Should you say no to someone who wants to work with you?
That’s a tough one.
And there’s no shortage of business advice floating around about niching, setting boundaries, finding ideal clients, charging what you’re worth and doing what you love.
I want to offer an interesting spin on all that advice. Because of who I am – your friendly, neighborhood finder of profit under a rock advisor.
Let me tell you about my client Julie, an estate attorney. Julie and I were working together to keep an eye on her business. One month we noticed an anomaly – her revenue profile had shifted dramatically.
The month we were looking at showed that the amount of probate work that Julie had completed had quadrupled and was nearly as much as her estate work, which was the reverse of what had been happening since the beginning of the year. Well, for a couple of reasons, Julie doesn’t love probate work. So her initial reaction was,
I don’t want this to become a pattern; I’m going to start saying no to these clients.
It’s her business and she gets to decide. However…
I asked Julie to pause for a minute so we could talk it through. Because the probate work was clearly profitable, and her revenue was growing with that influx of work.
We identified the two issues that she found really discouraging about probate work. One was a process issue that we saw could be resolved with a bit of elbow grease. One was a ‘dreaded-task’ issue that we realized could be delegated to others who didn’t share the ‘dread’.
With the two big, problematic issues resolved, Julie admitted that her enjoyment of the work would vastly improve. And we knew, from tracking her revenue streams and profit that occasional probate work was good for business.
So Julie felt great about saying yes to those clients, while choosing not to advertise that service.
I tell you all this because it’s amazing what kinds of decisions you can make confidently, and happily, once you have eye-opening information at your fingertips.
Sometimes it’s not going to be about looking inward for answers or feeling your way through.
Sometimes your smartest business decisions will come from the numbers on a page. Go figure.
(I’m not telling you to ignore your feelings or gut instincts! I’m saying… hey, here’s more information we can add to your decision-making process.)
Wondering what kind of numbers you should be reviewing on a regular basis and why? I would be happy to give you some more examples.
Book a 45-minute Keep More Money Strategy Call, 1-to-1, with me.
We can have a private, candid conversation to see if and what opportunities you have for optimizing profit in your own business. I am gifting this conversation to you. Normally, $500, it is 100% free, with no obligation.
You might be surprised at what we find. It wouldn’t be the first time new ideas pop out of a money conversation!
To your profit and prosperity,
P.S. Do you have the numbers to support your business decisions? You could have! Book a 1:1 Keep More Money Strategy Session with me.
