It is appropriate that on the last Monday of 2009 I write a review of the year as it relates to my business and reflect on those things that worked, didn’t work, and might have worked had I done it differently.
For Burke Research Services, I looked at the two basic reasons a business hires a researcher:
At the end of the day, any company that makes its money selling services has to decide what it wants to be. After looking at these two statements, I then had to decide on how I was going to present myself to potential clients. There were two options for me to consider:
- Strategic and professional services (PS) organizations focus on maximizing rate by specializing in a special area of skill and take shorter-term engagements.
- Body shops or outsourcers focus on maximizing billability by providing low-rate manpower in long-term engagements.
I was set. In 2009 my business model was based on outsourcing…I would be the person business would outsource their research to. This meant I was looking for long-term projects and that my overall rate would be lowered to accommodate the long-term project. So I wrote my basic plan:
- I wrote a revenue goal based on the number of projects I wanted to work on.
- I developed a marketing plan for both online and offline marketing.
- I reviewed my budget to ensure that I had the capital to support the daily business needs.
I wish I could say that I reached my revenue goal for 2009. I can share with you that I reached 60% of my revenue goal. Now is where the review is vitally important to my success in 2010 with Burke Research Services.
Why did I not reach my revenue goal? I had a great marketing plan. I had capital so I wasn’t desperate when talking with potential clients.
After reviewing my activities throughout the year, I can clearly see that I did not have a clear customer profile. Oh, I had a general target market. I knew, in general, which industries would most likely need my research services. And I had a vision of the type of projects I was going to able to quote. I also had an idea of what my ideal customer looked like. This means that as I attended business events, talked on radio shows, presented to business groups and volunteered my expertise to a local non-profit group … I was all over the place in terms of showing my expertise! My presentation is very general and does not show a clear ROI (return on investment) for using my services. Nor does it show some of the details of an actual project – why? because I was trying to promote myself to businesses in general – not a business in need of research, not a business in a specific industry.
For 2010, I have refined my business model to be that of a professional service organization. Which means that my focus needs to be on maximizing my rate by specializing in an area of skill and by taking shorter-term engagements. So, one important change I am making is deciding which industries I am going to specialize within. Once that is determined, I will use the same marketing plan (offline and online) because I know the marketing works. I was just telling my story to the wrong audience.
What this means for you, my reader, is that I will continue my weekly posting on this blog…but the focus will be a bit different. You will benefit from my research for refining my specialty because I intend to tell you what I find along the way. You will see posts about markets, industries, products and people. There may be a few reviews thrown in for fun, for profit, for purposes of making sure you know what is available out there in terms of products and services. As always, I will encourage you to comment and participate.
