Are you ready to compete with the big boys?

In today's challenging market, many small companies find themselves competing with much larger firms, even for small contracts. There are several things you can do to help your small company succeed in winning business away from these 'big boys':

Dress for Success. It works in job interviews, and it works when you're pitching business. Make sure your company appears capable and professional in every touch point with your prospective clients:

• Use high-quality, up-to-date, well-designed stationery (business cards, letterhead, envelopes, documents).
• Write and proofread everything carefully - whether it's an e-mail, estimate, prospecting letter or proposal. Nothing says 'we don't care' like poor spelling and grammar.
• Answer the phone politely; return calls immediately, and no matter how frantic you feel, make sure you sound as if you're totally in control.
• Provide accurate estimates. Nothing gets a new client's back up more than receiving an invoice that is much larger than the estimate.
• Be accountable. Know where your clients' hard-earned money has gone. How many hours did you spend? What hard costs did you incur? If you can provide your clients with a complete, accurate accounting of what you did when, you'll not only look more professional, but are more likely to be able to charge for the extra hours you put in.

Know what you want. Be clear about the kind of work you're looking for, and about what you'll do to get it. Although you don't want to frighten potential clients away with an enormous estimate, you should be wary of undermining the value of your work by pricing it too low. If you value the work you do, and the time it takes you to do it, others will too. Read six steps to pricing your services well in the FunctionFox resources library.

Understand what it takes to be profitable. Many smaller companies - especially one person shops - spend much longer than they have estimated on jobs, often working late into the night, or early in the morning, knowing they'll only be paid for a fraction of the hours they've put in. Don't fall into that trap.

• Track your time, so you'll know how long each job takes. Then, even if you work more hours than you should on the current job, at least you'll be able to prepare an estimate for the next one more accurately.
• Find out how much of your time is being spent on billable tasks, and how much is eaten up in administrative time, or billing, or looking for lost files. Cutting down on non-billable tasks frees up time for paying work.
• Make sure you get your money's worth when you contract work out to freelancers. They need to be accountable to you, just as you need to be accountable to your client. They should track their time and be able to show you what they've done.

Think big. Take your business seriously, no matter how small it is. Because if you think big, you're more likely to grow big.

This Article has been provided by FunctionFox Systems Inc. To make a positive difference in your bottom line please contact us Toll-Free at 1.866.369.8463 or email info@functionfox.com.

Top Draw (pdf)

TimeFox is a winner

ONE OF ALBERTA'S FASTEST-GROWING COMPANIES GETS TIME-TRACKING UNDER CONTROL

Top Draw is one of Alberta, Canada's fastest-growing businesses. This full-service marketing and design firm, developing corporate and brand identities, promotional and print collateral, web-based applications, online solutions, dynamic database driven websites and multimedia presentations, was doing very well at very many facets of its business.

The company wasn't very efficient, though, in one key area. "We couldn't begin the billing process without reviewing each project with our employees to determine how much time was spent on design and project management, which we bill at different rates," says Ken Jurina. "Our manual timesheets didn't capture that information. We often ended up not billing for all the time we spent on a project, and we wasted time because invoicing involved everyone on staff." More...

If you would like your company to be featured in a TimeFox newsletter, on our web site or in our promotional package, please send your request to corina@functionfox.com.

For more articles and resources, see www.functionfox.com/resources.html.

Question:
How will TimeFox make me look more professional?

Answer:
TimeFox gives you the ability to provide your clients clear, detailed, itemized reports on the hours you've spent and hard costs you have incurred on their behalf. These reports - which can be printed with your company logo or identification, let you show your clients that you are accountable, trustworthy and above-board - reinforcing your professionalism and attention to detail.

Question:
My clients want to put me on retainer, how would TimeFox benefit me?

Answer:
Before you agree to any retainer, make sure it compensates you adequately for your work. First, define the scope of work carefully, so both you and your client understand what will fall within the contract. Then use your TimeFox reports to compare similar past jobs, to see how long they took. That information will allow you to set a retainer amount that will compensate you for the work you will do.

Continue to track your time and expenses for jobs that are on retainer, as you would for any other job. That way, you'll have records to show your client, if questions come up about the work you've done, and you'll know right away if the retainer amount needs to be adjusted, or the scope of work reduced. You'll also be able to check the hourly cost on the client report to see the value of the retainer at any time.

Do you have a TimeFox question? Email us at info@functionfox.com.

Are you charging for everything that you should be? In the old days, design companies used to charge clients for match proofs and courier costs when shipping proofs to the client. Now, many of these companies charge for PDF proofs to clients. Take a close look at all the small costs you incur for projects, and be sure to include them as project cost items. You'll be surprised at how much money you're able recoup from your clients!