I use the term “findability factor“.  Marketing is about establishing “know, like and trust” relationships, and ensuring that you have ongoing contact points. That way, when someone needs you, they remember and can easily find you. Usually I’m talking about consistency and persistence- but recently I’m hearing stories about chance encounters with prospects that become instant clients. Yup. Instant clients.

Lawyer was sitting in surgical waiting room during her mother’s surgery. Struck up a conversation and when the fellow discovered she was a small business lawyer, the lawyer discovered a new client! Next -this one isn’t about lawyers, but it’s still good- lawyer’s personal trainer leaves the profession without referring the lawyer to another trainer. Lawyer stops training, stops exercising, is really frustrated in attempts to find new trainer. Lawyer goes to home store, needs merchandise he can’t move, fellow shopper says, I can help, I’m a personal trainer.  So the personal trainer found the instant client!

So- go public! Tell people what you do; you never know who might be trying to find someone just like you. Worried about being obnoxious?  You’re far too shy about marketing to worry about that! Try telling 15 people a week what you do. You’ll create a habit that will serve you well.

Whether it’s a chance encounter or a prospect in your pipeline, make it easy for people to find you when they need you.

This one is from Dan Pink, via his book, Drive.  The question is a tool to use to keep yourself motivated. Ask yourself if you did more, if you did well, if you followed through as planned.  Pink suggests looking for small measures of improvement and reminding yourself that you don’t have to reach mastery in one giant step.

As a coach, it’s my job to support people and help them stay motivated.  To be honest, I find very few people who are truly self-motivated. Viewing it as a learnable skill and seeking out techniques to use improve your ability to motivate yourself is a terrific first step to revving up your own “drive”. Pink’s book is a great resource. So, as he suggests- tonight, at day’s end, ask yourself: Was I better today than yesterday?

If you have a domain name registered, you know that periodically you’re asked to verify the associated ”whois” data.  If nothing has changed, you need take no action, but you must review the accuracy and make any updates needed. Why not make it a habit to review your big-picture “whois” data quarterly as well?

Here’s the information you need to update:

1. Your financial picture- assets, liabilities, cash flow
2. Your business life - how much time you spend working, what kind of work you’re attracting, who you’re working with, who you’re partnering with
3. Your life outside of work - how you use your free time, what kinds of activities and hobbies you’re pursuing and with whom, vacations planned, etc.
4. Your health - how healthy you are, how much energy you have. Are you up to date with check-ups, etc.? Are you taking extremely good care of your body?
5. Your relationships- are they everything you want them to be? How would you rate the quality of your relationships with family and friends? How are you nurturing them?
6. Your personal development- are there classes you want to take? Do you give yourself down time and time to think?
7. Contribution and community - are you satisfied with the contribution you are to your community, locally and globally?

Some of us look at our “whois” data on a regular basis, using it as a checkpoint to be sure we’re spending our lives the way we choose.  Others might be starting your “whois” review process for the first time. If that’s you, then you’ll find that the simple act of review is going to begin a more complex next step, which is deciding what you want. When you take a systematic look at the fact of your current life, you’re going to see where you want to change it. 

Blocking out time to review your “whois” data on a monthly or quarterly basis will make you much more likely to achieve your goals. Use your calendar, make time to complete the exercise. Knowing who you are today and making sure you’re in alignment with what you want for your life is a very good habit to create!

You knew this was coming. Once you have your time keeping and timely billing habits in place- the next one is to create the habit of managing your receivables. Here’s how:

1. Be clear re when payment is due. Make sure you go over this during your intake process, and include it on your statements.
2. Review your receivables. Accounts receivables should be part of your monthly financial dashboard.  Anything over 30 days goes into 15 day increments until such time as you deem it uncollectable. Make this a standard practice and you will collect more of what you earn. Focus creates results.
3. If a bill is not paid in 30 days, start your collection process. Don’t assume a client has decided not to pay the bill, he might just be lousy at paying bills. Consider this your gentle reminder, do not think of it as a dire measure.  Foonberg suggests you use the words “Total Now Due and Payable” on the original invoice and “Total Now Due and Overdue” appropriately. Add a hand-written “thank you” note  to invoices as well.

Your collection process is going to be based on your clientele and your style. You should lay out steps on a calendar, and follow them for every client- steps that you discuss in your intake conversations.  Here’s a sample collection process:

1. After 30 days and until it is paid, a monthly overdue invoice is sent as part of the billing cycle.
2. At 45 days, check to see if payment has been received, if not, a phone call reminder is made. This call might be made by the lawyer, or by a designated representative. The objective is to work with the individual to resolve the situation before you send the overdue invoice that will go out at 60 days.
3. At 60 days, the lawyer follows up on the overdue invoice personally, a call or visit, with the objective of getting a commitment to pay. A followup confirmation with the payment agreement and timeframe should be sent by the lawyer. (email or hard copy)
4. If you still aren’t paid, continue to repeat the personal contact until you have either received full or some negotiated payment, or you decide to write off the amount. If you know collection is a long-shot, you have a write-off to make. The decision to go into arbitration or to take any legal action is outside the scope of this post.

The longer you wait to collect, the less likely you are to collect. It’s a fact. Billing consistently and acting on unpaid invoices will ensure your clients are clear on what they owe. Uncollected fees aren’t income. As soon as you start acting proactively to manage receivables, you’ll improve your realization rate.  If you hate doing it, outsource it. 

The real goal is to have an effective client selection process, to manage client expectations about fees and create such high-quality invoices that your clients pay immediately. If your clients are in the habit of paying, you don’t need to maintain this habit of managing your accounts receivable! Until then…

Speed of billing is one of the levers you can move to improve your cash flow. Take it seriously. It’s the 7th of the month, if you haven’t gotten last month’s bills out yet- make it your priority. Keep track of your time on a daily basis, write quality billing descriptions the first time and use billing templates in order to get your bills out with the least amount of pain possible. 

If you’re drawing down a retainer, you should still get a statement out promptly. This keeps your clients up to date and ensures that any replenishment requests don’t come as a surprise.

Until you’ve billed for your work, you can’t hope to collect it. Put a regular system in place and stick to it. If billing is something you hate to do- step up your marketing and create a budget for outsourcing the task! One way or another, get your bills out consistently.

Billing is a big ole frog for many of us. Well- it’s National Frog Month, use this prompt to get rid of any frogs on your plate now and to keep them OFF the menu next month!

Note: for more about frogs, see Brian Tracy’s classic book, Eat That Frog!

Hanna somehow managed to catch the entire season of Project Runway on demand over spring break. I’m not sure when she watched it, must have been the three days I worked. She updated me about the excitement related to a contestent that dropped out and the one brought back to fill the open slot. Apparently, Anthony, the designer who got the second chance, went from being a loser one week to coming back and winning a challenge the next week. Gotta love it!

Inspiration can come from anywhere; this is a great “failing forward” story.  Take it and use it to help you decide to try again. Maybe you need to change your thinking about “failure”.  Are you thinking small? Are you giving up too soon? Could be.

Take marketing, for example. Depending on the research du jour, it takes 7-11 quality contacts to turn a prospect into a client. You can view every connection up to the one that lands the client as a failure, or as a milestone to success. You can feel like a failure or you can feel terrific about staying on course. Your choice.

If your thinking is getting in the way of taking action, get over it. Failure happens. Everything can change, in a day, in a week- if you just show up and keep trying. As Tim Gunn would say, “Make it Work!”

I’ve been procrastinating about getting a checklist of good habits out to you, so I thought I’d bite off a chunk and start with just one!  Whether you charge by the hour, or by flat fee, or on a contingency basis, track your time daily. I’m convinced it’s the first thing you need to do to earn more income. New clients that pick up this habit recoup their first month’s coaching fees in about a month, either because they remember more of the work they’ve done, or because they create better descriptive entries. Better entries mean speedier billing and fewer client inquiries.

I have never encountered anyone who enjoyed it. I don’t have THE ONE RIGHT WAY for you to do it, but I do have some ideas for you to try:

• Block checkpoint appointments on your calendar for time tracking.
• Crunch times might push time tracking off the day’s agenda, but set a standard that you’ll never go more than 2 days without tracking time.
• Two monitors might be the best idea for making time tracking easy, you can keep your time tracking software (even if it’s excel or a list) up on one monitor all the time.
• Speaking of software- use practice management software, I won’t argue with you, I do recommend it heartily.
• If you can’t make yourself enter time directly into a program, then try keeping a notebook just for time tracking, by the phone.
• Use dictation and have a staffer enter your time, still working towards a daily goal.

I think you’ll notice yourself focusing more on your goals for work time as a result of tracking your time daily. It’s part of a time management discipline- you’ll be prioritizing with more information every day.  Track your time daily with a “never go more than 2 days w/o tracking time” rule, and just do it until it’s a habit!

(Did you notice the procrastination tip? If you have something you’re stuck on, try chunking it down to whatever small size works and tackle it. In my case, a 15 minute blog post for now.)

A new client was in a car accident with her grandson recently. Everyone’s OK, but the car was totaled. If you look at the crumpled car, it’s hard to believe no one was hurt. Truly a blessing. After the accident, she was thinking that if something had happened to her and her husband- there was really no way for anyone to quickly connect the child to his parents. As a result, she’s made some laminated cards with information and tucked one in the carseat. I told her she should blog about it, but she doesn’t yet blog, so there ’tis. A lesson you can learn and share without going through the car accident part. A reminder that none of us are immune. I don’t know if car seat instructions include this advice, if they do, I wonder how many people take it.

Perhaps you’re thinking about home fire drills or teaching your kids to use 911. However, “emergency planning” applies to all kinds of emergencies. It relates to the notion of always having a reserve or a backup plan. It’s carrying an energy bar if you’re going to a conference, or blocking an afternoon off after a morning you know is going to be stressful. (& scheduling a massage, if you can!) Backing up your data is an emergency plan.

Plan some time to create and update your emergency plans over the next week. And please, spread the word about ensuring there is contact information in the car seat!

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week. - Joseph Addison

Had a very successful entrepreneur tell me that taking the weekend off was like a miracle. She experienced the energy of starting the week fresh. On Monday, she took care of issues that she’d been hanging onto for weeks. She felt more creative.

Stephen Covey calls it “Sharpening the Saw” in The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People.  Michael Gerber tells us that our work is not our life. 

Sometimes you have to work weekends. Most times, I’d argue that you don’t. Making up for an unproductive week on the weekend won’t serve you well.  Get your work planned out and connected to your calendar and then use time off to recharge. Make me happy. Heck, there might even be a few other people in your life who’d be happy to see more of you as well!

I was working with someone on a staff management issue recently. She was incredibly frustrated and wanted to lay down the law and move on. When she described the situation, it was clear to me that her employee needed to be heard. He didn’t need to be right; he likely had already accepted the outcome, but he wasn’t going to give up until he was heard.

Listening is one of the most important skills for a successful entrepreneur. Or parent, or spouse, citizen of the world…you see where I’m going?  Even if you think there’s no value to be gained- consider that sometimes you give the gift of listening. The gift of making sure someone else is heard. And, if you’re keeping good company, it’s a gift you’ll receive back from someone else when it’s your turn!