Everyone wants “products.” Every freelancer wants to create digital downloads that sell themselves and create legions of fans. I myself am not different. It’s the freelancer’s dream, to be good enough to earn a spot at the table with guys like Michael Fortin, Brian Clark, Yaro, or guys like Eric Hamm. It’s the holy grail of dreams. In the mean time, you think that the work you’re doing is some how beneath you because it’s work for others.
Yet, getting the critical mass to deal with this sort of thing is hard. Getting the credibility built up in a world where a bunch of high end people are coming out with great stuff is horrific. Do I honestly want to compete with Chris Garrett? Hell no I don’t. I can continue to make a KILLING without doing that.
You can create highly profitable, highly valuable, semi-scalable hybrid products as your bridge to what’s next. That’s what I’m doing now with my Guerrilla.ME site. My clients know exactly what to expect, I know exactly how to deliver it efficiently with a minimum of back and forth. I am profitable, the client gets value.
No, it’s not automated. That can EVENTUALLY come, but that’s a process.
What Is a Hybrid Product?
I’ll try and define it: A hybrid product is something that includes some custom work, and some recycled content. A good example would be my Thesis Blogs. I sell them and they are delivered quickly. The client gets:
- A kickass blog
- Frigging great design.
- 48 hour delivery in most cases
- Custom training videos.
- For Just $750. (Many people still charge & get $2500ish for blog designs)
I get:
- prepayment
- A well defined job that won’t be stuck in revision hell.
- A happy client.
For this, I get rid of some customization. The client loses a little bit of choice. (Choice isn’t all that cracked up to be). The blog gets done on time, and it gets put in the client’s hands quickly.
It’s a hybrid product. When the Thesis Blog came out, I wanted to do it initially so I could find designers to work, mostly on the same template. I discovered by accident that the experience was better, and cheaper, and faster because of the same process. I could afford to charge $750 a website, and have it look hot.
That led me to think I was onto something, and I am. All told, after the close, I have about 45 minutes to delivere a Thesis blog now. I don’t design, I hire that out. I keep a good chunk of the cash, and the clients have been way happier (why? because of the value). I pay Brian and Chris $40, I pay a designer $100, and we go from there. The designers aren’t cheated because I do a design interview and they are just fulfilling an order. The client pays radically less than they’d pay, and I think they wind up with good looking stuff.
That’s the power of a hybrid product. A little work, a little planning, and you deliver something good. My clients also get a ton of videos. Costs me very little, and I work off of a checklist each day.
Hybrid Products Work To Differentiate
In a lot of ways, this post is a restatement of Blue Ocean Stategy: what can you take away to make something radically different. The example with Circue de Solei was the clowns and kid-stuff. That goes, make a circus for adults and we’re in a new category. For me, the blog thing was taking away
I couldn’t sell just ‘blog training,’ and I can’t really sell just blog design. That would be a race to the bottom. I sell what nobody does: kickass design (cause the starting point was good) and ALSO training. I’ve got a second product launching soon: Seo Superfuel: some training and some customization and access to my friend Michael Martine, WordPress search expert. The customer pays $399, and gets a consultation that they couldn’t get for half that because it’s repeated. They provide analytics info, WP login, and we tell them what to do and make some keyword sucking post headlines.
Those products work well, and we can deliver them cheaply.
Scarcity Becomes a Real Way To Close.
Making a hybrid product also makes scarcity real. You’re really delivering something that you just can’t get anywhere, so if you’re only offering a price to the first 10 people, it’s a real deal. It’s not subject to negotiation. By delivering this way, you don’t get questioned, and in my experience, prices haven’t been negotiated downward as much as the had been in the past. They see the value, they want it or they don’t. And, since you’re interacting, that time is finite, and believable.
I’ll come up with some rules for hybrid freelancer products soon.
Bottom line: combine some work that people need with some system and go from there.
I’ll define this a bit better down the road–but the bottom line is this is the way to go for 95% of freelancers. Hell, even Kevin Nations’ big ticket stuff is about a hybrid product.
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Great idea. I’m currently trying to reduce service options and create hybrid writing and promotion services on my own website. The way you have laid out each part of the equation will help me determine if I’m on the right track.
Thanks.