Episode F.012 What Solutions Are You Selling

Author Notes
If you missed Show F.011, please go back and review. This article assumes you made those decisions and are ready to build your offer.

This next step in the process of Building Your Practice uses our library of Best Practices as a Guide. We are going to look at a few of the different business models to build a powerful and integrated offer.

Business Models

• Profit Multiplier: build it once and reuse;
• Product to Solution: what solutions will this product or service provide to the client;
• Solution to Knowledge: what does client usage and results obtained tell us about our IP (intellectual Property);
• Knowledge to Product: using the client usage information, how do we translate our IP into products/services and what solutions does it provide;
• Solution (Product/Service) Pyramid: how do we tier our offer to provide us multiple options for bundling products/services.

I am assuming with the following order of operation that you are a startup consulting firm. If the order doesn't fit your current business growth stage - do it in any order that makes sense and use it as a checklist.

1. Create a table (spreadsheet is better than word processor) with the following columns: Solutions, Products/Services, and Knowledge (IP).
2. Start with your IP and make a list of everything knowledge element you could potentially provide to the client.
3. Next complete the Products/Services column. Start with what you are currently selling. This will leave some of your IP without a Product or Service to sell - that is later in the process.
4. Finally complete the Solutions column with what should happen in the client as a result of correctly using the Product/Service.
5. Add a fourth column for what the client is experiencing for each of the Products/Services currently sold.

This should give you a good picture of the current situation. Obviously if you are still in the startup mode client usage is probably blank at the moment. Those existing consulting companies should focus on the difference between what the customer is experiencing and what should happen. Save that information of another show on closing the gap between what is sold and what is delivered.

Now let's check our table or spreadsheet against the business models.

• Profit Multiplier: when you look at the IP column, how is that information bundled. Can you break this down into smaller knowledge bytes? For example if it is training materials can pull it apart down to individual objectives? The smaller levels will give you more flexibility if you are bundling a solution that is not part of the current product/service offer. 
• Product to Solution: If comments in the fourth column where the actual impact on the customer is different than what was intended, is the problem the product/service itself, how it was placed into the account, or inaccurate expectations?
• Solution to Knowledge: what have you learned that impacts the IP being used - add or subtract? This knowledge is essential for building a better products/services offer.
• Knowledge to Product: whoever in the organization is creating products/services, do they have client usage information to improve the offer?
• Product to Solution: before you introduce something new or an upgrade, do you have a friendly place to beta test? Know that you got it right with a typical client before releasing it to your existing and new clients.

I could write more but won't. I am assuming that this will put you on the right track. The next step in the process is to determine if your offer is complete by reviewing the IP not in use. Is there an immediate application you could add to the offer? Is it something you could now or hold off to a future date?

I will close with the value ladder covered in yesterday's show. Once you are comfortable with any additions or upgrades this process created place the products/services into your value ladder to see where it fits and is the pricing right.

Next show: ​F.013 Do You Need To Partner To Complete The Offer