5 Ways to Soft Pivot® Your Done-for-You Services
As a service based business owner, you probably have multiple done-for-you services on your website that you’re selling to make a majority of your income.
Though there’s a point when you start to get overworked — trading time-for-money and there isn’t much room to scale your income or capacity.
You’re constantly booked out and have no breathing room to work on your own brand to gain more visibility or diversify your income streams.
Which is why Soft Pivot®-ing your done-for-you services may just be the next step.
Soft Pivot® is a methodology I use to support business owners with low-risk and intentional shifts over time to naturally and effortless evolve.
It doesn’t require to quit your business or start over from scratch.
Here’s a quick example:
Instead of shutting down your DFY website design service — you still offer website design and strategy— just in different formats. It’s like you split up the different stages of your service and process into other offers.
This isn’t an over night change. It can take some time, but you’ll have a seamless and strategic customer journey aka your customers might stay with you longer for an entire transformation.
So let’s chat about the 5 different ways you can Soft Pivot® your done-for-you services to save more time, make more money, and establish you as a credible expert in your industry.
5 Ways to Soft Pivot® Your Done For You Services to Save Time and Make More Money
Transform it into a done-with-you service
The difference between DFY and DWY is how many tasks you or your client is doing to achieve a result. DWY is a collaboration. There’s a misconception that DWY means that the service provider is now just coaching — that’s not the case.
Done-with-you is about sharing responsibilities. You’re not just doing all of the work for the client and just checking in once or twice. You’re in constant communication with them, they have tasks to do and so do you.
An example of this would be a DWY website design rebrand. As a website designer, you may be the one doing the technical, design work but your client is providing the copy, images, and links — constantly providing feedback and adding suggestions.
Make it into a digital product
I like to look at the beginning or end of the process to delivering a DFY service to see if you can shave off some time by putting it into a digital product. Think templates, private podcast, course, or even a tool.
Let’s say you’re a website designer, just to stick with the example, and you constantly are consulting with your clients on brand photography to make their website.
Though you’re not a brand photographer, you probably have a lot of insight on the creative aspect of keeping a website visually appealing, interesting and on-brand for your clients so you can always develop a brand photography and direction workshop that you sell on your website for those clients.
Maybe even include it in the proposal as an add on for website clients who inquire to work with you.
Create a productized and repeatable process
Soft Pivot®-ing doesn’t mean completely burn down your current offers. I mean you can, but if you enjoy the DFY services you provide — you can just structure them differently to save more time. More time = more income, clients, and energy.
So how can you save more time with a DFY service? Create a repeatable process. The process is the same for every client.
You have stages or milestones for each part of the design project, templates you use for every client to on board or off board, and I’d even add some stricter policies in your contract to make sure everyone’s on the same page.
Develop templates and educational tools to support your client
Like in #3, developing templates or educational tools to support your client throughout the DFY service can save you a lot of time. When you provide these tools upfront, this can help minimize a lot of back and forth or unpaid consulting.
When it comes to website designers, I think of website copy templates, a Notion dashboard where your clients can upload photos for specific website pages, a “drop your links” bank, and maybe even a vision board so you know exactly what they are looking for.
Some educational tools that could be helpful would answer these questions:
How to update links on my website?
What if I want to change my photos on my website?
What’s SEO and how can I use it on my website?
But some clients will still just want to hire you to do it for them, so make sure to have a link with these tools for them to hire you again.
Offer it as a group program or course
You might come across a few potential clients who can’t pay for your DFY service or want to learn how to do it themselves. This is where having a group program or course could be extremely helpful for them and your business.
Group programs are scalable with time and money. You can support multiple clients at once and most of the work on your end is teaching or providing feedback.
If you were a website designer, you can host a group program or workshop with 10-30 people teaching them how to build their first website, or design a sales page.
To book out a group program, you probably need more marketing and selling opportunities which can take time, so I’d say it’s more of an advance way to scale your business though it’s totally doable.
As you can see, there are multiple ways to Soft Pivot® your DFY service to save you time, make more money, establish yourself as a credible expert and give your more energy to work on your own business.
Just because you have the skills to do it for your clients, doesn’t mean every time you have to. There are multiple different ways you can provide a solution. Some seasons call for more DFY work. And in others it’s helpful to have different formats of your offer to sell.
If this sparked inspiration and you’re now thinking of the different ways you want to restructure your DFY service into a DWY offer or group program — I have a free resource to help you even further make it happen.
Download the Free Course and Workbook
It’s a 5 episode audio course with a workbook called Pivot with Purpose. You’ll audit your current business, redefine your big vision and goals, and create a pivot plan to guide your next steps.
If this was helpful, don’t hesitate to reach out about your new ideas or share it with a friend who’s drowning in client work.
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