The Client-Specific Business Plan/Story
There are countless books and articles about the importance of writing business plans for your entire company — and even for your life — plans with 3, 5 and 10 year goals and ideas for how to achieve them.
Frankly, while most people would agree it’s always good to have goals, many are delayed or scared off by the enormity of such a project. But a business plan targeted for a specific client is not only more manageable, it’s really critical to your efforts to do everything you can to help that client succeed.
Still find the idea of any kind of business plan to be a daunting and scary proposition? Try this: When you acquire your first work assignment with a new client, right then and there, write the story of this client relationship — the whole story starting with your engagement with this client and going forward through all the successful projects you’ve done together, right up to the present time.
I realize you won’t actually have done any of these things yet, but don’t worry: it’s not for publication now or anytime soon. Date it one year from today. There are two parts to it — one’s easy and the other is fun. The easy part is what’s already happened: How your relationship came about. Next is the fun part: You get to think about all the good things you want to happen with this client and what you’re actually going to do to make it so.
Here’s a starter list of items that should be in your business plan/story:
- How we got the client engagement.
- The first deliverable.
- Challenges we faced and how we overcame them.
- The things we learned from that experience.
- How we went back for more assignments with this client.
- How this client referred other clients to us.
- Why this turned out to be a high-value client for us.
Keep it handy. Refer to it often. Make changes as real accomplishments replace planned ones and new ideas emerge. Repeat for each one of your clients.
And then…you will have already done a big chunk of the work on your company’s business plan!