What happens in an hour?

One hour. 60 minutes. 3600 seconds. That’s one session at the gym. That is one TV show (with loads of ads). That’s one massage session – and not nearly enough! You can’t really do that much in an hour. Do you sell your time? Whether as a consultant, trainer, masseuse, teacher or whatever. Does it all work out? Do you buy an hour from someone? How much do you get out of that hour?

For a long time people have sold their time. When you get paid overtime you are getting paid by the hour. You get an x amount for your usual hours and y per hour above and beyond that. And if you have an employment contract with your company, that works. But if you are freelance, you need to sell quite a few hours and you have to sell them for a fair amount – and still have time to market yourself, keep your books etc. If you take a holiday, if you get sick, you don’t get paid. Summers tend to quiet down and so does the holiday period … if you trade hours for dollars you know what I am talking about.

How can you make more of your time? How can you take what you do, wrap it up and sell it more as a product rather than time. How can you continue to sell even though you take a holiday or come down with the flu? Can you teach people something related to what you do, write a book, create an online course, a DVD course or even an audio book? Can you sell other things related to what you do? A gardener could do a DVD course about yard maintenance, a masseuse could write a book about how to keep your muscles supple and how to relax, an arthritis specialist could publish a book with advice for arthritis sufferers and a personal trainer can sell training videos online. There are various ways to wrap up what you do and sell it – how can you make your service or knowledge into a package that can be sold?

 This also means you can help so many more people. There are really no limits to how many can buy a book, a DVD or go to a website. It does not matter where people are or at what time they can make it. It also enables people that cannot afford to buy time with you to buy your service in another and more affordable way. You can sell to more people in an easier way and give them a better deal. More people can afford it and all this means you can spread your message further.When I started my own business it was one-on-one hourly coaching sessions. I could not take on everyone that was interested, and there were also many who wanted my services but could not afford them. Even though I priced myself very competitively, taxes and things like that meant that my prices simply could only be so competitive (the tax man takes a lot here in Iceland). That way of working also meant travelling to and from meetings, and all the time and effort that takes. Very soon after I started working this way, I also realised that I kept saying the same things again and again, so gradually I started to make training materials that I gave my clients to go over between sessions. This meant that our time together was much more useful and both of us got a lot more out of it because we were no longer just going through the basics. Eventually I totally turned it around – this is becoming known in the education sector as “flipped teaching” – and set up my training materials online so that when, and if, my clients want a session with me, that session does so much more for them than cover the basics. We can dig deeper and tackle problems that are specific to my client’s business.

Very often I get asked whether people can buy just an hour or two of my time. The answer is simple: “No, I’m sorry, I don’t do that any more”. Why? Simple reason. If I don’t know your target group, your competition and how you want to be perceived in the market (your brand) – those are the basics – I can’t really give you any advice of use. I would be guessing. If you are really clear on all this, it will still take at least half that hour to communicate that to me – and that is if you are really really clear – and it is my experience that usually these things, the foundation, is exactly what is missing in my clients’ marketing.

I have said it before, and I will say it again, it does not matter how well you know Facebook technically or Google AdWords or any other marketing tactics, if the foundations are not properly laid, it won’t really do much for you. OK, this leaves half an hour of our time. It is highly unlikely that, in half an hour, I can give you any really valuable advice and explain things to you properly. You go away unhappy and I am unhappy because I could not help you properly … oh well :)

Anyhoooo… my point with all this is that I took what I do and packaged it into, among other things, online training. This way I can sell my service even if I am not always there, the client gets much more bang for his buck, and everybody is happier.

How can you package your service so that you and your clients get more? I would love to hear from you :)