In business they call it “projections” or “forecasting” or “business planning”.  This month I’ve been focusing (obsessing) over getting my projections and planning in order for CasJam Media.  In the business of web design, this isn’t such an easy task.

Let me explain why.

Every project is vastly different. They come in all shapes and sizes.  Some pay 10 times as much as others.  If I sign 2 big fish clients in a month, it could be just as good as a month where I sign 8 mini-project clients.

Payment schedules vary. While I always demand a portion of payment up front (usually 50%), the fact of the matter is every project pays on a different schedule.  Some have are broken into two payments, some are 3 or more.

Project durations vary. Just because two client projects have exactly the same requirements on paper, doesn’t mean they will be completed in the same amount of time.  In fact, this never happens.  Clients delay providing materials.  Design reviews run longer than expected.  Technical issues arise.  Shit happens.  Milestone payments inevitably get delayed.  Or they flow in exactly on schedule.  But it’s never predictable.

Projects vs. Maintenance. Not everything I do is a contract project.  A good portion of my business comes from monthly website maintenance.  This of course varies greatly since some months the phone is ringing off the hook with maintenance requests.  Other months are quiet on the maintenance front.  Some clients require maintence every month without fail.  Others are fully self-sufficient using the content management system I built for them.

So will I make business projects?

My initial thought was to set goals for how many new clients to sign each month.  This of course will not work.  The type of clients and projects out there is too varied for this to serve as an accurate measurement.  It would be too hard to see how this translates to meeting goals.

So I decided to simplify (which always seems to be the way to go).  I will focus on meeting monthly sales goals, which in turn will make up my annual sales goals.  These hard number goals can be met with any of the ways I do business.  This is much easier to track.

The real benefit of projections

It’s analyzing which activities make or break sales goals.  I plan on trying several new forms of marketing in the remaining months of 2009.  Keeping firm goals and an eye on monthly projections will make it easy to assess my marketing efforts.  It will be as simple as Pass / Fail.

Over to you…

How do you get a handle monthly, annual, or even lifetime projects for your business?