256: One Size Does Not Fit All  

Michele Williams: Hello, my name is Michele, and you're listening to Profit is a Choice.

One size does not fit all. Okay, I just said it. I know that's going to be hard for some of you. But in our haste to get things done, to keep moving, to provide a service, often we're looking for that shortcut to success. We're looking to ride the elevator to the top instead of taking the stairs. Today, we will explore how to choose the right offer for our company and ultimately, for our customers.

Every day, empowered entrepreneurs are taking ownership of their company financial health and enjoying the rewards of reduced stress and more creativity. With my background as a financial software developer, owner of multiple businesses in the interior design industry, educator, and speaker, I coach women in the interior design industry to increase their profits, regain ownership of their bottom line, and to have fun again in their business. Welcome to Profit is a Choice.

Hello and welcome to Profit is a Choice. Today's podcast might sound just a little bit controversial at first but hang with me until the end. The goal is to offer you a framework for making decisions, about getting help for your firm, whatever you need, and when you need it. Lately, I have been seeing a lot of companies offering a template for everything under their sun. There's like a template for this. There are whole businesses on TikTok and Instagram where they're telling you to go to Canva, grab a template, and then just sell it to everybody and make millions. Templates are great. Look, I've used templates. I have templates. I think they're awesome, but they're only as good as they know how to be used and how to be tweaked.

Just like you wouldn't create one set of house plans, a house template, and then sell it to every client as it is, telling them that it's a great house and it fits everybody. I mean, it feels very. Edward Scissorhands doesn't know. Yeah, it could be a really lovely home, but it will not fit the needs of every homeowner. You need to know how to adjust templates, and what the inputs and the constraints are. That's just as important as the template itself.

Did you know that the expression one size fits all comes from the garment industry? Back in the 1970s, retailers started carrying more billowing types of items that they thought would fit most people. These items were not customizable, and they really were not flattering to all body types. They were just considered informal and generally acceptable. I mean, that's where the term moo-moo came from, right? See, there's nothing wrong with that. They're comfortable, they're easygoing, but they're nothing special. They were never meant to highlight a particular feature that might be unique to the person wearing it.

See if your company needs assistance. Consider what the gap is between what you have and what you need before going a quick route and just purchasing a template from somebody, take the time to really dig in to understand your own problem and your own areas for growth. Simply purchasing a template without a complete understanding of the problem that it's solving is just going to create more busy work for your team, leave you lacking in the outcome desired, and it's honestly going to cause frustration. You're going to be frustrated because you paid so much for it and it's not working, because it really wasn't meant to work with different inputs and different sets of assumptions in some cases.

Knowing what to change and how to change is as much, if not more important than the template itself. What that means is having a really clear understanding of the assumptions and constraints that were used to see if this is a structure that can grow with you or that can be tweaked to uniquely highlight the specialness of your company.

I often speak with designers when they talk to me on a discovery call or in a coaching call who've purchased a done-for-you program. It's sold as plug and play and I get it. I get it. Somebody finds something that works for them, and these days we just package it up and sell it and tell everybody how it works and how it's so great and we're all looking for that magic bullet, right? We're all looking for that one pill that's going to make everything work. So, we put all of these hopes and dreams on this one template that we go by because it's going to solve all of our problems. Maybe parts of it do work in a controlled environment with the same inputs that match the ones that were used to create it, but that requires complete control in a static environment, which none of us have.

What that means is a plug-and-play solution becomes not so plug-and-play. Maybe the business that purchased it doesn't want to do business exactly like the company that built the template for them, because maybe their skill set is not the same or, the area they live in has different needs. These are real issues. Now, they've spent thousands of dollars on a solution that's not working for them, and they don't know how to change it because they didn't create it. When you don't create it and you don't understand the underlying inputs, it's hard to go in and make a change without understanding how it's linked to other things.

I used to see this all the time in the drapery world. People would ask other people, hey, can I have your price list? How much do you charge for a panel? How much do you charge for a pillow or per square foot for a Roman shade? Then they would try to implement that exact pricing structure. They would take their pricing and pretty much come into their business and try to plug and play it. The challenge was they might live in a different socioeconomic area. They might work to a different level. Their expenses may have been different. The skill set of their team members wasn't the same. Their processes weren't the same. The management of their cash flow was unique. Now the pricing doesn't work for them. They're losing money, not making money, even when they're charging what somebody down the street is charging, or somebody in another area.

Herein lies the problem. Package solutions could be a quick start to solving a problem. I've used some, and my guess is that you have too. But rarely, if ever, are they successful right out of the box. They almost always have to be tweaked and then tweaked again and again as the business and the product offerings change.

Here at Scarlett Thread Consulting, we don't offer a host of done-for-you templates. Let me tell you why. Because we see that they all have to be shifted and changed. We know that outside of isolation, they're never a full solution to a problem.

So let me tell you how we're a little different. Our goal here is to help you truly understand the challenge that you have and the problem that you're solving. Then we can suggest one of our templates or even the template of somebody else's. We do that, but only once you know what your company really needs and how to tweak a package solution. It does you no good to get a big solution if you don't know what to do to make it fit the problem that you have.

Flat fees are an area that's been high on the conversation list. Many people talk about how awesome it is and how they've got this flat fee, and they bought that flat fee idea, and they've implemented it. But there's a lot of whispering going on about the loss of money to that flat fee structure, not because the flat fee structure was bad or wrong, but because they don't necessarily know how to manage it and how to change it for the needs of their own personal company, and now they're losing money.

I'm asked constantly, what is the best method to use when billing? What's the best free structure? My answer is always the same. Hourly, cost plus, flat fee, fixed rate, square footage, every one of them works when you know how they work and when you can keep up with the inputs and the metrics. But every one of them can fail you if they're not used properly. When you are not adjusting to meet the needs and demands of your business with your pricing structure and those inputs. That's the difference.

Here at Scarlett Thread Consulting, what we are dedicated to is empowering you to know how to read the signs, know how to determine what's needed, and knowing how to adjust your systems, whether they're purchased systems or created systems so that they can grow with your company. Metrique Solutions was created to do the same thing, to help you measure to what you know you're trying to achieve.

So, if you find yourself as the owner of a one-size-fits-all approach that makes your business feel frumpy, reach out and consider getting help instead to flatter the best parts of your company, let's highlight what you do great.

You can find resources at scarletthreadconsulting.com. Choose to work in a framework that supports your profitability and note that this and profit don't happen by accident.

Profit is a Choice. Is proud to be part of thedesignnetwork.org, where you can discover more design media reaching creative listeners. Thanks for listening and stay creative and business minded.