Don’t Trade Time for Money (Build Products Instead)

5 ways to productize your skills

If you’re a freelancer or consultant then you’ve probably experience one or all of the following:

• You’ve reached the limit of how much clients are willing to pay for your services.
• You’ve maxed out the number of hours you can reasonably work in a day.
• You don’t take any time off because when you’re not working you don’t get paid.
• You’ve hit a ceiling with your revenue.

And this is the problem with running a service-based business. When you can’t charge any more for your services and run out of hours to work, your income stagnates.

That’s why many entrepreneurs choose to productize their skills. If you can turn your knowledge and experience into a digital product then you can sell that product 24/7 and start automating your business.

It frees you up to scale back your client work and focus on the projects you’re really passionate about. Or you might decide to move your business to an entirely product-based model.

Either way, with your income not solely reliant on how much you can charge and how many hours you can work you should see a big increase in your revenue.

So, what are the best ways to productize our skills? Here are our five favorite methods.

Cheat sheets

This is by far the easiest digital product you can create. It also happens to be one of the most popular among consumers.

Cheat sheets are simple PDF documents (usually a single page) that contain your best tips and advice on a certain topic. The goal with this sheet is to provide a quick solution to a problem your audience is struggling with.

Admittedly, you probably won’t be able to charge money for such a simple product. However, they make for excellent lead magnets and are the perfect gateway into your higher-ticket items.

Templates

Do you have a spreadsheet that you use to manage an area of your business? A slide deck template you utilize for presentations? Or maybe a design outline that serves as the basis of your visual marketing assets?

Believe it or not, you might be able to repackage these things into digital products.

People are always looking for shortcuts, and if you have a template that they can use to save time and achieve a goal they’ll likely want it.

It’s also easy to market, as you can simply say “this is what I use to [insert goal your audience wants to achieve].

Ebooks

It’s never been easier to become a writer. Gone are the days where you need to find a publisher to get your work noticed. Now you can simply upload your book to your website or an online bookstore and start making money.

If you’re an expert in your field then you likely have knowledge people will want to learn. An Ebook allows you to delve much deeper into a subject than a cheat sheet or even a blog would.

Because you can cover topics in far more detail your audience will probably be willing to pay good money to access this information.

Online Courses

If you’re looking for the best way to pass on your skills then an online course is definitely the way to go.

A course allows you to utilize videos and graphics to more effectively communicate ideas. You can also include PDFs and worksheets to further expand on concepts.

Online courses take a lot of time and effort to put together, but they’re also the most profitable. People are willing to pay hundreds and even thousands of dollars for a high-quality course, so it’s definitely worth it.

Community Access

This is one overlooked digital product that can be very profitable and doesn’t require a ton of work.

Once you’ve built up a large enough audience, consider creating a forum or Facebook group and charging people for access.

Communities like this give people an opportunity to ask questions and further discussions started in your books and courses.

While you’ll need to be involved a little bit, you’ll find the majority of content will be user-created. You’ll even discover that over time more experienced members will be able to answer the majority of questions.

This is a relatively low-effort product that provides a ton of value to your audience.

Ready to build your first product?

Start small and then begin expanding your offerings. You’ll be surprised what a big impact a few digital products can have on your revenue.

Once your product is ready, choose a professionally designed template to promote it and share it with your audience.