$560,000. That’s the price. What was purchased?
Premium seats to a major league sports game? No. A college education for your kids for the next four years? No. A new Tesla electric car? No, but you’re close.
Recently $560,000 was paid for two parking spaces sitting next to each other in Boston’s Back Bay area. Two parking spaces. No cars. Just space. Or more accurately, the availability of space.
Ridiculous? Maybe in the scale, but the understanding of paying for availability of something in the event you need it does make sense right? The entire idea of insurance (whic you can learn all about on Utility Saving Expert), another pricey investment, is purchasing something hoping you’ll never have to use it, but wanting it to be there in the event you need it. A few of our recent reports can testify it.
There’s a similar cost that happens in business. Normally we see it with services like legal representation, psychology counseling, or financial accounting and planning, and even something like OnStar. We understand that there’s a need and a value for being able to have someone available to us when we need help or have a question. Normally these costs can be associated with a retainer or an on-going monthly service fee.
This same understanding applies to the work we do for clients as well. Again, perhaps not on the same scale, but the same principles are true. We want to establish relationships with our clients so that the next time they have a question about anything related to their online marketing or web presence, they feel free to contact us. We enjoy helping our clients with these “pop-up” questions.
The challenge on our end is trying to plan for this availability of unplanned and unscheduled tasks. We have to continually and consciously balance the number of clients we actively work with to a manageable size that allows for this buffer of available time for them, while ensuring that there’s sufficient ongoing workload to be steadily engaged in. We need to consistently busy and readily available.
There is a cost and there is a value for being available to our clients. Are you considering that need and value with your own business partners and agreements? How do you handle maintaining that balance?