Freelance as a Service
letsworkshop.com
Freelance as a Service
1–10 of 18 posts
Re: Freelance as a Service
#2The question I recently have asked myself was this: on these structured or productized pages, should we push the customer to a low friction gradual engagement lead generation action, or close the sale with a payment? I'm now trying out the former. Thoughts?
Re: Freelance as a Service
#3The question I recently have asked myself was this: on these structured or productized pages, should we push the customer to a low friction gradual engagement lead generation action, or close the sale with a payment? I'm now trying out the former. Thoughts?
Which option has the most valuable result to the customer? Regardless of payment, I think delivering something that is going to really blow them away upfront is going to be the best thing... And you have alot of amazing work to do that :)
Re: Freelance as a Service
#4I've been considering setting up my website to be nothing but a work calendar, with empty blocks the visitor can buy. I'd have control to shut down unbought blocks if I want free time. I'd have some copy on what I do best, but essentially the customer could buy my time for anything they want, and could buy it right away.
Re: Freelance as a Service
#5This is an interesting trend. You've got great insight into this, Rob. I think ultimately, we have a sales and positioning problem in our industry, not a productization problem. Products assume our work has a set value to every client. But they don't and we artificially limit our income potential by assigning prices before understanding value.
Re: Freelance as a Service
#6I've been considering setting up my website to be nothing but a work calendar, with empty blocks the visitor can buy. I'd have control to shut down unbought blocks if I want free time. I'd have some copy on what I do best, but essentially the customer could buy my time for anything they want, and could buy it right away.
I don't think customers want to buy YOUR time. They want to buy THEIR results for THEIR business with as less of your time as possible.
Re: Freelance as a Service
#7This is a fascinating article, thank you.
When I was a freelancer the goal was always to set up small recurring tasks with a number of clients to smooth the peaks and troughs of work and bring in a regular income. These examples are a great way of showing how this idea can be marketed and scaled without having to rely so heavily on word of mouth or existing relationships - though I'm sure they do still play a part.
The change in approach from 'See what I've done for others', to 'Here's specifically what I can achieve for you' is key.
Re: Freelance as a Service
#8This is an interesting trend. You've got great insight into this, Rob. I think ultimately, we have a sales and positioning problem in our industry, not a productization problem. Products assume our work has a set value to every client. But they don't and we artificially limit our income potential by assigning prices before understanding value.
What's the best way around this? A 3-tier pricing structure, with the 3rd being a custom amount? Customers, myself included, also hate when prices are obscured on a website and will just go away - have you seen any good solutions to this yourself?
Re: Freelance as a Service
#9I've been considering setting up my website to be nothing but a work calendar, with empty blocks the visitor can buy. I'd have control to shut down unbought blocks if I want free time. I'd have some copy on what I do best, but essentially the customer could buy my time for anything they want, and could buy it right away.
Still a good idea, instead of your service being some ethereal product that they don't really understand, if you do it the way wptheory does it where you have one day dedicated to the customer and they can buy out that day, they'll know exactly when to expect a return, will know exactly when they can talk to you, and roughly know how much it will cost.
Re: Freelance as a Service
#10I've been considering setting up my website to be nothing but a work calendar, with empty blocks the visitor can buy. I'd have control to shut down unbought blocks if I want free time. I'd have some copy on what I do best, but essentially the customer could buy my time for anything they want, and could buy it right away.
I don't think customers want to buy YOUR time. They want to buy THEIR results for THEIR business with as less of your time as possible.
Depends on the service. Sometimes the service explicitly is my time. Tutoring, for example, or job candidate interviews. I didn't mention this in my first post, but I think I would emphasize that you're explicitly buying time with me, i.e. we'd be on Skype together, working through something. Pair programming for hire!