Finding Product Market Fit as a Service Business

Jeffro (00:00.944)
Welcome back to Digital Dominance. You’ve probably heard marketers use the term product market fit when talking about startups or companies on Shark Tank. I like Marc Andreessen’s definition where he says that product market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market. So when an entrepreneur sees a need in their market and builds some kind of solution that customers actually wanna buy, that’s product market fit. Now, that all makes intuitive sense when we’re talking about those startups and Shark Tank companies that are coming up with something brand new. 

Jeffro (00:30.74)
But what about a local service-based company? This probably isn’t something that many owners think about. A lot of service business owners just assume that they have product market fit simply because they didn’t invent something new. But that’s not necessarily the case. And that’s why I’m excited to be talking with Garrett Miller today. Garrett runs a company called Delta Lead that does consulting on product market fit for high ticket B2B service providers. He’s also pretty good at cold outreach on LinkedIn and email, which we may touch on, we’ll see. But thanks for being here, Garrett. Welcome to the show.

Garrett Miller (00:59.414)
Yeah, thanks for having me, Jeffro. Pleasure to be here. Really excited to dive into what we have discussed today.

Jeffro (01:04.732)
Yeah, me too. So Garrett, product market fit can really make or break your business. And it’s unfortunate that a lot of owners never even give it a second thought. It’s not necessarily a conscious thing. It’s like, I clean carpets, people have carpets, therefore I have product market fit, right? That might be a good start, but can you talk about the other elements that should be considered, such as pricing, the offer, details of the service, any of that stuff?

Garrett Miller (01:29.814)
Yeah, 100%. So there’s a pretty simple way to break it down and there’s really seven core pieces that define product market fit, right? So the first piece is gonna be your audience, right? Your niche, your avatar, who you’re actually serving. You really need to have that process well defined. And I’ll kind of lay into the seven pieces and then we can come back to it and kind of go into it to make sense. But we have the niche, we have the avatar, then they have a problem, right? They’re experiencing some sort of pain that they’re looking for a solution on, right?

Then the next piece, the third piece, is around the claim, the offering. What are you actually going to claim that you can help them achieve? What are you going to offer your potential prospects, your clients? And then the fourth piece is the vehicle. So how are you actually going to get in there and deliver your service? Is it gonna be one-on-one calls? Is it going to be a course? Are you going to help them receive relief from their pain through content, right? It can even be free information. Then the fifth piece is your revenue model. So how are you going to charge?

performance-based, one-time engagements, project-based, recurring revenue. Six piece is client acquisition. So your channel you’re gonna use. So where are they spending their time? Where are they hanging out? Is it on LinkedIn? Is it on YouTube? Is it over on email? Understanding that and figuring out how you’re actually going to throw a spear and reach them very specifically in that process. And then finally, it comes down to sales. So.

You gotta close them. You gotta tell them about your stuff. You got to let them know that you have a solution to their pain. How are you going to help them and aid them in their buying process and actually help them get those results? So when product market fit is done right, it’s a very awesome airtight solution. It’s almost like a flowing circuit board of energy. And if there’s any kinks, any processes, pieces that are missing, you’re gonna know it, right? When you have that full, you know,

visualization of the entire product market fit, okay, we have validation of the product, but we’re not having really a good way to actually sell to people, so there’s an issue there. How are we gonna reach the right people, right? Or you could have a fantastic claim in an offering, but with no niche, no avatar. So you’re trying to solve anybody’s and everybody’s problems, and there’s not a real need in the market. So every single aspect, those seven pieces, they have to be fully aligned and playing together.

Garrett Miller (03:51.49)
humming like an electrical circuit board, or else it’s just going to be difficult to move forward consistently, create that success you’re looking for in your business if everything’s not flowing together properly. So that’s a pretty good holistic overview of the fundamentals there.

Jeffro (04:07.1)
Okay, well, I appreciate that. And guys, if you need to come back later and re-listen to that, please do and take some notes on it. But what I don’t want you to do is tune out, because I know some people, you just, you know, you like doing your job or whatever your business is. And when someone starts talking about the verticals or different sales channels and, you know, product market fit, like it’s easy to tune out. Don’t do that. So if we put this in a more simple term as a starting point, right, just figuring out, OK, product market fit. I have a product.

or a service, I know what that is, right? Now, do I know my market? Like Garrett said, that’s the first step. Who’s the audience? Who am I trying to fit with? And then if you look at it from that perspective, do they care about what I’m doing or how I do it? So for example, if you’re assuming that people will bring their rugs to you, but people want you to go to them, that could be a disconnect, right? Or if you use certain chemicals to clean the carpets, but the customers want a chemical-free process, that’s another disconnect. So that’s why it starts by knowing who your audience is and what they care about.

because you either, you adjust one way or the other, right? If you’re like, oh, okay, that’s not the market I want to reach. Okay, fine, now you know that and take your product somewhere else. Or if you’re like, oh, I didn’t realize that, let me adjust my product or my service to fit that. So that’s all it is. You’ve got two pieces and you’re trying to fit them together. Does that make sense? Hopefully that’s helpful for people.

Garrett Miller (05:25.874)
And I’ll kind of share a personal experience and how I got involved with Product Market Fit and learning it and developing it by actually not having it, right? So the first entire year of my business, I was pretty much selling to anybody and everybody, right? I assumed that they all had the same problem with lead generation. That was my first mistake, right? Even when I did start to niche down and focus more on service providers, coaches, consultants, I still had a big glaring issue.

my offering was not that good. It really was not that stacked, not that solid. And it wasn’t actually a solution that my clients wanted, right? I would go in, I’d help them build a list using LinkedIn sales navigator, build them a targeted list, build some messaging to help them reach out to their audience, and then actually plug it into automation so they could have a nice humming sales process. And I’d say, good luck. And I charge recurring revenue, but I didn’t wanna do the recurring work. And that was a big thing, right? I had an offering that was in my favor.

I was getting recurring revenue, but they weren’t really getting that recurring value as time went on. And when I started to look, obviously, I’m booking a lot of sales calls, I’m getting a lot of meetings, but I’m not really closing as many clients as I’d like. There’s always an objection here around price or there around value. And so I decided to look and actually talk to prospects, talk to potential clients about what they actually want. What do they actually need? And that’s such a huge first step.

that most business owners just glaze over. They think they know they have the solution. You know, it solved their problem, it’ll solve everyone’s, right? No, it really has to be really well thought out, built off feedback. And that’s what I always recommend newer business owners, especially service providers getting out there and starting their business, just talk to your audience first, see what they actually want. They’re gonna tell you what they want, and you can really put together really solid offering around that. So my obsession and my pain for the first year of my business.

focusing on really trying to have that product market fit and not doing it, really drove me towards more of the consulting work that I do today. I don’t want people to go through that same pain of not having it. It can be pretty mind numbing going through that process. So yeah, 100%.

Jeffro (07:35.92)
Yeah, and I like that you explained all you have to do is start talking to your prospects and asking them those questions, right? Don’t assume you know, don’t, even if you feel shy or introverted or feel weird asking those questions, you can’t just, you know, Google it and find the answer necessarily because nobody else may have the exact same audience as you, right? Your location might be different or the way you do things, you’re never going to get that answer from other people doing stuff. You might get some pointers to…

you know, what direction to go or maybe give you an idea of what questions to ask, but you still have to go ask those questions. It might be messy. Start with people who you know, like you a little bit and are willing to talk to you, but do it. And even if you spend a few sales calls, you know, people booked with you that kind of, you know, ask those questions, even if you just accept the fact, all right, I’m not going to get this person as a client. I’m going to hopefully get the information about what drives them, what makes them tick so that I can get the next one as a client. So do you have any other thoughts there, Garrett?

Garrett Miller (08:32.566)
Yeah, really good point. I want to talk to that because like it really requires you to be vulnerable. Like you’re going out there and you’re not showing up as an expert. I was so terrified for so long when I was creating my LinkedIn and creating my content that people weren’t going to look to me as the expert in my space. But how can I act as the expert when I have less than a year of experience being a service provider, right? Like it’s just not realistic. You’re going to be, you know, there’s a good like a good way to describe it like imposter syndrome. It’s going to be.

You’re feeling that if you’re trying to show up in a way that you’re not. So I found that it’s actually very refreshing to show up and be vulnerable and say, hey, like, I don’t have this fully figured out yet. I would really appreciate some feedback based on your experiences trying to solve this problem. You know, does this even make sense to you? Is this something that you would see value in? And I really tend to find those conversations are very refreshing. And it actually is a great way to build a lot of trust. You know, you’re going to somebody and instead of you’re trying to go out there and try to just sell to them immediately.

Jeffro (09:27.948)
Cheers.

Garrett Miller (09:32.366)
You’re saying, what do you actually need? And not only are you getting feedback that’s gonna be valuable to help you grow your business, but you’re also actually listening to their pains, taking it into consideration, they’re gonna feel heard, they’re gonna feel like you can actually help them get to where they wanna be, and those can actually be some of your first few like really fantastic clients, right? Because, yes, absolutely.

Jeffro (09:51.86)
Yeah, that’s the twist, right? Because now they feel like heard for the first time. Nobody else has listened to them ask these questions, but you are, and so they’re willing to take a chance on you because you’re paying attention to them.

Garrett Miller (10:05.055)
100%. Great points, absolutely.

Jeffro (10:07.904)
Sorry, didn’t mean to cut you off there, but.

Garrett Miller (10:09.918)
No, yeah, that sums it up really nicely, you know, because like it’s just you’re able to build those relationships, you’re able to get those first two case studies, testimonials, and move that process forward to where you can actually sell a service that has recognition, that has the results, and then you put a nicer price tag behind it, you can show up as an expert. It just takes time to develop. Like you can’t really expect to just start getting in there, have product market fit right from the beginning and just start closing those clients unless you have a lot of experience prior.

and the corporate space or whatever that may be. But it all starts with feedback, it all starts with being vulnerable, being humble, being willing to learn, and that’s how you create a really fantastic service and grow your business, 100%.

Jeffro (10:49.932)
So does this apply in the same way for B2B companies as it does for B2C? If your clients are other businesses versus just end customers, are there any differences in how you approach product market fit?

Garrett Miller (11:02.658)
There are, so that’s definitely why I put a focus on more B2B, more B2B clients, service providers. And the biggest reason for that is people are, they’re wanting to, if they’re buying a service, right, they want one of three things for the most part. It’s gonna be health, they wanna be healthier, they wanna have a better physique, better diet, they wanna have better relationships, so they want to really connect with those around them.

or they want more wealth, right? So I usually find that people are looking for a solution in one of those three categories. And what makes it really nice for B2B is that it’s mainly focused on the wealth aspect, right? You’re helping business owners get a return on their investment. You’re helping them create structures and processes in their business. It’s just very logical. And I tend to work well with numbers and logic. And that’s kind of what I really do focus in on B2B. And it’s especially helpful because I like to leverage and help my clients.

leverage guarantees within their offerings. So that’s a big part of product market fit is a little bit of risk reversal. You know, somebody they’re coming to you, you’re claiming you can help them solve this problem. You know, I’ll generate you 40 leads in 30 days and it costs $5,000. And the person’s like, okay, how can I know you’re actually gonna do that, right? There may be some uncertainty with them. If you can hit a conservative benchmark that you know you can generate, you know, 80 leads and you can say, I can…

like basically guarantee that you’re gonna hit 40, well then you’re creating a lot of trust and you’re reversing that risk for that client actually coming to want to work with you. Now I find that works very well, those guarantees that are very numbers-based, very focused on like your return on investment, I find those to work very well in the B2B space where it’s again focused on wealth. It’s a little more challenging to quantify when it comes to health and relationships, right? Because there’s of course,

an absolute value of being healthier, living longer, having the ability to think better, show up better. There’s absolutely value in having a better relationship with your spouse or your partners, your friends and family, whatever that may be. But it’s just a little more difficult to quantify. And that’s personally something that I don’t feel like I’ve cracked the code on with yet in regards to like really help define those guarantees and those outcomes. But what you can do…

Garrett Miller (13:28.682)
for health and wealth is almost take them down a bit of an emotional journey almost to where it’s like, hey, like, what’s going to happen if you don’t change this in a year? And they’re like, oh, I wouldn’t. If we’re talking health, for example, I’d still be the same way that I am now. I’d still be unhappy. I’d still be sluggish, whatever that may be. It’s like, what would you pay to fix that? Right? Like, what is that worth to you? But it’s going to be different for each person. So I find that in B2B, at least for me, it’s a little bit easier to focus on helping get those R

Jeffro (13:34.66)
Mm-hmm.

Garrett Miller (13:57.75)
really creating that solid risk reversal, and eventually creating an offer that is a no-brainer for your target audience. You want them to feel very safe in that transaction, and I find it’s easiest to do in the B2B space.

Jeffro (14:10.724)
Right. And even if you are a B2C business, right, let’s say you’re a roofer or the carpet cleaner that goes to people’s houses, it goes back to knowing your audience and talking to them and asking these questions. What are they frustrated by from last time? Why did they hire a new plumber this time? What did they not like about the old one? And so once you know those things, you build that into your guarantee and your offer to, again, assuage those fears, reduce that risk of them picking another bad contractor.

by just upfront, you’re saying, hey, our guys wear shoe covers in the house, they’re clean, if they’re not on time, you know, you get 100 bucks off or whatever it is, you’re easing their mind with all those things because they’ve had the past experiences and you’re basically guaranteeing they’re not gonna have those bad experiences again. That’s what you’re doing. So it’s the same idea, it’s just kind of a different take. It’s not numbers based, it’s more about the feelings and the experiences that they’ve had.

Garrett Miller (15:07.106)
Yeah, absolutely. That’s a great point as well. And yeah, it just really, again, comes back to your niche, your audience. What do they actually care about? What can you consistently deliver for them? You have your clients, they go through these problems, maybe they’re consistently able to lose five pounds. You can even make health relationships, you can make it a numbers game, but it doesn’t have to either. Like you were saying, Jeff Rowe, it can be they fulfill certain conditions or they do certain tasks, whatever that may be. But yeah.

There’s many ways to go about it and that’s one of the reasons I love business, right? Like there’s a million ways to make a million dollars and there’s a million ways to help your clients make a million dollars too. So however you make them feel safe, however you can help them get to that next step is really the main objective when it comes to creating a really solid offer.

Jeffro (15:52.848)
Yeah. So let’s talk about the next step. Let’s say you’ve figured out by talking to people, all right, I don’t have a good fit. You know, some things are easy to adjust, like your pricing, depending on your margins, but other things are more difficult. You know, for example, if you have a high-end service, but there are no prospects in your zip code, you might have to relocate. So is it better to change what you offer or go to where the prospects are? And this is part of the challenge, and you kind of need to go through that process, right, Garrett?

Garrett Miller (16:19.658)
Yeah, so definitely. I mean, I look at four factors when I’m really focusing on like, who am I going to serve? Who am I going to niche down? Because once you select a niche, it can be pretty difficult to like niche hop, go between another niche to another niche because they’re going to have a different set of problems, different set of challenges, and it’s going to be difficult to continuously learn what they need, learn the language they speak. And when I say language, I mean like certain buzzwords or terms they use, learn what they care about, right?

So I always recommend trying to stay as cemented as possible on the niche. I’ll get into those four pieces here in a moment, but then you can change your offering around depending on what they want, right? So you have a lot more flexibility when you’re changing the offering above the niche versus kind of changing that foundation back and forth. Now, the four things that I personally look for when I’m looking to determine if a niche would be a good fit for myself, and especially my clients, is the first piece is basically, where do you have prior experience, right? Like,

Have you worked corporate in the past doing sales roles? Do you have a lot of sales experience? You can serve sales professionals, right? Or say for example, you’re cleaning carpets, right? Have you done it yourself, working for another company in the past, right? Have you had a ton of a track record around that process? Now, the second piece is going into what are you passionate about? And this is something that I wouldn’t say isn’t super important on the short term, but it especially is really important if you’re gonna be doing something for five, 10, 15 years.

There’s gonna be things in your business that’s, it’s not gonna be fun when you are first getting started, right, like creating foundations, getting out there, doing sales, getting feedback. You may not be passionate about that work, but what’s gonna drive you is that underlying passion for you wanting to make a change in a certain industry. You see a big problem that needs to be solved. So I see that passion is another big piece. That’s the second one. Now the third is, are they financially viable? If you’re trying to help college kids get a job, for example, well,

college kids, right? Like, they may not actually have the funds to actually pay you for a really well done and very high cost service, right? So you want to make sure if you’re trying to make a certain amount of revenue, you want to make sure that your audience can actually afford your services and they see value in it. And the final piece, the fourth piece is are they accessible? You know, what you talked about, they may not be Jeff or like in a certain location or you might have to, you know, pivot around your niche. You want to make sure you figure that out.

Garrett Miller (18:47.786)
You still want to figure out that process pretty early on. Say, for example, you’re trying to help secret service agents have better relationships. Well, there’s not a lot of them and they might be a little bit difficult to get a hold of. You definitely want to make sure that there is a… For me, for example, with coaches consultants, I swear I feel like there’s so many new coaches consultants coming across every single day, which is great for me. The people getting started, help them, get in touch with them on LinkedIn especially.

Jeffro (18:55.594)
Hey.

Garrett Miller (19:17.23)
the fourth piece you wanna make sure they’re accessible. So those are the four key factors that will help you not have to niche hop as much when you’re getting in business if you can really create those solid foundations and get those four pieces dialed in pretty early on, you’re gonna set a nice foundation to build a really solid business.

Jeffro (19:34.536)
Yeah, that’s a great breakdown. My next question is, as you’re going through and doing this, figuring this out, stuff changes over time. People change, markets change, technology changes. So what are some of the warning signs that let you know, hey, maybe I need to re-evaluate my product market fit?

Garrett Miller (19:52.67)
That’s a great question. Yeah, so I would say one of the big pieces like sales velocity slowing down, like is your income decreasing? Are you not having as many yeses, right? Another process behind that is you’re gonna have to change your offering pretty often. Really the benefit of creating a really solid offer that’s value packed is you’re able to create something that’s uncommoditized. There are a ton…

of Legion services out there, there are a ton of social media services out there, but when you can really create something unique that solves multiple problems from your audience, that’s when you’re in the sweet spot, right? And I’ll quickly try to break down that process. You know, there’s current state, that your avatar, your niches end, the pain state, and they have a goal state, right? Most companies that are selling a commoditized service, they’re going to help them get up one step and then that’s it, right? But really creating…

And when I say one step, it helps them solve one problem. When you create a really solid offering, you’re helping them solve multiple steps. That’s where it’s value packed. You’re taking them on a journey rather than just giving them a simple solution to their problem. So that’s one of the things when it comes to like seeing your market shift. What you can actually do by creating that uncommoditized offering by solving multiple problems, it really does help you kind of proof.

I guess your offering really help you solidify it and where you won’t have to make as many changes. But if you’re offering a simpler service that’s usually one dimensional like lead generation or just doing a simple service, there’s gonna be probably a lot of competition for that. So you’re gonna need to be pivoting, understanding pricing a lot, understanding your competition. And that’s one of the main downsides of really having an uncommoditized offering is that you’re gonna have to stay really on the pulse of who you’re serving.

And of course there’s benefits to staying on the pulse of who you’re serving, even with a really solid offering, but it just allows you to really, there’s a word I’m looking for that I can’t really think of, but it just like future proof, yeah, it really future proofs your offering by really just stacking it with value and putting a lot of time and attention into it. So hopefully that makes sense. Let me know if you have any questions around that piece.

Jeffro (21:43.35)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffro (22:01.272)
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. Because if you go through the process and understanding this once, it becomes easier to kind of make that part of your ongoing flow of the way you do work and the way you talk to your prospects and ask questions and get reviews and feedback. And it becomes this feedback loop that allows you to always stay ahead of the curve or at least, you know, in touch with your audience so that you can continue serving those clients, getting new clients and keeping existing clients for as long as possible.

Garrett, thank you for joining me today. This has been a really interesting and fun conversation and I’m sure there’s more we could talk about. But for those of you guys listening at home, go connect with Garrett on LinkedIn. You can send him your questions directly if you want. And actually, if you want help figuring this stuff out, he has a three month high ticket accelerator program and he’s offering a 20% discount to digital dominance listeners. I have one more question for you, Garrett. What’s the one thing you want the audience to remember about product market fit?

Garrett Miller (22:56.834)
Yeah, it really just comes down to doing the homework early on. It may be like a lot of work, understanding your niche, understanding how your offering is going to serve them, understanding their problems, understanding how you’re going to reach them. But I’ll tell you, once you do the work, take a month, two months to really understanding them, what they need. It’s something that you do once and you can move forward. I’ll tell you for myself, being in a business where I was constantly niche hopping, I was starting from ground zero.

Every single month it felt like and you don’t want to do the you don’t want to do that to yourself And so there’s a saying for one of my close colleagues is you’re given an hour to chop down a tree You want to spend the first 45 minutes? Sharpening your axe really put the time and attention into that process really build it out Develop it put the time and attention energy that it needs to really start to create a solid foundation and then you’re able to move forward Pretty effortlessly. So yeah

Jeffro (23:39.125)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffro (23:52.244)
Yeah, I like it. Great ending thoughts. Thanks again for being here, Garrett. Thanks to all of you guys for listening. Make sure you aren’t just spinning your wheels. Go lock in your product market fit, and I will see you in the next episode.

Garrett Miller (24:03.918)
Thanks, Geoffro.