The secret, though, is that our clients *are* our bosses; it’s just that we have a more equal relationship than an employee would have. I’ve talked with a number of colleagues in the Association of Independent Information Professionals about their work hours and policies about what constitutes a “work day”. Their answers showed me how much we factor our clients’ needs into our schedules, whether they’re the boss of us or not.

Some infopreneurs keep a strict Monday-through-Friday, 9am-to-5pm schedule, just like more traditional employees. They like having the predictability of their schedule, they like having their weekends free, and they are often more available to respond to rush projects. Even those who work less than a 40-hour work week often prefer to keep regular office hours, to ensure they can also schedule time during the work week for their other commitments.

Other independent info pros prefer a more, er, fluid relationship between their work and the rest of their life. They appreciate the flexibility to take a weekday off to go on a hike, avoid the crowds at the art gallery, or get together with friends who also have flexible work schedules. Yes, that means they may be working in the evening or on the weekend, and they may not be able to respond immediately to a client’s call or email; they consider that a fair tradeoff for the freedom of scheduling work around their non-work activities.

So, while you may not be the boss of me, my choices will determine what kinds of clients I have as my sorta-kinda bosses.

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We have competition from both larger consulting firms, with their big-name analysts and six-figure budgets, and lower-cost (and often lower-quality) research being offered by graduate students or interns. This got me thinking about the approaches that I have taken to ensure that, while I don’t have the deep resources of the big players and I’m not as cheap as some other options, I have attracted clients who see the unique value I bring as a one-person business. Some of the specific approaches I have taken to highlight that sweet spot include:

Focusing on the personal connections I make with my clients. My payment may come from a faceless bureaucrat at a Fortune 100 company, but the engagement is with a particular person. I make sure that I show up as authentically as I can and stay focused on my clients’ priorities and needs.

Believing that the customer is always right, even when they’re wrong. If a client has a concern about my deliverable, I do whatever it takes to address that concern. Yes, the problem may have come from the client’s ambiguous request or (ahem) unreasonable expectation, but all that really matters is that I do my best to address the concern. I know I am more responsive than a big firm in resolving a customer issue.

Providing a neutral perspective. A large consulting firm has a template and methodology they deploy to a project, which means less ability to accommodate unusual or unexpected projects. Internal employees who might provide a “free” alternative usually come with a built-in bias and may fail to recognize outliers and unexpected results. I offer a neutral, third-party perspective and the ability to look at the question from multiple angles.

Staying focused on each client’s most important outcome and ensuring that every deliverable can be frictionlessly incorporated into my client’s work flow and process. That may mean using my client’s preferred report template, providing an executive summary slide deck or live briefing of my findings, or making my report “white label” so that my client could put their name and brand on it.

I bring in experts as needed but my clients aren’t paying for the overhead of keeping those experts on the payroll. I can stay agile and handle new kinds of projects because I tap into my network of AIIP colleagues to bring in the expertise I need. Since I don’t have them on staff, my business is able to pivot as my clients’ needs change.

While we won’t replace either the big consulting firms or the “free” research services of a junior employee, one-person infopreneurs can fill the need for agile, high-value services.

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I market myself authentically. I speak and write frequently, and I’m known for having an informal, accessible approach. I make sure people see how much I enjoy what I’m doing and that I might be someone they would enjoy working with. I want to attract clients who enjoy what they’re doing and who like working with people who also enjoy what they’re doing. And if my style rubs a prospective client the wrong way, I assume that we probably wouldn’t have been a good fit.

I approach each project with curiosity. One of the benefits of regularly working on bonsai research projects is knowing that no two projects are the same. My initial phone calls with clients are always open-ended, and we’re often both surprised at how the scope or focus of the project changes after our conversation. Part of my value is being a sounding board and talking through what my client’s desired outcome is and how I can best help facilitate that outcome. I’m not looking for opportunities to up-sell; I’m looking for ways I can contribute the most.

I check my ego at the door. My clients bring me into a project because they need to get something done, or understand a market better, or provide better value to their clients. They’re only going to be happy if, at the end of our engagement, they were able to accomplish whatever it was they set out to do. If that means I need to rework my deliverable, or refocus my approach, or (sometimes) put in some unbillable time to make sure my client is happy, I’ll do it. Happy clients mean repeat business and referrals to other great clients.

I use flat-fee pricing. I want my clients to feel like they aren’t taking a big risk when they engage me, and I want them to know that I’m confident in my ability to meet their needs. In my experience, agreeing on a flat fee for the project serves as a promise to my clients that I’ll hold up my end of the agreement. Of course, I make sure I build in a little wiggle room in the budget; this helps me feel generous with my time if it takes a few back-and-forths for my client to feel happy with the final deliverable.

TL;DR version: I look at every engagement from my client’s point of view, and try to discern what they are most concerned about and how I can make the biggest contribution. Doing whatever it takes to keep a (reasonable) client delighted means I look forward to every engagement I’m on.

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First, make sure you know what your prospective clients need, value and will pay you well for. If you haven’t conducted at least a half dozen informational conversations, in which you were able to learn what your market needs and how your prospective clients talk about that need, then you need to invest the time and energy into these essential conversations. See my blog post Making Yourself Irreplaceable for lots more resources on how to conduct insightful informational conversations.

If your problem is that you are getting inquiries about your services but none of them are turning into sales, then see my blog post Getting to ‘Yes’ for thoughts on what might be amiss in your approach or your market.

Next, I advise taking a three-prong approach to building your word-of-mouth referral network and establishing yourself as a trusted adviser.

• Start building your profile as a thought leader by posting well-written, thoughtful posts on your blog and on LinkedIn every week, based on the insights you gleaned from your informational conversations about your market’s biggest concerns. Yes, post every week. It takes time and focus, but it’s one of the most effective ways to establish your reputation. For a metric to indicate that you’re on the right track, aim to have at least one person reach out to you to inquire about your services within three months of when you start these focused, weekly posts.

• Identify local face-to-face networking events and attend at least two a month. The goal is not just to build your network but to practice your one-sentence intro and your 3-sentence story about your business until you’ve found ways to introduce yourself that engage the listener and convey what you most want to be known for. (For more about your one-sentence intro, see my blog post The Anti-Elevator Speech. For more about your three-sentence marketing vignette, see my blog post Marketing Vignettes.) Have as your goal for each event that you make at least three new contacts and you identify an intro and marketing vignette that kept a conversation going and that made you memorable to the other person

• Join one association where you believe you are most likely to find people who need, value and will pay you well for your expertise. Reach out to the association president, introduce yourself, and ask about where they need your specific skills. Focus on finding a member-facing volunteer role and be an outstanding volunteer. Watch for opportunities to present a webinar to the members on a topic you’re expert in. Be enthusiastic and genuine, and focus on how you can most effectively support the association’s goals. Have as your goal to understand the association (and your market) well enough that within 12 months you can get a speaking engagement at their annual conference, a regular column in their newsletter, or a leadership position in a member-facing capacity.

Granted, none of these approaches offers a quick-fix solutions to cash flow issues, but they will enable you to build a strong, steady business based on clients who know and value your expertise and who respect your thought leadership.

The post Help—I still don’t have any clients! appeared first on Bates Information Services.

I may be a one-person business, but that doesn’t mean I’m alone. In fact, one of the most rewarding aspects of being a one-person business is that I benefit from the cross-fertilization that comes from contracting and subcontracting with fellow infopreneurs. I subcontract out specialized work I can’t do myself, and I work as a subcontractor for a number of businesses that bring me in for my specialized skills. Over the years, I have learned a lot about what is involved in being a good contractor and subcontractor. Here are my rules for successful contracting and subcontracting.

The 5 Rules of Contracting Out Work

• Choose a subcontractor you trust, then give that person all the background information possible. There will always be ambiguities and things that seem blindingly obvious to you but aren’t intuitive to your subcontractor. Explain, explain, and explain some more.
• Be clear on what you want for a deliverable from your subcontractor, in terms of format, medium, depth and breadth, budget, and timeline.

• Stay in touch with the subcontractor throughout the engagement. Schedule regular check-ins to identify any issues and confirm that the project is on track. Provide clear feedback and ensure your subcontractor is on the same page with you.
• Be sure to include in your project budget time for overseeing and working with your subcontractor; even the best subcontractor needs regular feedback and guidance.
• Pay your subcontractor as soon as you are invoiced; do NOT wait until you have been paid. Remember, you are your subcontractor’s client and the happier your subcontractor is, the more likely they will be to go the extra mile for you.

The 5 Rules of Being a Great Subcontractor

• The contractor is your client, just like any other client. Be sure you give your contractor the same focus and priority you do your other clients.
• Ask lots of questions. Remember that you haven’t talked with the ultimate client directly, and you need plenty of context to help you understand all the parameters of the project.
• Get passionate about the project. Your contractor is putting their name on your work, so make sure that what you deliver is the highest quality possible.
• If, after you have spent a quarter of your time or so, you aren’t getting the results you expected, pause and call the contractor. Discuss how you can pivot, expand the project or otherwise change the focus of the work. Don’t surprise the contractor at the end of the project.
• If something goes wrong or there was a miscommunication, accept ownership over resolving the problem (if not responsibility for the mistake). Work with the contractor to keep the ultimate client as happy as possible.

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In my experience, failure to convert interest into engagement is often caused by some combination of the following factors.

Nice vs. necessary

You are talking with someone whose need doesn’t match their ability or interest in spending money addressing it. Maybe you’re providing a service the person thinks is nice to have but not mission-critical, or their organization has prioritized other initiatives. Until you are talking about the prospect’s most pressing problem, you probably don’t have their full attention and you won’t get their business.

“Good enough” is good enough

While interested in what you offer, the person is satisfied enough with the status quo. The cost to change their procedures or processes is too high – in terms of time, energy or personnel. If you aren’t offering the prospect something that is clearly superior to the current situation, you can’t make a sale. This is particularly true when you are offering a service or product already available to your client through internal sources. Consider conducting some reality-check interviews to find out what your prospective clients really need and that would make you irreplaceable.

“You cost HOW MUCH?!?”

You are talking with someone who, for whatever reason, doesn’t have the budget to pay your professional rate. It is tempting to reduce your rate, particularly if you are talking with a prospect with whom you would like to work. Resist that urge; a client who always requires a discounted rate or who complains that you are so much more expensive than so-and-so will never be a happy client. Make sure you are talking about your prospect’s biggest concerns and focus on the high value you provide. In fact, my approach when pricing myself for a public presentation or keynote is to charge a high enough fee that I lose at least a quarter of the invitations because I exceed their budget. (Of course, I make exceptions when I have other, overriding reasons to speak at the conference – many of the participants are my client base, or the conference is located somewhere I have always wanted to visit.) This pricing philosophy, while not for the faint of heart, results in my knowing what my market will bear and pricing myself at the top of that range.

“Pick me! Pick me!”

While you are talking about a service that the person is in immediate need of, your prospect isn’t convinced you are the person to address that need. You may be giving the impression that you are desperate for work, that you don’t fully understand the client’s business, or that you are more concerned with getting paid than with your client’s outcome. If you spend your time talking about your background or expertise instead of asking questions to better understand your client’s needs, you’ve demonstrated to your client that, yes, it’s all about you. Good networkers know that the less you talk and the more questions you ask of the other party, the more the other person leaves the conversation thinking you were a fabulous conversationalist. And, of course, you learn a lot more about your prospect’s needs and priorities when you are listening then when you are talking.

As you evaluate the effectiveness of your various marketing strategies – and yes, you do have tangible metrics and quarterly goals, right? – notice which efforts are not resulting in new revenue, and consider whether you need to change who you’re addressing your messages to and whether your message is addressing what your prospects need, value and will pay for.

[This originally appeared in the AIIP Connections blog of the Association of Independent Information Professionals.]

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So, when a project results in far less than either my client or I had anticipated, I ask myself these questions:

• If there is no information on this market, does that indicate it’s a really small market? Or that it’s a new breakthrough market no one knows about yet? Why does no one care enough to count it? What do I think explains the lack of available information?
• Can I take a different approach? Am I just not looking at this market in the right way? Did my client or I introduce an unacknowledged bias to how we’re looking at the question?
• If there is nothing on this specific topic, can I expand the query to a broader concept? What are the bigger trends that are likely to be reflected in the specific topic I’m researching? Are there related topics that might parallel my topic? What else would help my client understand the bigger context?
• If I can’t find anything on this topic, what would be second best? How else can I think about this so that I can get something to help my client accomplish what she is trying to do?

Most importantly, I try to imagine what the situation is like from my client’s point of view. He needs to make a decision or move forward on something. I can’t find him exactly what he needs, but he still needs to make that decision or take that action. What is the best thing I can get, given that the ideal information isn’t available? 

If we work from the assumption that there’s always something we can provide that will help with the client’s outcome, even if it isn’t exactly what the client hoped for, we are more likely to be able to find a way to keep our client happy.

The post Getting something from nothing appeared first on Bates Information Services.

Actually, value-adding is more than “merely” finding the information. It means transforming it into something more. One metric I use to evaluate a deliverable:

• If most of what my client reads is my own writing, I’ve provided added value.
• If most of what my client reads is others’ writing, I’m providing little value.

You provide value by distilling the information, by enabling your client to gain insight without reading more than a couple of pages or a short slide deck. Look at what you send to clients and consider what they will focus on. Are they reading your analysis and synthesis, or are they reading a lot of third-party content?

Look at your last few deliverables. (Haven’t started your business yet? Look at the examples you have in your portfolio.) Is it primarily a collection of material from other sources? Or does it feature your distillation of the information, your summary of the key facts, your charts and graphs that highlight key trends?

This sometimes means moving beyond your comfort zone… so take a deep breath and do it anyway. The only way to differentiate yourself from anyone with Google, and the best way to build fiercely loyal clients, is to see yourself as your client’s strategic partner. And how do you do that? Just ask!

Every time you talk with a client about a project, you must learn what your client will be doing with the results of your work. That usually involves asking. “So, I’ll be looking for trends in Brazilian widgets and the industry’s impact on the US electronics market. Now, so I can make sure that this is as useful as possible for you, tell me a little bit about what you’ll be using this for. Are you incorporating this into a larger report? Would it be helpful to have a slide deck of the key findings? Would you like a five-minute briefing on the phone with your project group? Do you need a fact sheet to share with your team?” Then stop talking and just listen… for ideas of other ways you can enhance your deliverable, for other services your client needs, for other questions your client didn’t anticipate, and so on.

By asking these questions, you let your client tell you exactly what it will take for you to gain another client for life.

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The other day I realized that my shiny new Pixel phone can’t run the app I use to adjust my hearing aids, so I couldn’t switch from the regular setting to the one for noisy environments. I called my audiologist’s office and the conversation went as follows:

Me to receptionist: My new phone won’t run my hearing aids’ app. Is there a remote control I can use to change the settings?
Receptionist: Sure. Come in tomorrow at noon and the audiologist can set up the remote for you.

When I met with the audiologist and she began telling me how I could use the remote control to send phone calls to my hearing aids, I realized that we had had a failure to communicate. What I wanted was a simple way to switch my hearing aids between two pre-set programs, but what I asked for was a hearing aid remote control—because that’s where I thought the solution lay. (It turns out my audiologist was able to reprogram a button on my ‘aids so I can toggle between the two settings manually… no remote needed!) Instead of explaining the details of my need, I asked the receptionist for what I thought would resolve the problem. She assumed that I knew what I wanted, so the only information that was passed along was my interest in a remote control device.

As I remind participants in my workshops, clients only ask you to do what they think you can do. They (we!) frame their request in a manner they think you can respond to rather than telling you the underlying problem. It’s always up to us to get at the question behind the question or we’ll wind up providing a great solution to the wrong problem.

The post Are you really hearing your client? appeared first on Bates Information Services.

While most of us aren’t responsible for getting astronauts into space and back home safely, solopreneurs also have to adjust when something new and unexpected enters the picture.  If we don’t, we may sit up one day and realize that we don’t have the kind of schedule that lets us enjoy our family, or we never seem to have enough money, or our usual clients just aren’t sending us as much work as they used to.

These situations usually arise because we are no longer aligned with what our clients most need, value and will pay for… we are focusing on the HOW of what we do rather than the WHY.  Here are some prompts to help you start thinking differently about yourself and your business.

Clone your most profitable clients

Look at your revenue from the last 12 months and identify your three most profitable clients—the ones who pay your full hourly rate without fussing and whose work you enjoy doing. These are the clients you want to multiply.

Have informational interviews with each of these clients. Find out what their biggest concerns are now, beyond the work you already work with them . Ask them to describe what prompts them to call you—what is their work flow context and where are they in their planning process? Then go back to your office, mull over what you learned, and think about what you could do for your other clients that increases your value to them enough to justify a higher budget.

Next, ask each of your best clients if they could introduce you to two of their peers. (Some client groups are better about this than others, IMO and IME.) Find out how they learn about professional services like yours. Learn where you can be active so that more of these profitable clients can find you.

Look for things to say “no” to

Every choice has consequences, and sometimes you have to say “no” to one request or activity in order to say “yes” to a better opportunity. Watch for times when you think to yourself I’d love to do that, but I just don’t have the time, and reflect on what you can stop doing in order to give yourself the time to follow your passion (and your market!).

Don’t sabotage your professional rate

Every solopreneur has periods of constricted cash flow, when there is no money coming in and no clients on the horizon. In addition to the 20 steps to kick-start your marketing, you may have to do something — anything! — to bring in enough money to pay the credit card bill and the rent. It’s tempting in those situations to offer low-priced services or products to your market, hoping to generate $20 here or $35 there. Those efforts are usually doomed to failure; unless you already have a mailing list in the tens of thousands, you aren’t going to generate sufficient revenue in the short term to cover the time and expense to sell products through an online store. Worse, you are seen by your prospective clients in the context of an inexpensive product rather than as a high-end professional service. In the hope of bringing in some quick money, you are driving away the very people who understand your value.

If you are at the point where you can’t pay the bills and your savings are exhausted, find a part-time job that isn’t on your client’s radar… and that could be anything from seasonal work at a book store to bartending or waiting tables, or working weekends and evenings at the public library, if you’re an infopreneur. And commit to putting in an hour strategically marketing to your key client base for every hour you work at a low-paying but necessary job.

See more of my tips on strategic planning.

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