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Complete Marketing + Business System
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Cracking The
Billable Hours Ceiling How many of you made as much money as you wanted to last year? Don't be shy; raise your hands. Hmm, I don't see too many hands out there. What would you say is the cause of this gap between your goals and your earnings?
While you could certainly name the
economy or inadequate marketing as the culprit, I'd like to
suggest a third alternative. It may be the constraints of the
billable hours model that keep you from your financial goals.
Let's face it, there are only so
many hours you can actually bill to clients. For example, the
national average for consultants is 22 billable hours per week.
You can only raise your rates so high and still find enough
customers. And if you spend more time on marketing, that's less
time you have available to bill.
But there's a way out of this trap.
No matter what type of business you're in, you can use
intellectual property to crack the billable hours ceiling. Here
are just some of the ways to start tapping into this resource
today:
1. Package your process. What if
every time you began work with a new client, they paid an up-front
fee before you spent even one hour with them? If you sell a
process rather than your time, clients will pay for access to your
previously developed materials. Examples are workbooks, forms,
assessments, surveys, games, self-paced programs, and
train-the-trainer packages.
2. Give a class. When you assemble a
group of people to learn together, you can earn more per hour than
working with them separately. Classes can be given at your office,
at a rented (or borrowed) facility, on the phone, or on the web.
Your market for classes is not just your clients -- think about
what you could teach your colleagues as well.
3. Record a tape, CD, or video. The
simplest way to make recordings is to capture your live classes or
speaking engagements on audio or video. Make your unedited
recordings available immediately on the web or by phone. More
polished recordings can be made with the help of a local studio or
editor, or you can learn to do this yourself with the right
equipment.
4. Write a white paper, workbook, or
booklet. Short publications like these are easily within your
reach, even if you don't consider yourself a writer. A simple
20-page booklet might have as few as 4000 words in it. If you've
written four articles to promote your business, you've probably
already written this much. These are perfect formats for e-books,
which cost you nothing to print.
5. Author a book. This might seem an
impossible task, but if you write one page a day, five days a
week, at the end of a year you'll have a full-length book. If
writing isn't your strong point, find an editor, ghost writer, or
even a co-author who has the skills you lack. You don't have to
wait until your book is finished to start selling excerpts as
articles and white papers.
6. Market other people's products.
If you don't yet have your own product, don't let it stop you. You
can begin earning passive income by selling other people's books
and tapes, becoming a re-seller for software or assessment tools,
licensing someone else's process, or joining affiliate programs.
Any of these products can be
marketed in conversations with prospects and clients, in your
standard marketing kit, in mailings or newsletters, on your
outgoing voice mail message, and on your web site.
If you've been counting on hourly
fees for your entire income, you may be surprised at the impact
developing your intellectual property will have. It will add not
only to your revenue, but also your professional credibility. And
in poor economic times, you will find that prospects who hesitate
to pay for personal service will still purchase classes and
information products.
Wishing you money earned in your
sleep,
C.J. Hayden, MCC
© 2005 ProfitMAX Marketing - All Rights Reserved
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