Productized services: How to do them, pitfalls, and perks
When you productize a service, you make it easy for your clients to buy a service off the shelf. Productized services may help you sell more, but they may also deter clients from working with you.
In this episode, we discuss how to think about adding a productized service to your business.
What exactly is a productized service?
This means you’re selling a crystal-clear service consisting of certain components to a client. It’s like buying something off the shelf; there’s very little in the way of customization. What we like about productization is how you can replicate something you do often, thereby simplifying the whole process.
For example, if you’re running a case study service, it might consist of:
Research
Interviews
Cultivating customer lists
Final design
Offering a service like this is easily replicable and the price is listed as X on your website. Your clients know what they’re getting without any awkward questions about price and service, and you can replicate and potentially automate the entire process.
“It’s a systematic, service-based product. But the scope is super concrete without wiggle room on what it looks like execution-wise.”
What’s nice about this is you can create a streamlined process with guaranteed results each time. You know where everything fits in, and it makes your workflow much easier to plan out as a result.
“Are you customers coming back when you quote a project with a lot of questions or ambiguity? Would offering productized services remove that friction?”
Pitfalls of productized services
We don’t think productized services are for everyone.
If you work with clients that have a specific need, then sure, it can fill that. But you need to be super clear with your customers about what exactly they’re getting, especially when it involves writing work.
Formatting: everyone has a different style guide, so make sure to ask a lot of questions before you get started and integrate that into the workflow.
Rounds of edits: how many are included? Be very clear about this. Are you offering a productized service or a bespoke, collaborative process?
“The offering should be so formalized you can sell it upfront, minimizing the need for endless back and forth with the client.”
Do your clients/want need this?
Every time you think about putting out a productized service we want you to ask yourself: Is this something the client actually wants, or is this just something that I want?
We’ve seen some freelancers offering three blog posts a month for $X, for example, but how many clients are looking for that?
Do your market research; don’t just put out packages that are convenient for you. If you’re not filling a need in the market, you’re going to have a tough time getting anyone to buy.
“Buy my day”
Another type of productized service that is getting a lot of traction these days is the “buy my day” approach. We think this can be helpful for people who don’t know exactly what they need. Someone can hire you, give you a to-do list and have a full eight hours to knock that out of the park.
An excellent way to promote this kind of service is by leveraging FOMO. Say you have 10 slots available for your productized service., but for every slot that gets filled, the price goes up by $100. This is a great way to fill those empty spaces in your day using this model.
It’s not a bad way to go about it, but it's not a one size fits all approach.
A lot of people don’t work well when you’re at someone’s beck and call all day. You might feel like you’re in over your head. We talked about this in an earlier podcast, but to reiterate, it’s really important to know yourself as a writer.
Are you comfortable being on someone’s calendar? Or do you need a more flexible approach?
“Productized services are good for filling slow days, adding a different revenue stream, plus it gets rid of ‘it’ll just take a minute’ type-asks.”
Packages and promotions
If you think productized services might be something that suits your freelancing business model, the next step is deciding how to promote it.
There are several ways you can go about this:
Send this service as part of your client proposal.
List it on your website where everyone can see it.
Create an unlisted page you can link to parties who ask about it, or those who think might be interested in it.
For some people, offering these kinds of services makes a lot of sense. But others might find it hard to fit everything they offer into one neat package.
It’s important to be 100% confident you can deliver on what you’re offering, so prepare accordingly and do your research. Life can throw little challenges our way at the worst of times, so you have to know how to handle that.