How I Grew My 1-Man Consulting Practice By Introducing a 360 Value Subscription
When you expand your service offering — You grow your revenue book
Time is not on your side if you are working as a consultant on the side. You don’t have all day to build your 1-Man consulting practice.
Therefore, we must do what we can to keep our customers.
Remember. We earn with existing customers. We cannot bank leads or prospects.
But existing customers will leave us one day, you might say. And I concur.
However, we can keep them for longer with a healthy dose of creativity and service innovation.
How so? Enter the 360 Value Subscription.
This Is What It Means
Many of us prepare our service offer catalog in a linear, value-add fashion. It goes like this.
We begin with a value-for-free offer. This is followed by value-for-cash. And then there is value-for-more-cash.
This is known as a linear pricing model.
Many consultants on the side, freelancers, and solopreneurs bind their service offer catalog in this manner. This is what we commonly see.
Want more? Pay more.
Want better service? Pay more.
The 360 Value Subscription decouples the service offer catalog with the pricing model. It focuses on the customer’s needs that change over their lifetime.
Confused? Time for some examples.
A 360 Value Subscription for Fitness Consultants
The simplest and easiest to understand use case comes from the fitness industry. I know because I am still taking assignments in this niche.
Let us start with Joe. He came to me for 2 reasons.
The first reason is weight loss. The next is to be fit.
We begin our journey by taking his weight. His current number is 75 kilograms. He wants to get to 65 kilograms in a body frame of 1.70 meters. We discussed the fitness regime to get there. Joe is onboard.
That is the beginning. Now for the fun part.
This is what we have done for 3 years.
- Weight loss regime from 75 kilograms to 65.
- We achieved it.
- Joe fell in love with running in the process. He asked me for run training skeleton and coaching.
- And then, Joe started participating in running events one after the other.
- He asked me for peaking, tapering, racing excellence, and recovery advice.
- After a year of running, Joe experienced muscle tightness, trained through it without me knowing, and got injured.
- I put him on a path of recovery with active stretches (Yoga) and low-intensity cardio such as swimming.
- Joe gained weight during recovery, so we worked to drop 5 kilograms to get him in shape for running events.
- And then, he went on to triathlons.
- And then, ironman.
- So on and so forth.
You will quickly realize that Joe’s needs for my work changed over the years.
Here is the thing. It is easy for us, consultants on the side, to pitch a straight-through value-adding service structure.
However, clients experience life based on current-day inspiration, motivation, peer pressure, and other possible triggers. We must cater to that to keep our clients for as long as possible.
I know what you are thinking. Your mind echoes the following.
“That is crazy, Aldric. We cannot possibly do everything!”
Yes, we cannot. That is why we need to be creative and practical.
Have a Niche. Expand it. Then Find Collaborators.
Let us get back to the fitness consulting example.
I started with knowledge in Sports Science, running, and weight loss. I studied that topic extensively, took my understanding, and applied it to running competitively.
I was fat. And I managed to lose 15 kilograms over 3 years.
My consulting service offers are aligned with what I know or the experience I have under my belt. I seek out collaborators when there is strong demand for a service I cannot fulfill.
Take, for instance, the example of Yoga in Joe’s case.
I am no Yoga guru. But I saw Joe’s running muscles getting tight and required daily active stretching. So, I went out to hunt for contacts who can do the job.
Enter Stephanie. I have known her for years. She runs her business teaching Yoga.
I referred Joe to her and took a 10% revenue share.
Next, I had to seek out another collaborator when Joe decided to get into Ironman triathlons. I made clear that I had never done competitive Ironman racing before. I had participation medals, not podium finishes.
Joe told me he is comfortable with me guiding him. He is open to me cross-validating my training structure with triathlon coaches.
I did exactly that.
Note. Each of these expanded service offers was priced separately and differently. Such flexibility allowed me to keep Joe with me for 3 years.
Of course, Joe is my poster child. Many customers in the fitness consulting pillar of my practice (no longer my core focus) stayed on for 18 to 24 months.
Author’s Note: I blurred the lines between coaching and consulting in this article for ease of explanation. In reality, my consulting practice offers workshops, professional athlete sharing sessions, and a platform for cross-sports collaboration. Coaching service is (just) one of the many offers in my consulting business.In Conclusion
I wrote (at length) about my 1-Man consulting practice, using the fitness service as elaboration.
360 Value Subscription has allowed me to stay in my chosen niche, expand my service offer, keep customers for longer, and grow my revenue book. This is because it caters to changing customers’ needs over time.
It does not just work for fitness consulting per se.
You can expand your consulting service offer regardless of your hustle. And without killing yourself.
Are you into marketing side-hustle? You can think digital, physical, and phygital.
Are you into personal finance side-hustle? Get certified and offer tax advice, investment & trading workshops, and create retirement planning online courses.
The possibilities to grow your 1-man consulting practice are endless with a 360 Value Subscription.
Other Stories To Help You Grow Your Consultant Side-Hustle:
On starting and scaling your Consulting Practice.
On building credentials.
On the toolbox you need.
On pricing strategies.
As a content contributor, I write my observations from daily life and my business exposure. Because our life experience is the bedrock of our unique perspectives.
