What Progress Looks Like Over the Next Three Years

Imagine a home organizer named Hester Moran who sets up the whole house for families who are moving to the city. After the move, she keeps each house in order with a visit every month. She finishes the course in the autumn, and in January she writes her three behaviors. New families pay her new price from February 1. The families she already works for move to it on May 1. She also stops taking single closets and garages by the hour.

The next January, Hester counts her families, as she does at the start of every year. A year ago, she worked for 14 households, most of them for a closet or a garage. Now she works for eight.

Hester decides that she has gone backward. In February, she puts closets and garages back on her website, at her old hourly rate. By March, her Tuesdays and Thursdays are full of them.

In April, Mrs. Fairlie calls. She is a friend of Mrs. Gilchrist, whose house Hester set up last spring, and she is moving in May. She asks whether Hester could do the whole house the week of May 11. Hester’s first free week is in July, so Mrs. Fairlie hires the organizer her moving company suggests.

Suppose instead that Hester looks at her records before she counts anything. A year earlier, when she wrote her behaviors, she also wrote a few markers for six months, one year, and three years. Her six-month check in July found that she had already replaced two of her behaviors with the next ones on her list. It also found that every new family since February had paid the new price.

Now her one-year markers ask about the families themselves. Five of her eight families have been with her for more than a year. None of them has had to remind her of anything since October. Two of them have told a friend about her. Mrs. Gilchrist’s sister called in November, and the Holcombes’ neighbor asked for Hester’s number at Christmas.

So Hester leaves her website as it is, and she keeps her Tuesdays and Thursdays for whole houses. In April, Mrs. Fairlie calls about the week of May 11. Hester has it free, and Mrs. Fairlie books.

Hester had eight families in both versions. What changed was what she looked at. In the first version, she counted families, and a smaller number looked like failure. In the second, she looked at what she did and at how her families acted. Her records showed fewer families, each staying longer, and the first of them passing her name on.

So write your own markers for the next three years before you start counting. Here is why each stage has markers of its own, what to look for at each one, and how to write yours.

Each stage has the markers that can show by then

Here is the course’s view of why the markers change from stage to stage. After the course, three parts of your business change, and each one changes at its own speed. What you do can change within weeks, because you decide it at your desk before a client is in front of you. How your clients act toward you changes over months, as each visit goes the way they expect. Who sends you clients changes over years. First, a client’s friends have to see your results, which takes months. Then a friend calls only when they need your kind of help. So a reputation usually takes one to three years to start bringing clients.

The course’s markers follow the same order. At six months, look at what you do. At one year, look at how your clients act. At three years, look at who sends you new ones. A marker is something you can find in a record on its date. It might be a sent email, a note on a client, or your list of where clients came from.

Income is not one of the markers, and neither is the number of clients you have. Here is the reason. Income can dip for months after a price increase. The course’s plan is also to work for fewer clients who each pay more. So a lower figure on either one can mean that the plan is working, or that it has stalled. A marker in your records tells you which. It also tells you which part of your work to look at.

At six months, the markers are in what you do

Six months is the course’s suggestion for the first check. It gives your behaviors time to hold, and your current clients time to move to your new price. The course suggests three markers for it:

At least one of your three behaviors has held long enough to be replaced with the next one on your second page. Your Friday notes show it.
Every new client since your first price date paid the new price. Every current client moved on the date you gave them. Nobody who asked to stay at the old rate got an exception. Your quotes and sent emails show it.
Each monthly check for a stall found no sign, or found one that you went back and fixed. Your notes from each check show it.

For example, an interior designer might find that every quote since March says “fee.” She replaced that behavior in May with the next one on her list.

Leave two hopes off the six-month check. The first is a call from a client’s friend, which usually takes a year or more. The second is a full calendar. In the months after a price increase, a quiet stretch is expected, so an empty week at six months tells you little.

At one year, the markers start to show in how clients act

By one year, your clients have had months of the work done the new way. What they do starts to show it. The course chose one year for this check because a reputation usually needs a year or more to reach a client’s friends. These are the markers:

In the last three months, no long-standing client has had to remind you of something. Your notes on each client show it. The course suggests three months, because even a client you see once a season has had a visit in that time.
At least one client whose work with you began more than a year ago has told someone about you. Count a friend who called with their name, or a client who told you they passed it on. Your notes and your client list show it.
When you raised your price, you set a date to check the signs. On that date, you acted on the sign you found, and your price stayed where it was. Your calendar and your price list show it.

For example, a tutor might find that the Kembles have not had to send her a test date since September. She might also find that Mrs. Kemble gave her name to a friend at the school in October.

One friend’s call is enough at one year. One year is the early end of the time a reputation takes, so look for more at three years.

At three years, the markers are in who sends you clients

Three years is the far end of the time a reputation usually takes to start bringing clients. So this page asks where your new clients come from, and what keeps the long ones with you. These are its markers:

You can name how each of your last five new clients heard of you. Some came through someone who knows your work. Your list of where clients came from shows it. The course suggests five, because then one unusual client does not decide the answer.
Each client who has been with you for two years or more had something new in their work in the last year. Your notes on each client show it.
A new client can still find you without a friend’s word. Your website shows recent work and a phone number that answers.

For example, a portrait photographer might find that three of her last five families came through one mother at the Easterby School. The other two found her website.

Suppose none of your last five new clients came through someone. Then look first at the two parts of your work a client can vouch for. They are a result the client’s friends can see, and keeping each client’s business to yourself.

Why checking only what you do after the first year goes wrong

Imagine a coach named Quentin Ellison who works with company founders, for a fee by the quarter. His six-month check is clean. His three behaviors held, and he has taken up three more from his second page. His one-year check falls on April 1. He opens the same page, checks the same kind of markers, and finds them clean again. So he sets his next check for October.

He does not open his notes on each client. Mr. Danvers has worked with Quentin for two years. The January before, Quentin asked Mr. Danvers for the dates of his board meetings and put them in his calendar. This time, he forgot to ask. Mr. Danvers sent the dates himself in February. In March, he sent them again, with a note that said, “Resending in case these got buried.”

Later in April, Mr. Danvers says that he will stop after the May board meeting. In June, a founder he knows asks him whether he can recommend a coach. Mr. Danvers gives her the name of someone else.

Quentin’s mistake was checking only his own behaviors after the first year, when what his clients do starts to count. His behaviors held. Mr. Danvers’s two reminders sat in his inbox, and no marker on his page looked for them.

The version that works adds the one-year markers. On April 1, Quentin goes through each client’s notes and emails, looking for anything the client had to remind him of. He finds the two emails from Mr. Danvers. He puts every board date for the year in his calendar, and he tells Mr. Danvers once. “You’ve had to send me your board dates twice this year, and that’s on me. They’re all in my calendar now, and you’ll have my notes a week before each meeting.” In May, Mr. Danvers renews for another quarter. In June, when the founder asks him about a coach, he gives her Quentin’s name.

Leaving income off the markers is not ignoring the money

Few professionals can afford to stop watching their income for three years. So a page of markers with no income on it can feel like a plan that pretends the money does not matter.

The money has a plan of its own. Before you raise your price, you set aside enough to cover the months of the gap. You also set a date to check the signs. That plan answers whether you can afford to wait. The markers answer a different question, which is whether your work and your clients are changing. Hester’s count of families fell in both versions. Her markers told her that the families she kept were staying and passing her name on. So she kept her Tuesdays for whole houses.

How to write your markers for the next three years

Open a new page, and write three dates on it. They are six months, one year, and three years from today. Put each date in your calendar with the words “Check markers.”
Under the six-month date, write two or three markers about what you do, each with the record that will show it. Start from your three behaviors, your price dates, and your monthly check for a stall. For example, a dog walker might write, “I said my price once at every first meeting since March. My notes after each meeting show it.”
Under the one-year date, write two or three markers about how your clients act. Include one about reminders and one about who has told someone about you. For example, a specialist realtor might write, “No seller has had to chase me for an update since January. My sent emails show it.”
Under the three-year date, write your markers about who sends you clients. For example, a private chef might write, “I can name how each of my last five families heard of me, and some came through a family I cook for.”
Read each marker again. Cross out any that is an income figure, a count of clients, or a feeling. Write what a record would show instead. For example, an event planner who wrote “feel established in town” might write instead, “A client’s friend has called me and given my client’s name.”
On each date, open your records and mark each marker as there or missing. For a missing marker at six months or one year, do the check for a stall that week. It will point you to the lesson to read again. For a missing marker at three years, go back to the lesson on results that friends can see and keeping quiet.

Next: You will see why none of this works unless you are good at the work itself.