break it down into appointments needed. you might be surprised.
by martin bissett
business development on a budget
calculating your growth target is not simply a matter of saying you want to grow by a specific amount within a specific time. it’s a little more complex than that, so let’s look at it item by item.
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you start with a supposed growth target of $100,000.
assume you might lose $10,000 of fees each year.
therefore, to achieve the target, you now need $110,000 of growth.
assuming an average fee of $5,000, this means you need 22 new clients.
if you have a conversion ratio of one in four on the proactively obtained opportunities, that means you will need 88 appointments at an average of $5,000 to achieve your target.
that means two appointments every single week of the year, not allowing for holidays, self-assessment or tax season.
perhaps you are beginning to understand just how carefully you must look at your growth targets. if you realize you need 88 appointments, you need to ask yourself where they will be coming from and how your marketing function is going to create them.
here is the growth target formula:
(base target + lost clients in a given year) ÷ conversion ratio = number of opportunities required
this puts into stark focus what you really need to do to achieve your growth target, instead of the false reality you get when you pull a target figure out of the air.
business development tasks
1. set your fee target for the next 12 months.
2. add the fee loss you expect to happen within your existing fee base.
3. calculate the average fee you wish to win this year.
4. estimate your conversion ratio at a conservative level, thus arriving at the number of opportunities you require in order to meet your fee target.
5. schedule specific, uninterruptible time in your diary to identify your reality-based growth target.