Business services
The emergence of the business services economy has provided a fertile ground for many an entrepreneur. With minimal barriers of entry, opportunities lie everywhere to provide services at a fee which include; website development, graphics design, accounting, and many more.
The underlying feature of many of these services is the investment of time & effort. Start-up service practitioners offer their time & availability in exchange for money. In so doing the ‘Availability Conundrum’ manifests.
The ‘Conundrum’
Simply defined, a conundrum is a confusing and difficult problem or question.
The conundrum for Entrepreneurs in the business services market lies in the confusion & lack of satisfaction that arises from a lack of definition of their service packages. Time & effort is invested in work with little to no eventual monetary value caused by the lack of definition of the value & service offering by the entrepreneur & agreement on the side of their customer.
By simply offering their ‘Availability’, services are often times undervalued which creates a challenge for the morale & eventual effort of services entrepreneurs.
A distinction between formal employment (availability & time is traded for a decent wage) & entrepreneurship (products are designed & brought forward to the market at a defined price) should be made.
A Way Forward
In order to solve the conundrum, services entrepreneurs should follow a few of these tips;
Always start the discussion with a price quotation
Rule number one is to start with price. After an initial discussion on the client need, draft a costing breakdown of the service to let the customer know the cost implication of the service. This will avoid any future differences in valuation.
‘Working Backwards’
This involves the dissection of the service process from the level of its completion to identify the tasks & processes taken in providing a service. These should be analysed, given a monetary value & packaged into a service package for customers. Reversing this process breeds the Conundrum.
Mindset Shift
A commercial mindset should be adopted by services entrepreneurs. Opportunities should be assessed for their monetary value to clearly understand their commercial implications.
Value Definition
It’s important to fully understand the value provided for clients which includes time invested & outcomes of the work. This should be clearly communicated to clients before any work is undertaken. Not adhering to this breeds the Conundrum.
Time is Money
Time is the services entrepreneur’s most important asset. Time taken to complete tasks should be understood & costed appropriately. Always have a monetary value of your time to get the best value for your services.
When to say ‘No’
With time in limited supply, work of limited value must be rejected. This frees up time for other tasks of higher monetary value.
Thank You for Reading.
Ideation256 