The Dark Side of Productized Services

In April of 2023, I was the first person to launch a productized operations service.

It added the most money ever in one quarter to my bank account,?

gave me the two worst clients in the history of my business,?

was a masterclass in what I wanted to offer vs what I thought I did,?

and most importantly taught me that this model is nothing but a growth hack?—?with little to no long-term return if you’re a solopreneur.

Now, I know what you’re thinking… Sara, you’re so smart, you’re brilliant, how did you fall for a Twitter bro’s growth hack?

I wish I knew. JK… I know exactly how it happened, and I’ll tell you all about it shortly. But for the new kids on the block, let’s share some context into the world of Productized Services.?

Personally, I think that the phrase ‘Productized Service’ is weird.

It’s almost like chatGPT was asked to name an offer but?—?retainer or subscription somehow wasn’t in its vocabulary.?

Because that’s what it is; a reoccurring revenue model.

A “product” is a one-time payment for an item that has already been created.

Not to mention, Productized services are a high-demand continual commitment for as long as the CC gets processed.

The misconception being sold online is that well, there are no proposals, no quotes, no back and forth.

The client gets exactly what they paid for?—?unlimited work for one flat rate. This in theory is correct; except clients are paying a 4-figure monthly rate over and over?—?whether the quality and needed work requests are there.

Oh yeah?—?and no returns.

That’s exactly what looped me into this model early last year.?

I have always hated the proposal process for projects. I’m not above them by any means but it’s where I have the most self-doubt and imposture syndrome so I quit doing them years ago.

Instead, I’ve been able to bring that work internally to quantify the time spent and consider my expertise and my availability?—?not to mention what I need to pay my bills and survive.

So technically you could say that my agency is productized because I only custom quote enterprise or special circumstance projects.

But I didn’t have the language for that.

And I didn’t know what a ‘Productized Service’ was until I found Brett from DesignJoy.

His interview with Brett Malinowski blew my mind to hear how stupidly simple he runs his business and how much he profits.

And hate me all you want for saying this, but I’ve never heard a successful female business owner doing that well, share even remotely similar tactics.

All of the education I’ve ever taken in made me feel like I wasn’t doing enough?—?Brett’s model made me finally feel like PHEW I don’t need to constantly overproduce to prove my worth.

I guess for once the mediocre white male was right.

So I dove in further.?

I paid for his course because I wanted to hear more about the inner workings?—?the real tea.

I wanted to learn about what happens with problem clients, and how you plan for holidays or vacations… it was imperative that if I was going to pivot (yet again) it had to be right, perfect, the best.

Now keep in mind?—?a design retainer?—?because let’s call this what it is a retainer or subscription?—?is vastly different that selling an operations retainer.

VERY different.

And I knew that going in, but I was optimistic.

So I built my little sales page, set up the checkout in Stripe, and was ready to go on Product Hunt, just as I was promised was the golden ticket to success.

While it wasn’t a total flop?—?I got great testimonials from friends, I didn’t sell a single seat for almost 45 days, and even then it wasn’t until I dismantled the sales page, removed the “unlimited work” deliverable and added in clear strategic elements, that I then landed 4 clients in 10 days?—?two of who paid me outright for the quarter without ever speaking to me, and two of whom would turn out to be the worst clients I’d ever experienced.

So much so that by the end of October, just a mere 90 days later I almost quit freelancing altogether.

Who knows, maybe I’m just not cut out for retainer work.

No, what I realized in all of the excitement was how much work it takes to get someone’s business to a level that retainer support makes sense.

And if you do it as well as I do, more than likely they won’t need you at all except once in a blue moon. And it’s probably the Catholic guilt in me, but I just don’t feel comfortable charging a $5K monthly retainer without producing work that is equal value.

Okay getting off my soap box, let’s talk about the elephant in the room?—?can you make this Twitter model successful?

Yes, I do think you ignore the “just launch a landing page over the weekend”, and build a model custom to your business.

Ask yourself the 3B’s?—?bored, burnt out, and broke.

1. what work can I do over and over again that I won’t be bored of?
2. how much of that work can I handle before I’m burnt out?
3. am I okay being being on a financial rollercoaster of high-earn and high-churn, and can I get over the fear of being broke until I have a sustainable model?

Because that’s just it, in this model there will be high periods of income, remember I did $40K in 10 days, and then at any time a client can drop or you let them go, and maybe you weren’t expecting it so you have to scramble to make up that income.

And between the scrambling there are several other things to juggle, like the unpredictability of work requests coming in, building a portfolio & marketing to sign more clients, and maintaining all of the processes that go with it.

At least with regular client work, you have a set project period. The finish line isn’t far off most of the time, and then after you have time to tweak and fix things without interference.

The truth is that you won’t know if you can handle this model or if it’s what you want to do until you’re in the thick of it.

And at that point, your quality has probably dipped so low that you’re just on a hamster wheel trying to play catchup at midnight on a Saturday.

To be clear here, the only way to get out of that is to hire a team in this model. Whether you say you have one or not. There’s no way you as a solo worker can maintain it.

And I suppose to combat that, you could build up a library of assets and templates to duplicate over and over again... but if you’re doing visual work, it’ll catch up to you at some point. Might as well just sell the templates instead and be completely hands-off.

What you need to be successful with a subscription service is confidence.?

It’s uncrackable systems, patience… and full control over your clients.

And that is why you shouldn’t allow anyone to book & pay for the subscription without the ability to vet them first. It won’t kill you to get on a sales call to make sure y’all are a good fit.

Because trust me, the theory that a $5K client is easier than a $500 client is absolute bullshit, and you deserve to filter out the crazies, K?

Now that our therapy session is coming to a close, I will say there are SO many perks to having a productized business model.?

There is a brighter side to Productized Services, which I break down in my latest video:

???? Sara Loretta is an operations industry leader @ SYSTMS? and the 10th US Certified Notion Consultant. She’s on a mission to make business education accessible to all solopreneurs, startups, and agencies.

Find Sara on Twitter (X), YouTube or LinkedIn.

visit systms.club/resources to download.