I’m 3 years into the business and at this point, all other business models look amazing except mine.
After trying to grow a service business, I’m feeling trapped in an overwhelming and limiting job.
A job that I created for myself.
As I looked for a way out, the only path I saw was starting a whole new business. One that wouldn’t depend on me to deliver the service.
And so in 2019, I jumped into the world of e-commerce.
What I learned changed the way see service businesses (and entrepreneurship) forever.
Why We Get Stuck In Service Delivery
One of the biggest challenges for self-employed is getting out of client fulfillment.
Many spend years hoping they land the project that changes everything. The one that gives them enough money to hire people.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t come.
And so they start to resent their business… and themselves.
I know this because this is what happened to me.
I always wanted to build a business. But 3 years in, seeing that everything depended on me, I realized this wasn’t a business, it was a job.
So how did I end up there? 3 things:
– No clear focus. Since I sold everything to everyone, every project was different. This made it hard to establish replicable processes. Because we were always starting from scratch, projects consumed too much time, profit, and stress. This made me believe only expensive and experienced people could take over my role.
– Offering too much. Doing too much makes the service complicated requiring more work than necessary. This makes the service too tailored and hard to delegate.
– Everything was designed around me. Nothing was planned to be done by somebody else. I panic at the thought of how much I would need to charge to cover the cost of somebody else plus myself. I kept telling myself people couldn’t afford it.
How Things Turned Around
Once I got burnout, I began saying no to projects that were either too stressful or I knew we didn’t have expertise.
Without knowing it, I was niching down.
This simplified our services, the workflow, the sales process, and the marketing.
As we focused our offer more and more, I began to see our packages were getting on the way.
They confused customers, took away value from the experience, and lowered our prices.
Customers came to us because they saw us as experts. Having packages forced them to choose what they assume works best for them.
Not good.
So I created what I now call a UPO, that’s a Unique Productized Offer. A step-by-step solution that is fixed in scope and price. And it’s designed to solve one problem for one specific type of client.
This changed everything.
It was exactly what people wanted delivered in a great experience. It was designed for 1 target customer to deliver 1 set of results. And it was planned around my team and not me.
So what did I do?
I just focused on selling our UPO over and over and over.
What To Expect
Through my e-commerce journey, I realized every business takes time to provide results. And every business has its own challenges.
I had invested a lot of time, money, and sacrifice to learn how to run and grow a service business. It didn’t make sense to start all over in a new industry.
So I decided to turn the noise off and go all in.
Before I knew it, the biggest challenge was clear. Having to manage 2 businesses. The current one that delivers services one way and the one I’m trying to become.
Making it very hard to stay on track.
Transitioning Out Of Delivery
If you are serious about transitioning out of client fulfillment. Start by simplifying your services and increasing prices. Chances are you are overdelivering and underpricing.
You will need bigger margins.
Then turn your packages into a productized offer, and focus on selling it. Before you know it capacity will increase, your brand will grow, word of mouth will improve, costs will go down, and you?
You will get your time back, break your income ceiling, and get to do more of the things you like with the people you love.
Transitioning out of delivery made my business feel like passive income. There is something that happens the moment you stop trading time for money.
I guess that’s the moment we finally become entrepreneurs.