Ongoing Development Services: Productized, Retainers & Maintenance
??? In Today’s Dive:
Hello fellow divers,
Welcome to the second edition of the div dive. Today i’ll be sharing some actionable advice on providing ongoing website development services.
Let’s dive in.??
??This Week’s Dive ??
Ongoing Development Services: Productized, Retainers & Maintenance
Today, we're discussing Productized Services, Monthly Retainers, and Maintenance Packages catered to website development agencies and freelancers.
I’ll be sharing some insights from my experience running Flow Sparrow, which first year or so was solely a Webflow development “Productized Service”, where we grew from zero to a well established Webflow development agency within a year.
With these tips, you'll be well on your way to understanding these models, and hopefully, you'll feel inspired enough to start offering them yourself, or decide to completely stay away from it because it is certainly not for everyone. ??
Let's dive in! ?? ♂?
Service Breakdown ??
To be frank, all of these services are essentially the same thing. You are helping companies with ongoing website development services. The only differentiator is the positioning.
Productized Services
There's a lot of hype around these lately. "Productized Services" are often a singular service offering with a focused landing page.
Its popularity arises from the simplicity it provides to the customer. They need a thing done, and the service and positioning speaks to that directly. It can be a really great approach if you want to focus on one thing you do well.
Monthly Retainers
This service is often a secondary to a core offering. Which is often just website development. When you develop a website for the client, you obviously understand it much better than another provider, so why not offer ongoing support for a monthly fee?
Easy choice for lots of businesses and providers if you can find a comfortable middle ground on pricing.
Maintenance Packages
I feel like this is more of a legacy term that was used a lot in reference to Wordpress sites. Mainly because there was so many damn plugins and crap you had to “Maintain”.
But it’s essentially the same as the others, just a bad position to take in my opinion. Sell a site that doesn’t need to be maintained.
Let’s just sunset this term please.
The Perks ?
First things first, let's talk about the good stuff—why adopting a monthly retainer model or productized service is a solid idea:
Stability - Retainer models give you a dependable revenue flow, making financial forecasting and hiring easier.
Long Term Relationships - Retainer agreements foster lasting client relationships that include trust. Building good trusting relationships can make your day-to-day less stressful.
Higher Quality Work - When you get in deep with a client, you want them to succeed alongside you. I always felt inspired to do better work in these relationships. Sometimes that two-way trust isn’t always there with shorter term clients.
Reserved Capacity - Clients don’t always need your full support all the time, there are slow months and busy months. Sometimes you get clients who don’t need your services for a period of time, but during that period, you are still receiving the retainer.
Routine Processes - You can systemize a lot of the work, share with new team members easily using Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) documentation. If you do this right, you can create a profitable and well oiled machine.
The Down Sides ??
There are a few downsides to consider when deciding to offer this service.
Lots Of Clean Up - This service leans itself to brands with websites that are not performing the way they want them to. Most commonly a poor build, UX issues, poor performance, and more.
Order Taker - The core of this service is get a task and then action on it, very robotic day to day. This can become draining over time if you are a creative person.
Lack Of Creativity - In a lot of these relationships, there isn’t a ton of room for being creative from scratch. You are often working with an existing brand, styling, and vibe.
Not A Lot To Show - We spent the majority of our first year working with other people’s designs. I found it really hard to share these projects like you would new development projects, therefore limiting your marketing materials.
Non-Stop Support - If they are paying you a good amount of money every month, expect them to use it. When they got a problem, you are the first and last line of defence when things go sideways.
The Structure ???
It’s important to craft this for yourself over time, you’ll start to notice things that you do or don’t want to include in your service. But you only find this if you get the ball rolling, so don’t overthink it and get moving.
Market Research - Study your competitors and the market like a hawk to arrive at competitive pricing and offering.
Services - Be crystal clear about what's on your service menu—new pages, updating existing ones, boosting performance, CMS management, and so on.
Plans and Pricing - Offer tiered plans based on amount of tasks, hours per month, services, or a mixture of them. Start with competitive pricing, then up your rates as you grow and learn.
Higher Prices = Better Clients - This reveals itself to be true time and time again. Work your way up from a smaller price point to one that you are only attracting the best clients.
Recurring payments - Use platforms like Stripe for automatic monthly payments and say goodbye to client-chasing.
Scaling - If you are planning to grow a team around this offering, document and create processes for everything. A developer needs to be able to come into the situation and be able to do what you do without much of a hassle.
Alright, now let’s get into the good stuff. ??
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Attracting Clients ??
This is, and will always be, a challenge for people starting a service. Don’t get discouraged when it’s slow, adapt and try new things. You’ll surprise yourself!
Leverage Your Current Clients - Offer these services to clients you work with. Alongside that, leverage your happy customer’s network to meet new clients. Referrals are ALWAYS the best lead source.
Fix Their Problems - The majority of our clients came to us with some simple fixes they need to start with. Built trust with some tough work, and you might find yourself with a long term client that is happy to pay.
Cold Outreach With Value - Use services like Built With or alternatives to dig for potential clients using the technology look up, then reel them in via cold email, LinkedIn, and other platforms by offering genuine value. This has worked for us in the past.
Community Building - This was a big one for us in our early efforts of getting clients. Do your best to add value where you can on socials. Host events, build resources, and get involved. It’s often indirect lead generation, but it works.
Follow Up - I could probably do an entire post on this. Follow up a reasonable amount without being annoying. I can say at least 50% of our entire client base came from having a good initial conversation and following up MONTHS later. Sometimes they are not ready, be there when they are.
The Contracts??
Just like any other service, it’s important to get this nailed down early. We started with a Terms Of Service on our site, but later implemented a signed contract flow. I’d suggest going with the latter and tweaking it as you go.
Flexibility Is Best - Annual contracts with a good chunk of money upfront (or guaranteed over a period of time) can seem like a great idea. But I can confidently say that you don’t want to be tied to a client for a year, a lot can change in that time from both sides. Do a month to month.
Include The Details - The boundaries of this service need to be detailed clearly here. Use it as the resource to point to when they are over using your service.
Legal Shield - Always get clients to sign on the dotted line before you start work.
The Management ??
This is the most common thing I get asked about. Creating safe guards and systems for task submission, timelines, and deliverables is the key to success with this offering.
Prioritization - You can put limits on how many things you are working on at a time. We only focus on 1 or 2 active tasks at a time to keep the clients priorities in check.
Managing Multiple Clients - Think of all of your clients as a collective queue and organize timelines and deliverables in this fashion. If one client needs to launch Friday, another next Tuesday, guess which one you should tackle first.
Communication - Use task portals and communication tools like Slack for client communication. Keep them updated regularly on task progress.
Delivery & Approval - Make sure to determine a process that allows you and them to review things at each stage of the process. Going live with something before it’s approved is never a good thing.
Flexibility - Be flexible when clients need help. They’ll always appreciate the willingness to move things around for them rather than being overly rigid.
Explore Your Limits - It’s hard to tell what might be too many clients unless you push yourself. Find that limit and set a cap, then reevaluate your pricing. Raise it with existing customers or replace them with ones who are comfortable at the new rates.
Things we typically do for clients for additional context:
Keeping Them Happy ??
To nurture long-term client relationships, here's what you do:
Be Honest - Being candid about issues or your capabilities with a project is ALWAYS better than trying to make excuses or some made up story. Just let them know whats up, nobody has time for nonsense.
Feedback - Actively seek client feedback and make tweaks to improve your services. Every time I talk with a client I try to ask them if there is anything we can do better, they love it.
Reporting - Provide regular reports to showcase your work, improvements, and their website's performance. It’s great to show them (and their management) where their money is going.
Availability - Customize this to your liking as much as you can, but these services lean themselves to being on call in some capacity. Have someone available when they run into a problem, they’ll appreciate it a lot.
Regular Check-ins - This can be a hit or miss for clients. Sometimes they want you to check in, sometimes they don’t. Regardless I always lean into being overly helpful.
Extra Mile - Surprise your clients by offering added value—industry insights, trends, and best practices relevant to their business. I do my best to do this whenever I possibly can.
Iterating For Best Results ??
As your business blooms, it's essential to keep pruning and shaping your retainer model for your personal goals:
Performance Analysis - Regularly evaluate your plans, pricing, and workload management strategies.
Client Feedback - Tap into client insights to pinpoint improvement areas and potential new services.
Market Trends - Keep an eye on industry movements and tweak your offerings to meet evolving client needs.
Scaling - If your client base grows and your reputation soars, consider expanding your team or collaborating with other freelancers.
Wrap Up ??
Starting with a productized service was the best approach for us when we started Flow Sparrow. It allowed us to focus and forced us to learn together as a team. Had some tough clients, but gained some really fantastic ones we continue to hold onto tightly. You start to really build a great relationship with these companies and I think that’s my favourite part about this model.
However, I can say it was extremely tough for the first year. We really had to grind it out, do a lot of tough projects for not a lot of money, and deal with some awful clients. I can promise you that nothing about this came easy.
Remember, there's no "secret" to mastering these models. The formula is simple - start, iterate, and tailor your services to meet your goals. Customize everything to your strengths and goals.
But with this information, I hope you get a leg up above the rest. So now it’s time get to work gang!
P.S. - I’ll happily answer any questions about any of this, just reply to the email and I’ll get back to you when I can!
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Thats all for today folks! Hope you have a lovely weekend.?
IT manager
1 年Hi Keith I'm a full stack developer and I need a remote work help me thanks ??