How do you "productize" a service?

[Iqen]

I've heard the term "productized service" thrown around as a middle ground to achieving some level of scale for labor intensive service providers.

I do freelance copywriting and would like to start working towards this, but am not sure if it's a good fit. What would a productized service look like in my field? Templates perhaps? (if so, may not be worthwhile as copywriters get paid well precisely to fill in the details)

 

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[100k]

From what I understand it just means you sell your service the way you'd sell a product (i.e you don't change the pricing).

So for your copywriting service you'd sell it for 1 price or 3 different prices (3 different products/packages), and the price would pretty much be the same for each customer. i.e there would not be a need for them to get a quote because you'd be selling pre-priced services.

Check out fiverr.com for examples.


That way you could hire freelance copywriters for your agency, agree on a price that the copywriters are willing to work for then focus your efforts on bringing in customers willing to pay your mark-up price.

Hope that makes some sense.

Good night.

 

[Andy Black]

1. www.tropicalmba.com/services
2. www.tropicalmba.com/consulting

 

[marklov]

First I am seeing that term... is it similar to a commoditized product/service?

 

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[Andy Black]

First I am seeing that term... is it similar to a commoditized product/service?

I don't suppose it matters what label we put on it.

In essence it just means having a menu of services from which people can buy different packages at different prices.

The benefits to us, the service provider, is the efficiencies we get through creating repeatable processes.



Processes start off as ad-hoc when you do them for the first time. You take the longest time and the most effort to do it the first time, and often have to solve completely new problems to you.

The second time you do it is much quicker and more efficient.

If you find yourself doing a process regularly (or believe you will), then you might start documenting it. Step by step How-To instructions, together with notes on *what* is being performed and *why*...

But having a process documented doesn't make it repeatable necessarily by anyone other than the person documenting it.

Pass that document over to someone else to repeat, and they will get stuck on the simplest things in your documentation ... because you have made some assumptions that you are oblivious too.

The only way to really make a process repeatable by other people is to get them to step through your documentation, and update your document with their feedback.

Keep doing this with different people and you eventually have a repeatable process.

Once a process is repeatable, it can often be wholly or partially automated to improve repeatability and efficiency.

And we're all chasing the wholly grail of an optimised process.

So the lifecycle of a process is to go from ad-hoc, to documented, to repeatable, maybe to automated, and finally to optimised.

Ideally we can remove ourselves from the process (freeing our time).

(And before we start, we need to determine if it's a process we even need to do!)



I like to think of "The Four T's":

1. Visibility (of what has been done and why)
2. Traceability (of how it was done and the results of each step)
3. Repeatability (combine the results of the first two steps and we should be able to create a repeatable process)
4. Accountability (you now have full visibility of who did what, how, when and why... and the results)

The process of making processes repeatable is a process itself.

As with most things you just need to start.

 

[Maxmagnus]

Whether it's a "product" or a "service" the sells method is almost the same. You should have a strong marketing strategy that starts by determining your position , what to target, what the competitors offer better or less than you, ( Look for the 5 porter forces analysis it's pretty simple to understand and apply"...

- Give a high value to the solutions you are offering and let your costumers know that.
- Be visible and accessible.
- Offer a good service and be very responsive.
- Your brand name, logo, taglines should be very catchy , memorable and easy to spell.
- Observe constantly what your competitors are doing.

 

[Andrew Ward]

You productise by thinking first about what people are really buying from you. So in your example though you are selling copywriting services this is not actually why people buy from you at all. They are buying brand image, SEO performance, a channel to market etc. Find out which of these real benefits you are best at delivering and start there.

For example, let's say you are amazing at writing and getting your writings into a paper. You could sell the product of 3 published articles per month in certain papers for a fixed or monthly fee. All of a sudden it is about selling the outcome of the service rather than the service itself.

You could also put together a few different things (blog writing, SEO checking etc) into one easy to understand bundle and sell like that.

I must point out though that you are selling your time and this isn't really a fastlane business unless you change the way you operated to differentiate more and detach the product (writing) from your time (the act of writing).

Here is an idea: You could offer to write books for people who are looking to publish, accept part payment and part shareholding. At least this way if a book goes book goes boom then the rewards you reap are proportional to the success of the book, not just the time it took to write.

 

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[John Robert]

DO NOT SELL YOUR TIME.

Again, let me repeat, in case i wasnt clear the first time....

DO NOT SELL YOUR TIME.

Its not scalable.

And clients suck.

Here are some ideas for scalable businesses...

...create an info product (ie. 'Marketing templates for dentists' , 'copywriting course for internet entrepreneurs' , 'copywriting tactics for ecom store owners' etc. )

...do performance/affiliate marketing (ie. Write the copy/ buy ad space and make commissions on every product sold)

...create a matching service (ie. Uber for copywriters...)

...partner up with a product owner who has no clue how to sell his product

...etc.

I am a copywriter, did the client thing and hated it, made some money in affiliate marketing, then from there moved on to start two other truly fastlane businesses around the vertical i specialized in, for example.

I hope that helps.