 Great photo by Grok. Many prospective clients ask us how we work, in terms of fees, here at Copel Communications. In this article, we’ll tell you.
We provide writing, marketing, and creative services to numerous different clients: consultancies, B2B businesses, and ad agencies, to name a few. And over the years, we’d found that many of our clients wanted, well, all of our services. Which was fine by us. Indeed, more and more, in addition to pure deliverables, such as written pieces (web sites, B2B video scripts, blogs, bios, etc.), our clients wanted us to consult, and to manage, for them. This isn’t out of our wheelhouse: In a past life, we’d served as Creative Director of a New York ad agency, so we’re used to directing other creatives, such as web designers, graphic artists, video editors, voice-over artists, other writers, you name it. So it’s more than natural for us to help direct what are largely hybrid marketing teams these days: Some of our clients will have a few people on staff, such as a graphic artist and/or intern; they’ll also have a roster of vendors, such as digital marketing firms (the companies that, to dumb it down, do SEO and make social ads), video editors, and so on. And of course, many of our clients turn to us for marketing direction and strategy, as well as the tactical/operational/managerial details we’d just described above. And of course, when it comes to writing, we can switch and wear that hat. So the way that we work with our clients, these days, has evolved in sync with what they tap us to provide. In the early days, we were mostly doing writing/deliverables. So we would bill for just that. But as we’d noted above, that’s become more the exception than the rule; nowadays, most clients use us for both the writing/deliverables and the consultative services, too. And so that’s the way we bill, in case you were curious. For a typical client, we’ll work on what we call a retainer-plus-deliverables basis. First, there’s a monthly retainer: For a nominal flat fee each month, that client will get up to a given number of hours of our time, with the intention that it feels like they own us/we’re on staff. They can call us, email us, have us join or lead meetings, and feel like they never run out of hours. And of course they get all this without having to pay a big salary, or our insurance, taxes, benefits, vacation, equipment, overhead, anything. It’s a classic 1099 arrangement, with all of the perks thereof. So each month, at the end of the month, they’ll get an invoice from us for that flat-fee retainer. This includes, for example, directing all of those other creative/marketing people/assets we’d mentioned previously, as well as the big-picture strategic marketing consultative services. And if there happens to be any writing that also needs to be done, for that client, that month, the fees for those specific deliverables will be added, as line items, above the fixed-fee retainer. Hence “retainer plus deliverables.” For many years, now, that arrangement has worked well for our clients, and for us. It’s just the right mix of fixed vs. variable. There are, of course, exceptions. Some clients just pop up for little projects from time to time, so we charge them for, perhaps, discrete marketing-strategy sessions and/or deliverables, as needed. So in case you were interested in working with us, you now know how we typically work. We can give you more details, and a quote to fit your specific situation; just contact us. We’d love to hear from you!
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 Great photo by Grok. We had a client who recently showed us a whole new program they were going to present to their clients and new prospects alike.
It was well thought-out. It was super detailed. It had lots of impressive features. It promised to deliver a ton of value and ROI. And it was terrifying. Who sees what—and when This may seem contradictory, if not counterintuitive. Here it is, we’d just lauded this new program which our client had created and unveiled to us. And then we undercut that review with the dreaded T-word. What gives? We can give you a little more detail now, and you’ll certainly say “Ohhhh…!” Our client—like many business owners—lives and breathes in spreadsheets. So that’s what they’d shared with us. Indeed, they screen-shared it with us. And this spreadsheet (was it Excel? was it Google? who cares?) was about 40 rows deep by about 25 columns across. All at once. Yep. Terrifying. The good news: We were the first, and only, ones to see it in this state. Our client was justifiably and understandably excited by the cool new program they’d worked so hard to develop. But boy was it ever un-exciting when presented as a swimming sea of spreadsheet cells. This is hardly a tragic story. And you likely can see exactly where it’s going, even if our client wasn’t able at the time. We patiently listened to the whole presentation, which took about a half hour. We took notes. And then we asked some pointed questions:
The idea was to turn down the spigot on this fire hose so it would better resemble a soda straw. The client—they’re very smart—immediately saw where we were going. Easier than you think Once our client realized that they needed to carve their presentation of this new program into bite-sized chunks, all that was left was the execution. And here we can describe a kind of MVP or minimum-viable-product version of that effort: Sure, the client could have gone on and created a snazzy new PowerPoint deck, with discrete slides for the different phases of this proposed program. But that would take time, effort, and resources—and at this point, the client really just wanted to test out this idea: socialize it with existing clients and see how receptive they’d be. So why even make a PowerPoint? The solution was even simpler: Tabs. Yep. That’s all they needed. If this program has five phases, then carve the spreadsheet into five clickable tabs. Simply screen-share a single tab when you present it. And if the conversation leads to a discussion of Phase Two, then click the Phase Two tab. Done. Steve Jobs famously said that simple is hard. But sometimes it’s hard to see what’s simple, and staring right at you. Do you really need to spend a fortune on a shiny new CRM (customer relationship management) platform when your Excel is still working fine? Of course not. Wait for the expense to be more than justified. Ditto for things like learning management systems or LMSs, or even slick PowerPoints as we’d described in this story. Have a marketing challenge that you suspect is simpler than it appears? Contact us and let us put a fresh set of eyes on it for you.  Great photo by Grok. We have a client who’s an accomplished executive speaker and wanted to book more bookings. We were tapped to help.
If you, too, want to build business by building your live audience outreach, this article is for you. Or if you know someone with the same desire, share it with them. Teaser: we’ve got a killer tip to help you, toward the end of this article. The lay of the land First off, we’re not talking about using some high-priced speakers’ bureau that books A-list celebrities at Fortune 500 corporate events. We’re talking about getting our client booked at things like regional association meetings and conventions of larger national business organizations. The point here, in case it wasn’t glaringly obvious to you, is to place our client in a target-rich environment. This isn’t about ego or garnering some kind of Tony Robbins-like adulation. It’s about presenting to business prospects, and then getting opportunities to close them, afterward. It’s a very narrow use-case of biz-dev. So. No big booking agency. No chanting crowds. But there are tons of these more-realistic gigs, across the country, all the time. And they’re booked, typically, ages in advance: we’re talking anywhere from six to 12 months, easily. How do you find them? These days, there are digital exchange platforms that connect speakers (such as our client) with event planners (i.e., people who seek to book speakers for their gatherings). An obvious one is eSpeakers; we’ll talk about that one here. Load up your ammo If you want to get booked as a speaker on a site like eSpeakers, you need to stand out. For the purposes of this article, we’re going to assume that you, like our client, are a stellar speaker with a great stage presence, absolute command of your thought-leading/breakthrough material, and have also done this before/are a published author/have been featured on podcasts, and so on. Yep. A high bar to start. Assuming all of that, you’ve got to let all of those eSpeakers-seekers know. Which means that, after you sign up for a (pretty darned affordable) eSpeakers membership, you’ll need to upload a lot of stuff about yourself to entice that audience. And herein is the gist of this article. Here’s what you’ll want to upload, with some notes and thought-starters to help you along:
The best tip you’ll get What’s the best way to find out how to put the best stuff up on a site like eSpeakers? Simply visit the “other side” of the site and pretend that you’re an event planner. Use the filters to drill down to direct competitors of yours. Take a look at them. You’ll easily see who the most impressive ones are. Then you can simply see what they’ve included in their “packages,” and use that as a baseline for you to, well, blow out of the water. Need help with a challenge like this? Contact us! We’d love to help you.  Great photo by George Dolgikh You’re in business to make money. These days, that sounds like a dirty little secret, but all businesses exist to make money. To reward the owners. The shareholders. To turn a profit.
Therefore, you charge your clients for everything you do. Or do you? Or should you? In this article, we’ll dive into the reasons you should, or shouldn’t, provide some hard, payable work for free. It’s based on lots of experience, with lots of clients—and often, their clients. The cold-reality ROI argument You’ve surely heard of a “loss leader.” Something that gets a prospect in the door for a super-attractive price. “Super-attractive,” as in “untenable.” Hence the “loss” you take on it. Ever played a scratch-off Monopoly game at McDonald’s and won a free order of French fries? C’mon. You think McDonald’s will lose money on that one? Remember: You can’t claim that prize on that visit. You have to come back. So would you ever, honestly, make a trip to McDonald’s, and only order French fries? Even if they’re free? Of course you wouldn’t. Neither would anyone else. Hence the “cold, hard ROI” argument for freebies. Which goes something like this: Sure, you can give away something for free—just so long as you’re virtually assured that you’ll end up making way more than the value of what you gave away, from that same client or customer. Ooof. How cold. How… Darwinian. It’s the little things First off, know that we here at Copel Communications toss out freebies to our clients from time to time. Typically, they’re what we’d consider “too small to charge for.” We recently did a little quick-turn project for a client that, while admittedly urgent, simply wasn’t a huge amount of work for us. So what were we going to do at the end of the month? Line-item it for, say, 50 bucks? Naah. We refuse to nickel-and-dime like that. Still, we did list it on that month’s invoice. But the price? “N/C.” Surprise and delight Sometimes, tossing out the freebie is just the right thing to do—especially if you’ve got a longstanding relationship with a client and the right project comes along and you can afford to do it. Ever give your dog a treat not because he chased a squirrel away from your bird feeder, but rather "just because”? This is like that. True story: We have a client that competes in an incredibly high-tech field. In fact, among our tech-savvy clients, this is one of the savviest, to the point where it’s always challenging to write for them—to assume that mantle of brilliance. It’s difficult and daunting. Yet we must be doing something right, because this client keeps turning to us with projects for years and years. One day, however, the owner of this business hit us with an unusual request. Turns out he was running for town council in the area where he lived, and wanted our help with some of his campaign materials. Man oh man. We knew this would be a freebie the instant we saw it. He sent us some fliers. And posters. And emails. And what-not. Asking us to clean them up, and bill him for whatever it required. Now we know this guy and you don’t. Trust us: He’s a great person. Any town council would be blessed to have him aboard. We were flattered, and honored, to work on this stuff. Sure, we had other paying gigs on the calendar, but were happy to carve out time for him. And when we turned to it, we hit it out of the park. Our client was delighted! He was so grateful—perhaps especially because this assignment fell outside of his usual high-tech comfort zone. “Send us your invoice,” he said. And so we sent it. With every single item line-itemed. We showed the “rack rate” for each thing—what it would cost in the real world—and even added up the total cost. And then, below that, we subtracted the entire total cost, with the note: “Courtesy discount." Amount due? Zero. If you think this client was delighted by the work we did, you can only imagine how surprised and happy he was to find out he was getting it for free. And we felt great. It still feels good, simply re-telling this story. Happy ending? So, this client immediately came back and rewarded us with zillions of dollars’ worth of fresh, new work. Right? Wrong. In fact, it was months before he needed our services again. Are we bitter? Not at all! This is the antithesis of the “cold-reality ROI” argument. We’d call it the “spark of humanity” argument. A little Christmas, when it isn’t Christmas. Businesses exist to turn a profit. But they’re also run by people who live lives. Sometimes you simply need to connect at that very basic level. Have thoughts on this issue or a story to share? Contact us. We’d love to hear it.  We’re fans of social networking. We’re fans of saving money. And if you’ve read any of these articles, you’ll know that we’re also fans of counterintuitive tricks to help get your business ahead.
In this article, we’re going to check all three of those boxes. Incidentally, although this article originates on our website, www.CopelCommunications.com, we’re cross-posting it on—you guessed it—on LinkedIn. Make that “attempting to cross-post it,” LOL! If it gets censored, we’ll take that as a compliment—and validation of our advice. Life on LinkedIn LinkedIn is certainly a powerful and handy tool. We use it all the time. It’s great for making connections with, say, people you’ve just “met” via email—and for checking background credentials, mutual connections, and so on. It’s also a system that’s ripe for gaming, unfortunately. We recently interviewed a person for a job opening, and he boasted that he had thousands of important LinkedIn connections. One of the people on our interviewing team called him on this point: “Hey, I looked at your connections and I’m very impressed. I’m friends with that senator, too! How do you know him?” Crickets. Turned out that this person had essentially spammed this senator and thus got the LinkedIn connection. But it’s not what we’d call a “real” connection. We practice what we preach. Check out our LinkedIn page. Our connections number in the hundreds, not the thousands. But we know who those people are. And they know us, too. Turning spam to your advantage Obviously, you’d like to have to have a rich book of LinkedIn connections. Just as important, you’d like prospects to check out your LinkedIn profile. That’s the first step toward their learning more about you, clicking their way to your website, learning even more about you and your business, and, ideally, reaching out to you. All of that would be great. But it begs the question: How do you get these thousands of untold strangers to check out your profile? Here’s where we get to the “cheap” and “counterintuitive” part of this article. Not long ago, we got a LinkedIn InMail request from a total stranger: a woman who, ostensibly, wanted to sell us something. Now in case you’re not familiar with it, InMail is a "premium" service. You guessed right: You must pay to get it. So connect the dots: This woman was shelling out money each month for the privilege of messaging us… a total stranger. What would you do if you got her message? If it’s clearly spam/a pitch to sell you something you don’t really need, you’d tend to ignore it, and delete the notification. But that might be costing you an opportunity. Make the system work in reverse The best thing to do, in an instance like this, is to accept the invitation. Consider:
This is a numbers game. The more connections this spammer—er, “person”—has, the more exposure you get for connecting with them. It’s like network broadcasting. Only it’s free. And it gets better: Depending upon how good a job that that person did in filtering to find you, your new “connections” may well be quite relevant to your business. It’s almost like getting LinkedIn Premium… without the premium. So keep an open eye, and an open mind. The business you end up boosting may be your own. Want more help? Contact us. We’d be delighted to discuss your needs.  Have you tallied up your totals for your Schedule C? If not, you might want to consider some of the categories we’ll cover in this quick tax-time edition of our usual article series.
Of course we’d be remiss if we didn’t open this one with the obligatory disclaimer: We’re not accountants. We rely on the services of people who are. That said, we can pore through receipts and organizers as well as anyone, so here are some categories to consider before you hand off that big stack of paperwork to your CPA with the time-tested plea: “Find as much as you legally can!”
How can you come out ahead? As we’d mentioned at the outset of this article, we’re not accountants. Once you gather up your info, do like we do, hand it off to the pros. That said, there are ways we can help you save. If you’re investing too much time, money, or effort in your marketing, writing, or creative services, let us help. You’ll find that our work is first-rate, our service is cheerful, and our rates are hardly (*groan*) taxing. Contact us today. |