Building a successful online business doesn’t have to focus on physical products. Businesses worldwide have been turning their services into valuable online products. Let’s look at How To Turn Your Business Services Into Online Products.
So what is the best way of doing this for your business?
8 Ways To Turn Your Business Services Into Online Products
- Package Me Up
- Multi-Service Business
- Single Service Business
- Extras, Extras, Extras
- Document everything
- Challenge Yourself
- Anyone say Subscription?
- Don’t be afraid to change
8 Ways To Turn Your Business Services Into Online Products
Here are some of my top tips for turning your services into a product you can sell online.
1. Package Me Up
The biggest challenge for every service-based business is how do you package it all up?
How do you realistically and fairly package up everything you do into products for your customers to buy online?
After all, you have traditionally charged for your time. And as every client and project is different… exactly how long is that piece of string? And how could one product suit everyone?
The key is to find the right solution for your business.
2. Multi-Service Business
You may be a Graphic Designer that offers a variety of services such as logo design, business designs, brochures etc. You may be able to easily package up and create a product for each particular service you offer.
3. Single Service Business
Alternatively, you may be a specialist Bookkeeper who only does one thing. In this case, you may be able to break up your one service into 3 product levels offerings based on variations in cost and features.
To do this you may want to draw up a list of your services that are:
- Always used
- Sometimes Used
- Rarely Used
And then create 3 potential product levels
- Lower Cost with Lower Service (ie. $200/mth for 4hrs work plus free Annual Review)
- Medium Cost with Medium Service (ie. $400/mth for 8hrs work plus free Quarterly Review)
- Higher Cost with Higher Service (ie. $800/mth for 16hrs work free Monthly Review)
In essence you need to try and group your services into bundles and see what works best for you and your clients.
4. Extras, Extras, Extras
“Would you like Fries With That?”
By adding product ‘extras’, your business may be able to upsell to people on a range of extra services your business can provide.
In fact by turning your service into a product you may be able to tap into some hidden money-making gems you never thought you had.
5. Document everything
One of the biggest challenges when turning your business service into a product is documentation. Remember that nothing stored inside your head is of any value to your online clients, unless it can be clearly explained via your website.
So make sure that you create engaging documents for everything you do. From detailed product summaries for your website, through to documented procedures that can be followed and explained.
A successful online store needs to have products that can be sold and repeated. Time to get rid of the fuzziness and make sure everything is detailed and clear – for both your staff and your customers.
6. Challenge Yourself
Turning your service into a product is a great time to challenge yourself. There’s nothing like an online store to shake things up.
Maybe you could ask yourself:
- Am I charging the right amount for my products? Should I be charging more? Am I too expensive?
- What can I be adding into my services to improve the product?
- What are my competitors doing that I should be looking at?
- How can I better sell my products to my clients? Do they see my value?
- What is my USP and am I letting my clients know about it?
7. Anyone say Subscription?
You may have noticed the trend of many businesses that are now offering an easy monthly subscription instead of one big purchase price.
This works incredibly well on two levels:
- It makes your product immediately affordable by spreading the cost burden over time.
- It is fantastic for your cash flow and enables to to create recurring income!
8. Don’t be afraid to change
Don’t worry if you can’t nail your ideal offerings in the first go. The beauty about an online business is that you can adjust your offerings as you experiment over time to see what works.
Test, Refine and repeat is the best method to ensure you settle on products that work for both you and your clients.
Take your online store business to the next level with a Pixel Fish Ecommerce Website.
Check out some of our latest Ecommerce Website Design projects.
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