to login and view activity. Fine. However,  the software service also allows the client to log into the system and mark an invoice as “disputed”.  This is a bad business practice for the service entrepreneur on a number of levels.

    First off, this practice leads the client to believe that by physically marking the invoice disputed, there is some chance that they will not need to pay the invoice.  The physical act contributes to a future expectation that will need to be managed soon.

    Most tragically, though, the act of allowing a client to mark an invoice “disputed”,  does not address the fundamental problem.  The problem being a breakdown in care for the client or a breakdown in understanding of the Conditions of Satisfaction.

    This practice is no different than your customer taking a printing invoice, stamping “Disputed” on it, and mailing it back to you.  Imagine how you would feel if that happened.  Can you feel the animosity building?

    As professionals, it is our job to set the proper expectations with clients.  One of those expectations should be the method the client will use for communicating any dissatisfaction with our services.  Until phones cease to exist, phone calls or in person conversations must be the method.  The client relationship is too important to trust to electronic means.  Voice to voice, interactive communication is key to understanding the depth of the problem and devising the solution.  Voice inflection, tone, degree, and give and take cannot be deduced by a carte blanche marking of the invoice by the client.


    Establishing “Conditions of Satisfaction” with Your Clients.

    May 25th, 2010

    So here I was.  A young, eager, hungry, software consultant.  Business was going o.k. with a fair amount of small jobs coming my way.  Then I got “the call”.  The call came in from Jody, the V.P. of manufacturing of a fairly large manufacturing company.  Jody had heard about my work / identity from another client.  Jody was looking for someone to design a software system for their manufacturing process.  She needed to “start right away”.  The funds for the project had been budgeted………and it was a BIG number.  ”When could I start?”, was Jody’s only question for me.

    Well, that was easy.  Pick up phone. Listen patiently. Get contract.  This is my kind of business!  Or so I thought.

    With gusto, I plunged into the project.  I spent hours upon hours researching analyzing, examining, and documenting their arcane manufacturing processes.  I then produced a report of recommendations.  Not just any report mind you.  This was art.  A masterpiece, laying out in every detail, the specifications for a new system.  Revenue here I come!

    Now for the presentation.  I’m talking charts, graphs, circles and arrows.  Lasted about an hour.  At the time, it didn’t strike me as odd that they didn’t have any questions as I flashed my forty-fifth Powerpoint slide. Must be stunned by my brilliance, I concluded.

    me:  ”Questions?”

    Jody: “This isn’t what we wanted.  You just told us what we already know.  We need “X”, and you gave us “Y”   (detail omitted here to prevent boredom).

    So what went wrong?  I neglected to specify the most important part of my offer, the Conditions of Satisfaction (COS).  Very simply stated,

    conditions of satisfaction are what you, the service provider, need to produce for the client to declare she is satisfied with your work.

    In this case, Jody had a completely different expectation than I did about what was going to be delivered.  In my eagerness to grab the largest assignment of my nascent business, I neglected to specify and agree on the COS.

    Here are some tips on how to specify the Conditions of Satisfaction with a client:

    * be clear, in writing (especially if this is a new client) about what you will deliver

    * make a promise of when you will deliver.  There are two dimensions that clients use to assess satisfaction with service providers.  Quality and timeliness.

    * get the client to agree to the conditions.  Sounds basic.  I like to get a signature and a verbal acknowledgment.

    * here comes the most important one.  Get the client to agree, that if you meet the COS, she will:

    1. pay you on time

    2. speak well of you in the marketplace and refer other customers to you.  Setting this expectation is critical to the growth of your business.

    Specifying the COS upfront, will position you as a true professional and differentiate you from your competitors.

    Your thoughts?


    Don’t Sell Your Time

    May 12th, 2010

    Sell value.  Sell scarcity.  Sell uniqueness.  Selling time is limiting.  Finite.  Earnings, wealth, and possibilities are capped.  Selling time is emotionally draining.  How many hours did I bill today? Only four?  I need to bill twelve tomorrow to make up for it.  Evolve your offer to fixed fee engagements.

    Thoughts?


    How to Get More Word of Mouth Referrals

    May 11th, 2010

    Delivering on your promises as a service professional is key to gaining repeat business with clients.  Over-delivering on your engagements is the key to growing your business through word of mouth referrals.  People rarely tell their friends and colleagues about ordinary or sufficient customer experiences.  Whereas, extraordinary experiences are often related to others.

    One way to set yourself up to create an extraordinary experience is to begin with the end in mind.  Plan on delivering something extra, something that the client was not expecting.  Don’t quote it.  Don’t talk about it. Just deliver it at the end.

    Your thoughts?


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