Successful freelancers do this one thing to make more money; you can too!

When you’re a freelancer, one of the biggest problems is that time isn’t on your side.
Endless pitching calls. Endless emails to send. Endless iterations to make. Endless personal branding work to do.

Every list and task is endless and you exchange time for money. Time is your biggest enemy (but could be turned into a friend!)

You can actually sell the same product to 1 person or a 1000 — because you are the master of your domain and service offering.

To do this you need a system in place to scale.

Systems have been the in-thing for many many years because it helps standardize variables, leaving you to focus on the thing you do best.

Servicing clients.

And while you’re at it, also a mind shift change. Productizing increases the perceived value of your offerings by anchoring you at a price that you want.

Customers pay you to reduce their pain — how much do they pay, that’s up to you to decide!

What does productization mean?

It’s a fixed-scope at a flat-rate service fee so that your clients feel like they’re walking into a win-win situation where your skills match their budgets.

The biggest kicker here is that people like to negotiate and that’s exactly what this eliminates. Negotiation shows weakness more often than not. And freelancers are very often forced into lowering prices for something lucrative.

The best part, it’ll turn people who aren’t your ideal client…. AWAY

It is risky, but it could be worth the risk.

Here are three things you need in order to productize:

1. The promise: What are you offering that will ease their pain?
2. The process and outcomes: What does the journey with you look like? What will the client see after working with you?
3. The price: How much are you charging in exchange for value?
4. Bonus: Testimonials and case studies

Here’s how you productize your services:

1. Define your niche: Find the skills you’re good at and couple them together under umbrellas
2. Discover your services: Discover the most commonly asked deliverables and see if there are overlaps that can be put together under an umbrella
3. Match services with an audience: You can create services using a common denominator — either company size, or by service kind, or by timeline. There are many ways to do this!
4. Create your packages: This is the standardized product offering that you are now going to sell to your audience

Here are a few ways to do this — *these numbers are indicative

Option 1 based on a tripwire:

1. Have a free set of resources or tools to ‘buy trust’- Like this

2. The mini-consultation call offer: 30 minutes for $50 or… free… Like this

3. Sell an E-book at $75 — Like this

4. A structured 1-hour call for consultations and audits at $100

5. Then the ‘real deal’ service for $300

Option 2 based on a preempted need:

If you’re into writing copy…

Basic offer: So the business can get its website up and running

Landing page, about us page or team page and lastly, contact us page for $240

Startup offer: So the business can get website + content engine rolling

all the above + 5 blog posts in 1 month+ 15 social media posts in one month for $375

• the 5 blogs and 15 social media posts are one-time occurrences

The premium offer: So the business can get their marketing rolling and not feel like they’re missing out

Startup offer + 3 digital marketing ad copies + 6 onboarding and/or transactional emails for $820

Now…

Look at Kelly Bateson’s offer here

Or, Sarah Talbert’s based on copywriting

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As you can tell, these are just examples, and you’ll have to modify them for your niche and services and requests.

Now, within productization there are several ways to go about it as well

• Your product can sell once and service the client need
• Your product can be recurring and you will be needed for a longer period of time

How you choose to wrap your services in pre-made bundles is your choice! There’s no right or wrong way to do it.

Now, for the benefits of doing this:

1. Fixed price and fixed scope projects allow you to create repeatable processes, which then allows scale
2. You can actually reduce time on marketing and selling because now you’ve positioned yourself at a price point within your domain — start relying on case studies and testimonials
3. It reduces decision fatigue for your prospects because now they just have to pick between A, B or C, making deals actually close faster

Some cons:

1. It can get boring if you’re stuck doing the same thing over and over again; the saturation point
2. Prospects may want to modify your packages to suit their needs and therefore you might turn them off leading them to not starting a conversation
3. For someone who’s never worked with a freelancer before, they might need hand-holding and reassurances along the way, which means extra time investment to close the deal

To summarize

Productization works when there’s room to standardize and then offer the same to multiple people. It is a cookie-cutter approach to your freelance services, and many have seen success with it.

If you liked what you read, reach out to me on Linkedin, and join the Freelance Masterclass, Batch 12 here on February 12, 2022.