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Coaches, Consultants and other Service Professionals…How Realistic are Your Revenue Projections?

Most service professionals, myself included, tend to start out thinking that if you just work hard enough, you’ll be successful. Unfortunately, it just isn't so. We often start our professional business believing that all we need to do is provide a good service, charge a "reasonable" fee and book "enough" of our time. But unless you do the math to prove or disprove your assumptions, you may be creating a business that is set up to fail.

Here's what can happen:
Andrea is a professional organizer. She sells her services to people who need help organizing their offices, garages, their lives. She charges $55 per hour, which she thought was the most anyone would be willing to pay for an organizing professional. Since her work is organizing her clients’ offices and homes, she travels to them.

Her average appointment is two hours long. Taking into consideration the travel time and a brief break for lunch or to return calls, etc. Andrea can realistically average only two appointments in one day. This means, on average, the maximum Andrea can earn in one day is $220. That’s not terrible, but in order for this to translate into meaningful annual revenue she needs to earn $220 five days a week; which further translates into Andrea booking ten different clients, all of whose schedules were managed to work with whatever times she had available, every week. Not likely, right?

Even if this scheduling did work, when would Andrea have the time to do the marketing required to land that many clients or the administrative upkeep to manage the business? More realistically, given a $55/hour charge, the average Andrea is likely to earn using this model is about $550 per week. After paying her taxes and business expenses is this enough to cover living expenses?

We new consultants, coaches, and other professionals almost always overestimate how much they can earn and underestimate the amount of time and money required to successfully market themselves. They also forget that they will have to cover not only their living costs and business expenses, but pay self-employment tax, buy their own health insurance, provide for their own retirement, and allow for unpaid vacation and sick time.

Here’s how Andrea changed her business, which took her from struggling to make a living to thriving. She began selling her time by the day instead of by the hour. She offered her clients a full-day “ship-shape” package that consisted of a morning site survey and consultation and then a “file, box or toss” session in the afternoon. Sometimes her assignment would be extended if her clients asked her to shop for organization systems and tools to help them stay organized after her visit. By charging $389 per day and scheduling three clients per week, she now earns over twice the amount she previously earned.

She also began offering monthly, one-day organization workshops as a way of marketing her services, giving prospective clients a chance to experience her work. The workshop has become a key source of new clients and referrals, and marketing the workshop turned out to be easier than marketing her personal services.

Networking, speaking, and writing articles furthered differentiated Andrea’s reputation as an organization expert, separating Andrea from the myriad of other people out there trying to do business as a professional organizer.

If earning a decent living as a solo-preneur professional seems impossible to you at times, ask yourself what you change about how you are marketing yourself, how much you are charging, and how you are packaging your services? Also, begin to look for ways you can enhance your reputation as an expert in your field. Selling your service is selling your expertise. As Jack Trout says, you have to “differentiate or die”.

Until then, Be BOLD. And remember, all success starts with a Bold Vision.

In May BoldVision will begin offering the 12-week course “Promotion Action Plan - Attract More Clients With Less Effort by Becoming Recognized as an Expert in Your Field” exclusively for self employed service professionals. For more information email info@boldvisionconsulting.com.

In June, Bold Vision Business Intensive program will be launched. The Business Intensive program is a series of 8 60-minute classes that will meet in person (South Portland, ME) and via teleconference once a month. Participants can sign up for a single class ($39) or for all 8 and receive a 25% discount ($234). Materials are included. For more information send an email to info@boldvisionconsulting.com.

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