#Solopreneur

Beyond Handwritten Cards: 3 Types of Thoughtful Holiday Gifts that are Guaranteed to Wow Your Clients

Beyond Handwritten Cards: 3 Types of Thoughtful Holiday Gifts that are Guaranteed to Wow Your Clients

Just the other day over on Twitter, someone asked for suggestions for gift-giving ideas for her clients. She wanted to thank her clients by coming up with thoughtful and affordable gift ideas, but she didn’t know where to start.

“What good timing!” I thought. I was just planning on writing a post about this topic, so I immediately bullet-pointed my suggestions to test my ideas. Turns out my suggestions were well-received.

So, here I am today to share the same suggestions but more in-depth in hopes of making your life easier.

For all of us, it seems to get awfully hectic once we get into the holiday season. We have gifts for family members, friends & peers to worry about while we plan out our travel logistics and holiday-themed events to attend.

Before we know it, shipping deadlines are just around the corner & the last thing we want to agonize over is…what to give to our clients! Right?

But I don’t want this to stop you from moving forward with this. The benefit of gift-giving outweighs the bit of prep work required, which I will explain in this post.

The good news is that what I am about to share will help you avoid the “deer-in-the-headlights” situation. I know you will thank me later. So, let’s begin.

 

Before Diving In… The Objectives!

The question here is, “Why would you want to give gifts to your clients?”

With anything you do in your business, you want to develop muscles to get super clear on why you should do something before taking actions so that you will use your precious time wisely. This is no exception.

The Ultimate Roadmap: How to Instantly Reduce the Amount of Uncertainty in Your Entrepreneurial Journey

The Ultimate Roadmap: How to Instantly Reduce the Amount of Uncertainty in Your Entrepreneurial Journey

I'm sure you agree that we all have the tendency to hold on to what's familiar to us, even if that means we remain sitting still in discomfort.

Ahhhh, the comfort of certainty!

I'm going to be flat-out honest with you. The entrepreneurial journey is filled with uncertainty regardless of where you are at in your business. There's no way around it.

But is "predictability" a lot better than "giving a shot at something that's loaded with new possibilities"? 

See, holding on to certainty can delay your progress in growing your business. It's because you are perpetuating the status quo. 

Think about your own experience for a sec. You might have delayed quitting your job just because you didn't have enough evidence to support the idea of you making the right decision.

You might have held off on going on your own because you weren't sure if you could hack it & ended up keeping your side hustle as a side hustle for the longest time.

You might have stayed on the job you passionately hated because, at least, you knew they weren't going to fire you any time soon & your paychecks were guaranteed.

Looking back, is it safe to say you feel like you should have done it a lot sooner? 

That's the point. 

"Well, I wouldn't have known what I know now back then. If I did, I would've done it much sooner!" 

If you just said this to yourself, that's an indication that you are in the right place. Today, I'm going to map out the typical journey of an entrepreneur in the service business from 2 perspectives: revenue & time.

This will help you understand that the experience you are about to go through isn't at all like driving on a highway during a tropical storm. Instead, you'll see your runway clearly without the help of a fortune teller.

Still Trading Time for Money? Overcome These 5 Key Hurdles and Finally Stop Charging by the Hour

Still Trading Time for Money? Overcome These 5 Key Hurdles and Finally Stop Charging by the Hour

Are you sick of tracking time for your own work? Are you sick of constantly reminding your team to track time with an app like Harvest for pricing purposes?

You probably recognize that tracking time itself is a stand-alone task that eats away valuable work hours. You are also aware that trading time for money isn't a sustainable business model, and you want to stop this vicious cycle.

But... (I know there's always a *but*) you aren't sure how to go about making the change?

I also started out by selling my services on an hourly rate basis. It’s OK. We all need to start from somewhere.  Although it was nerve-wracking in the beginning, I made the switch, even with existing clients, from charging hourly to value-based (a.k.a. expertise-based) pricing. If you are wondering how I did it, wonder no more. 

In this post, I'm going to share the top 5 hurdles that keep you from making the switch to value-based pricing & what actions you can take right now to overcome each hurdle.

If you are a solopreneur reading this, you'll get a ton out of this post.  Guaranteed.  By the end of this post, you will see clear steps towards value-based pricing that will allow you to gradually make the shift. 

But this is not just for solopreneurs.  Many established, full-on service businesses with physical locations and FT employees are still trading time for money by billing based on hourly rates.  In most cases, there are legitimate reasons as to why they continue to do so. 

Even then, I always encourage them to switch to value-based pricing, as the benefit of doing so is immense.  We’ll go over that in detail later.

Here’s the good news.  Unlike 15 or 20 years ago, when there were fewer options to charge for services, we now have plenty of options we can explore.  Thanks to the evolution of internet-based services, especially SaaS/MaaS, it’s much easier for customers to accept new pricing models.

In other words, they are more open-minded.

This allows even traditional service businesses to change their pricing & billing with less resistance.