As a service-based entrepreneur and freelancer, one of the best ways to integrate yourself into your clients’ businesses long-term and build a sustainable business is to offer them complimentary annual planning sessions.
Not sure whether offering complimentary annual plans to your clients is right for your service business? Here are 3 reasons why you should add them to your annual to-do list and how to approach them when the time comes.
3 Benefits of Annual Planning
It might be hard to believe, but not every business owner makes a point of mapping out an annual plan. They’re so busy in the “doing” and the day-to-day operations of their enterprise that some don’t give it much thought.
During your planning session, you and your client build a strategic document outlining the upcoming year’s goals, objectives, and action steps. This serves as a roadmap to help them achieve their long-term mission and vision by breaking their larger goals into manageable, measurable, and time-bound targets over the next 12 months.
Leading a complimentary annual planning session with your clients can result in 3 major benefits for you as a service provider.
1. Your clients see you as a collaborator.
Regardless of what you offer your clients – coaching, virtual assistance, content writing, or something entirely different – you likely have a set of expectations that one or both of you have implemented. These agreements may make you appear as little more than a task handler in their eyes.
But when you make the effort to help your clients craft an annual plan, you give them a safe space to discuss their business and ideas without being judged, positioning yourself as a trusted collaborator with an active role in their business and an asset to their ultimate success.
This trust often leads to more autonomy for you to take initiative, suggest creative solutions to problems, and provide more value overall.
2. You get a peek at potential issues in your clients’ businesses.
As a service provider and not the primary owner of your client’s businesses, you don’t know all the details of what happens behind the scenes. And while you’re already working with them to solve specific issues, a complimentary annual planning session gives you a more holistic view of their business.
This birdseye view could allow you to spot and highlight areas where you could offer additional support and solutions.
3. You can position yourself as an expert and charge higher rates.
When you take the initiative to suggest an annual planning session with your clients, you show them you mean business – their business, to be exact.
Taking this kind of lead gives you an extra layer of “expert sheen” and reminds your clients of why they decided to hire you in the first place. You may not have been the “cheapest” option available to them, but you know your stuff, you’re resourceful, and you’re dependable.
Clients who can articulate the value you add to their business are more likely to partner with you long-term, meaning less client churn and proverbial pavement-pounding for you.
How to Approach an Annual Planning Sesh
If you’ve never made an effort to make an annual plan for yourself or offer it to your clients, it can be a little nerve-wracking! You might be worried that they’ll have lofty expectations for your conversation or what you present to them.
But don’t sweat it: Your clients will likely be grateful for your help and support.
What to Cover
There are 3 major things you should aim to cover in your annual planning meeting with your clients. I always like to start with a “peaches and pits” exercise: What are the good things (peaches) and bad (pits) things and lessons that came out of the last year?
Then, spend most of your time talking about your client’s big vision for their business and their goals for the next year. Break those goals into manageable milestones with solid completion dates.
Finally, talk about issues that already exist or that may arise. Remind your clients where you can support them.
Give That “Above and Beyond” Value
Offering your clients annual planning is a fantastic way to strengthen your relationships with them and help them see the value you bring to their business. You get an extra opportunity to impress their socks off and show them your commitment to their success.
Even if your client already has a process for annual planning, asking to be part of it still reinforces why they hired you in the first place – to help them grow their business.
All of this is why I recommend my Client-First Virtual Assistant mentees offer annual planning as a free service to their existing clients.
Annual planning obviously benefits your clients, but it also benefits you. When you offer it to them as a free bonus, you’re giving them the kind of “above and beyond” service that so many freelancers don’t provide. It’s an easy way to add extra value to what you’re already bringing to the table and show how much you care about the success of their business.
Offering your clients annual planning makes you stand out in a sea of service providers.
Set yourself apart by showing your clients that you’re a reliable and invaluable resource. They’ll want to continue working with you and recommend you to others, which in turn helps keep your own business financially secure year after year.
Rebecca Morassutti is a Client-First Virtual Assistant Mentor and VA Business Strategist who will be the first to tell you she was never supposed to be a VA. After leaving her corporate job as an Assistant Director of Marketing, she built a thriving VA business that brought in over $100,000 a year. She’s been featured in “Business Insider,” on the “The Unforget Yourself” podcast, and in other media publications. She’s currently living her dream – traveling across North America with her husband and her dog, Mars, in their custom-built Sprinter van. Follow her on Instagram.
