The £72,000 Invoice Which Led To A 10x Increase In Company Revenue
I will never forget that phone call on 19th December 2012, and the words Chris said to me, “No, can you invoice for the whole 6 months please?”.
It was December 2012. My UX agency PRWD was myself and Matt Lacey, who had been working with me for less than a year. For the 8 years since I started PRWD and sent my 1st invoice, in September 2004, I hadn’t developed a retainer proposition, so I had simply delivered projects one after the other during all those years.
Our current turnover for the year was just less that £100,000.
Matt and I spoke about the potential of us developing a “Conversation Rate Optimisation (CRO) Retainer Proposition”, to give us some stability moving forward, and begin transitioning from project invoicing to retainer invoicing.
We had complimentary skills to allow us to offer a range of services to clients, for a fully managed ongoing CRO service, something that companies were starting to look for:
User Research
Web & Data Analytics
UX Design
A/B Testing Tool Expertise
Hypothesis Development
A/B Testing Roadmap Management
Our New 6 Month Retainer Proposition
We worked together and developed and finalised out new CRO retainer proposition:
6 month initial engagement
fully managed CRO service - data, moderated 1-1 user research, hypothesis development, A/B testing, analysis & reporting
3 investment tiers - £8k / £10k / £12k per month
Initial 1-2 day workshop at the start of month 1
Travel & accommodation expenses billed separately
We published the new proposition on our website on 18th December 2012.
What happened the day after when I received a phonecall, before we had started actively marketing the proposition, astounded us both.
THAT Phonecall
The following day I received a call from Chris, a client whom had engaged me personally around 1 year earlier to deliver a 1 day e-commerce training course to his team over in Switzerland. Chris was an executive for the VF Corporation, leading 2 worldwide brands, The North Face and Vans.
Here is our call, verbatim, as far as I can remember…
Chris - “How are you doing Paul?”
Me - “I’m good, how about you Chris?”
Chris - “Yeh really good. So I’m calling you as I am planning to begin A/B testing on The North Face and Vans in the New Year, and I was seeing if you have any services that you can offer us?”
Me (shocked but remaining calm) - “Ah right, wonderful. So actually just yesterday we launched a new A/B testing programme, where we provide a fully managed CRO service over an initial 6 month period.”
Chris - “That sounds exactly what I’m looking for. I only have a very small team, and I’m looking to get started as soon as possible. So tell me more.”
Me (continuing in quiet disbelief, with Matt listening to every word as Chris was on loudspeaker) - “So the programme kicks off with a 1-2 day in-house workshop, where Matt and I will come and spend time with you and your team, establishing the foundations for our partnership and making plans for conducting 1-1 moderated research. We provide web and data analytics expertise, and then we will move forward in developing the 1st A/B testing hypotheses, then begin A/B testing using Optimizely. This is a fully managed service requiring little resource from you and your team.”
Chris - “Thank you Paul, this all sounds perfect. So what kind of investment am I looking at?”
Me - “So we have 3 levels, depending on how quickly you want to move and how many A/B tests you are hoping to run during the 1st 6 months. The 3 levels are £8k, £10k or £12k a month.”
Chris - “OK great, so when is the earliest you could start?”
Me (even more astounded) - “Well we are flexible at the start of the New Year, so we could look to fly over for a couple of days in the 1st week of January if that would work for you? Just to confirm travel and accommodation is payable separately to the programme investment.”
Chris - “Brilliant that’s perfect, I want to get this up and running as quickly as possible, its a big focus of mine. So I don’t need to go to anyone else, I am the decision maker, so I’d like to go ahead. What are the next steps?”
Me (only just holding it together) - “OK wonderful, so which level are you looking at?”
Chris (without any hesitation) - “The top one absolutely, I want to move as quickly as possible on this.”
Me (with Matt’s eyebrows raising even higher) - “OK great, we are already looking forward to getting started with you and the team. So as a next step I can send over a contract to sign and the 1st invoice.”
Chris - “Fantastic. So just on the invoice are you able to get this over to me in the next day or so, as I need to get this submitted before our end of year accounts?”
Me - “Yes sure, so the invoice for the 1st month?”
Chris (without any hesistation) - “No, can you invoice for the whole 6 months please?”
Me (at this point expecting to wake up from a dream) - “Yes sure, I can do that no problem.”
The £72,000 Catalyst To 10x Revenue Growth Over The Next 6 Years
This 1st ever 6 month retainer, paid up front, became the catalyst for PRWD going from:
2 People, 1 Office, £100,000 Revenue in 2012
TO
15 People, 2 Offices, £1,000,000 Revenue in 2018
What About Business Breakthroughs You Have Experienced?
As you reflect back on your career, I believe there will have been times where you have experienced something unexplainable, that perhaps you put down to luck or chance or “the universe”?
As I reflect back, I now have a whole new sense of gratitude and appreciation for the profound door that was opened back in 2012, in such a perfect way, in such perfect timing.
