Here’s the next post in the Stop Selling Time for Money series looking at products that work either completely or partially without you.
There are 2 types of products; products that help you sell and products that you sell.
Products that Help You Sell
These help people come to you ready to buy or wanting to know more about how you can help. In other words, these products save you time in the selling process and bring clients to you rather than you having to chase clients.
These products are either free or at a low price. Don’t let the price fool you, they are still helpful to your market but they are a baby step towards your core product (more on that in a moment).
These products are great too for potential clients that aren’t yet in the right place, either on their journey or financially, to work with you.
These products are things like:
Blog posts, videos, reports, newsletters and podcasts, which can be consumed for free.
Books, which you can translate into ebooks and audio books, webinars, live events, email courses, video courses, DVDs and CDs, which can be consumed for a low price.
All of these products are things you do once and then can be replayed several times. What a time saver! 🙂
Having lots of different media types allows your market to choose their preferred choice (I don’t do audio books but love a video or a paperback book) so no one misses out and it allows people to consume your content in more than one place too.
This is important because it allows the viewer/reader/listener to get to know you better, like you and trust you. That’s important because generally, that’s how people buy; from people they know, like and trust.
Ultimately your products become your best salespeople because they work 24/7, get the message right every single time and they get people to know, like and trust you without you having to put in any more work than you already have when you created the content in the first place.
Products that You Sell
This ultimately is your core product, the main thing you help your clients do and where your business makes the most of its profit. Your core product can also be a product to help you sell but that’s isn’t its main purpose.
The purpose is to help your clients solve their biggest problem and for you to be fairly rewarded for providing that solution.
Your core product will most likely be your packages which we covered in Selling Time is Cheap, Focus on Value, but can also be things like mentoring groups and courses.
Most people start out working one to one with clients, which is great to start with but as your business grows you then have no time for anything else.
So how do you have a core Product that isn’t completely dependent on you?
1. Adding people to your team is the best way to get your time back and to help grow your business. Yes, adding to your team takes time initially and you need to get the right people but that time is a great investment because it continues to pay back in the long run.
In my book The Profits Principles – the practical guide to building an extraordinary business around doing what you love – there is a chapter on finding the right people to be a part of your team.
2. Making part or all of your core product accessible online will leverage your time and enable your clients to better utilise their time too because they can access the content when it is suitable for them.
3. Offering group work in your packages or a separate group product enables you to help more people in the same amount of time. Your clients will get more value from a group because of the interaction with the others, the insight, sharing, help and connections than just working one to one with you. A great side effect is group work also builds your community, a place for your clients and prospective clients to hang out, interaction and help each other under your leadership.
After clients have been through your core product, or maybe while still on it, you will want to have more products that can continue to help them.
Like the core product, these follow-on products can be online, in groups or one to one but the focus here is to help them implement fully or solve their next problem after solving the initial problem using your core product.
We haven’t yet talked price on any of these products and that’s on purpose because pricing is the next post. Catch you then.
Have a great day ahead! 🙂
