In my marketing agency, I have earlier offered our service customized for every client’s needs by using top assistance. Why? Because the service we provided was something, our clients hadn’t worked too much with before (or anything). I pretty quickly realized that we need to change this to scale the business the way I wanted.
We would need to be able to offer the services as standardized products, instead of a 100% customizable service. This would allow us to become better at a few different things, and I would be able to take a step back and let the team handle more of the tasks.
But I saw two problems with this:
1 – Some of our clients (and possible future clients) needed personal help with pretty much everything, and a standardized service like this wouldn’t allow that sort of help.
2 – We wouldn’t be able to create as great results as we did right now since this wouldn’t allow us to customize for every part of our client’s business.
However, I realized some things, and we made the switch. It is still very early, but I think the result so far has been great. The first week we got two new clients we would never have been able to get with our earlier way of working. There are tons of benefits to offering your service as products, not only for you but for your clients as well. But what about the two problems above? Well, this is what realized that made me allow to make the switch:
– The clients needing help with pretty much everything isn’t our dream clients. The job they made us do was not the job we wanted to do (even if it paid). By saying “No” to doing everything for these clients, we are making them take a decision. Either they work with us, and take a bigger responsibility themselves (which will create a better result in the long end), or they will have to walk away from our offer. The result is that we are transforming our old clients to the clients we want, or we are freeing up time for the clients we want.
– The argument that we wouldn’t be able to make as good work as before when switching to a “service as a product” model was only partially valid. Sure, some parts of our service might have decreased in personality, but instead, we are delivering the result and allow the client to personalize it. We are even giving them a guide. Managing this themselves does cost the client some hours, but the result is even better.
The parts of our service that haven’t anything to do with knowing the client has become even better. We don’t need to worry about the client wanting the result delivered in this way or that way, we have service (sold as a product), and the client can take it or leave it. Wich allows us to specialize and deliver better work for those who decide to take our offer.
Btw. We pretty much didn’t have a choice. This switch is what we needed to do, and therefore we had to do it. Sure, we will lose some clients and some future clients, but it doesn’t matter if this model enables us to work the way we want and need.