By Linda A. Hunt

My answer none! That’s not entirely true. I enjoy the work that I do and the fact that the majority of the time I get to work and play when I want to. Life/work balance is what they call it and being entrepreneurs we actually have more control over this factor than our counterparts who work for others.

Back in 2003, I was in the process of re-tooling my business and began thinking how nice it would be to work 4-days a week and enjoy a three day weekend, every weekend, without decreasing my current level of revenue! At first I cast the thought off as a “pipe dream” – there is no way I could do that and I came up with all kinds of reasons as to why I could not:

• How will I sustain my current level of revenue?
• What happens if my clients need me that day?
• How will I sustain my current level of revenue?
• What if there is an emergency that my staff just cannot handle?
• How will I sustain my current level of revenue?

 I was letting the repetitive thought “How will I sustain my current level of revenue” dominate my thoughts. Obsessing over this thought kept me thinking inside of the box, making me unable to get out of the way of myself. One afternoon, I was so sick of thinking about this I stood up in my office and started doing the “Hokey Pokey”. That’s right, the song and dance we learned as children – “put your right hand in, take your right hand out…” It was such a silly thing to do that it helped me to break the obsessive thoughts about why I could not work a 4-day week and relax.

For the rest of that afternoon, I enjoyed peace and quiet within my mind. I worked on other things and then the next morning it hit me like a ton of bricks! In order to move to a 4-day work week I had to change my pricing model!

This time I started thinking about pricing from a completely different perspective – how much revenue I wanted to earn that was directly related to my billable hours. At that time I was still performing client work and billing out about 50% of my time. If I wanted to work 4-days a week, I had to evaluate the tasks that I could delegate and those that I could not within my new work week and apply that to my current level of revenue.

Here are the steps that I followed:

1) Determine the number of hours you want to work. You can do this on a weekly, monthly or annual basis.
2) Determine the percentage of those hours that are billable.
3) Determine the percentage of those hours that are not billable.
4) Calculate that number by your current billing rate.
5) Determine the shortfall and make the necessary adjustments. For example, delegate client work to staff, adjust your billing rate, etc.
6) Work your reduced work week!

PS - I bet you will be humming the Hokey Pokey all day long!

By Linda A. Hunt

One of the things that has always been important to me, is creating long-term relationships with our clients. Whenever, I meet with a prospective client, that is exactly what I tell them. I make my intentions known upfront by saying, “My firm and I are looking to enter into a working relationship with you that benefits both of us for the long-term.” This simple statement really sets the tone for our forthcoming working relationship.

Here are the 6 secrets I use in my own firm to create great long-term client relationships.

1. Be a good listener. Taking the time to identify the needs of your client by asking them questions and concentrating on what they are really saying gives you knowledge. Knowledge is power.

Listen to their words, tone of voice, body language, and most importantly, how they feel. Be careful to not make assumptions. Thinking you intuitively know what your client wants can get you into trouble. Do you know the three outcomes/deliverables that are most important to your client?

2. Identify and anticipate needs. Your clients are not buying your services – they are buying solutions to a problem they are experiencing. When we begin working with a new client, we review all of the requirements/deadlines they may experience throughout the year. This enables us to be proactive and anticipate upcoming needs well in advance.

3. Make your clients feel important and appreciated. In my firm we have created a client appreciation system where we are in contact with our clients throughout the year, letting them know how much we appreciate their business and care about what is going on with them. So when one of our clients obtained their 20th client, which is a very big deal for them, we automatically sent them a celebration cookie bouquet to share in their triumph.

People value sincerity – it creates good will and feelings of trust. Clients are very intelligent and will know whether or not you really care about them.

4. Help your clients to understand your process. You may have the very best process for getting things done and if your clients don’t understand what that is, they will get confused, impatient and angry. Take the time to explain how your process works, not the nitty gritty details, a broad overview so that they can visualize the way the work is being completed.

5. Get regular feedback. Encourage and welcome suggestions about how you can improve your services. This does not mean that you have to incorporate into your process what they are saying but it does give you good insight into what they are thinking. Find a simple way in which your clients can give you feedback. My computer host company actually sends me a short survey to complete each time a work order is completed.

6. Treat your staff well. Employees and subcontractors are your internal clients and deserve to be treated well. Thank them and find ways to let them know that they are important. Remember without them, you would be doing all of the work yourself!

By Linda A. Hunt

About two months ago on a Monday morning I received a fax from one of our clients disengaging our services. As you can imagine, this is not the type of fax that anyone wants to receive, especially on a Monday morning! The reason stated for letting us go was due to “poor economic conditions” and had “absolutely nothing to do with the services they received”.

This particular client’s business is a privately held equity fund and is heavily involved with the stock market. Even though I had knowledge that overall the market has been in a bit of a downturn, this fax surprised me for several reasons:

1)    Even with the great working relationship we have with this client, there was no discussion with us before executing his decision and my staff assigned to the account had no idea this was coming.

2)    He felt the finance function was expendable! Leading me to question – had failed in demonstrating the value we provide to our client?

Immediately upon receipt of the fax, I called my client to uncover the underlying motivation for their decision to disengage us.  I knew there were alternative ways in which we could continue to work together while they rode out this rough patch and wanted to communicate that. When I reached my client, I heard the distress in his voice. He was being pressured by the investors in the equity fund to lower costs and he felt that we were one cost that they could do without because he has a financial background. (I won’t go into what a big mistake I believe this is.) He was already under stress and now he was increasing that stress by adding the work we performed to his already over burdened work load. He had made his decision and at that time could not see any other alternative. All I could do was respect where he was in the process and check in on him periodically.

Here’s the thing I have learned over the years - people will react to situations in ways that may or may not make sense to you and there is nothing you can do about it – it is out of your control. My client’s reaction makes no sense to me and is out of my control. All I can do is talk to my client, satisfy my curiosity to determine if there is something that we could have done differently or better and know when it is time to move on from trying to “fix it.”

Experiencing any loss of revenue is not fun and while this loss has impacted my firm it has not crippled us because of measures I have taken over the years that have helped to cushion and even out the sources of our cash flow. Here are a few of the things we have done:

Ø  Diversified our client base and making sure one industry NEVER represents more than 30% of our total revenue base. While the majority of our clients are service based businesses they are NOT all in the same industry. This is very important. When I first started my business we were working with a lot of interior designers/decorators. Then the about 10 years ago the northeast, where we are located, experienced a major hiccup in the real estate and home improvement industry. My interior decorating clients were not getting business or paid and that rippled into my firm not getting paid, causing a major problem to my cash flow.

Ø  Added recession proof businesses to our client portfolio. There are businesses out there that are ALWAYS busy, like lawyers and funeral homes. After experiencing “not getting paid because my clients were not getting paid”, I started thinking about businesses that are always busy and added a few of them to our client portfolio. Think of these businesses like an insurance policy.

Ø  We limited businesses in complimentary specialties within an industry to less than 40% of our total revenue base. For example: general contractors, electricians, plumbers, interior designers, etc. At the time our interior decorating clients were not getting paid, guess what? Our general contractor clients were not getting paid. It is important to remember that a downturn in an industry such as home improvement affects a good number of complimentary specialties. Having almost you entire client portfolio in complimentary specialties within one industry can be the end of your business.

Ø  We NEVER allow one client to make up more than 25 % of our total revenue base. Having one client that constitutes more than 25% of your total revenue base is very risky and you have placed the control of your business in your client’s hands, unbeknownst to them.

By implementing these guidelines over the years, we have been able to “recession proof” our business and keep at bay any major cash flow losses from losing a client. The percentages above are the ones that work best for my firm and it took us a couple of years to incorporate all of them. If you have been in business for a while, this is not something that you can do overnight and that is okay. As long as you are aware of this and incorporate measures into your future marketing efforts to diversify your client portfolio you will be just fine.

Remember, in life there will always be situations that are completely beyond your control and that is okay. Protecting your business involves making sure that you and your business, are not reliant upon any one customer, industry or employee for that matter.

By Laurie O’Neil

With a competitive work environment and changes in the economy, how do you keep the employees you have? You spend so much time and effort on educating your employees, replacing them can be quite costly. Your management style as a business owner can have every effect on your staff. Are you a manager that supports learning, growth, inspires loyalty and creates a work environment that people love? Or are you a Micro-manager who is so hung up on every detail that you are stifling your employees’ growth and inspiring your employees to shop the want ads instead? These are important factors for employees when they accept a position with your company.

Some key factors that inspire employees to stay at a job are:

1. How Supervisors Act: Are they a micro-manager who stifles employee’s growth capabilities or do they inspire hard working loyal employees?

2. Communication: Control your tone and pitch. Body language, expressions and pace of movement can tell it all. Look out!

3. Control Level of Stress: If you are stressed you will convey this to your employees. Stress can bring out the worst in you. Find better ways to deal with it. You may not even notice that you are stressed but your employees will. Do you think they will tell you? Mine do. This was an area I needed help in. I am very crisis oriented, but my staff is not. Be open to learning lessons from your employees. If you don’t you may have mutiny.

4. Motivation: This area is key. Employees want to:

      a. Have their talents on the job be utilized

        b. Do meaningful work

        c. Be recognized for a great job done

        d. Enjoy the work environment

        e. Have good pay and benefits

        f. Agree with the values of the organization

        g. Have supportive management

This is what makes the world go round. Employees spend the majority of their lives working. Make coming to work fun!

As you grow your company, management styles will have key effects on your growth. Constant turnover can reflect badly to the clients and clients will loose their confidence in your ability to hire right people.

By Linda A. Hunt

Last night I was talking to a friend who commented that I had become quite a marketer. I really don’t think of myself as a marketing person, just someone who knows a lot about finance/accounting and a little bit about marketing. Today I thought it would be fun to share with you my history as it relates to marketing. Read on for a good laugh!

Phase I – Minimal Effort
When I first started my business, I was naïve enough to think I did not have to do any marketing or what I refer to as my minimal marketing phase. I made a few contacts, had a few clients and thought I was golden. When I found myself sitting around twiddling my thumbs, I then entered the stop/start phase.

Phase II – Start Again/Stop Again
This is when I would start marketing doing a variety of activities, get new business, stop marketing because I was busy, wait for the “busyness” to slow down and then start the cycle all over again. After I had repeated this a couple of times, I entered the “let’s run around like a chicken without a head” phase.

Phase III – Running Around Like a Chicken without a Head
In this phase, you probably met me because I attended every possible networking event that existed – no kidding! I was exhausted from all of this running around and completely discouraged because I was seeing very little return for all of my marketing efforts. Let’s not forget to mention all of the money I spent attending these events.

Phase IV – Peace and Consistency
Somehow sanity returned and I entered the peace and consistency phase! Ok, a mentor of mine sat me down and said “What are you doing? Take a look at what has worked in the past, what you like and don’t like about it and come up with a new plan.” That is exactly what I did.

When you are the owner of a small business, marketing is the lifeblood of your business. Without it, there are no clients - without clients there is no cash – without cash there is no business. Here are a few tips that helped me regain my marketing sanity, are effective and helped me to even out the flow of new business my company receives each year.

• Target Your Marketing Efforts – you cannot be everything to everyone, when you try, your marketing message is confusing and not effective. Take the time to truly define who you are targeting. The more you can niche your business the clearer your marketing message is. Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean that you won’t work with anyone outside of your niche. The clearer your marketing message, the more prospective clients are attracted to you.

• Focus on Benefits, Not Features – your prospective clients aren’t interested if your services utilize the latest technology. They want to know the benefits – what will solve their problems – this is what will make them take action. Always highlight how your services will save them time and money.

• Tell Your Prospective Clients What Action To Take and How – To you it may seem obvious, but it’s not always to a prospective client. Walk them through all of the actions they must take to accomplish what you want them to – call you and hire you for your services!

• Track and Measure Your Marketing Results – you must track and measure your marketing results so you can repeat what works and stop doing what doesn’t.

• Market Consistently – you can’t market one month, then wait three months and market again. Your marketing efforts need to be consistent over time.

• One Thing At A Time – implement one new marketing strategy at a time. Make a plan for that strategy, assign a time frame and then breathe. By focusing your efforts on just one new strategy at a time, your attention is focused and you will be able to tell sooner rather than later if this is something that is working for you.

I would love to hear from you and find out about your experience with marketing! If they are anything like mine, we’ll have a lot to talk about. Email me at info@bkpr-network.com.
 

By Laurie L. O’Neil

In my second year of business, I was contemplating hiring an employee or hiring a subcontractor. I decided on the subcontractor. I had my first heartening experience as a business owner. I had a client that had a high volume of work that needed to be done quickly and a lot of back work. I needed someone to help get everything up to date, so I hired a subcontractor. Being of a naïve nature, I did not have any agreements with her. Well you guessed it; she cut me right out of the middle and took over the account. This was the beginning of compiling contracts for employees and contractors.

This is a difficult topic because not all states will uphold Employment and Non-Compete Agreements. Connecticut is a state that will and they can be enforced. Also you will need a good attorney to review these documents.

Here are some things that should be covered in Non-Competes and Employment Agreements:

When it comes to a Non-Compete agreement be sure you cover: 

1. Geographical area – within reason
2. Timeline of non-compete needs to be reasonable
3. Terms of employees/contractors soliciting your clients.

When it comes to an Employment Agreement or Contractor Agreement:

1. At-will employment for employees
2. Termination clause for both employees and contractors
3. Discussion of general duties and expectation
4. A clause to not solicit employment from clients
5. Breach and liquid damages
6. In case of any issues, what state will enforce the breach

The important part of business growth is protecting the time and money you have invested into the building of your company. Employment/Subcontractor Non-Compete Agreements protect that investment. You do not want to be in the job of being a recruiter for your clients nor do you want to continually find clients for your employees to take away.

By Linda A Hunt

A couple of months ago, I referred a prospective client who was not right for my firm to another bookkeeper who I thought would be a better fit. I sent him an email and then I followed up with a phone call so that I could give him all of the details that I had learned in my initial conversation with the prospective client. I had not referred anyone to this bookkeeper before. I found it interesting that I was doing most of the follow-up to give him business and this of course, got me thinking – is following up a lost art?

Since I had told the prospective client that I would pass their name along, I set up a reminder in my calendar to follow up with both the prospective client and the bookkeeper in a few weeks time. When I did I ended up having a lovely conversation with the prospective client from whom I learned that they were working with my referral and very pleased with the outcome. When I called the bookkeeper, who I referred the business to – no response!

This is not the first time I experienced this and I am sure it will not be the last. Life, these days, seems to move at the speed of light and we have tons of technology to help us keep up that speed. To me, technology represents a double-edged sword. While on one side it can make our lives simpler by automating time-consuming tasks, it also keeps us running at a pace where we forget to slow down to be people and connect as people.

Following up takes discipline. Sending a handwritten note is the most powerful and least expensive way to deepen a relationship. A handwritten note denotes a relationship and leaves a lasting impact.

Over 80% of my business comes to me through referral. I have spent a great deal of time forming relationships with my colleagues and have to do very little other types of marketing. The day I receive a referral, I send out a handwritten thank you. I don’t wait until or if it turns into business. I believe that my referral rate is so high for two reasons:

1) All it takes to receive another referral is a simple acknowledgement to the source of the referral to keep them coming, and:
2) I ask them to keep referring to me.

It’s that simple. Remember to incorporate personal touches in all of your networking and you will set yourself apart from the pack and watch the referrals start to roll in. Following up is one of the easiest ways to distinguish yourself from others. Don’t under estimate the power of tangible appreciation.