7 ways to increase your profit as a service provider

Are you a service provider whose services don’t currently fetch the rates you need them to? Then read on for 7 ideas that could help you!

We’ll think about ways to:

• Spend less time delivering your services
• Raise your prices
• Add value to your services

What is your hourly rate?

If you bill hourly, your hourly rate is simply what you charge to clients.

If you bill on a package or flat rate basis, your hourly rate is your total sales income divided by the total number of hours you did client work. You don’t need to publish this number, but it’s really good to calculate it so you know that you’re on track to make the profit you need to both survive and thrive.

What if your actual billing is not what you need to survive and thrive?

If this hourly rate dips below what you need it to be, then you know you need to:

• Find ways to spend less time delivering your services
• Raise your prices and communicate the higher value you bring
• Raise your prices and add value

Below are a few ideas and examples for what that could look like for you.

2. Outsourcing parts of your service

Remember, outsourcing can apply to parts of your service, rather than just the administrative and marketing tasks.

For example, if you’re a musician, you could find audio editing a real struggle that saps your energy and takes far longer than you would like. This would be a prime example of something to see about outsourcing to someone specialising in that area.

It’s still part of your service: when a client hires you to produce a tune that they can use at the start of every video or podcast they make, they’ll need the finished product, not the unedited music, so you’ll ultimately provide that to them. But if you can focus on the parts of your service that bring you joy and energise you, you will generally work faster (and like your business more).

Or, you could be a social media manager. Perhaps you really enjoy the strategising. You could carry on doing your brand-building work with clients, deciding on overall strategies, and then creating content plans. You could outsource the actual content creation and/or scheduling.

Or, if you’re a coach or teacher, you could train others in your methodology. Then you could run a very large group programme, with small groups centred around your associate coaches.

3. Communicate your value

Highlight why what you provide is worth the higher price.

For example, perhaps you’re a copywriter. While it’s true that there are copywriters working for as little as £12.59 for 500 words on Fiverr, your competitive edge might be that you

• Use no AI,
• Specialise in and understand the client’s industry,
• Get to know the client and their unique selling proposition, and
• Offer unlimited revisions.

Basically, you produce copy that’s correct, not plagiarised, and suited well to the client. Great! Now highlight that to make the value of your copy more obvious to prospects, so they are happy to pay £100 instead of £12.59.

4. Collaborating to produce a complete package

For example, if you’re a branding photographer, you could create a photo shoot package where there’s an interesting location, a makeup artist, a hair stylist, and an array of clothes and props.

Clients could book knowing everything will be supplied so they look their best. They can save time and money on their own hair, makeup, and clothes, so it’s an incredible value add for them. You can then charge more, and everyone is happy.

Or, a graphic designer, website designer, and website developer could collaborate to create a complete, premium package where each major component of a website is at a high quality.

Or, a copywriter and an SEO expert could collaborate to create blog posts that both establish authority and credibility and show up in search results so they’re more likely to be read.

6. Using more luxurious packaging

For example, if you’re a high-end jewellery maker, many of your sales may be for gifts. Using luxurious packaging that’s both ready to be gifted and easy for your customer to open to look at the piece before giving it adds value. They don’t have to spend time or money wrapping it. They don’t have to re-wrap it because they wanted to look at it after they received it before they give it away. A suitable box may cost you £1 or less and yet let you successfully raise your price by £10 or more on that item.

7. Provide a joyful onboarding experience

Onboarding can be quite dull, and in some industries quite lengthy. That’s the opposite of what you need: the client is most excited the moment they make the purchasing decision. Embrace and enhance that enthusiasm. This increases the perceived value of your service, and helps the client feel like they’ve made a good decision. That attitude helps you both have a better working relationship, experience, and outcome.

This could look like sending a physical welcome pack. If the client will have to do deep thinking as part of your service (for example, branding), a branded notebook would fit well in this. It could include a pamphlet about your services, what to expect, etc.

This could look like simply sending flowers, chocolates, or wine to the new client.

This could look like having an onboarding series of emails ready to go that emphasise how excited you are to be working together. These should cover what the next steps are, what to expect, what your boundaries are, what outcomes they should expect, what they’ll need to do, and so on.

If you meet with your client as part of your process, remember to be happy and excited to see them. Make them feel wanted. Remember what the queen of poetry said:

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

— Maya Angelou

Remember to translate this higher perceived value into testimonials by asking your clients for them. This will help you convey the higher value to prospects, enabling you to charge more.

Prepare a form, or a template email, or a set of questions to ask, and – this is critical – ask for this feedback before your service is complete. 

When the project is complete, the client is focused on the next thing they need to sort. So you may have given them a brilliant branding service, and now they want to have a website built. They’re not really thinking about your service anymore, and it’s harder for them to speak to what it was like for them before they started using your service.

So, at the first point where you think they’re starting to see the transformation your service provide, ask if you can stay on the line for an extra 10 minutes at the end of that session to ask for some feedback. Get permission to use it as a testimonial. This is one of the best ways to translate your joyful onboarding experience (especially if you ask them about it) into a higher perceived value for prospective clients.

Hopefully this has given you some thoughts on how to improve your profitability as a service provider!