The topic of retainers has come up a few times in recent months amongst some designer friends. Not the “fix your crooked teeth” retainers, but the “bill a client the same amount each month to essentially become their in-house design team” type retainer. Provided the client is good to work with, retainers can be a golden-egg laying goose for small design firms. They’re basically guaranteed income and peace of mind wrapped in a neat contract.
These discussions got me thinking about project billing, workflow, and if there could be a better way. As a busy designer, I am typically working on 3-5 decent sized projects at any given time. This means there's lots of jumping between projects, emails, proofs, etc. When possible, I find I'm most productive focusing on a single project per day.
What if there was a way to strategically plan out full days of work for yourself or members of your team, and use the retainer concept for complete project workflow nirvana? I have no idea if it'd be possible, but here's a proposal for a new way to work:
Core Idea: Sell blocks of days per month
- There are 4 sellable days per week (1 day/week for business, catch-up, last-minute things)
- 16 sellable days in a month (some months will have a few more)
Sample Project
- A new project is estimated to take 12 days of work (96hrs, for perspective)
- You allot 5 working days per month for the project
- Therefore, the project takes 2.5 months to complete
Benefits
- You now know you have 7 days available for other projects for the first 2 months, and 14 days available for the third month
- Scheduling and managing your workload becomes much simpler
- While it isn't a retainer, this method does allow you to accurately pinpoint when you can take on more work, when you're able to tell a prospective client you can start their project, and hopefully generate a reliable and consistent flow of work; like a retainer
- Assuming you're halfway decent at estimating your time, making decisions about when to sub-contract work, or even make a new hire, should be easier and backed by data
Caveats
Looks scary from a client perspective: Clients will most likely have a hard time coming to grips with the idea of their project being worked on 3-5 days per month. That sounds like nothing. Maybe explain it in hours: 24-40 hours; that sounds better. Still, that's a tough one.
Real Life: It's true that things always come up (client emails, emergency updates, etc.) and focusing on a single project each day would be hard, but maybe that's an expectation thing. I don't think so, but maybe.
You only control yourself: What happens when a client misses a review deadline and their project is scheduled to be worked on tomorrow? You could slide the calendar forward a day and work on the next project. Or, not to get into too many possibilities, you could build a disclaimer into your contract that explains if a client misses a review deadline, they're project will be delayed until an open slot in your schedule permits. Also, remember that extra non-scheduled day of the week? Yeah, that's what it's there for.
Possible Alternatives
If this idea isn't feasible to approach clients with, perhaps there's a watered down way to use it as an internal scheduling strategy. You could use the same thinking and process for setting up a project timeline, but not reveal the "selling blocks of days" concept to the client. I'm sure many client service oriented companies already do this, but the main potential difference is the idea of working on a single project or item per day. If you can do that.
I haven't presented this concept to a client. Hell, I haven't even tried the internal method. However, I do feel like there could be some merit in this line of thought. Will it work for a design business? Couldn't say. Give it a shot and let me know.
Further Reading
After writing this article, I recalled a recent 37signals blog post that spoke to a similar philosophy. Summary: Their internal teams recently switched to a system wherein they work on a single project for two-weeks. No jumping between projects. No "ooh, I'll fix that real quick-like" junk. Just focusing on a single feature, project, or new product.
A follow-up post revealed the first success story of the new system: a new customer service feature called 37signals Answers.
They have the advantage of being their own client, of course, but the methodology remains the same. Focus on a single thing. And do it well.
Everyone's favorite web smart guy, Merlin Mann, recently wrote about the idea of focusing and truly caring about what you are working on. I think this idea of block scheduling could really be an excellent way of forcing yourself to focus on a single task or project. The caring part is completely up to you and the type of projects you take on, but really, those of us in the design world tend to be a pretty passionate bunch.
Thoughts?
Have you tried a block scheduling as a means of selling to clients or simply as an internal management type setup? Any success? Failures? I'd love to hear about it. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and let me know.
About The Author
Matt Crest runs a communication design studio in Denver, Colorado. He likes his wife, ampersands, bicycles, and trying to figure things out. Learn More.
