Calm is the New KPI™: Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms

How you choose to price your services and accept payments is one of those business design choices that we don’t always make conscious choices about.

But it is a choice that can have a profound impact on your business and how it feels to run it. It just simplifies everything: from your team composition to how you work to even what project management software you use.

We’ve been talking this month about the operational benefits of value-based pricing and upfront payments, taking a close look at how those choices can make your service business way easier to run.

Examining your default decisions about pricing and payments and considering making different choices can really pay off, both in administrative streamlining, but also in your wallet.

Today, we’re going to pull all those ideas together and look at the downstream impacts of making that switch from hourly pricing to value-based pricing.

We’ll look at how it affects your sales process, your proposal process, your profit, your cash flow and, yep, even the other software you might choose to use in your business.

To illustrate my point, we’re going to look at how these decisions have played out in a real business.

My guest today is Rita Barry, the founder of Rita Barry & Co, a relationship-driven company, focused on metrics.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Why tying your work to an hourly rate can really start to hurt as you gain efficiency and experience
• Why she uses results as the basis for her pricing structure and why pattern recognition has become one of her most valuable skills
• How value-based pricing allowed her to scale her agency without having to step away from doing what she loved
• Why making the switch to value-based pricing helped her find more joy in what she does! 

Links:

• Rita Barry & Co
• Rita Barry on Instagram
•  Scalespark Dollars + Decisions Roundtable
• Twitter @ScaleSpark
• LinkedIn @thesusanboles

Grab the Calm Service Design + Delivery Swipe File here

Getting paid more for your work, up-front, and without the hassle of tracking your billable hours or issuing invoice after invoice sounds like a dream scenario.

But how exactly do you make that happen?

Luckily, like so many other aspects of making a service business more efficient: there’s an app for that!

In our last few episodes, we’ve talked about some business design choices with pricing and payments. How switching to a value-based pricing model allows you to charge upfront. And being able to charge your clients upfront or automatically, can eliminate a big chunk of your internal workflow.

Today, we’ll talk about software that can help you pull all those pieces together. Once you’ve switched to value-based pricing, this is a tool that can help automate the process of onboarding your clients and taking payments, Practice Ignition.

Practice Ignition is a software tool that does contracts and accepts payments, including recurring payments. The way it works is that you can load a library of services -- basically a library full of templates for each item or service you’d charge a client for, and a library of terms or your standard contract language.

Once you have those two set up, you can create a proposal for a new client by just adding the services you want to sell them by picking them out of your library and adding them to your proposal, choosing how you want them to pay you, and then send the proposal along to your client, with a personalized message. It all takes about 5 minutes.

Practice Ignition is a tool I use in my own business, and with most of my clients because it makes onboarding a client and accepting payments so easy.

My guest today has been using Practice Ignition for the last few years.

Jaime Campbell is the co-founder and CFO of Tier One Services,  a firm of outsourced, year-round CFOs and complete accounting departments.

Listen to the episode to hear: 

• How she transitioned her firm from Bill.com and Microsoft Word contracts to Practice Ignition
• Why that move impacted her workflow and ability to scale her firm so dramatically
• Behind-the-scenes of how I’ve built Practice Ignition into my own workflow at ScaleSpark
• Some live consulting with Jaime about how she could improve her own workflow

Links:

• Tier One Services
• Practice Ignition
• Facebook
•  Scalespark Dollars + Decisions Roundtable
• Twitter @ScaleSpark
• LinkedIn @thesusanboles

Grab the Calm Service Design + Delivery Swipe File here

Getting paid by clients is the #1 most important part of the workflow in a service business. If you don’t get paid, eventually, you won’t have a business. But how you go about getting paid – now that’s where some magic can really happen.

In our last episode, we talked with Dana Kaye about transitioning from hourly to value-based pricing. The choice to make that switch to value-based pricing then allows you to the next logical step – making your client payments easier.

Today, we’re going to talk with Kate Strathmann about the process of getting paid by your clients and how to make it easier.

Should you accept credit cards? How about checks? Do you charge your clients the credit card processing fee? What about payment plans – should you offer them?

How you decide to answer these questions can affect not just your workflow, but also your cash flow, and, ultimately, your relationship with your client.

Kate Strathmann is the founder of Wanderwell Consulting, a business consulting and bookkeeping practice. And for Kate, taking payments is an opportunity to reinforce a positive, transparent relationship with her clients. It’s a client touchpoint that she’s particularly thoughtful about.

We’ll talk about the basics – what kind of payments to accept, and when to ask for payments – but also how to think about offering payment plans in a whole new way.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How Wanderwell Consulting’s pricing and the payment mechanisms are designed to ultimately support the relationship they are cultivating with their clients
• How offering multiple payment options and moving to a prepaid system has lead to the ability to automate payments
• Kate's position on different payment methods–credit cards vs. bank transfers vs. checks
• How being able to charge upfront and automatically has impacted the operational capacity, and administration of the business
• And some of the common practices of online service business that Kate wishes would just become a thing of the past

Links:

• Wanderwell Consulting
• Instagram: @_wanderwell_
•  Scalespark Dollars + Decisions Roundtable
• Twitter @ScaleSpark
• LinkedIn @thesusanboles

Grab the Calm Service Design + Delivery Swipe File here

Switching from charging by the hour to a value-based or flat rate model can dramatically improve your workflow.

Value-based pricing is a great way to boost profits and to keep your value separate from the hours you work. It allows you to charge your clients upfront, creating a business that is more efficient to run.

Take the payment and go do the work. That's it.

Most of the time, I'm not a big advocate of the whole “make one decision and it'll change your life and your business” idea, but this is different. Making the decision to use value-based pricing can literally change the way you do business.

This is one simple financial decision that might revolutionize the way you run your business.

All this month we'll be talking about what this transition looks like. We're going to talk about how value-based pricing can improve your workflow, how taking payment upfront means better cash flow, and how making the change means you might never again need to chase down another client for payment. We will also be covering some software tools you can use to make onboarding clients and taking payments as seamless as possible.

Today, we're kicking things off by talking with publicist, brand manager, and Kaye Publicity Inc founder, Dana Kaye, who made the transition from an hourly pricing model to a value-based model about nine years ago. 

In this interview, Dana talks about how she went about making that transition. She talks about how the change affected every area of her business operations and gives us a great overview of the impact that thinking about the administrative costs of pricing your services can have on your business.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• What inspired Dana to make the transition to a flat-rate, value-based pricing model
• How she loves the story that the data tells and how it helps her make changes in her business
• What kind of impact the change had on her sales, promotional, and client onboarding process 
• How switching pricing models allowed her to productize her process in a way that every piece could then become its own defined and repeatable process
• And how the change has had a huge impact on Dana’s confidence as a business owner

Links:

• Kaye Publicity Inc.
• Branding Outside the Box
• Instagram
•  Scalespark Dollars + Decisions Roundtable
• Twitter @ScaleSpark
• LinkedIn @thesusanboles

Grab the Calm Service Design + Delivery Swipe File here

Sometimes, when you get really specific about the one thing you do, client meetings become unnecessary

Even one-to-one services become unneeded when you've streamlined and productized your service.

But how can you keep that high-touch, high-value feeling and still be ruthlessly streamlined behind the scenes?

Today, we're talking about an evolution that moves almost completely away from client meetings altogether.

My guest is Greg Hickman, the founder and CEO of System.ly. Greg and his team have over the last 4 years, transformed System.ly from a marketing automation consultancy into one of the top coaching and training companies for service providers.

He realized that the systems he developed behind-the-scenes to streamline and productize his own service were actually much more valuable if he transformed them into a system that he could actually train his clients on.

Instead of doing the work for his clients, he moved into a model where he teaches them how to do the service for themselves–a done WITH you kind of service. Basically, he realized that it's better for his clients if he teaches them to fish instead of doing them the fishing for them.

Greg really demonstrates the power of turning your client delivery process into a product in itself.

This is similar to what Parker Stevenson talked about in our last episode. Both of these approaches evolved based on providing the same service over and over to the same kinds of clients -- and taking the data from that to develop a service that is designed specifically for their clients, without those pesky meetings.

After having examined so many different approaches to client communication, it seems like meetings aren’t inevitable, they aren’t required and, in fact, skipping meetings altogether might just make your service even better.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Greg’s unique approach to managing or minimizing client meetings with what he calls the “hybrid agency”
• How to package and simplify your process so that the system is working in your favor, building a client journey with less energy, costs, and headaches
• How he sets clear expectations and guidelines and believes that you need to train your clients to be good clients–equipping them to be successful
• And what the challenges were transitioning from being a typical agency with the typical client meeting structure and project structure to this new, more guided experience

Links:

• Website: System.ly
• Podcast: The AltAgency Show
• Scalespark Dollars + Decisions Roundtable
• Twitter @ScaleSpark
• LinkedIn @thesusanboles

Grab the Calm Service Design + Delivery Swipe File here

Monthly client meetings––they’re a requirement of service retainers.

Or, are they?

There's an expectation that if you're working with clients on retainer, in an ongoing, recurring way, that you have to have meetings––ya know, just to touch base.

Conventional wisdom says that meetings should be included in the service because they seem to deliver inherent value.

But meetings are a huge limitation when it comes to scaling a service business.

There's only so much of you to go around. Is spending time in meetings really the best way to delivering great value and grow a business?

Today, I got Parker Stevenson to weigh in. Parker is co-owner of Evolved Finance, a bookkeeping company that specializes in online businesses.

By its very nature, the business of bookkeeping is doing pretty much the same thing month after month–making it a business that is ripe for scaling, if you approach scaling the way Evolved Finance has. 

One of the ways that Parker and his partner, Corey Whitaker, take advantage of this opportunity to scale is by bucking convention and delivering their monthly bookkeeping service without having regularly scheduled calls.

In this episode:

• How Parker’s project to change the client-meeting paradigm has evolved over that last year
• Why niching down made it easier to build out operational practices 
• How he shifted from using recorded Loom videos with his clients to experimenting with a training resource library and group office hours
• How getting to know his clients and their needs has been a better way to deliver value than getting mired in weeks of calls
• The challenges Parker and his partner have run into transitioning from typical client meetings to group calls
• What kind of impact this move away from regular client calls has had on the business’s operational capacity
• How quitting client meetings have impacted Parker personally

Links:

Website: evolvedfinance.com

Facebook handle: facebook.com/evolvedfinance

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/evolvedfinance/

• Scalespark Dollars + Decisions Roundtable
• Twitter @ScaleSpark
• LinkedIn @thesusanboles

Grab the Calm Service Design + Delivery Swipe File here

Client meetings can easily fill up your entire calendar–sucking away all of your available time.

This time is a valuable asset and it is often the single most limiting factor to the growth of service-based businesses.

So what if there was something you could do to reduce this time-suck?

All this month on the show we are looking at alternatives–unique ways to communicate with clients and opt-out of meetings, email, and conventional communication methods.

Today, we’re talking about using Voxer with clients. Primarily a voice messaging app that harkens back to the flip-phone days, Voxer allows you to send short voice recordings, replacing both email and in-person meetings.

I’m going to talk to two different founders who use Voxer to communicate with their coaching clients.

You’ll hear from Nancy Jane Smith, a professional counselor and therapeutic coach who uses Voxer as a better way to work with women with High Functioning Anxiety.

And you will hear the second half of an interview that I started last week with Ashley Gartland, a business coach who uses Voxer to save time, boost profit, and nurture exceptional ongoing client experience.

Throughout this episode, pay close attention to how Voxer not only helps save time by opting out of meetings but also streamlines the way your clients receive value.

In this episode:

• How Ashley & Nancy are using Voxer in managing and minimizing client meetings
• How they are using Voxer so the technology doesn’t become a distraction
• What the boundaries and processes they’ve put in place so clients know what to expect
• What challenges they have run into transitioning from a typical client meeting structure
• What impact the new approach have on their operational capacity

Links:

• Voxer
• Break the Ceiling Episode 12

Ashley Gartland:

• The Simplified Intensive  
• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Nancy Jane Smith:

• Live Happier
• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• The Happier Approach Book

Susan Boles:

• Scalespark Dollars + Decisions Roundtable
• Twitter @ScaleSpark
• LinkedIn @thesusanboles

Grab the Calm Service Design + Delivery Swipe File here

I make no attempt at hiding my personal dislike of meetings. 

I’ve spent more time in meetings about meetings and meetings to prepare for other meetings than I can count. I’ve even suffered through long staff meetings where my boss literally just read printed out emails. 

I’ve truly felt the pain of being in meetings that could have just been an email. 

But are meetings really inevitable? 

All this month, I'm asking the question: does it really have to be a meeting?

I am starting off by applying this question to client meetings. Is there a different way to approach meeting with your clients that could reduce time spend in 'update' meetings and drastically speed up results?

One way of potentially doing this is through intensives – taking all the work we used to do with clients over several weeks or months and condensed it down to just a few hours or days.

In today’s episode, I talked with two founders about their different approaches to this intensive-style of delivering offerings: business coach Ashley Gartland and marketing & operations project manager Hailey Thomas.

You will hear that for both of these founders, taking this different approach when working with clients might actually be a more effective way of delivering value than sitting through yet another meeting.

In this episode:

• How both women have taken their own unique approach to managing and minimizing client meetings.
• How Ashley Gartland adapted her six-month partnership program to a two-week coaching intensive so she could automate her process and serve more people.  
• How Hailey Thomas offers 3-day work retreats where she and her clients bang out most of the project in one weekend
• What kind of challenges they’ve run into transitioning from a typical client meeting structure
• How this change to intensives has impacted their clients 
• What impact the new approaches have had on operational capacity
• What kind of impact the changes have had on them personally as business owners

Links:

• Ashley Gartland:
  • The Simplified Intensive  
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn

• Hailey Thomas:
  • The BrainSpace Optimized Podcast
  • The Worktreats
  • LinkedIn
    
    
• Susan Boles
  • Scalespark Dollars + Decisions Roundtable
  • Twitter @ScaleSpark
  • LinkedIn @thesusanboles

Grab the Calm Service Design + Delivery Swipe File here

Even a small, one-person business becomes more profitable and efficient with a solid, repeatable process. 

So what happens when we double down on process?

In our last episode, I talked to Lacey Stites about how she does this in her agency using a revenue share model.

Today, we hear how Jake Jorgovan takes a bit of a different approach and focuses on productizing his service delivery so he can operate efficiently at scale. 

A productized service is a simple, streamlined way of delivering hands-on client experiences without guesswork or customization. Instead of reinventing the wheel with each client you serve, you build a repeatable process that is executed in the same way for every client.

Jake’s companies, Lead Cookie and Content Allies, aren’t the kind of businesses that easily lend themselves to automation or scaling. 

He got around these challenges by productizing his services. 

These productized services are built on solid processes, procedures, and standardized systems behind the scenes. They ensure that his clients get a consistent, high-quality experience–a core tenant of both of his businesses.

In this episode:

• What the motivational and driving forces behind deciding to start a service business like Lead Cookie were
• What the biggest operational hurdles were starting out
• How Jake tackled those hurdles
• How starting Content Allies was different from starting Lead Cookie
• Some the operational strategies Jake focused on to deliver high-touch services profitably
• How these same strategy decisions made a big difference in how easy the business was to run

For Jake’s blogging, podcasting, and writing:

• jake-jorgovan.com/

And to work with Jake:

• Lead Cookie
• Content Allies
  
  

Susan Boles:

• Scalespark Dollars + Decisions Roundtable
• Twitter @ScaleSpark
• LinkedIn @thesusanboles

Grab the Calm Service Design + Delivery Swipe File here

The messages we get about scaling a service business are pretty one-note.

We’re told that we can’t scale a service business profitably and sustainably while sticking to a one-to-one service delivery model. 

We're told to do a bit of client work, spin that into a few digital courses or membership groups, and then sit back and let the money roll on it. 

But this isn’t a great fit for everyone. And it’s just not how many of us want to run our businesses. 

So, what else is out there? 

My guest today, Lacey Sites, uses a revenue-sharing pricing structure that allows her to scale her one-on-one coaching business without adding more clients all while still dramatically growing her profits. 

This unique model allows her to double down on her investment in each client, create pricing structures that build trust and longterm partnerships, and then, when their work with her pays off, reap the rewards.  

On today’s episode:

• How Lacey’s unique pricing/compensation structure actually works in her business
• What prompted her to make the change to the revenue sharing structure in the first place
• What kinds of challenges she has run into transitioning from a typical pricing model 
• How this change to revenue sharing has impacted her existing clients
• How it has allowed her to keep working 1-1 with clients while still growing her revenue
• What kind of impact the new approach had on her operational capacity 
• How this has changed her approach to scaling

Links:

• alituplife.com/ 
• LITerally Podcast With Lacey Sites
• Scalespark Dollars + Decisions Roundtable
• Twitter @ScaleSpark
• LinkedIn @thesusanboles

Social Media:

Instagram: @alituplife

Facebook: @ALitUpLife

Facebook Group: The Lit Up and Loaded Entrepreneur

Grab the Calm Service Design + Delivery Swipe File here