Welcome to another inspiring episode of the #WisdomOfWomen Show! This week, host Coco Sellman, a 5x founder, impact investor, and creator of the Force for Good System™, sits down with Eisha Armstrong, Executive Chairman and Co-founder of Vecteris, and a three-time author. Eisha is a trailblazer in productization strategies for professional services and shares her vast experience and actionable insights to help women founders create scalable, impactful businesses. This conversation is packed with wisdom for women founders looking to achieve exponential growth and reclaim their time and energy.

WHAT YOU’LL GAIN BY LISTENTING IN:

In this episode, you will learn how to:

◾Transform your service-based business by embracing productization to scale effectively.

◾Identify and overcome common pitfalls in product development and commercialization.

◾Leverage technology and AI as tools for efficiency, quality, and new opportunities.

◾Take the leap and navigate risks with confidence as a woman entrepreneur.

GUEST SPOTLIGHT: Eisha Armstrong

Eisha Armstrong is an accomplished author and Executive Chairman of Vecteris, a company dedicated to helping professional services firms scale through productization. With over 25 years of experience in product management and leadership, Eisha has authored three books:

Fearless: How to Transform a Service Culture and Successfully Productize.

Productize: The Ultimate Guide to Turning Professional Services into Scalable Solutions.

Commercialize: How to Monetize, Market, and Sell Productized Offerings in Professional Services.

Eisha holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, a BA from the University of Kansas, and is a certified yoga teacher and budding mountaineer. Her latest book, Commercialize, hit shelves in October 2024.

Chapters

00:14 Empowering Women in Business

06:54 The Journey of Vectorist: Aisha Armstrong's Entrepreneurial Path

10:24 The Shift Towards Productization in Services

21:00 Co-Creation in Product Development

26:49 The Impact of AI on Business Transformation

31:35 Embracing Change and New Beginnings

36:23 Embracing New Opportunities in Business

Takeaways

◾The Wisdom of Women Show emphasizes the importance of women leaders in driving impactful business growth.

◾Aisha Armstrong's journey highlights the need for service companies to productize their offerings for scalability.

◾Understanding the difference between marketing standardized products versus bespoke services is crucial for success.

◾Feedback and customer involvement in product development can greatly enhance the chances of success.

◾Women entrepreneurs should take calculated risks, understanding that most failures can lead to valuable lessons.

◾AI offers numerous opportunities for organizations to improve efficiency and create new growth avenues.

BURNING QUESTIONS ANSWERED:

1. Why should you productize your service-based business?

Learn why productization is a key strategy for scaling your business and creating lasting value. Discover how productization enhances efficiency, scalability, and profitability.

2.How do you overcome common pitfalls in productization?

Explore Eisha’s "Seven Deadly Sins of Productization" and how to avoid them. Understand why validating your ideas with market feedback is crucial.

3. What’s the role of AI in productization and business growth?

Discover how AI is reshaping professional services by increasing efficiency and unlocking new opportunities. Get inspired to view AI not just as a tool for automation, but as an engine for growth and innovation.

4. What are the key differences in marketing productized services versus traditional services? Learn why messaging and lead volume are critical for productized offerings. Hear how technology can change your buyer profile and sales process.

5. How can you de-risk your productization strategy?

Gain insights into creating a portfolio of ideas to test and iterate.

Understand why addressing urgent and costly problems ensures market demand. What’s the first step for women founders ready to scale their businesses? Eisha’s advice on taking the leap and trusting your instincts while managing risks. Practical tools for evaluating your readiness to productize.

FAVORITE QUOTES:

“At some point, you just have to take the leap. Most failures are recoverable, and testing your ideas helps build confidence.” – Eisha Armstrong

“AI is not just an efficiency tool; it’s a growth engine. It’s about creating new opportunities and solving problems that were previously out of reach.” – Eisha Armstrong

“When you put purpose into your business, it grows faster and creates more impact in the world.” – Coco Sellman

CLOSING THOUGHTS:

This episode illuminates the transformative power of productization and purpose-driven strategies for scaling women-led businesses. Eisha’s journey and actionable advice inspire founders to embrace innovation, leverage AI, and confidently navigate the complexities of growth. If you’re ready to scale your business and reclaim your freedom, this conversation is a must-listen.

OFFERS & CONTACT INFORMATION:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eishatierneyarmstrong/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vecteris_consulting/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vecteris

Website: https://www.vecteris.com

Explore Eisha’s latest book, Commercialize: How to Monetize, Market, and Sell Productized Offerings in Professional Services, available on Amazon.

Follow the #WisdomOfWomen show for more inspiring stories and insights from trailblazing women founders, investors, and experts in growth and prosperity.

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/yja3w7nh

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/4tak8ajk

Amazon Prime: https://tinyurl.com/366syddj

Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/bdhananz

RSS Feed: https://feeds.captivate.fm/womengetfunded/

Coco Sellman, the host of #WisdomOfWomen, believes business is a force for good, especially with visionary women at the helm. With over 25 years of entrepreneurial experience, she has launched five companies and guided over 500 startups. As Founder & CEO of A Force for Good, Coco supports purpose-driven women founders in unlocking exponential growth and prosperity. Her recent venture, Allumé Home Care, reached eight-figure revenues and seven-figure profits in just four years before a successful exit in 2024. A venture investor and board director, Coco’s upcoming book, *A Force for Good*, reveals a roadmap for women to lead high-impact, high-growth companies.

Learn more about A Force for Good:

Website: https://aforceforgood.biz/

Are Your GROWING or PLATEAUING? https://aforceforgood.biz/quiz/

1-Day Growth Plan: https://aforceforgood.biz/free-plan/

FFG Tool of the Week: https://aforceforgood.biz/weekly-tool/

The Book: https://aforceforgood.biz/book/

Growth Accelerator: https://aforceforgood.biz/accelerator/

Thank you for tuning into the #WisdomOfWomen Show! Don’t forget to follow, like, and share this episode. Together, let’s make the world a better place through women-led businesses!

Welcome to the Wisdom of Women Show.

Business is the most powerful innovative force in the world.

And with visionary women leaders at the helm, we can lead in both impact and profit.

Today's world needs the wisdom of women in business.

This is why we are here to help women grow.

Are you already a successful visionary woman founder leading a high, high impact company?

The Wisdom of Women show is designed just for you.

We are a community of women founders, investors and leaders who want to see you rise.

Join us as we unlock opportunities and prosperity for women led enterprises.

The future of business is women.

Are you ready?

Welcome to the Wisdom of Women Show.

We are dedicated to amplifying the voice and wisdom of women in business.

A new model of leadership is emerging and we are here to amplify the voices of women leading the way.

I am your host, Coco Sellman, five time founder, impact investor and creator of the Force for Good system.

Thank you for joining us today as we illuminate the path for unlocking opportunities for growth and prosperity for women led enterprises by amplifying the voice and wisdom of women.

So today we have a three time author.

Really exciting.

I'm so excited to read to introduce you all to this wonderful extraordinary woman, Aisha Armstrong, who is the executive chairman and co founder of Vectorist where she works with business to business service companies to productize their offerings.

She has more than 25 years of product management and product leadership experience in the data and information services industries.

She is the author of how to Transform a Service Culture and Successfully Productize Then Productize the Ultimate Guide to Turning Professional Services into Scalable Products and her latest book, got it right Here, Commercialize how to Monetize, Market and Sell Productized Offerings in Professional Services.

Really great.

And this book just hit the bookstores in October, so you'll definitely want to pick up all three.

Aisha earned her MBA at Harvard and her Bachelor's of Bachelor of Arts at the University of Kansas where she was just telling me she grew up and is also a certified yoga teacher, has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, which is on my bucket list and is a budding mountaineer.

So cool.

So welcome.

I'm so happy to have you, Aisha.

Oh, thank you, Coco.

It's great to be here and I just love the mission of the work you're doing.

Oh, thank you, thank you.

It's so fun.

You know, I've had this long belief that when you put purpose and have a meaning of something, that's more than just money, that when you put that purpose into whatever business you're Building that it really does grow faster and creates more impact in the world.

So I'm super happy to have you here because I feel like your message, your books, your business are so needed for us women growing really big and exciting companies and learning how to create a lot of impact.

So, as you know, the first question I always like to ask is, what's a book written by a woman that has significantly influenced your life?

I love this question and it was kind of a really easy one for me to think about.

It's 168 hours by Laura Vanderkam.

It's an oldie but goody book.

I think it's been out for like maybe 15, maybe even 20 years now.

But she really debunks this idea that we have less time to do the things that are really important to us.

And it's very geared towards working women who maybe are juggling a family plus a full time career, plus maybe some hobbies or something like that.

And she talks about, if you look at the number of hours that are in a week, it's 168 hours, which is a lot.

But a lot of us tend to think about, you know, how many hours do we have during a day.

And I read it at a time when my children were toddlers.

I was, had a very big job.

I was getting on planes all the time and just feeling like a.

There was a scarcity of time.

And she really helped me reframe how I thought about time so that I could get more out of the 168 hours that we all have each week.

What a wonderful.

I've heard of this book.

I have not read it, so I'm excited to pick it up.

And it is, I feel like I went through the same thing with, when I had young children and I feel like it was, it was, it was galvanizing to help us learn how to be really, really good with honoring our time and knowing what's most important.

I felt like I came back from that.

I felt like, you know, this, this was great, a great exercise for learning how to be a great COO or CEO because you have to manage so much with, with so, so little time.

Right?

Yeah.

And get really clear on the things that only you can uniquely do and what are the things that other people could do instead of you doing them.

So great.

And I think you're.

I love your message about how important it is to, you know, if you're going to start a business or you have a business and it's service based, how can you Multiply what you do through products.

Right.

And you know, know, I used to be a consultant myself many years ago and I got to a point where one day I was like, I don't want to trade my time anymore for money.

So I would just, I would rather have a product that multiplies and has more impact and you know, so on and so forth.

So tell us about your entrepreneurial journey and what inspired you to create vectors and how you ended up really in this space of helping service companies really become more impactful through products.

Yeah, yeah, happy to.

So I co founded Vector six and a half years ago with another amazing woman, Nicole Merrill.

And she and I had both worked for the same company that was really the pioneer in productizing consulting services.

And they had figured out how do you take kind of deliverables from consulting engagements and turn it into a membership based model where they sold best practices research, executive education, benchmarking data, things like that.

And so we had seen kind of firsthand how you take a service and you productize it.

I was on the product development, management leadership side, she was on the go to market side.

And we were both in our early 40s and thinking about the next phase of our careers.

And we'd both always had this entrepreneurial itch.

So we wanted to do something entrepreneurial.

We saw more and more B2B services companies wanting to replicate what our employer had done and not having the capabilities to understand kind of how do you identify good product opportunities, how do you take them to market differently?

So we saw this kind of market need.

But what we were, I think most clear on, and you, you mentioned this in your intro, was our purpose.

And our purpose was, you know, not to make a bunch of money helping B2B services companies grow more scalably, which we have done.

But it was to create a different type of place to work.

And we wanted to create a very unique culture and a very flexible working environment and be very true to our values that we have.

So we started with that and then kind of the business model, our target market, the products and services that we offer have all grown in support of that original vision of the type of company and the type of working environment we wanted to create.

I love that.

And it's so it, I feel like it's, it's this different way for.

It's exactly what the wisdom of women is about.

Right?

Because it's necessity is the mother of invention on one, on one hand.

But it's also in this time of so much change related to technology and AI and So forth, where there's all of this disruption and reinvention.

It's so appropriate from a marketing perspective as well, and demand perspective.

The things that are just our time are being converted into things that I can do.

Whereas, you know, now, you know, so.

So your model is really, I think, putting.

Put out, putting all kinds of companies both in the better situation, have a better work environment and a more exciting work environment where you're not doing the same thing over and over, but also being able to be super appropriate in the times we're in.

AI Et cetera.

Exactly, yeah.

And we saw a couple of forces at work.

So the first one was that we saw more private equity money coming into the professional services space.

And their investment thesis was we grow these professional services firms more scalably by productizing them.

And just for your audience, when I say productize, I mean two different things.

So one is kind of standardizing, maybe tech enabling how you deliver services, but it's still kind of people delivering the services.

They may just be more packaged, standardized, price based on value, as opposed to time, things like that.

And then the other four flavor of productization is creating actual products.

So, you know, like your podcast is a product, my books are a product.

But software is a product, Data as a service is a product.

And so the companies that we're working with, the entrepreneurs, the firm leaders that we're working with, they all want to grow, but they want to do it in a more scalable way.

And so are looking either to deliver their services in a more replicable, standardized way or create products that can be sold alongside their services or bundled with their services.

It's wonderful.

And so of course, you add more value that way.

And you also, I'm sure private equity, it likes the idea that the value of it is something that they can own.

Right.

And that, you know, and I like it from the perspective that if you are creating something, like you're creating a business that is based in product, and so it gives you the ability to not be the only one to ever deliver the services.

And you're.

And now it has value beyond you.

Right.

Like you're creating, you know, value that goes on and on.

Yeah, I mean, the benefits are numerous.

So yeah, you're no longer key person dependent.

You don't have to hire as quickly as you grow.

Like you said, you're not trading time for money.

Hopefully you have more revenue visibility, your margins should be better.

Like, there's just a whole slew of reasons why, you know, firm leaders, entrepreneurs should consider this as a Strategy.

Great, great.

So, and you talk about this, this, this the question I'm going to ask in your book, but you know, can you break it down for our audience?

From your experience, what do you think are the main differences between marketing and selling standardized services or products from marketing and selling traditional professional services?

Yeah, really good question.

So think about it this way, Coco.

When you're selling a standard service, you're really, you know, selling yourself your expertise.

Like, what can Coco do for me?

What can, what expertise does my attorney have?

And you're selling like we talked about before, like your time in exchange for a super customized bespoke solution for whatever your client needs.

In contrast, when you're selling a product, you're selling something that's more standardized.

So it's not super customized, it's not bespoke.

It may not meet 100% of the needs that your customer or client has, but it may meet 80% of their needs.

So it's kind of more good enough, for example.

And so that means that when you're marketing and selling it, you're not selling this promise of I'll solve whatever problem you have.

And you don't talk about your expertise.

Instead you talk about the specific customer problem the product was designed to solve and how it's better than perhaps a more customized bespoke solution.

And you're not talking about yourself.

So for people who've spent their entire careers thinking like they were the product, their expertise, their network, you know, their credentials, like, this is really hard for them to do, to stop talking about themselves and start talking about the more productized offering.

It's a huge difference.

Right.

And oftentimes, not always, but oftentimes these bespoke services are more expensive than, you know, some of the products that you might sell that are sort of specific, you know, outcomes or real products or subscriptions or whatever it is.

And then your marketing system has to be completely different.

Right?

Exactly.

So if it's at a lower price point, then you're going to need a higher volume of leads in order to get the same type of revenue.

And then the way like you talk about your marketing, again, it's less about your people and their expertise and it's more about your really good understanding of the problem that the product solves and how it's better than anything else that's out there.

So you're using just completely different messaging, plus you need a higher volume of leads.

Another thing that we found, and this shows up a lot in the book, when I'm talking about different Case studies is since more and more you mentioned AI, more and more of the way that services firms are productizing is by using some type of technology.

Yeah, anytime you bring in technology, you change the buyer.

So.

So now it might be getting involved in the sale and if you are not used to.

That's cute.

For those of you who are not watching the video, I just put my thumb up and it was like a thumbs up emoji on the video.

I love that.

But anyway, so they may not be used to having a conversation with it about how secure their software is, where data is stored, things like that.

So you know, it could be like you're introducing a new buyer in the process.

You have to address new concerns if there's technology involved.

Changes a lot of things.

It changes a lot of things and you don't think about it at first.

And so I.

You talk about this in your book, but I think it's really, really, really good to talk about it and share.

You started to talk about it a little bit as those common failure points.

So like I'm a service business, I've been doing it a long time and I'm looking around and seeing everybody else is doing some kind of packaged services or products and starting to launch things.

And now I try.

And what goes wrong?

Yeah, so the bad news first is that depending on which study you look at, anywhere between 40 to 70% of new product introductions fail.

Okay.

Then that's across B2C and B2B.

All right, so that's the bad news.

The good news is through our research, we've identified the common failure points and catalog them into this very easy to remember seven deadly sins of productization.

And then talk about how you can overcome those.

And one of the first ones is not de risking your investment.

So given that the rates of failure are so high, again somewhere between 40 to 70%.

You need to think about your productization strategy as a portfolio strategy, just like a venture capitalist does.

So rather than putting all of your money behind one idea, you're going to come up with a couple of different ideas and you're going to put a little bit of money behind each one.

And then you're going to start to test them, ideally by getting real market feedback.

And then as you get more market feedback, you'll decide, okay, which one should I invest more in?

Which one should I stop pursuing?

And then are there some new ideas that I should add to my portfolio?

So that not de risking is one of the common mistakes that we see.

Another one is inventing a product that doesn't solve an urgent and expensive problem.

So I was talking earlier, Coco, about how it's so important in your marketing messaging when you're trying to market a product that you talk about the problem it solves.

Well, you would be shocked at how many companies I go into and they're like, oh, we, we launched this product, it's not selling, we don't know why.

And I said, well, what problem does it solve?

And they don't have a good answer.

Yeah.

Or it's like it's a problem that one client had.

So they just presumed that there was a whole market segment that had the same problem.

Or it's a problem, but it's not very urgent.

It's not something that they have to solve this year or the cost of solving the problem is really low, so they're not going to dedicate budget towards it.

So that's, that's another second of the seven deadly sins.

Yeah, it's a big one.

It's a really big one.

And it's.

I think I'm not surprised that a lot of the companies you go into because if you really start to focus on it, it's actually really hard to define.

Right.

Like when you start to grapple with the actual words of, you know, like, what is this the primary problem?

And is that problem really, really urgent?

Is.

And is it urgent to a lot of people?

Not just the one, it's.

You don't really know till you start testing it out.

Right.

So you.

Do you.

I know just looking at one of the giveaways, you have this great assessment on your website that you can download and use and you talk a lot about really being in touch with the customer from the very.

A lot getting feedback.

Do you want to speak a little bit to that and how that's part of your.

What you recommend?

Yeah.

So it's critical to de risking because the best way to know if the market is going to buy something is just to ask them to buy it.

Right.

So you can, you know, you can put up dummy pages and see how many clicks you get and how many people try to add things to their carts.

This is how a lot of B2C companies test product ideas.

So that going out and getting market feedback and asking people if they will pay for this and do they want to be a beta customer is one of the best ways to validate an idea before you invest 7, 8 figures in building a new product.

And it's also one of the best sources of product ideas.

So we call it co Creation.

So another one of the deadly sins is developing your product in a vacuum and not bringing in your customers, your potential customers into the development process and getting their feedback.

And one of the reasons why this is so hard, especially for professional services firms, and I talk about this in the book Fearless that you mentioned, is that it's like counter to their culture of being the expert.

Yes.

Yeah, Right.

Because, like, you know, back to my, my lawyer, like, I don't want her to learn the law.

I want her to know the law.

Right.

She, like, that's what I'm paying her for.

But if she's going to put on her product development hat, she has to put on her learner hat.

And she has to admit that she doesn't have the right, you know, doesn't know the answer.

She's got to go out and test and learn and maybe be okay with failure.

And that is just not how professional services firms are wired.

Like, we are perfectionists.

We are experts.

We have a high bar for our deliverables.

So this kind of iterative, messy, you know, we're going to bring you along with our process and learn as we go, is very uncomfortable for a lot of people.

Yeah, no, that makes so much sense.

It really does.

My healthcare company, I had no issue with going out and asking, you know, our referral sources, what do you think about this?

What do you think about that?

But when you start to think about your services, your professional services that you offer, you're supposed to know.

You're supposed to know what works and you're not supposed to like.

It resonates completely.

And so your book Fearless talks about this, which is so great and so people can read about that and learn more.

So.

So why is the successful commercialization of products, product types, offerings, much more than marketing campaigns and training your sellers?

Yeah, so this is the whole reason why I wrote the latest book Commercialize, is because we would go in and again, we'd get this, you know, oh, we created this data as a service product.

We thought all of our existing clients would subscribe to it.

No one's buying it.

Like, help us figure it out.

And assuming, assuming the big F, that they developed a product that solves an urgent and expensive problem.

They probably don't have the right go to market motions in place.

So they may not have a professional sales team.

They may be selling still through their partners or their consultants.

They, you know, like I talked about, they may not, you know, be used to a buying process where you have a technical IT buyer.

They may not have the marketing engine set up to get the volume of leads that you need for a lower priced product.

But they also may not have gotten the pricing and the packaging right because they're used to pricing based on time and materials.

And so value based pricing is much more nuanced and iterative.

Right.

So you're constantly revising as you learn more about the value you're creating.

They may not have, if it's a renewable product, they may not have even thought about customer success.

And how are we going to continue to renew the product, you know, month after month or year after year, depending on what the contracts are.

So there, there are a lot of things that we just saw missing in firms go to market motions.

And it was kind of their assumption, oh, we'll just create a one pager and a pitch deck and we'll train our existing sellers, whoever they are, and it'll magically sell itself.

Doesn't happen that way.

Right.

You need like a whole other marketing arm, whereas before your professional service people would actually be your salespeople.

You need like a whole.

Yes.

So it is a little bit of a stumbling block, but one that certainly people can overcome.

Yeah.

And especially so we tell the story in the book of this company that we had.

The pseudonym is Talent Tether.

But we were really lucky in that multiple executives from the company talked to us about their own productization journey.

So they, they are a global provider of outplacement services.

And over the past eight years they've been productizing to create outplacement services for the middle market as well as to create new products like leadership development products that can be used to develop, you know, staff who stay with a company after restructuring.

And they made so many mistakes in terms of go to market when they initially tried this.

They tried selling the lower cost services using the same high touch white glove sales channel.

Okay.

That didn't work.

They put in place sales incentives for the sales channel that totally ruined the economics of the lower price product because they were just paying out too much in commission.

Then they got this great idea that, oh, we're going to try and sell it over the Internet, we'll have E Commerce.

Well, nobody knew anything about E Commerce.

So they had to go out and hire people who knew how to sell B2B products over the Internet.

And they eventually got it.

But they're like, oh, if we can help other firms, you know, avoid some of these mistakes or learn faster than we did, that would be great.

That makes, that's a great illustrative example of the kinds of things, the ways we might trip and fall as we try to turn ourselves from a services company into a more productized organization.

And all the more reason why, you know, these tools that you have in fearless and productize and commercialize are so valuable.

So we talked a little bit at the beginning about AI.

We started to talk about that a little bit.

I'm curious to know what you're seeing.

I would imagine that your business has shifted a lot since ChatGPT came out in the way that it did.

What opportunities does AI create for organizations who want to productize?

Yeah, it creates so many overwhelming.

Yeah.

And so the good thing is like our business hasn't changed that much.

I mean, you still need to de risk your investments in AI.

You know, try a bunch of different experiments.

You still need to make sure your application of AI is actually solving a customer problem or an internal problem that you might have.

Like, so that the, the methodology for coming up with good use cases and investors business cases for AI investments is still the same.

But what has shifted is just the wealth of opportunity that's out there.

So we kind of talk about it in three different categories.

The first is just raw efficiency.

Like so what used to take a law for law firm associates, you know, hundreds of hours to do discovery can now be done like that, you know, using AI or accounting and audit firms, you know, audits time has been cut in half.

Yeah, so yeah, so that's great.

A coding.

You know, we've got clients who are IT application developers.

85% of their code base is now being written by AI.

I mean that is shocking.

Right?

Okay, so you can become more efficient in how you deliver those.

Well then you need to think through.

Okay, so the second category, how am I using AI to not just be more efficient, but to get access to new information that we didn't previously have or maybe democratize access to information or be more accurate in what we're doing.

So it's not just about efficiency, but it's improving quality of what we're already doing.

And then the third category is, okay, we've made things more efficient, we've improved the quality, maybe we've freed up time.

What new customer problems can we now solve?

Because our associates, our mid level people, aren't spending as much time on perhaps some of the lower value work that AI can now do for them.

And that's where the really exciting opportunities lie, is kind of thinking about this as an engine for growth and not just an engine for improving efficiency and quality.

Oh, I love that.

And there's so many different iterations for how to do that.

So how do you help organizations manage all of this?

What, what you know, how do you help organizations?

What's the typical, who's your typical client and what is their primary problem?

And then how do you engage?

What do you do with vectorists?

Yeah, so we work specifically with professional B2B professional services firms.

So that could be consulting firms, marketing agencies, lawyers, accountants, like I said, it applications, even architects, engineers, any, any company that has been selling their expertise, their time for money and now they want to scale using this strategy of productization.

So we'll help them with three things.

The first one is just what is your overarching strategy look like?

So getting really clear on why are you doing this, what's your purpose for productizing and where, where might there be opportunity?

So what's kind of the landscape of all the different ways that you could.

Product types.

So that's the first way we'll help.

Second way is a company has an idea and they want to de risk the idea.

So we'll help them teach how to.

How do you do this?

Like rapid test and learn market testing and evolve the concept quickly by getting customer feedback.

And we do those in sprints with them to kind of really validate whether or not an idea is worthy of investment.

And then the third way is on the go to market.

So they've created this product, maybe they have a couple of beta customers or they need to go get their beta customers and they're like, how am I going to bring this to market?

What's my, you know, who's my most important target market segment?

What should my pricing, my packaging, my messaging, my sales channel, customer success.

What does all of that need to look like?

And we'll help them, help them build that out.

That is so cool.

And, and do you work mostly with established firms or are you working with startups like tell us a little more about the particular customer that you typically work with.

Yeah, so we're mostly working with established firms who already have kind of legacy services.

Yes.

You know, revenue and legacy services go to market motions.

So they're really trying to do a change.

I mean the nice thing is for startups like you don't have any of the baggage of a services environment.

So it's a lot easier to do this, it's trickier.

And that's one of the things that I think makes us unique is we're so deep in how do you do this As a legacy professional services firm that doesn't have the Culture, the processes in place, perhaps the capabilities to do this on your own.

Awesome.

Awesome.

So what would be some final pearls of wisdom that you would like to share with our women founders who are seeking to grow their product or services companies?

Yeah, so the first one is to take the leap.

And I talk about this, I think both in productize and in Fearless, which is, you know, so often we're held back in doing things that can help us grow more effectively.

You know, taking that leap to entrepreneurialism, taking that leap to ask for that promotion because we're afraid.

And there are ways to de risk again, you know, the chance that we might fail.

But at the end of the day, we just have to kind of trust our gut and take that leap.

Understanding that, you know, most failures people can bounce back from.

So that's, you know, just wisdom I try to impart with my clients is like, look, we can test this and we can maybe get 50 to 60% confidence level.

This will say succeed, but at some point, you just have to take the leap and put it out there and see what happens.

And I think the same is true for women who are on an entrepreneurial journey.

I think that's great advice.

And what's your future look like?

You've just had this beautiful book come out.

Like, what else is going on for you?

What are you looking forward to?

What's on your horizon, your wish list, your dream list?

Yeah, that's a great question.

So, as you mentioned, I'm now executive chairman, so I am partially retired.

Yes.

And my employment status will continue to kind of wind down in part because we now have professional managers for vectors, which is great.

But my goal is eventually to no longer be an employee, perhaps still be an owner, but not be in the day to day anymore.

And then the mountain climbing that I talked about.

So I did Kilimanjaro first, which, honestly, you could totally do it.

It is just a hike up a really tall mountain.

There's no technical skills required.

Yeah.

You do have to get used to the altitude, I'm told.

Yes.

But there's.

There's also no way to know how because you could be really physically fit and still have.

You could still.

Yeah, exactly.

So I ended up taking Diamox, which some people are like, that's kind of cheating.

I'm like, whatever.

It's not cheating.

It's.

It's a medication that a lot of climbers take.

And I had no issues with the altitude.

The hardest part of my Kilimanjaro climb was coming down.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Because it's kind of hard on your knees, especially after a certain age.

So that was the hardest part.

And then last summer, I tried my first technical climb.

So I did Mount Baker in the Cascades with my brother, and that's on Glacier, you know, with the.

You're roped in, you've got the crampons, ice ax, all of that.

And that went really well and we liked it.

So this coming summer, we're going to do Rainier also in Washington state together.

And then.

And then we'll see what happens after that.

Isn't that cool?

Oh, my goodness.

I just love.

Okay, so you've got a bright future.

This is one of the things it's like, if you decide to productize your business, the opportunity for you to step back and be the, you know, an executive chairman rather than a CEO is there.

And, you know, and also not probably the one who's making every single decision every day, all the time.

You have a team that's in place, companies generating prosperity.

And now you get to decide, are you going to write books, Are you going to speak?

Are you going to, you know, just work with a couple of clients?

It's totally up to you.

It's totally up to you.

Maybe you want to invest in other ventures or you can do whatever charity.

Or go mountain climbing.

Right?

Exactly.

Yes.

Yes.

Whatever your heart desires, Coco.

Yes, right.

Whatever your heart desires.

I think that's great.

And how inspiring for.

For all of us to see what's possible for us as we, you know, this is the reason we went on this entrepreneurial journey, after all.

Right.

Is so that we could make our lives better and those we serve.

And so I'm just so excited for you.

I'm not a climber.

I'm a walker.

I'm a.

I'm a Camino de Santiago, kind of.

I like to long, long, long walks alone.

It's my favorite thing in the world that.

So how can listeners learn more about you, Aisha, and really, like, how can they get in touch and receive more of your wisdom?

Obviously, you need to buy the book.

Of course.

Yeah.

So my book ties.

Yeah.

Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes and Noble, wherever books are sold.

Our company website is vectorist.com that's V C T R I S dot com.

And as you mentioned, we have a free assessment that people can take to kind of understand their maturity and where they might have capability, gaps in productizing.

And there's lots of tools that you can download for free and a blog and great goodies like that.

And then I love to connect with people on LinkedIn.

So if somebody reaches out and they said they heard me on this podcast, I will totally connect with them and you know, happy to swap messages, whatever is useful.

I think that's great.

It's, it's such a pleasure to be with you, Aisha, and I'm so excited for you and your success and I really, from the bottom of my heart, appreciate you taking the time to connect with us.

You've illuminated for us a path that we can all follow and that brings the opportunity for growth and prosperity for women led enterprises.

And I personally and all of our listeners, we value you and your experience and your wisdom.

Oh thank you.

It's great to be here.

Yes.

It's really great to be with you.

So for those listening in today, be sure you go to commercializebook.com and get the free offerings there.

There's a whole bunch of stuff and one of the things that you'll get when you download is you'll get this assessment and you'll just by reading it, you're going to learn all the things that would be a good idea to be doing if you are productizing your business.

And I would say if you have a product based business, it's still really valuable.

Like if you're not a service based business, it applies for that as well.

So check that out.

Go to Vectors and you'll find all the links in the show notes below.

And if you're listening in today and you enjoyed our time together, please be sure to follow like and share this episode and our show the Wisdom of Women show on whatever your favorite listening reviewing platform you happen to prefer and to to infuse more of your wisdom into your business.

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