Imagine a studio creating a high-production film like Star Wars each time a customer wants to see a movie.

They’d never do it because it would take too long and cost too much.

In other words it wouldn’t scale.

Yet many of us do something similar in our businesses.

In my first business, we created data warehouses, and every client had different data and unique business rules.

I was convinced we couldn’t productize it. I believed each engagement had to be custom, had to be hard and take a long time.

There was lots of evidence that this was true.

Plus, like many entrepreneurs, I was also attached to the idea of owning a business that did unique and complex work.

It becomes part of our identity. A way to prove our value.

But it’s also the reason you and your team will become exhausted and burn out.

Ask yourself what’s more important? Feed your ego or build an asset?

There’s a straightforward way to scale a services company: turn those services into solutions, brand them and market them like products.

The hard part is changing your MIND.

The mindset shift happens when you ask yourself which is more important – being the owner of a business that does unique, custom work or owning a company with a simplified (but scalable) solution?

Instead of spending years producing a new movie for each client, create one blockbuster and sell tickets!

Design your solution to solve the most important and common problems for your niche and use your unique process to do it.

And if you’re already a product company, take a look at the processes you have in your business.

Your systems and solutions are your company’s intellectual property. Anything that is repetitive and everything that is similar can be streamlined, systematized, and branded.

It’s part of what makes your business an asset.

The way your business does what it does is valuable, especially if you have been in business for more than five years.

Harness your wisdom into solutions for your customers, and your intellectual property becomes an asset too.

The strategy to productize is to focus on the intersection of what:

1. customers VALUE the most
2. is easiest for new staff to LEARN
3. is RECURRING or REPEATABLE

But the mindset shift is the first step. Changing your definition of success.

Your business is an asset you own. Make it as valuable as possible.