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What do you promise clients?

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In case you missed my last post: The 5 KPIs I track for my work and life. Considering I have an MBA with a concentration in Finance, a CPA license, and a CVA designation, I have never felt like I was much of a numbers guy. But when it comes to my valuation practice, my coaching business, AND my quality of life, I do believe in monitoring numbers that matter. So I track five KPIs on a monthly basis that tell me how these things are going.

On to this week: Many BVFLS practitioners are pulled in many directions. Because they say they provide so many services—offering so many benefits and solving so many problems—they end up juggling too many promises. The most successful practitioners are not jugglers. They are focused on keeping one strong over-arching promise. What’s yours?

Your marketing—i.e., the activity that creates awareness—should reflect your laser focus on that over-arching promise. You do that by being clear on the one thing you do best … the one problem you solve and, the one promise you make, regardless of how many services you offer.

When offering too many services holds us back

A coaching client was having trouble explaining to her leads and prospects the various valuation services she offered (and implying she was an expert in all of them). She wasn’t landing clients.

She asked me: How specific do I need to be in articulating the services I offer, the problems I solve, and the promises I make?

If you offer multiple services, that can help you create features- and benefits-driven content, which allows you to spread your net wide and address the problems of a diverse audience. This will create visibility and credibility and steer opportunities your way. This is marketing.

But when it comes to interacting 1:1 with a prospect, you need to distill it down a bit. You don’t want to overwhelm that person by communicating all of the services you offer when s/he only needs one specific service to solve one specific problem. This is selling.

Identify your umbrella promise

One way to get around all of the potential confusion is to identify your “umbrella” promise, i.e., that one over-arching promise that covers all of your services. I admit I have an easier time of this than most practitioners because I am pretty niched.

For example, the promise I make in my valuation practice is to help individuals, businesses, and attorneys determine or resolve questions of value. I do this by solving the problem of estimating the fair market value of a business or interest for tax purposes for manufacturers and distributors.

In my coaching program, the promise I make is to help BVFLS practitioners get more time/money/freedom from the work they are already doing. The problem I solve is that I work with BVFLS practitioners who want to grow faster and smarter.

In both cases, I have established my ideal client/target market … the specific problem I solve … and the umbrella promise I make.

The benefit of a specific promise

One clear and simple promise allows you to market your services in a way that is relevant to more of your target markets. By describing your umbrella promise in succinct terms, you are able to appeal to a larger market.

Then, when you connect with a prospect, you ask questions that help you get more specific about their unique problem. You will then understand which stream of a general problem they are swimming in. Then, you can unpack your promise and create a specific solution for them.

And once you start selling a solution based on the prospect’s specific problem, there’s no need to mention all the other services you offer and the problems you solve.

Don’t be good. Be great.

 

 

 

PS – Whenever you are ready, here are 4 ways I can help you build/grow your BVFLS practice:

1. Join Practice Development ROUNDTABLE
It’s a new Facebook community for BVFLS professionals who are collaborating on how to turn the practices they have into the practices they want.

2. Download this Find Your Niche infographic
The riches are in the niches, as they say. But what’s missing is a process that can help you identify your niche. This infographic is the missing process.

3. Take a free Practice Self-Assessment
I have 10 quick questions, and your answers will help you get a sense of how well your practice is working for you.

4. Work with me privately
If you’ve hit a time and income ceiling and want to level up, email me and tell me a little about your practice and what you’d like to work on together. Then we’ll talk.

The 5 KPIs I track for my work and life

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In case you missed my last post: Why BVFLS pricing is cratering (not for all, but for many). If the value we deliver to clients is obvious and similar to what others like us do, we are likely providing commodity services and competing on the basis of price. But if we can deliver hidden or even unexpected value that differentiates us from what others do, we can earn “excess profits” that are not likely to be eroded by competition.

On to this week: Considering I have an MBA with a concentration in Finance, a CPA license, and a CVA designation, I have never felt like I was much of a numbers guy. But when it comes to my valuation practice, my coaching business, AND my quality of life, I do believe in monitoring the numbers that matter. So I track five KPIs on a monthly basis that tell me how these things are going.

Here they are.

#1 – Leads and prospects

Incoming leads and prospects are the lifeblood of any practice.
A lead could be an email address, a voice mail, a LinkedIn message, a Facebook message (for those of you prospecting on Facebook), or a booked sales call.

It doesn’t matter which one you choose, just pick a source of future business that has the most meaning for you. And then commit to tracking and growing that number every month.

#2 – Revenue

The next monthly number I track is revenue collected.
I don’t think this one requires any further explanation.

#3 – Profit

I track profit, both as an absolute dollar amount and as a percentage of my revenue. Bringing in a lot of revenue is great, but as some have said: revenue is vanity, profit is sanity.

The major cost in my valuation practice is reference and research subscriptions.
The major investments in my coaching business are virtual assistants and educational materials.

#4 – Focus days

Focus days are a concept Amy and I got from our time at Strategic Coach. They are the number of days I spend focused on my top income-producing activities. To concentrate my efforts, I have structured my typical workweek so that all of my income-producing activities generally happen on Mondays and Tuesdays (and the first Friday of each month for my INSIDER interviews).

The goal is to spend as much work time as possible as focus days.
Time spent doing admin, CPE, etc.—though necessary for keeping the doors open—does not count here.

#5 – Free days

This is another Strategic Coach teaching. Free days are days not spent thinking about work, dreaming about work, or checking email, voicemail, LinkedIn, or Facebook. Just time spent with family, friends, or developing hobbies.

This one is hard (as a solopreneur, any/every day can be a work day if I let that happen), yet free days are super important. Because I can’t be at my best for my clients unless I am rested, relaxed, and recharged. One way I try to create more free days is to take off the 13th week of every quarter and go off-grid. It’s currently my Achilles heel (i.e., I don’t always succeed), but I’m working on it.

 

That’s it for me … those 5 numbers.
What about you?
What are the metrics you faithfully track?

Don’t be good. Be great.

 

 

 

PS – Whenever you are ready, here are 4 ways I can help you build/grow your BVFLS practice:

1. Join Practice Development ROUNDTABLE
It’s a new Facebook community for BVFLS professionals who are collaborating on how to turn the practices they have into the practices they want.

2. Download this Find Your Niche infographic
The riches are in the niches, as they say. But what’s missing is a process that can help you identify your niche. This infographic is the missing process.

3. Take a free Practice Self-Assessment
I have 10 quick questions, and your answers will help you get a sense of how well your practice is working for you.

4. Work with me privately
If you’ve hit a time and income ceiling and want to level up, email me and tell me a little about your practice and what you’d like to work on together. Then we’ll talk.

Why BVFLS pricing is cratering (not for all, but for many)

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I’m celebrating: This week marks the 5-year anniversary of my newsletter—247 posts to date.

In case you missed my last post: Future-Proof Your Practice: Create a Minimum Viable Service. Looking back on our history of providing “traditional” BVFLS work, we’ve enjoyed the long-time luxury of complacency. And basically, we’ve gotten by—even flourished—by providing services that are primarily all-or-nothing, one-to-one, and once-and-done. But what happens when those traditional services aren’t needed. I’ve got an app for that!

On to this week: If the value we deliver to clients is obvious and similar to what others like us do, we are likely providing commodity services and competing on the basis of price. But if we can deliver hidden or even unexpected value that differentiates us from what others do, we can earn “excess profits” that are not likely to be eroded by competition.

Last week I received an email from Simon Bowen. If you have never heard of Simon, he is—among other things—a business performance improvement coach. And the creator of the highly recognized Genius Model—which you’ve likely seen before.

Here is Simon’s email, verbatim:

I just have one simple, but super challenging question for you.

What unanticipated, but profoundly valuable paradigm shift do your clients experience, as a result of buying your product or service?

As an extension to that, what are the top three tangible, differentiated results your product or service creates for them, that they are unlikely to get from anywhere else?

Tough questions for all of us … but absolutely worth the effort to unpack the answers.

WOW. Just wow.

Now Simon’s languaging may seem over-the-top to left-brained people like us.
After all, we “only” provide BVFLS services, not deliver live-changing news (and checks) like Publishers Clearing House.

And yet, put yourself in the shoes of our clients.
Generally, they expect we will delight them by delivering over-the-top results.
That our reports (and, perhaps, our testimony) may even save their bacon.

But what areas of BVFLS can really deliver on that promise?

I think more so FLS than BV.

And that’s because the FLS work normally involves more creative type approaches, methods, and procedures (within the bounds of professional standards, of course).

And the BV work is more compliance related—estate and gift tax valuations are perfect examples—with an accompanying client focus of “I have to do this” rather than “I want to do this” or “I need to do this.”

But not everyone aspires to do FLS work … and that’s okay.

And what clients are willing to pay for that kind of outcome?

I believe larger clients with more at stake are less price sensitive and are willing to pay for paradigm-shifting (bacon-saving) results, which can translate into higher fees for us.

But not everyone aspires to serve larger clients … and that’s okay, too.

In real life

On a recent coaching call, I lamented the fact that “my generation” of appraisers remembers the days when we easily got $15k to value a minority interest in a closely-held C-corporation for an estate/gift tax purpose valuation.

Now the pricing is what … two-thirds of that? Half of that?

I can see the next generation lamenting the decline in pricing they’ll see from this level years from now.

So what

You are either going to be moved by Simon’s question or you’re not.

If you are delivering hidden or unexpected value, the sky is the limit for the Authority you can build and the fees you can command.

If you’re not motivated to provide paradigm-shifting results and offer differentiated services (which may require redefining your services and/or specialization), be prepared for what Seth Godin calls a race to the bottom.

Don’t be the best. Be the only.

 

 

 

PS – Whenever you are ready, here are 4 ways I can help you build/grow your BVFLS practice:

1. Join Practice Development ROUNDTABLE
It’s a new Facebook community for BVFLS professionals who are collaborating on how to turn the practices they have into the practices they want.

2. Download this Find Your Niche infographic
The riches are in the niches, as they say. But what’s missing is a process that can help you identify your niche. This infographic is the missing process.

3. Take a free Practice Self-Assessment
I have 10 quick questions, and your answers will help you get a sense of how well your practice is working for you.

4. Work with me privately
If you’ve hit a time and income ceiling and want to level up, email me and tell me a little about your practice and what you’d like to work on together. Then we’ll talk.

2020 will be a game of two halves

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In case you missed my last post: 5 skillsets you still have time to sharpen before the next normal begins. Are you going to come out of this time wishing you had spent time developing or sharpening some skills that would make you a better practitioner for the next time?

On to this week: Today is not a scheduled newsletter day for me. In fact, I’m on sabbatical this week … something I work toward for the 13th week of every quarter. But today is July 1 … the first day of the second half of 2020. And I have a short but important message that couldn’t wait for my next scheduled newsletter.

Football (American and otherwise) is a game of two halves.
2020 will be a game of two halves.
The outcome for either is not known until the second half is played.

For some practitioners, the first half of the year was a great six months.
For other practitioners, not so much.

For the first tranche, keep on keepin’ on!
For the second tranche, if you need a come-from-behind victory, this message is for you.

Market and sell like your life depends on it … because it just might.

If you are playing from behind, first ask yourself if you are selling the right thing for the right times. If prospects, clients, and referral sources don’t need your “core” BVFLS services, what do they need? What can you offer, BVFLS-related, that is in your wheelhouse?

Create that.

Next, you must persuade your audience to buy what you’re selling. You do that by making noise in numerous channels—advertising, social media, speaking (zooming), writing, etc. You’ll reach the people who need your new service as you create awareness about what you now can offer them.

Then relentlessly pursue them until they hire you to do that work.

I’ve talked to practitioners who are reluctant to make that noise because they don’t want to appear desperate. Sometimes, coming from behind in the second half requires desperation. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Get desperate.

Stop being a delicate flower. Make a ruckus, as Seth Godin would say. Market and sell like your life depends on it … because maybe it does.

So what

Timid salespeople have skinny kids.
~ Zig Ziglar

Next week

I will present and offer a solution to you.

 

Have a great 4th of July weekend!

 

 

 

PS – Whenever you are ready, here are 4 ways I can help you build/grow your BVFLS practice:

1. Join Practice Development ROUNDTABLE
It’s a new Facebook community for BVFLS professionals who are collaborating on how to turn the practices they have into the practices they want.

2. Download this Find Your Niche infographic
The riches are in the niches, as they say. But what’s missing is a process that can help you identify your niche. This infographic is the missing process.

3. Take a free Practice Self-Assessment
I have 10 quick questions, and your answers will help you get a sense of how well your practice is working for you.

4. Work with me privately
If you’ve hit a time and income ceiling and want to level up, email me and tell me a little about your practice and what you’d like to work on together. Then we’ll talk.

5 skillsets you still have time to sharpen before the next normal begins

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In case you missed my last post: Death by hourly rate. As we get faster and better at what we do—because of accrued knowledge, acquired experience, and aggregated technology—we are able to accomplish far more … at a higher level … in less time. But increases in our productivity do not equate to equivalent increases in our hourly rates. Because of this, hourly billing almost always leaves someone feeling screwed. If not us, then our clients.

On to this week: It’s happening. The economy is s-l-o-w-l-y coming back to life. We’ve gone from crashing to pivoting to rebounding. How have you spent your shelter-in-place time? Are you going to come out of this wishing you had spent time developing or sharpening some skills that would make you a better small-firm practitioner? Well, you likely still have time before the next normal begins.

As I write this, I find myself in the middle of an eight-week program learning how to create a different kind of newsletter. (More on that in a future newsletter.) I’ve downloaded and read books on Search Engine Optimization and pricing strategies. I joined a coaching group that meets virtually for 90 minutes twice a month (even coaches get coaching).

As I think about the BVFLS professionals I know and work with, here are 5 saw-sharpening ideas you might want to consider.

#1 – Improve your writing

For all that is holy, I beg you to do this.

I can’t tell you how many valuation reports I have reviewed in my report review service. Not all reports are poorly written … not even most … but too many are. And there is no excuse for that when a client is paying $10k-plus for the product.

If you don’t like writing—if you don’t have the inclination to hone your writing—you’ve chosen the wrong profession.

Resource: 30 Days to Better Business Writing by Matthew Stibbe

#2 – Hire a virtual assistant

Of course you can’t do it all.
Why did you ever think you could?

So hire a VA to do all the things you hate doing, don’t want to do, or shouldn’t be doing because they are outside your zone of core competence. And the cost? No cost … the VA will pay for herself with the freed-up time that allows you to generate more revenue.

Resources: To get sh!t done focus on the WHO, not the HOW and If you don’t have an assistant, guess what – YOU are the assistant!

[Also, I just did a 4-part series of posts on this topic in the Practice Development ROUNTDTABLE group, complete with worksheets on how to outsource. Join the Facebook group, read the posts, and get the worksheets!]

#3 – Learn the soft skills of buyer psychology and pricing

There is an oft-forgotten middle step between attracting leads and delivering services. It’s converting prospects into clients!

Too often, I see failures at this juncture because BVFLSers don’t understand what is going through the mind of the buyer or how to price their services. Taking the time to master these soft skills will improve your close rate and give you more opportunities to demonstrate your incredible technical skills.

Resource: Implementing Value Pricing by Ron Baker

#4 – Start an email newsletter

Not a blog … a newsletter. Though there is a way to do both with little/no extra work (and I know that because that is what I do).

If you’re not comfortable writing, there are other avenues. One of my coaching clients has decided a branded YouTube channel is his best way to go.

Remember, having Authority in a practice area or industry niche is your competitive advantage. A newsletter allows you to communicate your unique perspective on the subject matter.

Resources: Newsletter or Blog: which is better for you? and There are 3 kinds of newsletters you can write – which one is best for your audience?

#5 – Create a minimum viable service

Many BVFLSers act like they are one-trick ponies. If there is no need for that one-trick (e.g., a business valuation), there is no need for them.

Except BVFLSers aren’t one-trick ponies.

There are several, separate minimum viable services we could unbundle from the core valuation service. Like quality of earnings analyses, comparisons to relevant industry peer groups, and business sellability scores. We just never had to unbundle these services before and figure out a way to market and sell them.

Resource: Never Waste a Good Crisis: Create Your Minimum Viable Service

So what

Don’t say you don’t have the time to do this.
There probably won’t be another best time to do this.
Until the next crisis.
In which case you will be wishing that you made the time during this crisis!

Hit REPLY and let me know your thoughts!

* * *

Don’t be good. Be great.

 

 

 

PS – Whenever you are ready, here are 4 ways I can help you build/grow your BVFLS practice:

1. Join Practice Development ROUNDTABLE
It’s a new Facebook community for BVFLS professionals who are collaborating on how to turn the practices they have into the practices they want.

2. Download this Find Your Niche infographic
The riches are in the niches, as they say. But what’s missing is a process that can help you identify your niche. This infographic is the missing process.

3. Take a free Practice Self-Assessment
I have 10 quick questions, and your answers will help you get a sense of how well your practice is working for you.

4. Work with me privately
If you’ve hit a time and income ceiling and want to level up, email me and tell me a little about your practice and what you’d like to work on together. Then we’ll talk.