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Productizing Your Service to Make Client Acquisition Easier Than it’s Ever Been · Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say

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  Welcome to another episode of 6 Figure Secrets for Fractional
• 0:04
  Experts. My name is Bradley Jacobs.
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  I'm your host and the founder and CEO of Mylans, bringing you
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  actionable, tangible hits for your consulting business.
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  Today we're going to talk about productizing your service, which
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  is such a buzzword, but we're going to really break it down
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  really from the lens of how it makes client acquisition,
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  acquisition and sales that much easier.
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  So first we can talk about what this really means.
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  So let's talk about what it doesn't mean, right?
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  If you are adapting every single offer for each client, you have
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  the most adaptable business that you could possibly have.
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  And what makes it challenging is when someone asks you, what do
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  you do? You're like, well, I can do a
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  lot of things right? I'm, I can Jack of all trades.
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  I can solve all these different kinds of problems, which maybe
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  is true, but what is a client supposed to do with that?
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  They're like, OK, great, can you help me?
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  Right. Like it's just not a place where
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  you can share what you do and they can resonate and say, Oh my
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  God, that could really help us. And so it completely changes the
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  game when you're in your prospecting, because when you
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  can help anybody, you don't even know who to target and you don't
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  know what problems to look for. Whereas if you have a very
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  clear, this is what I do, this is how I do it, it's really
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  standardized because that's really what productizing a
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  service means. It means standardizing it.
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  It means saying like this is the process that I follow.
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  Often you might even name the process, and this is the problem
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  I solved with that process. Generally it costs the same
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  amount of money or there's maybe one or two or three tiers, but
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  it's basically the same process for the same kind of customer
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  repeated over and over and over again.
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  Which allows you basically to one, scale to make sales really
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  easy and clear. And three, actually step out of
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  the business yourself because you can teach people how to do
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  this repeatable process. Now I'm going to give some
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  examples from the book Built to Sell because I don't I've never
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  read anything that talks about this better than that book and
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  what it really talks about. It tells the story of an agency
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  owner. His name is Alex and he can't
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  sell his business because it revolves around him doing all of
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  the selling, all of this custom work for all these really
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  demanding clients. So he's one exhausted sales is
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  really, really difficult and everything relies entirely on
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  him. And the book takes him through a
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  journey of essentially cutting out all of the custom stuff,
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  choosing one offer and then scaling that offer, saying no to
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  everything else, which is probably the hardest part about
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  productizing a service. So just to be clear, a
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  productized service means it's a clearly packaged offer with the
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  same scope, timeline, pricing, outcomes every single time.
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  So what Alex did, instead of having this like full-fledged
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  marketing agency where they do pamphlets and newsletters and
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  branding and social media and and logos and all these kinds of
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  things, he found out that the bread and butter of the business
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  were these logos. And he started offering a logo
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  design offer for a certain kind of customer that was the same
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  process every time that they had refined over the many years of
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  running the agency. So instead of going to a
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  business and saying like, well, I can meet all your marketing
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  needs, it's we do high end logos that resonate with your
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  customer, whatever it is, right? And we have this very specific
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  logo design process that we follow every single time it's
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  tried and true, it works. It incorporates all of your
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  feedback. And this is the price for it.
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  Let's just say it's $5000. I think that's actually what
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  they did. And this is what we offer and
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  we're best in the world at custom logos that are going to
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  make your brand pop, right? So and before they were doing
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  all these different kinds of things.
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  And so enabling your offer to be that one very specific thing
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  allowed him to go hire salespeople, say this is who
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  we're targeting, this is the problem that they have, right.
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  So he actually found a lot of companies that were launching a
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  new product line. So not necessarily a brand new
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  company that needed a logo, but an existing company that had new
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  products and each product needed its own logo.
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  And so that was actually his bread and butter.
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  And that way actually he got repeatable business because
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  often businesses once they design A logo, they may not
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  redesign a logo for many years, but when they launch new product
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  lines, they want a new logo for every single product line.
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  So it allowed repeatable business.
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  And he can look for businesses maybe that have one or two
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  business lines that are expanding quickly and then sell
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  them on this specific productized service that he has.
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  The biggest thing that this unlocks on the sales side
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  because we're talking about business development here, if
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  that clients can understand what you do and what the value that
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  you bring incredibly easily and incredibly quickly.
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  You don't have to spend 2 hours on the phone talking about
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  everything that they do, right? If you are a marketing analytics
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  person, for example, you might be the best in the world at
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  helping clients understand is my favorite example.
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  Helping clients understand which marketing channels are the most
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  effective and least effective. Building you this big beautiful
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  dashboard that enables you to make business decisions on your
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  marketing. And maybe that's all you do.
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  You take their data paper pipelines, maybe you clean up
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  their data, you build these beautiful dashboards and then
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  you use AI to drive insights every week.
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  Like that is a great offer for honestly any business, but
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  especially a business in a certain spot that is growing,
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  but maybe doesn't have deep insights into their data.
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  And so that's going to be a great offer.
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  And it's just so clear what you do.
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  The opposite is I'm an analytics person that helps you with your
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  marketing or even just I'm an analytics person that can help
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  give you business insights. It's like, OK, great, but like,
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  do I even need that? What does that mean?
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  What is that going to get me business insights?
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  It's so vague, but if you tell me that, you're going to give me
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  the information that helps me determine where to spend
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  marketing dollars and where not to, what's effective and what's
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  not effective, and all of a sudden our cost to acquire a
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  customer can go down by 50%. All of a sudden, it's a very,
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  very, very different conversation.
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  Now as part of this, I think most people listening to this
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  are existing consultants and you guys have clients that you're
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  probably doing different things for.
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  And the hardest thing is finding your sweet spot, which means you
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  get to drop the rest of it. And that is one of the most
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  uncomfortable things that we that's really required to do
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  this. And look, you don't have to, but
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  the end of the day, the custom work that you do across all
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  these different clients, it comes at a cost.
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  It comes at the cost of you not building the scalable business
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  that's repeatable, that's cookie cutter, that enables you to hire
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  other people to do the work over time.
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  Maybe you don't want that right now, but that is the biggest
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  benefit of a productized service.
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  So in the book, Alex actually dropped his biggest client
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  because they actually weren't aligned with his future
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  productized offering. And he went back and forth and
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  back and forth and didn't want to do it.
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  And you know, he had a mentor helping him in the book who
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  basically was like, if you really want to have this
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  business to sell in X number of years, you have to do this.
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  You have to focus on what you can deliver repeatedly,
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  profitably and with impact, where you are the best in the
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  world. And being a Jack of all trades,
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  you're never going to be best in the world at one thing.
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  So now that we've really talked through what this looked like
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  and the benefits of it always, the question is how do you do
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  this? Because it all starts with
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  taking inventory, like what are you really good at?
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  What are you amazing at? What do you have the potential
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  to be best in the world at? And what do you enjoy doing,
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  right? This isn't just about what
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  you're good at. It's like, what do you really
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  like? And so then you can build, you
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  can, you know, again, take that inventory and eventually build a
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  list of the things that you love doing.
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  And you end up picking 1, you end up picking one thing that
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  you love doing that you're best in the world at and going all in
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  on that thing. Now a big part of this is do you
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  have a proprietary system that you either have created or can
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  create to deliver this, right? So in Alex's case, he built out
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  this five step logo design process that they followed for
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  every single logo, which included customer feedback and
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  iterations and research and all that kind of stuff.
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  So he was, I had already been doing that and he refined it
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  over time to make it better and better and better.
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  Can you build that system for what your offer is?
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  So that's step one is taking inventory and finding out what
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  you're best in the world at. You could even ask clients, you
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  could ask friends, you could ask past managers.
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  You can get some feedback. But my guess is you probably
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  know. You probably know what you love
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  doing, what you are really the best at, what lights you up, and
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  that really should be the offer that you productize.
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  The second thing you do is you really define the package.
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  So what are the deliverables? What's the timeline, what's the
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  name, what's the pricing, right? Make this all really tangible
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  and concrete, right? So I build you a marketing
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  dashboard that identifies the best and the worst channels.
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  Yeah, along with recommendations.
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  Every single week. It costs $10,000 to set up and
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  $2500 a month to maintain. Just making it up.
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  But it's very clear What's the deliverable?
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  Why do you want it, and how much does it cost?
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  Right. So every single tangible detail
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  goes in the package. And the third step is really
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  building out the marketing and sales materials for this offer.
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  So who's the customer? What pain points does it solve?
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  Why is it uniquely valuable? What is the messaging and
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  positioning that's really going to resonate with that customer?
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  And this is something that we now do at my Lance is building
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  out your content strategy based on your ideal customer and their
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  pain points. But you can do this with or
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  without us, right? Answer the questions that I just
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  prompted you with. Again, sometimes this is hard to
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  do on your own. So that's where a coach or
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  someone like us can really be supportive.
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  But essentially, you can build out all of the marketing
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  materials and then find those companies to target, come up
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  with a content strategy, you know, make a landing page or an
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  e-mail sequence or a lead magnet for it.
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  That's going to attract people. Like there's tons of ways to do
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  this and come up with the marketing materials and then
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  basically start marketing this new productized offer.
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  And you can even have like a big announcement if you want on
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  LinkedIn. You don't need to do that, but
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  there's tons of ways that you can basically start marketing
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  this new offer for your audience.
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  OK. So there's some mindset shifts
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  that need to happen to make this the most successful.
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  And one of the things that's kind of interesting is when you
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  are productizing your service, you have an opportunity to step
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  back from actually delivering it over time where you can hire
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  people, which means you become more the business owner and less
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  of being the person that delivers.
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  Now some of you have an identity around being the person that
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  delivers. So can you basically disconnect
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  yourself from I need to be the brain behind the operation of or
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  say actually the brain in front of the operation, right?
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  Directly with customers? Am I willing to take a step back
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  and actually let people work for me or let the system work for
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  itself and still deliver a great outcome?
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  That's Part 1 #2 is am I willing to say no to work that does not
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  fit the offer? This is the hardest one in my
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  opinion. It's so just easy to say yes to
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  money, right? Someone who wants to offer you a
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  project that's outside of the scope of your productized
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  service. It's so incredibly challenging
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  in my experience to say no. And it's incredibly important to
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  say no to that to make space for clients that are actually going
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  to pay for your productized service.
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  And three, you have to get rid of perfection.
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  Like it's not going to be perfect.
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  You can't scale that. But having clarity into what you
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  offer and giving yourself grace along the way.
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  That is just, I had a coaching client earlier today where we
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  were, she was like, what, what do I need to be doing to avoid
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  all the mistakes? And I was like, one of the
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  things you need to be doing is to give yourself some grace
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  because you're going to make mistakes.
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  It's OK. It's part of the journey.
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  You've probably never faced this kind of self promotion and
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  rejection before. That's going to happen as you
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  grow your business. And that's just part of it.
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  And you get to give yourself a lot of compassion and grace as
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  you figure this out. So this can be, you know,
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  challenging at the beginning as you say no, as you embrace being
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  the business owner, as you learn to figure this out.
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  But it becomes incredibly liberating because you have this
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  clear offer that you pretty much only say yes to clients who are
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  ready to buy that offer. And in the case of the book, I'm
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  going to ruin it. Now, hopefully you already read
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  it, Alex. I mean, probably obvious what
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  happens. Like he nails down his logo
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  design process. He finds 2 salespeople to sell
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  it. He ends up with a predictable
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  sales pipeline, high margins, and eventually sells the
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  business and exits out of a really profitable, scalable
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  business that does not rely on him.
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  So you can think about what this looks like for your offer of
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  getting all these clients on this repeatable system.
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  And eventually you, you a would have a business you could sell
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  if you wanted. But if you didn't want to sell,
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  you have a business that you can hire people to deliver and you
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  get to be the business owner doing whatever you want,
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  wherever you want and frankly, like just making money, right?
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  So such a powerful, powerful way of going about building a
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  business where you're not exact, you're not selling your time for
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  money anymore. So with that, I'm going to leave
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  you. I hope this episode was
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  valuable. Come check us out at my Lance.
• 14:42
  We're doing some really, really cool stuff around helping you
• 14:44
  become a thought leader on LinkedIn with content that
• 14:48
  really resonates with your target audience.
• 14:50
  I haven't taken a sales call where I had to introduce myself
• 14:54
  in over 2 years because everyone already knows me and knows who I
• 14:57
  am based on my LinkedIn content. It's been really such an
• 14:59
  incredible experience. So pump check us out at mylance
• 15:03
  right now when we're in beta with the product, you get to be
• 15:05
  a beta user, you get a big discount and you get to work
• 15:07
  directly with me. So super fun.
• 15:09
  I'm loving it. Our customers are loving it, and
• 15:12
  yeah, I'm having a blast. So and lastly, I've gotten a few
• 15:15
  notes from you lately about people enjoying the podcast.
• 15:18
  If I'm in your ear, if you're enjoying this, it would mean the
• 15:22
  world to me to send me a note on LinkedIn or in the Mylance
• 15:27
  community forwarded to a friend, give us a review.
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  We have some really, I just looked yesterday actually.
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  We have some nice five star reviews on Apple.
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  It's just cool to see people getting value out of the
• 15:36
  podcast. I love doing it and it's just a
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  lot of fun. So getting your feedback means a
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  lot. With that, I hope you have an
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  amazing day. Put yourselves out there and
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  don't don't wait. I mean the time is now to build
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  a business of your dreams. Love you guys.