In this episode, I talk about how you can productize a service business and ultimately why you should!
Check out this episode’s sponsor Divi Space for incredible plugins for Divi and WooCommerce at https://www.keeganlanier.com/divispace
Keegan 0:35
What’s up everybody, welcome to another episode of the side hustle to full time web designer podcast. Today’s episode, we’re talking about productizing your web design services. And the reason this is like gets me really amped is because it’s something that I’m trying to do at the moment. And I wanted to share some things I’ve learned some hurdles some some of the obstacles that I’ve ran into along the way, the first and foremost, I am going to a subscription based model with Redefined Creative. The reason for that is that in these times right now, there’s so many things going on. Not a lot of people have a lot of cash business wise, because we just went through a crazy, crazy year.
Keegan 1:16
And even if someone has the cash, a lot of people are trying to kind of make smart decisions, right. And so what I wanted to do is, is give businesses an opportunity to be able to get a website, have a commitment of of this two year process, which reinforces my long term partnership strategy. And what I want to do with the brand that I have with it with the agency that I’m trying to build, but I give three options. So you know, if we go over, and I take a look at the three pricing models that I have, or that I had, what I’ve done now is completely simplified everything. So whenever someone goes to my site, they have to go through the Start Your Project, I want them to learn about what we do. And then when they do that, they’re going to fill out this website webinar, and they’re going to this website form. And they’re going to come to website pricing, which used to be in threes. And if you’re going to do project based, I do recommend doing it in threes. And if you’re offering services a lot of times the reason is a great thing.
Keegan 2:27
And I’m not even taking my own advice here, what I have done is simplified even more. I’ve simplified down to really two options. And the one is going to be for your average business site, you know, a portfolio site with blog contact forms, calendar events, potentially advanced forms, and some sort of email integration. And including hosting site backups, security, software updates, manage privacy policies, monthly site reporting and unlimited. This is where I differentiate myself, right? unlimited content updates. And the reason for that is because people, they don’t know how long something’s going to take, right? They don’t they don’t live in our world.
Keegan 3:09
So unlimited content updates are something that it brings peace of mind to the clients, they say, Hey, you know, anytime I have something, anytime I need a content update or a picture changed, I can go to these to the team, I can go to my partners, and they’re going to update things for me. And I don’t have to worry about how much time it is, you know, and often, truthfully, oftentimes, it’s not a whole lot of time in a month. So I have that in there as another true benefit. And something that just makes sense from the client standpoint. And it’s $249 per month. Now we have built out the deal to where it’s it’s a two year agreement. And if someone wants to walk away, yeah, there’s absolutely in the contract that there’s going to be a buyout and I’m more than happy to move their website to another host to a different company. That’s no problem at all.
Keegan 3:57
But I want to ensure that the work that we’ve done in the custom things that have been built into the website we get, we get credit for we get compensated for. So that’s what that is. And then we have a very baseline beginner e comm slash membership site or LMS. That is 499 per month and includes everything else in the average site. And then also the option for either e commerce or membership. And with that, we’ll come site training. So let’s talk about some of the important like the pros that can come along with productizing your your business.
Keegan 4:29
Number one, your system becomes repeatable, you want a repeatable system, and if you have something that’s productize you think of a product. A product is something where the people who are making it are trying to serve a purpose, right. In the case of websites, we’re trying to deliver a functional website that meets the needs of our client. So we need to have a timeframe on it. You know, when you go to get something at the store, you purchase it you walk home you have it, it feels the need, you need to know and be able to tell the client this Here’s what we offer, this is the service that we give you, these are the things included. And this is the timeline that is a true product, and then have it for a fixed rate.
Keegan 5:08
So they know what they’re gonna pay that makes you that that specifies exactly what you’re trying to do and what the outcomes going to be. But more importantly, the work that has to be done to create that product or that website. So it allows you to have a system that is repeatable, you can build standard operating procedures, you can get quick, you can get very efficient at this process, because you’re going to do the same thing repeatedly. And it’s a guaranteed outcome to the client in the timeframe that they expect. So you can always meet the needs. And you know that that brings you brings you a client a whole lot of happiness, a whole lot of peace of mind. And it’s going to result in better reviews. Because you’re delivering on time, it’s going to be complete transparency and clarity. And it allows you to build out not only the system, but everything that supports the system of creating the site.
Keegan 5:59
Training for your clients, how to like education for your clients, you know, where they’re gonna go to sign into your web to their website, how they can do updates. And with that product, you know, for me, I use Divi, and I use Divi. Because I can scale it, I can have templates ready, I can build them up quickly. And I can go basically work up a site in no time, and then go in and customize it and make sure it fits and do whatever we need to do for the client specific needs. And it’s very, very easy.
Keegan 6:32
So there’s, that’s kind of my my spiel, just a real brain dump into this podcast episode about productizing. A service based business specifically around web design, there’s some pros for it for sure, cons is that you’re probably not going to get the big superduper high ticket items, you know, the 20 30 $40,000 websites that you could get if you were hyper custom. But is that what you want to do because with that becomes your comes a lot of headaches and hurdles that you have to jump through for those clients. So ultimately, at the end of this, I mean, it’s gonna be your business, you’ve got to control it, you’ve got to build the business that fits your life.
Keegan 7:10
Ultimately, you don’t want a business that is a job, right? We all get into this space, we all work for ourselves, so that we can create a system and hopefully a business that can thrive number one without us and still allow us to make money and give us some of the free time that we that we desperately want to do things that we love. So you’re going to get efficient through building your service businesses into a product and you want to do it in a way that’s repeatable, and have standard processes and standard systems that you can teach other people so that you can continue to scale that allows you to make money without physically doing the work yourself. You can work on strategy, you can look at relationship business building, you can do all those other things that will drive a business and make it bigger.
Keegan 7:55
So that’s kind of where we’re at. That’s the end of this episode. And I wanted to thank the sponsor of this video, which is Divi space, Divi space. If you’re not familiar with Divi space, they produce some incredible products for Divi and WordPress and a lot of great things for WooCommerce. So if you’re in the market and you haven’t checked out Divi space, we will link it in the show notes below. I hope that you have an absolutely incredible day, and we’ll see you in the next episode.