This One-Person Business Model Is Going To Explode In 2024 (Here’s How To Exploit It).

Be inflexible to be consistently high quality.

The productized service model is the Netflix of one-person businesses.

It’s exactly what it sounds like:

• On-demand.
• Subscription-based.
• Unlimited usage.

I stumbled upon this model when I heard about a random bloke on the internet making 1.3 million per year as a one-person productized designer.

He leveraged this model part-time at first until he was making 3–4x more than his full-time job.

Now there have been dozens of copycats in different industries.

And I’m now one of them.

Since selling my six-figure one-person consulting business, I pivoted my online writing into a productized ghostwriting service. I already have a client paying me $4.5k per month to ghostwrite their content.

Here’s what I did.

There are only three types of clients:

• Learners ($0 — $100k)
• Earners (minimum $100k)
• Legacy (minimum $1 million)

I’ve got an offer for every customer category.

• Learners = group coaching, courses, and cohort learning.
• Earners = 1:1 coaching with creators, coaches, and founders.
• Legacy = philanthropists, semi-retired entrepreneurs, high-net-worth individuals

Here are the principles:

• Match your offer to your customer category.
• Understand what they are purchasing from you.

For example:

• Leaners are price-sensitive and are purchasing ‘how to’ knowledge.
• Earners are less price-sensitive but want to see a monetary ROI on their investment.
• Legacy clients aren’t worried about money at all, but they are purchasing status.

People don’t buy a drill, they buy a quarter-inch hole in the wall.

People don’t buy your offer, they buy knowledge, money or status.

If you get this wrong, no one will buy your offer.

Embed your systems, processes, and procedures.

I’ve kept everything simple and inflexible.

• Trello board for project management and client requests.
• Google Drive for cloud storage.
• Google Docs for written content.
• Fathom AI to record meetings and produce a transcript.
• Payment in full and upfront with no discounts via Stripe.
• Minimum of 3 months. Month-to-month afterward.

I don’t change technology or software for any client. They must use what I use.

Does that mean I lose out on some clients? For sure.

But this is what allows me to scale.

• I can hire a Virtual Assistant to manage the boards and workflows.
• I can hire subcontractors to support delivery and fulfillment.
• I don’t waste time drawing up proposals, contracts, or invoices.

The inflexibility allows me to create:

• Standard Operating Procedures for how things should be done.
• A clear and consistent client onboarding process and experience
• Onboard subcontractors quickly.

You don’t rise to the level of your business goals, you rise to the level of your business systems.

Be inflexible to be consistently high quality.

But what does unlimited mean?

It means unlimited requests within a 72-hour turnaround time (Mon — Fri).

I won’t charge more for a redo or revisions. They can revise as many times as they like. But every new request starts another 72-hour turnaround time. They can also request anything to be written about their personal brand:

• Biographies.
• Personal newsletters.
• Social media posts and captions.
• LinkedIn thought leadership articles.

I don’t charge a different price for different services.

But here’s the caveat. They can only make one request at a time.

Just as with Netflix, you can’t watch two things at once.

Unlimited reduces the friction of requests and going ‘over scope’.

Provide value immediately upfront

I’m still working on this.

I want to be able to give clients immediate value upfront as part of their onboarding process.

Some ideas I’ve got:

• 30-day calendar of social media posting on LinkedIn.
• A complimentary LinkedIn article.
• Personal branding style guide.
• Marketing and sales funnel.
• Personal brand strategy session.

Maybe a combination of all of them.

The point is to provide value early and often.

The productized business model is the future.

Here’s what you need to start:

1. Learn a valuable skill.
2. Work for free (to refine your skillset)
3. Build sales assets (testimonials, case studies, etc).
4. Package your work into a productized offer (monthly subscription).
5. Slowly increase your price every 3 customers.

Do steps 3–5 until you reach $50–100k per month.

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