If you want to attract more ideal clients, you have to make sure that your income does not depend on how many hours you work.
No matter how high your hourly rate, you can only work a limited number of hours and you can only be in one place at a time.
In order to make more profit, you need to find a way to package your expertise so that others will pay for it without you having to be there in person.
How to package your expertise to attract more ideal clients
Create a White Paper or Special Report: May be either a free report offered for lead generation or a very low-cost report selling for $7 – 27 that makes it easy for people to sample more of what you can offer.
Write a Printed Book: Imagine you meet two consultants at a convention. One hands you a business card, and the other gives you a signed copy of his book. Which one is likely to win more clients and charge higher fees? There’s no doubt that people who have written books have instant authority status. Yet, with on-demand publishing, it’s now quite easy for anyone to do this.
Write an E-book: For people not ready to produce a published book, there is a faster option of producing an e-book for sale online as an instant download. E-books are very fast to produce and are usually much shorter than printed books. However, because of the instant access – and usually because other bonuses are added to the purchase, the sales price is often much higher with prices of $27 upwards.
Create Audio and Video Programs: Technology now makes it very easy to produce an audio or video delivering valuable information, either as a special recording or as a recording of an existing event. These can be quickly packaged and sold at relatively high prices, either as an instant download or by mail using low-cost fulfillment services.
Develop Premium Products and Services: Combining various elements such as e-books and video allows you to create a higher value package selling from $47 – 97. Adding more elements such as personal contact can turn it into a $197 – 497 package and more.
Develop a Membership Program or Subscription Newsletter: Another way of delivering information is through subscription-based membership websites dealing with a specific topic. You can also deliver membership value offline through a subscription newsletter, perhaps with added services such as a monthly CD or software.
Create a Coaching Program: Books, audio, and video typically provide information in a very general way so there is often demand from people for personal advice on how to apply the information to their own situation. This opens the demand for coaching which can be delivered online, by telephone, and in person. This allows you to create an advanced program, selling for $997 or even several thousand dollars.
Run Live Events: Personal coaching is typically only delivered to one person at a time but seminars and workshops are a method of delivering the same information quickly to a much larger group. While the revenue per head may be lower for this approach, the large numbers of people that can be covered make it very attractive. This can be done at live events or through teleseminars and webinars.
Run Training Programs: Some organizations may want the expertise delivered to larger groups of people in an interactive way through training programs and will pay significant fees to have this done.
License Your Expertise to Others: If you can structure your expertise so that it is easily turned into a system and taught to others, you have the opportunity to license them to deliver it without your presence, leading to the prospect of licensing fees and other revenue. You can also do this through resale rights, white labeling, or even franchising.
Create Software and Apps: Software and smartphone apps can be created at relatively low cost but have high value.
Develop VIP Services: Some people want specific solutions for their own situation and this can open up opportunities for very significant fees. This can include consultancy and “done-for-you” solutions. There is always a certain percentage of people who will want to buy your most expensive option.
Coaching is a great high-value way to package your expertise
You won’t maximize your income just by creating a $50 e-book. But equally running a few high-ticket seminars will not give you the best possible income either.
You probably won’t use all of these techniques but the secret is to find the right mix of different ways of packaging your expertise in multiple ways to deliver maximum profit.
Many of them will work well together. Someone attending one of your seminars may buy a book or audio product and then later return for consultancy or coaching.
The choice of which is appropriate will depend on your personal skills and preferences and the market demand.
How to create your packaged product
The secret to making the most of these opportunities is finding the fastest and easiest way to turn your expertise into a packaged product. Here are some ways of doing that:
Write it: If you have the skills and the time, you can write your own book or program. This doesn’t have to be time-consuming and where it does not need new research, it can be done very quickly. You could quite possibly produce a valuable e-book and have it on sale within a few days.
Record it: For those who don’t have the time or inclination to write, the information can be recorded. The easiest way to create a product is by recording an existing event. This can then either be transcribed into a written product or sold in exactly the same format as it was delivered.
Buy it: In many cases, you will be able to buy content that has been previously created by someone else. This could be in the form of existing material that you are then licensed to deliver. You could also buy ‘Private Label Rights’ to someone else’s material, where you can then edit it and sell it under your own name.
Have it created: Another option is to develop a specification of what you want and then pay someone else to create it on your behalf.
Whichever option you choose for creating the product, the secret is to repackage and represent it in as many ways as possible for maximum return.
To reach more of your ideal clients, you need to be able to package your expertise in various ways to reach different audiences and to get away from earnings based on the actual hours you work.
Which of these 12 approaches would best help you reach more of your ideal clients?
Would it be easiest and most effective for you to produce it by writing it, recording it, buying it, or having it created for you?
Check out the other resources on this blog for more information on how to package your expertise to attract more of your ideal clients.
To become seen as an authority, you need to package your expertise in a way that makes it easy for your ideal clients to invest with you and to pay higher prices.
When we talk about “packaging” your expertise, that doesn’t mean you have to put it in a box and deliver a physical product.
However, most experts make the mistake of talking about the process of what they do or using a label like “coach” or “consultant” which doesn’t usually give people any reason to invest with them.
Presenting your services in that way is a bit like a restaurant telling you they serve food or listing the ingredients and equipment they have in their kitchen without offering any more information.
You need to be able to present what you offer in a way that encourages your prospective client to:
Decide to buy
See the extra value in the price you are charging
Try you out at a level appropriate to their immediate needs
Stay with you longer and upgrade to higher-value services
Dan Kennedy, one of the world’s leading experts on marketing for entrepreneurs and small businesses describes this as creating a “widget”.
A widget is a package of products or services that people can identify in their minds and therefore see how it could help them.
He says that the ability to package your services by consistently creating the right widgets that appeal to your ideal customers is one of the most important business skills.
“The ability to package your services to appeal to your ideal customers is one of the key business skills.”
So there are five key elements to packaging your offer effectively:
Proposition
Presentation
Pricing
Profit Ladder
Production and Delivery
Defining the Proposition
The first key to packaging your offer is defining exactly what you are offering to do. This follows partly from your positioning but clearly, you can have a range of propositions to offer as part of your positioning.
The key is that you need to define your proposition in terms of the results and transformation you can deliver.
For example, if you are a coach, you may struggle to attract clients by trying to convince people of the general benefits of coaching. It’s much better to talk instead about a specific service that delivers a desired outcome such as:
Attracting more clients
Meeting your ideal partner
Speaking with confidence in meetings
People then find it easier to see the value so they are more likely to buy.
Deciding the Presentation
The presentation of your offer is what you put in the “box” and how you describe it.
Again, it doesn’t have to be a physical box – although it may include physical elements – it is simply a way of presenting less tangible services in a way that people can get their heads around and understand how it might benefit them.
The five key elements of presentation are usually:
Personal Contact such as meetings or coaching
Written material like books and reports
Audio / Video with more detailed information and guidance
Resources such as spreadsheets, checklists, and recommended service providers
Services that deliver specific solutions
The exact mix of those will depend on your business and the price being charged.
One of the keys to success with presentation is to ensure it links with the proposition – usually by giving it an appealing name.
For example, if you are a coach, you could try inviting people to an initial meeting or you could instead create a package featuring your book, several worksheets, and an initial meeting and call it the Ultimate Goal Setting Workshop, linking it to a specific result you offer.
Find a way to show people exactly how you can help them.
Similarly, you could offer a coaching program or you could offer a 12-month Personal Transformation Program with a range of different elements included.
The key is that you need to find a way to enable people to understand exactly how you can help them, what exactly is included, and how they will be transformed.
By the way, the fact that you offer services in a packaged way does not mean you don’t continue to offer many different solutions. In the same way, a restaurant may have a weekly special offer that attracts people, and then many order something entirely different when they come in.
The key is to make the initial purchase decision easy and to build from there.
Pricing for Success
There are many different ways to package the same solution and the key to success is being able to find the best mix of ways to present your offer.
If you want to make $120,000 in a year, there are various ways of doing that. For example:
Sell 1 person something that costs $120,000
Sell 10 people something that costs $1,000 per month
Sell 1,000 people something that costs $120
Sell 10,000 people something that costs $12
All of these (and many other variations) are perfectly feasible business models, depending on your offer and your market.
The secret is to find the mix that is right for you. Ideally, you want to be able to package your expertise in several different ways so you can reach different markets and also give people different ways of trying out your services before they make a major commitment.
Somebody may buy your $12 book today and then be a customer for a $20,000 consultancy project in a few months.
Creating Your Profit Ladder
The approach to organizing your offers can best be described as a “profit ladder.” At the bottom end of the ladder, you have lower-cost offers where people can try you out with a small purchase and you are likely to make more sales.
As you go up the ladder, the investment and the commitment required increase. At the top, you have your VIP customers – a relatively small group buying your top services. You can break down these steps in any number of ways but there are five key stages:
First Step: A way for people to begin the relationship with you – this may be a free report or an initial consultation for example
Easy Purchase: A simple decision that turns a prospect into a customer such as a small project or a low-cost product
Upsell Process: A system for moving people on as quickly as possible to larger purchases and longer commitments
Ascension to VIP: A range of higher-priced offers for the best clients
Services: Doing things for people rather than advising them
The keys to success are that, as quickly as possible, you should get people on the ladder (investing something with you) and then move them up the ladder using a planned system.
As you go up the ladder, the investment increases
This is sometimes also referred to as a product “funnel.” The concept is the same but one drawback with the funnel concept is that it can focus too much on just getting people into the funnel – whether or not they are likely to be ideal clients.
The fact is it is often better to start by focusing on the small number of people who will pay high prices – and at the very least to get people buying something as quickly as possible.
While creating a high-priced offer takes more work, the potential return is much greater so you can often reach your objectives more quickly. But the key is to have the right mix so that you can deliver the right range of offers. The reality is that some people always want the biggest package you have available and others will always stick to lower-cost options.
A successful business caters for both. But often the best approach is to build your business around the smaller number of people who buy your highest price offers as that is where most of your profit will come from.
Producing and Delivering Your Package
When it comes to delivery, one factor to take into account is that some people prefer to write, others prefer to speak and some are more comfortable giving personalized advice.
Some people would rather sit at home one weekend and write a 20-page report, while others would prefer to get up on stage and do a live presentation.
Choose whichever method is the most appropriate and comfortable for you.
We talk more about this in the segment on publishing.
ACTION PLAN TO PACKAGE YOUR EXPERTISE
Answering these five questions should help you package your expertise in the best way for your ideal clients.
What elements could you put in a starter session for prospective new clients (free or paid for)?
What name could you give this session to make it very appealing?
Define the proposition for at least one low-cost package you could offer – focusing on the transformations it provides
Identify what elements you could add to this to make its value significantly higher
What elements would you include in a VIP package for your ideal clients?
The 5 Keys to Being Seen as an Authority
This is one of the five keys to building your authority as shown below.
Positioning: Identify your ideal clients and how you can best help them so you can attract them easily
Packaging: Offer your advice, skills, and knowledge in a way that makes it easy to attract a large number of high-paying clients
Publishing: Demonstrate your expertise in a wide range of ways so that people can see how you can help them
Promotion (Lead Generation): Take steps to attract more of your ideal clients to you instead of having to chase them
Persuasion (Conversion): Turn more of your ideal prospects into profitable long-term clients
Click on the links above for more information on each of the elements.
