The Power (and process) of Productizing Your Services feat. Greg Hickman

Narrator  0:00  

You’re listening to the all systems go podcast, the show that teaches you everything you need to know to put your business on autopilot. Learn how to deploy automated marketing and sell systems in your business the right way with your host the professor of automation himself and founder of automation bridge Chris Davis

Chris Davis  0:31  

Welcome to another episode of The all systems go podcast I have the pleasure I have the pleasure of interviewing a good friend of mine, we Greg we go back many moons many, many moons we are what you would call an infusion soft OG. Okay, but let me let me get to the intro. Greg is the founder of founder and CEO of the alt agency one of the top training coaching companies for done for you service providers, such as digital agencies and consultants looking to grow in scale by packaging their expertise. This involves installing systems for growth and leveraging automation to save time. You can see the connection with automation everyone anyways, with the end goal of divorcing listen to this divorcing their time from their income. I just such a so masterfully put, Greg, 

I want to say it again, everyone divorcing your time, from your income. That means when time is removed, income isn’t hot. It’s still coming in. So today who better than Greg Hickman himself to teach us and talk to us about the importance of productizing our services to scale, because many of us, many of the listeners, Greg don’t have products, they’ve got services and they want to sell them like a product. They they want that revenue, they want that impact. But they may feel like they have to customize it in every proposal, they have to look over and make sure that the service is meeting the specific client’s need because that’s what they pride themselves in. So we’re going to talk about that everyone will see if Greg agrees or not. Right? Without without me belaboring on Greg. Welcome to the podcast, man. How you doing?

Greg Hickman  2:27  

Very good. Thanks for having me. It’s an honor. The Lost Art of of automation and audit automating businesses. Right again, full circle.

Chris Davis  2:42  

Full Circle, man. So so how I’m familiar with your journey, your founders journey, Greg, but what were the humble beginnings that led you up to all agency as it is now?

Greg Hickman  2:56  

Yeah, so I’ll try to keep it fairly brief. I mean, not a college agency, Brett like part of Omnicom family representing big brands, all different levels of like project management to account management. So like really got to learn the agency side of business early on. From there kind of like popped around from like larger organizations to small boutique firms. And did client side responsible for hiring other agencies and boutique firms and consultancies before kind of going out on my own. And the first kind of dab at kind of building my own business was a little bit of a failure. I had a decade inside of the all that agency game where I was really involved in mobile marketing, and was even known as like the mobile guy when I started blogging and podcasting. But that didn’t really get me a business. And somewhere in there, I met you know, I came across Infusionsoft and really fell in love with automation. And I was using it inside of my own, you know, space business to like streamline things, and started seeing people that I cared about online entrepreneurs building businesses online, and we’re using it and I could actually serve those people, people that I enjoy and an inspired by on doing something I’m also interested in. And so that kind of led me down. That was early 20 or mid 2015. And I like pivoted into serving online course creators, influencers authors that we’re using Infusionsoft now was like the beginning of my, my agency, which was also a little bit of a disaster for many people that we’ll talk about, like customization of work. So that’s kind of quick how I ended up into automation land and really just fell in love with how do you like systematize businesses?

Chris Davis  4:51  

Yeah, I remember those days man where the automation was more appealing. laying down the output of the automation, right? And yes, kind of like bragging rights look at look at how it how this automation looks. Now what it does, right? And that what it helps you achieve. So for you, there was a part of you that was more drawn to the how do I create this into a system that actually works that actually produces the thing?

Greg Hickman  5:24  

Inside of our business? For you? Yes. So I mean, a little bit of by just trial and error, honestly, what I think as a service provider, or whether you’re an agency or consultant, you probably like early on, you got your first few clients. You know, I joke a lot about like, make, in some ways make fun of like people, they get stuck doing a lot of custom work. But like in the beginning, that’s the best way to start. Because you can get a lot of experience. And so, you know, I came in and was like, well do anything under the roof of Infusionsoft for you, Mr. Mrs. prospect for this super high fee of $200 a month. And I got clients pretty quick, and realize that that was a horrible idea. Because there’s a lot of things under the roof of of Infusionsoft. As you can imagine, for those listening, probably no and or any really any tool. And so there was no parameters. But the one smart thing I did do was I gave myself a three month like trial. So I said, look like I’ll do anything you need, because I’m trying to understand what you actually need and find valuable. And I also want to figure out how to refine this, to package it up to make it something that other people want. And so I was like, let me I’ll do anything that you ask for under under the sun, give me a three month commitment, I can kind of, you know, see what I like and don’t like. And then from there very quickly, I was able to say, all right, like, I’m never doing these five things. Again, these are the things that seem to be driving the most impact slash they care about the most, and that they value the most. And that’s where I started iterating on like packages. 

So you know, if anyone’s listening in there early on, you know, we talked about privatization a lot and like launching products and things like that. But like, all of that the precursor is you kind of have to have specialized knowledge, before you start making this move to productize service. And like, I think a lot of people, they they hear and understand the pain, that current and potential pain that comes from one on one delivery for everything, every client being custom. But if they’ve never experienced in this, like, more of even a recent learning for me, like our clients, our sweet spot, they’re stuck between like 20 and 40k a month. And like, they feel the pain of Oh, like they know that it’s the customer. That’s not allowing them to go versus the person who’s like, oh, yeah, I should avoid that. But I’ve never felt it yet. And so like they still they don’t have enough reps, you know, to understand that this is actually a thing that’s going to prevent them from growth, not in the not so distant future. So that’s kind of, again, trial and error of like, a what do people want. And I think one lesson that I can extract from this. That was a big aha for me. In my mobile days, I was so in love with mobile marketing being the solution that I never fell in love with the problem that the ideal client had. And so I’d come in and be like, Look, mobile is the solution. And like, I was serving retail at that time, but like, we don’t even do email yet, like mobile seems like this big stretch. So it’s like long sales cycles. But then you come into a market that was using automation, and you’d like say, you know, webinar funnel, and like, leading on the first call, one call closes. I’m like, oh, like, so I think, you know, possibly in your audience. Mine is, well, we love this, like we’re practitioners, right? Like, we love the stuff that we do that I think we get hung up on the thing that we do the the features, the benefits, as the thing when your client doesn’t care about that, like they have their own problem, that they’re probably articulating in a way that you still don’t understand. And like until that meets, and you fall in love with that problem and are willing to adapt your expertise and knowledge of your tools and all that stuff to be the solution. It’s going to be difficult like because that’s where you just try to like find someone that like hey, here’s the menu of all the things I can do you pick it’s like that’s a horrible that’s a horrible business model.

Chris Davis  9:54  

Yeah. You know what I empathize because There’s the mindset of, the more I can give, the more I can do, the more valuable I am. And, and, and then the fear, like I just don’t want them to stop paying me. So whatever they say I’ll do it and you get into this cycle where you become an employee, right to your to your clients. And your your your hands are tied to your time and your time is inflating by the day. And before you know it, you’re stressed and you just don’t know how to break free from it, you know?

Greg Hickman  10:32  

Yeah, and it’s, it’s this weird, like, cyclical, like, you know, everyone talks about flywheels, it’s almost like a reverse flywheel. Like going in the opposite direction, because the, in that early stage, like I said, like, it’s beneficial to take a lot of what you can get, so that you can get the reps and find the thing that your ideal client values, so that you can actually refine into a specific offer, that can be sold over and over and over again. And it’s really difficult for a lot of people to finally let go of the things that keep coming to them, because they don’t know where the next client is coming from. But they don’t know where the next client is coming from, because there was no way to attract them when they just would do anything for anybody. And so it’s like, there’s no acquisition, play, there’s no, there’s nothing to promote, to attract someone to you, because you’ve never specialized in offering a specific solution. It’s just, you say yes to whatever someone says, and so you get stuck on that, like needing that. And usually it comes time to make a decision. That is usually difficult to say, like, I’m not going to take on this sort of work in quote, unquote, the old way, because I’m committed to become like the next version of my business. And the only way to do that is to be it. And so it’s like, well, if the future version of your business doesn’t accept clients on those terms, then we need to stop accepting those terms now, like, that’s how we get to the new client. And there’s like, there’s always the oh, well, when you know, the stars align, and you know, whatever, I’ll finally make this move. It’s like you won’t, because you’ll keep getting people that will happily tell you what you should do for them. And you will keep saying yes. And so yeah, there’s like this kind of like, rubber meets the road, where like, you just kind of get stuck in that hamster wheel.

Chris Davis  12:37  

Yeah, it’s it reminds me of the Tarzan principle that I, my mentor told me about news, he was saying, Don’t let go of one stream of income until you have a good hold of another. And in this respect, because I’ve had to do this, we’ve all had to do this, you have some what we’ll call legacy contracts, right? Legacy work that is tied, tied you down, and you need to stop doing it. So you don’t keep doing it. You change your contract terms, change your offering, and everybody who’s in the current contract, you still honor that. But the next one is going to be the new contract. And that’s the next row. And then you start letting go. And when I say letting go, everybody, I don’t want you to get nervous people get nervous. When I say let go in business, they’re like, where’s this like, they see money flying away, you can’t, when I say let go, either transition them into the new terms, or just let them know, we’re no longer operating like this so that you can swing from this new vine that will truly take you to the tree, trying to get to, you know, so I think that you know, when I hear it, I’ve always viewed it in three phases. It’s one to one, you start out one to one, you’re trying to really hone in on exactly what is it that I do? And what could it look like. And once you have an idea, and maybe in some success, you go from one, one to one, to one to some. Now, you may have three or four, you’re kind of testing this thing out, and you’re watching your time watching the commitments that you’re given. Because the end goal is one to many, right? And that’s really where that trajectory one on one, one to some one to many, is where people fail in somewhere in the one to some and one to many, it just all falls apart, which is where you become very, very instrumental.

Greg Hickman  14:32  

Alright, so that’s where you’re gonna need to like, keep the reins on me because I’m about to go off. So for context, folks listening, like I have a lot of experienced in this just because I’ve been helping a lot of people with it. And so like I’ve seen a lot of these pitfalls, not just them, but like my own journey on this. We’ve now taken over 600 people through this process. So it’s like, yeah, there’s some trends by no means, you know, I think 1000 requires statistical evidence, but like we’re getting there. But enough to report back that I think I think I understand a few things. And so 100% start off one on one, even if it’s custom to figure out the thing that you could specialize in, I think, from specialization, you actually should start systematizing things first. Like, how do you get efficient at delivering the thing that you now specialize in. And by specialized, I mean, solving a specific problem, like our mutual friend, Brad Martin, now, who also is in the automation world, he has a saying he’s like, you can sell it’s okay to sell your time, just don’t sell it as time. And like, obviously, your time is going to be used to solve this problem in the beginning. But don’t you’re not selling it as your hours or a block of hours, you’re saying, Hey, by this time, or in this timeframe, you will have X outcome, like this result or this transformation. And so I think like the specialization pieces, hey, we solve this problem. And we install this system or this solution or this framework or this model, whatever it is into your business. And like you can get really good at that ironed out a lot of the delivery kinks, you do that enough times, you’ll see how you can then transition to the kind of one to some model. And this is where we have our clients, we call it the bolt on, like, you bolt on the same outcome that you were delivering in the specialization, possibly still one on one, but now guide someone through it versus doing the work. And it’s the easiest to transition to because you should know how to do it really well, because you’ve been doing it. And you’ve been streamline it. And so you probably already have tools and assets that allow you to do that work. And now you’re just transferring the knowledge of how to use those tools, and walking someone through that. And so like that’s kind of like the bridge, that transition that you were talking about, like don’t like, Oh, I agree. Like, I don’t think you should let go of the of the old clients. But one of the things that we focus on is, hey, in the first 90 days, like when we design what did help you design and package up what this new offer is going to look like. And for some again, they have to specialize first before they’re ready to go to sell group. But let’s go like find your like, let’s the goal is to go over to place your most hands on needy client in the first 90 days, because usually it’s one of those legacy clients that are holding you back. And so what I did was, okay, let me make a list of the clients that are like, quote, unquote, I’m losing money on or bleeding me dry from a time perspective, whatever. And we had a list of like five culprits that like fundamentally, we were losing money on, and I ordered them. And so I’d go out, I get a new client for the new thing had no problem buying the new way. Because they didn’t know anything about the old day. And when I had that person, I then went had the conversation with the legacy client and created a transition out plan I made the offer on how to continue. But hey, went, wink wink for the people that are around where you’ve given them everything, there’s literally no way where they’re not going to feel like you just swept the rug out from underneath their feet. Which is why you gotta go get the one to replace them first before you have that conversation. And then don’t burn bridges like, like, offer up a transition plan. So we had transition plans from three to six months with those five culprits one of which actually, I think it was just like, I’m out and good. And so like cool, like, but in those replacing those five, we got 80% of our capacity back time capacity. And so the new model was way more efficient. And so we were able to serve more clients in less time, with less hours less people and we became like instantaneously more profitable. And so there is that kind of sequence of events. So, before I go on the next tangent like any comments, questions, or cut me off?

Chris Davis  19:19  

No, that’s good. Greg, I love the take what you’re doing same deliverable, but let’s guide them through it instead of actually do it for them. And we’re parents, we have kids, this is literally taking the baby client, getting them self sufficient in a way where it’s like, hey, look, I have a way I have I have a result and outcome. And that’s what I hear you when you talk about Brad you could say your time just don’t sell it as time is really understanding that in my one to one day. Phase, I’m the biggest thing that I can identify. It’s not even about your time. At that point. It’s about what the outcome is. And now once I know that outcome, I call it being intimate with your results. Most people have no intimacy with their results. They’re like, Oh, I don’t know who that is. It’s like, whoa, wait a minute, you said that’s the result? Can you come out of a lineup? That’s yours? Take it Oh. But when you have that, you can more easily sell that result. And like I said, like you mentioned, working with somebody like yourself to show okay, how can I start shaving off time, and I love what you said, the transition plan, people need help. People, people are great, there’s a lot of things that I do naturally. And that was not one of my issues is transitioning somebody from Plan A to Plan B, I’ve always had vision for Plan B, I can always make that seamless connection. And I was never, I was never scared for them to go away. Right. But I can understand how people like other agency owners, business owners, may have problems with that, especially if it’s somebody who was like their first client or so. And they’re like, but if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t even be in business. They stuck with us through COVID. And the hard times. And I just, Greg, I hear what you’re saying. But I’ll just keep them but like you said, when you did it, it freed up 80% of time capacity. And it’s you know, so what, it while we’re here, actually, I want to I want to ask this, what are how do you get somebody to work through those mental demons? Because because it’s not even about your framework at that time. It’s about emotional connection, and feeling of okay, I owe you this, or they did so much for me, how do you help them transition from that?

Greg Hickman  21:49  

Yeah. It’s definitely hard dependent upon the person and like, how long I mean, fundamentally, how scarred are they, you know, from from the process, but like, a few thoughts is one thing, the backside Tarzan example. And this is the more of a recent learning and like, last year, when your teeth like when I’m showing someone that this is like the new pathway, like some of them still don’t believe that it’s possible. And I need to, I need to almost paint them a picture of what this new identity looks like. Because we I think part of the issue is, it’s impossible for us to let go of an old identity without replacing it with a new one. And so like, I need to get them to understand this thing, this identity that we are becoming. And it’s a different type of owner that owns a different type of business than the one you own now, and we need to start making decisions for that person. Not you’re not you. And it probably won’t make sense to you right now. Because you’re still connected to this old identity. And so we have to show them what the new identity is, for them to be willing to let go of the other, you know, the other rope, you know, from the Tarzan example. And the analogy that hit me hard. Alex for mosey said it, he’s like, sometimes the old has to die for the new to be born. And it’s like, that’s 100% how I felt like I spent six and a half months trying to create customized plans for that those legacy clients because I was so afraid to lose them. And the second I realized that that was not useful time. And I focused on getting the next new client in the new way. Everything flipped like that six and a half months could have been a month, you know, and I wasted I wasted on just like trying to keep those old people. And most of the reality is most of them probably won’t stay with you. Two, three years from now. And so then who cares? Like you got to move on. Like, that doesn’t mean you can be mean or you should be mean like, don’t burn bridges. Like if you can do this in a humanly way where you’ll feel good about it, but you but you’re gonna have to, or else you’re gonna continue down this path. Like there’s just there’s literally no way out. But you can balance right? We gave ourselves a six month deadline of like, we’ll take up to two legacy style clients per month, only if needed, as a means to the end. But if we get to this date first. Then no more like we gave ourselves a six month time to like make the new thing make more than an old thing. And if when you focus on it, it can happen. And I actually accidentally fell into this out of desperation. So it wasn’t like I was super smart by any means. We we were at Like we we package things up and like, again, you’ll meet another ceiling like you specialize. We were delivering webinar funnels, like we literally you came in, we only would sell you a webinar funnel, we sold other stuff off the back end of that like a recurring service. But that’s how we got people. We had a client, come on, I was on a sales call. And the interesting thing about entrepreneurs is you’ll never grow into pain. And so you’ll probably you’re probably self sabotaging sales calls right now because you know, which means more work for you because you’re the bottleneck and fulfillment. And so like, you’re just sandbagging calls, right? And so I realized that I was doing that, because we didn’t have capacity. And this one guy that I was talking to, was like, so in need, like, and I’m like, like, I’m already working nights, I’m already working weekends, like something’s gotta give. And I was like, and we were selling these packages of webinars like 15k at the time. And I was like, how about I just installed the automation, because I’m a Infusionsoft partner into your application. I’ll give you some examples of emails for the before series, the after series. And like, let’s just have a cool coaching calls. And I’ll like, I’ll guide you through setting it up. Like because it’s set. Like, if, if it’s broken, when you launch it, it’s because you broke it like it works right now, we just need the content in there. You know, it already works. Like it’s just needs to be tailored to you, which only you can do anyway, I’ll guide you through it for 7500 bucks, I don’t even know like it just like it was like I blacked out. And that’s what happened. And he said, Yeah, and I was like, Oh, wow, this is the thing. And so the, the I think an opportunity for most people listening to this, is, especially if you’re at capacity, you could take more clients, right now, without adding or changing anything like and just show people what you do. And the interesting discovery on that, which I actually just interviewed a guy on my YouTube channel that just did this. And he goes, it’s really great for the person who was never going to be able to pay you for the done for you. But they still are willing to pay like pay something to get the help. And so if your ideal avatar say only like, started a million dollars a year, and you can never serve anyone below that, you have this offer, people low a million could now get in the game. And you can actually help those people but with less effort, because you’re showing them not doing it for them, because they can’t afford the done for you. But the other interesting piece happens is people higher up also will want that same offer. Because there might be say your sweet spot is between one and 5 million, there might be a company that is doing 10 million, and they have the personnel to be the labor, they don’t have the strategy, and you’re done with you offer is the strategy. They’ll execute it internally, they’ll still never hire you to do the work because they see that as inefficient because they have people in house to do it. They just don’t have strategy. And there’s been no way to get that from you up until now. And so you actually expand your total addressable market downward and upward with the same offer, which becomes really interesting, for you know, who you can actually help. And I found that, for a lot of people like that we get hung up on the done few. It’s like what happens when you find the person that doesn’t want you to do it for them. They just want your expertise, because you solve this problem 100 times already, like people will pay you for that. And they will do the work somewhere to those people.

Chris Davis  28:41  

Yeah. This is so good, Greg, because it speaks to how attractive results are. Yes, right in you. Like you say you may be targeting a million annual revenue type companies, 5 million, it doesn’t matter. Because as you get reps in doing the same thing over and over, you not only get better at it, but your systems are easier on the back end to build around it. Your team is easier to train around it. But you also get better at talking about it. You get better delivering it in the form of persuasive copy you you get the know the pain points more intimately. So like you said, the big fish, the big whales, they hear that they’re like wait a minute, is that what you do down there? And they’ll come down say Hey, can you do that for us up here? But it’s to your point there’s there’s this stick to itiveness this grit, fortitude to trust the process. Because along the way, you’re great. We live this. You’re always tempted with that person that looks like they can rescue you the big contract or whatever and they Want your time. And in the old you, if it’s not buried deep enough, come out like thriller rat on a graph and start dancing like, hey, that’s me, let’s do it. So it’s, it’s, I loved how you put the new identity and the old identity, like you can’t let go of the old identity till you get the new identity. And then that’s when you burn the bridges. Right? Like, we never go back. We’re not going back here you can helicopter to where we’re at. But were those those days are long gone, you know?

Greg Hickman  30:35  

Yeah, let me share a couple of principles, or things that I think kind of come up for people that I think that they’re probably thinking as we’re talking, but the inside of that journey, something interesting happened when we had, like, as you start serving people, right, like you’re gonna identify these little nuances in your ideal client profile that makes someone qualified or not. And we had some of the clients like, we noticed a trend, the clients that were like bleeding us dry, you know, that wanted our time and hours. We came in and like, they didn’t have like I was dealing with the owner. And they didn’t have anybody that knew their way around Infusionsoft not even like to pull a report or send an email. And so those are the ones that where we got sucked into the admin work, because it was the owner didn’t have the time. And so what we realized all the clients that like where we got to just install the webinar engine, the system, and we didn’t get sucked into the admin work, they had someone as like, even a VA that like knew how to schedule a broadcast or pull a report, like, do the day to day admin of the tool. And so that became a criteria. Hey, who currently manages your automation tool? Oh, me, sorry, we’re not the best fit. Because we knew that that’s how we get sucked into admin. And I was like, the analogy that I use that I please, everyone’s steal this. 

We are engine builders, we are not pit crew. And, like, I’m not a huge NASCAR person at all. But I think people understand the analogy. Like the guy who builds the engine is not the same guy that hops over the wall during race day, and is changing the tire. Right? Getting the water bottle into the driver, he’s up in the like the the box drinking champagne, because all of his money is down on on his car, he’ll optimize the engine after the race for the next race for sure. But he deals with engine optimization, right? He doesn’t deal with, you know, film switching tires. And we basically told like, we shared that that analogy with our prospects. I’m like, Look. And this work, because we believed it not and still do to this day. And some of you may not which this is why it won’t work. Like you have to have conviction. In my heart of hearts. I believe that what we did when we installed Infusionsoft, and we weaponize people with these automated client journeys, that they still needed someone in house to do the day to day stuff, reporting, sent in scheduling emails, you know, all that stuff, like, because those are the sorts of things that come up on the fly, that allow a business to be nimble. And I never wanted our clients to be handcuffed. And so it was my belief that they needed someone in there anyway, which is why the done with you worked really, really well, because we were transferring knowledge in the system, so that they could be self sufficient. And most of you that listening have something similar. It’s just you’re holding on to it because you feel like if you don’t, you’re gonna lose a client. But if you can get paid for your thinking, you don’t need to be doing the doing. And also when a client when you can turn down the client, because they don’t have someone in house. And you’re saying that for them to have true success with this thing that you can help them with requires it, you will have a new level of authority and integrity in that person’s mind. Like, because you’re not trying to sell them just sell them like, Hey, I don’t think you should have anybody do it this way. I’m not going to be the one to do it, because no one is gonna lead you down the road. And so that conviction, I think just kind of led us to, like, we basically demonstrated to people why it was better to be done with you, and why they needed someone in house to do some of the things that we didn’t want to have to deal with. Because it was actually better for their business and we still believe it. So I think that’s the key piece is like the engine builder versus the pitcrew. 

Like there are some things that you probably do for your clients that would be better suited for them to have in house That would make your life easier and their life easier. And you have to be willing to find those things. And so that leads to kind of product to zation. Like not felt like selling your time necessarily not selling it as time, like, what are you doing? If you’re in an automation, which many some of you people probably are like, you sell engines, you sell systems that can be installed, like that is an end to end deliverable. That is an outcome, hey, by the end of our work together, you will have a lead to client journey that is fully automated, that weaponizes Your existing team to show up better not let leads fall through the cracks. And you know, maximize, you know, the the leads that are already in your pipeline like that will be that’ll get get you X time back, we can install in X days, here’s how our process works. Like that would be the offer, right? Like that’s like you’re giving them that thing. Anything consumable that maintains the engine thereafter, is a different offer. It’s not woven in to the thing, it’s a recurring productize service that also has parameters. So let’s kind of define what productize service means for people. 

And I think my definition is a little bit different from what some people define it as I think it’s very simple. It’s a service that feels like product, because the product delivers an outcome. Think about walking to the grocery store, you see a box of cereal, imagine your product was inside front of the box explains the outcome, the thing that they get the image that like when you eat the cereal, like everyone’s cereal box has a strawberry with milk, poring over it looks delicious. That’s not what you’re getting like you got to combine those ingredients, it’s the final destination of you’re going to enjoy this amazing bowl of milk with cereal and strawberries and blueberries inside. Like none of that stuff’s in box. It’s just the cereal, right. But the the end game on the cover. On the side is the nutritional ingredients. On the other side is like information about the founder and the back is the story. And there is a pre defined deliverable with a pre defined outcome that solves a predefined problem. And once you do it enough, with a predefined solution, like predefined deliverable, all those things, it’s like you’re solving a problem that you knew they already had before they even got to you. And in an ideal world, the solutions pre loaded, because you’ve solved it so many times that most of the work like a client comes in our world. Like if you became a client tomorrow, I’ve solved 85% of your problem. And you haven’t even given me money yet. Because I’ve solved the problem so many damn times that I know the process in which I’m going to solve it. So I’m not starting from scratch. And so to think about it think about it’s not necessarily that you’re not involved in your client experience and or that there cannot be custom work because there can be it’s just you have to establish parameters around how the work gets done. There can be custom work inside there for sure, if you want. And you can make it as little and or as high as I highly customers you want. But there needs to be parameters on what’s been delivered, and how the work gets done. Brad also said this amazing thing to me he was, as a service provider, never sell a retainer, sell a recurring revenue program or a productized program. Because here’s how the language differs. He says, How does it sound? I have you on retainer who’s in control?

Chris Davis  38:48  

Yeah, the client, the client, because they have you on retainer.

Greg Hickman  38:51  

Exactly. And if the client says I’m a part of your program, who’s in control? You, right, and so, like, I know, it’s nuanced. And Brad’s a very specific person if you guys have heard of him, like he’s, he’s very specific on language because, like him, and, and you, Chris and myself, like language matters, right? Like words matter. And so you being a client being in your program in your recurring service, means they they’re playing by your rules, if they won’t play by your rules, they probably aren’t going to be a great client. And so that’s like, you have to have the parameters and how you play the game, how you’re going to deliver the service. And if people won’t abide by that, then send them to the referral that will do it custom or whatever they want, and get a kickback fee. And then you don’t have to deal with the clients that you don’t want to deal with. 

So I think it’s like, you have to design the parameters. And so let’s distinguish the evolution. Service is like traditional service, as many of us come from, I would say is work without a Process productize service is work with a process. And then I ducked is processed without work. Hmm. And you can move through that continuum over time. But you kind of have to go from one to the other, like making the leap to product is really difficult. For most people, it’s the most desirable thing, because we’re all stuck and unfulfilled, and selling a course sounds so amazing. But in order to make that work, you need a lot of volume. And if you’re like most service providers, no, you don’t, you’re not sitting on an email list, because you’ve been stuck in your clients business forever. So like, nobody still knows who you are, you’re not bringing in new leads every single day. And so you design this course, but you don’t have enough leads in your world or eyeballs to make up enough volume to make a difference in the fulfillment piece. So you’ve got to start with that productized service where you can still sell medium to high ticket, small, small group, because you can get a few clients, you don’t need 1000s of leads to get, you know, tons of customers. And like that’s the trajectory of going from kind of customized services into the productize. Game.

Chris Davis  41:12  

That was beautiful. Man, I need you to say it one more time for those in the back to make sure. Yard, you. You said Say it, it was a process with

Greg Hickman  41:22  

service. Yeah, service business is work without a process. productized services, work with a process. And then product is process without work. And if and you can move. And as long as you’re solving a specific problem moving through the continuum, is really possible for almost everybody. But if every client needs something different, you’ll never have a process to serve them. Thus, you can’t productize it. Like privatizing is basically just taking your process and like imagine putting that in the box and selling that process. Right? Like, whether you guide them through it, or you use your team do you go through that process doesn’t really matter. It’s like, there’s a go two way that you solve your client’s problem. It’s a six step process, it’s always six steps, and it’s always in the exact same order. And if as long as they go through these steps, they get the outcome like that would be a productized service.

Chris Davis  42:25  

Greg, I love it, man. And here’s what you all don’t know. Maybe some of you do. Greg is masterful with his frameworks and his worksheets, which you don’t see right now, there’s a lot of hand movement, because he’s trying to illustrate, but Greg, I’m gonna have you come back to the community, we’ll do a private session, where you can actually use your worksheets, and share your screen. And walk us through some of these frameworks. Because I just love how you framed what a product tie service is, what a product is, what a service is. And I think once people can see it, and start to have that vision of the new identity of productized services for them, they can start to break free from a lot of these clients. Because what in closing, here’s what we’re trying to prevent. We’re trying to prevent the lose, lose and the lose win. Right where both sides lose this is essentially, you wanting to show up and do a thing for the client. But it takes so much time that they’re only really getting a fraction of your real expertise, because you’re getting burned out. They’re asking you to do too much that you should never be asked to do. And you both walk away with a loss. Or, you know, it’s lopsided to where the client is winning, because they’re getting all of this work from you. And you’re losing because you’re putting in so much, or it’s flipped, that you’re putting in so much time but because it’s not truly what they need. They lose but you win from getting paid. What we want is the Win Win, where you’re getting paid and people have to stop saying I want to get paid for what I’m worth, I get paid for what you deliver and how you deliver it will increase what you get paid for that deliverable. Right. But everybody wins. That’s really where we’re trying to get to, you know,

Greg Hickman  44:10  

yeah, and I think, you know, the something to understand is that like, in this move, you’re kind of moving from generalist to specialist. Like you’re specializing, right? That doesn’t mean like you can’t like you can still be a generalist, it’s just the thing you offer and sell this specialty specialized. And the benefit for you will literally transfer through the entire business because some of you guys, the work is so custom. And so you in order to hire help, you have to hire people that have equally as much experience as you which can be challenging, because if they’re equally is experiences you they’re probably doing their own thing and don’t want to work for you. And if they are experienced and they’re willing to work for you, they’re probably going to be expensive. 

And so while you’re still don’t have capacity, you bring on these people to offload your own fulfillment, which you probably don’t have a process for and or training them, because it’s custom. And you’re like, relying on them being able to solve their clients solve your clients problems, and the margin be probably becomes next to nothing. And so you’re like, well, we can together we serve more clients, but I’m still not taking home any any more than I was before. And I have more headache. And that’s because it’s custom, when you so when you productize, not only can and in that model, you’re responding to demand. Right? When you say, Hey, we solve this problem for this type of person, you can actually create demand. And so the productize service allows you to go out into the marketplace and speak to that person that has those problems and symptoms and attract them to you. So that there’s always lead flow coming to you for people that want that solution. And when you want to close them, you can enroll them into your services, right, but like the so the privatization piece, not only does it make your marketing easier, because now you can say, hey, we do this for this type of person, and build out the attraction piece. 

But it also helps you streamline your fulfillment and probably become more profitable in delivery because you won’t need like, a, I’m careful when I say A plus players, you don’t need people as experienced or specialized as you because you’ll have compartmentalize your delivery into a multi step process. And you’ll be able to say, hey, step three of five, that one, like I need someone that knows how to do XYZ, I don’t even know how to do all the things, I need to know how to do like that specific thing. And then you can go hire specialists for that, that are good, but are going to be more affordable, like and so you’ll then have a few key people that are helping you move people through your process that will be more profitable to you, because they’re specialists in just one step of the process. And it won’t become a flight risk, because clients are still buying the outcome. They’re not buying that, you know, the account executive that you just made their point person. Yeah. And so it also helps delivery and delivery profitability that I think people often overlook, it’s like, because you’re not privatize, you don’t have people coming to you. Which is why you’re saying yes to everything. You say yes to everything. And there’s no process that you hire people that have a lot of experience, but they’re expensive. And so now you’re still drowning, but you’re not making enough money. And there’s no more extra time to work. Like you can’t just keep working harder. You raise your prices that only goes so far in almost every vertical possible. And so the only answer is just keep working harder until you change transition to a newer delivery model, which would be product test.

Chris Davis  48:02  

Yep. Yeah, man. I love it, Greg. If people want to find out more connect with you. They’re like, I need more of this daily. You’ve got a great YouTube channel. Great. Listen, everybody. As you can see this oozes out of Greg, there’s more than enough content for you to get access to. But where should they go? Where should they start? What’s the best best place for them to get going?

Greg Hickman  48:26  

I’d say go to the YouTube channel. Quick Link, there is Gregsvideos.com will just redirect right to my YouTube channel. Otherwise, just search Greg Hickman in YouTube and you will find me for sure. There’s a really good playlist, video playlist all around productization on there. And all the frameworks and models that that Chris was alluding to, are very much, very much a part of that channel. So definitely dive in if you want to learn more.

Chris Davis  48:56  

Yes, absolutely. Thank you for this Greg community members. We’ll have Greg on we’ll have our own special encore with Greg’s work shorts and drawings and all of that, Greg, thank you, man. I can’t thank you enough for being on the podcast, man.

Greg Hickman  49:10  

Thanks for having me, man. So it was fun chat with you.

Chris Davis  49:12  

Always man. All right. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The all systems go podcast. If you enjoyed it, make sure that you’re subscribed at the time of recording the all systems go podcast is free to subscribe to and it can be found in Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts new episodes are released every Thursday. So make sure you’re subscribed so that you don’t miss out and while you’re at it, please leave us a five star rating and review to show some love but also to help future listeners more easily find the podcast so they can experience the value of goodness as well. We’ve compiled all resources mentioned on the podcast, as well as other resources that are extreme. really valuable and effective at helping you grow your marketing automation skills quickly and you can access them all at allsystemsgopodcast.com Thanks again for listening and until next time I see you online. Automate responsibly, my friends

Narrator  0:00  

You’re listening to the all systems go podcast, the show that teaches you everything you need to know to put your business on autopilot. Learn how to deploy automated marketing and sell systems in your business the right way with your host the professor of automation himself and founder of automation bridge Chris Davis

Chris Davis  0:31  

Welcome to another episode of The all systems go podcast I have the pleasure I have the pleasure of interviewing a good friend of mine, we Greg we go back many moons many, many moons we are what you would call an infusion soft OG. Okay, but let me let me get to the intro. Greg is the founder of founder and CEO of the alt agency one of the top training coaching companies for done for you service providers, such as digital agencies and consultants looking to grow in scale by packaging their expertise. This involves installing systems for growth and leveraging automation to save time. You can see the connection with automation everyone anyways, with the end goal of divorcing listen to this divorcing their time from their income. I just such a so masterfully put, Greg, 

I want to say it again, everyone divorcing your time, from your income. That means when time is removed, income isn’t hot. It’s still coming in. So today who better than Greg Hickman himself to teach us and talk to us about the importance of productizing our services to scale, because many of us, many of the listeners, Greg don’t have products, they’ve got services and they want to sell them like a product. They they want that revenue, they want that impact. But they may feel like they have to customize it in every proposal, they have to look over and make sure that the service is meeting the specific client’s need because that’s what they pride themselves in. So we’re going to talk about that everyone will see if Greg agrees or not. Right? Without without me belaboring on Greg. Welcome to the podcast, man. How you doing?

Greg Hickman  2:27  

Very good. Thanks for having me. It’s an honor. The Lost Art of of automation and audit automating businesses. Right again, full circle.

Chris Davis  2:42  

Full Circle, man. So so how I’m familiar with your journey, your founders journey, Greg, but what were the humble beginnings that led you up to all agency as it is now?

Greg Hickman  2:56  

Yeah, so I’ll try to keep it fairly brief. I mean, not a college agency, Brett like part of Omnicom family representing big brands, all different levels of like project management to account management. So like really got to learn the agency side of business early on. From there kind of like popped around from like larger organizations to small boutique firms. And did client side responsible for hiring other agencies and boutique firms and consultancies before kind of going out on my own. And the first kind of dab at kind of building my own business was a little bit of a failure. I had a decade inside of the all that agency game where I was really involved in mobile marketing, and was even known as like the mobile guy when I started blogging and podcasting. But that didn’t really get me a business. And somewhere in there, I met you know, I came across Infusionsoft and really fell in love with automation. And I was using it inside of my own, you know, space business to like streamline things, and started seeing people that I cared about online entrepreneurs building businesses online, and we’re using it and I could actually serve those people, people that I enjoy and an inspired by on doing something I’m also interested in. And so that kind of led me down. That was early 20 or mid 2015. And I like pivoted into serving online course creators, influencers authors that we’re using Infusionsoft now was like the beginning of my, my agency, which was also a little bit of a disaster for many people that we’ll talk about, like customization of work. So that’s kind of quick how I ended up into automation land and really just fell in love with how do you like systematize businesses?

Chris Davis  4:51  

Yeah, I remember those days man where the automation was more appealing. laying down the output of the automation, right? And yes, kind of like bragging rights look at look at how it how this automation looks. Now what it does, right? And that what it helps you achieve. So for you, there was a part of you that was more drawn to the how do I create this into a system that actually works that actually produces the thing?

Greg Hickman  5:24  

Inside of our business? For you? Yes. So I mean, a little bit of by just trial and error, honestly, what I think as a service provider, or whether you’re an agency or consultant, you probably like early on, you got your first few clients. You know, I joke a lot about like, make, in some ways make fun of like people, they get stuck doing a lot of custom work. But like in the beginning, that’s the best way to start. Because you can get a lot of experience. And so, you know, I came in and was like, well do anything under the roof of Infusionsoft for you, Mr. Mrs. prospect for this super high fee of $200 a month. And I got clients pretty quick, and realize that that was a horrible idea. Because there’s a lot of things under the roof of of Infusionsoft. As you can imagine, for those listening, probably no and or any really any tool. And so there was no parameters. But the one smart thing I did do was I gave myself a three month like trial. So I said, look like I’ll do anything you need, because I’m trying to understand what you actually need and find valuable. And I also want to figure out how to refine this, to package it up to make it something that other people want. And so I was like, let me I’ll do anything that you ask for under under the sun, give me a three month commitment, I can kind of, you know, see what I like and don’t like. And then from there very quickly, I was able to say, all right, like, I’m never doing these five things. Again, these are the things that seem to be driving the most impact slash they care about the most, and that they value the most. And that’s where I started iterating on like packages. 

So you know, if anyone’s listening in there early on, you know, we talked about privatization a lot and like launching products and things like that. But like, all of that the precursor is you kind of have to have specialized knowledge, before you start making this move to productize service. And like, I think a lot of people, they they hear and understand the pain, that current and potential pain that comes from one on one delivery for everything, every client being custom. But if they’ve never experienced in this, like, more of even a recent learning for me, like our clients, our sweet spot, they’re stuck between like 20 and 40k a month. And like, they feel the pain of Oh, like they know that it’s the customer. That’s not allowing them to go versus the person who’s like, oh, yeah, I should avoid that. But I’ve never felt it yet. And so like they still they don’t have enough reps, you know, to understand that this is actually a thing that’s going to prevent them from growth, not in the not so distant future. So that’s kind of, again, trial and error of like, a what do people want. And I think one lesson that I can extract from this. That was a big aha for me. In my mobile days, I was so in love with mobile marketing being the solution that I never fell in love with the problem that the ideal client had. And so I’d come in and be like, Look, mobile is the solution. And like, I was serving retail at that time, but like, we don’t even do email yet, like mobile seems like this big stretch. So it’s like long sales cycles. But then you come into a market that was using automation, and you’d like say, you know, webinar funnel, and like, leading on the first call, one call closes. I’m like, oh, like, so I think, you know, possibly in your audience. Mine is, well, we love this, like we’re practitioners, right? Like, we love the stuff that we do that I think we get hung up on the thing that we do the the features, the benefits, as the thing when your client doesn’t care about that, like they have their own problem, that they’re probably articulating in a way that you still don’t understand. And like until that meets, and you fall in love with that problem and are willing to adapt your expertise and knowledge of your tools and all that stuff to be the solution. It’s going to be difficult like because that’s where you just try to like find someone that like hey, here’s the menu of all the things I can do you pick it’s like that’s a horrible that’s a horrible business model.

Chris Davis  9:54  

Yeah. You know what I empathize because There’s the mindset of, the more I can give, the more I can do, the more valuable I am. And, and, and then the fear, like I just don’t want them to stop paying me. So whatever they say I’ll do it and you get into this cycle where you become an employee, right to your to your clients. And your your your hands are tied to your time and your time is inflating by the day. And before you know it, you’re stressed and you just don’t know how to break free from it, you know?

Greg Hickman  10:32  

Yeah, and it’s, it’s this weird, like, cyclical, like, you know, everyone talks about flywheels, it’s almost like a reverse flywheel. Like going in the opposite direction, because the, in that early stage, like I said, like, it’s beneficial to take a lot of what you can get, so that you can get the reps and find the thing that your ideal client values, so that you can actually refine into a specific offer, that can be sold over and over and over again. And it’s really difficult for a lot of people to finally let go of the things that keep coming to them, because they don’t know where the next client is coming from. But they don’t know where the next client is coming from, because there was no way to attract them when they just would do anything for anybody. And so it’s like, there’s no acquisition, play, there’s no, there’s nothing to promote, to attract someone to you, because you’ve never specialized in offering a specific solution. It’s just, you say yes to whatever someone says, and so you get stuck on that, like needing that. And usually it comes time to make a decision. That is usually difficult to say, like, I’m not going to take on this sort of work in quote, unquote, the old way, because I’m committed to become like the next version of my business. And the only way to do that is to be it. And so it’s like, well, if the future version of your business doesn’t accept clients on those terms, then we need to stop accepting those terms now, like, that’s how we get to the new client. And there’s like, there’s always the oh, well, when you know, the stars align, and you know, whatever, I’ll finally make this move. It’s like you won’t, because you’ll keep getting people that will happily tell you what you should do for them. And you will keep saying yes. And so yeah, there’s like this kind of like, rubber meets the road, where like, you just kind of get stuck in that hamster wheel.

Chris Davis  12:37  

Yeah, it’s it reminds me of the Tarzan principle that I, my mentor told me about news, he was saying, Don’t let go of one stream of income until you have a good hold of another. And in this respect, because I’ve had to do this, we’ve all had to do this, you have some what we’ll call legacy contracts, right? Legacy work that is tied, tied you down, and you need to stop doing it. So you don’t keep doing it. You change your contract terms, change your offering, and everybody who’s in the current contract, you still honor that. But the next one is going to be the new contract. And that’s the next row. And then you start letting go. And when I say letting go, everybody, I don’t want you to get nervous people get nervous. When I say let go in business, they’re like, where’s this like, they see money flying away, you can’t, when I say let go, either transition them into the new terms, or just let them know, we’re no longer operating like this so that you can swing from this new vine that will truly take you to the tree, trying to get to, you know, so I think that you know, when I hear it, I’ve always viewed it in three phases. It’s one to one, you start out one to one, you’re trying to really hone in on exactly what is it that I do? And what could it look like. And once you have an idea, and maybe in some success, you go from one, one to one, to one to some. Now, you may have three or four, you’re kind of testing this thing out, and you’re watching your time watching the commitments that you’re given. Because the end goal is one to many, right? And that’s really where that trajectory one on one, one to some one to many, is where people fail in somewhere in the one to some and one to many, it just all falls apart, which is where you become very, very instrumental.

Greg Hickman  14:32  

Alright, so that’s where you’re gonna need to like, keep the reins on me because I’m about to go off. So for context, folks listening, like I have a lot of experienced in this just because I’ve been helping a lot of people with it. And so like I’ve seen a lot of these pitfalls, not just them, but like my own journey on this. We’ve now taken over 600 people through this process. So it’s like, yeah, there’s some trends by no means, you know, I think 1000 requires statistical evidence, but like we’re getting there. But enough to report back that I think I think I understand a few things. And so 100% start off one on one, even if it’s custom to figure out the thing that you could specialize in, I think, from specialization, you actually should start systematizing things first. Like, how do you get efficient at delivering the thing that you now specialize in. And by specialized, I mean, solving a specific problem, like our mutual friend, Brad Martin, now, who also is in the automation world, he has a saying he’s like, you can sell it’s okay to sell your time, just don’t sell it as time. And like, obviously, your time is going to be used to solve this problem in the beginning. But don’t you’re not selling it as your hours or a block of hours, you’re saying, Hey, by this time, or in this timeframe, you will have X outcome, like this result or this transformation. And so I think like the specialization pieces, hey, we solve this problem. And we install this system or this solution or this framework or this model, whatever it is into your business. And like you can get really good at that ironed out a lot of the delivery kinks, you do that enough times, you’ll see how you can then transition to the kind of one to some model. And this is where we have our clients, we call it the bolt on, like, you bolt on the same outcome that you were delivering in the specialization, possibly still one on one, but now guide someone through it versus doing the work. And it’s the easiest to transition to because you should know how to do it really well, because you’ve been doing it. And you’ve been streamline it. And so you probably already have tools and assets that allow you to do that work. And now you’re just transferring the knowledge of how to use those tools, and walking someone through that. And so like that’s kind of like the bridge, that transition that you were talking about, like don’t like, Oh, I agree. Like, I don’t think you should let go of the of the old clients. But one of the things that we focus on is, hey, in the first 90 days, like when we design what did help you design and package up what this new offer is going to look like. And for some again, they have to specialize first before they’re ready to go to sell group. But let’s go like find your like, let’s the goal is to go over to place your most hands on needy client in the first 90 days, because usually it’s one of those legacy clients that are holding you back. And so what I did was, okay, let me make a list of the clients that are like, quote, unquote, I’m losing money on or bleeding me dry from a time perspective, whatever. And we had a list of like five culprits that like fundamentally, we were losing money on, and I ordered them. And so I’d go out, I get a new client for the new thing had no problem buying the new way. Because they didn’t know anything about the old day. And when I had that person, I then went had the conversation with the legacy client and created a transition out plan I made the offer on how to continue. But hey, went, wink wink for the people that are around where you’ve given them everything, there’s literally no way where they’re not going to feel like you just swept the rug out from underneath their feet. Which is why you gotta go get the one to replace them first before you have that conversation. And then don’t burn bridges like, like, offer up a transition plan. So we had transition plans from three to six months with those five culprits one of which actually, I think it was just like, I’m out and good. And so like cool, like, but in those replacing those five, we got 80% of our capacity back time capacity. And so the new model was way more efficient. And so we were able to serve more clients in less time, with less hours less people and we became like instantaneously more profitable. And so there is that kind of sequence of events. So, before I go on the next tangent like any comments, questions, or cut me off?

Chris Davis  19:19  

No, that’s good. Greg, I love the take what you’re doing same deliverable, but let’s guide them through it instead of actually do it for them. And we’re parents, we have kids, this is literally taking the baby client, getting them self sufficient in a way where it’s like, hey, look, I have a way I have I have a result and outcome. And that’s what I hear you when you talk about Brad you could say your time just don’t sell it as time is really understanding that in my one to one day. Phase, I’m the biggest thing that I can identify. It’s not even about your time. At that point. It’s about what the outcome is. And now once I know that outcome, I call it being intimate with your results. Most people have no intimacy with their results. They’re like, Oh, I don’t know who that is. It’s like, whoa, wait a minute, you said that’s the result? Can you come out of a lineup? That’s yours? Take it Oh. But when you have that, you can more easily sell that result. And like I said, like you mentioned, working with somebody like yourself to show okay, how can I start shaving off time, and I love what you said, the transition plan, people need help. People, people are great, there’s a lot of things that I do naturally. And that was not one of my issues is transitioning somebody from Plan A to Plan B, I’ve always had vision for Plan B, I can always make that seamless connection. And I was never, I was never scared for them to go away. Right. But I can understand how people like other agency owners, business owners, may have problems with that, especially if it’s somebody who was like their first client or so. And they’re like, but if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t even be in business. They stuck with us through COVID. And the hard times. And I just, Greg, I hear what you’re saying. But I’ll just keep them but like you said, when you did it, it freed up 80% of time capacity. And it’s you know, so what, it while we’re here, actually, I want to I want to ask this, what are how do you get somebody to work through those mental demons? Because because it’s not even about your framework at that time. It’s about emotional connection, and feeling of okay, I owe you this, or they did so much for me, how do you help them transition from that?

Greg Hickman  21:49  

Yeah. It’s definitely hard dependent upon the person and like, how long I mean, fundamentally, how scarred are they, you know, from from the process, but like, a few thoughts is one thing, the backside Tarzan example. And this is the more of a recent learning and like, last year, when your teeth like when I’m showing someone that this is like the new pathway, like some of them still don’t believe that it’s possible. And I need to, I need to almost paint them a picture of what this new identity looks like. Because we I think part of the issue is, it’s impossible for us to let go of an old identity without replacing it with a new one. And so like, I need to get them to understand this thing, this identity that we are becoming. And it’s a different type of owner that owns a different type of business than the one you own now, and we need to start making decisions for that person. Not you’re not you. And it probably won’t make sense to you right now. Because you’re still connected to this old identity. And so we have to show them what the new identity is, for them to be willing to let go of the other, you know, the other rope, you know, from the Tarzan example. And the analogy that hit me hard. Alex for mosey said it, he’s like, sometimes the old has to die for the new to be born. And it’s like, that’s 100% how I felt like I spent six and a half months trying to create customized plans for that those legacy clients because I was so afraid to lose them. And the second I realized that that was not useful time. And I focused on getting the next new client in the new way. Everything flipped like that six and a half months could have been a month, you know, and I wasted I wasted on just like trying to keep those old people. And most of the reality is most of them probably won’t stay with you. Two, three years from now. And so then who cares? Like you got to move on. Like, that doesn’t mean you can be mean or you should be mean like, don’t burn bridges. Like if you can do this in a humanly way where you’ll feel good about it, but you but you’re gonna have to, or else you’re gonna continue down this path. Like there’s just there’s literally no way out. But you can balance right? We gave ourselves a six month deadline of like, we’ll take up to two legacy style clients per month, only if needed, as a means to the end. But if we get to this date first. Then no more like we gave ourselves a six month time to like make the new thing make more than an old thing. And if when you focus on it, it can happen. And I actually accidentally fell into this out of desperation. So it wasn’t like I was super smart by any means. We we were at Like we we package things up and like, again, you’ll meet another ceiling like you specialize. We were delivering webinar funnels, like we literally you came in, we only would sell you a webinar funnel, we sold other stuff off the back end of that like a recurring service. But that’s how we got people. We had a client, come on, I was on a sales call. And the interesting thing about entrepreneurs is you’ll never grow into pain. And so you’ll probably you’re probably self sabotaging sales calls right now because you know, which means more work for you because you’re the bottleneck and fulfillment. And so like, you’re just sandbagging calls, right? And so I realized that I was doing that, because we didn’t have capacity. And this one guy that I was talking to, was like, so in need, like, and I’m like, like, I’m already working nights, I’m already working weekends, like something’s gotta give. And I was like, and we were selling these packages of webinars like 15k at the time. And I was like, how about I just installed the automation, because I’m a Infusionsoft partner into your application. I’ll give you some examples of emails for the before series, the after series. And like, let’s just have a cool coaching calls. And I’ll like, I’ll guide you through setting it up. Like because it’s set. Like, if, if it’s broken, when you launch it, it’s because you broke it like it works right now, we just need the content in there. You know, it already works. Like it’s just needs to be tailored to you, which only you can do anyway, I’ll guide you through it for 7500 bucks, I don’t even know like it just like it was like I blacked out. And that’s what happened. And he said, Yeah, and I was like, Oh, wow, this is the thing. And so the, the I think an opportunity for most people listening to this, is, especially if you’re at capacity, you could take more clients, right now, without adding or changing anything like and just show people what you do. And the interesting discovery on that, which I actually just interviewed a guy on my YouTube channel that just did this. And he goes, it’s really great for the person who was never going to be able to pay you for the done for you. But they still are willing to pay like pay something to get the help. And so if your ideal avatar say only like, started a million dollars a year, and you can never serve anyone below that, you have this offer, people low a million could now get in the game. And you can actually help those people but with less effort, because you’re showing them not doing it for them, because they can’t afford the done for you. But the other interesting piece happens is people higher up also will want that same offer. Because there might be say your sweet spot is between one and 5 million, there might be a company that is doing 10 million, and they have the personnel to be the labor, they don’t have the strategy, and you’re done with you offer is the strategy. They’ll execute it internally, they’ll still never hire you to do the work because they see that as inefficient because they have people in house to do it. They just don’t have strategy. And there’s been no way to get that from you up until now. And so you actually expand your total addressable market downward and upward with the same offer, which becomes really interesting, for you know, who you can actually help. And I found that, for a lot of people like that we get hung up on the done few. It’s like what happens when you find the person that doesn’t want you to do it for them. They just want your expertise, because you solve this problem 100 times already, like people will pay you for that. And they will do the work somewhere to those people.

Chris Davis  28:41  

Yeah. This is so good, Greg, because it speaks to how attractive results are. Yes, right in you. Like you say you may be targeting a million annual revenue type companies, 5 million, it doesn’t matter. Because as you get reps in doing the same thing over and over, you not only get better at it, but your systems are easier on the back end to build around it. Your team is easier to train around it. But you also get better at talking about it. You get better delivering it in the form of persuasive copy you you get the know the pain points more intimately. So like you said, the big fish, the big whales, they hear that they’re like wait a minute, is that what you do down there? And they’ll come down say Hey, can you do that for us up here? But it’s to your point there’s there’s this stick to itiveness this grit, fortitude to trust the process. Because along the way, you’re great. We live this. You’re always tempted with that person that looks like they can rescue you the big contract or whatever and they Want your time. And in the old you, if it’s not buried deep enough, come out like thriller rat on a graph and start dancing like, hey, that’s me, let’s do it. So it’s, it’s, I loved how you put the new identity and the old identity, like you can’t let go of the old identity till you get the new identity. And then that’s when you burn the bridges. Right? Like, we never go back. We’re not going back here you can helicopter to where we’re at. But were those those days are long gone, you know?

Greg Hickman  30:35  

Yeah, let me share a couple of principles, or things that I think kind of come up for people that I think that they’re probably thinking as we’re talking, but the inside of that journey, something interesting happened when we had, like, as you start serving people, right, like you’re gonna identify these little nuances in your ideal client profile that makes someone qualified or not. And we had some of the clients like, we noticed a trend, the clients that were like bleeding us dry, you know, that wanted our time and hours. We came in and like, they didn’t have like I was dealing with the owner. And they didn’t have anybody that knew their way around Infusionsoft not even like to pull a report or send an email. And so those are the ones that where we got sucked into the admin work, because it was the owner didn’t have the time. And so what we realized all the clients that like where we got to just install the webinar engine, the system, and we didn’t get sucked into the admin work, they had someone as like, even a VA that like knew how to schedule a broadcast or pull a report, like, do the day to day admin of the tool. And so that became a criteria. Hey, who currently manages your automation tool? Oh, me, sorry, we’re not the best fit. Because we knew that that’s how we get sucked into admin. And I was like, the analogy that I use that I please, everyone’s steal this. 

We are engine builders, we are not pit crew. And, like, I’m not a huge NASCAR person at all. But I think people understand the analogy. Like the guy who builds the engine is not the same guy that hops over the wall during race day, and is changing the tire. Right? Getting the water bottle into the driver, he’s up in the like the the box drinking champagne, because all of his money is down on on his car, he’ll optimize the engine after the race for the next race for sure. But he deals with engine optimization, right? He doesn’t deal with, you know, film switching tires. And we basically told like, we shared that that analogy with our prospects. I’m like, Look. And this work, because we believed it not and still do to this day. And some of you may not which this is why it won’t work. Like you have to have conviction. In my heart of hearts. I believe that what we did when we installed Infusionsoft, and we weaponize people with these automated client journeys, that they still needed someone in house to do the day to day stuff, reporting, sent in scheduling emails, you know, all that stuff, like, because those are the sorts of things that come up on the fly, that allow a business to be nimble. And I never wanted our clients to be handcuffed. And so it was my belief that they needed someone in there anyway, which is why the done with you worked really, really well, because we were transferring knowledge in the system, so that they could be self sufficient. And most of you that listening have something similar. It’s just you’re holding on to it because you feel like if you don’t, you’re gonna lose a client. But if you can get paid for your thinking, you don’t need to be doing the doing. And also when a client when you can turn down the client, because they don’t have someone in house. And you’re saying that for them to have true success with this thing that you can help them with requires it, you will have a new level of authority and integrity in that person’s mind. Like, because you’re not trying to sell them just sell them like, Hey, I don’t think you should have anybody do it this way. I’m not going to be the one to do it, because no one is gonna lead you down the road. And so that conviction, I think just kind of led us to, like, we basically demonstrated to people why it was better to be done with you, and why they needed someone in house to do some of the things that we didn’t want to have to deal with. Because it was actually better for their business and we still believe it. So I think that’s the key piece is like the engine builder versus the pitcrew. 

Like there are some things that you probably do for your clients that would be better suited for them to have in house That would make your life easier and their life easier. And you have to be willing to find those things. And so that leads to kind of product to zation. Like not felt like selling your time necessarily not selling it as time, like, what are you doing? If you’re in an automation, which many some of you people probably are like, you sell engines, you sell systems that can be installed, like that is an end to end deliverable. That is an outcome, hey, by the end of our work together, you will have a lead to client journey that is fully automated, that weaponizes Your existing team to show up better not let leads fall through the cracks. And you know, maximize, you know, the the leads that are already in your pipeline like that will be that’ll get get you X time back, we can install in X days, here’s how our process works. Like that would be the offer, right? Like that’s like you’re giving them that thing. Anything consumable that maintains the engine thereafter, is a different offer. It’s not woven in to the thing, it’s a recurring productize service that also has parameters. So let’s kind of define what productize service means for people. 

And I think my definition is a little bit different from what some people define it as I think it’s very simple. It’s a service that feels like product, because the product delivers an outcome. Think about walking to the grocery store, you see a box of cereal, imagine your product was inside front of the box explains the outcome, the thing that they get the image that like when you eat the cereal, like everyone’s cereal box has a strawberry with milk, poring over it looks delicious. That’s not what you’re getting like you got to combine those ingredients, it’s the final destination of you’re going to enjoy this amazing bowl of milk with cereal and strawberries and blueberries inside. Like none of that stuff’s in box. It’s just the cereal, right. But the the end game on the cover. On the side is the nutritional ingredients. On the other side is like information about the founder and the back is the story. And there is a pre defined deliverable with a pre defined outcome that solves a predefined problem. And once you do it enough, with a predefined solution, like predefined deliverable, all those things, it’s like you’re solving a problem that you knew they already had before they even got to you. And in an ideal world, the solutions pre loaded, because you’ve solved it so many times that most of the work like a client comes in our world. Like if you became a client tomorrow, I’ve solved 85% of your problem. And you haven’t even given me money yet. Because I’ve solved the problem so many damn times that I know the process in which I’m going to solve it. So I’m not starting from scratch. And so to think about it think about it’s not necessarily that you’re not involved in your client experience and or that there cannot be custom work because there can be it’s just you have to establish parameters around how the work gets done. There can be custom work inside there for sure, if you want. And you can make it as little and or as high as I highly customers you want. But there needs to be parameters on what’s been delivered, and how the work gets done. Brad also said this amazing thing to me he was, as a service provider, never sell a retainer, sell a recurring revenue program or a productized program. Because here’s how the language differs. He says, How does it sound? I have you on retainer who’s in control?

Chris Davis  38:48  

Yeah, the client, the client, because they have you on retainer.

Greg Hickman  38:51  

Exactly. And if the client says I’m a part of your program, who’s in control? You, right, and so, like, I know, it’s nuanced. And Brad’s a very specific person if you guys have heard of him, like he’s, he’s very specific on language because, like him, and, and you, Chris and myself, like language matters, right? Like words matter. And so you being a client being in your program in your recurring service, means they they’re playing by your rules, if they won’t play by your rules, they probably aren’t going to be a great client. And so that’s like, you have to have the parameters and how you play the game, how you’re going to deliver the service. And if people won’t abide by that, then send them to the referral that will do it custom or whatever they want, and get a kickback fee. And then you don’t have to deal with the clients that you don’t want to deal with. 

So I think it’s like, you have to design the parameters. And so let’s distinguish the evolution. Service is like traditional service, as many of us come from, I would say is work without a Process productize service is work with a process. And then I ducked is processed without work. Hmm. And you can move through that continuum over time. But you kind of have to go from one to the other, like making the leap to product is really difficult. For most people, it’s the most desirable thing, because we’re all stuck and unfulfilled, and selling a course sounds so amazing. But in order to make that work, you need a lot of volume. And if you’re like most service providers, no, you don’t, you’re not sitting on an email list, because you’ve been stuck in your clients business forever. So like, nobody still knows who you are, you’re not bringing in new leads every single day. And so you design this course, but you don’t have enough leads in your world or eyeballs to make up enough volume to make a difference in the fulfillment piece. So you’ve got to start with that productized service where you can still sell medium to high ticket, small, small group, because you can get a few clients, you don’t need 1000s of leads to get, you know, tons of customers. And like that’s the trajectory of going from kind of customized services into the productize. Game.

Chris Davis  41:12  

That was beautiful. Man, I need you to say it one more time for those in the back to make sure. Yard, you. You said Say it, it was a process with

Greg Hickman  41:22  

service. Yeah, service business is work without a process. productized services, work with a process. And then product is process without work. And if and you can move. And as long as you’re solving a specific problem moving through the continuum, is really possible for almost everybody. But if every client needs something different, you’ll never have a process to serve them. Thus, you can’t productize it. Like privatizing is basically just taking your process and like imagine putting that in the box and selling that process. Right? Like, whether you guide them through it, or you use your team do you go through that process doesn’t really matter. It’s like, there’s a go two way that you solve your client’s problem. It’s a six step process, it’s always six steps, and it’s always in the exact same order. And if as long as they go through these steps, they get the outcome like that would be a productized service.

Chris Davis  42:25  

Greg, I love it, man. And here’s what you all don’t know. Maybe some of you do. Greg is masterful with his frameworks and his worksheets, which you don’t see right now, there’s a lot of hand movement, because he’s trying to illustrate, but Greg, I’m gonna have you come back to the community, we’ll do a private session, where you can actually use your worksheets, and share your screen. And walk us through some of these frameworks. Because I just love how you framed what a product tie service is, what a product is, what a service is. And I think once people can see it, and start to have that vision of the new identity of productized services for them, they can start to break free from a lot of these clients. Because what in closing, here’s what we’re trying to prevent. We’re trying to prevent the lose, lose and the lose win. Right where both sides lose this is essentially, you wanting to show up and do a thing for the client. But it takes so much time that they’re only really getting a fraction of your real expertise, because you’re getting burned out. They’re asking you to do too much that you should never be asked to do. And you both walk away with a loss. Or, you know, it’s lopsided to where the client is winning, because they’re getting all of this work from you. And you’re losing because you’re putting in so much, or it’s flipped, that you’re putting in so much time but because it’s not truly what they need. They lose but you win from getting paid. What we want is the Win Win, where you’re getting paid and people have to stop saying I want to get paid for what I’m worth, I get paid for what you deliver and how you deliver it will increase what you get paid for that deliverable. Right. But everybody wins. That’s really where we’re trying to get to, you know,

Greg Hickman  44:10  

yeah, and I think, you know, the something to understand is that like, in this move, you’re kind of moving from generalist to specialist. Like you’re specializing, right? That doesn’t mean like you can’t like you can still be a generalist, it’s just the thing you offer and sell this specialty specialized. And the benefit for you will literally transfer through the entire business because some of you guys, the work is so custom. And so you in order to hire help, you have to hire people that have equally as much experience as you which can be challenging, because if they’re equally is experiences you they’re probably doing their own thing and don’t want to work for you. And if they are experienced and they’re willing to work for you, they’re probably going to be expensive. 

And so while you’re still don’t have capacity, you bring on these people to offload your own fulfillment, which you probably don’t have a process for and or training them, because it’s custom. And you’re like, relying on them being able to solve their clients solve your clients problems, and the margin be probably becomes next to nothing. And so you’re like, well, we can together we serve more clients, but I’m still not taking home any any more than I was before. And I have more headache. And that’s because it’s custom, when you so when you productize, not only can and in that model, you’re responding to demand. Right? When you say, Hey, we solve this problem for this type of person, you can actually create demand. And so the productize service allows you to go out into the marketplace and speak to that person that has those problems and symptoms and attract them to you. So that there’s always lead flow coming to you for people that want that solution. And when you want to close them, you can enroll them into your services, right, but like the so the privatization piece, not only does it make your marketing easier, because now you can say, hey, we do this for this type of person, and build out the attraction piece. 

But it also helps you streamline your fulfillment and probably become more profitable in delivery because you won’t need like, a, I’m careful when I say A plus players, you don’t need people as experienced or specialized as you because you’ll have compartmentalize your delivery into a multi step process. And you’ll be able to say, hey, step three of five, that one, like I need someone that knows how to do XYZ, I don’t even know how to do all the things, I need to know how to do like that specific thing. And then you can go hire specialists for that, that are good, but are going to be more affordable, like and so you’ll then have a few key people that are helping you move people through your process that will be more profitable to you, because they’re specialists in just one step of the process. And it won’t become a flight risk, because clients are still buying the outcome. They’re not buying that, you know, the account executive that you just made their point person. Yeah. And so it also helps delivery and delivery profitability that I think people often overlook, it’s like, because you’re not privatize, you don’t have people coming to you. Which is why you’re saying yes to everything. You say yes to everything. And there’s no process that you hire people that have a lot of experience, but they’re expensive. And so now you’re still drowning, but you’re not making enough money. And there’s no more extra time to work. Like you can’t just keep working harder. You raise your prices that only goes so far in almost every vertical possible. And so the only answer is just keep working harder until you change transition to a newer delivery model, which would be product test.

Chris Davis  48:02  

Yep. Yeah, man. I love it, Greg. If people want to find out more connect with you. They’re like, I need more of this daily. You’ve got a great YouTube channel. Great. Listen, everybody. As you can see this oozes out of Greg, there’s more than enough content for you to get access to. But where should they go? Where should they start? What’s the best best place for them to get going?

Greg Hickman  48:26  

I’d say go to the YouTube channel. Quick Link, there is Gregsvideos.com will just redirect right to my YouTube channel. Otherwise, just search Greg Hickman in YouTube and you will find me for sure. There’s a really good playlist, video playlist all around productization on there. And all the frameworks and models that that Chris was alluding to, are very much, very much a part of that channel. So definitely dive in if you want to learn more.

Chris Davis  48:56  

Yes, absolutely. Thank you for this Greg community members. We’ll have Greg on we’ll have our own special encore with Greg’s work shorts and drawings and all of that, Greg, thank you, man. I can’t thank you enough for being on the podcast, man.

Greg Hickman  49:10  

Thanks for having me, man. So it was fun chat with you.

Chris Davis  49:12  

Always man. All right. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The all systems go podcast. If you enjoyed it, make sure that you’re subscribed at the time of recording the all systems go podcast is free to subscribe to and it can be found in Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts new episodes are released every Thursday. So make sure you’re subscribed so that you don’t miss out and while you’re at it, please leave us a five star rating and review to show some love but also to help future listeners more easily find the podcast so they can experience the value of goodness as well. We’ve compiled all resources mentioned on the podcast, as well as other resources that are extreme. really valuable and effective at helping you grow your marketing automation skills quickly and you can access them all at allsystemsgopodcast.com Thanks again for listening and until next time I see you online. Automate responsibly, my friends