What Is The Difference Between A Service And A Solution

There is a big departure between being a service provider and a solutions provider and through explaining our rebrand, we want to explain what that difference is and why as a customer you should be working with solutions providers.

For the by few months our team of designers, strategists, creatives and developers have been hard at piece of work on a full rebrand for MB Creative.

Equally nosotros near the midway point of the MB Creative rebrand in our transition from a service provider to solutions provider, we idea it would exist fun to pull back the curtains a bit and show people our process behind the scenes.

This is also our chance to give you a peak into how we go from initial phone call with a client to final products and winning business outcome.

Or in this instance, how nosotros go from internal strategy to new branding, a new identity, website, social media presence, positioning and messaging.

Earlier getting into the differences of a service provider and solutions provider and why as a customer y'all will go more than value out of working with a solutions provider, nosotros thought it would be better to beginning explicate why we are doing this.

The beginning question for whatever massive projection like a total rebrand is why?

Like any big projection we accept or are contacted about, our project was fueled by business decisions.

The overlying theme in answering the why is that internally we wanted to shift away from being a service provider and instead position our brand as a solutions provider.

On the surface this may sound similar a somewhat vague, coating, and almost cliché statement…

Become a solutions provider and not a service provider.

So, let the states explain what that means to us and dive deeper into why nosotros made our determination to make this transition and undergo a rebrand.

For our curt few years as a make & artistic bureau we were a service provider.

We provided our clients with a few basic services: website design, SEO and graphic design.

In the past, typically a customer would arroyo united states of america via email or phone about their project.

Step 1: Initial Call

Nosotros telephone call this first contact with the client over the phone our initial call.

In the case of receiving an email, or form submission through our website, we contact the prospect in hopes of setting upwards the initial call.

In some select cases we do all communication through email, if that is the preference of the prospect contacting united states of america, though this is not recommended.

So, a client would contact united states of america requiring a specific service nosotros offered.

They would either need a website built, SEO campaign to exist managed, graphic blueprint work, mayhap a new visual identity or consultation.

On the initial call we would listen to the client'south specifications and ask some surface level questions to gain more than insight into what they wanted.

For example, if we were asked to do a website, we would ask bones questions like how many pages or do you have content.

We would conduct a simple questionnaire so to speak to gain enough insight to quote the lead on exactly what they desire done.

Then, we would requite a quote, and in most cases write a proposal to transport over.

They would either accept or reject and we would go along from there.

A unproblematic process and arroyo used by manufacture elites and top artistic agencies for decades.

Drawbacks to being a service provider

However, the more we took office in this procedure of approaching a projection as a service provider we started to see its flaws.

For u.s., there were a few key negative drawbacks that stood out well-nigh this approach.

And then, you may be thinking, three years is a long fourth dimension to know nigh a problem and practice zippo nigh it (you may remember MB Creative is simply three years old).

Well the thing is there really was no result.

See the reality was and nonetheless is, over the years nosotros have left many clients happy and take helped many brands and businesses grow and succeed.

But, the last function of that argument is the key to why nosotros have gone this road of total rebranding and becoming a solutions provider.

Nosotros were indeed helping many businesses and brands abound and succeed.

Nevertheless, looking back we had no measuring stick.

We had no clue what business objectives we were helping with and if in fact nosotros were doing anything positive for their make.

There's an old saying "it'south hard to score a goal if you don't know where the cyberspace is"

For us, a successful project (a goal) is helping our clients reach their own goals.

Existence a service provide, we had no idea what those goals were to begin evaluating the actual impact we were having.

The reason why we didn't know what the goals where is because we didn't accost them.

We never defined where the net is, and so it was impossible for us to score a goal.

The result: we were a service-based visitor delivering products.

We were essentially hands for creative work.

Or, in a very crude sense, lodge takers.

So, while nosotros constantly take clients telling us all these amazing and positive impacts our works are having on their business, we really don't know what those impacts are and how much of an touch on we are actually having.

In other words, we have no inkling what kind of value we are providing brands that work with the states.

Taking a footstep back and looking at everything so far from an objective perspective, to this point we may be coming off equally very arrogant or fifty-fifty selfish with these wants.

You lot want to know the exact bear upon you are having on your client's business organisation?

Honestly at get-go most of our team had the notion that information technology was a selfish want, to be that involved in your client'due south business organisation.

But, to be blunt, yes, we do want to know and there is a very good reason why.

Advantages to being a solutions provider

The reason is unproblematic: there are several advantages for our clients with this new arroyo, and we want to go over all those advantages to MB Artistic rebranding equally a solutions provider.

Nosotros want to explicate why non only information technology is better for our brand, but more than importantly, why it is much improve for your business organization and make to work with solutions providers over service providers.

We will hopefully answer questions like what does information technology really mean to be a solutions provider? Moreover, what is a service provider? And, what triggered MB Creative to make the alter.

The more we talked about this proposition – what information technology meant to be a solutions provider.

As we debated within our system, individually read more books, watched more videos, talked with more manufacture experts, we concluded beingness a solutions provider is massively beneficial for brands and businesses we work with.

Our goal is simple: we want to provide the most possible value for brands and businesses around the world using our collective knowledge, experience and expertise.

For us, value is the entire essence backside being a solutions provider.

Meet a solutions provider doesn't just deliver products that the client asks for.

A solutions provider helps the businesses place issues and goals, and prescribes the all-time vehicles given their expertise to solve those problems and attain those goals.

Solutions experts provide true value by helping build and abound brands.

They do not just provide services.

The cardinal to be a solutions expert is scoring goals by solving larger business problems.

To exercise that y'all must first define the the goal and where the net is so you know how to score.

Call back when we talked near scoring a goal, and how you can't exercise it if y'all don't know where the net is.

Well, by defining a business goal you are determining where the net is.

That internet will change from brand to brand and project to project.

When approached nearly a projection, rather than talking about deliverables a client wants or thinks they need, a solutions provider will focus on business goals and objective so that they tin can assist them to score.

In the end of the day, the goal for usa is to aid clients better define goals and prescribe the best vehicles to become in that location using our expertise and experience within the digital space.

The true value we bring to our clients is directly related to the impact we tin accept on their business.

As a little recap, instead of focusing in on what clients want (services), we focus our attention on business goals and objectives and by doing so, nosotros tin can then prescribe the best vehicles to become them there (solutions).

The main advantage to working with a solutions provider over a service provider is the value they will provide your business concern by helping you grow and succeed.

However, there are some more advantages as a client to working with a solutions provider over a service provider that we would similar to introduce.

Another advantage to be a solutions provider are it makes it easier and less confusing for clients to determine what their budgets should exist.

In that location's a small muddied hugger-mugger that companies in our vertical don't like to talk about: almost companies have no clue how to properly price projects.

If y'all have ever gone around to several companies to become quotes for a large projection or have previous experience working with companies in this space, yous will know first hand that prices can vary significantly.

To be honest, most companies arbitrarily come upwardly with quotes based on previous experience.

Some just pull their numbers out of thin air.

Sadly, nosotros must admit this was true of ourselves until we started rebranding. We would basically arbitrarily come up with a price based on fourth dimension.

For clients this can result in tons of frustration and defoliation as you are faced with a wide range of prices for your project.

People trying to budget a project for their brands, already a difficult task on its ain, is fabricated fifty-fifty harder by this disparity in price.

Companies looking for digital design and development quotes may exist dealing with prices from companies that are and then far apart information technology could brand one'southward head spin.

For small businesses and start-ups without feel budgeting for this sort of thing, this hands could leave them not knowing how much they should spend, who's numbers make sense and which agencies or freelancers they can trust.

The reason nosotros believe y'all encounter and so many different numbers from companies is because of the pricing strategies about employ.

Most creative agencies and freelancers use what we consider to exist a fundamentally flawed and cleaved model for the creative space: hourly-based pricing.

These companies are generally service-providers. Not solutions providers.

A service provider will make up one's mind the number of hours they think it will take them to complete your tasks, multiply that by their hourly rate and voila you have a quote.

There are a couple major problems with this approach.

Ane, it is rare that a client'southward terminal bill matches their quote, and every company is going to projection a dissimilar number of hours based on their team size, turnover rate, skill level of their squad and many other factors.

The other big downside and for u.s., a major flaw with this way of pricing projects, is the price, or budget for the client is based on how long a design bureau says something will take.

There is zero consideration for the bodily impact they will have on a client's business organisation.

A solutions-based approach changes this radically and solves the pricing issue for clients.

In fact, it allows u.s. and other agencies to work with clients to define budgets together for projects.

How do we know what a budget should exist though?

We don't.

But, through defining and prioritizing your goals we can easily determine what your budget should be.

We accept being a solutions provider a pace further past putting in place a facilitated strategic planning process to figure these things out.

The process will be every bit such:

This is where we circle dorsum to our initial call, but this time equally a solutions provider.

This time the events of our initial call and what happens later on will be extremely different.

Of course, we will nonetheless listen for what the client wants.

After all, we need to know why they take contacted us in the first place.

And we are not naïve or ignorant.

Equally much as we will exist providing solutions, nosotros fully understand people will simply approach us regarding a specific service they run across we offer, or a specific project they need washed.

However, during this initial call with a different approach, instead of stopping after hearing most your project's specifications & features, we will focus in on more business-oriented conversations.

We have been talking a lot well-nigh the initial call and want to explain its purpose for anyone wondering exactly what an initial call is and why we believe they are the vital first pace for any strategic partnership in our space.

What is the initial call?

The initial phone call is intended to be a light fifteen-30-infinitesimal conversation to become a feel for who yous are, what your project is near, your make, and its customers.

Nosotros enquire questions that permit us to diver deep into the business motivations behind the project and why y'all picked upwards to the phone to call u.s.a. in the first identify.

Nosotros want to know things such as: what this project means in the larger landscape of your business? what you lot are looking to reach? And, what it would hateful to hit a dwelling run with the project?

The initial call is also the time for us and a potential client to decide if we are a good fit for working with each other.

The client needs to decide if they believe MB Creative will be the best fit as strategic partner and solutions provider and can provide the value they are looking for.

And just as importantly we need to decide if this is the type of client nosotros want to piece of work with.

In fact, for us in that location are four master objectives during our initial call.

Four checkboxes so to speak, that we demand to bank check off in club to move forward with the project.

Nosotros demand to determine:

If the client is a good fit with us and our brand culture
If the project they want to do is a practiced one
If it is an urgent project
If they're willing to go with an expensive option, like us.

We have a serial of questions we become through to ascertain these answers.

If all four boxes are checked, we know this is something we can motility to step two with (step 1 obviously being the initial call).

Step 2: Setting up discovery and strategy workshop

Everyone knows the foundation for a successful projection is good strategy work.

You don't build a great motorcar by throwing parts together.

A tremendous amount of time needs to be spent doing discovery and strategy work earlier you can even brainstorm sketching blueprints of that new Lamborghini.

The same is true for any digital design and/or development project.

In the by we would spend endless hours doing strategy work that we weren't being compensated for and ofttimes times concluded upward being a giant waste of time and energy.

This is another major difference between beingness a service provider and solutions provider.

As a service provider, a client would tell us what they wanted, we would run off and practise our own strategy work, preform market inquiry, and basically hypothesize what the client wanted and pattern or develop against that hypothesis.

Nosotros realized this wasn't the proper way to exercise strategy for a project.

So, we take thrown out the old means and brought in some new, innovative approaches.

Let u.s.a. explain the fundamental strategy departure in existence a solutions provider.

For whatsoever project to become off the ground someone or some squad needs to preform extensive strategy work.

Discovery workshops

As a solutions provider the strategy procedure for MB Creative begins with discovery.

Discovery consists of a 1-ii-twenty-four hours workshop, where your team of executives meets with one of MB Creative's make strategists to accomplish a few specific tasks:

Define your make,
Define your customers or audition,
And, prioritize goals

We reach this past running a fun facilitated strategic planning process consisting of three simple exercises.

In the time to come we will be releasing articles talking more most our proprietary discovery process. Possibly an commodity that covers the actual exercises we preform with brands more in-depth.

For this article we will be focusing on what discovery is, the advantages of preforming discovery and what our general arroyo will be as it related to brand and project strategy.

This will hopefully shed some more than light onto the advantages of beingness a solutions provider over a service provider, and more than chiefly why we ultimately decided to make this change.

Discovery Case Written report

To requite a bit more context permit us provide a small example using an actual previous client we worked with.

For confidentiality purposes we are not going to release the companies name and nosotros will modify the industry.

However, the reasoning for being contacted past them, what they said to united states, what nosotros discovered and how nosotros budgeted together are all 100% true.

So, let's say yous telephone call us and through u.s.a. asking some fundamental questions you give us this little story.

You are a company emerging in Canada'due south recently legalized cannabis space.

Your visitor sells equipment for cannabis users to abound their plants. Your equipment can as well exist used by people in the agriculture space. Potentially great for farmers but y'all have not marketed information technology every bit such to this point.

Moreover, your biggest competitor just released a new website a few months agone.

Since the release of their new website they have seen sales skyrocket, while yours have dropped a flake.

To be verbal your sales have dropped 3% over the past iii months.

For a big make similar this client, this is could mean millions of dollars in lost acquirement to your competitor.

Something needs to be done about this and done quick.

You think the all-time manner to solve this problem is to get a new website of your own.

Remember when we said we need to feel that its an urgent project and is a good one.

We hateful that nosotros need to believe this person now has a good reason to contact us to become a new website.

And no, only because your married woman said she doesn't like how your website looks is not a good reason to contact us.

You need business motivations backside your decision to pursue this project.

You also need to sympathize a solutions provider is fundamentally different in how they arroyo these situations.

A service provider will give yous a quote for your website and make you a website, because they are providing services.

A solutions provider will dive much deeper to effigy out if this is the trouble we should be spending our money addressing.

Pregnant in this case is a website the best mode to accost this problem and reach our goals.

In this instance information technology is because your competitor'due south new website is negatively affecting your sales and you need to combat that.

Nosotros can now exercise 2 important things with this story:

Nosotros can determine what the budget for your new website should exist.
We can determine if building a website is even the all-time thought for your brand, and so can effigy what the all-time ways are to fix this problem.

In fact, there is a third thing we can do with this story. We can also, determine if this is the problem or goal nosotros should be prioritizing.

None of this tin can or will be adamant by a service provider.

It'south not necessarily because they do non care, it's usually because they don't know whatever better.

Virtually companies exercise not even sympathise the departure between a solutions provider and service provider.

Back to what we said earlier, well-nigh merely view it as a platitude, blanket statement.

Yet, the creative agencies, strategists and freelancers that have the time to ask the right questions will position themselves to provide true value.

Sometimes there are other solutions that may exist better for your brand to counterpunch your competition.

Perhaps that is total new branding, or a fresh new visual identity, or a digital marketing campaign.

And that'southward the beauty of beingness a solutions provider who runs strategy and more importantly our discovery process.

With our process, we can easily figure out with you what digital initiatives your brand should be taking and what the appropriate budgets are.

Just to highlight this a little further, allow's do a little cmparison of the two scenarios.

First, the scenario if we remained as a service provider…

We would sympathise this visitor needs a new website and things similar the number of pages, features & specifications they want.

That's it.

Almost no data compared to the long story nosotros just told, filled with business rationale and objectives.

Non because my friend doesn't like the colour red and our logo is too red.

Now on the flip side, using our new solutions-based arroyo – we would still have all this info.

Plus, we would have a full backstory and know the business motivations behind the initial call and the projection(s) they are looking to commence on.

We would know why the company wants a new website, and not simply that they do want a new website.

At present instead of immediately agreeing with someone who near likely has zero design experience that they need a new website, nosotros can evaluate the state of affairs.

It'due south of import to note and understand we are blueprint, marketing and evolution experts. We have all-encompassing expertise designing and developing websites, apps, digital marketing and social media initiatives, branding, identities and more.

We are not experts on your business or your industry. And to be a successful strategic partner we need to get that.

To deliver the all-time website, we need to know things like audition we are targeting, what are their potential pain points and objectives, and who your make is.

Another reason we experience discovery is crucial in providing more than value for clients, is instead of spending hours edifice up a characteristic and specification set of something you probably have no feel in, you can focus in on what matters most: your business.

Why waste matter fourth dimension collecting quotes for a new website, when yous can instead observe a strategic partner who is going to provide you lot their expertise.

Past preforming discovery, we can prioritize goals and determine a budget that is appropriate to meet the top prioritized goals.

Y'all may even so exist thinking how do we figure out what an appropriate upkeep is though?

Call back in our example scenario we found out that sales accept dipped iii% in the past few months.

Well we tin can at present figure out how many potential dollars take been lost in this fourth dimension, and more importantly figure out, if nosotros solve this problem what is the potential value to the client over the next year.

Assigning a dollar value to the value of solving our problem and accomplishing our goal we tin can hands piece of work out the budget.

In this case a domicile run for them was to make back the three% they had started losing, and that meant a whopping ane million dollars to their business over the side by side year.

Without giving a total crash course on budgeting for creative projects, in that location are all the same a few quick notes we tin can make.

And honestly we cannot tell you how much you lot should be budgeting.

Withal, we think its of import you at least sympathize our rationale equally information technology may provide more insight into the advantages of you lot working with a solutions provider.

There is a famous quote from Jim Rohn that goes "Don't spend major time on minor things".

Therefore, you should not spend a major amount of money on modest things.

Information technology wouldn't make sense to spend $100,000 on a pair of pants from your local shoe shop.

Conversely, you don't desire to spend pocket-sized time or effort or money on major things.

Yous couldn't become a brand-new Ferrari for $ten,000.

So, if you are trying to accomplish a major goal yous need to spend major amount of money to accomplish it.

For our client the goal was a major 1: $1,000,000 over one year in lost revenues if the problem wasn't fixed.

Usually major goals also involve major amount of effort and time.

Though fourth dimension does non always relate all that much and is a bit of a misnomer in the design and artistic space.

For further proof on that take a quick look at Paula Scheer'southward five-minute logo for Citibank.

This pricing model is called value-based pricing.

And, we are putting together another commodity talking well-nigh what we believe to be the broken hourly pricing model most people in our manufacture all the same use and why a value-based model like nosotros use is a lot more beneficial and safer for clients.

So, make sure to come back and check out that article when information technology is up.

If you don't want to miss it, sign upwards to our newsletter to get updated on the release of all articles, or follow us on social media for even more stuff.

At present, back to why being a solutions provider is better than being a service provider for clients.

We were talking almost how being a solutions provider enables u.s. to make up one's mind budgets with our clients that make sense.

Instead of them running through the ringer and getting 10 prices that are radically unlike.

To figure out an appropriate budget, we simply take effectually xx-30% of the projected realized value over the starting time year.

In our hypothetical example we realized we would brand an extra $i million dollars over the next year if we hit a abode run on fixing this trouble.

We then take 30% of $1,000,000 = $300,000

We at present know we tin can budget around $200-$300k for this project.

Detect how we didn't say 200-300k for their new website.

Well that's because we haven't even got in that location notwithstanding.

Yous come across instead of focusing on deliverables, nosotros spent our time focused on business motivations driving your brand decisions.

We tin and so determine what is the best way to use that money and if nosotros even demand to upkeep that corporeality based on what we are going to exercise to hopefully hit that home run.

We tin can now apply our expertise to decide the all-time design and marketing vehicles to spend that coin, and so nosotros recover that potential $1 million in lost revenue over the next year.

A solutions provider tin can sympathize the bear on they are having on client's brands and businesses considering that is the unabridged focus for a solutions expert.

A service provider will build you what you lot ask for and send you on your merry way hoping they had a positive impact somewhere.

This is how we plan to provide truthful value to brands and clients moving forward.

It's how we volition help them build and grow their businesses, and ultimately why we take chosen to undergo a full rebrand at MB Creative and reposition ourselves every bit a solutions provider.

We are hither to provide solutions to your high-level business problems.

At least that is our plan.

We are excited near the future and all the new challenges we are going to take on.

We will provide lots of updates on our progress and allow you lot in on as much happening behind the scenes equally possible.

Our team has a singular, united goal to help brands and businesses understand their customers and audiences better, define themselves and prioritize goals.

To ascertain where the internet is and score a goal every time. To figure out where the wall is and hit a home run.

Okay enough of the clichés.

We will attain this by helping you lot ascertain your customers and users, and understand their hurting points, bug and challenges, And, by guiding y'all in the management to solve those goals.

Heck, mayhap you will even choose our honor-winning pattern agency to accomplish all the initiatives in your program.

In terms of our rebranding…

this rebrand underway we want to proceed to allow you behind the scenes to encounter everything nosotros have going on.

Nosotros are going to bear witness you what we have washed each step of the way, show our entire process from internal discovery and strategy work to a finished pattern or developed product.

Expect a piece presently that will testify y'all our new visual identity blueprint and logo pattern process. We have already started dropping some concept sketches on our social media.

This will give people a glimpse into how a creative agency goes from strategy to ideas, sketches, concepts and finally a finished logotype and logomark for MB Creative.

The same exclusive behind-the-scenes tour will be given for each major step in our rebranding process.

Along the way we will also provide as many updates equally we can from different people within the MB Creative family, so you tin gain insights from unlike perspectives throughout the rebrand.

The first step in our rebranding was a main topic of this article: Strategy.

Our strategy work started with an internal discovery workshop led by Chief of Brand Strategy Matt Balshin.

Nosotros volition take a deep swoop into the strategy work and what we discovered during our workshop.

Detect out the intricacies how we internally preformed strategy and discovery to assist define our brand, our audience and prioritize goals.

We likewise preformed overall strategy for the rebranding and individual strategy work for each phase involved which we volition requite a glimpse into, from logo and identity blueprint, to branding, website, social media, and everything in betwixt.

This will requite yous a better agreement of how nosotros will preform strategy at MB Artistic moving forrard equally a solutions provider, why nosotros experience it is of import and the benefits we call back it will provide your business.

Hopefully this article helped you understand the advantages to working with solutions providers over service providers, and why MB Artistic has decided to transition into existence a full-fledged strategic solutions provider.

If you are interested check out some more of our recent blog articles.