In this blog, we explore when it might be a good time to fire a client and talk through some proactive steps you can take to ensure the process is as smooth as possible.
Trust, and for that matter accountability, is the cornerstone of any professional relationship. Without their trust in your ability to deliver on what you say you can deliver, your clients will, eventually, walk away. One of the most effective tools you can use to establish and maintain a level of trust between you and your client is a client charter.
Competition for work has never been greater. Every year I feel like the demand side shrinks, the supply side expands, and the cries of ‘more for less’ grow louder. One of the more innovative ways for professionals to create and cultivate client stickiness is to commit to a retainer fee arrangement.
In a highly competitive business environment, such as we often find with professional services, it is arguable that an aggressive pricing strategy helps win work and new clients. A ‘land and expand’ pricing strategy could be an option for you to consider to drive business growth and success.
You’ve done an internal audit of your existing skill set and identified a deficiency. It might be that you never had that particular skill set in the first place. Or it could be you’ve recently lost the skill to a retirement or departure. Either way, you don’t have it, and you need it.
“Recurring revenue” = revenue that is expected to continue on a regular basis with a high-degree of predictability. “Reoccurring revenue” = revenue that is repeatable, but not necessarily on a regular or predictable basis.
When a client first asks you for a capped fee, you’ll likely not think too much about it. After all what can go wrong? All you need to do is to scope the work, workout the leverage, think about how long it will take you to do the task and then add in a little buffer. But, is this the best way?
For most professionals, the very thought of a meeting with a new prospect or an existing customer to talk through how you can help them with their problem(s) can be daunting.
Strong client relationships are critical to maintaining and growing business. With most service-based professional businesses – such as legal, accounting, and engineering – relationships with customers tend to be transactional. So, how do you balance a transactional practice with a need to foster long-term client relationships?
Every professional services firm collects huge amounts of data about their clients and the industry sectors they operate in each and every day. Few, however, take the time to apply the resources to interpret this raw data and apply the findings to its own business in order to improve the value of the service they’re providing.
At GSJ we believe that by not segmenting your client list to the relevant readership, you’re missing out on a ton of business development opportunities. If you want to rectify this error, you should start by classifying your current client and target client lists.