As your resume writing business grows, you’ll come to one solid realization: getting to the next financial rung can’t happen without you offering more services to existing clients.
Sure, you could close more clients. This means you would WRITE MORE resumes each week. No one is saying that you can’t do that.
However, the fastest way to elevate revenue is not by going after more NEW CLIENTS, but by going after more profits from the CLIENTS YOU ALREADY HAVE.
Sales experts will tell you this …
- Your chance of selling to active clients are 1 in 2
- Your chances of selling to new prospects are 1 in 8
- Your chance of selling to inactive clients are 1 in 3
Do you see what I’m telling you?
Selling additional services and products to your active and inactive clients will be your bread and butter.
The challenge for many resume writers is identifying the “what” to offer clients after the resume and cover letter have been written.
Of course, there are LinkedIn profile services. If you’re not writing LinkedIn profiles for your clients, begin there.
But …
… beyond the resume, cover letter, and LinkedIn profile are you drawing a blank? If yes, keep reading.
You may remember a service called Fridayd, which offered job search and application services. Before you pop over to do a Google search, Fridayd shut down in the latter part of 2018.
Job search and application services make a lot of sense as an added revenue channel for most resume writers.
More dollars per clients … that’s the upside.
Let’s now talk about the downside: services like these can be tedious and labor intensive.
Yet, if you can get beyond these negatives, you’ll find yourself offering a service that many jobseekers would love to purchase from you.
How to Price Job Search & Application Services
The first step to pricing these services is by first identifying your ideal hourly rate and then rationalizing that amount. Clients may not want to pay $100 per hour for job-search services that require less skill than writing, career branding, etc.
The second step is to identify (on average) how long you take to research and apply to 3-10 jobs each week.
You may want to keep this simple by allocating one hour for researching and applying for a single job opening.
If your client wishes you to locate and apply for 5 jobs per week, then you know your time commitment each week will be approx. 5 hours.
You may fulfill your client’s expectations in less time or more time. But, the above gives you some framework to work from.
Selling additional services will be much easier when it’s priced accordingly.
You may have heard the upsell tactic, “Would you like fries with that”?
It certainly applies here.
When someone purchases your core services, it’s appropriate for additional products and services to be lower than the initial buy.
For example, a client who purchases a resume, cover letter, and LinkedIn package for $800 may be more receptive to investing in a $300+ job-search services package than a $1,500 package.
Generally, small purchases (less than $100) lead to big purchases. And big purchases, lead to smaller ones.
Makes sense, right?
Now, there’s something to be said about VALUE.
The results you deliver to clients will also be key to how much you charge clients.
Expenses, too, play another role.
For example, you could subcontract these services to a virtual assistant or a colleague and therefore take on the expense of paying a provider. This expense is either taken out of your profits or passed on to the client.
Billing For These Services
The optimal way for billing for these services is on a weekly or monthly basis.
A recurring bill can be set up in PayPal, or your shopping cart, which allows the service to be automatically charged until the client cancels.
Setting up a recurring payment is the most effective way for collecting payments so you’re not burdened with manually collecting payments.
Terms of Service
As with every service you offer clients, you should present them with terms of service. Giving your clients terms ensures they know what to expect. For example, you’ll want to get client permission for divulging personal information; e.g. contact and employment data.
To help, I’ve provided terms of service snippets (see below) for your use.
But first …
DISCLAIMER: I’m not a lawyer. By using the below dislaimer “as is,” you are doing so at your own risk. If you’re concerned about lawsuits or other uncomfortable legal matters, contact a lawyer to write ironclad terms of service for you instead of using any of the below example clauses.
Example term clauses for your job-search/application submission services:
Upon submitting this request for services, I hereby give my permission for __________ to divulge personal and career information on my behalf. I hereby give you permission to job search on behalf, which includes, but is not limited to, setting up job alerts, creating job board accounts, making contacts and following leads using my personal LinkedIn profile, and so on. I understand that you have no control over who receives my resume and career information, and therefore, will not hold you accountable for any career issues, personal/professional damages, and loss of opportunities and salary that occur due to the actions of you/your company.
Sales Copy to Promote These Services
Okay, let’s now talk about how to promote these services to your clients.
You have two options when promoting these services.
First, put a bit of sales copy on your website and point clients to that page. Your website sales copy could look something like this:
WEBSITE COPY:
Do you hate how tedious a job search can be?
You’re not alone.
The job-search process is time-consuming, monotonous, and at times, life-sucking.
So, why not let us do it for you?
We offer an array of job-search and applicant processing services, which will not only save you time and money but just might preserve your sanity.
Here’s how our process works:
- Set up job alerts and search/research jobs on your behalf
- Provide you with a weekly curated report of job openings
- Recommend hiring managers and recruiters to connect with
- Submit your resume to positions that you’ve approved
Ready to get started? Call us at (xxx) xxx-xxxx or make contact through our website @ _____.
Second, another option is selling by email … although, the below copy could be tweaked and used during a phone/Skype conversation as well.
EMAIL COPY:
Janet – I wondered if you need additional job-search help now that I’ve finished your resume, etc.
For example, I offer a job-search service where I search, vet, and apply to job openings (that you approve!) on your behalf.
I set up job alerts and dig deep to find ideal jobs for you. I provide a weekly curated report that you can review and approve jobs you’d like your resume submitted to. Since LinkedIn is a critical part of today’s job search, I leverage that as well to give you a much better advantage.
Does this sound like something you’d be interested in?
Regards,
Louise
Providing Client Deliverables
One benefit that Fridayd offered clients was a feature-rich dashboard.
This can be challenging to replicate without paying for a coder or a third-party service. However, I have two dashboard alternatives to help you communicate with clients without using a paid service.
My first recommendation is JibberJobber, a career management tool that allows professionals to track jobs, add reminders, upload resumes, and search jobs.
Basic membership is free.
An upgrade is also available for those who want advanced features, such as unlimited contact uploads and push reminders via SMS and email.
You may find that most of your clients won’t need the advanced features and will get by nicely with the free version.
So how would this work?
Essentially, you would get permission from your client to create a free JibberJobber account on their behalf. Then, you and the client collaborate on updating contacts, employers, and so on.
Not too difficult.
My second recommendation is a low-tech Google Sheets spreadsheet.
Not sexy, I agree, but effective.
Google Sheets, Docs, and Slides are untapped resources for today’s small business owners IMHO.
Essentially this is how Google Sheets works.
Once logged into your Google account, visit https://www.google.com/docs/.
Click SHEETS from the top navigation and then “Go to Google Sheets” from the center button.
Click the large plus sign to create a new sheet (you’ll recognize the layout and many features are similar to Microsoft’s Excel).
Or, use our Job Jotes template, a Job Leader Tracker we developed and use with clients.
You can download and immediately upload the template into Google Sheets.
Once you have your job-search template set up, duplicate the form and share the page’s link (under share, select “anyone with the link can edit”) with your client.
By doing this, you enable your client to track your progress, while making additions of their own.
