Reaping the Fruits of Labour...

As you know I've been working with Simon since about September last year and we've been doing all sorts of things with my sales processes, my marketing and my presentations, just to name a few.  

It was tedious work and really quite disheartening alot of the time.

Sadly, I had to let Simon go about 8 weeks ago because I just wasn't getting any results (I am an instant results type of girl!) and we were fast running out of work (and cash!) so I just couldn't afford him any longer - despite the fact that his services weren't all that expensive to start with.

Anyway, I did it.  Well, we did it.

Thanks to all the work that I did do with Simon, all the rejections, all the schmoozing, my new refined sales process, my new refined tendering system, my new refined presentation system, I won a job.

An architect who actually refused every one of my requests to meet with him referred me to this client and the client called me.  So, all my persistence did actually pay off despite the repeated rejections.

And, it's an awesome job that's right up my alley!  It's a juicy commercial job in the suburbs.  It's in the price range we want, it's the size we want, it's the type of architect we want, but most importantly it's the type of client we want.  

BUT, best of all...it has excellent margins in it AND admin fees too!

Now, this is a first for us....We've always been too scared to add the cost of admin into our tenders because we were always worried that that would push our prices far over everyone else's that the clients get tenders from.  Afterall, we know we're already at the higher end of mid to the lower end of high on the price scale as it is.  So, as a result we've left admin out and then when we've won the job been treated as quasi-project managers....unpaid.  Any cost of admin has come out of our margins on the job.

Now, I've got an awesome lawyer and an awesome insurance broker and over the last 4 months they've both been singing off the same song sheet; "Ms TTW, you must charge admin.  Your margins are your profit and profit is profit.  Admin is a cost of the job and as such must be included in your tender price as a cost, not taken out of your profits."

I knew they were right, but I have been too scared till now....

But, I read a book and there was a message in it that hit me like a tonne of bricks.  The message was "you are not selling a product at a price, you are selling the way you do business."

That made a lot of sense to me.  So, I created a formula to include admin in our tender price.

And I used it in this juicy little commercial  job.

I still had to negotiate, but the point is I included it, the clients accepted it and I won the job.  I didn't win the job on price, I won it on all that stuff that goes along with the job; the way we communicate, the way we plan, the way we invoice, the way we're detailed and the way we related to the client.

It was also a live test drive of my new qualifying systems I've implemented so we have a higher chance of winning the right jobs offered by the right clients.  

So, this was a major win for us on many levels, and hopefully the start of what is a major turnaround for our business.  If I can do 2 or 3 of these types of jobs per year I'll be a very happy woman.


Till next time...