Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for Service-based businesses - RJ Lewis

RJ Lewis – Planning Out Loud Show

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The Objectives + Opportunities + Challenges Presented.
Last week we talked about the strategic advantages of taking a service that you can do in your sleep and giving it a fixed scope. "Productizing" your service-based business.

Once you have clearly defined your "product", how do you tackle that last step?

By the end of our time together we will explore simplifying and streamlining your new product using ERM (Entrepreneur Resource Management) planning best practices.

🎙 Listen → Apply → Engage

Check.
If you've been playing in the internet streets about designing your MVP, you'll find a lot of information about defining and refining your product and determining how viable it is in the market.
Dead sexy, I KNOW. BUT!

Understand that while catering to trends can net you interesting results when it comes to marketing and sales performance, shiny object syndrome can get you in trouble when it comes to business systems.

Take the time today to think about your production performance.

Think.
From a lean perspective your MVP begins once you've validated your idea, began iteration on that data, and achieved a degree of product-market fit.

1. What problem does this solve?
   
   
2. Who is the target market?
   
   
3. What's the [growth] potential (cost vs ROI)?
   
   
   

Our key strategy is to determine the MVP from an operational productivity perspective.

1. What's the business flywheel that propels the customer life cycle?
   • Interested: Marketing and sales strategy
   • Invested: Delivery and fulfillment strategy
   • Inspired: Post-production customer service strategy
2. What tools do we need to support these phases?
   • [ ] CRM - marketing and sales
   • [ ] E-commerce
   • [ ] Email marketing
   • [ ] project management
   • [ ] communications management

Act.
Specific actions to take right now:

1. Simplify your workflow
   1. Find YOUR pain points
   2. Evaluate solutions
   3. Choose the method that makes the best sense.
      
      
2. Templatize replicable tasks
   1. When I first started planning this show, I had templatizing and automating in the same bullet point...not so!! Templatizing means that you are taking information that you use repeatedly and making it accessible. Popular templatized things that you may not be aware of:
      • Frequently asked questions
      • User manuals
      • Price lists
      • ...your standard operating procedures
        
        
3. Incorporate system integrations
   
   
4. Implement an automation strategy

Resources.

1. IBGR Agilean Operations
2. MVP vs Prototype

Shows.
← Previous show : 🔗 Listen to Episode 4 – Productizing Your Services

• As we emphasize building a sustainable business, we're going to spend the next 3 weeks of Season 4 discussing rapid development of your business model starting with this talk about productizing your service-based business ... so that YOU can get back to work!
  
  🔗 Read the show notes
  
  

Next show → : Episode 6 – Building a business with no-code applications

• Do you fall into the trap of thinking “What is the one-size-fits-all-best-system/process here?” rather than looking at what will be right for you specifically? During Episode 6, we're going to explore what Process looks like when it caters to your core strengths and talents.

Written by Rahgna J. Lewis
An Army wife and mother of 3 living in the Richmond area of Virginia, USA, RJ is a digital experience strategist.

RJ Lewis Digital is a consultancy that is helping CEOs like you simplify and streamline their business operating system strategy by peeking at the digital systems you use to deliver your programs, communicate with teams, organize workflow, onboard staff and convert lurkers to clients. This agency's specialty is to ALIGN ALL THESE SYSTEMS so you and your company can flourish.

Videos and social media posts are all fun and sexy, but WHAT'S HAPPENING BEHIND THE SCENES IS GONNA MAKE (or break) your company BANK.

Visit justrjlewis.com to learn more about designing a business operating system strategy – an audience-focused digital ecosystem for your business.

Instagram: @talk2rj | Facebook: @RJLewisDigital | LinkedIn: @talk2rj

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