Your time has limits. Your expertise doesn’t.
If you run a service-based business, there’s a limit to how many people you can help personally each week. You have client work to deliver, a business to run and a life outside it. Yet you probably have knowledge that could help far more people than you have room for in your diary.
I’m not suggesting you stop working directly with clients. That personal support can be the most valuable part of what you do. But think about the advice, explanations or exercises you find yourself sharing again and again. Could you make one of those available in a way someone could use without booking your time?
Start with what you already help people do
You don’t need to sit down and plan a huge course. In fact, that’s often where the idea becomes overwhelming.
Start smaller. Think of one ideal client, one problem they regularly bring to you and one useful step you could help them take. That might become a downloadable guide, a short video, a workbook or a focused digital product.
For example, if clients repeatedly ask how to plan their social media content, you might create a simple planning resource they can work through themselves. Some people will find that’s exactly the help they need. Others may discover they’d like your individual support to put it into practice.
Either way, you’ve found another way to share your expertise.
Give people more than one way to work with you
This is the idea behind a Value Ladder, which sits within the third pillar of my Effortless Marketing Framework.
Someone might first come across a free resource that helps them understand a problem. They may then choose an affordable guide or training that helps them make progress. Later, when they’re ready for more individual help, they might invest in your services.
Each step should be useful in its own right. The aim is to offer different levels of help for different needs and budgets, while giving people a chance to get to know you and the way you work.
I’ve been putting this into practice with the launch of my Fainting Goats Emporium, an online shop that offers practical resources for specific marketing challenges, including planning social content, writing a sales page and creating a first digital product. People can draw on my experience through those resources, with my 1:1 services available if they want more personal support.
Creating a resource still takes thought and work. You need to make sure it solves a real problem and is genuinely useful. But once it’s created, you can share that part of your knowledge with more people without personally delivering it each time.
Get clear on who it’s for before you create it
It’s tempting to begin with the format: I could make a course! But the more useful question is: Who do I want to help, and what are they struggling with?
Your business may serve several types of client. One resource should not try to speak to all of them. When you focus on one ideal client and understand the problem from their point of view, it becomes much easier to decide what to include, how to explain it and what kind of resource would actually help.
For now, here’s a question to sit with: what do you help clients understand so often that you could share it in a different way?
If you’d like to see how I’ve begun building an income beyond my time into practice, you can also explore the Fainting Goats Emporium.
