Last week I had a Review Meeting with one of our clients. We created a website for him about six months ago, to help him be found by potential clients and have been working on improving it ever since. So last week, we had the meeting to talk about what had been done and what we needed to do going forward.

“I don’t have much work coming in,” he told me. “How many jobs do you need to do each month, to hit your target?” I asked. “I don’t know,” was his reply.

So instead of just forging ahead with looking at the marketing we could do for him, we took a step back and looked at his goals and the type of work that would help him reach those goals. He told me that he’d like to make a profit of £2000 per month, after all his expenses and tax. So then we looked at all the services he provides and what he can earn from them. Some of them are quite small projects with low profit margins. There were also two services that stood out, as bringing high returns from quite straightforward work. We worked through the numbers, looking at how much each job costs, how long they take and what profit can be made from each one. From all this digging we realised that my client has two particular services, of which he only needs to sell 4-5 each month, to reach his profit target. All of a sudden, helping him to get more business didn’t seem daunting!

The next thing we did was to look at how best to promote these two services. My client sells on trust, which means that the best way for him to win business is by meeting people face-to-face. The obvious way for him to promote his business is therefore through networking, so I?ve encouraged him to look into new groups and meetings he can attend. I remember the 1 minute intros I saw him do a year ago, so I know they are good and memorable – he just needs to do more of them.

The other marketing idea we came up with was asking his clients to recommend him to their neighbours. Who would you trust more – your neighbour who can show you the quality of the work that’s been done, or a complete stranger who turns up on your doorstep trying to sell you something?

Alongside this, we’ll still work on this client?s website, to make sure it promotes the right message of trust and to ensure it focuses on his two best services. However, having spent time looking at what he actually wants to achieve, we have a much clearer focus for his marketing. His limited marketing budget will be spent on what will really work best.

When did you last take a step back to look at your goals and how best to achieve them?

Do you know what you need to sell in order to reach your goals?