“I wish I hadn’t stagnated for the past five months. It was my choice–a really stupid choice!”
Meet Celeste, the CEO of a firm that consults with medical and health related businesses about employee issues.
The stresses of Covid devasted her clients. They were so thinly stretched handling their patients there was not an ounce of energy available for dealing with employee issues.
As Covid waned, the issues spiked. Many employees resigned and the ones who remained have scars from the years of stress.
Vacancies have been hard to fill, adding pressure on remaining employees.
Patient care remains high but behind the scenes it is one difficulty on top of another.
No one is calling
These are the exact circumstances where Celeste’s company can make a difference.
But they’re not getting the stream of inquiries and engagements they used to have.
Revenue is about one-third of what it was pre-covid.
And worse, they don’t have any idea how to fix it.
This is what Celeste told me when she called, and I asked her “What’s going on that made you think about calling me?”
The Issue and IMPACT
I followed the Issue Chart (is the issue an annoyance or on the critical path) and the Continuum of IMPACT (if you resolved the issue would the IMPACT be an 8, 9, 10 or lower?).
“Severe lack of revenue is on the Critical Path and resolving it would clearly be a 10” Celeste told me.
We discussed the life changing differences that would be significant to her and the firm. I made three offers using the Choice Framework.
An unforced error
And then she hit the brakes.
She told me she’s been studying value based pricing for twenty years. That she likely knew “more than most other people.”
She also told me she had a rule that she wouldn’t charge anything to a credit card that she could not fully pay off within the month.
Since she had so little cash on hand, she’d have to use her credit card and she was standing firm on her rule.
Thus, she chose option #4-to not do anything.
It’s likely you’ve been there. A problem is raging and yet you choose for one reason or another to not do anything about it.
I hear it a lot:
“We don’t have the money.”
“We’ll fix it ourselves.”
“We just have to make it a priority.”
The ROI rationale
CEOs and Owners are great at making lists of pros and cons. That’s how they figure out their ROI–return on investment.
Celeste’s list of pros and cons focused heavily on the cost of fixing the problem.
No matter how long the list of pros, that one con–that she’d have to use credit—weighed more heavily than anything else.
When Celeste called me last week, I asked her about this.
And that’s when she said she wished she had taken action five months ago!
Cost of Inaction
Now she has five more months of low revenue to overcome.
She realized that continuing to do what she’d been doing was only getting her more of what she’d had for the past 18 months—a lot of nothing!
In spite of the worries about money and the disruption to her habits, the cost of inaction was too much to bear.
She chose the IMPACT offer and we got to work.
In the first three weeks she:
- Committed to IMPACT Based Pricing completely (no exceptions)
- Began to build her vocabulary of life changing differences delivered
- Started talking to clients using this vocabulary
- Stopped herself when she fell back on her old habits of listing all the tasks they would do, and instead talks about how they change people’s lives.
- Analyzed past work for IMPACTs delivered and at what fees, to use as a starting point for their future IMPACT Based Prices and the Choice Framework.
It is gratifying to see so much progress in such a short time.
Celeste just told me again that she’s sorry she waited so long.
“If we’d started when we first talked, we be five months farther along.”
That’s COI-Cost of Inaction.
When all you can see are the arguments against making the purchase or going forward, take a moment to ask, “where would I like us to be in 5 months?”
If it’s the same place you are now, then your CoI is zero. Decline any offers of IMPACT.
If you don’t want to be stuck in 5 months (or 5 weeks), then your Cost of Inaction is high.
Choose to take action.
The ROI will be just the boost you’re looking for.
Need to talk things over? Text TALK to 703-801-0345 and we’ll set up a Virtual Coffee.
