InfoXchange
The Newsletter of the ICCA Greater Boston Chapter

Toolkit for Consultants: Productize Your Services

By C. Thomas Tyler, Chief Technology Officer of The Go To Group, Inc.
While most consultants understand the value of having a product, many find it difficult to actually create one. The investment in terms of time and money to produce a worthy product seem particularly large, especially since it takes time away from revenue generation activities. Coming up with something that's really product-quality often seems unachievable, or at least something that might take years to develop. And then there is the fear that if you haven't built what buyers want, the effort could be wasted.

If you're in the situation where hour-rate billing is your primary means of generating revenue, this article provides one way to make that first step toward having a product achievable.

Remind Me - Why do I Want a Product?

For some hourly-rate contractors, leaving the W2 world for hourly-rate contracting was intended to get direct compensation for their work. They figured, "Hey, I really enjoy my work and often do 50-70 hour weeks anyway, so why not get paid for it?" Fair enough. But those who have been doing it for a long while begin to think of it as a form of slavery, and realize that too many long hour weeks aren't conducive to a good work/life balance. They start dreaming plans to escape. Yes, you can generally get paid well (when work is available), and it's not a bad way to make a living. But a key aspect of getting on the road to riches is to make money while you sleep, and you can't do that with hourly-rate billing. (Well, unethical contractors could, but ICCA members are ethical people!)

From a business perspective, there are several reasons why services firms want to have a product: With a product-based business model as opposed to a services model, your revenue is tied directly to the value your product provides, not to the amount of work it takes you to provide it. You have already proven to yourself that the market values your skills, but don't be mislead into thinking they really care how hard you work - they really care about the results you produce with your hard work.

What is a Software Product?

Typically when we think of a product vs. a service in the software world, we think of a tangible set of files you could burn on a CD, with a shiny new "Version 1.0" tag somewhere on it. The product has a known set of features and functionality, comes complete with documentation, and has been tested. That sort of product does take serious investment to create, not to mention business and marketing savvy to produce the right package, and sales savvy to sell it.

Enter the Consulting Package

A Consulting Package is a "low-investment" form of a product. It has some of the same features and business benefits of a product, and is a lower-risk way to get started, and perhaps even get some market validation of ideas that might eventually become a full product.

To create a Consulting Package, review the services that you presently provide for clients. Is there any set of services that you find yourself routinely doing? Is there some sort of assessment work that you do over and over again? Review the type of work you have done for clients and would like to do for clients, and seek out things that could be described in similar, clear terms. We're not talking about things that are identical from a technical perspective, just things that seem on the face of the matter to be similar, and could be presented similarly to prospective clients.

A Consulting Package needs to look a lot like a product - you want to decide what's in the package, and list it in extensive detail. Then you need to produce a brochure listing what is included in the consulting package - described in terms of what is done, not what it takes to do it. For example, your package might include bullets like: Note that these bullet items represent services work, not something out-of-the-box installable. These bullets probably may not apply directly to what you're doing, but the idea is to list the work items you usually do into a bulleted list of deliverables, thus gaining the product-like quality of having a list of features.

You might have certain tools or utilities you use to simplify your own develop efforts, but that you don't think of as part of what you deliver to your customers. They may not be used, but they could add value, so go ahead and add those to the list with a bullet item like: Over time, as your package evolves and chunks of reusable work (mini-products) are completed, you can add product-like bullets to your feature list. Unlike the "nights & weekends" path to creating a product, your packages evolve as you deliver them to successive clients, enhancing your package over time.

It certainly takes longer to develop a package this way than it would if you could take six months off client work to focus on product development, but it is an alternative that may seem more achievable and less risky to some.

Make it Real with Marketing Collateral

Once you develop the list of items included in your Package, then you need to develop a brochure. It will seem more real if you can attach a fixed price tag to the Consulting Package, though it is an option to use the Consulting Package description as a means to sell time & materials work.

But Wait, There's More! Add Support to your Package

In the software world, it is accepted that some things take time to deliver and configure for a particular environment, and that not all products are out-of-the-box installable. This is certainly the case with a Consulting Package, since once you sell it, you still need to deliver the consulting services. After delivery, however, maintenance is often necessary as various aspects of the installed environment change over time, such as operating system upgrades, new versions of scripting languages, and the like. You may not want to include that effort in your initial package, but it is an opportunity to sell a support & maintenance agreement as an add-on with your new Consulting Package!

By C. Thomas Tyler is the Chief Technology Officer of The Go To Group, Inc. and the Former President of the ICCA Greater Boston Chapter. He can be reached at Tom.Tyler@Go2Group.com or you may view his website at www.Go2Group.com