When these kinds of questions start to haunt you, it's typically a good sign. It signals a pivot from the kind of customization we just described to some level of standardization. The trigger for this switch is usually the realization that it's not sustainable to keep delivering one-of-a-kind, made-to-order service. Your margins can't take it anymore. Moreover, the complexity of maintaining a wide range of distinct offerings makes the business difficult to scale operationally.

A major driver of increasing customization is simply listening to, and trying to please, your customers. Of course, the answer is not to ignore them. It's to listen to them strategically and to customize where it counts. Customize where you can deliver real value and get paid for it without wreaking havoc on your operations — but not where you make a few customers happy at the expense of large swaths of employees, stock-holders, and other customers.

Here's a common pattern: You're new. You're scrappy. You'll do whatever it takes to meet the needs of your clients, which means growth by any means necessary. If a customer wants to give your standard offering a slightly different spin, sure, you'll give it a try. Your effort is also known as customizing your product or service. At this point, there's such a premium on developing customer relationships that you're not thinking about how to pull this off in a profitable way. Instead, you're thinking about survival. If you can keep a growing number of customers happy, then good things are more likely to happen.

When these kinds of questions start to haunt you, it's typically a good sign. It signals a pivot from the kind of customization we just described to some level of standardization. The trigger for this switch is usually the realization that it's not sustainable to keep delivering one-of-a-kind, made-to-order service. Your margins can't take it anymore. Moreover, the complexity of maintaining a wide range of distinct offerings makes the business difficult to scale operationally.

A major driver of increasing customization is simply listening to, and trying to please, your customers. Of course, the answer is not to ignore them. It's to listen to them strategically and to customize where it counts. Customize where you can deliver real value and get paid for it without wreaking havoc on your operations — but not where you make a few customers happy at the expense of large swaths of employees, stock-holders, and other customers.