Much like good mix tapes, service packages are great for bringing shy prospects out of their shells and onto the dance floor.

If you’re customizing a new solution for every client without thinking about the similarities between them, then you might be leaving money on the turntable.

By creating packages, you give your people a sampler of the kinds of results you might be able to produce for them. You help them think beyond boring radio to envision something new. A complete solution for their ears. With an ultimate outcome of maximum pleasure. You make them wonder how you could help them.

Some people are afraid to create packages because they think it makes them look small, or that it’s the scope equivalent of a blank check. But creating a package doesn’t mean have to make you look small. And you don’t have to commit to price before you know the scope.

A package isn’t intended to be the end-all, be-all of working with you.

It simply means that you’ve worked with enough clients to know that most people don’t need quite as much customization as they think.

Quick story, because I love any excuse to talk about Bel Biv Devoe.

My friend in junior high and I used to make mix tapes for each other.

This was back when microphones were still a novelty. My DJ name was Special K. Hers was DJ Jazzy J.

My tapes were TDKs from Price Club. Hers were always old tapes from her parents, Scotch-taped to enable re-recording, and covered in puffy paint you had to be 14 to truly appreciate.

Every time I got a new tape, I couldn’t wait to listen.

I hardly ever got a song I didn’t already know. Bel Biv Devoe? Fresh Prince? Madonna? We’d heard them all before. After exhausting our own record collections, we continued making mix tapes with songs we’d recorded straight off the radio.

But it was the combination of the songs in an unexpected way that made it so exciting.

It was the personalization that made it so exciting, the fact it wasn’t just a mix tape, but that it was a mix tape for me.

Even though I’d heard these songs before, they were brought together in new and exciting ways. And tied together by a familiar voice attempting a Count Dracula accent.

You can do the same thing when you package your services.

Give prospects a couple of mix tapes, so to speak, and then tell them you can create one just for them.

Here are a few examples of packages I really like:

• http://www.sjoystudios.com/pump-up-your-current-website/
• http://www.davisandco.com/services/affordable_solutions/
• http://www.davisandco.com/services/employee-communication-makeovers/
• http://www.b2bcommunications.com/b2b-marketing-coaching

What kind of mix tape would your people want to hear?

Image by Asim Bijarani via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.