Recently, Nathan Barry reached out to interview me on productized services for his upcoming book: The Ladders of Wealth: How to Master the Skills of Making Money (sign up to learn more).

It’s a topic I’ve spent years obsessing over — but the conversation got me thinking about all the subtle differences between running a productized service and running a traditional agency.

So over the next few weeks, I’m going to share a few lessons that have stuck with me — the things I wish someone had told me early on.

BTW: even if you don’t run a productized service, these lessons still apply. They’re really about building systems, managing clients, and creating leverage — things that matter no matter what kind of business you’re running.

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Learning to Say No

My first agency was a very traditional model — where I kind of served every audience and offered them pretty much any service they could possibly need.

But when we launched Paperboy, all of that changed. We offered growth services to newsletter operators.

And not just that.

We offered a very specific playbook that came with a very specific system and very specific set of deliverables.

Why? Because specificity is what makes a productized service work.

• Specificity allows you to achieve smoother operations
• Specificity allows you to delegate more effectively
• Specificity allows you to keep overall costs low

But that wasn't easy. Especially when you come from a traditional service background and you’re used to customizing everything for every client.

You want to be helpful. You want to say yes.

But here’s the problem — if you say yes too often, your whole productized model breaks.

Because clients will always test the boundaries and if you’re not careful, your streamlined process slowly turns back into a bespoke agency.

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So how do you fix it?

At first, I thought the solution was to just be more explicit when explaining the process during the sales call and the kickoff.

I’d walk clients through the steps. I’d tell them exactly what was and wasn’t included.

I even made a nice onboarding doc that laid it all out for them.

And it helped — but it didn’t fix the problem.

Because clients forget.

They get busy.

They have a tendency to "reinterpret" what you said.

Or worst of all... they simply don’t believe your process applies to them.

So I realized that expectation-setting isn’t a one-time event. It’s a continuous process.

Here’s how I handle it now:

1. First, I map out the entire service delivery process in a single document. It includes phases, deliverables, and what’s expected on both sides.
2. As we enter each new phase, we re-send the relevant section and say, “Here’s how this stage works. Here’s what to expect.”
3. We also send a short pre-recorded video (me explaining the phase) so clients see my face and hear it directly — even if I’m not on the call.
4. Account managers have a Notion task that reminds them: “Send Phase 3 intro video.” (automation)
5. And every phase includes a mini FAQ based on the most common questions or misunderstandings we’ve seen.

What this does is re-train the client as we move through the project.

They always know what’s coming, what’s expected, and what’s off-limits.

And once we started doing that, our projects got smoother, our clients got calmer, and our margins stopped leaking.

The takeaway?

With productized services, consistency and specificity are paramount. Which means that we MUST stick to our guns when it comes to our service. And to do that, we have to be very good at setting expectations. We can't assume expectation-setting happens once.

It happens every step of the way.

Because even great clients need reminders.

And the clearer you are, the easier your business becomes.

— Shane