How can a freelance consultant be time independent?

[rockcrunch]

Hello guys,


It's my first post here, so please be kind


I am a freelance consultant with my own website which gets low five figure traffic per month. I sell multiple four/figure figure consultations a month and hence can say that I am doing fairly well. My website automates the entire process of getting clients, so that's not an issue for me.


My problem begins however after I start working with my clients. My consulting business is time dependent. There are only so many clients I can work with and deliver results in a given time, and sadly I am still trading time for money. Also some clients are smarter and I can deliver them results in two weeks but some clients take up two months.


The traffic to my website is steadily rising and I am having to reject possible clients and feel terrible about it because I genuinely want to help every single possible client of mine. I have gone through other similar threads on here and have found the general suggestion is to turn the service into an infoproduct or hire people to do your work for you.


The reason why my clients choose me over others is because I deliver the best results in an minimum time period. Hence the problem is that, hiring others won't deliver the best results and launching an infoproduct will make achieving the results significantly longer for my clients. Plus each of my client has an unique problem and requires my expert advice over it. Hence I am unable to think of a way to be time independent without decreasing my value proposition(best results, minimum time period)


Also turning my consultation into any automated solution will result in me having to significantly lower my price...maybe from a 4/5 figure consultation to a 2/3 figure product? Which again seems terrible. But okay, I am ready to make a compromise on the earnings as long as I can serve everyone who needs my advice and help. I thought of forums, subscription models, ebooks adsense etc but cannot find any solution close to providing results like working one on one with me will


So I would like to ask you guys for your help. What are some alternate ways to make my business time independent? Your help and opinion will be much appreciated.

Thank you

 

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[rockcrunch]

Additional info: Everything right from attracting audience, the website, getting clients, qualifying them, every single step is automated. Only the final and the main step of me providing my services is the major time consumer. Is it possible to automate things on my end without making any changes in the website or business model? I mean like should I maybe work weekly instead or project based? Or just provide solutions without explaining much? I mean for every single change/solution, I write a detailed 10-15 page report and explain the entire theory behind it. Should I cut it off? Should I like do hourly consultations and just provide my expert advice?

Idk too many questions, i am too confused at the moment. Havent slept well from a couple of days because I cannot figure things out.

 

[Coriolis]

Is it possible for your business to organize an event or a conference ? This way you can leverage your time, instead of 1 hour for 1 client, you can work 8 hours to help 50 persons at a time.

 

[NicoleMarie]

You could also utilize magnitude instead of scale. Since you are getting so many requests, it may mean it's time to increase the price a little. I like the idea of @Coriolis too!

 

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[jon.a]

It seems that you may be able to do both.

Create a product or two or three to handle all but the most complex and continue to take on the remainder for a premium.

 

[DennisD]

I make a fulltime living as a video consultant and editor, I feel your pain...
But I see that you're suffering from self-inflicted constraints.

You say the reason clients hire you is because you can deliver great value quickly.
This is an untested presumption.
While the clients you CURRENTLY TAKE may value time/quality, there is a segment of your audience that is looking for something else.
People who have more time than money, or people working on secondary projects that don't care as much about quality.

There IS a segment of your audience that is willing to have somebody else (not you) do the work, delivering lesser quality for a cheaper price point.
Under this model, YOU are the "premium" option, and your employees are the cheaper alternative.
You can serve more people, and you'll make more money because of it.

There is a segment of your audience that is willing to take the DIY approach,
that would appreciate an infoproduct. Maybe they don't have a project they're working on NOW and are not in the market to hire anybody, but still want to learn. Or maybe they're even action-faking. Either way, an infoproduct would serve their needs.

The clients currently hiring you don't want those services, true. But if your traffic is as large as you say it is, there IS a segment of your audience that DOES want that and every month you don't have something up there, you're losing out on money.

PS: It's also very presumptuous of you to assume that employees couldn't add anything.
It's likely there are SYSTEMS you can set up to produce work you're not capable of doing yourself.

For my video business, I'm experimenting with setting up a system where I hire 1 motion graphics designer to create stock assets and templates as building blocks for my editors. As our internal private asset library grows, the editors can accomplish more and more complex designs by mixing and matching different prerendered elements, each one looking unique and expensive.

The system is the star here, not me. I'm just the creative mind overseeing the project that makes sure the correct assets are being created and used.

It's probably a good idea to start by figuring out what single part of the process you can stop doing yourself. Client research? Client interaction? Asset browsing/purchasing/creation? Billing?

If you can train somebody to do just ONE of those tasks, that frees up more time of yours to take on more clients and scale. You can start replacing functions one-by-one until you have a well oiled machine.

 

[rockcrunch]

Thank you guys for your quick and highly useful replies! I will try answering each one separately below.

@Coriolis

Is it possible for your business to organize an event or a conference ? This way you can leverage your time, instead of 1 hour for 1 client, you can work 8 hours to help 50 persons at a time.

I think an event or an conference could be highly useful to teach or educate those readers who are not opting to work one on one with me directly. Providing consultation to different business owners, with each having his unique or different, will not be possible.

Thank you for your suggestion though. Makes me wonder if I should start monetizing on those visitors who do not opt for direct consultation service as they also happen to be the majority.

Thanks again

 

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[rockcrunch]

@Nicole S Thanks for the quick reply!

You could also utilize magnitude instead of scale. Since you are getting so many requests, it may mean it's time to increase the price a little. I like the idea of @Coriolis too!

Yes. I am already gradually increasing my prices. And wonderfully that lets me work with better, more high value clients and raises my income for the same hours for work I put in. But as my prices go up, the pressure to deliver goes up too and it's still not completely time independent.

I am also intrigued by what you meant by "utilize magnitude instead of scale"? Is it only applicable to pricing?

Thank you for you insight again

 

[NicoleMarie]

@Nicole S Thanks for the quick reply!



Yes. I am already gradually increasing my prices. And wonderfully that lets me work with better, more high value clients and raises my income for the same hours for work I put in. But as my prices go up, the pressure to deliver goes up too and it's still not completely time independent.

I am also intrigued by what you meant by "utilize magnitude instead of scale"? Is it only applicable to pricing?

Thank you for you insight again

No prob! That's great! That is true, just don't raise them too much. It can be a short term fix until you can provide some automation. Well, unless you have some element of automation like the others have mentioned, you can't possibly serve millions of people a day. However, magnitude lets you get away with serving less because you're charging a lot. Magnitude deals with pricing AND number served. I'm not an expert at automation (yet ) so I'd take the others' advice before mine.

 

[rockcrunch]

@jon.a Thanks for your reply

It seems that you may be able to do both.
Create a product or two or three to handle all but the most complex and continue to take on the remainder for a premium.

Yes it is very much possible for me to do this and as @DennisDuty said, it will nicely serve the people with DIY mindset or those who cannot afford high priced services and can very well make my business time independent to a large extent!

However I have a few questions, wont launcing few infoproducts lower the value of my premium service and result in losing the focus? I mean I designed my business with the high paying clients as my target audience. Won't this result in me 'untargeting' my audience?

 

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[Nadia]

I'm a consultant and what I do is outsource literally everything that someone else can do.

Eventually, I will be having sub-consultants UNDER my brand to do the consulting for those who don't care as much about the quality but still want the results!

 

[rockcrunch]

@DennisDuty Thank you so much for your detailed reply

While the clients you CURRENTLY TAKE may value time/quality, there is a segment of your audience that is looking for something else.
People who have more time than money, or people working on secondary projects that don't care as much about quality.

There IS a segment of your audience that is willing to have somebody else (not you) do the work, delivering lesser quality for a cheaper price point.
Under this model, YOU are the "premium" option, and your employees are the cheaper alternative.
You can serve more people, and you'll make more money because of it.

There is a segment of your audience that is willing to take the DIY approach,
that would appreciate an infoproduct. Maybe they don't have a project they're working on NOW and are not in the market to hire anybody, but still want to learn. Or maybe they're even action-faking. Either way, an infoproduct would serve their needs.

The clients currently hiring you don't want those services, true. But if your traffic is as large as you say it is, there IS a segment of your audience that DOES want that and every month you don't have something up there, you're losing out on money.

Yes you are right. Instead of thinking just about my consultation part, maybe I should also examine the majority of users who do not want high priced consultation. They amount to maybe 95-98% of the traffic and maybe an infoproduct is what will serve them the best.

However I am worried how selling an low priced would be percieved by high value clients. From a highly value website targeted at high paying clients only, wont it it turn into low value website that sells low priced info products and repulses those clients who are looking for 4/5 figure consultations?


Like an high end restaurant that starts selling cheap junk food and ends up not doing well with either of the two demographics?

(Not that I am saying that infoproducts are low value. We are all thankful to TMF book and possibly why we are. Similarly cheap junk food also is as important as high end restaurants but we percieve the later to be higher value isnt it? And prefer going to one for special occasions isnt it? So an a comparative basis, due to hundreds of spam infoproducts, wont another ebook lower the value of my entire business? Especially my premium services?)

PS: It's also very presumptuous of you to assume that employees couldn't add anything.
It's likely there are SYSTEMS you can set up to produce work you're not capable of doing yourself.

For my video business, I'm experimenting with setting up a system where I hire 1 motion graphics designer to create stock assets and templates as building blocks for my editors. As our internal private asset library grows, the editors can accomplish more and more complex designs by mixing and matching different prerendered elements, each one looking unique and expensive.

The system is the star here, not me. I'm just the creative mind overseeing the project that makes sure the correct assets are being created and used.

It's probably a good idea to start by figuring out what single part of the process you can stop doing yourself. Client research? Client interaction? Asset browsing/purchasing/creation? Billing?

If you can train somebody to do just ONE of those tasks, that frees up more time of yours to take on more clients and scale. You can start replacing functions one-by-one until you have a well oiled machine.

No I totally agree that employees can add high value to any business and relieve lots of stress and time required on my part. I just meant to say that I i cannot hire someone to REPLICATE my services and sell them for me instead. And every single step, other than me using my brain and providing the solution is automated completely.

Thank you for your reply again. Means a lot to me

 

[rockcrunch]

I'm a consultant and what I do is outsource literally everything that someone else can do.

Eventually, I will be having sub-consultants UNDER my brand to do the consulting for those who don't care as much about the quality but still want the results!

That is great! However my area of consultancy happens to be such that it cannot be outsourced. Hence no luck for me there

Thank you for your reply though

 

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[rockcrunch]

No prob! That's great! That is true, just don't raise them too much. It can be a short term fix until you can provide some automation. Well, unless you have some element of automation like the others have mentioned, you can't possibly serve millions of people a day. However, magnitude lets you get away with serving less because you're charging a lot. Magnitude deals with pricing AND number served. I'm not an expert at automation (yet ) so I'd take the others' advice before mine.

Yes charging more will let me earn more for less work. But I am starting to realize that there are SYSTEMS in business. Use a certain XYZ SYSTEM and you will get a certain type result.Use a certain ABC SYSTEM and you will get a certain type of result.

As Marco says in TMF that as long as your business is dependent on time, there is a certain upperlimit to your earning. Sure by raising my fees, I will qualify better clients and will have to work less but I will still be within the limit of my hours of work i put in. Instead, a better system would be to make myself time independent and use it for unlimited leverage.

Thank you for your reply again

 

[Mugen]

I faced similar problems when my digital marketing agency started picking up speed. I was getting too many work orders, and I was still trading my time for money which ended up in long-a$$ work days which is what I didn't want. I knew I needed to nix this problem asap, and the first thing that came to mind was outsourcing, but at the same time, I didn't want to sacrifice quality and outsource just to any freelance workers.

The steps below are what really helped me make the changes needed and get the results I desired:

1. Identify my 80/20 activities:

- Before I decided to have others work for me, I knew that I needed to make sure my own systems were as effective and efficient as possible. I spent a few hours with a my notepad and pen and just broke down all of the systems within my entire business. I looked at everything from such as my activities, tasks, and even customers.

- My main objective was to get as clear and honest a picture of my business as possible. On that note, you need to be 100% honest with yourself when you do this in order to truly make it work. I also wanted to identify any weaknesses that I had e.g. things I could be doing better or thing I hadn't tried yet, etc.

-1B. Some key results and changes as a result of this step alone:

- Identified 3 bad clients. These 3 clients would email and even call at least twice a day for rankings changes updates, etc. Not only were the calls annoying, but they would interrupt my workflow, and they would waste a lot of time because they always asking the same questions to which I gave the same answers.

- Although I do have specific customer support times set during the week, I would give in to these clients since they were my clients. However, I decided to terminate these 3 headache clients and focus my efforts on my really good clients. The end was result for me was more time, more mental clarity since I didn't have to worry about the 3 bad clients anymore, and more client referrals for my existing good clients.

- I Realized I needed to change my customer support setup and guidelines enforcement which I did. I implemented a better FAQ section, and setup a better call center. I also identified the time of day that the most support inquiries came in, and changed my support schedule to match these times as best as possible. I also setup my customer service with a better call center.

2. Outsourcing

- As I mentioned earlier, I did not want to just hire cheap outsourcers from freelance sites. I'm not saying they are bad, and I do use them from time to time for unimportant tasks. However, I wanted to hire a good person that understood my business, the concepts, and the work involved.

- I spent a few hours digging around the some of top online marketing forums (I don't mean the crappy ones like warrior forum/digital point, etc. those places are worthless) and made a list of all potential candidates. Key things I looked for were the quality of the information they shared, real case studies, examples of their real work, if they had their own website(s), etc.

- I also spent a little bit of time networking on Linkedin and looked for candidates that displayed the same attributes as the people I chose in the forum.

- After gathering my list, I reached out to let them know a little about my business and that was I was looking to hire a full-time outsourcer. I told them the job responsibilities, and that there would be a 3 month trial period. The one chosen would not only get a salary, but they would also get access to all my custom automation tools and I would train them personally on my methods.

2B. Key Results

- I ended up picking 3 people that each have their own area of expertise within the whole of my agency. This allowed me to make the critical shift from working for my business to truly owning my business. I now own my digital marketing agency and pay others to manage it.

This is not all that I have done since I am constantly trying to make my systems more effective and efficient, but for me personally, it was a key turning point for my business and life.

 

[NicoleMarie]

Yes charging more will let me earn more for less work. But I am starting to realize that there are SYSTEMS in business. Use a certain XYZ SYSTEM and you will get a certain type result.Use a certain ABC SYSTEM and you will get a certain type of result.

As Marco says in TMF that as long as your business is dependent on time, there is a certain upperlimit to your earning. Sure by raising my fees, I will qualify better clients and will have to work less but I will still be within the limit of my hours of work i put in. Instead, a better system would be to make myself time independent and use it for unlimited leverage.

Thank you for your reply again

I agree, that's why I'm all for automation and I myself left my consulting idea. Good luck and you're welcome!

 

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[DennisD]

Like an high end restaurant that starts selling cheap junk food and ends up not doing well with either of the two demographics?

It's purely a branding issue. Not everybody wants an ipad, some people want an ipad mini. which doesn't diminish Apple's positioning

You have poor association with the term infoproduct.
Some people create spammy low quality infoproducts, and sell them for 5 bucks. It doesn't mean you need to.
If you want, mentally call it a "correspondence course" instead.

If your brand name is all about quality, make the infoproducts the best damn infoproducts out there. Really invest some cash in making them look/feel/sound expensive and charge $149 for them. See how that does.

If you give your low-quality services another name or suffix ("Jr." "Associates" "Lite" etc.) you will get some brand separation to protect your main brand..

In reality you're not cheapening the brand, you're just price anchoring. If you can add another MORE expensive version of your services (the hand holding method where client gets 24/7 access to you but it costs 3x what you currently charge) you'll probably make a LOT more money in the end.

If you're comfortable with PMing me, I'd really like to hear your niche. I've yet to hear of an industry where outsourcing was impossible.

 

[Andy Black]

I'm in a similar boat at the minute... I'm a consultant with clients. I don't even consider myself a very good consultant and could make a lot more money doing just that, but I've already decided to try and "switch lanes".

Below is something I posted into my INSIDERS progress thread.

I think consultants leave money on the table by not having the low touch revenue streams (I've bolded that part).

For me, the low touch product/service that I'm creating is a support forum, similar to TheFastLaneForum, but much smaller obviously. Clients can post questions that I'll answer, but it's in a forum environment so everyone else can get to see the answer. I'll also put in tutorials etc.

What I hope to gain from it, is a better insight into paying customers, even one's who'll only pay $49/month, and it's also the starting level where my other 1-2-1 clients might come from.

----------

I read "80/20 Sales and Marketing" by Perry Marshall last year and picked up this rule of thumb from Perry that:

"A fifth of your customers will pay 4 times as much"

So if I had 1,000 people on my list paying me $10 per month

Then 20% (200) will likely spend $40 per month.

And 20% of that 200 (40) will likely spend $160 per month.

And 8 will likely spend $640 per month.

And 2 will likely spend $2560 per month.

Mileage will vary obviously!


Here's what that would mean:

So if I didn't have higher price points, then I'd be leaving $18k on the table.

It works the other way too: if I only had the top price point of 2 clients paying me $2,560/month to work full-time for them, then I'd be making $5,120/month. If I didn't have the lower, less hands-on tiers, I'd be leaving even more on the table.

 

[FionaS]

What if you give your clients info products for the steps that seem pretty much the same around the board, and then go one-on-one with the more unique, hands on stuff?

Or you could take on a 'mentee' and teach them the basics, and have them help each customer up to a certain point, where you can step in as needed.

 

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[Andy Black]

Nathan Barry has done a decent job of taking his design skills, and converting them into other income streams: http://nathanbarry.com/

Perry Marshall has done pretty good.

And there's a certain ex limo driver who built a limo directory and did quite well out of it.

 

[Unknown]

Could you hire employees and teach them to do it?

 

[MUISaiyan]

I have been a freelance consultant for a little while now doing web design, and have done fairly well six figures a year consulting just by myself and a few outsourced team members, but have been implementing a fast lane business to eventually get out of trading my time for good. Unfortunately anything that relies on time is going to violate the commandment of time mentioned in TMF .

I have a few good friends/ mentors who earn as high as $500k a month consulting with no employees consistently BUT they 1. Have high pricing $25k-$50K plus per client 2. They do group programs to leverage their time and 3. invest that money into things like real estate that make them more money independent of their time.

I have also seen another good friend start his SaaS business a year ago and go from 0 customers to 15,000 paying $37 a month. That's $555k a month with a potential for much more. He also got venture funding for $5 million recently. Now he has a few dozen employees but his business doesn't 100% need him to be there.

Just my 2 cents may not be worth much but hope it helps

 

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[RHL]

What you should do is try to focus on anything and everything that can scale back your time spent to make the same money. Price bump is the obvious one, but are there ways you can streamline or partially automate your service, so you make in 30 hours what you used to make in 40? Doctors are the principle badasses at this semi-fastlaning in our society. What happens today when you go to see "the doctor?" You go, and a billing tech who makes $10/hr checks you in and checks you out. You get diagnosed by an LPN who makes $18/hr using a rubric. A nurse who makes $26/hr comes in to do the messy stuff, and then the doctor shows up for 90 seconds of your hour visit to check some boxes, shake your hand, collects the lions share of the $150 bill for your 1 hour visit, and goes home in his 911 Turbo S. Can you make your consultancy "yours" while simultaneously farming out most of the grunt work to lower-level employees (whose work need not be known by the buyer)? That'd be a great way to fastlane something like this.

 

[GuestUser113]

Could you not do a book? Then put a higher price on your consultation.

 

[Andy Black]

I have been a freelance consultant for a little while now doing web design, and have done fairly well six figures a year consulting just by myself and a few outsourced team members, but have been implementing a fast lane business to eventually get out of trading my time for good. Unfortunately anything that relies on time is going to violate the commandment of time mentioned in TMF .

I have a few good friends/ mentors who earn as high as $500k a month consulting with no employees consistently BUT they 1. Have high pricing $25k-$50K plus per client 2. They do group programs to leverage their time and 3. invest that money into things like real estate that make them more money independent of their time.

I have also seen another good friend start his SaaS business a year ago and go from 0 customers to 15,000 paying $37 a month. That's $555k a month with a potential for much more. He also got venture funding for $5 million recently. Now he has a few dozen employees but his business doesn't 100% need him to be there.

Just my 2 cents may not be worth much but hope it helps

Awesome. That's just showed me my sights are set far too low!

Thanks for that!

 

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[Lauryn]

Product creation.
Create a basic set of products for your services.
And then let the high level programs filter clients who want more interaction at a higher price.

 

[MUISaiyan]

No problem Andy!

Also anyone interested in going fastlane from freelancing check out this article I found
http://signalvnoise.com/posts/2833-bootstrapped-profitable-proud-coudal-

Good example of agency that went fastlane using their skills to promote their own products.

I'm not running in the fastlane yet still learning like everyone else but these things helped my perspective from a freelance consultant perspective.

 

[rockcrunch]

Hmm after giving it a critical thought for a day or two. I think I have made my choice. I have decided to create my own product, that is an ebook. My current web traffic is only around 10,000 clicks or so which is very less but the additional free time will help me build a stronger reader base. I will also reserve the premium consultation service only for the best and the highest paying clients, or for those who truely value and are really in need of my expertise.

Hopefully over time, I hope I can scale both my reach(traffic to website) and magnitude(Premium consultation and raising product price)

Thank you to you guys for your help and suggestions, I really appreciate you guys taking time out to help a total stranger

 

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[rockcrunch]

@Mugen Thank you for your reply

I faced similar problems when my digital marketing agency started picking up speed. I was getting too many work orders, and I was still trading my time for money which ended up in long-a$$ work days which is what I didn't want. I knew I needed to nix this problem asap, and the first thing that came to mind was outsourcing, but at the same time, I didn't want to sacrifice quality and outsource just to any freelance workers.

The steps below are what really helped me make the changes needed and get the results I desired:

1. Identify my 80/20 activities:

- Before I decided to have others work for me, I knew that I needed to make sure my own systems were as effective and efficient as possible. I spent a few hours with a my notepad and pen and just broke down all of the systems within my entire business. I looked at everything from such as my activities, tasks, and even customers.

- My main objective was to get as clear and honest a picture of my business as possible. On that note, you need to be 100% honest with yourself when you do this in order to truly make it work. I also wanted to identify any weaknesses that I had e.g. things I could be doing better or thing I hadn't tried yet, etc.

-1B. Some key results and changes as a result of this step alone:

- Identified 3 bad clients. These 3 clients would email and even call at least twice a day for rankings changes updates, etc. Not only were the calls annoying, but they would interrupt my workflow, and they would waste a lot of time because they always asking the same questions to which I gave the same answers.

- Although I do have specific customer support times set during the week, I would give in to these clients since they were my clients. However, I decided to terminate these 3 headache clients and focus my efforts on my really good clients. The end was result for me was more time, more mental clarity since I didn't have to worry about the 3 bad clients anymore, and more client referrals for my existing good clients.

- I Realized I needed to change my customer support setup and guidelines enforcement which I did. I implemented a better FAQ section, and setup a better call center. I also identified the time of day that the most support inquiries came in, and changed my support schedule to match these times as best as possible. I also setup my customer service with a better call center.
2. Outsourcing

- As I mentioned earlier, I did not want to just hire cheap outsourcers from freelance sites. I'm not saying they are bad, and I do use them from time to time for unimportant tasks. However, I wanted to hire a good person that understood my business, the concepts, and the work involved.

- I spent a few hours digging around the some of top online marketing forums (I don't mean the crappy ones like warrior forum/digital point, etc. those places are worthless) and made a list of all potential candidates. Key things I looked for were the quality of the information they shared, real case studies, examples of their real work, if they had their own website(s), etc.

- I also spent a little bit of time networking on Linkedin and looked for candidates that displayed the same attributes as the people I chose in the forum.

- After gathering my list, I reached out to let them know a little about my business and that was I was looking to hire a full-time outsourcer. I told them the job responsibilities, and that there would be a 3 month trial period. The one chosen would not only get a salary, but they would also get access to all my custom automation tools and I would train them personally on my methods.

2B. Key Results

- I ended up picking 3 people that each have their own area of expertise within the whole of my agency. This allowed me to make the critical shift from working for my business to truly owning my business. I now own my digital marketing agency and pay others to manage it.

This is not all that I have done since I am constantly trying to make my systems more effective and efficient, but for me personally, it was a key turning point for my business and life.

Yes I will try doing the same too. When I started out, I was one hundred percent determined that I wouldnt work with annoying clients. But it was hard to stick to after a while. I would be raising my prices too which would hopefully attract better clients and I will point annoying clients to buy my ebooks instead.

I think you also changed my view on outsourcing. I am against letting the quality of my work drop too. Maybe instead of looking at outsources as cheap working bees who are terrible at things, maybe its time I realized that there are plenty of people who are good at what they do and can be outsourced to.

Thank you again

 

[rockcrunch]

@DennisDuty

It's purely a branding issue. Not everybody wants an ipad, some people want an ipad mini. which doesn't diminish Apple's positioning

You have poor association with the term infoproduct.
Some people create spammy low quality infoproducts, and sell them for 5 bucks. It doesn't mean you need to.
If you want, mentally call it a "correspondence course" instead.

If your brand name is all about quality, make the infoproducts the best damn infoproducts out there. Really invest some cash in making them look/feel/sound expensive and charge $149 for them. See how that does.

If you give your low-quality services another name or suffix ("Jr." "Associates" "Lite" etc.) you will get some brand separation to protect your main brand..

In reality you're not cheapening the brand, you're just price anchoring. If you can add another MORE expensive version of your services (the hand holding method where client gets 24/7 access to you but it costs 3x what you currently charge) you'll probably make a LOT more money in the end.

If you're comfortable with PMing me, I'd really like to hear your niche. I've yet to hear of an industry where outsourcing was impossible.

Sorry. Completely stupid on my part to ask ridiculously stupid questions. I dont know what I was thinking then.

However,(I hope I dont sound stupid with this time) but does my infoproduct have to be in a certain pricing taxonomy? For example generally ebooks are sold for 0.99 to 99$, video courses for 100-1000$ and so on etc. I will be selling ebooks now, so am I bound in that price range of 0.99$ to 50/100$? or can I improve my value proposition, positioning etc and charge my ebooks significantly higher than what the market charges?