I get asked this question ALL of the time: “Are packages better than billing by the hour?”

Some people say that packages are better since you can buffer in extra dollars and time.  You can also combine it with other items, such as an info-product, to really increase the perceived value of the package.

Some people say that hourly is better because then you are truly being compensated for what you are worth and the client will be more aware of the amount of changes they are making and they’ll be quicker to act.

I sit on both sides of the fence.

I love packaged services because it’s easier for me to explain what they get and it’s easy to tack on a price for the entire enchilada.  However, with packaged services, you run the risk of getting an “and this” client.  What’s an “and this” client?  It’s someone who continues to add more and more stuff to their package or someone who requests change after change because they aren’t paying for each individual time entry.  These people can wreak havoc on your packaged pricing.

I love hourly services because of the reasons mentioned previously – it gets clients to act quicker and be more resourceful on their own.  It forces them to be engaged delegators as opposed to just passively throwing everything at their team and it also helps them to get clearer on deadlines.  However, hourly rates also have a bit of a detriment.  If you are fast at providing the service, you will end up de-valuing your work.  You shouldn’t be penalized and made to charge a lower rate because you’re good at what you do and you’re fast but it happens with hourly services.

So, what does work for businesses?

I’d like to think that a combination of the two does but there is still no clear cut answer.  We have some clients who make us appreciate the packaged pricing and we have other clients who make us appreciate the hourly services.  It’s really split right down the middle for us.

Instead, I ask you.  How do you prefer to bill in your business and why?  What have you found to work successfully and what has not?

A lot of people want to add music clips to their YouTube videos but often come up against copyright issues and a warning e-mail from YouTube.  To get around this, YouTube introduced something called “Audio Swap” a long time ago.  This allows users to take their videos and add eligible music to them from a sampling of YouTube music.  I figured it would be helpful to introduce to you all how this is done in case you want to add music to your own videos.

1. Login to your YouTube account.
2. Click on “My Videos” from under your account name (top right).
3. Find the video you want to add music to in your video list and click on “Audio Swap.”
4. Choose the audio file you want, preview it and when ready, hit publish.  It will take about 12-24 hours to appear (even though they say it can take a few hours… it’s generally longer).

Here are some screenshots to illustrate:

As someone who owns and operates a service-based business, I know all to well what it’s like to have to trade time for money.

Since we are all capped at the same 24 hours in a day, providing services, one-on-one coaching or any other time intensive service can be difficult.

Passive revenue is defined as the revenue your business generates that you aren’t trading your time for money for. This can come in many different forms, as you’ll see throughout this blog series.

Passive revenue also allows you to earn revenue when you aren’t active in your business. For example, selling e-books when you are sleeping, selling a self-study program while you are on vacation or even selling an on-going membership while you focus on other things.

Passive revenue does require some setup and each of the various areas I am going to cover require different time investments. However, once you’ve put some time into setting up the passive revenue stream, you can benefit for a long time afterward.

It’s extremely important for entrepreneurs to give heavy consideration to setting up multiple streams of income. As I’ve mentioned, we all have the same 24 hours in a day and the same 7 days in a week. Realistically, we can only work about 15 hours per day while still fitting in sleeping and eating. That’s not even touching on maintaining downtime and a social life.

So, most of us cap out around 8-10 hours per day. Since we do have that cap, our earning potential is limited. If we have an hourly rate of $50/hour, our daily maximum is $500. However, most of us can not maintain a solid 5 days in a row of 8-10 hour days. Life happens and things come up that we weren’t planning for. Plus, there are so many areas of our business that we aren’t paid for. New product development, bookkeeping, marketing, sales calls, etc. If you do not outsource these items, it begins to dip into your daily earnings.

By having passive revenue setup and in place, you are ensuring that even if you only work your 6-8 billable hours, you will have other places where you can earn revenue. It begins to alleviate some of the pressure and it changes how you work inside of your business.

The other benefit is that not every entrepreneur learns in the same way or consumes products from us in the same way. Some of our clients and customers will want an e-book whereas some of them might decide that they want an audio program. Others learn better in a one-to-one format and some prefer a group.

Understanding what your clients want and need and then offering a plethora of options means that you can cater to more clients. Catering to more clients expands your reach which means more sales all around.

Without multiple streams of income, your business stays flatlined and uninteresting to some prospects.