Products and Services Map

An independent consultant, eight years in, who has accumulated offerings across multiple categories: strategy work, workshops, retainers, speaking engagements, a course she built two years ago, one-off projects. The nine-slot map reveals a portfolio that has grown by opportunistic addition rather than intentional design. She cannot state what her business is because it has no coherent structure - it's a collection of things she can do rather than a designed offering set.

Frame the map as a clarity tool before a strategy tool. 'Before we talk about what to add or drop, let's see what's actually there. Fill in everything you've delivered in the past two years - every type of engagement, every format. We're not judging yet. We're looking.' The resistance is scope anxiety: seeing everything laid out can feel overwhelming. Name the value of visibility: 'You can't make strategic decisions about a portfolio you haven't looked at whole.'

Watch how she classifies each offering in the distribution model section. Clients with accidental portfolios often have multiple offerings in the Bespoke column (everything customized per client) with nothing in Productized or Portfolio - they've built a services business that scales only through their own time. Also watch the nine-slot grid: if three or more slots have offerings that don't connect to a coherent client type or problem, the portfolio has no central logic.

Start with the distribution model classifications. 'How much of your work is Bespoke versus Productized?' Then: 'What does that tell you about how your revenue scales relative to your time?' Then look at the nine slots: 'Looking at everything mapped here, what's the thread - what problem are you solving for which client?' If she can't state it cleanly: 'That's the work. Not adding more offerings - finding the logic in the ones that exist.' The question that creates movement: 'If you could only keep three offerings from this map, which three would you keep and why?'

A solo founder who runs a specialized consulting practice. He has one offering - a multi-month engagement - and it fills the majority of the nine-slot grid. He knows this but hasn't named the strategic implications: his entire revenue depends on a single engagement type, sold to one client at a time, with long sales cycles and high entry cost. The map makes visible what he's been operating around rather than examining.

Name the concentration before he fills the grid. 'As we map this, I want you to look at how many slots your core offering occupies and what the rest of the grid reveals about your business model. A concentrated map isn't inherently a problem - but it has specific strategic implications we should look at.' The resistance is defense: he's proud of his signature offering and may interpret portfolio mapping as a suggestion to dilute it. Name the distinction: 'This exercise isn't about adding offerings for its own sake. It's about understanding what your current structure requires from your sales and delivery pipeline.'

Watch the distribution model classification for his core offering. If it's Bespoke, he's rebuilding the engagement from scratch for each client - that's where his time goes. If he has no Productized elements at all, there's no recurring revenue and no pathway for clients who can't afford the full engagement. Also watch whether any slot contains a lower-barrier offering that could serve as a pipeline entry point: clients who have only one high-commitment offering often lose prospects who aren't ready to commit.

Start with the concentration. 'All of your offerings map to one engagement type. What does that mean for your revenue if that engagement type slows down?' Then: 'What does a client who can't afford the full engagement do - where do they go?' If there's no answer: 'Is that intentional, or is it a gap?' The question that creates movement: 'If you added one element to this portfolio that let clients engage with you at a lower commitment level, what would that be and would it feed into the core engagement?'

A program director who has completed the map and identified two empty slots in her grid - areas where she has no offering. She's ready to design something for those slots. But when she describes what she would build, she's designing toward her existing capabilities (what's easiest to produce) rather than toward client needs she's heard but hasn't yet addressed. The map has created an inventory; the gap-filling logic is still supply-driven.

Redirect before she starts designing. 'You've identified the gaps. Before we fill them, I want to ask: what do your clients tell you they need that you don't currently offer? Not what you could build - what have you heard, repeatedly, that you don't have an answer to?' That question reorients the design conversation from capability to demand. The resistance is certainty: she knows what she can build, and demand is less certain. Name the tradeoff: 'Building what's easy and building what's needed are different bets. Let's look at which gaps are actually worth filling.'

Watch whether the offerings she describes for the empty slots are variations of existing offerings or genuinely new. A gap filled with a lighter version of the core engagement isn't a new slot - it's a pricing tier. Also watch whether she can name actual client conversations that pointed to these gaps: 'I've heard three clients ask for X' is a different quality of evidence than 'I think clients would want X.'

Start with the demand evidence. 'What are clients actually asking for that you don't offer?' Then look at the slots she's planning to fill: 'Does what you're designing answer what you just named, or does it answer a slightly different question?' The question that creates movement: 'If you filled these two gaps with what clients have explicitly asked for - even if it's harder to build - what would the portfolio look like, and what's the business case for the harder path?'