How an ascension model can be used by designers
In a previous blog, we looked at how a vision board of your ideal life comes into play when it comes to building an aligned business. What is an aligned business?
This is a business that is aligned with who you are and your goals, a business that is sustainable in a way that it’s not only built for the long run but also that if you are not there for a couple of days everything just keeps going and a business that is not overwhelming you because you have a very clear direction; live your life on your terms.
To me, I see a business more as a vehicle to support your life rather than as being the end goal. And don’t get me wrong, I love my business and what I do, I could not imagine going back to a corporate career. So it’s not just a business to make money, not at all. But if you can start from having your life vision and creating a through-line to your business it will really help you to create a business that is aligned with your life and who you are
In a follow-up post, we looked at how you can use that vision board (the big picture goal) to define your ideal week (breaking it down and being proactive)
Now, we are using your ideal week to see how you can use an ascension business model to create a product suite that will help you make your vision come through (aka less 1-on-1 work). And how to create a phased approach (a strategic plan) to get there.
“Vision is a destination – a fixed point to which we focus all effort. Strategy is a route – an adaptable path to get us where we want to go”
So in this blog, I will break this up into 3 sections:
What is an ascension business model?
Examples of an ascension model
How to create a phased approach to create a full product suite
What is an ascension model?
This is a business model where you will take your clients through a growth journey that is focused on their success.
This means that each service, package, course, mastermind, membership or whatever else you are offering will help your clients take the next step in their journey. So you want to create services that are not competing with each other but are actually building on top of each other.
As your clients are gaining more knowledge, experience, start to run into different struggles and with a growing budget, they can go from one level within your ascension model to the next.
The benefit of this is that you can start working with a client from the basic tier service. From the beginning of their journey, and you can keep supporting them throughout that journey. This way, instead of having only one-off clients and having to find new clients constantly, you can spend less time on lead generation and the spend of one client is much higher.
Within this model, you need to make sure that your different services are not competing with each other. This is something that you see happening a lot in a product suite where there's not a lot of differences between the services, maybe just a couple more sessions, or a more elaborate website.
The trouble with this is that we are expecting our clients to know exactly what they need and that they will pick the right package for them. But what often happens is that they don’t know what they need, they just know what they want; like a new logo or new website.
So let’s say you have a branding package, a website package and one that is a combination. If your client wants a new website, they will pick the lowest price, the website package. But when you talk to this client, you can see that they also need the branding so that you can design the website.
The 5 stages of the ascension model
When looking to create a model like this, you are looking at five different stages.
Top tier service
High tier service
Middle tier service
Basic tier service
Entry-level service
Entry-level service
When looking to create this model you start with the entry-level service. Ask yourself what is keeping your ideal client stuck in the beginning phases of their journey?
Top tier service
Then you look at the last stage: what is their end goal? If they finish working with you, where do they want to be?
Then you start filling in the 3 other sections. Ask yourself: what do they need to know or have experience in to be able to move to the next level?
Let's say your top tier service is custom website design: what do they need to have in place before they are ready to work with you on a custom website design? They need to have some form of branding, images, they need to know who their ideal client is so that they can write the copy. (I’ll share an example of this below)
I will share 2 different examples, as your product suite will look quite different depending on the services that you offer at this stage, what you feel comfortable offering, what your vision is and what your ideal week looks like (learn more about defining your ideal week).
Example 1: ascension model for done-for-you service providers
This first example is for done-for-you service providers like designers or copywriters who want to step away from only offering 1-to-1 services but don't coach others in their field. Like a designer offering mentoring to starting designers.
You don't have to offer a lot of courses, group programs, memberships if that is something you don't want to. So in this example, I included only one of these in the form of a group program. You still work with more than 1 person at the time, which will give you a cash injection but you might only offer this 1 or 2x a year.
The top tier service is your custom design projects. As this will need your full attention and will take up a lot of your time, it makes sense to have this as your most expensive service.
But not everyone will be ready for a custom design or don’t have the budget to pay for it. So an alternative could be a done-with-you option in the form of a group programme as the high tier service. For this group program, you can open it publicly or invite past clients who have bought or gone through your entry, basic or mid-tier services.
So again, this would be something that you don't need to sell constantly. Maybe you do this once or twice, maybe three times a year. Where again you can use those private invite for people have gone through or have bought the templates with have included here as a basic tier service or have gone through a review process.
For a mid-tier service, you could think about offering a brand or website review, where you do the review on your own and then talk this through with the client. This way only a small part of the time is spent with your client and you have the flexibility to spread the review over a couple of days. Another option could be to offer a design service that is done by a junior designer. You would still sign off on everything but the junior designer would do the work. As this takes up less of your time, this could be offered for a reduced price point.
So these are the top three services. If we go to the bottom, we go to the entry-level service and the basic tier. Ideally, you would not be personally involved in these services or only for a small part. So here you want to think of passive or semi-passive income products.
In this example, I have used a brand basics course as an entry-level service to get your clients started and educate them on what it is so that they are better prepared when they work with you on custom projects or within the group program. The reason for this brand basics course is, and this might sounds familiar, is that with a lot of clients for design (but also copywriting & marketing) is that the new design is seen as the solution to something that is not working in their business. While often there is no clear business or brand strategy which is causing the issues. So if you can educate them with a lower offer it will help you deliver better service with your high and top tier services.
Then you have the basic tier left, so I looked at what could be a great step for after they have been educated about branding basics, but would not take up time continuously and would come before a review. So I picked design templates. This could be website templates or semi-custom branding templates.
Example 2: ascension model for service providers who also want to educate
This example is a combination of 1-on-1 services, a course, membership, group programs and a mastermind.
The top tier service is a mastermind. Again, this is something that you could do only once or twice a year with private invites for clients who have gone through your group program or coaching. This is where they really get one 1-on-1 time with you, assuming that this would be a combination of group and individual sessions.
Just like with the other example, not everyone will be ready for a mastermind or don’t have the budget to pay for it. But something else to consider here is that because of the type of program this is, together with the investment level, you want to make sure the people within your mastermind are at similar parts in their journey. So this is where your high tier service, the coaching comes in. Within your coaching program, you can teach them the skills they need to succeed within the mastermind program.
And you can do the same with your mid-tier program, you can teach them the skills they need to succeed within the coaching program.
While the course and the membership, as your entry-level service and basic tear, will teach them the foundations that they need at the beginning of their journey so that they would be ready for the group program.
In this example, I used a membership for an entry-level but this could also be a mini-guide or a bundle with templates. This will be more passive than the membership. But in the end, what this looks like really depends on what you would feel comfortable and excited to offer.
How to create a phased approach to build a full product suite
So the last thing I want to get into is how you can actually create a phased approach (a strategic plan) to create this product suite so that you can build your business in a sustainable way. Because a lot of the time you don't just start off with having all five tiers of the ascension model in place. And to be honest, you shouldn’t if you’re just starting out, then you just need to keep things simple with 1 or 2 core services. But once you start to sell out your client spots, you can start to build out your business more and built it based on a long-term vision.
And this is where a phased approach comes in. You will start with where you are now, so the first phase is your current services. Then the last phase, and you might need more than 4 phases but for the sake of this example I took four phases, is your end goal. Every phase represents a new step.
built a full product suite - The end goal & your phase 1
Let’s use example 1 as your end goal. So just to recap, this means:
Top tier service = Custom design projects
High tier service = Done-with-you Group Program
Middle tier service = Brand or website audit
Basic tier service = Templates
Entry-level service = Brand Basics Course
So while this is your end goal, your phase 1 might be custom brand & website design.
built a full product suite - phase 2
To determine your phase 2 you need to think about what would be the easiest service or product that you could offer (from the ones that you have already decided, no need to come up with anything new) and that you have the audience for. Because when you start to build out your product suite and start adding in more passive options you need to have a larger volume of people to buy your products to compensate for taking on 1 less or a smaller design project.
So while the templates might sound very tempting because you can do what you’re good at, designing websites or brands, they will take up a lot of your time initially to create. And you need to have an audience to sell them. So if you’ve been working mostly based on referrals, word of mouth or retainer clients you might not have a (large enough) engaged audience.
If that is the case, the brand or website audit might be a better first step. You still need to create a framework to use but you will be able to do this based on the experience that you already have. And it can convert potential clients that don’t have the budget for your custom service. As you could do the audit and then create an overview with proposed changes including a cost overview if you would do this for them.
built a full product suite - phase 3
While you are offering these 2 services, you’re going to work on building your audience and increasing engagement so that you can work towards the new product for phase 3. In this case, I am combining the templates and the group program for phase 3 as I wanted to stick to 4 phases but you could break these up into individual phases.
When launching new programs or products you want to have some time in between the launched, for yourself and not to overwhelm your audience. So if you feel you have a large enough audience to sell a small beta group program you can start with this first and work on creating your templates in the meanwhile.
built a full product suite - phase 4
The final phase, phase 4, starts when you have built up your audience and feel they are ready to buy the brand basics course. This is where it really comes down to numbers and having enough people in your audience that are interested in a low-cost course.
and there you have it
How using an ascension business model to create a product suite that will help you reach your financial goals and your vision. This blog was part of a 3-step process to create an aligned business foundation. Below you can see an overview of the 3 steps and how each builds on top of the other.
And if you are still not sure how to transform your business to one that feels aligned to you, please don’t hesitate to reach out! You can fill out the contact form, send me an email or have a look at this page to see how I could help you transform your business.
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