Have you heard of “The Gigantic Turnip?”
Sure you have.
That’s the story in which a man plants a turnip, and it becomes too big to pull out. Even after his wife, grandchildren, and some farm animals helped him, the stubborn turnip wouldn’t move.
But then…
A mouse offered his help. And the man rejected him because he seemed too small, too weak to make any difference. The whole family and half of the farm tried again. But there was no progress…
Until the mouse helped to pull, and the turnip was out.
It turned out that the mouse was the missing piece. Without it, the turnip might have stayed in the ground, and all the hard work around it would’ve been futile.
What does that have in common with scaling a business?
EVERYTHING!
The Gigantic Turnip is the perfect allegory for today’s topic. Productization of your services may be what you need to get to the next level. We’ll show you some of the numerous benefits your business will feel if you stop offering abstract services and start selling tangible results.
Awareness Always Comes First, and Productization Lets You Stand Out
- If no one knows you exist – no one buys from you.
- If those who know you exist don’t know what you do – no one buys from you.
- If those who know you exist know what you do, but you are one of the many – few buy from you.
- If those who know you exist know what you do and you’re different from the rest – many buy from you.
Of course, that’s the simplified scenario. If you and your competitors productize your services, you’re back at number 3. So you’d need to use networking to increase your visibility (among other things).
But even if everyone in your market decides to turn their services into products, you should still do it. Sometimes it’s not good to stand out.
If you and all your competitors have productized services, you would probably make more money because prospects would know what to expect from each of you. But we’re running ahead of ourselves.
We need to address a big misconception first.
Every Service Can Be Productized
Arguably the biggest misconception about the productization of services is that it works only in some industries. But the reality is that everything can be productized if you shift your focus from what your service is (a feature) to what your service does (a benefit).
We’ll take local SEO as an example…
If you offer that service, you may sell it as a service for creating and managing GMB accounts. That would make it a service, and you’d get lost in the vast ocean of commodity providers.
But if you offer your local SEO as a product that makes your clients more visible (in the end, get sales) – they can imagine a better future.
Then, back that up with a risk reversal (a strong guarantee usually does the trick) and social proof, and watch your business grow.
Of course, there’s more to it. If your service is poor, it won’t be a good product. Quality (the results you bring) is still, and always will be, vital. But if you want to see an example of a good service turned into a great product…
We have productized our service in which we teach you how to productize your service.
It Simplifies the Communication (Shows Prospects What to Expect)
Another massive benefit of presenting your services as products is simplifying the sales process.
- Prospects have a clear vision of requirements and results
- You don’t have to come up with a different explanation for each prospect
Meaning you waste less time removing the friction through the conversation as some companies do. They need to get a person on a call to address their pain points, and then they need some time to come up with a pitch and then present that back to the prospect, and then prospects need time to decide, and…
You see, there are many ands when you sell a service.
But when you sell a productized service, most of those ands are solved without any need for direct communication. That doesn’t mean everyone who sees your product will buy it, but the leads you get will be much better because they’ll have clear expectations.
It Makes it Easier To Get Tangible Results
As the solid content strategy gives you a road to follow, productization enables you to plan ahead and make promises, not just wild guesses.
When you say you’ll boost clients’ revenue, visibility, or anything, that’s a broad promise. Yes, that protects you from failure because it lets you count everything better than 0 as a win. But that doesn’t build trust, and if the results you bring to the table aren’t relevant for your clients, you’ll spend most of your days looking for new clients.
However, service productization is a way to go if you want to build meaningful relationships with your clients from the first contact.
It lets you promise measurable results, which opens room for failure. But a good guarantee lets you overcome that objection too.
So, as Filip said, service productization directly boosts conversion because it builds trust, removes risks, and gives achievable promises. Then if you deliver on those promises, you’ll have a client who will keep buying your product.
It Makes it Easier for Prospects to Compare You to Your Competitors
But before you convert prospects, they’ll compare you to anyone who offers the solution to their problem. They might look for other solutions for the same problem, which broadens your competition.
Let’s say you sell green apples, and your competitor sells red apples. You’re both targeting people who want apples. Still, in-depth research solves that because it lets you focus only on your ideal clients.
And that’s not enough because your ideal clients don’t know you’re dreaming about them. Yet, if your research is good, your product solves the problem, and there are no risks for your clients, they’ll pick you over your competitors who stick to selling services.
The reason for that is simple – it’s easier to imagine the end result of a productized service.
It’s Easier to Scale After You Productize Your Services
Gio then mentioned that scaling a business is much simpler after you turn all your services into products. It directly boosts conversions because prospects are aware of everything that could happen. Also, it lets you plan your actions better.
If you notice that one of your products isn’t doing as well as the rest, you can make changes according to the data you already have. Or you can focus on broadening one of your products if it sells much better than the rest.
True, that’s very similar to scaling a service. Yet it’s easier to scale productized service because you get better feedback from your market. You always know which parts went well and which parts could be better. And you get that data from every client just because you laid down a plan to follow.
Let’s say that you guarantee a minimum 35% increase in closing rate (like we do in this growth mastermind), and you keep delivering a 45% increase; use that. Change your description and include a better number in your offer. It will instantly bring more sales because it will build more trust.
Of course, productization lets you change the negative aspects too. If you promise to boost your client’s revenue by 30% and fail, you’ll know it might be better to change that in the offer.
Do that every couple of months, and you’ll always have optimized products that bring results to your clients. And you’ll always be sure you can deliver the promised results.
Productization of Services is Similar to Building Blocks
Another benefit of service productization is customization. Gio compared productized services to building blocks you can combine in any way you (or your clients) like. And that’s 100% true.
On the Scale Your Business In Three Months – Workshop page, you can see how we productized our services to show you the results you can expect. And the rest of the blocks, as Gio calls them, are beneath, so our prospects can combine more of them if they need them.
In a way, productization lets your prospects choose what they need, so they don’t waste money (and you don’t waste time) on irrelevant stuff.
Also, people love to feel in control. By enabling them to pick how you help their business, you give them a feeling that they’re helping themselves by choosing you. Getting someone to provide them a service would have the same effect, but much milder because they wouldn’t know what to expect and probably pay for stuff they don’t need.
So to stick to Gio’s allegory with building blocks, we could say that productization lets your prospects see and choose components of the building before the construction starts. But on the other hand, getting service would be like buying a house you might not even like.
That’s why the lack of productization is one of the main reasons coaches and consultants can’t grow their businesses.
