How Urgent Is Your Need?
Urgency is one of the common traits of all of us entrepreneurs. We all want everything done yesterday – even when it just started today!
With three decades of experience as an entrepreneur myself, with my own near-four dozen companies, I understand and share this same sense of urgency.
Please check out the benefits and differences between Standard, Priority and Top Priority Service. Then, choose the Service that best matches your own timeline requirement.
The Queue
In general, I use what is known as a FIFO Queue – First In / First Out. This approach offers my clients the fairest approach to the work they need to be done. This means, in general, that as I receive research requests, perform fundraising activities, produce documents, create financial projections, develop tactical and strategic planning documents, meet milestones on various action items, update worksheets and redlines to drafts, etc., I work on them in the same order that I receive them.
Since I am typically working with more than a dozen different clients at any one time, judging the size of the Queue at any given time can be difficult. Often, clients will tell me that they need consulting immediately. However, when we try to schedule time, the Client may not be available (as an entrepreneur myself, I totally understand how priorities can shift – almost on a daily basis!).
As you can imagine, no matter how careful I am to adjust and limit the number of active clients I accept, all of this makes it very difficult for me to accurately estimate how long it will take to complete a Client’s consulting. As a consequence, I use the Queue for working with clients.
Standard, Priority and Top Priority Service
To help those clients who truly need expedited completion, My consulting services are offered as Priority, Top Priority and Standard Service:
- Standard Service – Is handled with the Queue as described above for no premium cost for services and an hourly rate of $250 per hour. This level of service is generally adequate for about 24% of my Client’s timeline needs and is designed for those clients who have no critical urgency or where the price is much more important than speed.
- Priority Premium Service – All of those clients who choose Priority Service have their own separate Queue which is also approached on a FIFO, First In / First Out basis – with everyone in the Priority Queue handled first before any in the Standard Queue. This level of service is generally appropriate for about 70% of my Client’s timeline needs and is designed for those clients who have a high level of urgency. The Priority Premium Service is $375 per hour – 50% higher than the Standard Service charge.
- Top Priority Premium Service – By definition, there can only be ONE who is truly Top Priority and this Client stays top priority, above both the Economy and Priority Queues, for the entirety of their planning or consultation needs. If I already have an active Top Priority Client, this premium service will not be available. This level of service is generally appropriate for about 6% of my Client’s timeline needs and is designed for those clients who have the highest, most critical level of urgency. The Top Priority Premium Service is $500 – double the Standard Service charge.
Note that each of these service categories has its own Queue. The Top Priority Queue trumps ALL of the work in Priority Queue and the Standard Queue. Likewise, the Priority Queue trumps ALL the work in the Standard Queue.
Often, my workload dictates that the Top Priority Queue and the Priority Queue are filled so often that I cannot get to the Standard Queue in a timely manner. When this happens, I have to make Standard Service unavailable to new clients.
That situation is NOT occurring now and as a consequence, for the near-term, foreseeable future, Standard Service IS currently available to new clients.
Please choose the available Service that best matches your own timeline requirement.
Ready for Action or Still Have Questions?
Contact me today to discuss how my consulting and Virtual Executive Services can help you and your company better accelerate your success.
Best wishes for STELLAR success,
Robert Lee Goodman, MBA
CEO & Chief ImpleMentor