Structuring a retainer model with Jordan Behan

Mohammed: Perhaps we get started by learning what is it that you do as a freelancer?

Jordan: Well, I do marketing strategy, content, and automation for business-to-business software startups and each one of those qualifiers is very important. I have a very specific specialty and I think that that sort of sets up the rest of our conversation as well that it’s not an accident that I do a very specific thing.

Mohammed: You mentioned automation. What is automation doing in content?

Jordan: When I say automation, I’m referring to a marketing automation software and things like automated emails, both outbound and inbound, how an inbound lead, for example, might be lead scored or moved from one list to another within a customer relationship management software. It’s sort of the early stages of building marketing infrastructure for those clients who are making the jump from a DIY maybe spreadsheet model for contacts and levelling up to the point where they need to keep better track of the people in their database and market to them with some amount of purpose. Right now, I think the buzz term that I use is account-based marketing, understanding your customer first and preparing assets and a narrative that speaks specifically to them.

Mohammed: So, if I understand the larger gist of it is that you’re enabling B2B businesses with sales enablement using content?

Jordan: Sales enablement, I love that term. Yes, people respond well to that. And in actual fact, I call myself a marketer but, in reality, you’ve nailed it. My specialty is more in the sales enablement realm. And I find particularly business-to-business software companies respond very well to that.

Mohammed: Right.

Jordan: They need to keep leads coming in and keep their salespeople fed and so I do that. In a way, the structure of the agency evolved but I think the initial idea was to add value to writing. I didn’t want to sell against other writers, I think that that’s a race to the bottom competing on price and everything else, so instead I was looking for ways to differentiate and add value to the writing process. I won’t just write content for you, I will advise you how to distribute it, where to put it, and to write with purpose. Every piece of content has a specific business objective.

I started to realize that my clients needed to be a specific type of customer to be able to afford me to stick around for the long term, to have the understanding of what it was they were buying.

Mohammed: And how did you get started with this idea of enabling B2B businesses to keep their sales team fed essentially?

Jordan: It’s a good question and, as I say, it’s evolved. I started in [the] media. My education and background [are] in media. I studied television, radio, [and] newspapers. I worked in newspaper and TV for a number of years and I was kind of there at the advent of the social web and I took a job as a marketing manager and the social web was really just emerging as a thing and the timing was perfect. I was fresh from school and realizing that everything that I had learned in school about — I’m using air quotes here and I’ll call it the “rules” around publishing and media were suddenly archaic and non-existent really. It was like here was an opportunity for me to be the publisher and I saw the opportunity for companies to be their own publisher and to own their message and I thought, you know what, understanding this new world and sort of investing myself in it and becoming an expert in it is going to bode well for my future and I’ve got all the right tools and skills and so I started as a — first as sort of a small business marketer.

I thought this is something that is advantageous to people who can’t afford to buy large, traditional media. I was wrong about that. I was maybe six or eight years early in my timeline, but, in effect, I was also correct and that six years, eight years down the line, I had eight years of experience in something that became extremely in demand and has only improved with time. But, specifically to the business-to-business side of things, that’s also something that evolved. I started to realize that my clients needed to be a specific type of customer to be able to afford me to stick around for the long term, to have the understanding of what it was they were buying. Again, I think I mentioned the sort of race to the bottom to compete on price and I don’t think anybody should be thinking in that way. You need to be thinking about who are the clients that you can provide value for and that fit your profile or your customer qualifications necessary to do business with you.

Mohammed: And how did you, I guess in those early days as you started betting on small businesses and now B2B I guess, what was the transition from focusing on small businesses to B2B companies?

Jordan: That’s a good question and it was — in a way, it was a little bit of two things at once. I, for starters, small businesses often object on price or I think the thing I realized first, and this was many years ago, is that there is an education component necessary often with selling services and you can’t bill for that time. So, if you’re spending a lot of your time educating your client on the value of what it is that you do or that you offer, you are burning a lot of matches working towards a hopeful sale with somebody who may one day understand the value of what you’re doing but you’re way behind from the start. Whereas if you’ve positioned yourself with a specific type of client and they already understand the value of what you’re doing and you have positioned yourself as a provider of a service that they need, then half of that problem takes care of itself. They need what you have, you have the ability to provide it over the long term, and there is [a] budget there and an understanding that these things take time and that’s a lesson I learned with time. You have to in a sense, at first, I was selling a lot of project work and I realized that I was always in sales cycles, especially if they were smaller projects.

My success depended upon my ability to fill my bucket with leads for next month’s or next quarter’s pipeline and it was just a lot of work and a lot of effort that was invested in a lot of cases projects that never happened or when they did happen, they went away, and then my cash flow has dropped out of the sky again. So, realizing that a retainer model — to go into specifics, I used to sell content strategy. So I would help a company establish their brand, their voice. I would come up with a publishing schedule and distribution and different content types and I would map it all out for them and hand it over as this glorious document that was a map to success and they would invariably fail to put that plan into action and so I could solve two problems at once by first of all fixing the cash flow problem of saying, “Look, I wanna stick around and help you achieve this and so let’s work together over the long term and solve this together,” and the other problem that solved, of course, was that I could prove that my plan was good by showing results, by becoming that doer of things, to see that plan through to the kind of results that we were both hoping for.

Mohammed: And how did that transition come about recognizing that your [strategic] plan is only as good as the ability to execute on it and that you should be the one that executes it but rather than it being like another project model, it is instead a retainer model?

Jordan: I think it was just fatigue setting in, realizing that I know that I’m a talented salesperson and I don’t know whether it’s a talent for sales or if it’s by design with the business that I’ve built and the narrative that I’m telling, but I have a very easy time closing new business if it’s referred to me, but the challenge is in getting those referrals in the first place. And if you are doing this sort of like a hunter model for sales and your success depends upon your ability to be closing sales constantly, that becomes your focus, whereas providing your clients value and doing the work that’s necessary to stick around for the long term might take a backseat or at least those two things compete for your attention. And so if you can sell to fewer clients for the longer term, you spend less time selling, more time on the billable stuff, and I think any freelancer would understand that that is the better place to be in.

The key is to be a desirable entity [that] is known to solve a specific problem for a specific type of client so that when you get a referral, it is a referral from a trusted source within your network.‍

Mohammed: You mentioned that hunting versus getting referrals. How have you been driving referrals for your business?

Jordan: That’s another excellent question and I think the basis of my advice today — I sort of feel like we’re skipping to the end here already, but the key is to be a desirable entity [that] is known to solve a specific problem for a specific type of client so that when you get a referral, it is a referral from a trusted source within your network who is saying, “Here is somebody who can prove that they are what you need,” and so I think a common mistake that a lot of freelancers make, especially when they start is to think “I have a set of skills and I can sell them to so many different markets. This is gonna be great,” and the reality is exactly the opposite. It’s only when you start to build a narrative around the specific markets that you serve that those markets begin to have trust in you. So, in the context of, say, a new freelancer who’s starting out, let’s say, as a graphic designer and they think, “Well, I mean, I can do logos or websites for just about anybody,” it’s next to impossible to refer that person and say, “Well, this is the expert that you want,” because they’re not an expert.

Maybe they are an expert in logo design but it’s only when they can prove, for example, that they have traction designing logos for a specific market and I invented one as an extreme example, but if you say, “I sell designed services to everyone, to small businesses,” I don’t think that’s at all desirable and I think you’re going to end up competing against 50 other agencies who say that they can say the same thing, you’re competing against people on Fiverr who will do it for $5, whereas if you say, “I build identities for vegan restaurants in San Francisco specifically,” now, suddenly, every vegan restaurant in San Francisco wants your talent and your niche and they see the examples of your work and now somebody has referred them to say, “Oh, well, if you’re looking for somebody who does design identities for vegan food companies, this is it,” like that is the agency you want to deal with. And now suddenly that agency isn’t selling against anybody else. They’re not competing. They’ve become the desired entity and a client wants to stick around for the long term.

Mohammed: What has been your transition to building a retainer model like?

Jordan: I would say it was extremely easy and it has proven to be [a] great secret if you like. I came to the realization, I made a change within my business, it was a matter of adding a paragraph to every proposal to say, “Here are the follow-on services that I intend to offer based on what I believe your budget and resources are and what I think I can deliver on,” and now every plan that I create for a client is created through that lens, what can I deliver on, and take them towards that level of success that we both want for this client or this brand with the resources that they have. And when I say resources, I mean the budget that they’re willing to pay me on a monthly basis to do this work for them. So, I won’t create a plan that I can’t also resource for or that is outside of their means. I will create something that I know that I can do, that I can deliver value over the long term, and that will, with time, achieve desirable results.

Mohammed: And how do you determine what those results that they’re after or what they can afford? What are all the things that you can provide value for?

Jordan: Another good question and I think the key is just having those frank conversations with a client and asking those questions. “Where do you want to go with this? What kind of budget do you have? And this is what I cost and this is what I do and am I right for you or am I not?” And having the I guess self-respect and courage and conviction to be able to say either we’re a match for each other or we’re not. I’m not going to compromise my strengths or abilities or the way I do business to fit what you need because I think that that’s just the road to failure for both of us. Whereas if we can have those conversations and you can tell me frankly, “Well, I think I can afford this per month,” and then I can come back and say, “Well, I think based on that timeline and those costs, here’s what I think that could look like in terms of deliverables,” and you agree on maybe a set of deliverables that [are] measured against an ongoing monthly flat rate and I also offer up a certain amount of flexibility to be able to change that over time.

So, I think a big part of what I’m selling personally is not just a promise of continuing to do this work over time but also the flexibility to change that plan if the need changes. You know, if one of my startup clients suddenly needs a sales one-pager or an investor deck or something like that, then it’s the work of a one-line email to say, “Okay, let’s not do those three or four blog posts we agreed to and let’s invest that time into creating this investor deck so that we can do our roadshow,” or what have you. And so there’s getting the original deal and agreeing to terms is a transparent back and forth conversation to arrive at what both parties agree is a good agreement and then there’s the ability for that to evolve based on the needs and the changes. And it’s that ability to evolve that also ensures the length of that retainer agreement as well. If you’re sticking to your laurels and only doing one thing and that thing becomes less relevant over time, so do you.

Mohammed: So, when you’re structuring your retainer models, what are, I suppose, your default considerations that go into play for you?

Jordan: The one key one is the fact that I don’t know enough when I start and there’s a bit of expectation [management] that needs to happen with a client where, especially when I’m selling the kind of services that I sell which is, “Trust me with the voice and tone of your company.” It’s a big ask. And so what I start with is saying, “It would be foolish of me to approach this conversation with hubris and say that I’m capable of taking over your marketing today. That’s not the case. What I need from you is [an] information dump and a bit of an onboarding process or something that, well, what I would call a discovery phase so that I can understand you and embed myself in your team and become part of your brand before I start speaking on your behalf.” And that’s — I think that there’s a credibility component there as well.

It’s, “I don’t understand you. You know your business better than I do, but we both want to get to a place where I can speak on your behalf so help me get to that point,” and writing that time into an agreement is a key part of — that’s a key consideration, that there’s going to be a research component, that there’s going to be a continuum that I will be on that starts with today and ends with hopefully me having a level of understanding where I can improve the tone, voice, and your branding because I took the time to understand it. And I guess further to that, it’s preparing that expectation that these things take time. I do content strategy; it’s growth marketing for business-to-business software startups and I think that, oftentimes, my clients have an understanding that this is a long game but it doesn’t hurt to say, “Look, I can start writing brilliant blog posts for you but they’re not going to be generating organic content on day 1, it’s going to be something that builds with time and that we need to continue to do. That’s why we’re in this for the long haul and that’s why we have the plan structured the way we do.”

The two assumptions that I approach every agreement with are: one, that I want to stick around for as long as it takes and I don’t know when that end date is, and number two is that if we achieve success, I will sell myself out of a job.

Mohammed: And, typically, are your [retainers] more of 6 months in duration, 12 months? Or I guess what I’m trying to understand and probably what other freelancers are probably thinking about as well is there has to be some form of  scope and format that is sort of the default go-to. Maybe there isn’t a default go-to, maybe it’s just every need is different and, as a result, each scope of [the] retainer model is going to be different.

Jordan: Yeah. I approach every new engagement with two general assumptions. One is that the contract term will be indefinite and that can make a lot of clients a little skittish, like, “Well, I’m agreeing to pay you until the end of time?” If somebody wants to set an end date to an agreement, that’s not something that I would object to, I’m comfortable with that, but the two assumptions that I approach every agreement with are: one, that I want to stick around for as long as it takes and I don’t know when that end date is, and number two is that if we achieve success, I will sell myself out of a job.

If I take my client to the level that they want to get to, and we often refer to that as like an A round or the next funding event where suddenly they can afford better than me, which is now we’re suddenly we’re hiring VP of Marketing and some juniors to work underneath them in-house because we have the budget, whereas before we had to be scrappy and move fast and we need that freelance guy who’s at home on his couch cranking it out for us and helping us get to that next level. I mean, that’s the reality. And if I positioned myself that way, I can see the recognition in that client’s eye, if I’m having a face-to-face meeting with them, that it’s like, “Yes, this is what we need at this particular time. And, yes, if we do achieve that level of success, we will replace him with a VP of Marketing. And right now, we can’t afford that VP of Marketing so let’s pay a fraction of that to have somebody at our disposal who can help us get to that point.”

Mohammed: So I think the retainer model works well in a B2B content format because with the B2B, the goal is to go and drive that SEO engine, drive that white papers, drive those email signups and essentially build up that sales pipeline, right? And to your point is your current clients are coming to you but the expectation that through those marketing and sales efforts, they will be able to drive enough traction that they can further raise Series A, Series B, whichever — probably Series A I would say because, by Series B, they’d already have a team, but at least be able to then go and raise that Series A so that I think makes a lot of sense. If anything to [the] people that are listening to this, find what you can provide to B2B companies because that could be good business, whether it’s content, whether it’s emails, whether it’s even design or product support, whichever have you, I suppose. What about people where that B2B mindset isn’t there? So, for example, if somebody is a photographer or a podcaster, in this example, what could be certain considerations there for them where maybe the retainer model either doesn’t exist or they have to rethink how a retainer model could exist?

Jordan: Well, to start answering your question, I want to draw a bit of a distinction. I mentioned already that it’s not an accident that I do what I do for the type of companies that I do. Those decisions evolved, based on the market. I have chosen a market where there are new players all the time, they need what I have, I provide a specific problem to them over the long term with a specific goal and a specific outcome and that’s a playbook that has been developed over the years that makes it so much easier for me to sell to those people and to achieve success and so — I know I keep saying the same phrase, but that’s not an accident. I structured my business around the market demand as opposed to trying to shoehorn my skill set into a specific type of product or service. And so I guess my first piece of advice would find that market that can afford you and will see the value in what you’re offering over that long term and focus on products and services that help you to achieve that, which is a bit of a cop-out answer, but at the same time, I think it’s paramount.

It is by design that I’ve built the business that I have and it’s based on not wanting to be constantly selling to people who don’t see my value or who can’t afford my services. I don’t want to pick on any market but when I first started as a “small business marketing consultant,” in my first attempt at starting my business, I sold to real estate agents and the reason was [that] I saw real estate agents all have their budget, they make their own marketing decisions, and they need to be scrappy and to be able to do things for a lower budget and maybe operate under the radar of you’ll see them buying maybe bus ads and bus benches and stuff like that but, for the most part, it’s I saw social media as an opportunity for those types of freelancers and entrepreneurs to benefit. And I was right, it’s just that, as I mentioned before, they weren’t ready for that. It took a lot of education. They have small budgets, it’s only the successful ones who can afford marketing over the long term, and there were a lot of things that just kind of got in the way of that idea being successful at that time.

And so making those mistakes and struggling through that and understanding where the objections were coming from over a 10-year period helped me to kind of sharpen the saw and to understand, “Okay, I need to be speaking to a different level of customer, I need to be having a different marketing conversation with these customers,” and so, going back to the very first question you asked about what do you do and I said, “Well marketing automation is part of it. Strategy and marketing automation are part of it to add value to the writing,” that, again, is all by design and to create more of a demand and a specialty that you can sell too over time. So, going back to your original question and answering it straight on, I would say if you’re a designer or if you’re a podcaster, structure your agreements and structure your value proposition to be a long-term play. You know, you could sell one episode to one client or you can sell a podcast series to one client and keep your cash flow more consistent over a year or two years or six episodes or whatever that chunk is. And that’s basic math.

If you’re selling a single episode, you have to make a separate sale for each and every episode. Whereas if you just take whatever it is you want to earn over six episodes divide it by six and sell the package. Furthermore, if you say, “We don’t sell single episodes, you have to buy a six-episode arc,” you laugh but it’s like that’s where you want to get to. You want to be in that position where you can set the terms because of the demand you’ve created. And, at first, you don’t have that luxury. You have to say yes to everything. However, publicly, the narrative that you’re promoting is that we do this thing for this type of customer. In the design example, it might be that you’re achieving some level of success with plumbing companies and restaurants and maybe real estate agents but what you decided that you wanted to do was to focus only on restaurants and so, yes, I’m cashing checks from plumbers and real estate agents over here but my website says that I do vegan restaurants in San Francisco. I think it’s a ridiculous example but at the same time, it’s like that’s a market that could support a freelancer until the end of time.

And you just have to have the bravado, I guess, or the awareness that focusing on that niche is the secret to success and not trying to be everything to everyone. You can’t compete, you can’t be in demand, you can’t win that business by trying to be everything to everyone, but that business can be yours by default if you position yourself as the expert who does it.

Positioning is not just something that you say or words on your website that you create, you’re also actually building domain knowledge in that specific thing and you are becoming that much more valuable to those specific clients.

Mohammed: You finally said the word, which is “positioning.” I will say most people don’t understand positioning well, and even those who have heard of it or have thought about it typically tend to see it as a marketing exercise rather than understanding that positioning is a larger business exercise.

Jordan: Yeah, and it is so counterintuitive, particularly when you’re getting started. You want to say yes to everything and you think that there’s a benefit in positioning yourself as somebody who can do everything and the opposite is true. It’s only when you begin to focus on one thing in particular that those referrals start coming in and that that demand is created. There’s a book that I read and I think it’s funny too that you and I had a conversation before this about which of these topics do you think you could speak to. They’re all connected in a way, you know? Today, we’re talking about a retainer model, but that positioning component is number one. It’s how you position yourself and the type of market that you go after and the value that you can provide. It’s not just a story.

You know, positioning is not just something that you say or words on your website that you create, you’re also actually building domain knowledge in that specific thing and you are becoming that much more valuable to those specific clients because you understand, in an intimate way, the needs of a vegan restaurant in San Francisco and so it’s not just that it appears as though you know what you’re talking about but when you have that sales conversation, you can speak with such authority and use the industry jargon and just wow them with your knowledge and experience because you’ve invested yourself in that niche. And so two things are happening at once. You are both externally appearing as an expert in a specific field but you’re also building domain knowledge that makes you extremely desirable.

Mohammed: And what is the name of this book?

Jordan: Thank you for asking. The book I’m referring to is called Win Without Pitching by Blair Enns and I want to name drop somebody here, it was a friend of mine, Mack Hardy, who owns a local development shop here called Affinity Bridge and he loaned me his copy. And actually, Mack is a living example of what that looks like. Affinity Bridge is a web development agency and they focus almost specifically on nonprofits, government agencies, and cause-based work that aligns with their values and that’s a business that Mack was able to build following this playbook of focus on the specific area where you know you can make a difference, tell a specific story, and you will be in demand as a result.

And I think that book was transformative for me and I now have my own hardcover copy that I loan to clients and friends all the time and I think the key takeaway of it is, again, going back to that designer example of, “I can sell you a logo for x price,” but the guy over here on Fiverr has 900 examples of the ones that he did last week for seven bucks and so how are you selling against him? The book, the manifesto, I guess, contained within that book will teach you how to position yourself, how to take yourself seriously, how to have those uncomfortable money conversations that we talked about. I know that a lot of people probably get hung up on that. And reading a chapter about how to take back that power and to turn that into your moment as opposed to something that you’re trying to avoid, the perspective change there is worth so much to me that I can’t even begin to describe it. I would measure the value of that book to me in hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Mohammed: Wow.

Jordan: And I’m not overstating this, because, in the time since I read it, I have made hundreds of thousands of dollars that I would not have earned had I not read it. It puts a playbook in front of you that you can follow that will allow you to take yourself seriously, position yourself properly, ask for the cash, become an in-demand entity, become that draw, that inbound draw of expertise. The book is written for designers and I’m not a designer but it was — all of the analogies transfer straight across. And the basic message is you can give away free logo designs competing for the chance to get paid to do the work but you’ve already you’ve given away everything important to you, you’ve given away all of your value already, it’s too late for you now to ask for that value in return. You’ve undersold yourself. I think I’m doing a terrible job of explaining this, but the basic message is don’t give away especially your expertise for free.

Don’t — you know, again, the title is Win Without Pitching and it’s this idea of if you’re just submitting proposals based on an RFP and you’re competing on price, you’ve already lost. Even if you win, you’ve lost because you’re making less than you should and you’re competing for things where that person who’s issued the RFP holds all the power. Now, the example that I talked about with Affinity Bridge, sure, they respond to RFPs, but they’re at the top of the stack because they’ve already dealt with probably that client or agency or the 10 other nonprofits just like them and they want the same level of service, right? So, again, it all comes back to positioning, understanding your position, and selling from a place where I have value and what I do is important to you. And you can quickly sniff out the clients that don’t see that and you can move on to the next because you’ve created that demand.

Whether you’re a podcaster or designer or content creator or consultant, it’s figuring out a — and I want to call it a product, not even a service but a product that can be billed over the long term.

Mohammed: I’m quiet because I’m just digesting. There’s a lot there.

Jordan: That’s fair. That’s fair. I tend to talk.

Mohammed: And I tend to listen so this works great. I think what you touched on is really helpful and very important to say is that positioning yourself well can lead to better business opportunities and more sustainable business and even to our larger discussion is that how do you turn the switch on to a retainer model is to ensure you’re not just selling yourself short on just that first engagement but rather looking to build a larger relationship which, I mean we also got back into is also going to help with the referral models and get people to come to you rather than having to go look for them.

Jordan: There is a key component there of structuring your service offering to be a retainer-based model. So, now we’re going right back to I think the second question that you asked, but it is imperative that you devise a system of deliverables or some way of attaching value over the long term to that retainer. It’s not just simply a matter of being an expert or somebody who’s in demand, you have to prove it, right? You have to walk the walk. And so whether you’re a podcaster or designer or content creator or consultant, it’s figuring out a — and I want to call it a product, not even a service but a product that can be billed over the long term.

Monthly is lovely for that. I bill all of my clients monthly. I think if we’re speaking logistics, I use automated invoice software where the invoice arrives on the agreed-upon date every month and I don’t have to think about it and that [invoicing] software is the bad guy. I don’t have to apologize, I don’t have to frame it a certain way, it arrives in your inbox and the best examples, the client just sets auto pay and the money arrives in my checking account without ever any of us having to take any action. There is magic in that. Every time somebody signs up to auto-pay my invoices, some small part of me says, “Okay, I have to pay that 3 percent to the credit card company, that’s not great,” and at the end of the year, that number adds up to thousands of dollars in credit card fees, but the number next to it makes it all worth it.

Mohammed: I will say that, that 3 percent, you can write off, okay? A lot of people don’t —

Jordan: Well, I don’t worry —

Mohammed: — remember this.

Jordan: Don’t worry, all my banking expenses are written off. And, I mean, that’s a whole separate interview. But the advantages of being a home-based-freelancer are many.

Mohammed: Yes, 100 percent. Well, Jordan, I’ve learned a lot here and have enjoyed our discussion. I’d love to know, what advice do you have for Canadian freelancers?

Jordan: I would say number one is [to] read that book, Win Without Pitching if you have access to it. In Canada here, it’s really expensive to buy but they do offer free podcasts and things like that and so I suppose my key piece of advice is to invest in yourself and your business over the long term in ways like that. Understand, I guess, that you are on a continuum from saying yes to everything that comes your way and hopefully getting to that point where you can say no to the things you don’t want to do because it’s when you reach that point that you know that you’ve achieved some level of success.

Mohammed: Awesome. As we wrap up, I’d love to know where people can find out more about you and your work online.

Jordan: I can be found on LinkedIn. It’s funny because I’m like the plumber with the leaky toilet. I’m a marketing consultant who sells marketing and who does very little marketing. But LinkedIn is where my network is. That’s where the value is, where the distribution is, and so check me out on LinkedIn by all means, add me, ask a question. I think that’s where the action is.

Mohammed: Amazing. Well, Jordan, thank you so much for this opportunity to learn from you.

Jordan: Well, I’ve enjoyed speaking to you today, that’s for sure.