Five Reasons To Sell Services First Instead Of Products
Most entrepreneurs get this completely backwards—spending months creating the “perfect product” before making a single dollar. Meanwhile, the smartest entrepreneurs are getting paid immediately by selling services first.
In Episode 620 of the Black Entrepreneur Blueprint podcast, Jay Jones breaks down the 5 key reasons why starting with services is the fastest way to generate income, validate your ideas, and truly understand your audience—so when you do create a product, it actually sells. Tap in now and start getting paid for what you already know.
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BLACK ENTREPRENEUR BLUEPRINT SHOW NOTES – EPISODE # 620
Selling services online means you can get started quickly using your current skill set, passions, and interests rather than spending time ideating and building a product first, which helps earn revenue faster.
According to our 2024 State of the Creator Economy Report, most creators earn their first dollar by offering professional services, and it’s easy to see why.
When you offer a service, you can still enjoy flexibility, so it’s possible to start as a side hustle and transition into a full-time work schedule.
1 Get Started Quickly – Selling services online means you can get started quickly using your current skill set, passions, and interests rather than spending time ideating and building a product first, which helps earn revenue faster. Also, selling a service tends to be more profitable since there are fewer expenses. For example, most creators selling services can work from home, eliminating the cost of an office.
2 Get Paid To Understand Your Audience – The best product ideas often come straight from your audience. They’re in the best position to tell you their most pressing problems, which helps you figure out how you can get paid to help them solve those issues. Selling services to help your audience allows you to tailor your offerings to match their needs since services can usually be more customized to your audience’s needs than a fixed product. EX: My beta testing groups for my courses
3 Services Are The Ultimate Minimum Viable Product – A minimum viable product (MVP) is one that has just enough features to allow you to ship to your early adopters. This low-key version helps you work out the kinks and see how your customers interact with your product.
Services are the best MVP because they require far less prep work and hired labor, especially in the beginning. All you need to do is create a landing page where you can invite customers to hire you or enroll in your program.
But, with a product, you might need at least a month’s worth of work to put together an MVP (e.g., a course, ebook, or new blog).
4 Get Customer Testimonials – By working closely with your customers, you will gain a more in-depth understanding of their needs and how you can create a valuable product to help them. This kind of close relationship is priceless because it sets you up to create a product that undeniably appeals to your audience. This allows you to ask directly for testimonials which will increase your conversion rates.
5 Build Your Digital Product Hypothesis – After spending some time with your customers and figuring out their wants and needs, you can use the trends you’ve found to form a product hypothesis (i.e., brainstorm digital product ideas) about a product your customers might need and want.
There’s no better way to form a product hypothesis than by selling services. Think about the common pain points your services solve for your customers and craft a product that addresses them. You can then pre-sell the product to gauge your audience’s interest in it. Pre-sale launches show you how sellable your product will be when it officially launches and whether it’s worth creating.
