Listen Now:

If you’re ready to scale up your service business, this is the episode for you! 

There are 3 models you can use to create income in your business – one of them you’re already familiar with but the other two might be new to you.

We’ll talk about the positives and negatives of each one and how you can begin looking at your business critically to see where you can grow.

Want to see how you can grow and scale your service business? Let's talk!

Alyson Lex 0:02
If you are a service provider, chances are you're hustling to fill your pipeline with leads for your thing, your graphic design, your copy your funnel, building your branding, whatever work it is that you do. And not all your leads are going to be qualified for your thing, they won't want it, they won't be able to afford it. Or they've got other objections that you're struggling to overcome, for whatever reason. And while some of that can be fixed with sales training, like working on handling those objections better, and proving your value more, some of it is not going to be overcome, because that's simply not the model that's going to suit that particular prospects or clients needs. And you've heard of diversification or leveraging what you know. And that's why in this episode, Jenny and I are going to break down exactly what that looks like in your service business.

Jennie Wright 0:53
A couple models we're going to talk about today, there's three of them that we're going to touch, there might be a couple more that you can think of right, you may have heard, these are the three that we're going to focus on. These are the three that Allison and I know really, really well. The first one is the done for you model, Alison and I have been playing in this little model for a while now. And with some success, you know, you're already familiar with this one, it's the one where the client contacts you, you do the work and congratulations, you get paid. Frankly, this is the one that's most popular for clients because they don't want to have to do it all themselves, you come in as a service provider, and you fill that gap, you fix it for them, you do the thing. Let's break it down into some pros and cons, and figure out a little bit more about how this sort of works. So yeah.

Alyson Lex 1:40
On the pro side, it's often high fee, you get to charge a lot for it, because you're taking things completely off their plate, and there's a lot of value in there. And because of that you don't need that many clients to make your monthly goals, there is a pain of disconnect there as well. Because if they can't get the stuff done without you, they come back, if your particular business is the kind people come back to, if you build websites, they may not always come back to get new websites built that frequently. But you know what I'm saying that it is also really great for referrals if you leverage it, right, because they can give direct experience and say, This is who I used. And people are always looking for great service providers to accomplish things in their business. And because of all of those things, you don't need a huge email list, you don't need a huge following to be successful with this strategy. In fact, I have been doing this for 14 years, very successfully. And I didn't start building my own list until relatively recently.

Jennie Wright 2:48
Congrats on that. I mean, and I have to say I could say the same for my business as well. There are some cons. And these are the ones that also and I identify pretty readily with this. And that's it's the first ones high touch. You're not landing a client without at least one sales call, possibly a bunch of sales calls, maybe if it's a really big potential client, and a bunch of emails and proposals, Allison and I just went through this with a larger client. And there were several calls, lots of emails, changes to proposals, updates, repurposed, waited for the signature, like all the things right, so there was a process and it took I think took about three or four weeks, I think it was more than I think it was four weeks to close a client, right? It's a one shot deal. It's not always reoccurring revenue, like Allison was mentioning. So if you're always on the hunt, for more clients, you have to consider that if you're just building websites, like she said, they may not be coming back to you. And also it's it's work, you know, there's a limit on how much you can do. I mean, she can do in a day, how much you can do in a week, and how much you can charge. So it really does cap your income. And if you're okay with that, that's okay. But if you want more, then you're gonna have to look at another model. We're going to talk about those in just a sec. The last thing is client issues, you could potentially run into additional client issues, things like scope creep, things like, Oh my gosh, the Jenny rella syndrome, which Alison could probably really talk about edits. There's lots of stuff that you can talk about when it comes to feeling like you're continually having to prove your worth and your value. And that feels really

Unknown Speaker 4:27
can feel really crappy.

Alyson Lex 4:30
You mentioned something just a second ago that I wanted to touch on. And that's that when we move on to discussing these other models. Think about what you want for your business. If you are so perfectly happy and feeling great about how many clients you have right now and how much you charge and what you're able to accomplish in your life with that business. Then stop listening. Don't feel like you have to change it just because we did a podcast episode on that. Not everyone wants to run an empire and take over the world. And it's okay if you're one of those people, that is just happy. Right, don't feel like you have to push to go bigger. But if you do want to go bigger, if you do want to grow, or you feel like the client model isn't working for you, as well as you want it to be, you just don't want to do it anymore. There are other models you can use. The next one is the done with you model. So we did the done for you. Now it's the done with you model. And this is basically group coaching. Alright, let's just call it what it is. Alright, it's designed to help people get through a process of achieving a specific outcome at the end of a specified period of time. It can include some implementation help, but you're not doing it all for them. I used to be a service provider that provided a service, oh my gosh, that was obvious, right? But

Unknown Speaker 6:13
slightly meta,

Alyson Lex 6:15
slightly meta, but I used to be part of a group coaching program. And the owner of the program hired me to write copy for one specific aspect, that aspect was done for them. But the rest of it, they had to do themselves. And what this does is it leverages your expertise instead of your time because you're doing group calls, to help them through the process, instead of one on one, you're providing the accountability, you're providing the expert training. Okay, this is great for smaller, more niche than courses that get to one outcome as quickly as possible. Chances are, that's not going to be as fast as you could do that for them. So it will take longer than it would take for you to do it. If I was to teach copy, it would take me much longer to teach you how to do it yourself. And for me to just do it for you to kind of like my five year old takes me way longer to teach him how to do something for them for me just to do it for him. Okay,

Jennie Wright 7:18
it can include some, some implementation help, so that you're not doing it all for them, like Alison was saying, but it really leverages your expertise instead of the time. Right. So that's where you start looking like the expert, the teacher than just the well fuck that that.

Unknown Speaker 7:39
Big got it.

Unknown Speaker 7:43
I'll just go to pros.

Jennie Wright 7:52
The pros of this are that it's really, really scalable. You can help more people with less of your time, you can reach more people with what you're trying to do. And you can also look at a more you know, it can change your income is what I'm trying to say it is a lower investment from your ideal client than for your done for you services. But it makes it easier to sell to some people, people who may not have been able to afford your done for you service can now afford your done with you. It also positions you as an expert, which is wonderful. And also it helps. This is another thing that's really cool. It helps identify people who may still want you to do it for them. So they might try the done done with you in the go. Ah, crap, I still can't do this. I still need more help. Allison, I need you to read, you know, like helped me with my copy. Can you just do it anyways? Right? Because it actually might prove to them there might be like, Oh, I think I can do this myself. They go through the process of like, Oh crap, I can't I need this done for me. And then they'll realize that they should actually get the thing. Right. So I think that's I think that's a heck of a lot more interesting sometimes. Because it's a small nation course or program, it can be easier to achieve an outcome, which is really really nice. And you know, those are those are some really good things for people to consider. It makes them understand their, their ability level, it helps up level people there's there's a really it's for the people who want to get their fingers into it.

Alyson Lex 9:25
However, with good news, there's also sometimes bad news. So frankly, depending on your market, it might be a little on the saturated side with group coaching programs and offers and it may be tough to set yourself apart from that competition. Another thing is your clients may not want to wait for results and that's why not everybody is a fit for a done with you. They don't want to say hey, I want to take the next six weeks to learn how to write sales copy I need sales copy tomorrow. That kind of thing. It is still going to require some touch points, it will still require a sales conversation. And getting those sales calls can sometimes prove to be a challenge. It's definitely a launch model, or a marketing model that's a little different than the than the done for you stuff that you're used to doing now. And sometimes there's a perception of value over what is actually in the course. So you're selling a slightly different outcome. Whereas with the done for you, you're selling deliverables. Here, you're selling knowledge, which is a totally different game. And because of those things, you do need a good sized, or, and an active, engaged list. To sell enough spots to fill your program depends on how you want to do things.

Now, I really quickly want to talk about the two different ways that you can run, you're done with your programs, you can do a cart, open cart close model, which is this program starts on January 1. And everybody who enrolls will all start on January 1 of all, and on March 30. I'm making updates here, obviously, that is a cart open model, then there's the Evergreen or rolling admission model, where you have a program and you just bring people in as they get sold. For a cart open model, you do need a longer sales period. It's it's a whole thing. For the Evergreen, or rolling admissions model. That's really where you, you start to need more automated funnels, and webinar strategies and things like that. So there are challenges on both sides of that, we're not going to dive into each of those now, or this episode would be three and a half hours long. But just consider that there are even if you decide to go with this model, there are still other decisions to make.

Jennie Wright 12:14
The last model we're going to talk about is the Do It Yourself model. This is this is essentially a product or a course where the information is delivered without direct access to you. So this could be a course where it is a drip model, or a you know all access model where they just get in there and they start going through the stuff, they go through all the modules, they go through all the information and start implementing on their own. Again, there's no access to you. So there's a couple things here. There's pros and cons. And before we get to that, there's one other thing that we want to say,

Alyson Lex 12:49
I just just typed a little note to Jenny, I was like I have something to say that I want to make sure this is not what you see out there as like a collection of templates, or a collection of swipe files, that is a product. Alright, that is that's not teaching them something. So even if you're doing the Do It Yourself model, it's still creating a transformation for them, it's still taking them through a process. And like Jenny mentioned, you can do a drip method or an all access method. This is one of those things, where at the at the beginning of the episode, Jenny said you might think of some other models, creating those template packs, or something like that is another model that we're not going to cover. So really think about everything that we're talking about and how you can tweak it to apply it to what you want to achieve in your business. Okay, so the good things I get to say the good news today, the good things about the Do It Yourself model is it's typically at a lower investment. There are some do it yourself or self study courses out there that are a high investment on par with a group coaching program. But for the most part, they are a lower investment, which means you don't necessarily need a sales call. They can be as comprehensive or as niched as you want. Because you're not, you're just giving them information, right. And what that means is there's potential for multiple courses slash streams of revenue. So you could create a course on this create a course on that, because you're creating it once and selling it lots of times. You don't need to make sure that your schedule will handle it. It's much harder to create and run five or six group coaching programs or done with you programs, because there are there still time investment there for you. Whereas with these, there's no ongoing time investment on your behalf. This is great. To use as an affiliate program, hey, we promote this for me, because of the no time investment, it's literally all profit. And so you your margins, what you can play with those margins and what that looks like for you. It's you can use it as part of a value letter, value ladder, letter value letter, a value ladder, I call it an ascension ladder. But you can use it actually almost as an introduction to you. And then use that to find people who might be great for your done with you or your done for you components. So it can actually serve other parts of your business. And because they can be so niched in, you can find voids in the market, whereas sometimes with the done with your programs, there's a lot of competition. Plus, they're fast, you can make them really fast, make them one time really fast, get them out the door, and begin profiting quickly.

Jennie Wright 16:04
There are a few cons that we think of, there's zero accountability for the results that people who purchased it will make, you have no idea whether or not they took it, they did it, they've completed it. And sometimes it gets bought and never used. So it's really again, it's really hard to track that success. So it couldn't be something that people purchase from you never ever use, and then never solve the problem. And that sucks. There is the potential for higher returns, which is interesting that that's in the comment section. But that's okay.

Unknown Speaker 16:43
Why is that in the comment section?

Alyson Lex 16:47
high returns? Do we want to edit?

Unknown Speaker 16:51
Oh, I get it,

Alyson Lex 16:53
refund the turn rate refunds.

Jennie Wright 16:57
We're gonna add that I'm going to go back to cons. Wow, this is a fun episode. Hold on, I got it. Okay. Do you mind noting that? Well, I put a long as pause.

Unknown Speaker 17:13
There are a few cons.

Jennie Wright 17:15
And one of them is having no accountability for the results that your purchasers or students have? Did they do the course? Did they finish it? Did they complete it? Did it resolve their problem? Did they learn something? Were they able to apply it? These are the things you won't know you actually won't know at all, unless you have a software like Thinkific, which will tell you if people actually completed the course, I've seen rates with these types of courses and products to be very, very low, you know, less than 30% of people who purchased it actually completed it. And that can be a problem. There is a potential for high returns slash refunds, where people purchase it and decide it's not for them. And then they try and return it. Be very careful here. If your course or if your product is a completely digital with no physical thing in it whatsoever, you should be careful about saying whether or not there is a refund policy or what the refund policy is, for a digital product. It's also difficult to create an evergreen sales funnel that actually works with this and may take you time to land on the thing that works, you might invest some time and some effort into trying to figure that out. How is this going to be is it going to be from an on demand training that you run a Facebook ad to. And then this is the upsell. So think about those kinds of things. It gets bought. And you know, like I said people may not use it, which is a struggle, you also do need a larger list, or you need to be constantly generating leads to continuously sell something like this. So look at your lead generation model and see where there's gaps and holes, you might need to do something a little bit different. This has been interesting. And I know it is and I know that there's a couple different other models. These are the ones that Allison and I focus on. And with a couple things that we want you to use as takeaways from today's episode. I'm gonna take the first one, and then Allison's gonna get the pleasure of all the other ones that she just wrote for us. If you're happy with your business, you know, as a reminder, don't worry about changing it. I know people who are quite happy doing what they're doing in the complete done for you model. And that's great. At some point, some people want different things. I definitely wanted out of the completely done for you model. And I think Allison has gotten to that point to where it's just like, I don't want to sell so much of my time, I'd rather sell more of my expertise, which is different.

Alyson Lex 19:41
Each of the options that we've given you has positives and negatives around the you have to figure out what works best for you. So think of this episode as a self study model. We're going to present you the information, our expertise, and then it's up to you to do something with it. If that kind of model feels good to you as a client, chances are, that kind of model will feel good to you as a provider, right, so use this episode as an example. And actually, every podcast episode we do, we give you a ton of information, we give you a strategy, we give you a plan. And then it's up to you whether you implement it or not, there's no more of our time invested. Think of it that way.

Jennie Wright 20:28
That's really smart. I like that I want to mention to everybody that if you're listening to this and you're enjoying these episodes, consider taking a look at our other ones to consider following this podcast, consider seeing if this is something that you'd be interested in listening to more than once a week, because we do have several episodes that come out. Take a look back at some of the previous episodes that we have completed, that we've done. And if you want help creating this model in your business for figuring out which model is a fit for you, and how it's going to work for you. Then connect with us at System to thrive.com forward slash thrive plan and see if Alison and I can help you do that. So go over there and see if that works. Thanks very much for listening, everybody. We'll be back again soon answering another big question.