It seems one of the most vital and persistent human traits is the need for stability, especially with income. People sacrifice freedom, work satisfaction and life enjoyment for a “steady paycheck” and will often trade off significant true multiples of revenue/income potential for the reliability of the regular cash flow.
In many ways, businesses echo people in this need for a degree of income stability. In part the need for reliable income is a pragmatic extension of the business’s costs: Employees expect to be paid on a regular schedule (and want full time, reliable work) so the business obviously needs at least as much money coming in on the same schedule — unless it has really deep pockets or the ability to store and hoard cash windfalls carefully.
These points have relevance in marketing for a couple of reasons. First, if you can find a formula where you can commit to a reliable, consistent payment schedule, you can — and should — expect a major reduction in your costs. Second, you should be wary of giving anyone else this “steady income” unless it truly meets your needs.
The worst example of involuntary steady income in the AEC community I can think of are the Yellow Pages: You are stuck on an annual contract for a service you cannot change for a book that is published just once a year.
This may have made sense in the old days when there were few alternatives (and still makes sense if you use the Yellow Pages and they produce results for your business). But I think in most cases you can find better options.
However, if you are ready to commit, many media outlets offer incredible discounts for soft contracts. In other words, you agree to advertise on a regular schedule, and receive savings of up to 50 per cent or more on the one-time rates. The difference is that if for any reason you need to break the contract, you can get out: You simply pay the difference between the contract rate you committed and the actual rates you would have paid on a shorter obligation.
The other side of the fence is to design your marketing to create variations of steady income. Obviously this is possible if you offer recurring services, maintenance contracts and the like. If you can build these systems into your processes, you also are able to maintain ongoing relationships with your existing clients — and this can enhance your opportunities for additional and referral business.