First productised service

When I was doing a lot of design work, I sometimes offered to create a single concept for a fixed price.

It was a way for clients, new and existing, to sample my work without me having to do free “pitch” work in hopes of landing the project.

One great example was a commemorative photo book I did for a university department, one of the largest book projects I’ve worked on in terms of budget.

The uni team and I figured out pretty quickly that the design alone was going to be up into 5 figures, and the printing cost likely 6 figures. It was big.

So knowing that, they agreed to a much smaller “concept” project first: I would create a single design concept for the cover and some internal pages (I think 4) for a fixed price. It would allow them to experience working with me; Get an idea of what the book might look like; and be free to explore other designers if they didn’t like my work. They could also buy another concept if they wanted to for the same price.

I didn’t realise it at the time, but this was probably my first productised service.

A way for me to package what I did into a “box”, with pre-determined scope, and a fixed price.

Unfortunately I never published it as a product on my website, it only came up occasionally in sales calls.

But this is how simple a productised service can be.

Fixed scope. Fixed price.

And bonus points for publishing it on your website with a buy button 👍