Productising services – making the intangible tangible

Willow here.

Having people remember the points I’ve made in a presentation has never been a big issue for me – but for the other 99.99% of the population that are mere mortals, many presentations are easily forgotten!

For example – I’m reliably informed that after any sales training course attendees forget 50% of what they’ve learnt within a month, and 95% within a year!

In my efforts to help the mere mortals, I’ve researched this topic – and I came across this great book:

Based on research, the book lists out the 6 things you need to do during any presentation, meeting, training course, SALES CALL etc – so that the receiving party will remember what you were going on about.

I won’t spoil the surprise and list all 6 – but 1 of the requirements is to make things concrete.

This insight is the driving idea behind productising services.

Challenge #6 – Successfully productising services

Because a service (eg a LAN Assessment) is intangible, the customer can’t touch it, can’t experience it – unless they consume it.  It’s almost impossible for them to evaluate it unless they buy it.

So – we need to “productise” our services lines.

We need case studies, brochures, micro-web sites, example deliverables, .pptx presentations, stories etc.

Seems obvious – but what’s the secret sauce in putting these together?  A brochure sounds like a good idea – but what do you put in it?  If it simply describes the service line, you’re missing the point.

We HAVE to talk about what’s in it for the customer!

The key questions you need to answer…..

1. What are the inputs we need to gather to perform the service? What tangible tools will we use with the customer to gather these?
2. What steps do we take in delivering the service?
3. What are the outputs? What does the customer get?
4. What are the characteristics of customers that this service will appeal to?
5. Why will it appeal to them?
6. What are the features and corresponding customer benefits?
7. Who are the competitors – and how do we differentiate from them?
8. How will we promote the service line to:
   1. Existing customers
   2. New customers
9. What are the key messages we want to send to different buyer types (eg CFO v CIO v HR etc)
10. What are the likely buyer concerns and how do we address these?
11. What external artefacts will we produce (eg brochure)?
12. What internal artefacts will we produce (eg sales training materials)?
    
    

Help is at hand

Aria’s MESSAGE is that your success makes our success – and hence we’re here to help.

Contact us to see how we can work in partnership to SELL MORE OF YOUR SERVICES by making them CONCRETE.

Coming up

In the next edition, we’ll review Challenge #7 bonding sales and marketing – and I’ll provide my usual commentary.