A productized service is a specified service packaged like a product with clearly defined characteristics and pricing.
A service that is productized helps the client understand what precisely they get for their money without second-guessing the service parameters.
Productization can include services, expertise, or skills that meet certain quality standards and a ready-to-sell format.
Instead of leaving your client confused about what are your services, a productized service goes straight to the market to find its ideal client.
In a service-oriented world, productized services are the future of business growth.
Watch Episode 38 from our #AsktheCEO series to learn more:
What is a Productized Service Business?
A business based on productized services enables independent contractors that bill per hour to package services per project or product so that it can be sold at a fixed price.
Selling managed IT services at a fixed price in a Basic, Premium, and Enterprise package is an example of a productized service.
The benefit of productizing your services is getting your clients faster and at a higher price because you provide added value by:
- Saving client’s time and managing expectations by directly providing solutions to problems
- Expand your business’s predictability and scalability.
- Service standardization and systematization
- Growth without your continuous involvement.
The greatest advantage of running a productized service business is selling on-demand packages instead of starting from zero every time you need to nail a new project.
Listen to the Virtual Frontier Podcast to learn more:
Productized Service Examples
Any service can be productized. You need a productization plan to make it happen and once you start, you will wonder why you haven’t thought of it before.
Here are several examples of services that can be productized:
- Freelancing. As an umbrella term for hourly-based services, freelancing is ripe for service productization. Instead of charging per hour, a freelancer can create a portfolio, a fixed-price project catalog, or a video editing package and sell the service time as a clearly defined standardized product.
- Solopreneurship. Persons who run a one-man-show business offer struggle with cash flow. Service productization is an easy way for solopreneurs to manage growth and profitability.
- Consultancy. People cringe when they hear the word consultancy for a good reason: it is too vague. You can provide clarity by identifying precisely the services you provide and setting a product-based fee.
- Software development. In the beginning, any software is essentially a service that includes hours of code. But a licensed software program or a freemium model app is packaged software services sold as products. Software development is an unlimited service area. Therefore, developers productize services by specialization.
- Learning, coaching, and mentorship courses. Unlike consultants, who generally productize expertise, coaches and mentors productize knowledge, experience, support, and encouragement.
- Digital agency. Agency owners manage various skills, concepts, ideas, and services. It can be more challenging to productize everything you offer. However, by productizing the top marketable service you can cut down costs and increase revenues. Then, it is easier to scale the rest, and if, necessary, eliminate unproductive outliers.
Learn more: How to Scale Agency with Freelancers
How to Productize Your Services
A productization plan defines your services from the user’s perspective. It tells what the user gets and not what you offer.
Therefore, productized services define the output and not the input.
To productize your service, you need to shift your mindset from input to output thinking.
- To achieve maximum business growth and success, it’s crucial to narrow down your focus and sell to your ideal customer. One way to accomplish this is through the concept of productized services. Unlike generic services, productized services are tailor-made for a specific target audience, ensuring that you meet their unique needs and requirements. By identifying and honing in on your ideal customer, you can create a service offering that resonates deeply with them, increasing the likelihood of attracting and retaining valuable clients.
- To make the transition from skills and services to a product-based business, it’s important to rename and repackage your services into distinct products. By doing so, you transform your offerings into tangible and easily understandable solutions for your customers. This not only simplifies the purchasing process for clients but also allows you to differentiate yourself from competitors and establish a unique brand identity in the market.
- In order to productize your service effectively, it may be necessary to find or develop the appropriate technology. Investing in the right tools and resources can streamline your operations, enhance efficiency, and improve the overall customer experience. Whether it’s purchasing existing software or creating a custom solution, leveraging technology is a critical step in successfully transforming your services into products.
- Running a competitor’s analysis is a vital part of the productization process. By studying your competitors, you gain valuable insights into their strengths, weaknesses, and unique selling propositions (USPs). This knowledge enables you to position your productized services in a way that outshines the competition. By packaging your services into an unbeatable USP, you offer customers a compelling reason to choose your business over others, increasing your chances of winning their trust and patronage.
- To effectively sell your productized services, adopting a funnel-selling approach can be highly effective. Sales funnels are strategic tools that allow you to communicate with your customers and understand their most pressing concerns and pain points. By engaging in this dialogue, you can continuously improve and refine your productized services, ensuring that they address the specific needs and desires of your target audience. By actively listening and responding to customer feedback, you can deliver an even better format of your productized service, increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Who is your ideal client?
How do you identify missing skills?
What technology is best for service productization?
We have an entire AI-powered self-managing business blueprint that can help you productize, sell, and scale your business.
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