Just wondered if any freelancers using a "subscription model" for services, (like the "Dollar Shave Club" see the brilliant advert by clicking http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRHpp852iW8....)
Not sure how it would work - the closest I can think is being on a retainer, but that is a little different.
Any ideas?
Love to "break the mould" with things, and this seems an area that might be open for developing.
Depending on the "level" of service you are willing to incorporate to this model, I see no reason why it can't be done - as a matter of fact, I've got 2 clients on this kind of deal. I treat this the same way IT support companies treat "maintenance contracts". All in all, once you work out the balance between risk/reward, you'll be able to come up with a win-win deal for both you and your clients.
I can see how this might work for a consulting service.
I think it would need to be on a "use it or lose it" basis - but the risk would be that people back-ended everything and then expected a week of your time (or whatever) in the last week of a quarter (or whatever period you defined).
This would be even riskier when you applied it to production services.
Just playing around with this in my head at the moment - sure I will get there......
This is of course much simpler with a maintenance agreement. I too have several of these running. Most of the time, whatever systems I have provided for clients don't require much maintenance (touch wood), but what they are buying is the reassurance that if anything goes wrong, it will be attended to and fixed very quickly.
Another slightly different version of this is where I have trained corporate people to do stuff....in this case, the agreement means they can come to me anytime they get stuck or have to grapple with a tricky software feature.
I think that the model would work for the supply of ID / elearning build services - it depends on the client. If they are expecting a lot of regular action in the development and deployment of learning packages and do need to outsource work, they might well go for it.
I'm not sure if would would work if it were for just a few projects envisioned for a coming year, but in practice their internal decision-making and supplying SME detail etc was not prioritised, and everything was 'back-ended' as you say.
6 Replies
Could freelancers provide services for $1 a month?
Just seems to be a subscription service.
Maybe closer to eLearning Brothers could be a good example though as they have subscriptions for their eLearning template library.
(Although they are a business model not a freelancing model...)
My 2 cents.
Nicholas
To clarify...
I am not suggesting $1 a month - I am suggesting the subscription business model, providing a production/ID-service rather than a product like eLB.
I agree it is a good idea Bruce.
Now I'll be looking into subscription models to come up with a decent idea to share.
Cathy Moore's 'Elearning Blueprint' comes to mind.
You pay a fee and access the material and ask questions/comments for 3 months
Nicholas
Depending on the "level" of service you are willing to incorporate to this model, I see no reason why it can't be done - as a matter of fact, I've got 2 clients on this kind of deal. I treat this the same way IT support companies treat "maintenance contracts". All in all, once you work out the balance between risk/reward, you'll be able to come up with a win-win deal for both you and your clients.
Just my 2c,
Alex
I can see how this might work for a consulting service.
I think it would need to be on a "use it or lose it" basis - but the risk would be that people back-ended everything and then expected a week of your time (or whatever) in the last week of a quarter (or whatever period you defined).
This would be even riskier when you applied it to production services.
Just playing around with this in my head at the moment - sure I will get there......
This is of course much simpler with a maintenance agreement. I too have several of these running. Most of the time, whatever systems I have provided for clients don't require much maintenance (touch wood), but what they are buying is the reassurance that if anything goes wrong, it will be attended to and fixed very quickly.
Another slightly different version of this is where I have trained corporate people to do stuff....in this case, the agreement means they can come to me anytime they get stuck or have to grapple with a tricky software feature.
I think that the model would work for the supply of ID / elearning build services - it depends on the client. If they are expecting a lot of regular action in the development and deployment of learning packages and do need to outsource work, they might well go for it.
I'm not sure if would would work if it were for just a few projects envisioned for a coming year, but in practice their internal decision-making and supplying SME detail etc was not prioritised, and everything was 'back-ended' as you say.
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