What Works - BONUS: Why We Chose Productized Services For YellowHouse.Media

BONUS: Why We Chose Productized Services For YellowHouse.Media

08/13/20 • 13 min

1 Listener

In This Episode:
* Why Sean and Tara McMullin chose to “productize” their full-service podcast production offer at YellowHouse.Media... and what productized services actually are* What’s included in the package they offer–and why they don’t often custom or a la carte services* How the productized service model allowed them to quickly create a small group coaching program to increase their capacity and serve more clients
Hey! It’s Tara McMullin and this is a special BONUS episode of What Works—the show that takes you behind the scenes of how small business owners take decisive action on building a stronger business.
This is the second episode of a bonus series on how I’ve approached creating and delivering value through the products and services I’ve offered over the years.
In the first bonus episode, I shared how my most recent offer, a live program called The Commitment Blueprint, started as a personal life change, grew into a free webinar, and then transformed—TWICE—into a paid product.
In this episode, I’m going to give you a closer look at my other company, YellowHouse.Media, and share how and why we’ve taken on the productized service model—including what that means for how we serve our clients, run our operations, and build for the future.
Plus, I’ll share how the same principles that apply to YellowHouse also apply to What Works and how we continue to develop The What Works Network to support small business owners as they build stronger businesses.
Now, in the last regular episode I spoke with India Jackson, the founder of brand visibility agency Flaunt Your Fire. India described what clients come to Flaunt Your Fire looking to achieve and how the agency helps them achieve those results.
She also shared that she tailors each client engagement to the goals of that client using both master services list and a really strong idea of what the agency’s yes, no, and maybe projects are.
This bespoke service model is typically how people approach building a service-based business.
The client tells you want they need, you figure out how to make that happen and put a price on it. Each engagement looks different and might include a different mix of services.
And this model works.
But it’s not the only way to build a service-based business.
A few years ago, I started to notice that the most successful people I was working with in our community and mastermind groups were running a different kind of service-based business.
They were running productized service businesses.
(And in case you’re wondering, yes, most of the time these productized service businesses were out-earning the digital product businesses. So don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t make money in client services.)
I was intrigued by the model and operations behind these successful productized service businesses... but, more than that, I was intrigued by how happy these business owners were!
They were focused. ★ Support this podcast ★

Previous Episode

EP 293: Offering Bespoke Services With Flaunt Your Fire Founder India Jackson

In This Episode:
* How Flaunt Your Fire founder India Jackson takes a strategic approach to offering custom service packages without getting overwhelmed or burnt out* Why getting to know her potential clients really, really well helps her put together the right packages for their needs* How her “master list” of services helps her build bespoke engagements easily & efficiently* How she’s gotten her team involved with client-facing work and slowly let go of control
Somewhere in the craze for online courses and making money in your sleep, service-based businesses got a bad rap.
Of course, most of the bad rap really just came from marketers who convinced would-be business owners that passive income and infinitely scalable models were the only way to ensure they wouldn’t be overworked and overwhelmed by client work.
The other reason, I think, that service-based businesses got a bad rap was that so many service providers weren’t very thoughtful or strategic in how they offered their services. And understandably so!
You want to make clients happy. You want to say yes. You want to close the deal.
And so you agree to switching things up, doing things that you’re only kind of good at, and going along with what the client wants instead of what you know to be best.
That’s all a recipe for taking on too much uninspired work for yourself—and even for your team.
But offering a service doesn’t have to be that way.
Offer development is an incredibly important part of running a service-based business. Without a careful strategy and thoughtful process behind how you create value, you are likely to get stuck in the trap of trading time for money or wind up overwork & overwhelmed.
That’s why I wanted to make sure we included a bespoke service-based business in this series on creating value.
I invited India Jackson, the founder of Flaunt Your Fire, a full-service brand visibility agency, to share her approach to how she creates value and constructs the services she offers clients.
India is clear on what her agency does and what it does not do.
She’s clear on why her agency offers the types engagements it does and why some projects just aren’t right for them. And, she’s clear on how her team adds value to the services the agency provides—so India isn’t stuck doing everything herself.
Even if you don’t run a service-based business, this conversation has a lot to offer. Listen in and consider how you might be trying to do too much with your product-based business or how you’ve succumb to making offers that aren’t aligned with your values or best work.
We’ll get to this conversation with India in just a minute—but first, don’t forget to check out our special bonus series this month for a behind-the-scenes look at how I’ve developed some of my favorite offers over the years. In the first episode, I shared how we took The Commitment Blueprint from idea to free offer to paid template to paid live program. In the second episode—out Thursday—I’m sharing how Sean and I developed the service package we offer at YellowHouse.Media. It’s the perfect follow-up to this conversation with India.
Now, let’s find out What Works for India Jackson!
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Next Episode

EP 294: Refining Your Offer With SpeakEasy Cooperative Founder Michelle Markwart Deveaux

In This Episode
* Why voice teacher Michelle Markwart Deveaux refined her offer from a pay-for-service model to a value pricing model* How that shift changed how she packaged her services and what outcomes she focused on for her students* What she did to double her rates while deliver 3 times the value* How she started sharing her methods and business structure with other voice teachers and professionals
Product development isn’t always about building something new.
Often, it’s about taking what you’ve already built and making it stronger.
You refine the packaging, the value proposition, the customer experience, the delivery mechanisms, and the price. Little by little, you create value simply through the process of excavating the most useful or transformative pieces of your offer and making sure they are as polished & refined as they can be.
Refining the product or service you already offer can be as good—or even better—for giving your business a shot of energy as offering something new.
When you refine or repackage your offer, new people might notice it who passed it by before. New methods of delivery might give you back some serious time. A new price point might unlock a new level of profitability for your business. A new message or angle on what you really offer could open your eyes to a whole new way to market what you do.
In other words, refining your offer could lead to a new, bold vision for your whole business!
This is exactly what I talked about with today’s guest, Michelle Markwart Deveaux, founder of FaithCultureKiss voice studio and the SpeakEasy Cooperative.
Michelle is a voice teacher... as well as champion for voice teachers who want to empower students, performers, podcasters, and voice talent of all kinds to use their voices in powerful ways.
Michelle started out teaching voice with the same kind of offer you’d expect any voice, piano, or instrument teacher to use. Students paid her for each lesson and they called it a day.
But as she started to hate how transactional that method was and how guilty it made her feel for doing work outside of her lessons, she started to refine her offer—and ended up creating a whole new model for teaching voice.
We get into all of that and more, including how she doubled her rates and delivered 3x the value, how she structures her packages, and how she got started teaching voice online. Plus, we talk about how she took what she learned refining her original voice teaching offer and created a new offer to help other voice teachers, too.
Now, let’s find out What Works for Michelle Markwart Deveaux!
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