Repeat Business

Nothing says you’re doing a great job like repeat business, both in the form of a new project and amendments that add new scope. Nothing. A portfolio of one-off mega projects just means you have a great proposal writing team. The true acid test of great consulting is clients' willingness to buy more. Repeat business.

Winning a first project for a brand new client is great, take a victory lap. But it’s a false summit. You’ve only won the opportunity to impress. A big win that's a big one-off can be disruptive. Consulting companies perform best and profit most when everyone is consistently busy. Consistency is key. Sharp fluctuations, both up and down, erode profit over time.

Recurring work helps smooth workload variation, increasing stability, resiliency, average utilization, and profit (by reducing indirect overhead and business development costs). And it makes growth much easier because a growing portion of the base workload repeats and accrues, rather than every job ending and needing to be fully replaced.

Take a look at all the projects you have now, all sizes. They're almost always connected in some way to something larger, like a water/wastewater system, a building, a development, a watershed, etc. See your project in that broader context, then ask yourself, what would you do if you owned the whole darn thing? Put together a couple of ideas, and that's the conversation to have with your client.

There's no better time to arrange the next bit of work than when you're already working with a client on a project. If you finish the job, you go back to being just another consultant waiting for the next RFP. Plus, if your team doesn't have something else to work on...well... Finish the job but keep the client. Never finish the client.

To consulting staff: I say this from the perspective of an employer. The strength of your client loyalty over time is the single best job security and compensation factor you can achieve in this business. Client loyalty is career gold. So view every project as an opportunity to enhance your career and compensation trajectory by earning every client's extreme loyalty. Repeat business is the hard evidence.

To leaders: Align incentives to optimize business outcomes. Recurring business could not be more central to business success. Make it a thing. Celebrate and reward the people whose clients return again and again. More than most, these people actually ARE your business.

Every consultant wants to spend more time doing great work and less time trying to talk people into hiring them. Deliver 1) high quality work and 2) frequent, big-picture communication, and you'll have more fun and spend a lot less time (and money) rolling the dice on competitive proposals.

What a weekend ahead! Cheers!

Dave

dave@goodnewsfriday.com

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Written by me, not ChatGPT