- Mindset – doing it because you WANT to do it, not because you feel you have no choice.
- Goals – what do you want to achieve?
- Outcome – think more than money. What will that money bring you? Holidays? New car? Your kid’s education. Get clear.
- Get help early on – don’t leave it for a year to decide you need help deciding on your pricing and packaging. That year could see your corporate salary reserves depleted.
- Who – be clear on WHO you want to work with. You’ll hear a lot of people asking you or mentioning ideal clients.
- Get this right – be clear on this before you invest any more money. You could burn a lot of cash in those early months if you aren’t clear.
- Avoid stat laziness – when you are thinking about who you want to work with, it’s more than ‘a company with a turnover more than 250K, 10-25 staff. Big deal! Tell me more about what they are going through? Where’s their pain? Their frustrations? What do THEY want to achieve?
- Connect the dots – how does that fit with where you can add the MOST value?
- Where – now you’ve got who your ideal clients are, think about where they hang out.
- Network creep – local Chambers, membership networking groups can be great. However, they won’t work for you if you haven’t got a plan for who you want to meet and what you want to get out it.
- Network contacts to referral partners – once you’ve been networking for a while, you will have identified several companies who have a similar client base to you with complementary services. Invest time in them to help them sell you an vice versa.
- Increasing your market share the clever way – in the early days when it’s just you, you can’t be everywhere at once, you CAN create a sales team through connecting and educating your referral partners and doing the same with key suppliers.
- Be consistent – a good business grows steadily, which requires you being consistent. Consistent with posting social media content, reaching out to new prospects and being out there!
- Track – set up how many leads you get, how long it takes to convert your leads and where they come from.
- Keep it simple – you won’t have all the systems and processes from day 1 and that’s OK.
- Time savers – talk to other founders around you, what simple systems have they got in place that’s affordable and time saving.
- Beware of the shiny things – ‘we can get you $10K of business in 30 days’ – beware of the over promisers, chances are, they are only out for themselves.
- Noise – there’s a lot of noise out there and services that can help you. Find ones that work for you.
- The yes regret – don’t say ‘yes’ straightaway to things if they are new and shiny. Step back and think about whether you need it now and if so why? What will it do for you?
- Get cash clarity – understand your cash situation. There’s nothing wrong with being unsure about what you need or how to give your figures meaning.
- Ask – don’t be afraid to reach out to peers if you aren’t sure of things.
- Been there – remember – everyone has had to start their business somewhere.
- Aspirational peers – surround yourself with people who are also building businesses and might be slightly ahead of you. They will build you up like nothing else!
- You – building a business is tough, remember to take some time out for you.
- Sleep – uber important. So easy to do this 16–20-hour days early on, hell, I still do it from time to time. We all need our sleep!
- Food routines – so easy to have weird and wonderful eating habits as you are consumed by your business. You need good fuel in you to keep going and to perform at your best.
- Podcasts – these are a great way to learn on the move, it gets harder to find the time to read books.
- Flex – your services and products will flex and change as your business grows and that’s a good thing! It shows you are listening to what your clients want.
- Lingo – listen to your client’s phrase that they use when they are talking about their struggles.
- Jargon – avoid using too many acronyms, what do they mean to your clients?
- Their agenda vs. yours – listen to what your clients want.
- All about you – what is your agenda vs. your clients?
- Agenda gaps – if there is an agenda deficit between what you want to sell your client and what they want. Pivot!
- Pricing – build your pricing on outcomes. What is the value your services bring to a client?
- Be thorough – have you included all your activities when building your pricing for clients? Have you included project management timing? Design?
- Time creep – it’s not always possible to sell value, sometimes you must sell time. Manage language with your clients when selling time.
- Time wars – clients can become very focussed on how long things take, devaluing what you are doing. Support them by putting processes in place that reassure them.
- Time processes – timesheets can fuel the fire. How about selling a bundle of hours, based on a careful plan and outcomes for those hours.
- Client partnerships – your success is also based on client responses. Make them aware of their accountability.
- Client accountability – for example, this could be ‘in order to deliver this project on time and to budget, we require requested information in 72-hours.”
- Projects – if you are selling projects, be clear on what’s included in each project.
- What’s out of scope – add an appendix or bullet point for what’s not included and suggested pricing. For example, ‘if you require additional support, this will be based on an hourly rate of £150’.
- Employee mindset – big projects and regular clients can lead to you doing way more, and you having an ‘employee mindset’, because they might well be your main revenue income. STOP!
- You are the expert – they have come to you because you are the expert. Be proactive in your delivery, be firm – and confident.
- Asking for more – a great way to do this, when required, is to set up a review meeting.
- Prep for reviews – what has the been the outcomes (that word again) from the work you have achieved? What’s worked well? Where are the gaps?
- Never sell – you will never need to sell if you are asking the right questions and demonstrating the gaps.
- Put the mirror up – create insights with your questioning, this will make it easier for you to extend contracts and get that additional piece of work.
- The most powerful question – what is the one question you can ask that will help you to close a piece of work? Think about what yours will be.
- Closing question example – ‘would you like my help?’
Have you found these helpful? If you would like to set up a call with me to see if we can help you to grow your business on your terms in 2023, please set up call via my Calendly.
I’d love to help YOU to smash your goals.
