One of the biggest challenges in selling professional services
is that what you are offering is intangible. Your product
can't be seen, touched, or tasted. Until your prospective
clients experience what you do, they have no way of knowing
if it will turn out, whether they will like it, and how well
it will work in their situation. To make a buying decision,
the client must first trust that your work will produce the
result that they need.
The most common way to package professional services is by
the hour or day. The client pays for your time, and they keep
paying until the project is declared complete. But clients
are often resistant to this. You will hear them say, "I
don't want to leave it open-ended," "That seems
high for an hourly rate," "I'm not sure my budget
will allow for this," or even "I'm not quite clear
what it is I'd be getting."
You can overcome these barriers to making a sale by "productizing"
your services. This awkward term simply means that you make
your service look more like a product, so that it becomes
easier for your clients to buy. You give it a defined scope,
fit it into a limited time period, assign it a definite price
tag, and attach a distinctive name.
Let's say you are an image consultant, and you've been selling
your time for $75 per hour. Instead, you offer a "One-Day
Makeover" at a price of $495, and include a wardrobe
assessment, color consultation, and shopping trip. You're
giving your clients a defined result with a clear timeframe
and set price, making it easy for them to buy. Plus, you are
able to let clients experience a range of the services you
offer and suggest additional ways they can work with you.
A market research consultant working with corporate clients
at $150 per hour could instead provide a "Market Position
Blueprint" for a flat fee of $2500. The package would
include a comparison matrix of three key competitors, qualitative
data from interviews with six loyal customers, and recommendations
for improving the client's market position, all to be delivered
with 30 days. Clients know in advance exactly what they are
paying and what they will get for it.
When buying your services in a package, the client runs less
risk. They don't have to worry about cost overruns or getting
an unexpected result. They know how soon the result they are
paying for will be delivered. There's also an emotional comfort
factor in buying a package. Purchasing something with a name
attached makes it feel much more tangible than simply buying
hours.
For you, offering a package helps you get your foot in the
door. Once you show a client what you are capable of, more
business will often result. Even if you price your package
at slightly less than what you would earn for working the
same amount of time at an hourly rate, you will probably profit
more because more of your time will ultimately be sold.
Many consultants find that fixed-price contracts are much
more profitable than working by the hour. In a survey quoted
by the late Howard Shenson in "The Contract & Fee-Setting
Guide for Consultants & Professionals," consultants
working exclusively on a fixed-price basis had 87% higher
profits than those working on a daily or hourly basis.
To determine which of your services would be best to turn
into a product, consider what your target market most often
wants from you. Is there a specific set of steps you usually
follow when first working with a new client? Activities that
you perform repetitively with many people give you an opportunity
to create templates, worksheets, and other tools that you
develop only once and use over and over. This effectively
allows you to charge for the same work more than once.
Be sure to spend some time on coining a unique name for your
product. You want a memorable results-oriented name that will
help you to stand out from the competition, and perhaps even
allow you to trademark it.
To launch your first product, you may not need to do much
more than develop a standard format for what you are already
doing, set a price, and name your new invention. Taking this
critical step toward making your services more tangible can
result in easier sales, more repeat business, and more profitable
engagements.
C.J. Hayden is the author of Get Clients NOW! Thousands
of business owners and salespeople have used her simple sales
and marketing system to double or triple their income. Get
a free copy of "Five Secrets to Finding All the Clients
You'll Ever Need" at http://www.getclientsnow.com
