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Pricing: Retainer Fee, Flat Fee, or Hourly Rate?

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Congratulations! You’re in serious talks with a prospective client and it appears that the project is yours. As you listen to the soon-to-be-client discussing his/her must-haves and timetable, you’re also thinking about pricing and payment:

How many hours might this take to complete and how much should I charge?

What might the client be able to afford and what might s/he be willing to pay?

What value will I bring to the company—-how will my work enable the client to achieve important goals, enhance the company brand and status, or avoid trouble?

How should I suggest that we structure the billing arrangement—hourly rate, flat project fee, or retainer agreement?

Once you’ve asked the client about a ballpark project budget and more or less know how much you’ll request for an upfront payment (10% – 20% maybe?), which payment structure will best fit the project, guarantee that you’ll make a profit and not put you into the position of basically working for free and also support the client’s trust and confidence in you and your company?

Project fee

Charging a flat, predetermined project fee is common for larger projects and for working with clients with whom you’ve worked before, when you can more accurately estimate the hours needed to successfully complete the job. Often, a flat rate is based on an estimate of hours a project will take to complete, multiplied by your standard hourly rate for the type of work required.

In other cases, the value of the finished project is higher than just your estimated hours. For example, logo designs are often valued highly regardless of actual hours worked, because of their frequent use and visibility. Other factors that can affect the price include the number of pieces printed or sold, and whether the piece will be used once or multiple times.

Depending on the type of project, you might add a percentage to cover client meetings, unforeseen changes, email correspondence, and other activities that an hourly estimate doesn’t reflect.

The upside

  • The client knows what they are paying from the beginning (unless there are changes to the scope of the project).
  • You are guaranteed a certain amount of money, even if the job is finished quickly.

The downside

  • The job might take longer than expected (a possibility your contract should address).
  • Clients sometimes ask for extra revisions, etc. without expecting to pay more (again, cover this in your contract)

Hourly

The hourly rate is the most common payment arrangement for both W-2 and 1099-NEC independent contractors in America, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Labor in 2017.

Consider not just what it costs you to do the work but factor in the value you bring as well.

The upside

  • You have a straightforward way to charge clients

The downside

  • You may get pushback from a client if the work takes longer than expected and they receive a large invoice

Retainer

Working on retainer means that you charge clients a monthly minimum, no matter how much work you do. However, for certain types of work, setting a monthly minimum number of hours or projects makes sense. Working on retainer ensures that you have enough revenue coming in every month to keep your business afloat.

The upside

  • You do ongoing work for your client and build a close relationship to help them achieve success.
  • You invoice clients regularly (usually monthly) without having to keep detailed records of your time.
  • You receive recurring payments, almost like a salary, which gives you more predictable revenue.
  • You can scale your business by hiring contractors or employees to manage multiple clients.
  • You create stability for your business without needing to upsell current clients or continually search for new ones.

The downside

  • You may be asked to do additional work that’s not in your agreement if you haven’t set clear expectations or an additional hourly fee.
  • Your total hours worked may fluctuate significantly from month to month, which may make it difficult to schedule time-sensitive work for other clients or leave you feeling suddenly overworked or underworked.
  • Your clients may request to renegotiate your fee when they do their annual budget.
  • Your income, while steady, may be lower than with other billing options.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: The Euro

Professional Development , , , , Leave a comment

Mastering Virtual Presentations: Feel Connected, not Remote

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Virtual meetings are here to stay and at some point you, Freelancer friend, will be asked to give a presentation on a virtual platform—so you may as well make it your business to learn how to do it right. Plan well and you’ll be able to give a talk that is delivered remotely but still connects you to your audience. The trick is to think of your talk as a TV show or movie, divide it into segments and assign them a role to play in the audience experience.

Obstacles

Talking to a webcam is probably not your idea of a satisfying communication process. You’re in a room intended for another purpose—-cooking? sleeping?—-but is now your stage and the audience can see you. You can see them, too, but only as a row of small images aligned along the perimeter of your screen. Everyone is together, except that you’re not.

In fact, you’re all isolated and some may be in another time zone or even another country. Still, through the miracle of technology, you’ve come together to share this experience. The speaker has the responsibility to make that experience rewarding.

Unfortunately, the speaker’s experience may not feel rewarding. Delivering a speech of some sort when using a virtual platform can be disorienting, whether one will discuss a committee report at a board meeting, teach a class, or give a quarterly earnings report to investors. The usual sensory cues are missing. The presenter can see everyone’s eyes, but is unable to make eye contact.

It is sometimes apparent whether or not audience members are paying attention, but feeling their presence and energy, which signal to an astute speaker when the audience is with you and when you are losing them, is not possible. In virtual communication there is no feedback, no way to confirm that the audience understands or agrees with the points you’re making. The presenter is hanging out there alone, sort of in a black hole. There are no familiar landmarks on the trip.

Solution 1: The voice

Presenting on a virtual medium is like being a television newscaster, talking to the red light and with no studio audience to interact with. Nevertheless, speakers working in a virtual medium must remain acutely aware that there is a listening audience that needs him/her perhaps more than does a face2face audience. The online audience urgently needs a responsive connection to the speaker, on whom they depend to lead them into the topic, earn their respect by sharing relevant and timely information and hold their attention so that they won’t be tempted to sign out of the event.

When talking to a webcam, there is often a tendency to speak in a monotone. Some may speak too fast, others will ramble on and on. It’s because talking to a webcam and a row of tiny pictures feels off-kilter. The normal exchange of communication between a speaker and audience, subtle but powerful, is missing.

The overall most effective solution is for virtual format presenters to rehearse the talk thoroughly, to ensure that the tone of voice is strong and confident and the pace of speaking is neither rushed nor slow. Diction should be crisp and the vocal expression pleasantly enthusiastic.

Solution 2: Technology —polls

The drop-off rate of virtual presentations is high. It’s easy for audience members to leave when the talk begins to seem boring. To combat the problem, speakers must prepare to work with the platform technology, rather than allow themselves to become lost and flailing within it. Speakers must always maintain control and this is especially true when the format is virtual and the ability to read the audience mood is severely restricted.

Presenters are advised to quickly capture audience attention and establish their control by engaging them at the start of the talk, perhaps with a fun activity that employs the platform’s polling function. When the speaker invites the audience to respond to him/her they’ll give back a helpful dose of positive energy, precisely what is needed to not just deliver a talk, but to communicate and connect with the audience.

Asking a question is a tried-and-true audience “warm up” technique, but your question must be more specific than “How’s everybody doing today?” The virtual presentation opening question should be devised along the lines of a survey question, to make taking a poll feel appropriate.

Presenters can create a question that’s related to the talk, or even ask about the weather. Since most of the audience may be working from home, staying indoors is easy. If local temperatures have been unusually cold or warm, a creative speaker might want to ask when’s the last time audience members have ventured outdoors? The question and answers received could be good for a chuckle and will pave the way to finding common ground between speaker and audience and also between audience members.

You may be able to take another poll or two later in the talk by asking a question about the topic and challenging the audience to predict what your data show. Once you’ve displayed the audience answers, then present your data. (“96% of you predicted that our customers would like this new product feature. Let’s bring up the official statistics now and see how customers responded.”

Solution 3: Technology —chat

Chat is tailor-made for Q & A and it’s the go- to virtual audience engagement tool. Every presentation includes time for Q & A, often structured as a forum at the talk’s conclusion. Some presenters will also take a question or two earlier in the talk and then address the rest in the Q & A forum.

Whichever format you feel will work best for you and your topic, the chat function will be useful. Presenters can invite audience members to type questions into chat throughout the talk, which may cause certain of them to be addressed during the talk. It will be wise for presenters to discreetly check into chat periodically during the talk because audience members could be trying to signal that something is amiss—-maybe a sound or lighting problem.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: Walter Cronkite (1916 – 2009), lead anchorman for CBS-TV Evening News 1962 – 1981. During the 1960s and 70s, Cronkite was regularly named as “ the most trusted man in America.”

Marketing , , Leave a comment

Notes on Branding

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Hello there. It’s been quite a while since we’ve explored the topic of branding. Establishing and maintaining a reputable brand for your company has the power to generate significant financial rewards even for single owner Freelance entities. Let’s dive in.

What it is

A brand is the characteristics and attributes associated with a company. The company brand consists of the qualities for which the company and its products and services are best known, by its customers and by the public. The company brand defines and communicates the experience it provides for its customers. Especially for larger companies, the company brand is powerfully and memorably communicated by its logo symbol. Brand = Reputation.

Branding

The process of creating and communicating the benefits, characteristics and trustworthy reputation that company owners and leaders envision for the products and services that the company sells. The objective of branding is to persuade customers and prospects to associate those benefits, characteristics and positive reputation with the company, as demonstrated by its products and services, because it will resonate with, inspire trust in and appeal to current and potential customers. Branding gives a business an identity and distinguishes the company from its competitors.

Create and discover your brand

Brand development is a two- way street. Company leaders must understand what the most likely (that is, target) customers for the products and services will be. The brand within is what company leaders determine the brand should be, as represented by the market position, pricing, sales distribution and product placement sections, advertising and social media strategies, packaging and so on. But customers also have a say in a company brand. The brand without consists of how current and prospective customers perceive and respond to the company brand.

Building a brand starts with knowing the customer and the customer’s expectations for your company’s products and services, which are shaped and influenced by what competitors, those who’ve come before you, have done.

Nourish and promote the brand identity and voice

Believe it or not, a brand has a life of its own and a personality to go with it. Company owners and leaders must build a brand whose voice and identity convey trust, reliability and good value for the money spent to acquire the company’s products or services.

The brand identity may be cutting edge, solidly dependable, luxurious, user-friendly, inexpensive and practical, or any number of other qualities. The brand voice will convey brand identity attributes through the style of the website, the company logo, colors used for the website, email marketing templates, company business cards, product packaging and other marketing materials, social media platforms used and marketing messages. Increasingly, company values and guiding principles, from environmentalism to current interpretations of social justice, influence the the brand voice.

What impression do you want customers and prospects to come away with when encountering and interacting with your company? Who are the primary customers? What do they aspire to communicate about themselves when they use your products or services? Those are the guide posts used to create and sustain the brand identity and voice.

Manage the brand

Company leaders must vigorously and continually monitor the tangible and intangible elements of the brand and ensure their relevance to customers and prospective customers.

Advertising and sponsorship choices, marketing and PR campaigns, content marketing topics, social media posts, the company website, product packaging, or the verbal “packaging” of a service, i.e., its defining message and, ultimately, the customer experience, from the Top of the Funnel buying cycle through to actual usage of the product or service, must communicate all that is valuable and memorable about the brand.

Getting started

As always, everything begins with knowing your customer. What motivates them to seek out products or services like yours? How do they use those products or services? Where do they expect to buy your products or services and how much do they expect to pay to for them?

Define the qualities and benefits that customers and prospects value your products and services for. To make the most of that information, the Marketing 4 P’s could be helpful—-Product, Price, Place and Promotion. I like to add four more P’s: Position (luxury or low-cost?), Process (the customer experience, from visiting the website to making the purchase to speaking with customer support); People (all interactions with customer-facing staff, including the company owner, manifests the brand); and Packaging (especially for a tangible product, the style and quality of its packaging, its customer eye-appeal, conveys the brand).

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: Brand identity 1950s style as presented by still powerful Nestle. The character “Danny O’Day (L), ventriloquist Jimmy Nelson and the much loved Farfel

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Grow, Expand, or Scale?

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Business owners, including my clients, are known to start bandying about the term scale once they’ve been in business for a couple of years and they are bringing in a few customers. They are in search of a few more customers, so that they can make more money.

So the prospect is referred to me by way of a mutual colleague, makes contact and shares his/her agenda with me. “I want to grow and expand my business. I’m ready to scale. Can you help me?” “Yes, I’ll be happy to help you with that,” I reply. “Please tell me a little more about your company and we can set up a time to talk.”

To be honest, until recently I’d never given the terms much thought, other than they all mean growth—-more customers, more revenue and more profit (ideally) for the company. However I’ve come to realize that there are real differences between them and that they should not be considered interchangeable.

While basically all ventures can grow and growth is a perennial goal, not every enterprise can achieve growth through either expansion or scale. It all depends on the business and what the owner(s) would like to do.

Growing the business

When a business owner or management team decides to grow the company, the strategy is to add certain resources—money, technology, training and staffing, say—-to produce more sales and therefore, revenue. But essentially, not much changes in the way business is done.

If the business hires two new employees and also buys new computers plus a software program that speeds up order processing and keeps track of inventory, for a total investment of perhaps $125,000 (staff salaries are ongoing at $120,000 / year total), the expectation may be that in one year the investment would be covered by the additional revenue that the upgrades make possible and that by year two, sales revenue will increase by 15%/ year for the next 3 years and then continue to more modestly trend upward, producing growth in the high single digits until market conditions change.

If the business leaders want more growth, more money must be invested. The resources needed might be too costly relative to the desired results.

Expansion

Growing the business through expansion is, as noted, another strategy. The business owners or leaders may open more locations if demographic and other marketing research indicates that a significant number of current and potential customers live in certain zip codes and would spend more money if stores could be more convenient to visit.

Likewise, introducing new products or services to the marketplace is capable of expanding the customer base and revenue generated. Entering a niche market is another potentially successful expansion, i.e., growth, strategy.

Like traditional business growth, the costs associated with business expansion can be significant and in fact the costs can be much more significant if opening new locations is involved. As well, a new product launch is potentially a costly undertaking. Entering new markets is usually less costly, but a special marketing campaign may need to be developed and rolled out to reach the new demographic.

But not every business can expand. There may be no additional markets that can successfully be entered. Opening additional locations may be neither affordable nor beneficial. Developing and launching a new product or service that fits with the organization’s mission and current line may not be possible or practical.

Scaling the business

The idea of scaling a business to promote significant growth gets all the publicity these days. When business leaders create a strategy to scale a venture, sales revenue is meant to be generated at a much lower cost per unit sold relative to the scale- up investment made because the production process becomes much more efficient. Automation of one or more key functions is the usual method used to keep overhead costs low (few employees and little office space, for example). A successful scale enables the number of customers reached and served and corresponding revenue generated to grow exponentially. The more efficient the means of mass production and delivery of a company’s products or services, the more scalable the company will be.

Drop the price of producing the widgets from $2 each to 80 cents each and sell them at the original price, but sell 10 times as many as you used to. That’s scale. Hire a new employee or two and buy a new piece of equipment so that you can produce more and manage a moderate drop in production price along the way, so the widgets that once cost $2 each at wholesale now can be bought at $1.25 each because you’re buying more of them and a discount kicks in. That’s growth. Open up a new location, launch a new product or service, or enter a new market, bringing in new customers or give your usual customers new reasons to shop with you and that’s expansion.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Photograph: Snow drops in the Fenway neighborhood of Boston scale their operation.

Sales , , , , Leave a comment

LinkedIn Special Report: B2B Selling in the COVID era

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In our uncertain times, for-profit organizations have elevated selling, the means by which revenue is generated, to the highest priority. Sales revenues are the life blood of a business and enable its survival. As a result, sales professionals are under significant pressure to identify, connect with, engage and bring in new clients, as well as obtaining additional business from existing clients.

No surprises there. Making sales is the role of sales reps. It’s just that thanks to COVID, the playing field has undergone a seismic shift. Once-thriving industries, most notably restaurants, hotels and fitness, have been greatly diminished. Commercial real estate sales and leasings are staggering, as legions of white collar professionals cobble together DIY offices and work from home. How can sales representatives reach prospects when they’re usually no longer in the office? How can they introduce themselves and their products and services when they can no longer meet prospects face2face?

Virtual technology has solved most of the communication problem, but virtually enabled conversations do not make it easy for sales reps to meet and lay the groundwork for building new relationships. Furthermore current or previous clients, who now work from home, are often overwhelmed as they strive to meet the new and growing expectations of their jobs. Receiving a request from a sales rep to schedule yet another videoconference call does not spark joy.

LinkedIn has issued its fourth annual State of Sales Report after interviewing some 1,000 B2B buyers and sellers in several countries, including Brazil, Canada, France, the UK and the US. Here are some key takeaways.

Good data matters

To clarify and justify their buying decisions, the report found that 49 % of prospective B2B buyers feel that objective data is a required element of a sale and data- driven decisions have grown in popularity in the COVID era. Data adds value. Sales professionals need only to determine which metrics matter to the prospect?

Doing some homework and asking a few questions is the way to learn what information will persuade your prospect. Now when you send an email to request a videoconference call, you can tempt your prospect with a couple of data tidbits that signal you understand what matters. Now you present yourself as being a problem-solver. Present some data and ask what other information will be useful.

Getting to know your prospect as you get to know their business challenges and objectives is part of engagement. Demonstrate that you’re not just trying to make a sale, you’re trying to help the prospect do solve, or avoid, a problem.

Be a problem-solver

Problem-solving emerged as an attribute that 47% of B2B buyers value highly. As always, effective selling means knowing the customer. One way to engage prospects is to ask about their business and learn as much as politely possible about why and how your product or service could help the organization achieve important objectives. In short, what do they really need to do and how can you help them get there?

Furthermore, you might ask prospects how they did what they need to do before you and your product or service came along? Now you’ll pick up some useful intel on competitors and know how to position your offering as superior, as you assume the role of problem- solver.

When sellers focus on client objectives and provide meaningful data it’s possible to position oneself as a problem-solver, if not as a trusted adviser and collaborator for the prospect. In this way B2B sellers earn trust. For 75% of B2B buying decision-makers, the amount of trust that they have for a seller is the number one factor that leads a buyer to do business with a particular company.

Expect change

In sum, 70 % of survey respondents feel that leading through change is now a required competency for sales managers and is more important than it was five years ago. Sales leaders are wrestling with the question of what the change in the business environment means for their organization and their team. In a separate LinkedIn survey of sales managers conducted in March 2020, 55 percent of the 200 respondents feared that a decrease in their sales pipeline is inevitable.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: Over tea, Moroccan Berbers (Amazigh) build a relationship and discuss the potential sale of a rug.

Marketing , , Leave a comment

Strategy: Win a Business Award

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One often-overlooked business strategy that brings many benefits to a company is competing for (and winning!) a business award. Competing for a business award and being named a finalist, that is, eligible to win first, second, or third prize, is a big vote of confidence for the chosen organizations. The recognition sets your business apart from competitors, implies credibility and expertise, enhances your company’s brand and stature and is almost certain to increase the number and quality of prospects, clients and referral sources your business receives.

There are more ways to win than you might think. Sponsoring organizations are typically generous with the number of awards and categories they choose to honor. More awards and more categories are an incentive for business owners and leaders to become contestants because there will be more opportunities to win. More contestants means more entry applications received by the sponsor and more tickets sold to the awards banquet (when those activities resume), since every finalist will buy at least one ticket and some will buy a table.

In addition to its role as a revenue enhancer, sponsoring awards is good PR for the organization, which could include the bank where you keep your business account. The awards not only distinguish the group as a prominent member of the business community, but also attract and help to retain members (or customers). In the best of American traditions, business awards are a way for many to make money. That could mean you, too.

Full disclosure—-as a result of the destabilizing impact of the coronavirus shutdown, I declined to accept an invitation to return as a preliminary round judge in The Stevie Awards/ Women in Business category (there are eight in all), an honor I’ve been happy to receive for six of the past eight years. Judges are neither paid, nor do we pay to participate. I do it because I enjoy experience and it looks good in my bio. https://stevieawards.com

Be advised that as with any marketing campaign, there are expenses involved. You’ll be required to join the sponsoring organization. You must pay the award entry fee for every award category that your company pursues—-best new product launch, business of the year, best workplace, social responsibility award and so on. You must buy one or more tickets to the ceremony (even when it’s virtual). The awards process could represent the entirety of your outfit’s annual marketing budget.

The time needed to prepare your award entry and determine which supporting documents will best communicate who you, your team (if applicable) and your company is another cost. Creating an impressive and persuasive entry application can be a laborious and time-consuming undertaking.

Furthermore, an assessment of your company’s readiness to pursue an award may reveal that it would be advantageous to build for 12-24 months before your organization is prepared to compete for an award. But that’s OK. Taking steps to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of your organization (are not most of us facing the threat of the COVID economy?) will pay dividends in and of itself. Just be objective about your company’s chance of winning and understand the time and money likely to be involved.

Choose a target award

Potential contestants are advised to do some homework and discover awards that are sponsored by local, regional and national organizations, whether business networking organizations (chambers of commerce), industry-specific associations (such as the Bar Association for attorneys), or your business bank. I recommend that your initial forays into awards campaigns focus on local sponsors, particularly for those of you who are Freelance consultants and small business owners generating less than $500,000 in annual gross revenue.

After compiling a draft list of possibilities, check the award entry criteria. It’s likely that candidates must join the organization in order to compete for an award and that will be your first expense. Annual dues may run from a few hundred dollars to $1000 or more, depending on the sponsor. Confirm also when new members will be eligible to compete for an award. Next, investigate other entry facts—-the entry application deadline, the fees and whether candidates must be nominated to compete for the award.

Read the specs and select the categories in which you can expect to do well—-excellence in your field, customer service, new product or service launch, community outreach, environmentally-friendly, for example. Within the categories offered, where might your company step to the front of the pack?

Finalize your choices and prepare to compete, being sure to give yourself ample time to collect, evaluate, or create the supporting resources you’ll need to enter. The good news is that if you plan to enter more than one category, most of the content developed can be used in multiple entry forms.

Tell a compelling story

On nearly every award entry, there’s a section that asks for more details about your business, your team and you. Be sure to provide all of the information that is requested and as well, tell a story beyond the statistics. Let the judges feel your personality and understand what makes your business stand out. Here, you can share unique information that might not fit elsewhere in the entry application. Customize your message by sharing relevant success stories and achievements that address the award category you are entering.

Construct a strong beginning, middle and end for your story. Reveal how you overcame challenges to reach new heights and back up your claims with hard evidence. Feel welcome to include good visuals like charts and graphs, or the persuasive appeal of client testimonials. Keep your application punchy and concise, using short sentences and statistics to underline key points. Bullet points are an effective way to ensure that judges can absorb your performance metrics quickly.

Describe what motivated you to launch the company. Detail the company’s vision, mission, guiding principles and values and what you and your team are passionate about and which accomplishments make you most proud. Tell your story from your heart. Before hitting the send button, or sealing the envelope for a hard-copy mailing if required, add a personal note and thank the sponsoring organization and the judges for their consideration of your entry. Then conjure up some positive thoughts!

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: The inimitable Academy Award, Golden Globe Award and Grammy Award winning actress-singer-dancer Judy Garland in A Star is Born (1954), for which she won the 1955 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical

Technology / Office , Leave a comment

Clubhouse: A Social Media Platform for the Beautiful People

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Trending

The newest entry to the social media scene is Clubhouse, an invitation-only platform built around what is called “drop-in audio chat”. Call it an audio chat social network. Users download the platform app and are welcomed to drop into real time, voice only chat room conversations that they may participate in, or decide to just sit back and listen to. Or, one might request to “own” a room, choose a format and topic and invite folks to drop in and chat. Clubhouse conversations are ephemeral—when the chatting stops, what was said disappears forever. Nothing is recorded.

Created by Paul Davison and Rohan Seth, reportedly seeded with $12 million by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and officially launched about when the coronavirus entered the U.S. in First Quarter 2020, Clubhouse has attracted a swath of high-profile member users that now number about two million. The app can only be downloaded on an iPhone, at least for now. Android downloads will be available soon. The service is not optimized for iPad.

The velvet rope

You have to know someone to get in. Clubhouse is a gated community. Access is available by personal invitation only. Members can invite just two people to join, but will earn more invitation credits as they use the app.

Any iPhone user can download the app and reserve a username, but will be placed on the waiting list. It is allegedly possible that a current member could be notified that someone s/he knows would like to join and would appreciate an invitation. Otherwise, aspiring members who lack the right connections will twist in the wind.

Clubhouse has quickly built up considerable social cachet, most likely the result of its exclusivity business model. Having the app on your phone is like getting into Studio 54, the 1970s Manhattan disco where everybody who was anybody went to party hard. The platform has become the darling of A-List entertainers and the tech entrepreneur crowd. Oprah Winfrey, Elon Musk, R & B superstar Drake, Chris Rock and Mark Cuban are members.

Another factor that may enhance its popularity is that Clubhouse users speak to each another in real time. People can talk and it all feels more intimate than other forms of online conversation. People tend to prefer the natural rhythms of speaking that we use when talking face2face, rather than typing back and forth on a keyboard.

Format

Members can follow their fellow members and also topics of interest, as they do on other social media platforms, and also join themed “clubs.” They have access to a selection of chat rooms that focus on different subjects, many of which are attuned to what is currently trending.

Some rooms will have just a few people chatting informally. Others might contain hundreds or even thousands of people listening to a panel of experts discuss a national or international issue, or a top-selling author, or a well-known entrepreneur. If someone in the room would like to contribute to the conversation or ask a question, a hand raise signal is given and the room’s “owner” can give speaking privileges.

Chat rooms visitors are identified by their profile photo, which is required for each user. Those in the room can browse the profiles of others in the room, which also includes a list of whom everyone follows. The Clubhouse algorithm takes all this into account when offering content choices to members.

Why you want in

Clubhouse members are able to hear, and even participate in, the often relaxed and sometimes very candid conversations of famous and powerful people. You may hear a political debate, a comedy routine, a book club discussion, or billionaires talking business. Uber-famous music producer and performer Kanye West is scheduled to appear in a Clubhouse chat room. Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have already done so.

But what will being there do for your business? It depends on the ecosystem in which you operate. If you feel that prospective clients will be impressed when you casually name-drop a celebrity or some other nationality known high roller, then consult your Rolodex and devise a strategy to get past the door man.

Voice is the future

It’s been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and Clubhouse will soon face direct competitors. A powerful vote of confidence for the rising appeal of audio social networking platforms is coming from Facebook, who recently announced that the company is in the early stages of experimenting with social audio features. Entrepreneur and venture capitalist Mark Cuban, a Clubhouse member, has announced that he is involved with building an audio-focused social platform called Fireside, which will compete with Clubhouse and he plans to launch this year.

Twitter added a voice feature for tweeting in June 2020 and is testing a separate audio chat-room product called Spaces, according to a company spokeswoman. LinkedIn was ahead of the curve on the chat trend when it added voice messaging in July 2018.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Photograph: Kim Kardashian (left) with a Sidekick and Paris Hilton checks her Blackberry circa 2003.

Sales , , , , Leave a comment

Meeting New Clients When They’re Virtual

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As we journey through the COVID business landscape, B2B product and service providers have mostly found that the process of selling to their current clients has successfully been transferred to virtual methods, that is, videoconferencing and the telephone. But the biggest shortcoming of virtual communication is revealed when the goal is to meet and cultivate new clients.

As business (and education, government, fitness, worship, et al.) has transitioned to remote functioning one glaring truth has emerged— it’s much easier to shift existing relationships into virtual mode than it is to create new relationships, business or personal, by way of Zoom. That’s especially true in B2B sales. While many Freelancers and other business owners and leaders have directed resources toward strengthening existing client relationships, facilitating new client acquisition has folks wringing their hands.

It’s been conclusively demonstrated that it costs at least five times more time and money to acquire a new client than it costs to maintain a current client, but it remains a fact that every business must put into motion a client acquisition strategy. New clients represent the potential for future growth and they are an essential component of a healthy business ecosystem.

The problem is, relationships are more easily created during face2face interactions and we’re just not able to meet people anymore! The lockdown has either closed or severely restricted nearly all public gathering spaces. Video and voice calls keep us connected, albeit at a distance, but those relationships are in many cases already established.

So our question of the day is—-how can a business effectively grow its client list when access to new prospects is unexpectedly limited? Let’s consider some alternatives to the once customary networking formulas.

Low hanging fruit and a system reboot

Mine your client data, knowledge and relationships to discover how you might persuade those with whom you’ve been doing business to do more business. Find the low hanging fruit on a tree familiar to you. In some instances, it may be necessary to reboot certain relationships if clients were forced to cease or curtail operations due to the shutdown and its aftershocks.

Create reasons to contact clients whose organizations were adversely but not fatally impacted, perhaps by emailing COVID business resource information as a conversation starter. While trading emails or calls, you’ll be able to inquire about the location of where business is now conducted—in the office or from home.

Ask those clients how they’re responding to the COVID environment and listen carefully for a way, however small, you can help get his/her company up and rolling again. You may rewarded with a handful of billable hours as conditions improve. This strategy is working for me, BTW.

Conversely, some businesses are experiencing growth during the pandemic and you should make it a point to identify those organizations and include those for whom your products or services can be a fit in your marketing efforts. Maybe you can get a referral from a friend, family member, or client?

Encourage referrals

Referrals confer to you the golden status of being considered a known and trusted quantity. Other than a Super Bowl ad, there is no better endorsement for your business than a referral. People who read reviews of books, movies, restaurants, or hotels are in reality searching for a business whose customers give it good referrals.

Create the conditions for good word-of-mouth about your service by excelling at superior customer service at every client touch point. Present a 360 degree pleasant and efficient experience from the intuitive navigation of your website, the relevance of your content marketing posts, to your follow-up and willingness to go the extra mile to provide the necessary solution, to your project proposals and invoicing.

Give your clients lots of good things to say about doing business with your organization. Ask them to spread the word. On client invoices, offer a 15% or so discount on their next invoice if a referral is made and a sale results.

Case studies and testimonials showcase how clients feel about your finest work. They are a form of referrals and business owners and leaders are advised to include such valuable endorsements on the company website and on social media platforms.

Get found with Inbound Marketing

Revisit your understanding of the ideal clients for your company’s products or services. Do you know who the decision-makers is? Do you know who is likely to influence the decision-maker and other important stakeholders? When writing your content, it’s imperative to know to whom you are speaking.

With a heightened sense of your ideal client in mind, evaluate, refine and expand your company’s online presence and popularity with content designed to fill the sales funnel with prospects who have authority, who make decisions, who have influence. Create email marketing subject lines that catch the eye and resonate with those prospects. Align your white papers, blog, newsletter and case studies to address goals and questions that are meaningful to your prospects. Appeal to what motivates prospects to take the leap and do business with you. Post content to Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook to expand your reach.

Finally, why not experiment with developing relationships through online communities? Investigate LinkedIn groups, for example, and search for one or two that seem like a good fit. Follow conversations and learn what active members discuss. When you feel ready, pose a question or respond to one. Whenever you participate, your LinkedIn contact info is accessible to interested parties and the seeds of follow- up are planted.

The sales landscape has changed for the time being, but the fundamentals of selling remain. If your product or service solves a problem, provides a solution, for a potential buyer, if a price can be agreed upon a sale will be made. Pursuing introductions and attempting to build relationships with new prospects in the virtual space is not without challenges but it also brings certain advantages. Geography is no longer a barrier.

Moreover, most prospects begin the buying journey online, searching Yelp and other rating sites to find out who can and cannot be trusted, cruising through social media and visiting websites that appear in the top 10 of their text or voice searches (those would mostly be big companies, for those wondering why there is no mention of SEO here).

Buyers are acclimating to the virtual space, becoming more accepting of the new normal and what it entails. The scope of relationships hatched in the virtual space may not be quite what we’re accustomed to, but I predict that both buyers and sellers will adapt as necessary to do business.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: Athena, a special guest character on Lost in Space (CBS-TV 1965-1968) appeared in season 2, episode 16, of the series on January 4, 1967.

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Build Your Email Contact List

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Despite numerous predictions of its imminent demise that have splashed across the headlines of business publications for several years now email marketing, in various formats, continues to march forward in vigorous health because it works. If email marketing didn’t produce quantifiable ROI we would have abandoned it years ago. Nope. Email marketing remains an efficient communication pathway that allows companies to announce a product launch, register attendees for a podcast or webinar, deliver to subscribers this week’s installment of your blog, entice mailing list members with an invitation to your virtual book launch, or inspire potential students with news of the debut of your online course.

Despite the popularity of half a dozen social media platforms that are experiencing an upward trend that shows no sign of slowing down, email marketing continues to be accepted by those on the receiving end, so long as the number from any one source does not overwhelm. When email list members value the sender, they seem to like updates delivered to their inbox.

So building a quality email list that’s populated with prospects who are interested in you and your company is good business. Today, we can identify a few smart, simple tactics that are fast-acting, free and can potentially create for your organization a brand building, money making email list.

  1. Social media

An effective and obvious way to quickly and organically build a robust email contact list at no cost is to post content on social media platforms and the more platforms you post content to, the faster you’ll collect names and email addresses. How so, you ask? Because sooner or later, readers of your content will respond to what you’ve written and when they do, you’ll capture their name and email address. It’s likely that those willing to give a like to your posts or make a comment will also be willing to join your email contact list.

Another easy email capture tactic can be done on your Facebook page, by way of the Call to Action button. Hover your cursor on the CTA and select the “Edit Button” option, then change the text to read “sign up” or “join” so that you can invite Facebook Fans to your email contact list.

LinkedIn users are able to send emails to all of their primary connections but to quickly grow your email list, you’ll want to reach out to your second degree (the connections of primary connections) and third degree connections (secondary connections, once removed). There is a free service called Snovio that allows account holders to install an email finder extension which, by way of a gmail account, allows LinkedIn users to find the email addresses of those distant cousins. Click to learn more. https://app.snov.io/register?lang=en&signup_source=blog&signup_page=snov.io%2Fblog%2Fhow-to-get-the-contact-details-of-your-2nd-and-3rd-connections-on-linkedin-in-two-easy-steps&cta_type=link

2. Website sign-ups

Upload to your website reasons to collect names and email addresses. For some, that will be the “Contact us” form—website visitors who have questions or want more information about the company’s products or services are required to fill out a contact form and provide their name and email address. Other common website signup tactics are surveys, free telephone (video call) consultations, registrations for webinars and requests for free special publications—-your e-book, case studies, or white papers, for example. All are effective conduits for collecting names and email addresses that grow a viable email contact list.

3. Call to action

On your website landing page, on your white papers, blog, or newsletter, invite people to connect. You may be pleasantly surprised with the positive results of a straightforward appeal for email contact info. The share button and invitation to subscribe to or follow your blog and/ or newsletter will also bring in names and email addresses if your content is well- written and relevant.

Add a chat bot plug-in to your WordPress hosted website so that visitors can quickly obtain answers to basic questions about your products and services. Bot analytics will reveal the names and email addresses of your chat bot users, who are all set to join your growing email list.

Finally, get more mileage from your email signature block and invite recipients of your emails to opt-in and subscribe to your blog, newsletter and notices about other interesting things you’re doing.

4. YouTube videos

YouTube is the second- largest search engine in the world and about six billion videos are viewed on the site every day. People like visuals and videos are the favorite visual. Production value matters, so ask around to find out who you know with equipment that’s a level or two more advanced than your cell phone. Your public library may have equipment to use and a quiet room that will be all yours for an hour or two.

What story can you tell? You’ll have a few and you can make one or two of them sound appealing with a little thought and some rehearsal time. Providers of B2B services don’t have a product to show but we can do a convincing 5 minute promo on a course we’re set to teach, or a virtual talk we’ll give, or panel we’ll participate on.

If you’re rolling out a new service, pivoting your business, or embarking on a collaboration with colleagues that you and your partners can make sound exciting and useful to certain of your clients and prospects, include a video pitch in the launch campaign.

Remember to conclude your videos with both a verbal and text Call to Action. Ask for the business and direct viewers to click a button and be directed to your squeeze page, a landing page you can create that collects the names and email addresses of those who want to know more about your topic (i.e., what you’re selling). Learn to create a Wordstream squeeze page here. https://www.wordstream.com/features/cro-toolkithttps://www.wordstream.com/features/cro-toolkit

After posting your pithy little video promo to YouTube, also get it onto Instagram stories, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and your website. Write a short teaser sentence to accompany a link to your video and include them in your email signature block.

5. Join business groups

All meetings are virtual and will remain so for the time being, but by attending events hosted by the group you join—-the chamber of commerce, a neighborhood business group, the local alumni chapter of your school, or other professional development and networking associations—-the benefits of membership include access to the member directory.

I don’t recommend that you import the directory and spam fellow members by sending your content without permission, because that will do you no favors. But one easy way to obtain the names and email addresses of desirable contacts is to attend virtual programs and make a pitch through the chat function.

During the final 15 minutes or so of the program send an all-person chat message to briefly introduce yourself and offer to send your blog, newsletter, e-book, or other content to anyone who’ll (privately) provide their name and address.

Attend one or two virtual events each month and you’ll be almost guaranteed to add 4-5 worthwhile names each month from this one source. This type of ask was originally done during the face2face conversations that took place during pre- event meet & greets (remember those?), but they can migrate to a virtual format without feeling awkward.

Building a robust email marketing prospect list is one of the best growth strategies business owners and leaders can do. If you’re able to add 10-20 contacts each month, declare victory. List building is an ongoing process—- it never stops. I’ve personally witnessed Freelancers who have 5000+ names on their list politely, skillfully, relentlessly, invite every potentially good contact to join their email list.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: Replica of a vintage mailbox

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Quick Tips: Increase Traffic to Your Website in 30 Days

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“I know I could bring in lots more business if only I could get people to my website!” Do you hear the sound of your own voice in this lament? There may be more than a grain of truth in that statement. I’ll wager that at least 20% of those who visit a B2B website are doing research in advance of making a buying decision (according to the 80/20 Rule, that says on average a bus gets 80% of its sales from 20% of its customers).

When you greet site visitors with compelling content that supports decision-making, along with a respectable number of site visitors, a typical B2B Freelance service provider should be able convert window shoppers into paying customers about once or twice a year. That would be a victory for many Freelancers and small business B2B entities. But first, you’ve got to persuade prospects to come and look at the display window that is your website.

The first quick and overall most effective website enhancement strategy to put in motion is to create a compelling landing page that attracts and holds the attention of, in particular, self-identified prospects who are looking to buy what your company sells. Links to content marketing posts, videos and relevant updates are how your intriguing and persuasive content is brought to site visitors’ attention.

When site visitors are greeted with content that entices them to read posts and page through the site, the behavior nurtures the buying process. On your landing page, provide links to your blog, newsletter, case studies and/ or white papers. If you have video testimonials from happy clients, include a landing page link. If you have speaking engagements, list those as well on the landing page.

Your next fast-acting and free site traffic enhancement strategy is to maximize the visibility of the content you’ve posted there. If you know that your target clients trust and visit certain social media platforms, then establish a presence on those platforms. From time to time, do join conversations on trending topics to which you can speak intelligently (say, the PPP loans) but primarily, you’ll cross-promote selected content marketing posts and videos from your website onto social media and extend your reach.

Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube are the usual suspects but if some of your content seems appropriate for the ephemeral, one day only lifespan featured on SnapChat (and your target clients include Millennials/ Gen Z), then upload and monitor the results.

If readers and viewers appreciate your content, they’ll visit your website at some point. This is a great way to continually fill the top of your sales funnel (TOFU) and ease a few into the middle (MOFU) as well.

Serious shoppers do online searches from their keyboard and voice searches on mobile phones through Siri and Alexa. While single keywords get all the attention in SEO, descriptive phrases used by those looking for information about your business category, known as long- tail keywords, are far more effective in putting your company into search results than single keywords.

The goal is to get your company into the top 10 (page 1) of search results and increase the chance that a prospect will see your website and click. It’s worth a try, but be advised that smaller companies rarely get page 1 placement.

Start by brainstorming possible search phrases that a prospect might use when looking for your service and make a list. Next, go to Google and type those long- tail keywords into the search box and examine the search results. Which phrases are relevant for your business? Try also your long- tail keywords on http://Soovle.com and http://ubersuggest.org which open the door to search engine results other than Google.

When you discover which phrases bring up companies that match with yours, ease them into your content (three long- tail keywords in one 1000 word post max). Overuse of keyword phrases will help neither your content nor your credibility.

Finally, installing an AI-powered chat bot is another great website enhancement that you can use to increase website traffic, indirectly. Chat bots encourage and enable website visitors to ask questions and almost immediately receive answers through Natural Language Processing, that simulates a Live (but limited) conversation. Chat bots help visitors save time, so benefit derived is that bots combat website abandonment as they assist the decision-making process.

A web developer can install your chat bot but you can DIY if so inclined. Omnichat, The WordPress chat bot is a plug-in option available for owners of WordPress websites. Chat bot analytics will tell you who has used the bot and delivers a second ROI by allowing you to harvest emails to build your contact list. You’ll also learn the most frequently asked questions that will guide you to expand or refine the answers provided.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

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