Transcription
Regardless of how long you've been in business, productizing your services comes with a lot of benefits. However, productizing isn't a super straightforward process. There are a lot of things to consider, and I'm going to walk you through everything you need to know.
The general idea of productizing is to package your services into products that they can be easily sold as monthly or onetime services. Clients see the immediate value they're getting, and the service can be largely automated. Typical service businesses often don't work in a product-first mindset. They like to hop on a call, discuss the client's needs, send a proposal, and then work based off a retainer fee on those custom services. The problem with the strategy is that it doesn't leave much room for automation, and you rarely get to make your pricing public. Instead, the entire pricing model is built around client needs.
Now, I'm going to share and answer the top three questions I've gotten from agency owners in the past about productizing their businesses. Many agencies began with a clear service offering and expanded over the years. So, at some point, the productized business model might start to make sense for your agency. When you're considering to productize your services, you need to think of these questions: Who are the biggest clients and what's the workflow with them? Are your clients open to change or do they prefer old-school methods? And which services have the highest success rate to be productized?
In theory, it's easy to get clients to use a client portal. They log into it, send you requests and messages, and stop using emails for all communication. However, not all clients like change. Some might be open to it, and some might be stuck in their old ways. It's up to you to convince them that this is a better change for everyone. But why disrupt an entire agency when you can start slowly? Take a look at your service model and ask yourself, which one can I easily productize? Then start there.
If you're a consultant, you might be more interested in productizing your knowledge rather than delivering services. And there are many ways you can share your knowledge with minimal input. You can write a book, create a course, or even create a monthly newsletter. All three need a little bit of upfront work, but once that's done, the automation kicks in and runs its course. You only need to update your course every now and then and write a monthly newsletter.
And there are, of course, a few more active ways you can productize your knowledge. You can offer one-on-one coaching, which would be your most expensive service, as you can allow clients to pick your brain directly. You can also use live events and demonstrate thought leadership in this environment by making it a closed event with an entrance fee. And you can offer group coaching, which is the same idea as one-on-one coaching, but for a group instead, making it a little bit more accessible.
We're going to go into more detail later, but in general, to create a productized service, you need to find demand, find who your ideal customers are, and then find out what they're looking for. Then, you're going to package your services into a price that makes it a great deal. It's important to remember that productization is not a recipe for overnight success. It's a framework that needs to be tested and adjusted as you go. This is especially important if you're an established agency that wants to switch over to the productized model. You'll notice that existing clients might not be thrilled. Why change something that works, in their opinion? So, what do you do instead? Do you let them send you random emails and enjoy the retainer model, or do you convince them to switch over to the productized version with a client portal? The best advice is to take it slow and test your setup with an adventurous client first, then adjust your flow and make sure it works before onboarding other clients. Or you can spin off a part of your business into a productized version that doesn't serve legacy clients at all.
Now, I'm going to walk you through a step-by-step guide on how to productize your services.
Step one is going to be to focus on a niche. What could be better than knowing that you're the expert for onetime speed optimization services? It makes it easy to find potential clients as you know how to speak to them, and it's easier to bundle your services, set your price, and sell them. That being said, not everyone's running an established agency. Some are going to be starting fresh, so you might have to do a bit of market research first to reach potential clients.
Step two is to understand your client's needs. If you don't already know what could help your clients, then some research is necessary to figure out the gap you can fill. Find out what they fear, what they want, and what could help to make their business more competitive in their industries. With the data collected, you can create an ideal customer profile. Then take a look at your past invoices, identify missed opportunities, and eliminate services nobody seems to be going crazy for. As a service business owner, it's essential to provide value to your clients. And you can't provide real value without knowing their needs. Your service offering should be a package solution for those needs specifically.
Third up is going to be to set yourself apart. Earlier I mentioned that you might have to do market research. The pitfall many productized service providers fall into is this: they see a cool idea a competing provider has and they try to copy it. Why would a potential client buy your service over the established one? Maybe you're cheaper, but competing on price is a race at the bottom. Instead, set yourself apart with unique attributes. For instance, let's say your service is to create insurance websites. Well, that's an interesting niche because you set yourself apart from regular designers. Why should anyone hire you? The best ways to leverage your client testimonials and data and show prospects that your customers have increased conversions by 50% to give yourself credibility.
It's important to review metrics to offer productized versions of services that are already successful. Revise unsuccessful services to offer a solution for a specific problem instead. It's also important to trim the excess services you're offering. If a service is not in demand, there's no point distracting clients from the services they actually need. Scan your support inbox for reasons clients stop using your services, any objections and problems they experienced. You may find shortcomings in your services or the way they're being delivered. For example, if you notice customers regularly asking for progress updates, consider implementing a self-service portal where they can see the status of their orders in real time.
Who are your favorite customers? The ones responsible for a good chunk of your revenue while requiring minimal handholding along the way. I'm sure you have a few clients like that. Reach out to these clients and find out what attracted them to your agency in the first place, and then gather insights into bringing more people in like them. It's important to talk to people in your industry. Not everyone in your space is in direct competition with you. You learn a lot about business and your customers just from talking to other service providers they use. It could be through industry forums, Slack groups, or even in-person events. By openly sharing ideas and helping others solve their problems, you'll expose yourself to more opportunities, collaborations, and joint ventures for the future.
Last but not least, when everything is set up, run a lot of tests. Invite your client into the portal and ask them to purchase services, go through the order process, and give you feedback of every step along the way. Don't worry, though. We have a test mode, so payments aren't actually live. With the feedback that you get, go back to the drawing board until the entire flow is easy for both existing clients and new prospects. Then, once you're ready, launch your product as a service officially promoted via content marketing, social media, and affiliates.
Let's take a look at how you can put your service idea into an actual product you can resell. And what better tool to use than SP? While the switch to offering productized services might seem complicated, SP takes the hard work out of the equation. You don't need an e-commerce buildout or a web developer. You can put your productization plan right into practice and integrate SP with your existing website.
First up is to set up your product as a service model. In SP, you can sell two types of services: one-time services and recurring services. You can even create variations so you don't have duplicated services. For instance, if you want to sell blog post writing, the variance could be content length. For some services, it also makes sense to set up intake forms. Instead of asking your clients project-related questions up front during checkout, which reduces conversions, you can ask them to fill out a form later.
Next up, you're going to set up your order forms. Regardless of the fact that you're offering monthly plans or onetime services, you can create order forms that are perfect for every service offering. They extend beautifully on every device and fill up the entire screen while staying responsive. You can decide if you want to keep the checkout simple to increase conversions and upsell clients later once they're logged into the portal. Once your order forms are set up, link them up with the pricing page on your website and keep an eye on conversion rates to make optimizations as you go.
If you're just getting started, you can keep your product test service software setup to a minimum with just services and order forms. However, there's a lot of automation potential from adding clients to an email list to customizing the client view with templates. To know more about all the features that SP has to offer, you can check it out via the link in the description down below. And thanks for watching.