5 Ways to Move Away From Selling Services and Trade Your Time for Money
Tired of being pushed around by clients?
There are 5 main methods you can help fulfil your client’s needs besides selling your services to them.
I’ve been a design service provider for almost two decades now. And I wanted to solve this for myself, so I did the research.
Here are the 5 most common methods with examples:
Educate them
Teach them how to do it themselves.
- Writing — book, blog, newsletter, report, cheat sheets, email course
- Video — screencasts, workshops, subscriptions
- Audio — podcasts, audiobooks
- Live — workshops, bootcamps, webinars, conferences
- Consulting — individual, group, ongoing, one-off.
Equip them
Outfit them with tools, supplies, components
- Templates — code, visuals, snippets, resources, docs
- Software — feature, downloadable, apps, SaaS
- Components — plugins, workflows, macros, recipes.
Give them access
Connect them to people, places, tools they could not reach or afford.
- Membership — community, forum, list, space, equipment share
- Coaching — individual, group, ongoing, one-off.
Help them outsource
Automate, do it for them, connect to outsourcers.
- Service marketplace — jobs board, niche gig marketplace, a directory with vetted freelancers
- Productize service — fix scope, fix price deal
- Automate — automation workflow or recipe.
Eliminate their need
Change, bypass, or eliminate the need entirely.
- A business model change that bypasses their need
- A strategy change that makes their need irrelevant.
Moving away from the service mindset is not an easy thing. Especially if you’ve been rewarded most of your life doing the hands-on work. But now when you know there are other ways to help people, you will start spotting examples all over the place, and maybe do your own thing.