Overview
- Discover what is a productized service
- 3 steps to scale your business with a productized service
- Common pitfalls to watch out when scaling
If you are self-employed, you don’t really have a business.
You have a job.
And while this is ok.
Others who go on their own to build a business, unfortunately, get stuck here.
Investing their best years before they realize they haven’t built an asset they could sell if they would like to.
So if you are a self-employed, ready to get on the path to business ownership, here is the key.
Productized your service.
What is a productized service?
That’s a service created through the lens of a product.
This means it has a previously defined scope and price that doesn’t change from client to client.
Its whole purpose is to solve 1 problem, through the same process, regardless of the customer.
Clients are filtered so that everybody is looking for the same results and is struggling with the same problem.
Allowing you to help them achieve results by delivering the same service over and over and over.
Increasing quality, capacity, profits, and word of mouth.
Productizing our service
Back in 2018, I realized that if I was going to grow the business, I couldn’t be involved in delivering the service.
Because every time I was on a project, I wasn’t selling, which made our cash flow inconsistent.
Then, with so many client changes, I was consumed by the back and forth, eliminating my profit.
So I tried tactics, techniques, and strategies.
I read books and researched methodologies and tools. From Toyota’s lean manufacturing to Ford’s assembly line, and more.
It took me 3 years of trial and error, until finally things clicked.
In May 2021, as I was rushing to the hospital with my wife who was about to give birth, I told the team and the client, I wasn’t going to make it to our production.
The team shined and the client was super happy.
Without realizing it, from that moment on, I was officially out of delivery.
The team continue to deliver around 80 events without me ever having to be involved in any of them.
These are the 3 most important steps that made it possible.
Step 1 – Simplifying the business.
Selling similar services to existing clients that ask for them, it’s easy money.
Clients already trust you, like your work, and know you can help them.
In our case, we started by focusing on event live streaming, but soon we were doing company videos, explainer videos, YouTube commercials, and more.
If clients came offering money to do anything, we did it.
But without realizing it, every time we solved a different problem for somebody, we were creating a different business.
Different problems mean different customers, solutions, industries, etc.
But for us, this meant different resources and skills.
Forcing us to expand horizontally to deliver each new service.
Watering down our message and strategy, while increasing our costs.
Not to mention we can’t be good at everything so quality was low.
So simplifying our product portfolio was the biggest and best thing we could have ever done.
Cutting all the way down until we figured out the most cost-effective service that delivers the most results to clients.
And then focused on just that.
Step 2 – Develop a unique offer only you have
Services have become commodities.
With saturated markets, clients struggle to see differences between services.
Assuming everybody does the same thing at the same level of expertise, clients select the cheapest provider.
Forcing us to compete on price, creating a race to the bottom.
That’s why instead of lowering our prices, we increased the value of our offer.
This made us their most logical choice.
And since we focused on solving 1 problem through 1 service, not only quality went up, but they saw us as the experts too.
Adding value to our brand.
And allowing us to keep our prices.
Step 3 – Promoting it over and over
Learn to say the same thing in 1000 different ways.
For some reason, we get this feeling that whenever we post something on social media, that idea is now burned and we can’t ever post about it again.
But luckily, as business owners, we are playing a different game.
We are not trying to be creators or influencers.
We are trying to find people who need our signature service.
That means is not about how many people you reach.
It is about reaching the right people.
And since our service was always the same, we began to build a brand.
That brand made it easy for customers to recommend us to others because they knew exactly what the other person was going to experience when working with us.
So we double down on word of mouth, making our main source for customers.
Taking Action
As you start to work on your transition, remember to keep your eyes on the ball.
Here are a couple of things to watch out for:
1. You’ve been training your current customers on doing business with you in a certain way.
They have certain expectations.
So you need to keep things going for them so that you can collect cash, while you offer different things to the new customers.
2. On the other hand, you’ve been planting seeds for a while, this will lead to clients coming to you looking for services you don’t plan to sell anymore.
This can distract you or discourage you from pushing forward with your plan.
Don’t let it.
Saying no will be hard but, remember, you are doing this so that you can move to the next level.
So instead, expect it.
Know it’s part of the process and that way you will be prepared for it when it happens.
3. And lastly, don’t hire to give up accounting or to assist you with little things.
Instead, focus on hiring to help you transition out of delivery.
Wish you well and let me know how it goes.