Summarize

Sell your sawdust: Simple frameworks for creating profitable digital products

Time is money, and every entrepreneur I've ever met is short on one or the other (and sometimes both).

I used this framework to take my agency from a strictly time-and-materials business to a service-based product business. I got hours back and made more money along the way.

What does it mean to sell your sawdust?

The term "selling your sawdust" comes from the lumber industry. Lumber companies started selling their waste (sawdust, chips, shredded wood, etc.) to other companies for a hefty profit.

Today you can find the byproduct of their milling process in dozens of consumer products: concrete, particle board, synthetic fireplace logs, pet bedding, and mulch.

Now apply that model to your own business. Do you notice any "waste?" Are there byproducts of your work that might be valuable to potential or existing clients?

I'm going to walk through some frameworks I've used to take services I was already providing and turn them into stand-alone products I could sell on autopilot.

From problem to product

If you're an entrepreneur, you've probably experienced the transactional nature of client services or consulting. A client gives you something you want (money) to help them get something they want (a bigger social presence, for example).

On the surface, it might look like the client is just handing over money for a bunch of new followers. But that's not the whole story.

Whether they say it out loud or not, the client has specific metrics in mind when evaluating their purchase. They're paying for tangible outcomes: increased awareness, better conversion, more engagement, or any number of KPIs from their brief.

The client isn't paying you for a bigger social presence. They're paying you to solve their problems. Problems like how to turn an audience into a revenue stream, getting leads for a new business venture, and so on.

Here's the good news: most problems you'll solve during a consultation aren't unique to that one client. Hundreds of other clients will run into similar issues at some point (whether they know it yet or not).

For most digital entrepreneurs and consultants, solving client problems usually comes down to the same thing: create a practical, repeatable process that you can implement over time. Once you take that process and wrap it around an existing service, you've got yourself a new product. And there's no better way to divorce time from money and scale your business than by selling products that solve problems.

But I know some of you are thinking, "How will I know what problems potential clients are facing?" The short answer is you won't, unless you change how you position yourself and your services.

Be a partner, not a vendor

One of the best ways to understand people's problems is to go deep into their business and learn everything you can from the inside out.

When you take a genuine interest in your client's business, you sharpen your communication skills and engage with them in a way that actually matters. They start to see you as a partner, not just another vendor. And once you have a relationship built on trust, you can start teasing out answers to questions that might not come up otherwise.

As a consultant, I spent a lot of time identifying common client issues and then building service-based products to solve those problems. Here are a few real scenarios, the questions I asked, the answers I got, and the products that came out of them:

Scenario 1

Me: "Do you have a strategy to strengthen relationships with your existing customers?"

Client: "Not really, but it's probably a good idea to stay in touch via email more often."

The product that was born: An email drip series that ran every month to drive engagement and keep my clients top of mind with their customers. I kept it industry-agnostic, and once created, I included it as an add-on to every new proposal for an additional fee. And if you need an email service provider, I highly recommend Beehiiv. They've got all the tools you need to make the most of your email marketing.

Scenario 2

Me: "How's your new user onboarding going? Is there anything that could make the process better?"

Client: "Some customers are confused about what to expect during sign-up. It would be nice to communicate with them more clearly, so they know what's coming and when."

The product that was born: A plug-and-play email funnel in Mailchimp to make sure all incoming customers received automated touch points at key stages of the client's onboarding process. Since this automation was just a series of timed messages, it worked for any client. And yes, I included it as an add-on to every new client proposal for an additional fee.

Scenario 3

Me: "What is the most significant pain point when updating your website?"

Client: "We have issues matching the existing elements and making everything look consistent from page to page. It's maddening!"

The product that was born: A password-gated style guide with visuals and style classes to make sure the new content they added looked great on any page. The style guide could live on their own domain, and they could give access to anyone they wanted. And you guessed it, I included it as an add-on to every new client proposal for an additional fee.

Scenario 4

Me: "What is your strategy for staying relevant amongst your competition besides Facebook and Google ads?"

Client: "Uhm..."

The product that was born: A keyword accelerator and content calendar to help build their visibility in organic search. This content calendar became a staple in my consulting business, and, say it with me, I included it as an add-on to every new proposal for an additional fee.

None of these problems and solutions are new, and they're definitely not unique. But by becoming a trusted partner, I could pinpoint recurring client needs early in the vetting period and assemble solutions into neat, process-driven packages to sell over and over again.

Creating demand for your service-based products

So you've identified ways to create products out of your daily routine. Now let's talk about how to actually generate demand for them.

Offer your products to existing clients

The easiest way to generate demand is to offer your products to your existing client base. If you have multiple clients (which you should), there's likely an opportunity to cross-sell your products to clients in different industries or backgrounds.

Add your products to the new client sales cycle

You can also increase average order value by including your products a la cart for all incoming clients. These products already exist, so it's just a matter of adapting them to specific client needs.

And even if they don't need your product now, there's still an opportunity to sell them later once you've broken down project needs and goals together.

Sell your products to strangers (not in a weird way)

If you have a marketing budget, it couldn't hurt to create a landing page for each of your product offerings and drive traffic there.

Position your product as the solution to your potential customer's problems, empathize with them, and offer something that gives them a quick win. From there, the door is open to upsell in the future, turning a small, lightweight sale into a deeper relationship over time.

If you don't have a marketing budget, these pages are a great way to attract organic search traffic by adding choice keywords. With a little bit of work, these products can also become businesses of their own, but that's another article.

Make it once, sell it forever

You can probably see the value of turning repetitious, tedious parts of projects into one-off products you can sell again and again. I hope these ideas get you thinking differently about service-based products and frameworks, and ultimately help you sell more and work less.