How do I turn something my business already does into a service I can sell?
Short answer
Make yourself the first client. Prove the playbook in your own business, then show the real numbers (ad cost, calls, meetings, signed customers, ROI) and sell it as a productized service, for example $2,000 a month or more. Work you must pay for anyway, like recruiting creators, is a good candidate to turn from a cost into a business.
Some of the best service ideas are things you already have to do. You've heard of turning a cost center into a profit center. It's that.
What does that look like in practice?
My example is local creators. My brands need short-form video, so we have to find, hire and manage local creators anyway. That's a cost.
The business version: tell us where you are, we go find you creators, and they make content for you, whether you're a media company or a local service business. Lots of people on Twitter have been doing this with marketing and recruiting. Build a company out of it and make money from it instead of losing money.
I called that a year-or-two idea, not something to start right away.
Why prove it on yourself first?
Because buyers ask for proof. When I thought about selling a paid community on the local newsletter model, I knew the first question would be: show me your success, TJ. You can know in the back of your head that you'll have a productized service to sell to anyone like you in other regions. But that only matters if it works for yourself.
"We have to prove that it works. Once we've proven that it works, we are the first client. We show our numbers."
What numbers should I show?
The whole funnel, start to finish:
- What the Meta ads cost
- How many people got on calls
- How many met in person
- How many signed
- The ROI
Then the pitch is simple: do you want us to do this for you? Two grand a month or more.
Why do local playbooks sell well?
It's local, but it works everywhere. A playbook proven in one town can be sold to the same kind of business in every other region.
Do I have to do all the work myself?
No. Once you have an audience, you can be the intake desk. If 10 business owners a month come to us asking for automations, training or a software tool, we can farm the work out to other AI agencies and take about 20%.
That's why I keep saying the most important thing is to build the audience. With it, you can make money in tons of ways and figure out which one later. See why to build an audience before selling.
Why would anyone pay for something they could set up with AI?
Because they won't do it. It's better for them to pay $100 a month and have it just work than sign up for Claude and set up cron jobs themselves. The business is doing it once and repeating it across many customers. It's all about scale.
Answered by TJ Larkin. From client calls, my own product notes and work with my AI agents, 2024-2026. Last updated .