By Kevin Maynard

I’ve got bad news for consultants:

Studies show that the average person is willing to spend up to $20k buying a product online, but that same person will shy away from ordering a service online worth $200!

So how can consultants tap into the lucrative market of online sales?

The solution is simple: Productize your services.

Productizing services seems counter-intuitive. Rather than offering your clients more options, you offer less. But the results are extremely attractive.

What IS Productizing?

Productizing is taking a service and clearly defining the deliverables, cost, and value. For example, instead of charging $360 per hour to write a will, a lawyer may offer an “estate package” that includes a will for $2500. Your client needn’t worry about how much time is involved or getting involved in an open ended commitment. As a result, your client is more willing to buy because they know what to expect from you.

Productizing lets you manage your client’s expectations and risks at the same time.

So productizing is clearly good for the client, but what about you the consultant?

Many consultants don’t realize that productizing helps them too because it clearly defines the required effort. You can protect yourself from margin devouring scope creep with a few limiting clauses (e.g. limit of one revision, etc.). This helps you protect and predict profitability.

Productized services even work to enhance your reputation as an expert. When you productize, you clearly show knowledge of what most clients need, and have a packaged solution ready to go. (Don't let the fact that you have a package dissuade you from charging a customization fee - customers generally understand that you pay more to go outside the box.)

And while productizing can't be used all the time, outlining what you typically provide clients can be a telling exercise. I recently did this for two different clients, and broke down their smorgasbord custom offerings into 8-10 separate groups each.

By addressing a single need for each of their clients, these two clients generated repeat business when they addressed their clients’ additional needs. In previous years, they'd have tried to address everything with a single program, and become a one-hit wonder.

Managing client expectations, encouraging better understanding of the service, reinforcing expertise, and stimulating customer retention. Productizing your services will transform you from a one-hit wonder into a long term superstar.

Kevin Maynard is a marketing strategist and president of Growth Path Strategic Marketing. To learn more about Kevin, continue to his site here.