How to scale your income through productized services

Brad Hussey (00:00): The term productize is, is a pretty new term. And I don't even think most people don't even know what it is. And I have when I try and teach people and coach people about, about how to be productized service or how to create one, that they don't even know what the word is. They've never heard of it. It's kind of an unusual word. So whatever it was called in the past, and, you know, I don't know if there was ever a name for it, but we have a name for it now. And with that comes with more clear definitions and ways to embrace it and approach it rather implement into your business.

Hayley Akins (00:35): Hey, hatchings welcome to the motion hatch podcast. I'm your host, Hayley Akins.

Hayley Akins (00:43): Hey, hatchlings. And welcome to episode 96 of the motion hatch podcast. So I recently spoke with Brad Hussey, but how motion designers can scale that income without scaling that effort through productizing their services. Now, if you haven't heard about productize services before, don't worry, because we're going to cover everything you need to know in this podcast. If you've ever felt like you've hit a ceiling with your freelance business, in terms of how much money you can make, then do listen in. Because today Brad presents us with a whole new way of thinking about how we can grow our freelance businesses. Just before we jump into this episode, I wanted to tell you about a free course that we've created for you. The biggest struggle that I see motion designers having is getting regular high quality clients. So I wanted to create a course that you could do over five days. It's completely free. You get actionable tips and advice straight to your inbox each day on how you can win your next or first client in the next five days. So all you have to do to access this course is go to motionhatch.com/5daycourse and sign up. So if you're wondering where your first or next client is coming from, then head over to motionhatch.com/5daycourse, and start on lesson one today.

Hayley Akins (02:09): So welcome. Welcome everybody. So today we are talking to Brad Hersey about how you can scale your income without scaling your effort through productized services. So I know that a lot of you aren't aware of what a productized service is. So this is what we're going to talk about today. I'm extremely excited to have Brad here with me. So thank you so much, Brad, for coming on the show. Oh,

Brad Hussey (02:34): Thank you, Hayley. I really appreciate it.

Hayley Akins (02:36): So I just first want to ask you to tell us a little bit about your background and what you do

Brad Hussey (02:42): Real kind of quick one-on-one background on me. I started out as a freelancer, a freelance web designer. I went to school for it and, or not for freelancing, but I went to school for web design, programming development, things like that. I worked at an agency as a front end developer working on large campaigns and, and even working with motion designers, we would, you know do campaigns and apps and, you know, mini games and things like that. So I'm very well versed in, in the creative world and, and working with motion designers as well. And I've spent the last basically 10 years in the world of offering creative services as a designer or a web designer, rather in my, in my kind of mini agency helping clients with their websites and their design, branding, messaging, things like that.

Brad Hussey (03:30): But how I spend my time lately for the past few years is helping creative entrepreneurs, or I like to, I like to call them kind of indie creative firms. Let's probably a lot of, of who's listening with people who are offering services in the creative space. So motion designers to clients and how do, how to help those people stabilize and even more excitingly scale their income so that they can really make a good living doing really fun and meaningful work as a creative entrepreneur. And that's, that's the thing when I started freelancing income, you know, it's up and down some months you have this big income surge, other months, it's just bottom of the barrel. And then that can lead you to panic when you're panicking, you can make really bad decisions. So the, my kind of mission in this part of my work is to help creative services entrepreneurs with the business side of, of growing their business scaling and specifically productizing which we'll we'll dig into today. So that's, that's kind of my, one-on-one my background.

Hayley Akins (04:41): You want to tell us a little bit about how you first scaled from going from that freelance, like web designer role to where you're getting like client, and then you kind of have to look for the next client and all that kind of thing to kind of, you know, I guess what was your journey from that to where it is now? Because I feel like there's quite a lot of, you know, maybe things that you've done and that other people could take some inspiration from as well.

Brad Hussey (05:06): Totally. So yeah, when I started, it was all just client work saying yes to anything and everything that came your way. When I started, it was like 10, 12 years ago. And so the, in some ways it was harder to figure out how to get clients because he didn't have as many resources. Even 10, 12 years ago on the internet, it wasn't quite the same landscape. But in other ways it was easier because you didn't have this noise that is kind of bombarding everybody with a million. Everybody has a million ways to do you know, one thing. And so for me, I just said yes to everything and anything, and just found patterns. And what did I like doing, who did I like working with? And just kind of naturally kind of discovered what was good, what was not, but what I was not okay with was the really inconsistent income.

Brad Hussey (05:53): I just thought there's gotta be a better way of doing this. You, I'm not a starving artist nor do I care to be I want to provide for my family in a meaningful way and in a consistent way. And I don't think that, you know, I should be exempt from that even though I'm in the creative services industry, you know, as a web designer. So I kind of went out naturally looking for ways to add to my income. So instead of just saying yes to everything, you know, I thought, okay, well maybe there's something else I can add into this as another income stream I can add to this. And, and naturally I found courses like online courses and I thought, Hey, like I've got an expertise that I can teach. I can package this. I've got my own methods and my own ways and my own techniques.

Brad Hussey (06:41): And, and I'm really good at communicating to beginners, how to achieve something. So specifically for me, it was, how do you build, you know, how do you design your first website? How do you code that? How do you, you know make it responsive at the time, it was really new, hot, new term making your, your website's mobile friendly. And so I, I, I taught a couple of courses on that and those kind of took off and, and it opened my eyes to you. Don't only have to make income in one way as a creative entrepreneur, you can offer more than one thing. And that really opened my eyes to that possibility. And then I started to realize that I don't like now that I had this other income stream and I wasn't solely reliant on just client work, I didn't feel beholden to saying yes to everything I realized that I could say no.

Brad Hussey (07:34): And I could, I could choose only the clients I liked working with. So I thought, oh, maybe I thought, what if I'm specific about the clients I like working with? And what if I'm specific about the budget that I want to work with? And what if I just basically just said only yes, to the type of work I wanted to do, because I also have another income stream. So because of that, I naturally started to niche down. I thought, okay, well, I'm really good at this. I like these types of clients. I will only work with this minimum budget and naturally started marketing myself that way, getting referrals for more people who are in that category, that target market. And I naturally started to let's say dance with productizing. I didn't know what that was at the time. And I didn't really understand you know, the ins and outs of productizing, but I was dancing with it because they started to become more specific with who I was working with, the price and the outcome.

Brad Hussey (08:32): And things started to become a little more fixed. This is what I offer as my, you know, service my offering. And so then it was all trial and error for me. I didn't take a course or listen to a podcast or something and learn this new technique and apply it. I just naturally thought I need more consistent income and I want a growing income so that I can save some money so I can, you know, do all the things that we're supposed to do as grownups. So I just naturally started learning these things. And then in hindsight have learned lessons from them. And now we have more resources and information available where we can say, okay, well, you can be a a productized agency. You can be productized offer products and services. You can offer courses, you can offer products, you can offer exclusively services.

Brad Hussey (09:20): You know, there's SAS, there's software with a service. There's all these different models that we can use in our business. And for me, it was just trial and error, figuring it out as I went. And so in hindsight, if I were to do this again, which in some ways I, I am, I've started my own productized service business kind of on the side because I stopped doing client work for awhile. I just didn't like it because of how up and down it was and how crazy it was and how wild it was. And I just thought, you know, this is too stressful. Probably a lot of the, your listeners will resonate with that because not every client is that fun to work with. And when you feel like you have to, or when you feel like you just are, you know, are you're a yes, man, you're a guest woman.

Brad Hussey (10:03): People just ask you to do things and you just do it because there's money attached. It gets frustrating and exhausting. So I let all my clients go a few years ago. And and I just kind of focused exclusively on coaching and, and online education, things like that, kind of more creator work. But I re kind of started a productized service business for two reasons. One, I wanted to see if my theories were right about productizing. Is it really that good? Does it really work? Is it actually a viable model that freelancers can use? And also it's, if it does work, then it's an income stream that works very well. And I'm happy to say so far, it's working very well. And I really like it. So that's, that was kinda my patchwork journey to realizing, you know, that you really can make a good living doing this work as a creative.

Hayley Akins (10:59): Yeah, definitely. And you know, why I wanted to bring you on the podcast is because we actually worked together and I was just really impressed and I like bought one of your productized services. I'm doing like little ear bunny things for anyone who can't like, I wrote a cover. Yeah, but I think I want to get more into that later about the experience and stuff. I'm what I really took from it. Cause I, I thought it was great. But I'd left us just to like back up a little bit and just have you kind of explain in simple terms, like what is a productized service because it, I think it's quite a new sort of thing to everybody. Probably most people listening. Yeah.

Brad Hussey (11:43): Yeah. It, the term productize is, is a pretty new term and I don't even think most people don't even know what it is. And I have when I try and teach people and coach people about, about how to be productized service or how to create one they'll they don't even know what the word is. They've never heard of it. It's kind of an unusual word. But it's been around for time in memoriam for anyone who's been an entrepreneur offering services and wanted a more scalable way of doing it. So whatever it was called in the past, and, you know, I don't know if there was ever a name for it, but we have a name for it now. And with that comes with more clear definitions and ways to embrace it and approach it rather implemented into your business. So the definition that I like to use for product I service is something like a, it's a, it's a hybrid between a product and a service.

Brad Hussey (12:37): So a product is rigid. It's fixed. It's always the same for everybody. So I'm, you know, I'm looking at various items on my desk, like the stream deck or this microphone, or even the computer, that's a product, it's the same for everybody. You know, you buy the thing and that's it. So it's very, very scalable. Whereas a service is not necessarily the same for everybody. You know, if you hire a motion designer to design your graphics for, you know a game or something like that, it's generally going to be different for every single person and that's highly customizable and highly unscalable. So conceivably, the only way that you can make good money doing that is by charging outrageously high rates. But there's a, there's a balance between the two where you can offer a service work with clients that is almost always the same for each client.

Brad Hussey (13:32): It's not as scalable as a product, but it's not as unscalable as a service. And so what makes a product or service is a service that is fixed in price, fixed in timeline and fixed in outcome. So you have to have those three there's some movement within those, but it needs to be those three things. The further away you get from those things, the less productized it is, which essentially means the more customized it is. And ultimately you need to charge more because it's custom service. So that would look something like let's let's use, well, let's use my example just right now. I got, I got a whole list of different products or services and we can get into those two after. But it would be something that's fixed in price. So let's say $2,500 for everybody. Everybody pays $2,500. And what is the outcome?

Brad Hussey (14:36): So the outcome, in my case for my product high service business is a complete automated email funnel using convert kit. So another thing that you should add into that is a fixed kind of audience. So you need to have a niche. It's not for everybody. So for me, it's creators generally creators who are actually making an income, selling their core courses or coaching. And so twenty-five hundred bucks. That's the fixed price. Fixed outcome is a complete convert kit marketing machine. And it's the same for everybody. Now, there is some wiggle room in there. You know, it's not like plug and play. I install the same thing for everybody. There's a lot of custom work that goes into it, but what is rigid and fixed about it is it's the same standard operating procedure. I literally have like an instruction manual for start desk, do this, do this, do this.

Brad Hussey (15:30): So when I start a new project, I duplicate the project template and it's the same checklist I may have to take away or add a few things, but that's the idea. So fixed outcome, fixed timeline one day, that's my other big selling point. So it gets done in one day and that's what I call it done in one day. Now there's prep work. Prior to that, I don't do that. The client does that. They get automatic, automated messages, automated surveys, automated followups. And I just wait for my day, review the material. I do a quick call with the client and then I do the day and that's it. So fixed timeline one day, fixed price, 2,500 bucks, fixed outcome, a complete convert kit marketing machine for creators. So that's a productized service now, why is that productized? Because it can scale and it's this and it's those fixed pieces.

Brad Hussey (16:21): So I, if I'm doing, if I do four clients a week, which is one, like there's not four clients a week, four clients a month, that's one client per week. It's very, very manageable. And if we're doing that math correctly, that's 2,500 times four that's $10,000 for four days of work. So when I was starting to get $10,000 in the month, like I I'd be working with a lot of clients like 5, 6, 7, 8 clients at a time in order to get that much together. So for me to make a hundred thousand dollars as a freelancer doing it, that the other way, taking anything and everything, it was like a nonstop grind working way over time and getting paid way less than I deserved. And so doing this, it's like I get to do it on the side and everything's kind of taken care of and I get better.

Brad Hussey (17:18): Here's the other trick with productizing, with productizing every single time you do your service, you're better at it. So the next client that I have, which is coming up in about a week is going to be because I did one with Haley. And we'll talk about that later because of that, I learned some things, I got feedback. I experienced certain things and I thought, next time I do this, this is going to happen. This is going to be different. This is going to change. This is going to be faster. And every single time I get better and better, which allows me to improve my service, get better feedback, better referrals, and then ultimately raise my rate. So at some point I can charge 4, 6, 10, because with every new client, it just gets more and more valuable because I get to compound my experience. Whereas doing custom work, you're starting from baseline every single time.

Brad Hussey (18:14): You never, other than, okay, I wrote some more code or I designed some more graphics or I have a swipe file of, of, you know words or colors or kind of methods. But that's about it. You get better at your tools, your tool belt or your skills, but you don't actually get better at offering a service. It's the same. Every time you meet a client, it's blank slate, you have to do discovery calls back and forth weeks and weeks and weeks go by and you collect your check and you realize how unprofitable it was rinse and repeat, when do I stop doing this? So it's a total game changer. And it's the, it's one of the many ways that a creative services entrepreneur can truly become an entrepreneur, truly become a business person and not just a, you know, a cog in a wheel or a cognitive machine rather or, you know, just a go-to kind of person who is replaceable.

Brad Hussey (19:13): And that's the problem. If you're a good motion designer and all you're offering me is some motion design services. All I have to do is find somebody who can offer motion design for cheaper and better, and I can guarantee you, I can find that, and that's the problem. But as soon as you productize and you get specific, you start to build a moat around your business and you start to put distance between your competition you and your competition, because what you're offering is now unique and immediately more remarkable and valuable, and you still get to be a motion designer or creative entrepreneur, or a web designer programmer, whatever it is, you still get to be that and you get to get better and better at it, but you're actually offering something of tremendous value. And that's, that's why I'm so excited about productizing.

Hayley Akins (20:10): Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for that. That was a really great explanation, I think for me, why I was so excited about as well, because working with you, this is kind of the point I wanted distress. When I was working with you, like the level of service, you know, like that customer service kind of thing, which is not something that we think about as creatives, I don't think, but like the kind of, it felt really like you were being taken care of and like having that experience and also which I think like maybe is unique to your kind of productized service or is the kind of fact that it was going to be done in a day. Like, you know, and like need, like you said, we had to do some work up front and stuff like that. But as someone who is like purchasing something like this, I was really excited because I was like, oh, that's great.

Hayley Akins (21:00): We get a deadline. It's solid. We know when it's going to be done. There's no like back and forth feedback amends, like, you know, there's not too much of that, which is like the most terrible thing. You know, when you're trying to like do an email marketing thing, you're trying to do a website, like whatever, like you're trying to make an animation. You know, everyone feels the pain of that. The client feels the pain, the emotion, the learner feels the pain. So I kind of really want to highlight that something that I felt like was worth paying the money for was just like the fact that it was going to get done quickly. And the fact that just like, you know, obviously you'd done it time loads of times before, so you knew exactly what you do and you knew where kind of the pitfalls would be and stuff like that. So I feel like that's really important to kind of, I don't know, reiterate or, or like really hammer home to everyone that that was kind of the benefit of it being a productized service.

Brad Hussey (21:55): Well, that's really cool to hear. And I think this is neat because everyone gets to hear both sides of the table. So in this case, not only is this like an interview or podcast interview, but it's like a feedback session between a service provider and the client, and you just set it right there. Why like productized services are great for the service provider. It's great because I get to work less on something that I really enjoy and make more money with less effort and what, like, there's way more leverage. And if I wanted to do eight clients a month, it's not really big deal. That's two clients a week, two days a week. And that's 20, 20,000 us if, or, or more actually, if I well, no, yeah, be 20,000 us if I did eight clients a month. And that's like two days a week of work, but I would probably raise the price and I would still only work with four people a month and make more so it's great for the service provider, but you just said it, it's also great for the client because they're confident they feel taken care of.

Brad Hussey (22:59): They know when it's going to be done, they know what they're paying. There's no estimates and back and forth and far off aloof deadlines and meetings and this and that. It's, it's like, here's what you get. Here's what you get in this, for this price in this timeline. And you can rest assured that I specialize in exactly this, cause I only work with this person or these people. And I only offer this thing. And with every single time I get better and better at it and faster and faster and more proficient. So if anyone wanted to compete with me, they're gonna have a hard time catching up because now they look like a copycat, which then just makes me look better. And also I've been doing this a lot and I get to study it. I get to go, how do I get better at this?

Brad Hussey (23:42): How do I get better at, you know, email marketing ConvertKit systems, customer service. Like I get to only focus on that and not wonder who this new client is and what their very unique problem is. That's not to say that that's a bad method. It's another method, but you need to charge based on value. Really, really big prices. If you're doing custom work for low pay you're, you're doing it. Well, I could say you're, I want to say you're doing it wrong, but I can say that from experience. If I was going back in time and doing this again, I would realize I'm doing it this the wrong way, because it's not efficient. If you're doing custom work, it's expensive. If you're doing productized work, it can be middle of the road. It can be expensive, but it can also be more affordable so long as it's very scalable. So that's what I liked about what you just said is that the clients love it too. The clients love the consistency, the predictability, they love knowing what they're going to pay and what they get, like what the outcome is rather than just like aloof custom work for whatever price, especially if it's low.

Hayley Akins (24:46): Yeah, definitely. I think there's something that, because I think there'll be like a few, well, I want to say objections sort of in the audience people would be like, yeah, this sounds great. But I don't want to limit myself to just doing one thing. You know, I want to make custom motion design stuff because that's more exciting, you know? So what, what would you say to that, Brad?

Brad Hussey (25:11): It's a very, very, like, it's probably the number one. Objection. So I really like it. And it's a very valid question. I've wondered that myself too. Here's, here's the thing I liked. I like to be a little bit cheeky with my answer at first and then I'll get real. I usually say how's that working out for you? It's usually not going that well, how's the, I get to have an unlimited playground of experimentation and creativity as a custom creative service provider. So like, has it going out well, are you able to feed yourself and do you really enjoy it or are you burning out because your wide open business is is just burning you out because you're just, there's no consistency. You're not actually offering like a solution to anything. You're just going to selfishly doing something because you enjoy creativity.

Brad Hussey (26:10): Here's the, here's the twist to that. I think it's totally fair to offer, like to want to be really experiment to experiment and to do really cool creative work, because at the core of it, like as a creative service provider, like you don't want to just always do the same thing over and over again. But as a business owner in business, you do want to do that. You do want predictability, you do want consistency, you do want scale. So how do you balance that? Well, as you, as I just mentioned, like my productized service, it's, it's one client a week. That's my capacity. I can up it, but I don't want to, because I also sell courses. I do coaching, I do consulting. I do creative work myself. I have a family, I have three kids. I usually don't work Fridays. Like I have lots of time and flexibility and other things that I do.

Brad Hussey (27:05): So, but that productized service helps me to know. I get to do work that I know I'm going to do really well. That is consistent, that I can grow. And it helps me feel more comfortable when I want to just play and do something weird. Or like yesterday I wasted a day sketching thinking that I was going to, like, I was, I was like, oh, it's a really great idea for sketch. And then the, after like three hours, it was like, I just literally sketched for three hours, something so garbage that I won't use it. And I thought, well, whatever, like I got better at my apple pen and procreate. That was fun. Anyway, let's go back to work. So I get to be because of the consistency of the business, that model you get to play. So use that flexibility and freedom to feed your creative pursuits.

Brad Hussey (27:57): Like, or here's another thing, if you want to monetize that, let's say, for example, I'm a web designer and I offer this kind of a by trade. Like that's the thing I really enjoy doing designing websites. What I do in business, let's say this product I service, that's kind of more in the helping creators with their marketing in convert kit. The way that I can experiment and create is teach tutorials and sell courses on, on web design and experimenting, and I could sell those. And I do. And so I get to play with that. I get to experiment. I get to do custom work. That's my work. Not like for the client, I get to do something creative and different it's, but it's the consistency and the predictability of the productized service that allows me, whether in my work life or my personal life, time to play and create now another, some people just don't want to do that.

Brad Hussey (28:55): They just don't like the idea of it all. And I think that's totally fine, but that means if you want to be viable in business, you have to charge a lot of money for it. And you have to charge based on value. And it has to be fixed price, not here's my hours. Here's my estimate. Here's this it's if you want highly custom bespoke, whatever, you know, work where you get to just like enter into a unique blank slate where you're going to come up with something totally wild and unique and vibrant and crazy that's expensive. It has to be necessarily if it's not, then you're fooling yourself and you'll eventually come back to this episode and go, I really should have just done something predictable and allowed myself to play outside of it. So that would be my answer to that. But that is my answer to that. Objection.

Hayley Akins (29:48): I think that's really great. And yeah. I just think it's fascinating because it's not really something that I've seen anybody really explore in our industry, even though I definitely have mentioned it like a few times. But cause we don't really have like a good, I'd say like a good example of one person doing it, where, which I think you know, is obviously great because that means there's more opportunity. But I wondered if we could discuss, like maybe we can like bounce around some ideas.

Brad Hussey (30:16): That'd be cool. I'd love if some people, especially when we're talking about this, I'd encourage people to think about it. Some product I service ideas because you're right. Like I did some research before this and I thought, I wonder what motion designers out there are doing productized services. And I couldn't find anything and that not because it's not possible. That's just because motion designers haven't thought of it yet. So this is a prime opportunity for motion designers to step up and to create something, looking to be first to market. And that's exciting because like that's prime, prime opportunity. Clients will love it and you, you get to define how you want to do business and then you get to kind of use that productized service to, to grow your business. So just because I haven't found any examples, it doesn't mean that there aren't any, and also it doesn't mean that it can't happen because I'm sure web designers like I'm in the WordPress web design kind of field.

Brad Hussey (31:14): That's like my people most of them still don't know how to productize and like what I offer WordPress services, I build WordPress websites for people who need WordPress websites. You're like, oh, that's nice. And how is that working out for you? It's not working out, that's the problem. But now there are people making great money doing really good work and, and solving really specific problems as WordPress developers, you know, doing work, WordPress care packages, WordPress websites for restaurants, so on and so forth. I can name literally like a hundred. So yeah, I think we should like maybe jam on some productized service ideas and, and think about how you might do that. So the way that I kind of get my students, when I do the, I do a bootcamp for productizing and in real time help people come up with ideas.

Brad Hussey (32:06): You have to think of those three factors fixed in time, fixed an outcome and fixed in price. And also the kind of the fourth one is like fixed like a fixed target market. And so that takes time. Like you can't always just like come up with a brilliant idea right away. Usually you have to write down a whole bunch of garbage ideas and kind of weed through them. So maybe some examples outside of motion design, and then we can kind of come back here and then maybe if you have some thoughts and we can kind of come back and go back and forth a really, really simple one, I've talked about mine. A really simple one outside of that would be something like WordPress sites for restaurants. And it's, let's say it's a thousand dollars and it's a fixed outcome.

Brad Hussey (32:56): So the scope is very rigid. It's you get a WordPress website with your interactive menu, you can update it, you can reserve spots. Maybe you can book like curbside delivery or whatever, because everybody, every restaurant wants that now. And it's a thousand bucks and you can choose your color scheme, upload your logo, you know, and then pay for it on the site. And that's the thing it's called restaurant engine. So it's literally like a WordPress web designer. Who's really good at designing websites for restaurants. And he has a set of templates and like, it's like, here's the client they paid. The turnaround is I think, like 48 hours or a week or something like that. That would be an example. Another one that my students usually do. I have a branding, a branding kind of specialist in amongst my group. And she did something called brand.

Brad Hussey (33:55): I think I'm getting this right brand in a week. So it's like a brand discovery package with like your colors, basic logo typography, kind of like the whole kitten caboodle kind of basic for like in one week for fixed price. And you just get that package. And it's usually for people who don't really have like businesses or startups who don't have tons of money to invest in like a massive brand package, but they don't want to just go to Fiverr and buy a cheap logo and put purple on it and call it their brand. So it's like you get a professional, who's going to give you kind of like a bare minimum, but quality brand package in one week, I've also seen website in a day. I've experimented with that as well, build a Squarespace website in one day and you fix it's fixed price, fixed timeline. And, and like it's very specific in what you'll offer. So there is no back and forth. So those are just a few examples. There's let me see another got a huge list here.

Brad Hussey (35:07): Here's another one. Now some productized services are more product and some are more service, but there's still an element of service. So there's like let me pull this up here. Another example would be something like this is a good one, unlimited services unlimited graphic design services for pre pre-funding kind of pre profit startups. So startups who were in that like really early bootstrapping stage, they don't have a lot of cash, but they need quality graphics and branding, design, pickle, no design joy, I think is what it is. It's unlimited like graphic design, like, and there's, it's a 48 hour turnaround for each request and it's like 2000 bucks a month. And I think that this person who's doing this on the side, make 60 grand a month doing unlimited graphic design services for these people. It sounds like he's, he's hustling really hard, but he's got systems and it's rigid. And there's lots that he kind of does to keep it contained. So these are just a few, few ideas. And so maybe what we can do based off of those ideas, people listening, and then maybe we can, as well as what could a motion designer offer that's productized? What are some patterns that happen in motion design? You know, what sort of clients and what sort of requests is there something that maybe motion designers aren't really seeing?

Hayley Akins (36:37): So I had a couple of ideas. I was like, I'm not sure whether I feel like they need like, expanding to be product size services, but we're currently working on a YouTube branding because we're launching our channel in September. So I was thinking it'd be really cool for a motion designer to do like a YouTube package, but it's like, you know, people sell templates and stuff online, but I'm talking to like about that in between like the kind of template stuff and the completely custom stuff. And you kind of have a like set package in the middle somewhere where you kind of, you know, you know, you need like a lower third, you know, people need an intro, stuff like that. I feel like that would be really good. And then you just have to like slap a timeline on it, like in a week in a month. I dunno. Like it takes quite a long time to do animation. Like

Brad Hussey (37:27): Yeah. Okay. Well, no, I think this is a really good start because what you've done there is like you've defined, that's the outlet. One of the fixed things that you should consider is who it's for, because that's, if it's wide open for everybody, then like a YouTuber needs something different from a corporate company who needs like a TV spot or, you know, a billboard and animated billboard. Like if you're being specific, let's say you tubers and you can rest assure that there's enough YouTubers that you could probably make, build a business off of it. And there's enough YouTubers doing decently well. So if you say kind of YouTubers who are monetized and monetizing, but like not, you know, they're not totally established where they've got their own team and they're not totally beginner, you know, shooting on their iPhone. Like they got quality stuff, but like it's not consistent and they could vary they could benefit tremendously from stunning and exciting graphics that matches their brand.

Brad Hussey (38:23): So how would that person solve that? They would either DIY and just take a me course and learn how to do some basic motion design and then put some really terrible motion design graphics on their YouTube channel after about six months of practicing. Or that's not to say that you can't do that because you can, but or you can spend tons of money getting a custom service from a motion designer, but it's not going to be worth it for you. You can go to Fiverr and probably get some okay stuff maybe, but it's not considering anything other than just price, but there's not that middle ground. You can buy a template off of like, you know theme, forest or whatever, and then like learn how to install it. And maybe you do that, but that still doesn't provide that there's no productize service in there.

Brad Hussey (39:13): And that's where motion designers can step up. So let's say you really are like, you know, you tubers or you are a YouTuber or you like a YouTube creators, and that's a space that you could spend a lot of time, you know, hanging out with those people in their groups and their masterminds, you know, at their conferences and learn like what makes them tick. And, you know, maybe that's like your space perfect when it comes to the, to their lower thirds and all the different things. You, as a motion designer in the YouTube space could know, like what makes a really good YouTube video is having these specific animations and they're specific. And there's, there's like a rule and an order to them and how you can use them in your, in your videos. And so what you can do is say like a really simple kind of framework for a productized services.

Brad Hussey (40:04): Let's say it's a YouTube package for YouTube creator, where you get all of your motion, design graphics for a standard YouTube video, like a tutorial or a talking head or whatever. And it's a fixed price. Let's just call it 1500 bucks. And the turnaround time is, let's say seven days. Let's just say that because I know it takes time. But as a motion designer with every new YouTube client you have now your template for lower thirds and you have variations, you can edit it really quickly. You have your template for a title screen and end screen you know, graphics at the end credits, whatever it is like you can have. Now a big swipe file backlog of this person is on Patreon and they have their Patreon thanks things. So we're going to do the stop. We have like a whole bunch of templates that we can use for that lower third templates, title screens, this popups, whatever it is, right.

Brad Hussey (40:59): You get to design those and refine them and make them better and better and better. Now you have a library of your work that you can with this next client, use it and make your service faster. So maybe it turns from seven days into three days, or maybe it turns from $1,500 to $5,000 because it's even better. It's still seven days, but it's unreal out of this world. World-Class, it's just some thoughts. The person should be able to buy it without talking to you. They might want to, maybe you want to schedule a call, which is fine, but there's no discovery process discovery call back and forth estimates. This, this, this, they sell themselves on your offer because you've already explained what you're doing. So, Hey, are you a utuber and you wish your web, your videos kind of have that next level quality production.

Brad Hussey (41:48): Like you have a big team behind you, but it's just you. Well, normally it would cost $30,000 to get that or a team of XYZ, or you're going to Fiverr. There's no middle ground. Well, that's where we come in. We create a YouTube brand pack, emotion design package for YouTube creators who want this benefit, this value, this outcome. And we do that in seven days. We have, we take three clients a month so that we can maintain quality. Here's the link to schedule your spot or to book your whatever, or to buy the package. And we'll be in touch with a phone call within 24 hours or whatever it is like that to me is like bang on. I don't know why anyone's not already doing that.

Hayley Akins (42:27): I just wanted to give a shout out to Yvan Miguel as well. Cause he's doing our branding package right now for YouTube. And I feel like, you know, maybe this is an opportunity for him quickly get on it after he's done the motion hatch one can like, you know, use that as a case study or whatever. So that would be cool.

Brad Hussey (42:43): Exactly, exactly. And that's like, that's, that's, that's exciting. Okay. I want to share a couple of models. So in productizing, there are a few models that you, it's not just like we've used the outcome in timeframe kind of model, and it's a very kind of rudimentary easy way to productize, but there's different models. So there's there's that one is a one-off project. So when I do a ConvertKit marketing machine for creators, it's, one-off, you pay me a lump sum and it's done, and that's it. Often clients will book a repeat session and then they will provide referrals. And it's a great ecosystem, but that's a one-off project. That's one of five models that I'm aware of. Another one would be subscriptions, subscription offer. So that would be something like here's. That could be, let's say as motion designers, I'm going to try and keep examples close to your field.

Brad Hussey (43:43): Maybe as a creator on YouTube, I'll use a YouTube example again for now is you consistently create videos and you have new titles and you have new lower thirds and you have new guests and you have maybe have different segments. Maybe you have a tutorial series, but you also have like a blog series and this, that, and the other thing you could offer unlimited, or no, sorry, the unlimited as another model, let's not go there right now, subscription it's contained it's, let's say you are creator and you publish three videos a week. So you say, we'll do three videos a week. In X amount of time, when you have a video, we need one week in order to get that done. So you need to like schedule it out and time it out and be on kind of like a timeframe and a schedule, three videos a week, lower thirds, title graphics credits, or whatever your set scope is.

Brad Hussey (44:36): And, and we'll do that three times a week for your videos and it's X amount per month. Now it's based on value. This is where you kind of dance with value pricing and and productizing it's, it's a fixed price. Maybe it's something like, you know, a thousand bucks a month or like four 50 or whatever. Like the number varies on who it is and the value, you know, if it's a creator and this allows them to create more, allows them to grow their audience, allows them to make money, allows them to get sponsorships. Then that's very valuable and you are a valuable piece of that machine. So, you know, charge accordingly. And so that would be a subscription offer. Another example outside of the motion design world is if you are and I'll use different examples to help cause sometimes using different industries and verticals will help you jog your thinking and think of something in your space.

Brad Hussey (45:34): So project managers for online business owners. So they typically call themselves online business managers because they're virtual assistants, business managers, but for people who are bloggers, creators, YouTubers, you know, sell courses, coaching, and this is a type of ecosystem, you know, in that world. And so there's lots of emails, customer support, client requests or you know, client feedback, or maybe there's like refunds or technical issues with your course site. So that online business manager can say, I will be your online business manager and what they offer is a monthly subscription. So let's say it's a thousand dollars a month. Your inbox will always be zero at the beginning of the week, all refunds, all customer support requests and tickets always taken care of. And so it's not based on their time or their timetables or what they're submitting as their hours. It's like, I know my inbox is zero customer support requests are taken care of refunds are taken care of.

Brad Hussey (46:33): I can just do my work a thousand bucks a month. Perfect. So that's a productized, an subscription offer. Another model would be done with you. A lot of people do this with like group coaching or a group calls, yoga teacher, for example, doing like yoga classes on zoom. That's a done with you, productized service. It's a fixed timeframe. It's a fixed price. It's a fixed audience. People who want to do yoga. And so that's productized whether they realize it or not unlimited services, I referenced design joy, unlimited graphic design. You could do unlimited motion design, but you'd have to charge accordingly and you'd have to be really systemized, but you could be very profitable doing it. Now another one would be service on software S O S and that's, I do kind of a hybrid between the one-off project that done in one day with the service on software.

Brad Hussey (47:33): So I use convert kit exclusively. I've tried other email service providers and I hated it because it adds layers of complexity. It means now I have to, okay, convert kit does it this way. And the drip does it this way and float us, does it this way. And MailChimp does it this way and it's a total mess and it doesn't allow me to get better and better. Yeah. I'm I go back down to that customized kind of, I'm just a person who's just the go-to, you know, do this work for me, Brad. So convert kit, I get to get really good at convert kit. I get better and better every single time. So you choose a tool that you're amazing at, or that you're good at, or that you have kind of an edge with expertise and build your product or service on top of that.

Brad Hussey (48:17): And the benefit of that is this, the software they like that. And they will often promote you have you be like a licensed person or certified ConvertKit person or whatever it is. So in motion design, ask yourself what tools, what software do motion designers use or, or do people use to achieve motion design or that require motion design? So I'm not necessarily saying like Adobe whatever or whatever tool it's it's. What does your customer use all the time? That you're really good at it as a motion designer, you know, I mean, that would be YouTube. And in a sense, you know, that's a tool that someone's using, you know, you're an account manager in their YouTube and you add your motion design value into that, but you can also have your audience be motion designers. So as a motion design motion designer, serving other motion designers in a specific way, you know, there's lots of different things that you can do in there. So those are the models and that kind of opens up. Everybody has their own way of doing things. Some people want unlimited, some people want one-off projects. Some people have a software that they like using. So those are some ways to help come up with some more ideas.

Hayley Akins (49:29): I think my last question would be about can product like making a product tie service lead you to have more bespoke clients.

Brad Hussey (49:38): Yes, absolutely. So that's the other thing that earlier objection of I like bespoke work. I like creative work productizing. What that does is it also opens you up for something on the backend. So there is a, there is an agency, a branding agency, a graphic design branding agency somewhere. I can't remember what they're called right now, but what they do is they have a product or service that is a brand package for early startup founders. And they do logos. I kind of referenced it a bit earlier. So they do in, I think it's a week. It might be less four days. Maybe it's your logos, your, you know, your pitch deck, you know, it's specific to startups, very early stage startups. And it's all the things that they always need for their pitch decks, for their, you know, their designs or logos or colors and all that sort of stuff.

Brad Hussey (50:36): And it's fixed in price. It's like five, 5,000 Euro or something like that. And it says on the bottom, like in their FAQ, it's like, Hey, this is not quite what I need. Like I need a more comprehensive package. And they go great where like a full service branding agency for startups. So if you're like in a new different level, get in touch and then we'll put together a custom package. And that custom package is probably going to be 50, 60, 70,000 Euro because it's necessarily the case. But a productized service can act as a way to get people in, to get exposure to your business, your company, your firm, your, your brand, and see what else you do or they're attracted to your product or service because you're good at marketing it because it's very specific. People are attracted to that confidence, specific marketing, which a product high service allows you to do.

Brad Hussey (51:35): So for example, you're not like, Hey, I'm a motion designer. Hire me, please. I beg you. I need money. Please hire me. I'm a motion designer that I mentioned. I'm a motion designer. It's I get you tubers. Like I offer unlimited motion design for YouTube. And that's just like a really quick phrase, but you'd have your specific things. So for me is I build complete marketing machines and convert kit for creators in one day. And they're like, what? Get me on the phone with you. I'll have people give, look at my thing to give me feedback and then book a call because they just, it was so compelling. So when somebody is attracted to that, you got more eyes on your brand and it can lead to higher packages. And that's been the case for me too. I'll have someone book a call for an, a done in one day and they'll go, this sounds really great, but I kind of need this. And I go, okay, well, that's going to be $10,000 because it's a totally different thing. And I don't need the client because I've got this other thing and these other things, and then they go, that sounds very good. Okay. Sure. And you don't have to wiggle on negotiation and stuff. So yeah, th that was my kind of long-winded answer too. Definitely that can lead to bespoke work and high paid bespoke work

Hayley Akins (52:50): Spread. I feel like you've given everyone so much to think about today. So just to finish up, then, do you want to tell the audience where they can find out more about you and what you do?

Brad Hussey (53:00): Yeah, of course. So I put together a page on my site just for a motion hatch listeners or hatchlings Brad bradhussey.ca/motionhatch/. That's all one word. And I put together a five day email series. That's going to walk you through, coming up with your perfect productized service idea. And I go through a series of exercises that I usually have my students go through in my bootcamp for productizing. And it's going to help you come up with a whole bunch of ideas using the frameworks that I've put together. So that by the end of it, you have at least one good idea that you can start taking action on that. You can start, you know, building out the service that you can start getting clients for. So that'd be bradhussey.ca/motionhatch

Hayley Akins (53:48): Yeah. And we'll put all of the links as well in the show notes, so everyone can find it very easily. Thanks for coming on the show today. It's just been really great and I'm sure everybody's enjoyed it as well.

Brad Hussey (53:58): Yeah. This is a ton of fun. I really appreciate it.

Hayley Akins (54:02): Thanks again to Brad for coming on the show. I hope this episode has opened your mind a little bit on what's possible for your motion design business. Remember to head over to motionhatch.com/5daycourse to get your next or first client over the next five days. All the links that we mentioned today are of course, in the show notes at motionhatch.com/96 . If you enjoyed this episode, then please consider sharing it with a friend who might also benefit from this podcast. Thank you so much for listening all the way to the end. I appreciate you. See ya.

Speaker 3 (54:44): [Inaudible].