5 Ways to Productize Your Business
Productization is creating a process or package to make your offering scalable and repeatable
If your business is stuck spending more time on proposals than working for your customers, consider productization to break the cycle. Productization is creating a process or package to make your offering scalable and repeatable. Whether people or technology are operating behind the scenes, productization allows you to better qualify customers and deliver solutions, without needing your full team present at every stage.
Here are 5 ways to productize your business:
1. Customer Qualification.
Create requirements that qualify the right customer, and build a repeatable intake process that filters to them.
- Step 1: Review past customer projects. Determine commonalities across prior engagements.
- Step 2: Build a clear profile of the “right customer”. Look across categories such as typical needs, length of engagement, who was most valuable over the long term, and highest margin.
- Step 3: Adjust your intake. Incorporate this filter for the right customer through methods such as sales scripts, self sign-ups, or targeted landing pages.
Note: If a customer does not meet your new requirements, inform them that “Although we cannot assist with [Theoretical Request] now, we can help with [Your Specific Offering] if needed later.”
2. Pricing Model.
Provide a pricing model that creates a low barrier to entry for your customer, standardizes your offering, and potentially leads to higher-valued engagements down the line. (Note: This does not necessarily mean “low prices”, as they are often hard to sustain).
- Option 1: Entry-Level Package. A sample of your offering through a small, low commitment opportunity, without a long sales cycle. (E.g. Common packages could be an audit, a report, an online course, or “Phase 1” of a larger project).
- Option 2: Subscription. A recurring offering of the most frequently purchased combinations of your product. (E.g. A security company may offer a monthly subscription to deliver a combination of an initial assessment + ongoing home monitoring).
- Option 3. One Time Offer. Delivering your *full* offering at a competitive price, even if the customer will only use your product once or a few times per year. (E.g. Scribe helps customers write and publish a book for an all-in-one price).
- Option 4. Stream of Payment. A partnership agreement to receive future payments as a function of revenue. Common streams of payment include royalty agreements, licensing, and interest. (E.g. A restaurant owner may partner with a hotel who wishes to use their menu and brand name, in exchange for recurring payments).
3. Proposals.
Use templates to create speed in delivering proposals to customers. Anything outside of your template proposal should not be offered, as it is out of scope.
- Step 1: Define scope. Detail what your offering contains and the expected results for the customer.
- Step 2: Define process. Include milestones and deliverables. (E.g. Number of calls or emails to complete).
- Step 3: Define customer involvement. State what is needed from your customer for a successful result. (E.g. Time, info, in-person meetings, etc.).
- Step 4: Create templates. Use technology or e-sign platforms to automate proposal distribution and signing. (E.g. HelloSign, HoneyBook).
4. Onboarding & Analysis.
Automate your administrative duties to free up capacity, and spend more time on the parts of your offering that generate revenue.
- Step 1: Standardize diligence and workflow. Use a checklist, form, or application. (E.g. Asana, Trello).
- Step 2: Standardize monitoring. Deliver recurring check-ins or updates through a report (E.g. Mint sends customers an automated weekly summary email of their finances).
- Step 3: Outsource and automate. Use third-party vendors for scheduling, accounting, and other admin tasks. (E.g. Clara Labs helps businesses with full-service scheduling through AI).
5. Customer Service.
Catalog how you interact with customers and use your findings to streamline servicing them; allowing you to respond in a repeatable proactive way.
- Step 1: FAQs. Create a customer feedback portal, online or via email collection where common questions are answered — you can even let other customers answer questions for you.
- Step 2: Standardize follow-up and follow-through. Set a regular cadence to gather customer feedback.
- Step 3: Tracking. Use a collaborative repository to log and address customer requests and complaints. (E.g. Dropbox, Google Drive).
Productization can help grow your business beyond its current limitations. Use these tactics to expand your business, streamline your offering, and scale.
Kaego Ogbechie Rust is CEO at Foresight Advisors — working with foundations, investment firms, non-profits, and for-profit ventures — offering comprehensive support across vision & strategy, investing & financing, and operational planning during critical periods of your growth.
If you’re looking for help, contact kaego@foresightadvisors.com or visit www.foresightadvisors.com.
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