One Small Shift That Unlocks Business Scale

In today’s issue, I want to walk through an important shift for online entrepreneurs:

Moving from traditional service offerings (or freelancing) to a productized service.

For those of you not familiar, a productized service is simply a predefined packaged service, offered at a set price and scope.

This approach helps you simplify and scale your service offer, making it more predictable and efficient for you and your customer.

And it’s important because it can help you evolve from custom, ever-changing projects to a more scalable, predictable business model - a key to building a better life for you and your family.

Let’s dive into exactly what I mean.

The Common Misstep

Most people who are freelancing or offering a service begin by customizing the service for each client.

This approach is personalized (which clients like) but it can easily lead to burnout and limits your earning potential.

With no set business model, you're at the mercy of your clients. Every job is different. Every project a custom one.

Before you know it, you have two or three different customers with 10+ different requests from out of left field. Maybe more. You’ll end up going back-and-forth with everyone, customers continuously asking for tweaks, changes, etc.

The time adds up, and most people are too nervous to say, “That’s not part of our deal.”

You could end up spending most of your time reinventing the wheel, with little room for scaling or free time in your calendar.

A Better Approach: The Productized Service

Here's how I recommend moving from service/freelance to a predictable, productized service offering:

1. Identify Your Niche: Focus on your unique skill or service.
2. Standardize Your Offer: Develop a standard, repeatable subscription package.
3. Set Boundaries: Clearly define what is and (most importantly) isn't included.
4. Automate and Delegate: Use tools and delegate to optimize your business.
5. Feedback Loop: Regularly gather and use customer feedback.
6. Scale Up: Once you’re established, expand with new productized offerings.

Example: Productizing Video Editing

For example, let’s say you’re a video editor helping clients put together well-edited, short-form video for Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.

Start by following the 6 steps from above.

Identify Your Niche: Imagine your forte is editing and delivering high-quality videos for creators in the fitness space. This specialization becomes your niche. It’s important to stick to it.

Standardize Your Offer: You could develop a package called, 'Fitness Video Launch Kit'. This could include 10 hours of video editing, 5 total videos, with all videos 40 seconds or less.

Set Clear Boundaries: It’s critical to clearly define the scope of 'Fitness Video Launch Kit'. Let's make it even clearer:

1. One strategy call per month.
2. 10 hours of video editing.
3. 5 completed and delivered videos.
4. One video revision per month.
5. All video 40 seconds or less.

That's it.

Any additional work is outside the scope and either not allowed, or requires a move up in package/price.

Price and Package: With your offer clearly scoped, you can start standardizing prices through subscription packages. For our deliverables above, you might charge $2,000 per month. You know how much you'll make and you know exactly what work you'll need to do for the customer.

Here's a company called ViralCuts which has done exactly this:

Automate and Delegate: Another benefit of a clearly defined scope is that you can use project management tools to track progress and make sure you’re meeting deadlines. No more little tweaks to manage.

If you wanted to free up more time, you could hire a junior editor to edit on your behalf. That way, you’re free to focus on the core content strategy and client consults.

Feedback Loop: Build a simple system for client feedback after you complete a project. This could be as easy as a survey or a follow-up call to understand what they liked, didn’t like, etc.

Scale Up: Once you've fine-tuned 'Fitness Video Launch Kit', think about introducing other packages.

For example, 'The Fitness Expansion Pack' for established creators looking for a strategic content director, scripting, distribution, a higher number of longer videos, and even ongoing content support (remember to clearly define what that means!)

Tying It Back to Your Journey

If you’re trying to build your own productized service, start by identifying repetitive tasks in your business process and package them into a more scalable offer by following the steps above.

Once you've done that, create content on platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter/X that reflects your new offer and new ideal client (and their problems).

This approach will simplify your business model and make your value proposition more straightforward to your prospective clients online.

This is much more than simply changing what you offer — it's a fundamental shift in your business approach.

And if you can get it right, you’ll have a more sustainable, scalable business that provides clear value and allows greater control over your future growth.

Well, that’s all for this week.

See you next Saturday.

P.S. This is a small sneak preview of my flagship course, The Creator MBA. 14 Chapters and 111 Lessons of instructional video that will teach you how to build a lean, profitable internet business (even if you're just starting or don't have an idea).

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