If you’re looking for one-on-one private coaching, the enrollment window is currently open for the next few days. After that, it’s closing for a few months. There are less than 10 spots available. Coaching can include anything from improving your client attraction systems to strategizing and building new income streams by packaging up your knowledge and expertise. Details are here.
The Client Letter
August 15, 2013
The Desert of Arizona
Cloudy 67 Degrees
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In my experience, long term retainer arrangements where you receive fees of $X a month in return for some list of work items, rarely work out.
And today I want to show you why.
It all depends on where you find yourself on something I call, “The Rockstar Curve”.
The inherent problem is this:
As a service provider, you want to increase your profitability over time. This means you want more money for less work. This should come as no surprise to you, although in my experience, it might be quite surprising to your client.
But as the client, they aren’t concerned about your profitability. What they want is you, The Rockstar. They paid a lot of money for you and they want to get full value for that investment.
The problem is that, even if you’re a “rockstar,” if you stick around too long, you end up being perceived like “one of the gang.”
And members of the gang don’t get top dollar.
Members of the gang don’t get preferential treatment.
The members of the gang don’t call the shots.
Members of the gange eventually start getting the calls like, “I need you to get this done by 10PM tonight please…”
It just isn’t human nature (at the moment) for a client to appreciate you in the same way on day 250 of a relationship as they did on day 1.
By day 250, some of that shine has worn off. By day 250, your presence on the scene now seems pretty darn normal.
Now you might imagine, with this dreary description of long term retainer arrangements, I might suggest you stay away from them.
But we do what we have to do. So I’m not suggesting that. What I am suggesting is that you become AWARE of the dynamics of the situation and don’t let that bother you.
Here’s a fact:
Each day you work with a client brings you one day closer to the last day you’ll ever work with that client.
That’s not a cynical statement. It’s just fact. And it’s a fact that I’ve forgotten too many times.
I’ve had long term retainer arrangements with clients where, eventually, I started being concerned about the profitability of what was going on.
I became “one of the gang,” and eventually, someone spoke up and said, “Why in the world are we paying this guy so much money?”
It didn’t matter what I’d created, it didn’t matter about the money I’d brought in out of thin air.
The facts didn’t matter. The FEELINGS mattered.
The next time you consider taking on a monthly retainer client, make sure you know why you’re doing it. Have a good reason. And once you secure that retainer, make your first priority to go out and find ANOTHER client to add to your list as well.
That’s not because you’re greedy, it’s simply because you’re too smart to think that anything is forever.