The term “whole enchilada” dates back to about 1960. Like, “the whole nine yards,’ the terms mean that everything is in there. Why “enchilada”? Because there’s a BIG deal in it!
A total menu, you can order the complete meal or ala Carte. Starting with an appetizer and later, an entrée!
“Productizing” a service business.
One of the best ways to innovate your virtual tour service business is to “productize” your offering. Make the intangible tangible. Consumers are very accustomed to buying from a range of predefined offerings – think McDonalds combo packs, a burger, fries, and a drink.
Productizing services makes them easier to buy. It creates distinct advantage over other service providers and enhances your over-all service profitability.
For example, Tours D’ Force a Lenawee County Virtual Tour Company who specializes in promotional media services and interactive 360 virtual tours. Toursdforce has a limited range of choices that are available to clients. The deliverables that are available from each offering are limited and the desired deliverables have been packaged into a pre-defined and stratified set of offerings. They’ve dramatically curbed customization in the sales cycle and positioned the sales cycle for value-add up-sells that will help increase their profitability. Most importantly Tours d’ force’s clients know about and can match budgets against a published price set for each offering.
Visit: http://toursdforce.com/pricing to see how our virtual tour company has productized their residential property marketing services, and http://toursdforce.com/commercial for their commercial cliental.
This ham-handed term simply means that you make your service look more like a product, so that it becomes easier for your clients to buy. You give it a defined scope, assign it a definite price tag, and attach a distinctive name. Turning a service into a physical product allows you to create a passive revenue stream, reach a larger audience and demonstrate your expertise.
There are many firms who simply cannot package their offerings. But for those whom this strategy makes sense, the guideline below is an effective approach that Tours D’ Force used for their clients.
How To Productize Offerings
1. Base your offerings on previous experience. Analyze sales looking for trends in deliverables, pricing, and profits.
2. Layer these into 3-5 levels of service, deliverables, and price where profits are guaranteed at each level.
3. Fix price the offering. When someone buys a product, they need to know the exact price up front. Even if you are intending to have the offering as a free value-add to a larger purchase – putting a price on it demonstrates the value the customer is getting.
4. Be clear about the benefits to the client. Document the value proposition of the offerings. Create a compelling story about each offering to help clients understand the range of solution and expect win-results associated with ascending price and value from least expensive to most expensive.
5. Be crystal clear which activities occur during the engagement.
6. List you’re up-sells options for all levels and ensure they can be delivered profitably at any level.
7. Roll out offerings to your virtual tour customer’s first, get feedback from clients on your new service packages, and make adjustments to offerings as needed.
8. Take them to market.
“Servicizing” a product business
Having a product to sell – rather than a service – may sound like earthly paradise, but unless you wrap and deliver your product with a unique approach to service, you stand to be just another commodity, and your margins may be ground down to merrily nothing. Why do people drive halfway across the city to fill up on gas that is one cent less per gallon? Because fuel is a commodity, and nobody actually believes there is a difference between Amoco BP’s Ultimate and Meijer’s (generic) premium 93.
Today in 2010, people line up every day at a Starbucks to gladly pay $5 for a Starbucks cup of coffee. So how did Howard Schultz and Starbucks do it? How did they get people, who used to pay 50 cents for a cup of coffee, to fork over ten times that amount? What did they do? Hint: It’s not about the coffee. They did packaging. They created their own coffee language and customized each beverage and added enough service to its offering to avoid commoditization. Likewise, I pay nearly $150 for tennis shoes at the Foot Solutions instead of buying the same shoe online for $100. Why? Because I like the personalized service I get from the Foot Solutions: their skilled fitting professionals provide solutions with a broad range of footwear and the most innovative arch supports and custom orthotics on the market today. They devote 30-45 minutes on average with each client and they have a high rate of success in minimizing and/or totally alleviating foot and foot-related pain and discomfort.
You can make a $5 cup of Joe too, offer your clients the whole enchilada, which means making your virtual tour company look more like a product company and your product company more like a service company.
Hal Holubik
Owner/Organizer
Tours D’ Force