Alignment Pricing Your Professional Services - Its a Conversation, not a Proposal
December 9, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
I’m playing around with my business right now. Its one of the great things about being an independent and an entrepreneur. You can try things.
This week an impulse to do something innovative with my fees just took hold. Granted, I’m interested in shifts to buyer power and business models like VRM that have sprung forth from that shift. But it just felt really important to take action as long as what I did passed my basic criteria that it be integral, that is:
- good for me and my business
- good for my clients
- good for my community
- some kind of greater good
I just feel so strongly that a lot of people need my help and I want to make it easier for them to get it and for me to give it. Its as simple as that; in fact it always has been but our resistance gets in the way of what’s easy and simple and creative.
Since the dawn of professional services we’ve made setting fees difficult and complex because we’re attached to and identified with a lot of beliefs and assumptions about them and the clients who pay them. I’ve decided to not believe, assume or expect that anymore. As a result of that shift, I’ve published “suggested fees” for my programs and will encourage anyone who has concerns or issues with the fees to converse simply and openly and honestly with me to align our:
- intentions
- readiness
- perceptions of value
- desires
In so many ways, personal, professional and social, we’re starting things over and we’re in it together. That’s why I want aligned partnerships, based on trust and focused on new direction and positive change. So I’ve decided to be that partner and give the fees space. They’ll find their natural level and I’ll have more time to play, dream and innovate.
Differentiate Your Professional Service Practice
December 4, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
Photo credit: Wessex Archaeology's photostream (coastal and marine set) on Flickr
I get asked over and over by some people about what kind of coaching and consulting I do. They seem to have a preconceived notion, or perception of it and then attempt to reconcile my explanation to somehow fit their worldview. Sometimes I can’t figure out if they’re curious and trying and wanting to understand, or just not listening.
But now I’m realizing that people are pulled out of their comfort level when they’re in the depths, and the depths is my space.
I work with people at the level of often hidden assumptions, expectations and beliefs. In organizations, its collections of those - the culture. I use metaphysical metaphors to support the change facilitation process. I shouldn’t be surprised that people want to stick their toe in the water many times before they risk getting a touch of the bends.
I’m blogging this because I’m getting a sense that there’s a growing desire, or movement, or response to series of crises, to go deeper: in life, business and self-awareness. I think its a great sign that people and businesses are showing willingness and readiness to move beyond the surface of their experience, and with a leap in faith, take the plunge into what’s deep and unknown…that with which we identify but which contradicts what we want and where we want to go.
I don’t believe that “going deep” is only within the realm of professionals who focus on “people” issues. Accountants, consultants, health professionals, lawyers, technology professionals, etc, can practice recognizing opportunities to serve clients at a deeper level. It starts with allowing more space for conversation and sharing, being present without an agenda, and being willing to think differently about everything we and our clients think we know.
Uncertainty is the new reality for our clients. We can help them make it their pivot point of power from which they can create and direct their change and growth, if we dare to be different.
Business and Social Media: A Non-linear Process
November 16, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
Social Media:Community Snapshot
Social media will increasingly become more important to businesses that must find new ways to gain influence and increase attention share in peer-to-peer (friends) networks.
However, the strategies being developed to help companies accomplish this are often loosely based on a traditional sales and marketing funnel analogy, identifying community members as:
- visitors
- prospects
- leads
- opportunities
- customers
The funnel goal is to focus efforts on the people who are most likely to be influenced to take action and move them through the funnel.
This is an effective social network model but is based on assumptions that are not applicable for many businesses. The graphic simply illustrates a non-linear social community model as a connected group of people, including a tiny percentage who talk and a very large percentage who listen only, and who all have latent needs. Often, that’s it!
In this model, people (peers) who listen only to other people (peers and brand) may be just as likely to be influenced as the small percentage of people (peers) who talk. And there’s no way of knowing what the brand (people) can do to facilitate that. It requires experiential learning.
Because many communities look and act like this, its critical that business social media strategies differentiate assumptions from myths and not base their quest for quantitative metrics and ROI on those myths. Its harder to do that than it sounds because we individually and collectively (culture) identify with what’s worked in the past. Its what we “know”.
But success could mean testing many assumptions about the 95% of community members who listen only, and learning how to earn their attention and better understand them. Compared to traditional marketing methods, its a less clear, test and learn approach, dependent more on time than money. But that should not mean a casual or haphazard, half-hearted approach to social media.
Regardless of how tentative you feel about it, or how small you start, take it seriously. This is the future, and whatever the size of your business, an important decision you’ll make and change that you’ll lead.
Business and Social Media:The Computing Shift
November 11, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
Social Media and Business:Computing Shift
Business Users & Social Media:Creating Natural Influence
There’s little doubt that the coming explosion of social media will greatly impact how businesses will interact in the future. The problem is that many of us who will influence businesses through our consulting, speaking and writing are mostly talking to each other and preaching to the choir so to speak.
The general consensus is that authentic communications, not technology, must drive social media initiatives. I agree with that. But the more I talk to traditional businesses of all sizes, the more I hear concerns about the short and long-term integration of internal and external social networking with their enterprise systems.
So I’ve been following Microsoft’s direction as they re-position their business and enterprise systems for social computing on the server platform, the cloud platform and combinations of those. I don’t approach projects from the technical side but I’ve come around to the importance of aligning social media strategies with corporate computing strategies. That means understanding how both are evolving and corresponding, as well as following Microsoft’s direction.
The graphics show my preference for shifting power to end users by giving them the choice, independence and synchronized data inherent in cloud models. Although this is an ideal, its likely a long way off for most traditional businesses. I don’t need to be in I.T. to understand the implications and that none of these proposed enterprise system change models are simple.
But I do think that an effective traditional business social media strategy must incorporate the clients’ enterprise systems: what they have now, what they plan for the long-term and Microsoft’s social computing direction. For business social media initiatives, technology doesn’t lead, but it matters.
Social Networks Part 4: Quantitative ROI
October 6, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
RedShift Social Media-Network Model for Business
Businesses across all industries are paying more attention to social networks which are predicted to explode worldwide. Although clearly there’s tremendous opportunity and potential it can be overwhelming to grasp the rapid disruption happening and the voluminous information getting pushed out.
Decision makers need help discerning what’s valuable from what’s hype and in taking a direction that makes sense for them. My goal is to help them do that with a unique 4-stage map that is more strategy than tactics and more visual than wordy.
My posts on stages 1-3 are:
- Social Networks Part 1: Community Segmentation
- Social Networks Part 2: Integration
- Social Networks Part 3: Qualitative ROI
The purpose integral to my model is that businesses of all size increase their natural natural influence by using social networks to expand their social capital, brand awareness and sense response skills and abilities.
The quantifiable return in my model is the sum of actionable metrics that follow the qualitative experiential learning of the earlier phase. Its nearly impossible to assign a dollar figure to every social media action. Its more reasonable to present ROI as a story of the benefits of your social media initiative. What’s most important in the very organic world of social networks, is patiently directing the movement, or progression from one stage to the next and not losing commitment to authentic community relationship-building in the quest for ROI.
I developed this model to support a practical approach to social media with recommendations including:
- Determine if and how social networks can help you grow your business and/or improve profitability.
- Accept the disruption resulting from a shift from seller to buyer power.
- Involve people in the decision making process who will challenge assumptions and habitual responses to change and disruption.
- Understand that it will take two years to measure returns on integrating social networks, whether external, internal (behind the firewall), or both.
- Model natural and authentic communications both offline and online and give incentives for participation.
- Don’t wait, over-plan, over-control, micro-manage or over-analyze. Adopt a test and learn approach to social networks.
- Be open-minded and creative about results and metrics you choose to track, knowing that you could get an unexpected equivalent result, or something even better.
- If the above don’t convince you, consider the cost to your business of doing nothing.
Social Networks Part 2: Integration
October 1, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
Social media integration for solo professionals
I don’t believe in over planning an entre’ into social media and networks. In fact I encourage clients to jump right in and experiment. But even with an experiential approach, I recommend integrating social media and networks by focusing on the value your business provides.
For example, I offer a menu of consulting, coaching and creative programs from which clients can choose. Yet each program is designed and developed to deliver the benefit of natural influence which can show up in many positive ways.
So as I merged social media and networks into the RedShift business and marketing models, I honored my Web 2.0 holon strategy, which means that my unique core value and message stayed central to my relationship and community building social network investment. Even when I’m micro-blogging about a topic that’s seemingly trivial or personal or light-hearted, I’m authentically coming from “that place” and as “that person”.
Integral means: what’s good for my clients is also good for me. After several months of social media experimentation, three specific benefits emerged:
- Social Capital
- Brand Awareness
- Sense Response
I’ll go more deeply into these benefits in my next post: Social media and networks: RO(n)I - Return on Natural Influence
Use visuals to simplify and clarify.
August 26, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
RedShift: Natural influence expansion in the connected world
Most of the popular small business advice is tailored to product companies. That’s because service firms are always more challenging to define and differentiate without creating complexity which then leads to confusion. And that confusion will increase as new small and solo professional service firms are founded by generalists, multiple careerists and encore careerists.
The nimble solo psf’s are uniquely able to create services for evolving markets that emerge from disruption, convergence and shifting demographics. Their challenge is to simply and effectively communicate who they are, where they’re going and how they help their clients.
If I can’t easily explain my content, I step back, formulate a question that I think needs to be answered and then convey that answer in some visual format. I give my right brain the right of way so to speak. I know its a highly effective method for gaining “creative clarity” and I use it extensively and successfully in client work.
Here’s a recent example of mine. To improve my ability to more clearly communicate RedShfit’s benefits to my clients and community, the question I asked myself is: How do RedShift programs create natural influence and why is that good?
By creating the graphic, I let my right brain (mostly) give me the answer.
You don’t need high-end graphics skills to do this; a whiteboard sketch is great. I used CmapTools for the natural influence concept map.
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