What does packaging my consulting work actually mean?
Packaging your consulting work means selling a defined outcome for one fee, and I want to be straight about the word itself. My clients say packages, so that's the word everyone types. I don't use it, and the reason changes what you build.
"Package" suggests something fixed, standard, and sitting on a shelf, which is a turn-off for women doing custom work and a poor description of what you sell. I say program: a framework that lets you build a custom engagement for each client, organized the same way every time.
What changes when you make that shift:
- Your client approves a result, never a budget for hours.
- The scope is yours to design, because you're the one who knows how the problem gets solved.
- The fee attaches to the outcome, so your expertise stops working against you.
- The conversation moves off your calendar and onto their business.
What are the shapes a consulting program can take?
Three shapes cover nearly all consulting work, and choosing between them is a question of how long the client needs you and whether the outcome has an end point.
| Shape | What it's | When it fits |
|---|
| An easy-to-say-yes engagement | You come in, do one defined thing, and leave: a workshop, an assessment, a roadmap | A first engagement, or a clear, contained need |
| A value-based project | A defined scope over a set timeline, aimed at a specific set of outcomes, ending when the outcomes are achieved | Most consulting work |
| A retainer | An ongoing relationship providing continuous support and advice as needs change | Work with no natural end point |
I call the first one an ETSY offer, which stands for Easy To Say Yes. One caution, because consultants get this backwards: easy to say yes doesn't mean inexpensive. Women in my program sell ETSY engagements into the tens of thousands of dollars. The point is the ease of the decision, never the size of the number.
A retainer is a type of program too: it solves a problem over time along a defined path. What it must not be is a monthly allocation of your hours with a nicer name.
How do I build a program out of the work I already do?
Start by writing down everything you do for a client, including all the things you've never charged for, because that list is where most of the value is hiding.
Work through it in this order:
- Inventory the core activities. What must happen for this problem to get solved.
- Add the high-value, low-lift things. I call these Race Track Items: the document review before their board meeting, the ten-step process you could write out in ten minutes, a session for the executives, the ability to call you the week they present.
- Mix them into the program, never as bonuses. You are putting together a program to solve their problem, not stacking extras on a base model.
- Name it for the outcome, so the title teaches your client how to think about the value.
- Attach one fee, set against what the outcome is worth to that client.
Step two is where the money is. Consultants routinely do a dozen valuable things they never mention, and a client can't value something they don't know they're receiving.
Should I offer add-ons, or put everything in one price?
Put everything in one price. Add-ons ask your client to make a second decision to spend more money, and every additional decision is another opportunity to decide no.
Why the extra decision costs you
Your clients are busy and already deciding on a significant number. Handing them a menu makes them choose on tactics and not on the outcome, and it moves you out of the expert seat. You are meant to be making a recommendation, the way a doctor recommends a course of treatment and never asks which test the patient would prefer.
What to do with the work you sell separately today
If something is optional, qualify it during the sales conversation and then build it in when the answer is yes. You will hear what a client needs if you're listening for it, and the first call is where that surfaces. Where the difference is large enough to change the value, use it to build a lighter and a fuller version of the program rather than a base price with attachments.
Leah's take
Every woman who comes to me with the packages question is really asking a different one: how do I stop selling my time without losing the flexibility I need to do custom work? She has heard she should productize, tried to imagine her work as three tidy tiers on a website, and correctly concluded that it doesn't fit.
It doesn't fit, and it was never supposed to. What you need isn't a product catalogue. It is a framework you use the same way every time to build something specific for each client.
The part almost everyone underestimates is the inventory. When I ask a room of experienced consultants to list what they do for clients, the list runs long, and half of it has never appeared in a proposal or a price. The templates. The review before the big meeting. The call the week they present. That work is already happening and it's already valuable, and because nobody was told about it, nobody paid for it.
So no one gets anything they're not aware they're getting, starting now. Write it all down, put it in the program, name the program for the outcome, and attach one number to it.
