February 2009: Retreating to Move Forward

One of the privileges of being in business for a while is that we are past the "oh my gosh, what have I gotten myself into" phase. However, we have our own stomach-churning moments too. We all know that there are aspects of ourselves or our businesses that can use a tune-up. Every time that issue comes up, we think "yeah, I really should deal with that. Tomorrow." In my coaching, I have found that one effective way to get past all those glitches is to sit back and give yourself a strategic retreat day. This is your chance to break down all the aspects of running your business, and then look at each one individually. I'd recommend you set aside a full day for this. Put a message on your voice mail that you will be out of the office for the day. Don't open up email. Today's a day that your company goes on retreat.

Cover your work table with a giant sheet of paper (from the end of a roll of printer's paper). This is going to be a brain dump, so get comfortable. Now, draw a large box on the paper and give a name to the first running-the-business item that is draining your energy, framing it in a way that anticipates the solution. Say your first issue is negotiating contracts. Write that in big letters: I CAN (not "must" or "wish or "should") FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE NEGOTIATING CONTRACTS. Then blurt out on paper your fears, doubts and worries. "I'm always afraid I'll price myself out of the market" "I'm afraid I'll price myself too low" "I'm not sure I am qualified to take on this project" "I have no idea how to estimate how much this project will cost" etc etc. Write it all down. No one else will see it, so you can be honest.

Now, take each of those worries or doubts, one at a time (that's the important part), and just sit with it and do some wondering. "Hmmm. I'm scared that I'm too expensive. Well, how many jobs have I lost because I bid too high? Were those jobs I could have done profitably for less? Is this a client who is going to be too price-sensitive? What are three ways I can word a proposal so that I offer two price points, so that the client isn't scared off? I can sit down right now and sketch out a general proposal template that includes a phased approach, or an overview-vs-in-depth-research approach, and I can use that next time."

As you think this one item through, it will become manageable. Not easy, necessarily, but you've identified exactly what's so scary and you've worked out some strategies for dealing with that one item (in this case, worrying about pricing yourself out of the market). Once you feel that you've given sufficient attention to this one item regarding negotiating contracts, open a Word document and title the first page TOOLS FOR NEGOTIATING CONTRACTS. Write down your first item: "How to price myself at the top of what the market will bear" (again, note positive tone rather than scared tone). And write down the tools you just came up with.

Now, look at the next item having to do with negotiating contracts that scares you. That might be "I have no idea how to budget this project". Repeat the process: sit and wonder, write down whatever comes, and note what you came up with for new tools.

After you've worked through the negotiating contracts issue, sit back and think of the next big issue that's got you all kinked up - say, client management. Again, make a big square on the paper that's covering your kitchen table. Blurt out all the scary thoughts that come into your head when you think about that issue. Again, take one scary item after another and sit and wonder about it. The solution(s) to that one scary item are all in your brain; you just want to be sitting peacefully enough to hear them emerge.

During your self-brainstorming, you may think of another issue that ACK, THIS IS ANOTHER THING I HATE DOING, say, collecting from late-paying clients. Write that down on another square foot of your big paper on the kitchen table, and return to what you're working on. That other issue can wait until later in the day. Continue.

This really will take all day. But at the end of the day, you will have a set of business tools that are worth a fortune. I have taken this approach myself and have found it a surprisingly powerful tool.

January 2009: How Would You Google Yourself?

I was talking with AIIP member Jane Langeman the other day, and she mentioned that a colleague challenged her with the question: "if I wanted to find you on Google, what words would I use to find you?" In fact, this is a great way of helping you figure out how to describe yourself to other people in a way that is both memorable and useful. Think of the difference between describing your business to someone and telling them when and why they would want to use you. For instance, I describe my business as twofold -- I provide business research to business professionals and info pros, and consulting services to the information industry. However, I doubt that people who are interested in my coaching services will search Google for "consulting services to the information industry".

If I want to be found by prospective coaching clients, I have to make sure that my web site has the words they would use to find me, not merely the words that describe what I do -- in this case, words and phrases such as coaching, information broker, and info-entrepreneur. The goal, of course, is to make sure that my web site is easy to retrieve by people who are looking for people like me. Simple proposition, but how does your web site stack up?

Note that I'm not talking about heavy-duty search engine marketing or search engine optimization; the key is not to fight your way to the top of a crowded search result page but rather to show up at the top of the heap when someone is searching specifically for people who do what you do. I'm not going to try to be the top-ranked search result for a query like "business research" -- that's too generic and I assume that bigger players (with larger SEO budgets) already "own" that search results space. I would much rather identify the niche areas where I stand out.

So, mentally pull up your elevator speech (you do have one, yes?) and think about how your clients would look for you on the web... OK, how your clients would Google for you. What are the buzzwords of the industry you're best known in? What are your clients working on or worrying about just before they slap their foreheads and say "this is obviously a job for {insert your name here}"? And if you don't know the answer to that question, it's time to start doing some listening. Consider doing some informational interviews to learn more about how your clients think and what their pain points are. For those of you who have a copy of Building and Running a Successful Research Business, you'll find a description of how and why to conduct informational interviews on pages 73-76.

Make sure that you include your Google terms -- the words that your clients would use to describe their informational pain points -- and make sure those words or phrases are on your main web page. That might be competitive intelligence and pharmaceutical, or business valuation, or public records research. depending on your expertise and client base. What I found most interesting about this exercise is that it forced me to think about me from my clients' perspective. How do they think of me? What do I represent in their minds? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you make yourself more memorable in all your communications -- in a networking meeting, on your web site and blog, at a conference, and in your presentations.

November 2008: Thoughts on Negotiation

I recently bought a copy of Ask For It: how women can use the power of negotiation to get what they really want, the follow-up to authors Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever's exploration of why "Women Don't Ask: the high cost of avoiding negotiation and positive strategies for change, whose subtitle pretty much sums up their first exploration into negotiation skills.

While a fair amount of Ask For It focuses on work-place issues that are not particularly relevant to us info-entrepreneurs, it has plenty of useful advice for both women and men about bulking up your negotiation muscles and negotiating more satisfying interactions with your clients and vendors. Following are a few of what I found to be the most useful ideas from the book:

• Set the groundwork. Identify what your bargaining chips are, from the perspective of the other person. You may want to price your project at $6,000, but how do you make a compelling case for that amount? Yes, you have tremendous information skills, and you have lined up the perfect team of subcontractors to help you. Sadly, that and $2.50 gets you a cup of coffee. Instead, focus on your most compelling points from your client's point of view. You are saving her team X hours of time that they can now spend more productively. Your report will include the analysis they need to turn your recommendations into actions. You have access to resources or people that your client doesn't. You get the idea...


[And as a side-note, charge a rate or fee that truly reflects your value. You cannot compete on price with people who work for $15/hour. You are in a marketplace where an outside consultant is expected to charge several hundred dollars an hour. If you price yourself too low relative to equivalent professionals, your client assumes that your low price indicates a low assessment of your quality.]


• Shoot for more and you'll get more. If you never get push-back on your proposed budget for a project, you haven't found the high end of your market. And that means that you are leaving money on the table with every job. Try increasing your proposals by 15% and see how often -- if ever -- your clients asks about the budget.



• Negotiate for your best interest, not for a specific position. If your client responds to your proposal with "that's too much money!", it's easy to respond with either "Let me explain all the ways that I am worth this amount of money" or "OK, what do you think it should be?" Instead, think about what you would really like as a result of this negotiation. You probably have at least two outcomes: (1) you want to make a decent profit on your time and (2) you want to spend roughly X amount of time on this project. From there, you can decide whether your response focuses on the first outcome or the second. If your priority is to make at least $X for this project, you might want to include follow-up consultation in your proposal. If your priority is to spend no more than X hours on this project, then you might want to offer a stripped-down version of your proposal at a lower budget. Either way, your goal is to negotiate for what is really in your best interest, while offering high value to your client.



• Know your BATNA -- your Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement. To over-simplify, your BATNA is what your best option is if you do not come to agreement with the person you're negotiating with. If this discussion breaks down, where would that leave you? Usually, this is taken as a tool for evaluating the relative power of your negotiation position. But I see it in a different way. Make sure that your client's BATNA, should you not come to an agreement, would not be advantageous for her. For example, there are probably other info-entrepreneurs who could provide information services to your client. If your client asks you to lower your rate to be competitive with another firm, what is the worst that could happen to you and to your client, should you decline to lower your rate? If you provide enough customized added value, then your client will have a bad BATNA, which she will want to avoid -- the alternative to coming to an agreement on your rate means that she will lose access to your strategically critical services. If, on the other hand, you offer a product or service without sufficient perceived value for the price, the worst outcome for your client would be that she has to shift her business to someone else, and the worst outcome for you is that you lose her as a client. In that situation, she has a much stronger BATNA and you have a much weaker negotiating position. Your challenge is to identify what you offer that she can't do without, and ensure that she makes use of that service or service.