Day: June 3, 2020

3 Insider Tips for Creating a ‘Productized’ Business (Even if You Offer Services)

wayne June 3, 2020


5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.


Whether you’re working as a copywriter or a graphic designer, most freelancers and solopreneurs offer on a service-based model. It can be the perfect way to get started; with little more than a laptop and an internet connection, you can connect to clients around the world and start earning money.

The problem, however, is that while it may be easy to start a service-based career, this path isn’t always ideally suited for scaling later on. The good news is that by adapting the way you sell your services, you can “productize” your business and see a big increase in revenue. Here’s how.

1. Determine the right product match for your business

Naturally, your first step is finding a way to package your services so they can be sold as if they were a physical product. The right solution is going to vary from industry to industry.

Service as a software (SaaS) is a great example of how services can be sold as a package. Businesses are generally presented with a set of package options to choose from, each with different pricing tiers based

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Black women are bearing the economic brunt of the pandemic

wayne June 3, 2020

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Stitch Fix feels the sting of the downturn, China defines sexual harassment, and black women are bearing the economic brunt of the pandemic. Have a productive Wednesday. 

– An unequal burden. As protests continue to gather steam across the country, many media outlets—including Fortune—have turned to economic data in an attempt to illustrate some of the realities that underlie the outrage and despair felt by black Americans.

With headlines like ‘Black workers, already lagging, face big economic risks,’ and ‘An undercurrent of the protests: African Americans are struggling more economically from this pandemic,’ these stories focus on the macro, laying out the multitude of ways in which black people are facing a structural economic disadvantage in the U.S.

Digging a little deeper into the data, there’s also a gender component worth noting. As William M. Rodgers III, a professor of public policy and chief economist at the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University told the Washington Post: “When I saw the numbers I was not surprised to see blacks, particularly black women, bearing a major brunt of this recession.”

The Post notes that black women have been …

How the coronavirus pandemic laid the ground for racial unrest

wayne June 3, 2020

This is the web version of CEO Daily. To get it delivered to your inbox, sign up here.

Good morning.

It wasn’t obvious that a virus from China carried by global jet setters would create tinderbox conditions for the worst race riots since the 1960s. But so it did. Perhaps one reason why: Black adults were more than twice as likely as whites to have been laid off or furloughed during the pandemic.

That’s the finding of a Fortune-SurveyMonkey poll taken late last month. The survey found 24% of black adults said they had lost their jobs, compared with 20% of Hispanic workers, 19% of Asian workers, and 11% of white workers. (Full poll results here.) Throw in a race-tinged police killing, and you have fire.

Racial unrest ended up dominating yesterday’s meeting of members of the Fortune CEO Initiative. Among those participating was Ryan Williams–a 32-year-old black entrepreneur who has built a technology-driven real estate investment platform called Cadre, which reportedly has a valuation of at least $800 million. The meeting was off the record, but Williams spoke with me afterwards.

“I could very well have been in that same position because of how I looked,” …

The ‘reopening relief rally’ continues as investors send stocks higher on recovery hopes

wayne June 3, 2020

This is the web version of the Bull Sheet, Fortune’s no-BS daily newsletter on the markets. Sign up to receive it in your inbox here.

Good morning, Bull Sheeters. The global rally in stocks continues this morning. Investors again are pinning their hopes on big fiscal stimulus packages and the further reopening of the global economy.

Let’s see where investors are putting their money.

Markets update

Asia

  • The Asian indices are all in the green in afternoon trade, with Japan’s Nikkei and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng leading the way.
  • There’s big optimism that Japan and South Korea will unveil new spending plans to launch their economies out of recession.
  • Brent is climbing again this morning. All signs are that Saudi Arabia and Russia will agree to further output cuts on a June 9 conference call.

Europe

  • European bourses climbed out of the gates again this morning, with London’s FTSE and France’s CAC up roughly 1% at the open.
  • Angela Merkel didn’t get the €100 billion stimulus plan she was seeking yesterday to reinvigorate Europe’s biggest economy. Talks resume in the German capital. The Dax is trading as if it’s a done deal.
  • Staying with Germany… Volkswagen agreed to invest
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