If you want customers to see you as a strategic partner. If you want them to come back to buy from you, and send you other customers, then you need to stop adapting your service.
Back when I started, I believed the way to grow the business was by taking on any project possible.
I believed every customer knew what they wanted and our role was to deliver on it.
So we would try to service every client we could.
Regardless if we knew how to deliver on their needs.
As a service provider, it’s easy to adapt our services to the needs of each individual client.
Especially once the project starts and their vision gets “clearer.
We were just so excited to learn and grow our skills, that we never realized we were harming our business.
Back then, if a client said jump, we would go to the highest mountain and try to jump as high as we could.
It wasn’t that we strived to overdeliver.
It was that we bent over backward if we could.
It didn’t matter.
If the project was somehow related to our service, we said yes, and try to make it happen.
It was stressful.
Constantly out of our comfort zone, never knowing if things would work out.
Always hoping customers would be satisfied.
It was horrible.
But, there was a lot of growth. There was plenty of learning and development.
And this made the effort appealing.
As people who are building businesses around our skills, this growth feels amazing.
Personally and professionally, it’s awesome.
As a business? Is bad.
But looking back, this is a necessary stage.
This stage gives you a clear overview of the things you don’t want to do. It allows you to discover the things you are not good at.
And it gives you clarity on what you want to focus on, how you want to do things, and for whom.
Unfortunately, many people get stuck in this stage.
They think this is how entrepreneurship is supposed to be.
A constant battle. A never-ending, 100-hour days hustle.
And so, they don’t try to transition out of it, or they fail to find a way and decide to quit.
If you already launched your business and are in this stage, please know that it’s not your fault. This is completely normal and part of the entrepreneurial growth process.
So from this moment on, just focus on getting out of it.
The faster you stop adapting your service to each customer, the higher your chances of success.
What Happens When You Adapt Your Service To Each Customer
Every year Gucci sells billions, their bags cost thousands of dollars, and are not tailored to each individual buyer.
As a customer, you don’t tell them what you want.
They make it and you buy it.
They get to decide how it looks, how it feels, how it smells, and even who gets to have one.
If somebody wants one? They have to pay full price, that’s it.
Only those that can afford one can have one.
And they better not complain about it.
So how can we get our small service businesses in that position?
While this stuff takes time and money, here 3 things we did in our business to get us in that direction.
First, stopped adapting our service to each client. This makes it hard for us to build a brand, drive word of mouth, and it eats profits away.
If each client gets something different, is hard for people to know how our work looks. It’s also hard for them to refer us if they aren’t sure about the experience the other person will get.
Plus, you are constantly replanning and learning new skills, and this burns time and money.
Second, stop discounting, and increase your prices. While many people want a Gucci bag, only those with the money can get one. This allows them to filter out customers.
They know that those who can afford them tend to be less picky and less complicated.
It’s not the same to get $50 from somebody that has $100 as from somebody who has $10000.
The first one will be more demanding with their money. They just spent 50% of what they have.
Third, if you are adapting the service to each customer, where is your expertise? Gucci shows its authority by not adapting its bags.
By selling finished bags they are making a statement that says, we know fashion, we know what looks good, and here you go…
And that’s the relationship you want to have with your customers.
If you constantly adapt your service to each client, you are just an implementer. This situation forces you to charge per hour rather than on value.
Not good.
What Happened After We Stopped Adapting Our Service?
By running our business on these 3 pillars, things changed for us.
First, profit increased. By not adapting things, we started to do the same thing over and over. This improved our performance, lowered stress in the team, and increased quality.
Second, word of mouth increased. People saw the work and said they wanted the same. When they got the same, they told others.
Third, recognition improved. As we deliver the same thing to others, people began to recognize the work. This grew our authority, making it easier to sell. grew,
Now, this transition took about 6 months. But it wouldn’t have been possible without getting out of delivery first.
Figuring out the marketing requires you to look at your business from a different angle.
Thinking long-term.
And it’s only when you are not involved in delivery, you can see those things clearly.
So once you know what people want, stop tweaking it. Instead, packaged it and delegate it.