How To Go From Fixed Major Project to Ongoing Predictable Revenue

And you're like, okay, That was great. Cash flow for three months. Now we gotta start all over again. Now we gotta prospect again. Now we gotta do that outreach again. I gotta do those sales calls again and rebuild this over this yo-yo diet of up and down, Up and down might work for some are like, I'm tired of this. I go to this idea of I want predictability. I want, recurring revenue. I want a RR. So then how do you actually do that? what I'm gonna explain are

tactical and strategic ways to do that based on, My work, client's work and how we're actually doing this in real life today. So project work doesn't end, so please do not stop selling project work. You could go straight into subscriptions and then start testing that out and figuring, okay, how, what if we were to break this project instead of a big project where you pay 25, 50, a hundred grand, 120 grand for this project, how would we break that down if we were to work together, let's say four.

12 months at x retainer or X subscription per month, or what if it was a pure monthly subscription. So those are like, that's going into the deep end that's saying, I want predictability, but I'm going to burn the ship and just test

everything. Now, don't recommend doing that right now. What I do recommend is figuring out when I'm making an offer to a client. Ideally, you've done your proper two to three discovery calls, you've spoken to stakeholders, you know where they're, what they're trying to achieve, and it's a pretty of a complex project.

When you start crafting the offer, when you start working with clients saying, here's how we can work together, why don't you just craft the offer that benefits you for longevity and creates predictability and cash flow? For example, some of the clients you win, if you're working on those big projects, instead of saying it's gonna be. This whole project, you have to pay 25% down and then everything else is due in month three, and then everything else is due in month nine or on the deliverable.

What if you just do it, in terms of monthly payments that way either A, you can test putting them on a subscription or B, you work with their accounts payable team the whole idea is to take that big project and chunk it down

into milestones or just a monthly payment. And then you start working on transferring a big project to, monthly receivables. Now, after the project is done and let's say it's 12 months, you need to re-up the contract or renew. You gotta be thinking about, am I going to be doing that new or am.

We're just maintaining what we build for them because usually big projects create an expansion in an opportunity in an organization for one time, and they may not need that again for the next three or five or even 10. Years. So then the question becomes, when you go to sell the next level, is your team prepared? Do you want to actually create that new opportunity for them based on what you build? Because the foundation that you build should be pretty substantial.

From there, they should have a new opportunity or a new way of operating, seeing business and a new way of just doing what they've been doing. Or are you looking to do a maintenance plan and go under like that, like the mic? The question then it's up to you like, what do you wanna sell after the project? Because typically if you're just selling the same old, you're either gonna a, keep the same subscription price or actually lower it.

And there's psychology behind it where you condition someone to pay a certain amount. then you have an offer where they pay a lower price ongoing because it's quote unquote cheaper, but it's a maintenance package versus, you know what, we're gonna charge the same or even more 'cause we're gonna do more. For you, and that forces you to get creative. What did you build for them? What changes in the world because of what you build for them.

And then from there, what are the new possibilities that you can help them explore because you've helped build that. that's where you become a strategic partner versus just a vendor. You can still be charging high project fees and still be treated as a vendor. If you keep thinking that you're gonna only maintain and go downhill

from after a big project. When you finish the big project, you got those two options. Do you wanna do net new or do you wanna maintain? The other key thing to look at what if you sell a smaller project to begin with and then you work on the recurring work thereafter, where the smaller project isn't this whole grandiose, big tier, big escalator, big new building. The big new like facility quote unquote facility idea where you're selling them that a hundred k, 200 K, 500 K project.

What if you focus on selling them a smaller engagement three to four months? Maybe even 60 days, maybe even six weeks, where you sell 'em something smaller, packaged together to a specific outcome that still moves them along, the milestones on the journey that they want to be on, and you enable them to go a little further. But then you build relationship, build reciprocity, understand their ins and outs, and.

Typically, you might even say, Hey, this actually may not be a good fit for us for the bigger project because we see things from the inside that we couldn't see in our discovery calls. So that is option number two. You sell the smaller project and you just focus on delivering that building relationship and locking yourself in and figuring out where can I be essential? Where can our services really drive you forward in what you are looking to achieve? And either doing subscriptions there.

bigger projects that you break down into monthly recurring revenue, like payment plans or you look at, base plus performance depending on what they're doing, what you're doing for them Outputs that you produce for them. So instead of saying they have three tracks that they can be on, they could be on five tracks and get to their outcome faster. Or you can just get to their outcome with higher guarantees or more opportunity or less likelihood of failure.

And the guarantee doesn't mean that you're just gonna give them their money back. It just the perception of when you draft the offer have some appear that the higher likelihood of the outcome is gonna happen versus not. So how do you actually do that? It depends on your industry, what you do and what you feel comfortable doing, sometimes you just. State what you're gonna do for them anyways, and give them unlimited access to something. Maybe it's unlimited access to your team.

Maybe it's unlimited access to asynchronous communication. Maybe it's as many calls as they need to feel comfortable, not because they're gonna take you up on this unlimited access, or that's just an example by the way of this unlimited access thing to you. But because it makes them feel secure, and I personally do that. Like I per, I have clients that only talk to me once a month. I have clients that talk to me almost every other day.

I had some clients that talk to me almost every single day, and it's fine. Why? Because it balances itself out. The goal is to help the other person achieve their goals and feel secure working with you. Feel that they have everything in their, in your disposal to serve them at the right level so they can move forward and make progress. you don't have to say it's, I'm gonna give you your money back, or it's gonna be guaranteed.

But you say that implicitly through the things that you already do, the operations you already have going on in your business to service the client. And sometimes you might have the most amazing thing that you're doing for the client and they never hear about it. that becomes an issue when you're crafting an offer to work with the client long term after a big project So those are the three things I wanna dive into specifically.

So you do the big project, you have the option, do I go up or do I go down? Because no one likes to maintain. if you're maintaining, you are gonna be going down. 'cause it's essentially just, oh, we're gonna update your WordPress site every quarter or whatever, which is fine. Or it's we can do this new thing for you and that increases your lifetime value and that could increase your retention. So it's a benefit for both.

It helps them go further, helps you make more money, helps you keep the client longer. Option two is when you actually work with them intentionally. Working on a smaller project is identifying, okay, when we're working on the smaller project, that's a milestone. We're gonna finish this milestone, and then from there, that unlocks. These three options, or these

five paths that we can go in, depending on the path you wanna dive into, we can help you build the track to get to that end outcome depending on the path. So again, you're positioning yourself as a collaborator, as a strategic partner, not a vendor. Then the last thing is, when you make your offers, how do you help them see that you become essential in moving together with you? Not just, oh, they did my website, or, oh, they did my messaging, or, oh, they run my ads.

How do you enable them to say, oh, they do this, but I also have access to all these different areas of things that they can give me or that they're servicing me or that I can tap into if I, so please. So those are some simple tactics and ideas to how to go from fixed major project to ongoing work and ideally helping you hit predictability. predictability just means that you have, you made a sale.

You have predictable revenue coming in every single month because of that one sale, you enjoy the benefits six months, 12 months, 18 months, three years down the line of that initial sale, knowing that the revenue's gonna compound because of the work you did two years ago, one year ago, three years ago, I'm speaking from experience the work you do now can compound, but it's all about. How are you enabling that person to go further in their journey? Identifying can I help them go up?

Are we helping them maintain identifying? Can we just start with a small milestone and increase from there? And also helping them see the value of the work that you already are doing and they don't know about, and they just need to be communicated about it. Those are a few ideas that are applied right now. Buy these ideas, test them out, gimme some feedback and see what works for you and we'll go from here.