Reply to Message
Promote yourself like a Managed Service
This is an area that I really struggled with too and its funny (but not laughable) that you can see the larger IT companies bill for their time without issue or prejudice, however for the smaller IT companies such as yourself, the fear of loosing a client by introducing new costs to them, especially when your saying they are now paying for something that they have enjoyed in previous engagements for free, becomes very unnerving.
Based on what you have said and some good feedback to put into your thought process from Chip, PMPsicle, yaronstern and CACASEY, I think that you have a great opportunity to look at introducing a new process in how you promote your business expertise and the professional services that you deliver to you existing and new clients.
The first thing you need to do is write a standard engagement agreement for your business and there are plenty of templates out there for Managed Services that you could use as a framework to develop your own.
You can and should write things in that allow you to even sell your consulting services on a monthly retainer: (EG: Pay abc consulting 1 hour per month retainer @ $xx.xx per month and abc consulting will provide xyz company with 4 calls/emails per month, up to 30 mins per incident/call, maximum 2 hours per month (or something along those lines that better suits you).
You can wrap things in like for troubleshooting, planning, administration etc, but also make sure you have a fair use policy in your agreement too, so that you do not get caught out with difficult clients whom may abuse the agreement. Also state that the hours are non-accruing, as I am yet to have a client that does not need excess from one month to another, so you then have the flexibility to give them a little more in one month, look great and know that in previous a month/s that they may not have utilised all of the time allocated from the agreement; so it works in swings and roundabouts.
You may also consider adding in something like a discount for your services outside of the agreement (for project work / travel etc) so that they have a reason to signup/accept the change; after all, you want your clients to see the value you deliver.
With a bit of luck, you may have a few clients that you are close enough to and request from them that they view your new business model and get their feedback before you present it to the rest of your clients; in fact, if you have the time, you could do this for the majority of your clients (if not all), so that they feel that they have been part of your process and as such, your getting their agreement and buy-in as you bring in to effect this new standard engagement agreement.
Once you have transitioned your existing clients across, you will be in a position to bill accordingly and when discussing this with new prospects, you will have an existing database that proves you have a fair standard engagement agreement that benefits all parties and delivers value.
Lastly, use free time tracking software or an app, so that you can make simple notes of all contact (calls/emails etc) and then issue an invoice for the services delivered free (under the agreement) and also add in any additional billing.
Based on what you have said and some good feedback to put into your thought process from Chip, PMPsicle, yaronstern and CACASEY, I think that you have a great opportunity to look at introducing a new process in how you promote your business expertise and the professional services that you deliver to you existing and new clients.
The first thing you need to do is write a standard engagement agreement for your business and there are plenty of templates out there for Managed Services that you could use as a framework to develop your own.
You can and should write things in that allow you to even sell your consulting services on a monthly retainer: (EG: Pay abc consulting 1 hour per month retainer @ $xx.xx per month and abc consulting will provide xyz company with 4 calls/emails per month, up to 30 mins per incident/call, maximum 2 hours per month (or something along those lines that better suits you).
You can wrap things in like for troubleshooting, planning, administration etc, but also make sure you have a fair use policy in your agreement too, so that you do not get caught out with difficult clients whom may abuse the agreement. Also state that the hours are non-accruing, as I am yet to have a client that does not need excess from one month to another, so you then have the flexibility to give them a little more in one month, look great and know that in previous a month/s that they may not have utilised all of the time allocated from the agreement; so it works in swings and roundabouts.
You may also consider adding in something like a discount for your services outside of the agreement (for project work / travel etc) so that they have a reason to signup/accept the change; after all, you want your clients to see the value you deliver.
With a bit of luck, you may have a few clients that you are close enough to and request from them that they view your new business model and get their feedback before you present it to the rest of your clients; in fact, if you have the time, you could do this for the majority of your clients (if not all), so that they feel that they have been part of your process and as such, your getting their agreement and buy-in as you bring in to effect this new standard engagement agreement.
Once you have transitioned your existing clients across, you will be in a position to bill accordingly and when discussing this with new prospects, you will have an existing database that proves you have a fair standard engagement agreement that benefits all parties and delivers value.
Lastly, use free time tracking software or an app, so that you can make simple notes of all contact (calls/emails etc) and then issue an invoice for the services delivered free (under the agreement) and also add in any additional billing.
Pro Posted by GuardianOZ
10th Dec
