The year 2010 is nearing its boisterous conclusion. I hope it’s been a good one for you and your business.

A lot happened in 2010 in my business. One thing I can state by way of summary: Books anchored my 2010.

First, I contributed to “Age of Conversation 3″, which came out in May and which partly engendered the other, more significant (at least for me) book: “The Portland Bottom Line”.

As you may remember, “The Portland Bottom Line”, which emerged from the Beyond 2020 Unconference (my other passion project of the year), is a collection of stories by 51 Portland small-business people sharing their experiences with sustainable business practices. The book was officially published in November and its sales benefit Mercy Corps Northwest.* Aside from being a fun and challenging passion project, “The Portland Bottom Line” also led to the creation of my new venture GoodBookery, which will be launching in July 2011.

Even as GoodBookery gets off the ground, I will continue to provide marketing strategy and communications services to Portland’s small-business and nonprofit community with Semiosis Communications. This year, I’ve continued working with nonprofits Project Access NOW and Innovative Changes, and worked on various projects with Domestica, Springboard Innovation, The River PDX, NACM Oregon, Green PDX, and IDA-Africa. At the year’s close, I’m seeing an uptick in queries and prospect conversations — a good sign for the things to come in the new year. I wish you and your business the same.

One resolution I’m setting in stone, or rather pixels, for next year is to get back to the regular writing beat here on the Sustainable Marketing Blog. Stay tuned as I resume the 2-3 posts per week pace with sustainable marketing advice, think posts, and other time-specific assortment of news, updates, and reports.

Thank you for your support this year! I wish you a joyful holiday season and an outstandingly prosperous 2011.

Sincerely,

Peter Korchnak

* Though it’s too late for Christmas, you can get the “The Portland Bottom Line” on Lulu for 15% off thru New Year’s Eve. The book is also available on Amazon (affiliate), and eligible for their Free Super Save Shipping.

Image credit: Tambako the Jaguar

The long title is totally justified. After 6 months of work, my passion project “The Portland Bottom Line: Practices for Your Small Business from America’s Hotbed of Sustainability” will be officially published this Wednesday, November 10th! Join me and the book’s contributors in celebrating Portland’s sustainable business at the launch party!

When? Wednesday, November 10th, 2010, 5-8 PM (program 6-6:30)
Where? Mercy Corps Global Headquarters, 45 SW Ankeny, Portland, Oregon [map]

Read more about the event and the book at PortlandBottomLine.com. My lessons learned from the project are here, my co-editor Megan Strand’s here.

The book has been available on contributors-only presale since October 20th – I’ll post a link here on Wednesday morning.

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Image credit: turboje (away)

In my discussion of business-to-business pricing strategies a while ago I discussed a variety of ways to satisfy both your company’s and your customer’s needs through fair prices and price discrimination. Since then–I can’t believe it’s been 10 months already!–I’ve discovered and have successfully applied two additional pricing methods: equal monthly payment and customized pricing.

Equal monthly payment

Equal monthly payment is a combination of hourly rate, fixed fee, and retainer. It works for long-term contracts or big projects.

For a steady client who budgets a certain amount for my marketing communications services each year, I used to bill monthly based on the number of hours performed working on their various projects (adding a fixed number of pro bono hours on top). As of this year, I have divided the annual amount into equal monthly payments. Over the years, we’ve figured out seasonal, even monthly, fluctuations of work and how much it takes to complete projects. With equal monthly payments, the client doesn’t have to worry about big hits in busy months, and I don’t have to worry about small billings in slow months. We both can plan our cash flow.

For another client with a laundry list of projects, rather than billing as we go based on the amount of work (number of hours) performed, we spread out the total amount over a 6-month period. The client doesn’t have to worry about front-loaded project costs, and we’re both happy knowing what each monthly invoice will total. With this alternative, you have the option–provided the client agrees–of charging a bit more per month to reflect the deferral of payment for your front-loaded services (I don’t, for this client).

Contrast equal monthly payments with a retainer, which also includes a flat monthly or annual fee and a defined scope of work. While with retainers work may or may not be performed, depending on client need, equal monthly payment simply distributes project costs over time.

An extreme version of the equal monthly payment method is NetRaising’s model. NetRaising, a Portland, Oregon-based company, designs and develops websites, primarily for nonprofits. Instead of using the usual 50% down-50% upon-completion, or third-third-third models common in the industry, the company distributes the cost of the website design, build, training, and support over a 2-year period. The model eliminates the heavy front load for clients. The engagement is essentially a subscription.

For clients, the biggest benefit of the monthly payment pricing method is cash flow management, while getting all the projects completed within desired timelines. For me, the method combines the predictability of a paycheck with the flexibility of working on multiple client accounts and diverse projects.

Customized pricing

Each client pays a different price. When I first started, I discriminated based on client size (3 revenue tiers) and tax status (business vs. nonprofit), which was a bit too complex. After a while, I dropped nonprofit pricing. Now, I negotiate the price with each client individually depending on the client’s circumstances (budget, revenue cycle, need, project type, timeline).

There are no hard rules for customizing prices. Customized pricing can be a matter of research and subsequent mathematical expression; a gut-driven process; random (“pulling out of air” or other areas); or any combination of the above. While it robs your pricing of predictability and portability, which some organizations may not like, it allows for adjusting your price to each client’s specific need and prevent them from comparison-shopping solely on price. Needless to say, it may only work with B2B professional services, and I don’t recommend customizing downward in a price war.

How do you charge for your professional services? What novel or unique pricing methods have you seen in the marketplace?

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Image credit: kevindooley (both)

We’re making progress with “The Portland Bottom Line” book, one of my passion projects.

The call for contributions closed last Friday, July 16th. “The Portland Bottom Line” will contain chapters from 50 Portland small-business people. Though we fell short of our original (somewhat meaningful, but still arbitrary) target number, the contributors voted to press on with the book and aim for publication in November, as planned.

If you missed the deadline for any reason, keep your head up. After the book launches, we’ll open the call for authors for volume 2 to be published next year, probably again in the fall.

We’ve enjoyed reading the entries as they came in. What surprised us the most–and it shouldn’t have, if you think about it–was that rather than presenting their chapters as case studies, the majority of contributors took a personal-story angle on their piece. Such is the power of story!

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be editing the entries and prepping them for production. Before now and November, we’ll publish an occasional sample chapter at PortlandBottomLine.com and keep you posted on where we are in the process.

In recent weeks, the combination of

• client work,
• passion projects like the Beyond 2020 Unconference and “The Portland Bottom Line” book, and most importantly
• the development of a new social venture (we’re in the concept stage)

has made it clear to me that something has to give. Opting to focus on other priorities, I simply find less and less time to write here on the Sustainable Marketing Blog. I have high standards for myself and my writing, so if I want to publish meaningful content that aspires to originality and value, I must alter my editorial and writing schedule. The Blog will definitely continue to exist, but I will only be able to post once a week at most.

If you decide to unsubscribe from this Blog as a result, I’ll be sorry to see you go and hope you reconsider, but I’ll understand. If you stay, as I hope you’ll do, I thank you for your continued readership and understanding.

Best,

Peter