Turning A Service Into A Product

Open Small Business has a list of steps to turn services into products:

1. Identify something you can replicate repeatedly — The idea behind a product is that you want to be able to get paid for selling a “thing” and not selling your time.

Also, you want to sell the “same” thing over and over if you are to achieve operational efficiencies and decent profits.

Look around at what you do. Chances are, if you’ve been in business for a while, you have developed a process you follow closely for at least one service.

You may not even realize you have a distinct process until you set out to identify it — but you have something. If that something is in reasonable demand, you have the start of a “product.”

2. Document it — Turn your process into a manufacturing-like assembly line. Break it down into steps that can be performed over and over, by people you can train for the job. Document those steps in detail so that you can calculate the costs involved, and so that your knowledge is transferable.

3. Put limits around your offering — Many services are “squishy” and open ended. For a product you need the opposite — an offering that is well-defined. Set limits to your offering: time limitations; the deliverables included; a flat fee price; a name you can refer to your product by.

Continue Reading: “Turning A Service Into A Product”

Photo by star-one.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *