September 2 2014
5 easy steps to bill more this September
Everyone knows that summer is slow for business. Clients are thinking beaches and beer, but that quickly comes to an end when September rolls around.
Here's how to take advantage of the business restart in September:
Step 1. Call them, reach out and get back in their mind.
This step is the easiest and most important: pick up the phone and call them. Ask them how their summer was and all those niceties. More importantly, find out what they're working on and where they plan on being in three months. You'll get back in their thoughts and after your call they're going to be thinking about how you can help their business.
Win-win.
Tip: Don't sell during this call, and don't say that you can help them with any of the ideas that they mention -- we'll add some value and do that later. Giving them solutions now will just shoot you in the foot and cap your earning potential.
Step 2. Make a list of three things that you can do to help them with goals they mentioned during your call.
Take what you learned during the call and come up with three actionable items that you can present. One that you can execute and complete within the week, one that can take up to 21 days, and a more ambitious project that could take up to three months.
Plan 1
Make this relatively inexpensive. It's more important to deliver something quickly and efficiently than it is to make money. We want them to remember how awesome you are and get them thinking more about how you can help grow their business with them. Even if this plan costs you a small amount of money, its far more important to get the relationship rolling again than it is to make money during this phase.
Plan 2
A 21 day project. It should be something more ambitious and of a greater value both in terms of impact in their business and budget, yet still small enough to be an easy yes and not something they need to think about for a while. It should be a relatively easy choice for them. This should be something that makes money for both your client and you. You got your foot in the door with Plan 1, now you can make some money again.
Plan 3
A much larger project (3 months for example). It should be of significant value both to your client and their budget. It should be super-ambitious and of huge impact to their business. Go big. You'll see why in a few.
Step 3. Call them back and deliver Plan 1
This is where you start laying the ground work for that ambitious plan later this year, while making some more money in September.
You see, they're starting to realize that summer vacation is over, and that it's just a few months away from most companies' year end, so they're thinking in terms of budgets.
Hit them with the week long project, Plan 1; phrase it along the lines of "After our call last week I've been thinking about some of the pains you mentioned and what you're wanting to do. I think you nailed it when you said that ~something they mentioned during the call~ could be built on and we should execute on PLAN 1. I could knock this out this week which would let us quickly see how well that is working and we could chat next week to discuss next steps. Can I get rolling with this?.
What we want to do here is establish a "working relationship" again and not just the status quo. By showing that you gave thought to what they said and providing a well thought out plan you show that you're interested in building growth for them and not just creating an invoice.
Step 4. Buy them coffee/schedule a Skype meeting
Now that you've quickly delivered, meet with them and go over early results. Plan for a week later so that you have some data to go off of, but so that it's still early in the sampling and both parties are aware of this. If you gave this some solid thought and planned well you should have some great data to present them; if it's off to a slow start you can chat with them to get their feedback on what could be adjusted.
More importantly you want to propose Plan 2, the 21 day project. By presenting this now you can show that you're continuing to make positive impact on their growth and thinking about their needs. Use what you did during Plan 1 to build on and make sure that Plan 2 continues that progress. Were building momentum here. With Plan 1 being easy and painless (and hopefully showing results already) its easy to keep rolling. Take time during this meeting to probe more into your clients needs and future plans; you can never know too much about their dreams and plans.
At this point you should have two invoices for your business in September and everything in place to deliver the final step..
Step 5. Deliver the final plan
Lets quickly recap:
Plan #1: Delivered
Plan #2: Delivered
Plan #3: On Deck!
If you've delivered on Plan 2 (and I really hope you did), you are now in the perfect place to hit them with the ambitious Plan #3. By building your relationship for the past month and delivering painless results you have re-established yourself as the go to expert in their mind and they've been seeing how you've done nothing but help grow their business.
Perfect.
Meet with them again like you did in step 4. Go over results to date to reaffirm growth, and lay out Plan #3. Make sure you propose it in a way that plays up the results, growth to date, and opportunity costs they are missing out on, but downplay the budget for it, if you mention it at all.
What you need to do though, is say the magic words while talking about your plan.
"If you can give me the go ahead to get this started this week I could have this done for Year End, would that work for you?"
Seed planted.
You see, for businesses, the term "Year End" means spend all the budgets to ensure that they have the budget for the following year. So by saying "Year End" you've shifted the focus from "How can we afford this" to "We can get this done by using the remainder of our yearly allocation for...", and they'll find a way to get you the money.
Now you've billed more in September, re-established a continued working relationship and have work with this client through the end of December.
Then come January, we'll hit them with a Retainer agreement, to ensure ongoing work, that they can again work into a budget for the year... we'll cover that in an upcoming article.