How to Create Products for Your Service-Based Business

by Erin Banister

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Table of contents for How to Create Products for Your Service-Based Business

How to Create Products for Your Service-Based Business
How to Create Products for Your Service-Based Business – Part 2
How to Create Products for Your Service-Based Business - Part 3

This is part 1 of a three-part series on how to productize your service-based business.

Are You Ready to Productize Your Service-Based Business?

Having a service-based business is highly rewarding - you get to work with people and see results first-hand, you increase your expertise and know-how with every project, and it defines you as a “client superstar” to your clientèle.

However, service-based businesses also have their limitations: you’re restricted by the number of hours that you can work and the number of clients you can have. You want to help more people - and you want to make a profit - so maybe it’s time to take it to the next level - it’s time to productize your business.

How do you create products for a service-based business?

When Carol first began the process of productizing her business, she was confused. She’d seen many internet ‘gurus’ launching products left and right, but she couldn’t find her inspiration. How could she create products appealing to her potential clients, without alienating them from future purchases?

Brainstorming Your Products

For many people, this is the most difficult part of the productizing process - finding out what to create! It’s important to remember here that the best-selling products solve a problem. It’s good and well to write about the things you love, but it’s even more important to create products that help your clients to fix something in their lives.

Finding the balance between your passions and your clients problems will take careful consideration:

What are you most passionate about in your business?
When you began your business - you had a driving force - you wanted to do something. What was it you wanted to do? What problem did you set out to solve?(Supplemental question: do your clients focus on that? If not, skip this section)
What Makes You Unique?
If you work with women in mid-life, or solopreneurs who need a website, they all come to you looking for your unique take on the world. The problem, as you see it, speaks to your clients and potential clients. What makes you a unique problem-solver for your clients, and how do you do ‘it’?
What service do you do that you can outsource to your client?
It’s not outsourcing in the traditional sense, it’s helping your clients help themselves. So, whether your clients need help with getting their relationships on the right foot or getting their Facebook marketing strategy in place - what steps of your processes can you outsource to your clients?

When you’re productizing your business, you want to create several products so customers can move through your sales funnel. By moving through your funnel, you can ensure that the clients you work with are not just ready to work with you, but they’re right in line with your ‘ideal’ client.

After a productive brainstorming session, Carol realized that most of her clientèle came to her with issues surrounding career growth. In realizing this, she formed several product ideas ranging from an eBook for developing a career strategy to Skill Growth Group Coaching Sessions. Armed with a cache of product ideas, she was ready to begin creating her products.

Build Your Marketing Funnel

“Build the Funnel” is your new mantra. Say it now, “build the funnel.” Ahh, that’s nice, isn’t it?

When you’re selling your services and products, it’s much easier to sell to people who know and trust you - and this is accomplished by having a list of customers in your product or marketing funnel.

The crux of your funnel is to bring in customers through low-price or free products, and then increase trust and rapport by developing a relationship with them through a newsletter. Using the newsletter will allow you the opportunity to build a relationship, and to sell your products and services in small increments without being pushy.

Essentially, your product funnel should look something like this:

Freebie (free newsletter w/report, etc.)
Small price point product ($10-$50)
Mid-Price product ($51-$100)
High-Price Product ($100-$700)
Highest Tier (reserved for your ‘ideal’ client - $700+)

Now, your list can be much bigger, or a bit smaller; your list can have higher price points or lower; but, this is the general outline you want to use.

Place each of your product ideas in one of the above categories. Make sure your highest point products have a lot of value added to them - so if you can add an audio, ebook, workbooks, complimentary products, and more with these products, the more valuable they’ll become to your customers. “Fill ‘er up!” as they say.

Don’t worry about having too much or too few products in your funnel. If you only have a couple of ideas right now - it’s fine! You’ll hit inspiration while you’re working on and promoting these products.

Once you’ve figured out your general outline, the next step in productizing you business is to use an autoresponder/broadcasting service to bring customers into your funnel. An autoresponder/broadcasting service will allow you to keep all your leads in one place and automate much of your sales process. I use AWeber . I use AWeber for my personal and client lists, and they’re hands-down the best email broadcast service provider available.

When prospects come into your funnel, start by offering them a free product in exchange for their email address. From there, up-sell a bit at a time while giving some great information and useful advice - make your free information valuable and move them delicately through your product funnel.

“Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. A product is not quality because it is hard to make and costs a lot of money, as manufacturers typically believe. This is incompetence. Customers pay only for what is of use to them and gives them value. Nothing else constitutes quality.”

~Peter F. Drucker

Learn More about the Marketing Funnel with Andrea J. Lee’s Pink Spoon Marketing and Robert Middleton’s Action Plan Marketing - two of my favorite and most-recommended ebooks.

This is part 1 of a three-part series on how to productize your service-based business.

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