At the end of this year, 2025, will you be able to look back and say, “We were BOLD”?
I am committed to being BOLD this year and I’m going to encourage you to be as well.
What does BOLD look like?
#1: No incremental steps!
In other words, don’t inch your way towards a new target or outcome. Plot out the path, then take several big leaps to make progress.
#2: Go your own way. Forget what “the competition” is doing.
Your company is unique in that you are the only one with the combination of people and ideas that you have. Understand your people and your ideas. Ask “How can we leverage them in order to deliver life changing differences to our clients?” Then do those things.
#3: Deepen your understanding of IMPACTs on your clients.
Probe how your work changes the lives of your clients. Ask more than one person in the client company. Invite them to be descriptive, not quantitative.
#4: Be open to changes in direction or deviations from your plan.
Plans are important but being strictly limited by a plan you wrote months ago is not bold. It stifles you. When you wrote your plan, you did not have all the information that you will have as the year unfolds.
#5: Bring in BOLD outside experts.
When you’re looking for inputs, find the outliers in their fields. Find the experts who themselves take bold actions, who have moved on from conventional wisdom and following the crowd.
My BOLD recommendations to get you started
✔️Set your entry level IMPACTs 3 steps above where they are now.
If you never stop offering the lowest level IMPACTs, you’ll have a hard time attracting people who want more significant impacts. You will also have no justification for higher fees.
✔️STOP using any time-based pricing model.
Your work does not unfold in precise 6, 10 ,or 60 minutes increments. Adopt a pricing model that compensates you for the IMPACTs you deliver, not the time you spend or the tasks you do.
Want to really be BOLD? Just do it, starting today. You’ll figure it out quickly.
✔️Require payment in advance
This should not be BOLD but judging from the number of companies that struggle with negative cash flow, it is.
Conventional wisdom (not wise but always conventional) says that every company should follow industry practices about terms and conditions. Or to give the customer what they want.
The truly BOLD company understands that terms and conditions must work for the benefit of the company. Unless you are in the lending business (that is, you make money from lending) your firm does not have to allow buyers to pay you later.
How will your firm be BOLD in 2025?
If you have some BOLD ideas, please share them with me and I’ll cheer you on.
If you don’t see opportunities to be BOLD, I can help.
Text BOLD to703-801-0345.
Happy New Year!
