Can a 10% Increase Change the Course of Your T&I Business?
I was recently listening to an episode of The Rise Podcast in which Rachel Hollis was discussing the topic of a 10% increase in three areas of business, and I found it very intriguing. She said "Imagine what a 10% increase in your business could do for the growth of your business and your confidence in sales."
To clarify, she was talking about a 10% increase in these three areas:
10% increase in number of customers;
10% increase in average sale per customer;
10% increase in the frequency of customer transactions
and how they could potentially increase your revenue significantly over a few years.
So, this got me thinking… what about for freelancers? Could a 10% increase in these areas be that significant? Let's unpack this a bit.
For our purposes, let's hypothesize about a freelancer who is currently making about $60,000 a year with about 15 clients (both agency and direct clients), and each of the 15 clients sends this freelancer about 3 projects a month. Of course, these are all hypothetical numbers, but that comes to about 45 projects a month. These could be mostly small projects with a few large ones mixed in.
A 10% increase in the number of this freelancer's customers means that she goes from having 15 clients to gaining only about 1 to 2 more (since we won't count .5 as a client). And a 10% increase in the average sale per customer, means that this freelancer should make at least $6,000 more the following year. But remember, she's gained 1 to 2 customers this year as part of her goal to increase the number of customers by 10%.
A 10% increase in the frequency of her customer transactions, means that her workload goes from about 45 projects a month to about 49 or 50 projects a month. That sounds doable, if you ask me. It's not the same as adding 10 or 20 more projects a month, so if these are small projects and still bring in more revenue than before, then this is a positive change.
While a 10% increase in each of these areas seems small, imagine doing this year after year. If the freelancer starts out making $60,000 the first year of trying to execute this strategy, she would ideally make $66,000 the next year, and then $72,600 the following year. This type of increase equates to more of a raise than a lot of people receive in a corporate job from one year to the next. To think about it another way, it's certainly more of a raise than most faculty members receive in academia.
Imagine setting a goal to increase your freelance revenue by 10% each year in these three areas. How would you feel about these results? It definitely seems doable to add a few more clients, and to seek out those who can send a few more projects over the course of the year, right? Now, imagine if you also raised your translation or interpreting rate a little bit every couple of years or every few years. This number would definitely become higher over time.
I continue to be intrigued by this notion. I think it's a tangible goal most of us can set for ourselves. I certainly would like to test it over a span of a few years. What about you? Are you willing to give it a try?
To read more about increasing your T&I sales revenue, check out How to Project and Track Sales Revenue in Your T&I Business to Start Earning More.
