Have you ever seen the Progressive insurance commercial on television that features a spokeswoman and customer in an insurance “store”, browsing through shelves of insurance (i.e. boxes that say Motorcycle Insurance, Homeowners Insurance, RV Insurance, etc.)?

I love this visual depiction of services, and you know what, our prospects are in the same boat as the shopper in the Progressive commercial. They might not know why they should choose our services or be able to compare us to the next guy.

So let’s get a little creative and create a package of  services.

What you need to do to make it happen

1. Think proprietarily. Do some research. See what other people in your field are offering and come up with a name for the package that is unique to you and that can’t be found anywhere else.
2. Mind map it. Outline the features, for example a fitness coach might offer a 90 day package that includes a before and after fitness assessment (body fat and other baseline measures), three one-on-one coaching sessions, a 30 day supply of multivitamins, a water bottle, and a subscription to a healthy eating recipe website or magazine.
3. Think benefits. Brainstorm a list of benefits to your prospect. What will he/she gain by purchasing your package? Remember features tell, benefits sell. For example some benefits of the fitness package might be more energy, a smaller dress size, no more tight clothes, look younger, feel younger, sleep better at night, play with your kids or grand kids without getting tired, lower stress, lower cholesterol, able to run a 10K or walk in the 5k next spring.
4. Set your pricing. You might ask some of your clients/friends/prospects what they would be willing to pay for a package such as this to get an idea of the ballpark range. The pricing of your package should be tied directly to the benefits. You can use your time multiplied by an hourly rate plus the cost of any products you include in the package to set your price don’t fall into the commodity pricing trap. Your package is not a commodity. It is rare. It is proprietary. It can’t be found elsewhere. I recommend setting your price accordingly.
5. Tell people about it.

If you’re ready to go with this idea but you need some accountability, let’s do it together. Join us on October 5th for the Package It! coaching group, read more here.

Space is limited, don’t dally

I think sifting through website tools is somewhat like comparing apples to oranges and not really an easy job. Nonetheless, I wanted to try to give you a few tools I would recommend due to popularity, ease of use, support and customization.

Keep in mind that any tool you use will be more powerful if you have written compelling and audience centered content. Your design is important, but your content is KING.

I have grouped these into two categories, open source (host anywhere) and hosted (software as a service). The open source tools are available for download and can be installed on any server meeting the software requirements. Hosted tools are offered via subscription. Both have advantages and disadvantages but that’s another post. For now, here are some of my favorites.

Open Source CMS Tools

Wordpress. This makes the top of the list for me because it is very user friendly and feature rich. I recommend downloading the software from wordpress.org vs. using the free service at wordpress.com. If you are serious about your business, you need to move away from a free service (IMHO), and the downloaded version will give you many more customization options.

You can change theme designs with one click or use a totally custom theme. There are a ton of plugins (SEO, forum, social media, member management, ecommerce) to take it to the next level and make it a truly useful small business CMS. The support is great with video tutorials available at wordpress.tv.

Joomla. If wordpress is the Homecoming King of open source software, Joomla should be Student Body President. It offers a powerful component system to allow you to configure free and paid member areas, ecommerce (including downloads), blog posts, article management, etc. It can be customized to your design specificiations or skinned with a pre-designed template. Joomla is popular with schools, churches, governments and small businesses who want to create a portal site for their clients and prospects. It puts you in the driver’s seat to manage every aspect of your website content.

Modx. I have not personally used this tool but it has appeal because of the flexibility and custom templating it allows. It is a new kid on the block compared to other CMS tools, but because of that it brings great SEO, easy manageability, and lots of bells and whistles into the mix including total design customization and scalability.

Hosted CMS Tools

LightCMS. LightCMS is a website manager from Element Fusion for graphic designers and their clients. It has a beautiful set of pre-designed templates or you can use your own custom design. The tool allows a rich set of features including WYSIWYG editor, forms with payment options,audio, video, photo galleries, a calendar, blog posts, etc. Really nice.

GoodBarry. This is a powerful and full featured CMS tool with built in analytics, ecommerce, email, contact management, and much more. GoodBarry has predesigned templates and can accommodate your custom design,too. It is well supported by the good folks at Business Catalyst.

SquareSpace. This CMS has been one of my favorites since I came onto the web design scene a few years back, but I have yet to create a site for a client using this. If there are any fans of SquareSpace out there, please comment and tell us why you like it. I think the feature list is extraordinary and the pricing and customizations look really good. I have experimented with a trial account and I give it a hearty thumbs up.

Typeroom. This is a brand new CMS tool that allows you to convert your current website and design into their system with a simple click. This tool is great for people who don’t need advanced features (i.e. blogging or ecommerce) but just need to convert an existing static site to be easily managed. Again, I have not used this with clients, but it looks good and worthfurther investigation.

I know there are many, many great CMS tools, and my list is really short in comparison, but my goal here was to highlight those that are easy to use, have great customization, good support and good results for the user.

What is your favorite?

Photo Credit Flickr Mike Johnson – TheBusyBrain.com

I hear the question “What website tool is best?” alot. I think the answer depends on your goals, how hands on you want to be in managing your content, and your audience.

As you consider your options, remember the best thing you can do for your audience and for search engines is to provide wonderful, useful content. It doesn’t matter what website tool you use if you have great content and a user friendly design.

What do you think? What questions do you have about setting up your website?