Latest / Contractor Business Builder Podcast / How to WOW Your Clients and WIN More Referrals
Transcript
- 0:00Want a flood of five star reviews and referrals coming in
- 0:04without spending a dime on marketing?
- 0:06It all starts with the 1st 24 hours after they say yes.
- 0:10I'm breaking down the onboarding system that keeps clients happy,
- 0:13project smooth and your reputation untouchable.
- 0:16All right, so how to wow your clients insist my success from
- 0:21day one. You're in for a treat here
- 0:22presented by myself, Derek Isaac with the rap result creators.
- 0:25So we are going to be going through some fantastic
- 0:28information about how to improve one of the most important
- 0:31systems in your business for your clients.
- 0:34Why am I sharing this with you today?
- 0:35I'm business systems coach. It's what we do.
- 0:38I've implemented this systems, these processes in my own
- 0:41business made a world of difference as well as lots of
- 0:43other contractors plan of ours who this really sets the stage
- 0:48for the really great client experience that will get you 5
- 0:51star reviews that will get them referring you and we'll set up
- 0:55your projects for success, make sure everything's going to run
- 0:57smoothly. So what you're going to get with
- 0:59watching this video is a step by step client onboarding framework
- 1:03sharing with you a full framework so that you can get
- 1:05out and do more phishing and enjoy your life.
- 1:08Instead of, you know, worrying about admin stuff or upset of
- 1:10clients or clients hounding you with calls about how to do this
- 1:14or why did this happen, all those kind of things.
- 1:16So why does this matter? It's going to save you time,
- 1:18admin time. Like I mentioned, it's going to
- 1:20reduce rework, so just less having to redo stuff and it's
- 1:23going to really delight your clients at the end of the day
- 1:25for clients are happy, your business is going to grow and
- 1:28your reputation is going to improve.
- 1:30So I want to start with the end in mind.
- 1:32What are we going for here? And what I want you to imagine
- 1:35is clients are organized, they know what's happening, they're
- 1:40happy, they're educated on what they should know about a
- 1:43construction project. A lot of clients coming into a
- 1:45construction project on the residential side don't have any
- 1:48clue or idea of how things actually happen, how how to work
- 1:51with the GC, all this kind of stuff.
- 1:53If you've got more commercial stuff type clients, this is
- 1:56still really helpful because it's going to let them know how
- 1:58you operate as a business and it's going to give you a really
- 2:01professional look and feel to your business from day one so
- 2:05that you build that trust, you build that respect right out of
- 2:08the gate. And before we we jump into the
- 2:10content, I just want to let you know in the description below,
- 2:13if you want to learn how to systemize your business, there's
- 2:16a link to get a free master class on how to systemize
- 2:18general contracting business. So go click that link, get the
- 2:22the free mass class. It is really valuable
- 2:24information to to build up the systems of your business.
- 2:26So what's the question we should be asking ourselves about
- 2:29onboarding new clients? What's what's the big, how can
- 2:32every client get a world class experience?
- 2:35You don't have to be a super high end luxury builder.
- 2:40Every client who comes through, no matter what level of service
- 2:44or what type of, you know, builds you're doing, they should
- 2:46get a world class experience. And by having the right system
- 2:49and process in place, you can provide that for them.
- 2:52It is not overly difficult, but there's a certain way to do it
- 2:56to make it effective. And that's where we're going to
- 2:58be going through today. So First things first is
- 3:00generally the trigger for like this process to start is when a
- 3:04client signs the the PCs a preconstruction agreement or if
- 3:08you move straight into construction, then whenever they
- 3:12kind of whenever that first amount of money is exchanged is
- 3:15typically when this process would would start.
- 3:19So if they signed the agreement, that's the trigger.
- 3:21Now in the 1st 24 hours, you've got to make sure that they are
- 3:26set up in your system and that all the admin stuff is taken
- 3:29care of and you're sending them an e-mail right away.
- 3:31There's no worse feeling for a client and to just sign up for a
- 3:34thousands, 10s of thousands, maybe $1,000,000 of work or
- 3:38contracts and then not hear from somebody or not really know what
- 3:42they should be doing for the next steps.
- 3:44So that's got to be very clear and that's what your, your
- 3:47process should be taken care of. So what's key to the admin
- 3:51tasks? What should your, your admin
- 3:52person or if it's still you, you'd be taking care of?
- 3:55The first thing is in your CRM you want to update the pipeline
- 3:58stage. So this should be, you know,
- 4:00there's no longer lead or potential client.
- 4:02This is now a client, so we need to update the stage in the
- 4:05pipeline from there. You need to get paid.
- 4:08You want to get money out of the way as soon as possible.
- 4:10This could be done with the welcome e-mail, which can be
- 4:12shared in a second. But however you do it, this
- 4:15needs to go out right away to a new customer.
- 4:17You're going, you're going to get them set up in your
- 4:18accounting software and you're going to send them an invoice by
- 4:21the, you know, I prefer QuickBooks Online like a lot of
- 4:23contractors out there. Doesn't really matter which one
- 4:25you use, but they should, their information should go into
- 4:27there. And a lot of this admin stuff,
- 4:29there's certain things that someone will need to take action
- 4:32on, but a lot of it can be more or less automated and templated
- 4:36so that it's very easy, very quick.
- 4:38Like I said, the 1st 24 hours for sure, this should be going
- 4:41out from there. You're going to copy your
- 4:43project template and dashboard. I'm running through the steps
- 4:45here. I'm going to show you a sneak
- 4:47peek at the specific templated SOP that we build out for
- 4:51clients that will will go through exactly how our SOP is
- 4:54structured so that you can give this to an admin person and they
- 4:57can run with it. And then your client gets that
- 4:59amazing experience. So whatever sort of project
- 5:01management field software you're using, you're going to set up a
- 5:04new, you know, a new project, new job, whatever you wanna call
- 5:07it inside the software. And there should be a templated
- 5:10job with your checklist, with your schedule, with, you know,
- 5:12pulled from the estimate or, or whatever.
- 5:15A lot of that should already be built out.
- 5:17So it's very easy. You start a job and then you set
- 5:20up their dashboard. You're not using dashboards yet.
- 5:22Don't worry about it. I'm going to be going through a
- 5:24bunch of stuff like the ideal situation.
- 5:26The big thing is get this process in place, like just get
- 5:29the steps and make a checklist of what needs to get done when a
- 5:32new client gets on boarded with the company and just follow your
- 5:35existing process. Don't worry about adding all
- 5:38this other stuff. Get your process, however you do
- 5:41it right now. Just get it like documented and
- 5:43and and detailed out of it. And then you can add things in.
- 5:45So dashboards are great. You send to the client.
- 5:48Now the client can see the schedule, they can see the
- 5:51pertinent items. They can get notifications.
- 5:53They don't have to be calling. You know everything.
- 5:55You know all hours of the day wondering like what's going on
- 5:57with the project. So that gets set up from there.
- 6:00You now need to set up their client folders, files and
- 6:03photos. So you'll have a folder
- 6:05somewhere. I like Google Drive.
- 6:07That's what I would prefer because it's very easy to share
- 6:10and you can set permissions and all that kind of stuff, you
- 6:13know, with sharing and stuff like that, who gets access.
- 6:15You can also have this in your project management software if
- 6:18you want. But either way, you're going to
- 6:20set up a templated folder. And if you want to know how to
- 6:23set up a file management system, I've got another video on our
- 6:26YouTube channel. Just go search, you know,
- 6:28Google, Google Drive, I think you know, file management,
- 6:30something like that. And it'll walk you through
- 6:32exactly how to set up the folders for new clients so that
- 6:36you are very organized and every client has a folder has
- 6:39subfolders with all the different key information.
- 6:41And it's just a really great way to stay organized and have your
- 6:44whole team know where the information is for the client as
- 6:47well as sharing it with the client if if you want to give
- 6:49them access as well. So once you have all that sort
- 6:51of admin stuff set up, now we move into like the client facing
- 6:55side of it, which is going to be in a second here.
- 6:57I'm going to go in through like, how do we actually, you know, on
- 7:00board the actual client face to face, but you're going to send a
- 7:02welcome e-mail and the welcome e-mail, I'm going to show you
- 7:04the template later is, is going to be specifically, you know,
- 7:08welcome. So excited to have you as a
- 7:10client. Here's all the different things
- 7:12we need you to start figuring out selections.
- 7:14Here's our what to expect documents.
- 7:16So you know what you know you can expect from the building.
- 7:18Here's your access login details to our dashboard software or, or
- 7:23whatever, right? So it's gonna have like 1
- 7:25welcome e-mail with all the different like easy to follow
- 7:28steps and ways they can get access and what they should know
- 7:31next steps. And all that stuff is just going
- 7:32to show like, wow, these guys are on point.
- 7:35Like they know what's happening. I know what's happening.
- 7:37This is awesome, right? So you want to give that wow
- 7:40factor right out of the gate that you are communicating with
- 7:43them and that they're they're going to get an amazing
- 7:45experience building with you. So making sense here.
- 7:48There's anything in here that you feel needs to be expanded on
- 7:51or you have questions about? I wasn't clear about drop a
- 7:53comment below. I will comment or let me know
- 7:56what your onboarding process is like or what you need help with.
- 7:58Drop a comment, I will reply. I will help you with it
- 8:01guaranteed. So first impressions that win
- 8:04referrals. That's what we're going for.
- 8:05We want amazing client experience first, have just a
- 8:07good working relationship. But at the end of the day, we
- 8:09need those reviews, we need those referrals to grow and
- 8:12expand the business. And what you need to be doing as
- 8:15far as the, the client facing side of it is after you send
- 8:18that welcome e-mail, follow up, I would say a day after.
- 8:21So within the 1st 24 hours of them signing the, the precom
- 8:24agreement or construction agreement, you'll send them that
- 8:26welcome e-mail. And then the the day after you
- 8:28or your admin person, project manager, whoever's responsible
- 8:31for it will give them a call and just say, hey, did you get the
- 8:33e-mail? Any questions?
- 8:35Make sure you're they're there supporting them and that they,
- 8:38you know, they don't have to go looking for you.
- 8:40You are proactively reaching out to them.
- 8:43Now kind of like a bonus tip here is if you really wanna go
- 8:47above and beyond, create a walkthrough video of your
- 8:50dashboard or what they should be knowing about.
- 8:52And you could send it in that first e-mail or even just, you
- 8:55know, have it on their dashboard.
- 8:57But you yourself, ideally as the business owner, walking through
- 9:01of like this is what your dashboard looks like.
- 9:03This is where you go and, and find your files in, in your
- 9:06Google Drive or whatever, right? So just kind of giving them like
- 9:09a visual representation and you can just say like, Hey, welcome
- 9:12to the company. We're excited to be working with
- 9:14you. I'm gonna walk you through a few
- 9:15of the things to access the different stuff.
- 9:17This is your selections document where you get selections and all
- 9:19this kind of stuff, right? So great, a little quick video.
- 9:22It's just gives it that extra, you know, cherry on top as far
- 9:25as the service and and the flavour of of your business for
- 9:28for the client. Alright, so after, after you
- 9:30follow up with them for that part of that e-mail is going to
- 9:32be the what to expect document. This is one of the most critical
- 9:36documents of your business for the client facing side of it.
- 9:39You're gonna outline in the what to expect document all the
- 9:42different things that they should know about and what they
- 9:44can expect for the build. And this gets a lot of the stuff
- 9:47just out in the open, out in the air and educates them and just
- 9:52solves so many problems ahead of time so they don't have to ask
- 9:55you about it later. It, it changes your world.
- 9:58It, it's such a good document, especially when you got to fine
- 10:00tune. Of course, you know, we've got
- 10:02templates and all these this stuff built out.
- 10:04If you're interested in working with us and getting access to
- 10:06this kind of stuff, reach out to us, you know, again, figure out
- 10:09the links in the description there.
- 10:10So in the What to expect document, the big kind of
- 10:12components just to give you a quick overview is like, again, a
- 10:15little bit of a welcome thing. You're gonna walk them through
- 10:17what they can expect during construction.
- 10:18So it's going to be noisy, it's going to be dusty.
- 10:20There's guys gonna be showing up between these times.
- 10:23Make sure you make time since some of the really key thing is
- 10:26let the client know ahead of time that you are not available
- 10:29outside of certain time windows. So between 7:00 to 6:00, I will
- 10:34answer my phone. I'll do my best to communicate
- 10:36with you outside those times. I'm with my family.
- 10:38I've got my own personal time. I've got to maintain my sanity
- 10:41outside of work as well. And you, you can put that in
- 10:44your what to expect documents so that it's not gonna guarantee
- 10:47that they won't call you at, you know, 9:00 PM on a Friday for
- 10:49whatever reason. But at least you know, you've
- 10:52expressed to them that you're not gonna answer the phone.
- 10:55They can leave a voicemail. You know, the best thing to do
- 10:57is send you an e-mail if it's something that they want to, you
- 11:00know, just they remember something and wanted to, to
- 11:02communicate it with you, but it's emergency.
- 11:04Call the police, call the firefighter, call your lawyer,
- 11:06whatever it is, but you know, you're not the firefighter to to
- 11:10put out their fire most everything and wait until the
- 11:12next day or they can call you with inside normal working
- 11:15business hours. So put that in the what to
- 11:17expect document how they pay you, how you've invoiced.
- 11:19That's very important to what your expectations are on there.
- 11:22It's not just what to expect like for them, it's what what
- 11:25you what you expect of them and also what they can expect of
- 11:28you. So there's there's there's two
- 11:30way St. there. Alright, so that's a huge key
- 11:32component. After you've kind of sent them
- 11:34that information, then you want to set up a pre construction
- 11:37meeting and seeing as soon as possible to introduce them to
- 11:40the project manager, the designer, whoever else they may
- 11:43be communicating with for their project.
- 11:46Just to have like a, a team meeting to make sure that
- 11:49everything is clear. Everyone knows the next steps.
- 11:51They they're understand what's going on.
- 11:53And ideally you as the business owner, depending on the size of
- 11:56your business, you're going to not be in that meeting.
- 11:58You probably will be helping them through the sales process.
- 12:01Maybe you are in that meeting to do like a quick handoff and just
- 12:04like introduce like here's, you know, here's our designer,
- 12:07here's our project manager. They're going to walk you
- 12:09through your project. You're going to be communicating
- 12:11with them, you know, mostly with the designer through the
- 12:13selection process and designing and all that stuff.
- 12:16And then the project manager for the estimating, scheduling, pre
- 12:19construction side of things. And then moving into
- 12:21construction, you'll be seeing a lot of the pre manager, project
- 12:23manager everyday checking on your sites and stuff like that,
- 12:25right? So, so you set up that meeting
- 12:27and that will give them amazing experience right off the bat,
- 12:30given that FaceTime that they're looking for just making sense.
- 12:32Can you see how it's maybe not super different than what you're
- 12:35doing? But by having this detailed and
- 12:38worked out, you can ensure that every single client is getting a
- 12:41similar experience. And the beauty of having a
- 12:43process like this in a system is that now you can start to
- 12:46improve it because maybe you'll go through it and you're like,
- 12:49you know what? This kind of seems out of place,
- 12:51or maybe we should add this and you can start to build and mold
- 12:53and build your business off of it instead of just like having
- 12:57this sort of loose expectation of like, yeah, we get on a call
- 13:00with them. We'll send them an e-mail.
- 13:01No, it needs to be really straightforward and built out.
- 13:05All right. So at the end of the day, what
- 13:07does your clients want to feel? What do you want your clients to
- 13:10feel from you? Do they feel that you're
- 13:12professional? I hope so.
- 13:13I feel your organized. Yes, if you go through all this
- 13:16and have all your your eyes dotted T cross for the
- 13:20onboarding, they'll think you're organized.
- 13:22They believe you're on top of your project.
- 13:24If you've gone all through this and you've done that, that team
- 13:27meeting, they will believe that you are definitely on top of
- 13:30your game and that they made the right choice by choosing you to
- 13:35go ahead with their construction.
- 13:36That's what we want. We don't want that buyers
- 13:38remorse because with that whole preconstruction agreement, we
- 13:41want that to like, you've got to just nail it right out of the
- 13:44gate because you're looking for that bigger pie of like actually
- 13:48moving into the construction. So this onboarding process
- 13:51through the pre construction phase has to be amazing.
- 13:54Wow, can't believe organized these guys are this is
- 13:57incredible. I'm so happy I, you know, doing
- 13:59business with them and they're, you know, just going to carry
- 14:01that momentum into the project throughout the pre construction
- 14:04planning as well as into the the actual construction part of it.
- 14:07So, as promised, it's time for the action part.
- 14:10So I'm giving you all the information as far as like how
- 14:12to think about it now it's the action, have fun, get it done.
- 14:16You need to build out an SOP, some sort of document that
- 14:20outlines all of this so you can start training your admin person
- 14:23and running this with your team. This is your playbook.
- 14:25Before I get into that, I just want to mention free systems
- 14:28master class. Don't miss out on it.
- 14:30Go get the master class. If you have not watched it yet,
- 14:32you need to watch this because it'll help you systemize your
- 14:34business. It is a valuable asset to you.
- 14:37Go get signed up. Link in the description.
- 14:39And now I'm going to be jumping into the new client onboarding
- 14:41SOP, giving you a sneak peak of what it actually looks like.
- 14:44All right, so here we got our SOP document, new client
- 14:46onboarding and we've also got a post project I'd like to put
- 14:49together for me, my SOP's. I don't like to have a bunch of
- 14:52little SOP's for just one or two parts of a business.
- 14:55I want it to be like one big function of a business.
- 14:57So this is the client, client onboarding and and post project.
- 15:00You're going to have a bit of requirements and resources.
- 15:03It's just outlines who's it for, what software is going to be
- 15:05needed. Any extra links to like training
- 15:08or anything? You could link to this video if
- 15:09you want for for training purposes, so people understand,
- 15:12you know what they should be doing, competency expectations.
- 15:14So this is really important what do you expect like is from your
- 15:18team to be able to do this is, you know, onboarding To Do List
- 15:22all these items should be done in two days, 24 hours, one hour
- 15:25period hard ass and really want to make them work.
- 15:27So what's the expectation, you know, as far as quality as far
- 15:29as time as far as communication, all that stuff be very clear
- 15:32with it be explicit with it. Preconstruction contract and
- 15:34payment. So this kind of runs through the
- 15:36preconstruction contract side of things.
- 15:39So after they've agreed, yeah, you know, we'll, we'll sign the
- 15:41PC USA or whatever, what happens, we send them the
- 15:44document. Which program do we use?
- 15:46What are the steps? Do we send them, you know,
- 15:48invoice through QuickBooks, whatever.
- 15:50So outline all of that. Then you've got the onboarding
- 15:53pre project. This is how you know, whichever
- 15:56project management software you're using, you're going to
- 15:59have the onboarding steps here. How do you set up a new job from
- 16:02a template or whatever project? How do you set up the schedule
- 16:06client dashboard? How do you, how do you build out
- 16:08the dashboard, set that up and then the welcome e-mail, how do
- 16:11they send the e-mail? What do they need to know about
- 16:14it? All that stuff.
- 16:14And then you'll have the template, you know, right in the
- 16:17document. So your SOP is not just the
- 16:19process. If you've got templated emails,
- 16:21if you've got checklists like quality control checklist or
- 16:24client onboarding checklist, put that in the actual document.
- 16:28Yeah, those checklists are going to be in your project management
- 16:30software or your, you know, whatever To Do List type
- 16:33software you may have, but the standard template should be in
- 16:36your in your SOP. Super easy.
- 16:38Everyone could find it and use it.
- 16:40So welcome e-mail, welcome to the company.
- 16:43You're amazing. You're the best client ever.
- 16:45What to expect and construction go read this document and you
- 16:48put the link in there for them to do that.
- 16:51Client selections you need to start doing selections are
- 16:54designer is going to work with you or if it's, you know, if
- 16:56you're just doing small remodels and they want to do it
- 16:58themselves, you do you. But you should have some sort of
- 17:01documents so that you can keep track of it and stay organized
- 17:03whether they're doing it or you're doing it.
- 17:05That needs to be discussed as well.
- 17:07And then I like to send a project upgrades checklist.
- 17:10So for a home build, a lot of clients aren't really going to
- 17:14think about or know about soundproofing walls or, you
- 17:18know, having upgraded detectors in their home for carbon
- 17:21monoxide or, or whatever. You know, it could be any number
- 17:25of things or astronomical timers for, for outdoor lighting like
- 17:28that kind of stuff. They're just, they're not going
- 17:30to probably think about. So have a list of all these
- 17:32things that may not be standard. And when you're budgeting the
- 17:35project, you probably don't want to necessarily have like all
- 17:39this special kind of extra stuff because to them it's going to be
- 17:41like, wow, this is getting expensive, right?
- 17:43But after you've kind of given the initial budget, you can, you
- 17:46can show them these things and be like, here's all these
- 17:48upgrades that, that you could think about if, if you want to
- 17:51add some, you know, additional things.
- 17:52And we found that clients who do utilize some of these upgrades,
- 17:57the, the extra cost is maybe, you know, an extra two 5% in the
- 18:01project. But the, the experience that
- 18:03they have and, and the happiness that they have afterwards is
- 18:06much greater because they've got some of these special sort of
- 18:09upgrades, you know, heated infloor heating and stuff like
- 18:12that, right. So something that just another
- 18:14little caveat that I didn't mention before on the What to
- 18:17expect document, you aren't gonna have in there how they
- 18:20should refer you to other clients.
- 18:22That's is very, very important because a lot of business
- 18:26owners, contractors, general contractors, we think that we
- 18:28kind of have to wait until the end of the project to ask for a
- 18:31referral, when in fact you should be asking for a referral,
- 18:34you know, multiple times throughout a project.
- 18:37And the What to Expect document gives them that kind of that
- 18:39first little in the back of their head like, oh, I could
- 18:41refer them to somebody else, right.
- 18:43So you know what to expect talking, we wanna put in there,
- 18:45you know, if you have friends, family, someone that you think
- 18:48is, is, would, you know, be a good fit for our services or is
- 18:51thinking about building a home or or whatever.
- 18:53What you can do is just copy this e-mail or send them an
- 18:56e-mail and just introduce us that we found is the best thing.
- 18:59Or give me a call and let me know that that your friend is
- 19:02possibly thinking about it. So we can talk about it over the
- 19:04phone, whatever it may be. You want to make it as easy as
- 19:06possible for your your client to refer people.
- 19:09So have that in the what to expect document and then give
- 19:12them like easy to follow steps of like if you think of
- 19:15referring to someone or you have someone you think you know, this
- 19:17is what you need to do. So it's so it's just like super
- 19:19easy for them. Alright, so that's pretty much
- 19:21it for the client onboarding SOP.
- 19:23It's not a huge document. This gets built out of this is a
- 19:25template. So obviously you're going to
- 19:27have like a lot more steps, especially when you start adding
- 19:30software like steps in there. But this is pretty much it.
- 19:33You're on your way to five star review is amazing.
- 19:35Wow, fine experience and lots of referrals.
- 19:38I'll see you on the next video.