How to Guarantee Professional Services

by Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan, Organisational Provocateur

We hear so much about unconditional money back guarantees. What is the best option to guarantee consuilting services? How far can you go to take responsibility for a project, which is just partially under your control. How much can you be expected to guarantee certain outcomes.

Just imagine you hire me as a swimming coach and I sign on the dotted line agreeing that I will teach you how to swim. After two weeks of land work we get to the pool and you reveal to me that you are allergic to water, and refuse to get into the pool. But at the same time you hold me to the guarantee that I must teach you to swim. Does this sound situation familiar to you?

Clients must know it takes two to tango in an engagement, so they cannot expect you to take responsibility for their projects. You are mutually accountable to each other, but the client is ultimately responsible for the outcome.

One thing is certain: clients - probably your best clients - who have faith and trust in you, hardly ever even bother to ask about guarantees.

Why?

Because they have faith and trust in themselves, and they have high level of commitment to achieving the projected outcomes. It is almost always the bottom end of your clientele that makes a fuss.

It is almost always know-it-all, fear-based and desperation-driven buyers who demand every type of guarantee you can imagine. They are totally focused on why the project will fail, and try to find a scapegoat even before the disaster hits. That also frees them from any obligation of being truly committed to the success of the project.

These are the buyers who will sue the swimming coach for breach of contract, because the coach failed to teach the buyer to swim. The fact that the buyer turns out to be allergic to water and refuses to go into the pool gets ignored.

There is one issue on a psychological level. If we seek guarantees against problems, because we anticipate problems, we create problems in our subconscious minds and then will manifest them all around us.

The good news is, you still can provide money back guarantee for your work, and that is a great selling point. Why? Because you are already doing it. We are small businesses but some of our clients a pretty big. They have all the money to hire good lawyers to take us under, if we fail to return the money.

If the quality of our work is that bad, clients will not hesitate to sue the living Jesus out of us. Can we afford a lawsuit, or is it easier just to write a cheque and get on with life?

So, since you are technically offering a money-back guarantee anyway, then use it as a differentiation device and ease your clients' anxiety. So how can you take the chance that a client will work with me for six months and then ask for the money back?

The solution is to build periodic reviews into your agreement with the client. So consider this scenario:

The fee for this project is $48,000. Half of the fee is due upon execution of this proposal, and the remaining half will be due two weeks after the project begins.

At any time during the first two weeks, you are not satisfied with the competence or level of service I delivered, you can end the contract and receive a full refund.

At the two-week point you sit down with your client, and tell him that time is up and he can either kick you out or write another cheque. If you have created value during the initial two weeks, you will get your cheque.

Take some time and review your guarantee policy. Make it more attractive, but also build in some protection for yourself against people who the habit of abusing professional service providers. Make sure not to take responsibility for the client's commitment. According to research (See Dr. Edgar Schein's book Process Consultation), less than five percent of the recommendations by consultants and advisors ever get implemented by clients.

And in the majority of the other 95 percent, clients demand their money back because they blame their advisors for the lack of promised outcomes.

Remember, it is not clients' birthright but their responsibility to achieve the outlines objectives. As advisors we are merely catalysts to the process but we cannot do it for them.

Copyright Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan. All rights reserved. You are free to use this article in whole or in part. One favour though: Can I ask you to you include complete attribution, including a live website link. Also, can you please let me know where you plan to publish the article.

The attribution: This article was written by Organisational Provocateur, Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan of Dynamic Innovations Squad, a firm specialising in helping consulting firms to sell their expertise at the highest margins. Get Tom's free Practice Management Black Paper when you sign up for his monthly newsletter, Commando Consulting: Lessons And Practices From The Ultimate Professional Service Firm, The Military. Visit Tom's website at http://www.di-squad.com.

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