Number forty: Make Product
Good day, I'm Troy Dean from Video User Manuals and Agency Mavericks and this is the 101 Ways to Elevate Yourself and Demand Higher Fees, a practical guide for WordPress consultants to start attracting better quality clients, work on better more interesting projects and get paid better fees. Now, let's go elevate.
Number 40. Make product. Here's the thing. If you're a designer you should make some kind of design product that other designers in the web space can download and use, even if you give it away for free. Blige [SP] Robar, [SP] from A Living Media here in Melbourne, made a product called The Layout Lab which is essentially a collection of design elements that Blige has used on websites over the years packaged up into a series of Photoshop templates that for a very reasonable price you can download and use in your own designs.
If you're a developer, make a plugin. It doesn't have to be a plugin that changes the world. It can be a very simple plugin that just does one very simple thing. Give it away for free in the wordpress.org plugin repository. Why? Because when you're talking to a client and you start mentioning things like, “We make a plugin that thousands of other WordPress designers or web designers all over the world use,” or you're a designer and you say, “We make a Photoshop template that thousands of other web designers all over the world use every day in their projects,” it's really hard for your client to then start negotiating on price and asking for a discount from someone who makes a product that influences thousands of other or even hundreds of other web designers all over the world. It's a fantastic positioning tool.
Now, you may also make some recurring income on the product. If you do, that's a bonus, but the best reason to make product is because it positions you as an influencer in the web design space. The more influential you are and the better positioned you are the harder it is for your clients to ask for discounts and the less they will negotiate on price because you'll be positioned so well they will know that they are dealing with someone who is at the top of their game, and they will expect to pay premium rates for your services.
In the next video, I'm going to start talking about how to manage the client through the process once they've signed off, and the first thing we're going to talk about is content. Until then, go elevate. Make sure you subscribe to the 101 Ways Podcast in the iTunes store. Just search for 101 Ways to Elevate or visit us at wp101ways.com and download the free 101 Ways ebook.
