What Will Clients Pay You For?

If you're paid for your expertise, the information part of your offer is getting cheaper by the week.

That client who wants an SEO audit, a personal brand plan or a sales page can ask ChatGPT. I've paid people thousands for this sort of work in the past. I wouldn't now. Very few people will…

Your expertise has been devalued.

So what will they pay you for?

Getting the work done.

Your client wants the result

Let’s say you help clients with personal branding. But work has dropped because they can DIY now.

ChatGPT can produce your ideal client a personal brand strategy in seconds. That strategy can then sit untouched in yet another chat alongside the other twenty big plans they have on the backburner.

Information alone isn’t enough. It doesn’t lead to action. In fact it gets in the way!

The useful work starts after the plan. Has that potential client rewritten their profile like the plan told them to? Published anything? Reached the right people? Looked at the results and changed what they're doing?

Probably not.

Your method can still move them through that work. But we need to encapsulate it differently. We can’t just give them INFO. ChatGPT can do that.

We need to help them ACT.

To do so we’re going to package up in expertise in new ways.

And then layer on our hands-on group and 1:1 work.

We use AI for the top of funnel, hands-on for the bottom of the funnel. Lower cost at the top. Higher cost at the bottom.

But how do we package up our expertise with AI?

Package the process

Start with a skill: a folder containing your instructions, examples and checks. Ask AI to interview you about how you work with clients, one question at a time. Give it examples you approved, examples you rejected and the reasons why. Then test the skill on a case you know well.

I've written more about how ChatGPT Skills work. The basic version is far less technical than the name makes it sound.

If one skill becomes three or four related workflows, bundle them into a plugin. If clients need to connect their AI to a service you control, use MCP. If they need a complete login-and-use-it product, build a SaaS.

Each step gives you more control and more responsibility. A SaaS means accounts, billing, customer data, failures and the cost of the AI itself. You may be able to build one quickly now with AI. You still have to maintain the bloody thing. You may be creating extra headaches for no additional reward!

Instead use the smallest option that solves the client's problem. If a skill does the job, sell the skill. If the client needs a complete product, build the first useful version and test whether anybody wants it.

They'll build it themselves

Some people will look at your product and decide to make their own version. Fine. They're going to spend the weekend writing prompts, wiring tools together and fixing the bits that break.

We don’t want those people as our customer anyway. They are cheap. They’ll always DIY. They’ll never value what you do. Nightmare customer!

Your beat (real!) customer wants to get on with their business. They'll pay for a tested workflow, fewer mistakes and access to you when their situation gets messy. Focus on them.

Small step today: Write down one process you repeat with clients. Get AI to interview you. Build the smallest useful version and test it on work you understand. The full video walks through skills, plugins, MCP and SaaS, plus where your coaching or consulting sits above them.

To the Task,

Kyle