As a consultant, I find that much of my time spent in business is about drawing boundaries. If I set a project based price, which I typically do, I have to drive to the original project deliverables and protect against what project managers call scope creep.

Scope creep is when the encompassing goals of a project – that could be a writing assignment, a web redesign, an office re-do, or even your overall job requirements – begin to broaden outside the original agreement. It could be something as innocent as “Hey, while you’re at it, could you also give me these XX figures too?” to something larger to “We want to add on 4 people instead of just 2 – it’s just doubling up what you’re already doing right? It’s nothing – you’re doing the same thing, just add a few zeros.”

Whether you’re a consultant or an employee within a larger firm, scope creep can be infuriating in business, but it’s your job to set the boundaries. Most people are not particularly aware of what they are asking for – they hired you as a specialist for a reason, right? Sometimes it takes some education, sometimes it takes some conversation, and sometimes it takes just saying no.

Here are some suggestions as to how you can minimize any negative effect on you:

1.  Work to be clear upfront and set expectations.

Do your best to talk through the exact report, task, product or service you will provide. Include realistic dates for delivery and stay in touch with everyone involved. Know going in what might be a stopping point and be sure to make everyone aware of the parts of the project that are most crucial, the deal stoppers for all the other tasks.

If, like me, you set project rates, include approximately how many hours are included in that project and tell your client upfront how many physical meetings, phone calls, and extra support hand holding that includes. Also communicate how long those meetings will last. And, to cover any last minute requests, include an al a carte overage charge schedule, so that if they want more meetings, they can pay for them. Do all this going into the project, not in the middle or later at invoicing.

2. Speak up and push back.

Don’t think a person realizes what they’re asking for – they probably don’t. And, if they do, they may fully expect you to push back and challenge them. Compulsive negotiators – the type who always, no matter what, think it’s their job to negotiate anything presented – are accustomed to that game. Play it skillfully. Some people will always ask for more. Personally, I try to weed those people out ahead of time and not take them on as clients, but if you didn’t or your industry is packed with them so you can’t avoid them, then it’s your responsibility to speak up and push back.

If the new requests impacts the schedule, say so. If the new requests takes more hours than the original method, say so. It’s their project, you can let them choose. If they want a delay and they feel their request is required, then that’s their choice to make.

What you don’t want to do is nothing. You don’t want to volunteer to absorb the costs. You don’t want to agree to be part of a project where you don’t mention how the changes impact the quality and then end up with a hot mess that you’re ashamed to put your name on. What you don’t want to do is say nothing, the schedule slips, the budget flairs and you get blamed. Speak up and push back!

3. Get it done

If you dawdle in your project completions, of course more stuff is going to get piled on top of you – time is marching on! Create a project plan with small enough milestones that you can complete something, “put it to bed” so to speak, and move on to the next thing. Not only does this help create urgency, but it also makes it very clear that you are going back and doing rework if you have to go back and add work to that task. If all of your milestones are huge, it’s easy to lose motivation, lose momentum, and have additional requests placed on your work. Chunk it down small enough to have completions and large enough to not make managing the project itself another full time job.

Managing scope creep in your business is about managing expectations. It’s also about being confident enough in what needs to get done and when to take a stand when it’s necessary. Always remember that you have to put your name on the project when it’s through. It’s the only way to build a business through referrals and it’s the only way to build a portfolio of work. Stick to your guns, make choices based in reality not ego, and understand that scope creep is a natural phenomenon of the job. Deal with it and you’ll be fine.

Together, we are stronger!

Vicki Flaugher, CEO
aka @Smartwoman

by Vicki Flaugher, CEO of SmartWoman Guides

Who is your ideal business client? Who is it that could benefit most from your services and products? If you said “Everyone” – go back to GO and do not collect $200.

Too often, beginning entrepreneurs don’t take the time to really figure out who is their ideal business client. Even if you have an offering that can appeal to a wide audience, it’s imperative that you have a specific, clear, and quantifiable understanding of exactly who that client is.

Here are some questions to help you identify your ideal client is for your business:

• Demographic – gender, ethnicity, culture, geographic location, familial status
• Age
• Family orientation and attitudes – marital status, parents or not, traditional or alternative
• Spiritually oriented
• Where did they come to you from? – learning state (beginner/advanced),
• Are they originally referrals? – who sent them and why
• When they buy – after X amount of research, emergency/crisis basic, in advance
• What is their buying cycle? -what time of day/month/year/life circumstance
• Buying pattern – how much, how often
• Terms  – cash, credit, in house financing, monthly billing
• Common concerns
• Type of communication preferred – email, direct postal mail, phone, physical visit

Remember: Knowing clearly who your ideal client is will inform your marketing,  your website copy, your emails, your sales scripting, and everything else. Talking to your prospects and screening them and only taking on clients that fit your required profile will save you money, time, and heartache.

To listen to the SmartWoman Radio show about this topic:

As we delve more deeply into making your website effective, let’s talk domain names.

As tempting as it is to pick something cute or maybe automatically pick your business name, please consider this. To get the most bang for the buck, your domain name needs to be highly correlated to what you do.

Say you own a high end boutique flower shop. Even if your business name is Sally Schmitz Inc., do you think anyone looks for a high end boutique flower shop using the search words Sally or Schmitz? Not probably. The people who do know your actual name also are likely to know how to find you already, so that’s not really our focus. Our focus should be coming up on a google or yahoo search when people who buy what you sell are looking to buy.

But, maybe you’ve had your business name forever and you already have a website in that name. Let’s say that the name isn’t that reflective of what you do–for example, Sally Schmitz Inc rather than Sally’s Flower Boutique. Even if you don’t want to change it, I would still encourage you to purchase and develop a web name that does reflect specifically what you do also. You can redirect the less searchable website name to the better one without losing any traffic. We will discuss how to do that later in the week.

I purchase the majority of my site names through GoDaddy. I have been extremely happy with their service and tools and pricing. You can often get a domain name for as little as $1.99 per year if you purchase hosting at the same time, which is a screaming deal since you need hosting too. That’s usually what I do.

Here’s how to reach them:

There are many software tools available to discover the best name, and we will further the discussion more tomorrow, but today we are going to use our intution. For the sake of developing your mindset, let’s have a little fun with it. We’re going on a fishing expedition!

Enter the words you would type into google if you were looking to find your business, one phrase at a time. See what comes up. Try a bunch of different ways that you think your customer might look for you.

For our Sally’s Flower Boutique example, we might type in flowers, gifts, wedding flowers, flower shops, luxury flowers, flower arrangements, flower delivery, birthday flowers, high end bouquets, floral designers, roses, graduation presents, corsages. Get creative and attempt to exhaust as many possibilities as you can.

Go visit the top 10 or 20 sites you see when you type in these phrases. Look and learn. Does your current site show up? Where is it ranked relative to other shops? Notice which sites come up for multiple phrases. See how they rate to your business offerings. Do they serve the same clientele as you? Make note of sites where you could potentially add your link and cross promote. Begin thinking in terms of connecting with your client and broadening your network.

Not only notice what your competition is doing, but also see if you actually find what you were looking to find. Assuming you are intuitively on track with what words your clients use to find you, you are now looking at the landscape in which you will be competing and succeeding. You are looking at not only your competition but also potential partners and referral friends.

Tomorrow, I will list some software tools you can use to continue moving forward with developing an effective website for your new business. Thanks for dropping by.

Together, we are stronger.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman