How to Create Products for Your Service-Based Business

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

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 2 of a three-part series on how to productize your service-based business.
Find Part 1 “Are you Ready to Productize Your Business” here.

Productizing Your Business: Developing Your Products

In the last installment, we brainstormed your potential products, and we covered beginning your product funnel. In this installment, we’ll go more in-depth on developing products and getting your nose to the grindstone.

From the brainstorm, you figured out what you like to do, what your clients get from you, and the problems you solve. Now it’s time to take those ideas and flesh out your funnel into problem-solving info-products.

Won’t Developing Solution-Based Products Put Me Out of Business?

This is a common question from service-professionals creating info-products. When we’re creating products, we don’t want our customers to only buy the products and leave - right? We want them to buy the products and then eventually buy more products and/or upgrade to our one-on-one services.

By creating solution-based products you can:

Save yourself energy from doing time-consuming repeat tasks - tasks that your customers want to know how to do anyway
Give your clients time to work with you (without having to be with you in person) so they’re jazzed to learn more when you send out a newsletter or another problem-solving product
‘Systemize’ your revenue so you can focus on your ideal clients - which still helping everyone else.

Developing Your Product Line

Photo Courtesy Jim Sneddon

As we discussed in part 1, developing your product line to fit neatly in your funnel is tantamount to your success as an info-product creator. Let’s review the general funnel again:

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+)

As your customers move up the funnel, you will help them to solve bigger problems. A social networking expert might have a funnel that looks like this:

Freebie (”Social Networking 101″ + newsletter)
Small Price (”Can Twitter really make me a client magnet? A Twitter Strategy Guide”)
Mid-price - (Audio: “Using Your Wordpress Blog To Increase Visibility using StumbleUpon, Digg, and del.icio.us”)
High Price Product - (Home Study Course - using Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn to increase get clients and become a web superstar”)
Highest Tier: One-on-One Social Networking strategy and ongoing Coaching

As you can see, there are multiple places where you can have a variety of products in your funnel - ranging from ebooks, reports, newsletters, software, audio, home-study courses, etc.

How do I know what format to use for my products?

The format, placement, and cost of your product are entirely dependent on how much value it has for your customers. The bigger problem it solves, the deeper in-depth it goes, the higher the cost. Your home-study course may be the top tier, and an ebook may be just below it.

In fact, if your product is better off learned in-person, you may hold a monthly free teleclass for 100-200 callers so they can learn hands-on. You must pay attention to your market, and cater to what they need.

Bundling multiple products together will allow you to charge more for your product. For example, your home study course may have some audio, an ebook, and a short coaching call included. Therefore, when you’re beginning this phase, look for ways in which you can combine different formats to appeal to more customers, and put those products in the higher-tiers of your funnel.

Order Of Operations: Start with FREE!

When you first get on your roll for creating products, you automatically want to begin with the highest-priced product - it is, after all, the one that has the most information and probably is most interesting.

You must create your free product first. The whole purpose of creating products is so that you don’t have to spend so much time with one-on-one clients, I know, so it seems like the best place to start. However, if you jump ahead and create the time-consuming ‘whole enchilada’ package, chances are it won’t sell very well.

Why? Because (and this is especially if you don’t have a list) going from nothing to hundreds of dollars is not an easy purchase for anyone to make. You may have a lot of people thinking about your product, but few will buy.

Instead, begin with your free product and work up:

Start off with your free product and newsletter, and begin to market it like crazy. People love to get free stuff, and when they sign up you immediately begin building a relationship.
Then, move on to the next product tier. And then the next, and the next. Move up the ladder, because as you go, you’ll have mucho inspiration - fodder for the high-tiered products higher in the funnel.
Stay the course - keep promoting your Ezine & Free Product - this is where your potential customers are coming in. You’ll treat them like gold - give them great information and treat them like family. In return, they’ll move through your product funnel and keep buying from you.

“The Internet will help achieve “friction free capitalism” by putting buyer and seller in direct contact and providing more information to both about each other”

Bill Gates

In our next installment, we’ll look at systemizing your product line - how to make it work days, nights, weekends, and when you’re on vacation.

This is part 2 of a three-part series on how to productize your service-based business.
Find Part 1 “Are you Ready to Productize Your Business” here.

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