A snapshot of productizing

Transcript from video:

Here is a snapshot of what productizing looks like when you actually do the work.

Hey, it's Alzay Calhoun with Coveted Consultant. Here on this YouTube channel we talk about productizing a lot. It's a strategy I believe in completely. And it's this idea of taking your intangible service and turning it into a tangible offering. It's about turning your expertise into a specific solution that your client can understand and purchase. And so these simple understanding of that is you take what you do and you turn it into a series of steps, right? You start with the problem; you end with the solution; the client's happy. And a lot of people understand productizing just like this. That's as that's as far as you understand. However, the reality is a bit more dynamic. And so let's feel our way through that dynamic.

So for example, in my business, here's how we're practicing productizing. So my job, first and foremost is to figure out what problem we're going to solve for and then make that solution a linear one. So that's my job. It's kind of get to this basic outline here. But then here's what happens in execution. We have to make sure that we market test this. We have to make sure that this actually works for clients, that this actually works for us, that this is a good deal for both parties.

And so what does that feel like? What ends up happening in all practicality is we take this effort one step at a time. So what happens is we'll begin with ... Let's just say we'll begin with step one. And so we'll start here and we'll look at how that step works. And then what I do is I ask one of my team members to go execute that step. If this is the outline, that's how it's supposed to work, right? Then I ask the team, "Hey, go try that with that client right there. Go try this with this client right there. Walk this process through with them. Repeat this back to me and tell me how you understand this. Right? Let's feel our way through this."

And so what happens is that some nuances show up. It's not as perfect as we would like. There's some conversations that have to happen. Specifically what I've been doing is I've given my team member this outline, right? They go try to execute it and then I have them give it back to me so we can discuss it. And so we discuss it. We talk about what we like, what we don't like. Did the client move from step one to step two cleanly? Can my team member move with the client from step one to step two cleanly? Is this good? Did we miss anything? We're having real conversation. When we are clear and confident about this progression, then we can give it that final check, "Yeah, that's the right status." And then we move to the next. Now that's simple enough to digest, right?

But here's where things get a little bit more complex. Any change that we make to the first step changes every step after it. So if we decide to include an element in step one, then we have to make sure that same element is addressed in step two and three and four. That's true going from top to bottom. It's also true going bottom to top. So if we start, if we want clients to be here, we want them to finally get to that last check mark and everybody to be happy down here at the bottom, then that means we have to make sure that three leads into four, that two leads into three, that one leads into two.

So if we make a change here, we've got to make sure that every change before it happens. That means we got to have some more conversations. We got to check off on what happens here. We got to check off on what happens here. We got to check off on what happens here. If we make a change to four, we have to change everything before it. Okay? Now that makes sense, right? Not only does is that required top to bottom, required bottom to top, it's also required everywhere in between.

So if you make a change to the third step, when you get to the third step and you go, "Oh shoot, this should work a different way. We should refine this a bit better." That means you got to go back and look at the previous steps and refine those appropriately. That means you've got to look forward to make sure that these iterate appropriately. So this effort of productizing the service isn't just listing off what you do, call it a package and sell it to people. This idea of productizing says, "We're guaranteeing that our clients will get to the solution they want. And we have a very linear and direct roadmap to get them to that end goal. And we're sure that this, these four steps, are the most efficient path to getting there. We continually refine these steps so that you can get here efficiently, client." And what I'm showing you right now are the iterations that have to happen inside your company so that you can make such a wonderful promise.