Why Productize Your Service Business?
Running an agency, IT studio, or consulting firm is challenging. As a founder, you’re likely familiar with the hurdles of service-based businesses:
Hardly predictable revenue
Fluctuating projects and milestones cause erratic cash flow, making financial stability a constant worry.
Pressure on margins
Custom projects raise your variable costs and salary demands, while clients push for discounts and inflation increases expenses.
Customization overload
Tailoring services for each client strains your team and leaves you questioning if complex projects are worth the effort.
Hiring Challenges
Rising wages and high turnover make it harder to attract and retain top talent, draining your best performers and increasing training demands.
Limited growth
Each new client demands more time and extra resources, hindering sustainable, large-scale growth.
Dependency on founder
The current model forces you into micromanagement, leaving little time for innovation and strategic planning, and keeps your business heavily reliant on you
No investment within reach
Struggling to attract investors due to lack of recurring revenue and dependency of your revenue upon people – capacities.
The Terzos Solution: Productization
Have you ever wondered why are the world’s largest companies at the moment like Apple, Microsoft or Amazon product-based?
Because products are designed to scale:
Services are:
- Tailored to each client
- Paid for upon completion
- Delivered by people
- Producing gross margins of up to 30%
- Designed to be delivered in a limited volume
- Difficult to enter new markets with
Products are:
- Standardized and parameterized
- Paid for upfront their consumption
- Manufactured by machines
- Producing gross margins up to 60% (non-physical up to 90%)
- Designed to be delivered in large volumes
- Easier to enter new markets with
The question is:
Can services leverage these benefits? Absolutely.
What is productization?
The process of transforming a service, or part of it, into a product that can be sold automatically and independently.
What will you gain by changing your business model this way?
Scalability & Efficiency
Predictable & Stable Revenue
Improved Profit Margins
Consistent Delivery & Client Satisfaction
Simplified Sales & Marketing
Reduced Founder Dependency & Better Time Management
Faster Employee Onboarding
Stronger Market Positioning & Brand Identity
More Attractive to Investors & Higher Valuation
Work-Life Balance & Personal Freedom
Productize with the proven Terzos methodology
01Discovery
What’s included
- Fundamentals of productization
- Expectations setting
- First global case studies insights
- Your actual business evaluation
- Initial ideation – what could you productize?
- This project optimal setup – team, timing and pace
- End goal definition
Key outcome
By the end of this step, you’ll have a clear understanding of productization, tailored expectations, and a foundational alignment of your team.
02Analysis and Data Collection
What’s included
- Analysis of
- relevant past experiences
- available assets for productization
- Collection of available data, information and datasets
- Competitive analysis
- Strategic gaps exploration
- Tools and communication setup
Key outcome
By the end of this step, you’ll have a comprehensive summary of your actual assets for productization and a clear understanding of potential areas where external expertise or additional resources may be required.
03Ideal Service to Productize Hunt
What’s included
- Determining suitability of existing services
- Brainstorming & generation of potential candidates for productization
- Assessment criteria & factors to consider
- Applicable evaluation and prioritization methods
- Final Selection of your first service to be productized
- Devil’s Advocate round
Key outcome
By the end of this step, you’ll have a prioritized list of all potential services, components, spin-offs, or combinations within your company that are ideal candidates for productization. You will have selected the top candidate to start with, and you’ll have additional options lined up for future consideration.
04Draft of Productized Service
What’s Included:
- Definition of all key aspects of your future product or productized service, including pitch elements
- Process modeling of related existing processes (Pre-delivery, Delivery, Post-Delivery)
- Initial draft of productized processes across all stages
- Second batch of case studies insights
- Initial business plan
- Hypothesis Summary
Key outcome
By the end of this step, you’ll have a detailed draft of your future product / productized service – a clear definition of all its key aspects and other pitch elements, mapped the processes related, plus a summary of assumptions that need validation.
05Market Validation
What’s Included:
- How to validate (across different market segments and several price points)
- Advice on conducting quantitative and qualitative market research
- Checklist of critical data points to gather
- Advice on in-house vs. outsourcing approach
- Validation itself
Key Outcome:
By the end of this step, you’ll have a clear validation of whether your drafted productized service will be accepted by the market. This phase will provide you with refined details, additional data to support or challenge your original assumptions, and a decisive go/no-go for proceeding with full-scale productization.
06Productizing Sales
What’s Included
- Standardization of lead gen and sales
- Proper sales and/or marketing strategy selection
- Refining actual related processes
- Insights from Terzos Projects on productizing sales
- Third batch of case studies insights
- Optimal productized landing Page composition
- Optimal first funnel creation
- Ecommerce principles to follow
Key Outcome:
By the end of this step, you will have a clear understanding of which strategy (or combination of strategies) is best suited for your productized service. You will also have a draft of your initial landing page, a marketing/sales funnel blueprint, and clarity on which tasks you will handle in-house versus those that should be outsourced.
07Productizing Delivery
What’s Included:
- Standardization of service delivery
- Automation & delegation in MVP and post-MVP
- SOPs creation and maintenance
- Insights from Terzos Projects on productizing delivery
- Operational tips (scalability vs. HR, tech and operations, risk-handling)
Key Outcome
By the end of this step, you will have a clear understanding of which strategy (or combination of strategies) is best suited for your productized service. You will also have your initial landing page, a marketing/sales funnel blueprint, and clarity on which tasks you will handle in-house versus those that should be outsourced.
08Full Automation
What’s Included
- End-to-end process automation post-MVP
- Advanced workflows and automation tools
- AI dilemma – insights
- Integrations and API Usage insights
- Maintenance and updates insights
- Regular testing and B-plans
Key Outcome
By the end of this phase, your productized service will be automated to the level you find optimal within your actual project — from sales to delivery. You will have all key insights on relevant tools, systems, and processes to implement further, and how to maintain, monitor, and improve them over time.
09Continuous Improvement
What’s Included
- Scaling – key principles to follow
- Working with feedback
- Data-driven decision-making operations
- Iterative process refinement
Key Outcome
By the beginning of this step, you are fully independent from Terzos. Your company and team will have the capability to manage productization autonomously. We will provide you with all the documentation (depending on the package selected).
10Scaling
What’s Included:
- Scaling strategy tips
- Partnerships and alliances tips
- Ongoing support and advisory options
Key Outcome
Scaling. You will execute and enhance this phase independently, with support from us only if you choose to opt for it.
Why work with us?
We focus on service business like yours, not solopreneurs
Terzos focuses exclusively on productizing IT companies, marketing agencies, consulting firms, and similar service providers – proven service companies with at least 7 employees.
Proven track-record of our founder
The Terzos methodology was developed by Edita, our founder, former CEO of IT companies, serial entrepreneur and a seasoned mentor, throughout her 20+ years successful career . In all forms of cooperation with Terzos, you’ll get some guidance directly from her.
Global knowledge combined with local insights
We blend two decades of our founder’s expertise with our actual projects’ insights, but best of all, with global know-how on productizing, drawn from studying dozens of productized businesses across the USA, Australia, Canada, and Europe.
Results that speak for themselves:
Our customers gladly share how we’ve helped them avoid common pitfalls and achieve real results – quickly and smoothly. See for yourself
Why Terzos?
And not do it yourself?
You can productize on your own—it’s not very difficult, rather complex. However, do you have the capacity to realize this change on your own? Do you have time and money for trials and errors? And isn’t it safer to have an expert along the way when you implement strategic changes within your team and company?
With Terzos, productization can
be realized in just a few months.
