How to Sell Your Expertise Over and Over Again
Copyright 2006 Donna Gunter
Putting all of your eggs into one basket in your business is
never a good idea. Diversity is key, which means that your
revenue should come from a number of clients (not just two or
three) and preferably should come from multiple sources other
than your primary service. These multiple sources of income are
called "multiple profit centers", or MPCs, a term I first heard
when I read Barbara Winter's book, Making a Living Without a
Job, back in the days when I was trying to determine how to be
successfully self-employed.
I've often been asked if your income sources should relate to
your primary line of business, or if they can be varied and
unrelated, like a writer who does copy editing and ghostwriting
for a living but also owns rental property and scouts garage
sales for gently worn children's clothing and sells it on eBay.
You can do whatever best fits your personality, but I think it
will keep you saner to corral your MPC's under your primary
business umbrella.
Robert Allen, in his best-selling book, Multiple Streams of
Income, discusses the "five rings of riches", which I think of
as ever-increasing ways to create multiple profit centers. The
rings include:
Ring 1 -- Sell Your Core Expertise: In this innermost ring, you
are selling your core expertise as an accountant, attorney, web
designer, security system installer, carpet cleaner, etc. To
this ring, I want to add selling tools you've purchased to use
in your business but you don't use all the time, like a
telephone bridge line that you might subcontract out to other
users.
Ring 2 --Teach Others Your Core Expertise: You develop ways to
teach others your specialized knowledge or guide others in how
to enter your industry.
Ring 3 --Teach General Skills: In the process of running your
business, you probably developed a set of business management
skills that have led to your success, and can pass that learning
along to others in your industry.
Ring 4 -- Sell Other People's Products: You have in your arsenal
a listing of both tried-and-true products you've used in your
field of expertise, as well as a database of loyal customers.
Why not introduce your clients (and potential clients) to these
wonderful products?
Ring 5 -- Support Other Infopreneurs: By the time you reach this
largest and final ring, you will have become an infopreneuring
expert. Allen suggests that this is the time to offer services
and advice to other infopreneurs.
Think of MPC's in this way: You own a great business and are
phenomenal at what you do and everyone who needs your service
should have access to your expertise. However, if you're in a
time-based business, as many service business professionals are,
there are only so many hours in the day that you have to work
with clients. There are two ways to change this: to hire more
staff or to replicate yourself. Hiring more staff (or even
independent contractors) typically pushes up your overhead costs
and will probably only increase your profit margin slightly.
Replicating yourself is much easier, and I'm not referring to
some Star Trek-like device. By replication, I mean having
products available that will either bring clients into your
marketing funnel and introduce you to them in a lower-cost,
non-threatening manner, or better serve your existing clients
without necessarily needing you to personally attend to the
client.
The primary method of delivering products to your clients 24/7
and selling in your sleep is via a website. Technology exists
that permit visitors to come to your website, read about what
you do and how you do it, purchase any number of products from
you, and have that all happen automatically. Electronic products
are wonderful, as the delivery of that type of product can be
100% hands-off. A physical product that has to be shipped does
require some human intervention, but that doesn't mean it has to
be you! There are a number of fulfillment companies that have
spring up over the years that you can pay to do your product
fulfillment for you.
So, what kinds of products could you offer via your website?
Here are ten ideas:
1. Special Report 2. eBook 3. Tips Booklet 4. eCourse 5. Audio
tapes/CD 6. Teleclass/Telecourse 7. Membership Subscription
website 8. Consulting/Training 9. Licensing your content to
others 10. Selling other people's products
These ten strategies are only the tip of the iceburg. Take your
content and what you know and re-purpose and re-package for
profit!