The Pulse of Productization

From time to time, I get a call from a pro-serv company that has invested a lot of time and money into launching a product that simply isn’t selling.  They don’t know what went wrong.   Can we help?  After a little digging, we often find out they didn’t get enough (or any) market feedback as they were building. They were sure about the solution/product/offering and wanted to get right to selling. In the right situation, I am all for going right to selling, BUT do it without building anything! Save thousands of dollars, maybe hundreds of hours, and Sell then Build.

As 2024 unfolds, the transformative impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on professional services is increasingly apparent. In a recent discussion on the Professional Services Pursuit podcast, hosted by Banoo Behboodi, Vecteris’ Eisha Armstrong explored how AI is helping professional services organizations rethink how they solve problems and create value.

In the realm of B2B professional services, where expertise and tailored solutions are the main offerings, the challenge of introducing new technology products or tech-enabled services is magnified as they can require significant upfront investment as well as new skill sets. Imagine if you could first test your new product concept with actual live, paying customers to be sure there is market demand before making that significant investment.

In today's fast-paced sales environment, equipping your team with the right tools is crucial for success. For organizations with lots of products, one such tool that can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your sales process is a decision tree.

As you embark on your productization journey, you're likely to encounter some familiar roadblocks – first, the need to quickly demonstrate value, and second, overcoming internal resistance to change. But here’s the good news: the secret weapon to generating ‘quick wins’ to overcoming these challenges lies in a focused approach to learning.

We often hear from customers starting on their productization journey: 

“Can we productize without a significant investment in technology?” 

The short answer is yes, absolutely. Do not make building a technology solution a blocker to starting your productization journey.

One Chief Revenue Officer of a B2B services firm that recently failed in their productization efforts shared,

“There was this assumption that we could just hand the new product over to the sales team and they will sell it because ‘it's new, it'll be exciting!’ That's not the way it worked.