The Online Service Business Playbook: Turn Your Online Service Into A System

You or Your Online Service will hit it’s limit soon.

Do you see it coming?

If you have an online service business you will eventually:

• Run out of time to serve more clients
• Run out of energy dealing with 1-to-1 personalized customer service
• Desire more time out of your Service
• Desire more impact with your Service

It is going to happen at some point , so how about preparing for it now instead of later?

I’ll hold your hand and we can go through get through the growing pains together.

In your midst is ultimate guide to help you prepare for your Online Services inevitable need to level up or if you are ready, put you down the smart-track to growth & profitability without burn out!

Today You Will Learn:

1. Online Service Growth Strategies & One ideal Strategy
2. The 3 Alpha  Business systems to focus on to navigate your growth
3. An Online Service Tech Stack brimming with tools you will need for your system
4. Online Service Resources to help you prep your mindset, business,  and skills
5. And finally online service tips and trainings within the Online Service Blogs

All throughout, I’ll give you examples, principles, and motivation to keep you moving in the right direction.

You can navigate to your favorite sections using the menu above, download this post to read later, ingest this post in bite-sized summaries, or grab your favorite drink and read it all the way through like a boss!!

What does growing and scaling your Online Service look like?

Setting up strategies and processes that make your business more efficient and sustainable so growth becomes a numbers game.

What’s a numbers game, you ask?
It’s when you know that if you put a certain amount in, a certain amount will come out.

For example: If 500 people come to my website, I know 2 of them will become client.

My goal is to make sure I bring in 1000 people a month so I can hit my 4 client goal every single month.

When you are able to have assurance like that within your business you have reached another level and can only go up from there.

That is the key information you need for consistent growth!

How do I know when I'm ready to level up my online service?

You know when you know, but here are some growing pains you might be having:

• You have run out of time to serve more customers. Everyone is knocking down your door, but you have run out of time to serve them. This is a key sign.

• You are burnt out of serving customers 1-to-1. Burning out usually leads to quitting.So instead of quitting it’s time to level up your business to work for you instead of against you.

• When you want passive income vs active income and better control of your time. This is a major reason. When you are leveraging your time for money, you might as well go back to a Job. It’s actually much easier that way. You need to learn the art of increasing your money without increasing your time.

• When you have a desire to be more impactful with your online business. This is my favorite reason. If you want to serve more and impact more people you have to remove the constraint of time. You are an online business so you have removed the constraint of location and borders, now it’s time to truly step into business freedom by removing the constraint of time.

Productize Your Online Service

Package up your service into a predictable process at a set price.

This is how so many tech startups can grow so quickly.Give every customer the same thing or give different levels of set packages.

It’s much easier to grow because you are not dealing with personalized requests and you can set everything up into a system.

A system will allow you to create templates, assign contractors,define efficient processes, and eventually remove yourself from the entire service.

Raise Your Rates in Your Online Service

Increase your price gradually over time as you become more specialized and efficient at getting results.

This is a great way to increase the income in your business as well as have more higher tier, all in, loyal clients.

This also is a key move when you are maxed out on clients, so you can reduce inquires and get some breathing room in your business

Create a Team or Agency with Your Online Service

Give some of your work to a sub-contractor, partner up, or start hiring employees.

This a move a lot of online services make to help create more time by leveraging the time of others.

It will require you to improve your leadership & management skills for running the business, training your team, and managing your team.

It’s really important to create sops, video or written training, and KPI’s before hiring on and also working the position yourself before giving it to someone else. You can learn all about this process in on of my favorite business books on pg 166.

Niche Down or Specialize Your Online Service

Maybe at this moment you are working with “anyone who is breathing”, or as many folks will say “money is money”. But a generalist will NEVER make as much as a specialist!

A specialist digs deeper into what they know, builds expertise, and optimizes their results.

You can also choose to work with a certain group ( gym owners), or income level (making 10k+ a month), or those who have a certain problem ( ex: diabetes).

There will always be more income in specializing, but passive income can beat specialization.

That’s what we will talk about next….

Add Digital Products to Your Online Service

Sell templates, ebooks, stock photos, website themes, guides, tutorials, masterclasses, etc to the masses.

This is a major way to grow your online service because once you make the product it can be sold over and over again without updates.

If you automate the selling process you can make money all day every day without using any more of your time. And If you create a funnel with this process you exponentially grow your service. This is the master way to leverage your time.

👩🏾‍💻Create an Online Course for your Online Service

This is a more high level digital product. Record your skills, results, or training ( written, audio, or video) into a set curriculum that can be accessed virtually.

An online course will take more time and energy to produce and can create bigger results for the student so it can come at a higher price.

This is a great way for lower budget clients to do it themselves, an additional add on to your set service, or a way for you to completely stop doing services in your business.

Coaching

High level teaching of your service to one person or a group of people that focuses more on guidance, accountability, and access to your expertise.

This is a great way to raise your rates ( 1 to 1 coaching), impact more people ( group coaching), and focus less on you implementing the service and more helping them implement.

Coaching can fall into two groups:

• Teaching someone how to do what you do now
• Guiding someone to an ideal result that they want

Coaching is a great way to take control of your time as you can create set coaching packages and courses, and have your clients pick certain times to work with you.

Special Mention: Affiliate Marketing

Telling your audience about the other products and services you use in your business or your life and getting a percentage of the sell if they decide to buy it for themselves.

As an online service you can use this in two ways:

• Making suggestions  within the regular content you already provide or a specific promotion or while serving your cients 
• or By bringing more people to your business via referrals from your clients, influencers, or just plain affiliates of your offers

Which one will you do you think you will do?

You now have an understand of if you are ready to scale and the different avenues you have to grow your online service. The only thing you need to do now it start making moves!

Pause, right now and really give it some thought. 

Personally,  I think there is an ideal way and  I want to tell you about that next… 

The Ideal Way to Set Up Your Service

The Full Set Up System: (Shameless Plug)

• Create a Signature System or Method based on your expertise + problems and goals of your ideal clients(Specialize)

• Build a Community of Buyers ( Mini Membership &/or Community) who want to learn the system or method or need the system or method to reach their desired results

• Create Accelerators (masterclasses, courses, apps, Saas) to help them get it done faster (filled with your templates, Courses, and Specialized advice) for clients who want to DIY

• Create a Group Program to help them Implement & Stay Accountable for clients who want guidance (Coaching)

• Give them the option to work with you 1-to-1 for clients who want you to do it for them ( Raise your rates + Productize your service with a team )

This is not built all at once ( although with help you could😏), it’s gradually layered on and set up for growth. But as you can see, it takes the top 7 ways to grow and optimizes them into multiple streams of income instead of just one! Also you should sprinkle your Affiliates all throughout, because why not?

If that’s not magical, I'm not sure what is!

A key way to build this up is to have free or paid waitlists for everything you don’t have yet, while also giving them access to your more high-end 1-to-1 service if they want to jump in immediately, all while building and sharing the value of your system within your communities. 

That way you can continuously optimize the programs based on the needs and wants of your ideal clients.

You can learn more about this method in my upcoming posts. If you are want to start planning your own signature system check out this Free Training that walks you through the set up step-by-step

Why is this an Ideal Way to Grow Your Online Service?

• You can create and/or filter out ideal clients instead of hoping and praying that one sees you
• You can help thousands of people instead of just a top select few without taking more of your time ( plus increase your income)
• You can create different versions of the same product making your business life easier
• You automatically brand yourself once you create a system (not product or offer) that is unique to you and build all your content and business around it
• You are leveraging and optimizing your time through offers, systems and processes and people which is the ultimate online business level up

To Truly grow and scale your online service you will need Systems + Funnels + Optimization.

You can’t run away from this, so you might as well put on your big girl panties, and get to werk! Or hire someone to do the work for you.

Choose your poison. But Drink it fast! 

The 3 Alpha Systems for your Growing Online Service are a marketing system, a sales funnel system, and a sales system for your growing business.

They all go hand and hand.

Marketing System [ Content + Traffic]

When you understand the power of marketing it will change the trajectory of your business.

Most people think that they are just business owners, but successful business owners know that they are actually powerful marketers.

Marketing is the only way your business will be found by the people who you want to sell to.

Marketing Falls into two groups

Organic marking and Paid marketing

Organic Marketing:

Evergreen and Long term Content that you put in time to gain back time.

You front load the work that will payoff in dividends months and/or years later.

I know your desire for instant gratification almost made you exit this page. But hold up: this is the content your brand and business will be built on.

You do not need to be a  certified content creator, but you do need to provide value that can be found by the masses, not just those who see an Ad or who get told by a referral.

Build your organic content now and allow it to snowball your brand, growth, and income later.

Top Organic Content Platforms

• Main: Blog, Mini-Memberships, Email, Youtube
• Search: Youtube, Google, Pinterest
• Expert: Email, Instagram, Podcast, Youtube, Twitter
• Viral short form: Tiktok, Youtube Shorts, Idea Pins
• Professional: Linkedin, Google My Business, Facebook Page
• Community: Medium, Quora, Reddit , Facebook Groups

P.S there is obvisouly plenty more, if your favorite platform is not on here, just imagine it is.

Content Media Types to choose from (Find your sweet spot or gradually layer them all)

• Longform Video: Researching, Educating, Learning
• Short Form Video: Entertainment, Limited time, Limited Attention, Education
• Written: Researching, Educating, Learning
• Audio: Limited Time, Entertainment, Educating

Key Content to Focus on for your Online Service:

Content that helps push your potential clients through the key parts of the  buyers journey

• Problem Aware content
• Solution Aware Content

Now that you you know your platforms and media types: How will you continuously push out this content so that you make an impact in your market?

You need a marketing system! It’s really important to understand that you will need to create a marketing system that you repeat over and over again to get results and then automate to keep those results.

Business Systems that are best for implementing your marketing system:
Task Management Platforms

• Asana
• Trello
• Notion
• Clickup

People To Help Your Once Your System Is Set Up 

• Fiverr
• Upwork
• OnlineJobs.ph

Paid Marketing

Note: I’m just starting to use ads with some beta clients. This is a list of some of the things I have learned from research and Facebook ads in my career jobs.

I will update this list with things I have experienced soon.

Best Ad Platforms for your Online Service

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Pinterest

Best Ads to use:

• If you have an email list upload it to Facebook and create a lookalike Audience that you can build off of and save a lot of money.
• If you don’t have a list yet you will need to build it and put in a little more money for about a month of ads then use them as your look alike audience

My Overall strategy:

• Use Organic for content and funnel views
• Focus your ads on Retargeting Page Views to get the best bang for your buck

The main focus of your ads should be

• Hook :Makes them stop the scroll to listen or read
• Story: Emotional and logical pulls
• Call to Action:The next step they should take with you

You can learn more about this winning concept ( that can be used in all your marketing) in this book on page 28 and implemented on page 345.

Sales Funnel System [ Your Offer Suite]

How you get people  into your Sales System & how you get them to go deeper into your sales system.

First let’s define an offer:

A product/service + More Unique Value + A Promise

Your product or service is not your offer. It’s one part of your offer.

Value can be in the form of add ons, bonuses, and something like free shipping or 2 day shipping.

The promise is the result your client can get from the offer.

So instead of saying here is  my $4.99 Ebook for you to buy. 

Say: Here’s The Ebook that will help you lose 10 lbs in the next 5 days, plus 3 free bonuses to help you implement each step of the ebook without fail! All for only $4.99! 

Seriously, Which one would you buy?

I thought so!!

What's an Offer Suite?

An offer suite is a bundle of offers that ascends your client deeper into your business.

At first they buy an ebook from you, but as they go deeper and deeper into your business they buy your course, or group coaching, or even  decide to work with you one on one. The one on one offer is the main offer you wanted them to buy in the first place, but you needed to build trust, belief, and the relationship first! 

Front End Funnels:

Free and and low cost offers that you offer to potential clients to bring them into your sales system.

Free offers are the value you give everyday with your content or the value you give via a lead magnet.

A lead magnet is offering free value to someone in exchange for their email address.

Low Cost offers are an easy way to help your potential client solve a problem or reach a goal at a low cost.

It can range from $3-$99 (these numbers can move up and down). This low cost offer is usually public facing meaning anyone can see and buy this offer if they are looking at your business.

These can pay for ads or pay for your business expenses so you always have pure profit with everything else you sell.

Back End Funnels:

These are funnels that are only seen by people who are already in your sales system and are not public facing.

The People in your backend funnels have shown interest via their email and/or Credit card swipe so are more likely to buy your Back end offers.

These offers have various prices and implementation and help your client accelerate their learning, provide guidance, or give you full reign to help them.

Sales System ( Emails + Higher Value )

Every Service will have it's own unique sales system, but these are the foundational parts to have in your Service.

Educate: (Give them a way to binge you + your system)

• Youtube videos
• Mini memberships

When people binge you they self assess, they self indoctrinate, and they self-addict to you and your content.

Binging is one of the best ways to create clients in todays Market and you need to have a Key Platform for them to binge you on.

Even Instagram is Bingeable if you have really good content.

Video is the best binge option because people start connecting with you, your personality, and your style so the know, like, trust factor can be built in minutes instead of days and months!

Build Their Belief (In you, In themselves, and In your system)

This is a process.

It requires you really understand your clients so that you can know what they need, what they want, and the various things that keep them from taking action.

Then you slowly move them towards action, by chisling away their excuses!

They don’t trust you? Show up , be consistent, and be genuine.

They don’t believe in themselves? Tell them what they are capable of. Knock down their false beliefs. Show them people just like them, who were able to find success.

They don’t believe in your system? Tell they why they need, what it can do for them, and the results of the system for other people or yourself.

This belief process is perfect for your Emails, social media posts, and Instagramstories. Especially if this content is drip feed to them on a regular basis.

It slowly changes their mindset and builds their belief. ( like the dripping fountain for any Divergent fans reading this!)

Create or Provide Community

Community gathers a bunch of like minded people who have similar goals and beliefs.

This can become a huge goldmine of your potential and ideal client and makes you their worthy leader or guide.

When you create community for people, they automatically feel like they need reciprocate to you, and are willing to follow you near and far.

• Free Facebook Group
• Telegram
• Discord Group
• Weekly Youtube Live 

Provide Solutions to their Baby problems and Mama Problems

This is where Your Backend Offer Suite comes into full play.

Everyone who comes to the backend of your system has various needs, desires, and budgets so providing them ways to solve their problems that meet those needs is a must!

Make full use of your offer suite by continuously showing its value, at least once a week or month while people binge, build belief, or join your community.

This is an amazing system for continuous sales and upsells of your online service. Now the only thing you need to do is implement!

Last,  but certainly not least is Optimization!

The Best Tips  to Optimize Your Online Service System and Funnel  

• Make sure everything you publish on your website or any search enable platform is keyword optimized for your brand and business 
• A/B test your content  until it does exactly what you want it to do everytime you publish ( you are a direct response marketer, not brand marketer!)
• Protip: Work on saying the same messaging over and over each quarter and removing anything that doesn’t work and doing more of what does work. 
• Meticulously track your metrics for each platform, funnel, and system that you implement 
• Funnel Hack your competitors, market, and partnerships (Dream 100) quarterly
• Change up your strategy regularly and optimize your system consistently!

The ultimate Online service tech stack of tools to help you build your online Service System.  A few of them are below but more can be found in the link. These tools help you organize your Service, projects, and clients, build your online service funnels, and connect and align your Sales System. It's simple, efficient, and powerful with the main aspect being ownership of the main platforms they hold your business in it's hands.  

Your Online Service business can be a flaming dumpster at times and thats why knowledge, mindset, and resources are needed to help you navigate the crazies. These resources are my top 8-10 Go-tos for various parts of my Online business and will help you elevate, delegate, and concentrate on whats most important for your business. 

Learning for your Online Service is never done. Click through below to get your most pressing or most favorite questions answered about your online servie in text, video, or podcast form.