Why you need to productize your services

How to add leverage to your service business so you can earn more, work less and provide more value to your clients

Give me a lever and a place to stand and I will move the earth.

Archimedes was a Greek mathematician, philosopher, scientist, and engineer. He claimed he could move the earth with the right lever (and a place to stand). And it turns out that — at least in theory — he was right. You’ll need a (very) long lever. And finding a place to stand is a little problematic.

You have levers to move your business, too. But if you’re in a service business you don’t have many of them. And you can’t move them very far.

Except if you productize your services. Let’s look at how that works.

What are productized services?

Productized services are services that are packaged, sold and delivered just like products.

Imagine that you’re going to the supermarket to pick up a box of cake mix. When you take the box off the shelf, you see:

• on the front cover: a catchy name and picture of a perfect chocolate cake;
• on the back: the recipe — a list of ingredients and instructions for making the cake;