Do Not Only Eat Cake
It’s absolutely fine to put high-value, time-based, consulting work on top of your standard products. That suits bespoke and complex problems and allows you and your team to do your best and most rewarding work. It’s this complex problem solving that people like us love doing.
Creative people genuinely love helping people by solving problems, but aim to only work like this if the client problems are truly difficult and unique. You can still get a kick out of helping someone by supplying an elegant solution to common problems rather than starting from scratch each time.
Human beings, especially those of us that are technically skilled, tend to want to solve problems from first principles each time. Often looking for complexity when none exists. That temptation usually needs to be resisted.
Standard products and processes usually uncover the types of client problems that require one-off work. And, what’s more, your bundled products will and should provide a pipeline of this high-value work.
You might feel that the work your firm does can only ever be done in a bespoke way, and I have a few clients that operate primarily in that sort of space, but they are actively considering, or in the process of developing, ways to build recurring revenue into their practice. They know that building long term revenue into the firm is the direct driver of stability and the value that subsequently brings to the stakeholders in both the short and long run.