In our case there are only 2 of us ‘in the office’ although as you know we work with many other companies, but in the grand scheme of things we can discuss an idea and pretty much put it into practice the next day – complete flexibility!
As Barry mentioned in his comment, us Brits are known for being a bit ‘tight’ sometimes especially when it comes to paying for something that we can’t touch i.e. SEO or Internet marketing. So we decided to change the way we work. The upshot of this is we are keeping our customers longer, they are actually spending more money with us, they are definitely recommending our services more and they are enjoying the freedom of complete flexibility. So what do we now offer:
- different types of packages for smaller businesses
- no annual contract unless specifically asked for
- flexibility to ‘dip in and out of our services’ whenever the customer wishes
- a transparent pricing policy – ongoing work is ‘by the hour’ rather than a contract figure per month
Obviously there are limitations to our flexibility and quite often there has to be a compromise e.g. if we recommend a project requires 16 hours per month for 3 months to achieve the customer’s requirements and they only want to spend 8 hours for 2 months the reality is this will have a direct impact on our ability to produce the desired results – as long as the customer is aware of these consequences then there is no problem. The absolute key to our business is absolute transparancey and ultimately an amount of flexibility that will ensure the customer is happy with the level of service for the price they are paying.
And, when Barry asked if we ‘stick to our guns’ regarding not lowering our price just to get a sale – then answer is absolutely yes. There is no point in making a sale if it is going to harm the profitability of your business. Who wants to work for free unless you are a dedicated volunteer?
