Wouldn’t it be great if you could only work with A-grade clients?

These are the clients that you enjoy working with, that really value your opinion and the work you do and they respect you and your team.

On top of that, they are willing to pay you what you’re worth because they see and get the value you bring to their projects. 

Then, on the other hand you have the clients that you dread working with. 

These are the clients that are difficult, needy, hard to get along with and are constantly asking you to lower your fees on their projects.

Right now, you have an amazing opportunity while the market is buoyant and there is plenty of work on, to make a plan to let go of all your C and D-grade clients. This will allow you to focus on working only with your A-grade clients who are a pleasure to work with and who you want to be working with for many years to come. 

Why would you do this?

For one, A-grade clients are far more likely to keep giving you good quality repeat work. We all ...

Let’s be honest, business growth is far from a linear process. 

There are ups and downs, highs and lows. 

There are periods of rapid growth, then periods of slow growth. 

It’s all normal and all part of the business-building process. 

And although rapid growth may seem like a dream come true and something you’re constantly striving for - it essentially poses quite a lot of challenges. 

Rapid growth means that you’re constantly needing to cater for all the expansion by strengthening your technical & admin support as well as business workflows. You’ll find that you need to heavily invest in things such as more staff, followed by training and development, additional support systems, more office space etc etc. 

It can be A LOT. 

This is where the benefits of reaching a plateau (a sort of a standstill) in your business growth come into play. Because after a heavy period of growth, a business usually reaches a plateau which is characterised by slower growth.

These periods on your bus...

It’s fair to say that business owners are always busy. However, there are different kinds of busy from what I’ve seen in my experience. And those different kinds of busy result in two outcomes for the business: growth or standstill.

We all like to tick things off our to-do lists, and this can actually sometimes get in the way of planning our time well. Automatically doing the next thing on our list can drag you into doing activities that could actually easily be delegated or outsourced.

Yes, you get immediate satisfaction (or reward) as you tick action items off, but is that actually what you are meant to be doing with your time?

Let’s put it this way: Doing one task takes you away from doing another. 

So, what kinds of tasks fill your working hours? Are you clear on where you're spending your time?

As time is finite, there’s an absolute need to use the time that you have well.

Take small breaks every now and then to look at your to-do list, and think about which activities can b...

If you run your own business, one of your aspirations will be business growth. Getting a solid customer/client base, good cash flow and profit are some of the obvious things you’ll want to achieve on your business journey. 

Some business owners have the added motivation to grow their business because their end goal is to eventually sell the business and enjoy time with their family, pursuing other projects & enjoying the fruits of their hard work.

If you are looking to head down that path, then you might be interested in finding out what specific things will give your business a higher valuation when the time comes to sell. 

How can you increase your business sale multiple?

There are several factors that affect your sale valuation multiple. The first one being - your revenue. The higher your revenue, the higher the multiple.

But, it’s not just your revenue. There are many other things that really influence how your business looks to prospective buyers.

Other key factors are:

1. P...

A 12-month business plan is one of the key essentials to have and to refer to regularly. It’s an accountability tool that will keep you on track for the year ahead. You’ll use it to measure your performance against it and see how well you’re doing.

How do you create a 12-month business plan?

• Be clear on your business vision and where you’re taking your business long term. 
• Do your planning and know what you want to achieve in your business in the next 12 months. 
• Break it down into smaller segments – quarters – so the action list doesn’t seem so daunting. 

Business Vision

Before you start creating your 12-month business plan, you need to get really clear on your longer-term business vision. Where are you going as a business and why? What’s meaningful for you to create as the business owner?

Plan

You’ll then want to do your year ahead planning by having a look at several key categories that you need to consider as you move your business forward:

1. Clients - Think about who ...

Is your business completely dependent on you as the business owner? What happens if you decide to step away or take a holiday? What happens when you want to retire or go and do something else?

Most business owners can’t step away from their businesses – even for a week! And most definitely haven’t thought about the end game and what happens when they want to exit the business.   

So how can you maximise business growth and how can you put a plan in place, so when it’s time to exit – the business keeps going and you reap the benefits of all of your years of hard work. 

One strategy is to bring on a next generation of shareholders into your business. 

A key benefit of having additional shareholders in your business is that you have more people around you, incentivised and motivated to build the business alongside you. It’s a fantastic way to leverage more people around you – helping you grow the business faster. 

Another benefit is - legacy. When it’s time for you to exit the busine...

Pricing your services is always tricky because there are so many different models you can use. Plus, you’ve got to consider your expertise, experience, and the current market situation. So, it’s only reasonable that there will be times when you have clients that challenge your pricing.

Today we’re going to work through what to do and say when a client tells you you’re too expensive. 

A very common initial reaction to this kind of remark is to back down - to really start to doubt yourself with regard to your fees & hourly rates. And what this will do is have you immediately consider reducing your price. 

Or in other words - reducing your worth.

Why does that happen?

It’s the people-pleasing trigger or part of us that gets pulled. We always want to have satisfied & happy clients, or we want to get that new client across the line (aka get more cash flowing into the business). 

But, I’m here to tell you that you need to silence that initial inner voice. Stop discrediting & downgradin...

Dreaming of growing your business and achieving those goals you set for yourself in your business plan?

And getting to that point where clients will come looking for you because you are their go-to problem solver?

I think we all fall into this category. 

But what makes businesses actually successful and stand out here is being smart and going about this process wisely.

And if there’s one thing that can really hold your business back, it’s NOT being clear on your ideal client.

This can have an immense impact on the scalability & the success of your business.

So, why is this so important?

It’s because it’s got such a domino effect on the main drivers necessary for a business to thrive.

Let’s imagine that at the moment, you’re not sure who or what your ideal client is and that you’re taking on work from many different clients that all have different needs and wants. One client asks that you do something in a particular way, and the other prefers a completely different approach … you get my point....

There’s something about starting a new year that gets every business owner or team member excited. Because we see it as a new chapter with a whole host of opportunities to grow and improve.

However, before you dive headfirst into the new year - it’s super important to reflect on what the past year has brought, and how each of those things has affected your business and you as a person.

Let’s not kid ourselves, being unhappy with how certain things played out in your business last year, or what kind of clients you were dealing with, or frustrating projects you were working on can take its toll on our motivation and performance as we build into the new year. 

I don’t want that for you this year. I want you to start the new year fresh and excited – with the frustrations of last year learnt from and left behind. 

So, let’s do this together now. Go on… take out a pen and paper, or open a doc if you’re the techy type, and create a list of things that have marked the past year for you. Ma...

There is one word that I can't stand - HUSTLE......

It seems to have become a massive buzz word in the world of leaders, business owners and entrepreneurs.

I firmly believe that if you set your team and your business up smartly and you have the right systems and processes in place - then you don't need to hustle. Your team is performing well, your clients love you and the work you do for them and your project pipeline is full.

But today I'm going to break my rule and talk about one area that does require an amount of hustle....

...and that is in the follow up!!

Most people think that a potential client will either love them or hate them after one coffee meeting. They think they'll either get work out of them straight away or it wasn’t meant to be.

But that’s absolute nonsense.

If you're a stats person (which most engineers are!) then the latest stats are that a new client will need on average 8 touch points from you before they will make a purchasing decision with you. 

Now for...