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Dear Danielle: “God’s Work” is Not Getting Me Paid

Posted by Danielle Keister on
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Dear Danielle,

I’ve been struggling really hard with determining what target market I would like to cater to with my administrative consulting business. I have gone back and forth about it for awhile now. It is so tempting to take work where you can get it, but I know that is not the correct way to go about building a business. My industry experience has been in working with nonprofits, but for business purposes I would like to target start-up nonprofits because I know how much it takes to get a nonprofit off the ground and I can see how I can easily be retained in this case as well. My concern is that I won’t be fairly compensated for my work. I worked with a ministry and I didn’t get paid a dime because sometimes with entities like this, you get caught up in doing “God’s work.” Can you please give me some guidance with this issue? I would really appreciate it. —JS

Thanks so much for submitting your question. I would love to help give you some guidance on this.

First, I want you to download my free guide, Get Those Clients Now!  When it comes to getting clients more quickly and easily, it’s all about the target market. This guide will help you get more clarity around that.

It’s great that you have an idea of who you want to target. Now, you just want to do your homework about viability. Nonprofits can be tricky. While it sounds like you’ve got a great background perfectly suited to support them, you’d just want to make sure you are targeting a niche that actually has money. Because if they can’t afford professional fees, all your wonderfulness isn’t going to help you if they simply can’t pay. I’m not sure how financially secure and solvent start-up nonprofits will be, but that, of course, will be your homework to research and find out.

That said, if you can determine there’s a viable niche in there for you, your marketing message can make all the difference in the world. If you can help them understand how your strategic administrative support will actually help them operate more cost effectively and profitably, and how it will help them accomplish a whole heck of a lot more than they could otherwise, that’s half the battle.

So download the guide; it’ll help you go about that whole process.

Now, may I give you just a little bit of tough love? Please know it’s said with hugs and a heartfelt desire to help you turn things around.

You mention being concerned about not being fairly compensated. Maybe it was just poor phrasing on the fly, but the way it was worded made me wonder if you were maybe taking too passive a role in leading your own business.

Because, it’s not up to clients whether you are “fairly compensated.” YOU are the one who decides what you will charge, how you will be paid and when you will be paid. Your job is simply to inform clients how it all works. If they had gone through a proper consultation process and signed a contract, how did they not know they were a client and were supposed to be paying for your services?

So, if clients were manipulating you into working for free, you want to realize that they didn’t do that to you; you allowed that to happen.

To change that, what you want to do is get more intentional about your business and consultation processes as well as who you take on as clients. Be sure to clearly separate business from any volunteer work you are doing. So, for example, if you had gone through your normal consultation process with this ministry, they should have been clearly informed that you charge a fee for your work, and how and when and what you will be paid for that work. If there was any misunderstanding or ambiguity there, that’s a sign that you need to improve those processes and communications in your business. None of that happens without your passive or active consent. You see?

So if we need to tighten up and intentionalize (my made-up word, lol) your consultation process, I highly recommend you check out my client consultation process guide.

I hope that helps! Let me know in the comments if things improve for you with this advice moving forward. :)

Dear Danielle: How Do I Get Clients?

Posted by Danielle Keister on
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Dear Danielle:

Brief question–how do you get clients? I know this is on every Administrative Consultant’s mind in America whom is starting out. I know that this kind of business is referral-based, but my God! I know that you can’t just jump up and think you are going to get rich from this (not my intentions). However, it’s one person I did some donated hours for, I have tried working with another client and lowered my prices to accommodate her. Still a no-go on this one. If I would have said it was free for the service, she would have been all over it. I think if I had at least two clients, I would feel like my business is progressing forward. But not having anyone gets discouraging at times and you wonder if it’s worth it if your business is solely based off referrals, you know? –ST

(FYI: This “Ask Danielle” question was originally posted on my old blog back in March 2010.)

Well, first, I had to chuckle because there’s nothing brief about the question, “How do you get clients?” LOL. Not laughing at you, but it’s sort of like asking, “How do we achieve world peace?” It’s a BIG, complicated question with no quick, simple, pat answer.  It’s difficult to start a business, as you recognize. For a large number of people, they are not going to get clients right away. While they’re waiting, there’s a lot of learning and studying they can be doing to better understand marketing and client psychology. Here are a few thoughts to help you get started in the right direction…

1. Stop donating hours. When you give away your value (the very product you are in business to earn your living from), you devalue it in the eyes of clients. Worse, all giving stuff away for free does is attract freebie-seekers. These are not your clients. They will be gone as soon as you take the free buffet away. If they can’t afford professional services, they either shouldn’t be in business, or they should at least not expect you to subsidize their business (to your own detriment) until they can. These are very selfish, self-centered thinking people. You have your own bills to pay and people to take care of. You can’t put your time and energy into those folks. You’ve got to market to people who can already afford you and who don’t expect you to be footing the bill for their business. If you keep giving it away for free, you’re just going to keep getting more of the same. “Why pay for the cow when you can get the milk for free?” applies here. If you’re dishing it out, they’re gonna take it. You are attracting what you are giving. So stop the gravy train and get serious about serious clients.

2. I’m not sure why you think this, but this is not strictly a referral-based business. A business can become mostly referral-based once they’ve established their business, had a chance to get their foot in the networking door, and have clients and others who happily recommend them. If you’re new, you don’t have that right off the bat. But there are things you can do and ways you can network that will better draw/attract prospective clients to you. What will help here is having a target market to focus your message on and give you direction on where to find those folks you wish to be talking with and expend your efforts and energy there (which are limited and need to be conserved for the highest and best possible use). Two of the most important criteria in deciding on a target market are that 1) it must be one where the people in it generally are earning enough money that they can afford professional services, and 2) there are enough of them that it’s easy enough to figure out where they are (offline and off) and then find ways to interact with them, come up in their search terms and be found by them.

3. Never, ever bargain with or negotiate your fee. All you are doing is teaching clients to devalue you and your support. You start doing that and they forever after expect freebies and discounts and that everything is up for negotiation. You don’t even have to tell me what you’re charging. I can pretty much guarantee that you are undercharging–all these issues you describe are always symptomatic of rates that are way too low. They cater to and attract the wrong crowd. On top of that, I’m willing to bet the conversation on your site is all about cost and discounts and freebies and savings and how much cheaper and more affordable than an employee you are, yada yada yada… am I right? That’s exactly the problem. I would tell you to raise your fee. You likely will be ALL kinds of uncomfortable doing that. And while you’re doing that, you also will need to learn how to market differently and change your message. But when you do those things, you will begin to attract a clientele with an entirely different mindset and more professional business sense. Those folks are looking for skill and quality and competence, not handouts. You simply can’t waste your time and energy–and money, because that’s what it boils down to–on folks who can’t afford you and would have you harm yourself financially in order to help them.

4. Adding onto the idea of changing your message, you’ve got to frame what you have to offer in respectful ways. You’ve got to hold what you do in high esteem and talk about it in respectful terms. If you use words like “generalist” and “mundane” and “affordable” and the like, you are lowering the perceived value of what you have to offer. You are teaching prospects to look down upon your work and view it as lowly, and thus, not worthy of professional fees. And the industry as a whole has GOT to get off the cost conversation and all the employee comparisons. If you have any of that stuff on your site, take it off immediately. You are creating and attracting the very mindsets you are complaining about now. If everything you put on your website is about how cheap you are, how much they can save, how much more affordable you are than employees, save this, get a discount on that, guess what you are focusing people on? MONEY. You can’t make your marketing message about that–unless you want to continue to attract nothing but people who are looking for savings and discounts and bargains and cheap and affordable. Stop talking about costs whatsoever. That’s the last thing you should be talking about. And if you don’t have anything else to talk about with regard to what you do for your clients and your value to them (the results you help them achieve), then you’ve got a lot more work to do about understanding what you are and what you do.

Marketing and attracting clients is an area of ongoing learning and study. It’s not anything that can be answered quickly or simply in a mere blogpost, but I hope this at least gets your wheels turning. The very best way I can help you is to recommend that you get my e-book, “Articulating Your Value: How to Craft Your Own Unique Marketing Message to Get More Clients, Make More Money and Stand Apart from the Crowd.” This is a self-study guide that will help you determine your target market, define an ideal client profile, differentiate yourself with your own unique marketing message and value proposition and package up that info in much more attractive, marketable ways.

Crappy Clients Will Drag You Down

Posted by Danielle Keister on
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I came across something recently that had me reflecting on some of the bad clients I took on in my early days of business. I was reminded that it wasn’t until I let go of all unideal and (let’s be frank) crappy clients that I really started making serious money and having more joy and happiness in my business.

There are so many ways that bad/unideal clients drag you and your business down. They create negative energy. They demoralize you and lower your professional self-esteem. They zap your energy. They deprive your ideal clients of your quality time and attention. They keep you from making more money. Oh, we’d be here for days if I tried to list everything, lol!

This is a huge problem in our industry. There’s a sort of subtext that instills and encourages the harmful mentality that “you had better be grateful for whatever clients you can get.” And it’s precisely because of this thinking that so many in our industry are just struggling to get by.

You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge, as Dr. Phil likes to say. And so we have to have the conversation in order to learn from it and get to a better place.

When we’re new in business, we often aren’t conscious about the clients we take on (“any business is good business; I need the money!”), and even if we are somewhat aware, it can be a bit of a learning curve to start getting clear about what we want and who we prefer to work with. Things aren’t always clear. We don’t always recognize the pitfalls or see the consequences. And often, we feel like (because we are new), maybe it’s something we are doing that is the problem.

If I’d had an industry to turn to back then (I didn’t discover the industry until several years after I’d already been in business), I’m sure I would have gotten a lot clearer and conscious about this MUCH sooner.

Oh my gosh, I remember the client/ex-friend that I had to sue in order to get the thousands of dollars she owed me. I remember the client who was really nice, but thought the world revolved around her and constantly kept me waiting when I had an onsite appointment with her. I remember a few bookkeeping clients who it would sadden me to learn were pilfering employee funds (e.g., tax monies and child support withholdings) to buy themselves expensive toys while not paying the tax man.

And yet I would still bend over backward trying to be helpful and make a fit out of them. For some reason I had the idea that the “client is always right” and superior customer service was the ultimate responsibility I had as a business owner, which I prided myself on. Who cares if they walk all over you! If someone had just simply said to me, “You know what, bad clients are bad clients. You are not a failure if you kick them to the curb. Lose the losers!” I could have saved myself SO much time and heartache.

Of course, as with everything, there’s always a positive side to every bad experience. From these bad experiences, it brought about my thinking and consciousness about the kind of clients with whom I truly wanted to work.

And I learned many tough, expensive, but ultimately invaluable, business lessons. For example, my friend/client I had to sue to get what she owed me? Well, my part in that was that I was being a pushover and teaching her to disrespect me and take me for granted by giving her “friend” discounts and letting her get into debt with me for my services. You can bet I don’t do that anymore.

I learned to insist that clients respect my time and to let go of anyone who consistently missed appointments or otherwise wasted my time. Once I quit doing onsite visits, I had more time and energy for “virtual” clients and made more money because of it.

And I learned to immediately let go of any client the minute I found them lacking in character, integrity or honesty. (Spending child support payments withheld from employee paychecks is one of the most despicable acts I can think of.) Trust your gut. Don’t let your desire to give benefit of the doubt cloud your better judgment. It’s not a “mistake,” isolated incident or lapse in judgment as they often try to make you think (especially after the “mistake” has been pointed out to them several times). People like that just don’t change their stripes. It’s best to get them out of your life (the sooner, the better) and leave them for the universe to deal with.

Once I started becoming more aware and conscious about these things is when my business and happiness really started taking off. Nowadays I work with people who value and respect what I do for them. They’re grateful and appreciative. They’re smart and funny. We have great conversations and fun working together. And they care about me as a person as much as I care about them.

And so I say now for those of you who are newer in business, you absolutely have the permission, right and even obligation to lose the losers! You and your well-being are no less important than that of your clients. In fact, your success and attentive client care DEPEND upon your happiness. It’s simply impossible to have space for your most ideal clients if you are keeping it occupied with poorly fitting, unhappy-making ones.

Be more discerning about the clients you take on. Have a consultation process. Start an ideal AND UN-ideal client profile that you continue to hone and update throughout the life of your business. Begin formally documenting your standards and boundaries now, if you haven’t yet, and honor them, always. Read your UN-ideal client profile anytime you are tempted to ignore them. Never take on any clients without any regard or due diligence (that’s your consultation process). I promise, your business will become better and more profitable and prosperous for it!

Flexibility for Flexibility’s Sake is No Flexibility At All

Posted by Danielle Keister on
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Hey, that sounds like a song. But really, it’s an important idea to examine if you are a self-employed business owner.

Here’s a common scenario that happens with new Administrative Consultants as well as many other self-employed service providers:

You’re a self-employed service provider. You don’t want to run some big business or become a manager of people. Doing the hands-on work is exactly why you went into business for yourself. It’s as much about meeting the needs of your soul, having an outlet to express your talents and skills, and finding meaning and purpose in your work as it is having more control over the quality of your life and income. And that makes you perfectly happy.

But you’ve never run a business before in your life, and are blissfully unaware at this point what you are really in for.

You go about trying to get clients, any clients, any way you can. And because you’ve never run a business, you go about this as if trying to land a job instead of clients. You don’t know any differently (yet).

So you get a client. Yay! You’re so excited! Every thing is hunky-dory… at first.

But then this client starts “bossing” you around, and asking you to do things that weren’t part of the bargain. You do them anyway–you’re nothing if not flexible! But soon enough you start to feel the inklings of resentment. You don’t like the way you’re being addressed. This client doesn’t seem to respect you as a fellow professional. More and more, this client seems to think you aren’t even worthy of complete sentences, only orders barked or grunted at you.

Eventually, you attempt to get things back on track and salvage the relationship. The client on the other hand doesn’t appreciate that you’re “getting uppity” with him; after all he’s paying you to do his bidding (at least that’s his understanding) and doesn’t want any flak.

This client also has no sense of boundaries. You’ve been so “flexible” with him that he now pretty much thinks it’s okay to call you at all hours of the day or night, intrude upon your personal life, and that no matter what hoops he asks you to jump through, you supposed to  simply ask “how high?” And he expects things to be done as soon as he’s barked out the order. After all, you’ve based your whole brand identity on “flexibility” and “instant, on-demand assistance.”

So now this client is putting demands on you that you never bargained for. In an effort to ever be the people-pleaser, you try to accomplish his every command and expectation. And that’s another thing–this client’s attitude has become one of self-entitlement. You rarely get a thank you or good word on a job well done. And now he is starting to ask you to do stuff that isn’t even administrative, much less part of the scope of support that were outlined when you first started working together.

You now  dread dealing with this person and find yourself avoiding answering the phone. This client’s work is piling up. You keep procrastinating out of resentment and overwhelm. He’s piled so much on your plate that you are completely miserable and stressed out by it all.

You (finally!) get a clue that this client thinks he’s your boss, not your client! A lightbulb goes off and you realize this is really your own fault because that’s exactly how you marketed yourself and your services and how you’ve been delivering them. Like an assistant… an employee… an employee who has no say in who she works for, what work she will provide and in what way and when that work will be accomplished and delivered. Like spoiling a child, you’ve created your own monster client by setting no limits or parameters for working together. And like a spoiled child, this person has become obnoxious and intolerable to be around.

You’re also not making any money because you’re spending a ton of unpaid time trying to please this one spoiled, demanding, self-entitled client. You’re definitely not charging enough. You haven’t earned a penny’s profit, and this client is sucking the life right out of you.

Miracle of miracles, you do manage to land another couple clients throughout everything, but you’ve got absolutely no control over your schedule, the work nor the demands placed on your time because you’ve established no control and no boundaries. Your every waking hour is now spent trying to keep up with everything, putting out the biggest fires first, and succeeding well in neither. You also now find yourself spending your weekends, evenings and family time on work, and still missing deadlines.

Your newest clients are much more ideal for you–hey, at least you learned a thing or two about choosing who to work with! They’d be dreams if you didn’t have so much darn “flexibility” in your life, but now they, too, are getting frustrated with you because you aren’t living up to the promises you made. You try to hide it, but deep down you know you aren’t doing good work for them because of the way things are in your business, and it wouldn’t surprise you if they bailed on you tomorrow.

Forget taking on any other clients. You’re unhappy. You’re existing clients are unhappy. You have zero room on your plate for anything else. Ironically, in trying to be totally flexible and make everybody else happy, you now have no flexibility (and no life) whatsoever. And none of the reasons and rewards of working for yourself exist anymore because in trying to chase this “flexibility” ideal, you haven’t taken care of your needs and those of your business first.

This is what happens when people don’t have a deeper understanding of what “flexibility” is really about. Flexibility comes with boundaries, standards, processes, and thinking things through. What kills flexibility is not having that kind of infrastructure in place in your business. Sometimes, in order to do best by your clients, you have to say “no” to ways of working together that are ultimately going to zap your ability to be flexible.

You will have flexibility to give if you instill a foundation that actually creates it. But flexibility for flexibility’s sake is no flexibility at all. It’s a precurser to chaos, unmanageability and unprofitability in your business. Taking heed and learning what that really means in your business is going to help build a foundation upon which you can get the right kind of clients, do the work you enjoy and do well, and have space and flexibility to delivery the absolute best services to clients that you can.

What can you learn from the scenario I painted above? What boundaries and standards will you set in place to avoid this from happening in your business? Will the way you are doing things now work as well and maintain your sanity once you have more than one client? Are you thinking about about how your business, how your day, will look and then devising policies and procedures that will fit with your future business?

Dear Danielle: Should I Get Upfront Payment?

Posted by Danielle Keister on
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Dear Danielle:

Do you suggest requiring an up-front payment of any kind from clients? –CM

Absolutely!

Does your supermarket let you take your groceries home and eat them before deciding whether or not to pay for them?

Okay, I’m being a little flippant, but, seriously, this is business, not charity. Allowing folks to pay after the fact not only leaves your business unnecessarily vulnerable, but it amounts to extending credit, and credit is something that must be earned, not expected. I don’t know about you, but I’m not in business to subsidize or finance someone else’s business.

I’m not sure why the Virtual Assistant world continues to have a problem understanding this, but it’s actually very common for businesses to expect 100% payment upfront.

If you are doing project work, I really recommend you require 50% payment upfront or the per-hour minimum you have established in your practice (whichever is greater), with the full balance due in full upon completion and prior to delivery. You could even bill in other percentage increments throughout the project to correspond with completion of certain phases.

Requiring deposits and upfront payments (such as retainers) helps your business in a few ways. First, it weeds out anyone who isn’t serious about having the work done and might end up stiffing you (with a deposit, at least part of your business interests are covered). Your business cash-flow is improved, and administrative time reduced. And you end up getting a whole other (better) kind of clientele.

With new clients on Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) plans, who pay by the hour rather than on retainer, I would require a first-time deposit in the order of something equal 3-5 hours work or your smallest retainer fee. It’s sort of like earnest money, and helps weed out those who aren’t going to be committed to working together.

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