One to the next
In 2013, I launched Draft Revise as something a great deal smaller & more structured. I would run a few A/B tests for your SaaS business for $650 a month, and write up a monthly report about how they went. I signed on 10(!) clients, did a terrible job, got some wins by accident, and near-instantly burned out.
In the process, though, I helped pioneer the idea of productized consulting, where you would perform consultative work (like running A/B tests, I guess) in a scope-restricted fashion for anyone who wanted to fill out a checkout form.
Draft Revise looks quite a bit different now:
- There is an application, not a checkout form
- A three-week kickoff
- 100% research-driven
- Three plan tiers
- Formal pricing presentations to C-level
- Far more focused on strategic work
- Billed quarterly
- You need at least $5,000/mo earmarked to even get us on the phone
- A max of 3 clients at once
Is that even productized consulting anymore? No, it’s just consulting. It’s consulting in a structured, one-off fashion, with a name that people recognize from years of hard work.
Two questions show up for me in this moment.
First, can we even return to productized consulting if we want to? Teardowns prove that we can, if only to get someone’s foot in the door. But that’s just for one-off work. I’ve struggled to settle on a retainer that acknowledges the depth of our experience, provides significant impact for the client, and is priced at early-Draft-Revise rates that anyone can purchase.
Second, is it possible to sell in productized consulting services at our level of work? I’d also argue “no.” At some point, you’re simply going to become large enough that you need to custom-tailor your services.
Productized consulting still has a purpose for consultancies of our size & reputation. It is tremendously useful to be able to begin a professional relationship with a few clicks and a checkout form. (Heck, you can buy a Draft Roadmap with Apple Pay now.) So I think our goal right now is to create new offerings that have a similar scope to a teardown and continue to get people interested in working with us.
Three tiers
At the cheapest tier, you can learn how to practice value-based design. Buy our books & zines. Become a paid member. You’ll learn everything we know, and you’ll be able to do it yourself.
If you want the what and not the how for your specific context, buy productized consulting from us.
If you want us to do all of this for you, in a consistent & repeatable way that shifts your business’s culture, then we can work together to do it.
Each one of these tiers effectively adds a zero: $50, $550, $5,000.
People move from one tier to the next as they begin to trust us, and as their businesses grow to support value-based design work. If people buy our books, they are signed up for our free mailing list, where we talk more about our consulting practice. If people buy a teardown, we present Draft Revise pricing on a call after delivery.
The goal is to keep people engaged in conversation, continuing to help them over time. I bristle at the idea of “delivering value” or “laddering people.” They’re people. They switch from one business to another. The goal is to be a good person, doing good work, and create the conditions that allow for me to keep doing that work for those who understand it.