My previous post explained why selling time for money is the professional business owners blessing and curse with an overview of the options you have to stop selling time for money. This post covers the first option.
Create a package of your services focused on providing the result your clients really want
Creating packages is a 4 steps process that will move you away from selling by the hour or day to selling by the value you deliver.
But what is value?
Step 1 – What’s the need?
This is how I see it:
Value = result your clients want
Result your clients want = solution to their urgent need
To deliver real value to your clients you need to know what result they think they want.
I say ‘think’ your clients want because generally, we all want something quick and easy and your clients will most likely be no different.
What they actually need is often harder work and may take longer to accomplish, which isn’t as appealing.
To understand what your clients think they want, you need to know their urgent need.
This is where you need to speak with current and previous clients, prospective clients and people in your industry to find out what is the urgent need of your clients.
Example
You’re a health professional and after research, you find that your markets’ urgent need is they feel they don’t have a beach ready body and they go on holiday soon.
The solution is to lose weight, say 10 pounds, before going on holiday.
The result they want is a magic pill they take before bed and when they wake in the morning they are 10 pounds lighter.
But what they actually need is good sleep, nutrition, emotional balance and exercise. That seems like a lot of hard work compared to taking a pill right?!
So you create a package that gives them as close to what they want as possible with you doing a lot of the heavy lighting.
Step 2 – Packaging
Once you know the value your clients want, you package together your services, skills, experience and insight into a solution to suit the result they want. This becomes your basic package.
I like to use 3 + 1 levels with my packages; Basic, Standard and Premium (the 3) and Deluxe (the +1).
Basic
A basic package does exactly what it says on the tin and delivers what you clients want.
Standard
A standard package is a basic version plus extra luxuries, nice to have elements or does things quicker. The extras will relate to giving a better or more valuable experience to your client.
Premium
A premium package does things even quicker or has, even more value than the standard package.
Deluxe
A deluxe package goes way over and above what any client would possibly want from you.
The main reason I like to use 3 + 1 levels with my packages is it gives a range of value to suit your different clients’ affordability and desire.
As a side note it’s really important to know that each package is at least as profitable as the package below otherwise you will be wasting your time and energy on higher ticket packages and making less money.
When creating your packages you should list the solutions your clients will get not the features and benefits of working with you. The solutions are what they actually want, which are more appealing.
Let’s look at a package solution from the health professional example:
Solution – Lose weight quicker.
Feature – Get an hour massage after exercise to remove the lactic acid.
Benefit – Recover faster from exercise.
What’s more appealing to you when considering to buy the package?
Step 3 – Naming
Now you have created the different levels of your package you just need a name. A name that explains the solution you provide.
Using the health professional example the name could be:
The Fast Beach Ready Weight Loss Package – Lose 10 Pounds in 3 Weeks. Boom!
Step 4 – Pricing
I’ll walk you through pricing in a future post but the price is definitely linked to the value that your clients receive rather than the time you put into delivering the value in your package.
Before we get to pricing though the next post will be creating products from your services.
Now I want to hear from you. Let me know in the comments below: What is your markets’ need? What does your package look like?
Have a great day ahead! 🙂
