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Susanne – I’m so excited for you about this and hope you take the leap! I also love Stephanie’s framing of your situation. This has happened to me twice since owning my business. Both times were super scary, and the first one especially took a ton of learning and work…and both times paid off big for me as far as opening new opportunities both in the moment and for more interesting work in the future.
Susanne and Sarah – I love a subcontractor! Yay for both of you for growing to the point that you have the chance to take this step.
Huh. This is inspiring, and maybe an area for growth for me now that I’m reading your post. Setting clear expectations is something that I hear more from my staff than I do from my clients. We instituted an Expectations Snapshot this year for all projects, to make sure that the right hand knows what the left is up to on our internal teams. The Snapshot was designed to be a living document that teams revisit throughout the year to make sure we all stay on the same page.
For clients, we have the contract and then the specifics of how we do the work usually needs some flexibility and so I prefer to include milestones and not a lot of language beyond that. For example, our work is often dependent on somebody on the client side (or lots of somebody-s) doing their job first, or on circumstances that nobody really has full control over (like a production schedule, or building a new museum). So, when the real world hits a project then they pivot and we have to be able to pivot too, working in collaboration with the client to figure out if we can do the work in a way that aligns with the original language or if we need a modification.
I’d love to hear how others are being concrete and less concrete in contracts, especially if they consider themselves providing a service more than a product and a product more than a service. Joe – do you think about these differently, or would you/do you approach them in the same way during negotiations?
You know what I’m realizing as I got back and look at this today, is that I don’t “advertise” or “pitch” to most of my DIY ladder at all…and I literally wrote down the Strategic Planning ladder yesterday for the first time (even though it’s been in my head for a while). How are other people thinking about doing content marketing related your ladders?
Hi there. I love the idea of sharing these! I haven’t really worked on mine much since 2022, and they may be too broad to have flat-rate price points.
I created two super simple ones back in 2022.
Full Service Ladder included from lowest to highest: office hours, evaluation projects, research projects, publication projects
DIY Ladder, included from lowest to highest: “just in time” video series, customized video series, eval capacity building workshops, and eval framework development
Since then we’ve added Strategic Planning to the list, and the ladder for that is something like this: checklists and tip sheets, [missing a rung here – need to think about this], strategic plan devt, strategic plan devt and enactment support
Yay for notifications being back up, and it’s so great to see all the folks who have responded so far!
Joe – I’ll try to reach out to folks too.
Denali – I love your approach for applying the course to where you are at the moment.
Sarah – Do it – you won’t be sorry, no matter what happens. I doubled my rates back in 2022 and remember being terrified when I hit Send on the proposed scope of work. Thc client didn’t blink. I have since found out that I’m at the top of what they consider to be a reasonable hourly rate ($300/hour), but they pay it.
Sarah and all – I’m finally trying to start posting to LinkedIn on a regular basis, mostly as an experiment to see what happens. It’s been really fun so far, and the module and all of the work I have seen this group do over the past year has definitely guided lots of my choices. I’m still struggling with Big Picture Time, but mostly because I love it and have too many ideas. Stephanie’s most recent newsletter was a helpful touchstone related to the math not mathin in my schedule.
What are others up to?
Greetings folks, and YES, YES, YES to a 2024 re-up, Joe!
I took the first week of this year to try to be more intentional about my calendar. After sitting with this idea for a few minutes, I thought, “Wait a minute, Stephanie already told me how to do some of this” and I was right back in the modules again.
I was not that successful with Big Picture Time my first time through the course, but I’ve blocked off this time for all of January and February so far, and I’m finding that I’m able to commit to it AND that I want even more time than I’ve budgeted for.
I think it took me a while to figure out all of the things that could and should fill this time when I tried before. I was also managing projects at the time, and just couldn’t figure out how to put that work aside to focus Big Picture.
I’d love to hear from others who want to jump back in this year, and where you think you’ll start!
Hey Ann and thanks for sharing this, and for the question. Here’s how we describe it on the web site:
“Intentional project design doesn’t happen by accident – it requires a roadmap
We can build that map together by thinking through goals, literature-based and data-driven strategies to guide project design, and accountability structures to document success along the way.
Our strategic planning support spans the boundaries between project design and evaluation design. As a thought partner in this process, we will work with you to design your work with the end in mind. Then we’ll help create systems to support the work and document progress as it happens.”
Most of our work thus far has focused on science communication, with some focused on collective impact. For the sci comm projects we have support from internal leadership, and we build toward some of the strategies you shared in your example (e.g., having data, using data, creating smarter systems that provide better data that are more aligned to your goals). If we didn’t have this buy-in then I can totally see how this work would feel fruitless. Parts of the collective impact project feel that way – we were hired to lead and Alliance and it turns out that people may not want to be an Alliance, they just wanted the funding. In that case, we’re trying not to be annoyed for being sold a bag of goods in the role we were asked to play. On our good days we are thinking about how to build toward other organizational strategies that the group does want.
None of this kind of work can happen, at least in the ways we are doing it, if we are not allowed “in” on some of the inner workings of the group. It also provides many more opportunities to be in the trenches with folks and try to affect change than a traditional external evaluation model (which is what a lot of our other work is) and so I’m intrigued by the possibilities of strategic planning services as a separate, related, and more lucrative partnership.
Thanks again for the poke to explain more! It was helpful for my thinking.
Hey Camille and thanks so much for sharing this. I discovered another one the other day myself, sort of by accident. They don’t actually use the term evaluation, but they do use words that are included in many services offered by Bloomers and I’m posting it here for my friend, Lurker Joe, and anyone else who might benefit. https://viableinsights.com/
Hey everyone. I started this post earlier this year and then disappeared for a while. My personal life went off the rails for a bit – my dad died in early February and I’ve been trying to figure out care for my mom ever since – and so I’m clawing my way back to the things I want to be doing instead of the things I’m stuck doing. Boost and Bloom is definitely on the first of those to lists! It has made my heart happy to see you all chiming in and sharing successes over the past several weeks and so I’m mostly popping back in here to say thanks for continuing to inspire and motivate me folks!
Good for you, Joe, and great advice Kylie.
I’ve used the capacity excuse in the past too. I’ve also focused on geography and trying to grow local business, when that has been handy (though I would imagine that may not work in your case, Joe). Most recently, and I think with the help of Boost and Bloom, I’ve been able to articulate the exact kind of work that the team and I want to be doing, and then to say that we are stepping away from projects like theirs to focus on others that center our values.
Congrats Ann, on the baby, the templates, and the accountant (though not in equal measure, obviously…nobody gets THAT excited about an accountant). When I officially started my business after a few years of consulting as a side hustle, I ended up incorporating my company in May and then had my son in August. I wonder now how different things would have been if I had been part of Boost and Bloom back then, instead of continuing to fall forward for about a decade. Super cool that you are about to find out!
Hi folks. Anybody started again yet? I just finished the third lesson in Module 1 and I’m kind of loving how different the content is landing with me this year. I got a ton out of these modules last year too, but now I’m seeing and hearing things in Stephanie’s examples that I totally missed last year, and I didn’t get stuck yet (which is also a step in the right direction). Feeling kind of proud of all the things I learned last year that I didn’t even realize I had been thinking about and starting to apply between then and now.
Joe and Sarah – this is awesome!
At Stephanie’s suggestion, I doubled my rate in 2022. Given that almost all of my work is grant funded, I’m still trying to live in to that rate across the board. It will take me a year or two to get there, but that’s okay. All new projects use it. I had one current client ask me about it as we were pulling together a budget for a new grant, and I just responded, “Yeah those numbers are right – we raised our rates this year,” and that was that. I’m also trying to start advocating for higher rates across the field – I’ve been raising rates for my staff over the past couple of years and so their rates are much higher in all new proposals too (there’s a whole story there). Finally, one of my friends/colleagues who has an eval shop and who works with consultants always follows their lead on pricing and I love that as a model too as a way for all of us to think about and earn our worth.
Hey Ann. This response is too late to be helpful to you, but I hope you did it!!
Every year I send gifts to any client team that paid me in the current year. I use a sliding scale for what they get, based on the size of their project and team. There’s no rhyme or reason to the price point, if I’m honest. For years I would do Harry & David gift towers, and make sure to buy them on Black Friday so that got them on sale and didn’t have to pay shipping. I think I usually spent $35 – $100 depending on the project and team size. In the past I only had 10-20 clients in a year and so this was manageable. This year was different and I had some family health issues to deal with and so I didn’t do anything. I rebranding my company in 2022 and so I’m thinking I might send all past and current clients something small in 2023 as part of an announcement.
I wouldn’t worry about the testimonials at all, and things feeling transactional. I asked for testimonials last year and it felt super awkward, and everyone was totally cool about it. Maybe spread the gifts and “ask” by a month or two if you are worried, but other than that, I think you’re good.