I’m not saying quit longer term terms. I’m saying. Identify good long term prospects in a short term structure…really all it means is getting paid for groundwork previously done for free and raising your prices.

In a long term contract, GETTING the deal takes tons of time, HOURS of groundwork. Your investment is reasonably expected and you have no idea how the client will work out.

Taking the approach noted in this post, puts a lot more billable time in your month and ya’ still get the long term deals. I’d way rather do 2 short term high hourly-rate deals than 11 small business packages.

It claims your place at the table, for the exceptional ROI, by honoring every shred of work you do with cash, all the while vetting clients-while they vet you.

Of course, some folks come to us and we know to start talking long term straight away. Very large companies want assurance you’ll be there. However, even very large firms appreciate a first phase that’s evaluatory and sane.

Finally, we don’t DO the job in the short term contract. We PLAN it. It’s not bad to have a business model that’s getting paid well to plan. To our mind production companies are less profitable than planners. Even so, we get plenty of production work after the initial engagement.

The biggest problem I’ve found (perceived, deluded myself of, whatever) is inventory control.

With longer term more “standard” projects we can forecast better. In other words if we sign 1 client of type X we will need 1/5 content person, 1/3 SEO/HTML person, 1/15th account manager and so on.

We do occasionally take ad-hoc and shorter duration engagements – usually no fewer than 3 months – and they are typically higher monthly / hourly costs.

And they’re typically industries where we may not have the depth of experience enabling us to gauge ROI.

Given an industry where I abso-friggin-lutely know the ROI I’m personally reticent to break our primary model.

But, we do have our Small-Business Plan for the truly budget conscious

You are always thought-provoking, sir.

Will