Don't productise your expertise too soon - and don't think subscriptions and course revenue will generate much income if you don't already have a strong consultancy practice.
Broadly agree - courses can be a decent way to earn additional income once you're already established. But in my view they work better as an add-on than the primary offering.
I enjoyed reading this one and to be fair I equally agree and disagree. Your headline is about products and projects but in my mind what you then go onto to describe is the marketing, not the consulting or the projects/products.
What you are describing in relation to events, courses, and speaking are marketing activities to build a presence and promote the engagement of your consulting. Unless, of course you are a public speaker!
Even then the decisions aren't as black or white. Giving away a free ebook or even a course is a great strtategy but costs time and attention and even money. If it can be done that way then great. Very often they can be charged for to 'self liquidate' their promotion through ad spend, thus growing faster and acquiring leads for consulting services for little to no time and energy expenditure.
And then the other point is the productisation of the consulting services themselves which I don't feel you really touched on. With my clients I get them to think in terms of a productised front end offer that is east to say yes to. This can be a half day consult or a standardised diagnostic. This creates an element of productisation and standardisation. It can also provide consistent cashflow that helps with resourcing and outsourcing decisions. It is structured to seed the 2nd sale and we then design a full project engagement strategy around it too. It's upto my client as to wether they see this as a profit centre with a need to make money from it or a cost of sale. As a cost of sale there may be a lower investment in their upfront offer on purpose with the knowledge of the ratios of the people that then move onto the full project.
An example:
Upfront offer = £5k. 3 people buy in a month and 1 becomes a £50K project
Upfront offer - £2k. 6 people buy in a month and 2 become a £50k project.
In these scenarios there is a blend of productised consulting and project solution selling with a strategic choice on how to price these as a profit centre or as a cost of acquisition.
I've rarely seen the kind of clients we work with purchase a product offer before a £50k project. It involves getting budget approvals twice and often pigeonhole the consultant at a certain level.
It also means far fewer people will consume the content you're creating. For me, I want to get my content in the eyes of as many people as possible. Adding paywalls would make that tricky.
In general, B2B is always the better opportunity, that's why you should focus on selling projects to organizations rather than courses to people.
Huge opportunity cost, especially when you consider that even *big* "creators" earn in the range of $200-300K or year through courses.
It's not that hard to exceed that turnover by selling consulting services.
Broadly agree - courses can be a decent way to earn additional income once you're already established. But in my view they work better as an add-on than the primary offering.
I enjoyed reading this one and to be fair I equally agree and disagree. Your headline is about products and projects but in my mind what you then go onto to describe is the marketing, not the consulting or the projects/products.
What you are describing in relation to events, courses, and speaking are marketing activities to build a presence and promote the engagement of your consulting. Unless, of course you are a public speaker!
Even then the decisions aren't as black or white. Giving away a free ebook or even a course is a great strtategy but costs time and attention and even money. If it can be done that way then great. Very often they can be charged for to 'self liquidate' their promotion through ad spend, thus growing faster and acquiring leads for consulting services for little to no time and energy expenditure.
And then the other point is the productisation of the consulting services themselves which I don't feel you really touched on. With my clients I get them to think in terms of a productised front end offer that is east to say yes to. This can be a half day consult or a standardised diagnostic. This creates an element of productisation and standardisation. It can also provide consistent cashflow that helps with resourcing and outsourcing decisions. It is structured to seed the 2nd sale and we then design a full project engagement strategy around it too. It's upto my client as to wether they see this as a profit centre with a need to make money from it or a cost of sale. As a cost of sale there may be a lower investment in their upfront offer on purpose with the knowledge of the ratios of the people that then move onto the full project.
An example:
Upfront offer = £5k. 3 people buy in a month and 1 becomes a £50K project
Upfront offer - £2k. 6 people buy in a month and 2 become a £50k project.
In these scenarios there is a blend of productised consulting and project solution selling with a strategic choice on how to price these as a profit centre or as a cost of acquisition.
If it works for you, that's awesome!
I've rarely seen the kind of clients we work with purchase a product offer before a £50k project. It involves getting budget approvals twice and often pigeonhole the consultant at a certain level.
It also means far fewer people will consume the content you're creating. For me, I want to get my content in the eyes of as many people as possible. Adding paywalls would make that tricky.