By Paula Quiroz
Entrepreneurs often face many challenges – one of the the biggest hurdles for service providers is figuring out how to scale their business.
This hurdles occurs because often times, businesses that provide services instead of products are bound by the number of billable hours in a day and the number of qualified employees that are able to provide the service.
In order to overcome this challenge, businesses should consider productizing their business services. To productize a service means to turn your services into products.
The following steps may guide you in your effort to sell your business services in a similar manner that businesses sell products:
Identify a service you replicate over and over: You should look to gain profits for selling a productized service and not your time. Select services that are scalable – services that can be sold in small and big quantities.
SOPs are key!: Standard Operating Procedures should be documented. Ensure that you make the operations and profits for this service efficient. Then, write down the process in detail so that you are able to transfer this information to employees who will be providing these services. Employees should know how to perform services in the most efficient manner.
Set boundaries: To achieve the perception that you are selling products, do not operate as service providers usually do. Instead, let customers and clients know the specific deliverables included, set a flat fee, and set a time limit for each service.
Build a network of skilled employees: Building a team that can handles providing your services with limited intervention from the business owner should be an integral step in productizing business services. Add labor to manufacture your productized service, sales reps to sell it, and management to run daily operations.
These 4 steps may help you turn your business services into products–helping you scale your business! For the latest research and insights, visit Aragon Research’s blog.