Latest / Ambitious Podcast / EP.120: Stop Losing Clients: The 12-Month Retention Map Explained | The Ambitious Podcast

Transcript

EP.120: Stop Losing Clients: The 12-Month Retention Map Explained | The Ambitious Podcast · Ambitious Podcast

0:00
You're looking to fix in your business with marketing and
0:03
sales what is actually a delivery problem.
0:05
Why does it feel like it's so hard for me to grow?
0:08
It's so hard for me to scale. Every time I feel like I'm
0:11
signing people, before I know it, six months later I'm right
0:14
back at 0. If you could triple your
0:16
business right now without doing any more marketing and sales
0:20
than you currently are in this moment, is that something you'd
0:23
be interested in? Let's be very clear that if you
0:25
want to make 7 figures, it is not about 40 new clients from
0:29
your market and sales from Instagram, from TikTok, from
0:32
your podcast. It's not 40 new people every
0:34
time, it's 40 contracts. Now that same marketing and
0:38
sales has generated you this year $36,000 versus $12,000.
0:43
Scaling comes from retention, not acquisition.
0:46
Hello and welcome back to Ambitious.
0:48
Today we are talking and diving into something that you have
0:51
heard me say many times on this podcast, which is that scaling
0:55
comes from retention, not acquisition.
0:57
And this is actually something that was shared with me when I
1:00
was in my own scaling journey from a coach of mine who shared
1:03
this quote with me. And it really put into
1:06
perspective ways that I had been looking at scaling wrong.
1:09
A lot of people who talk to you about scaling your business are
1:12
going to be endless conversations about marketing,
1:14
sales, how to get more people in the front door.
1:18
And the thing that I hear from people that I work with every
1:20
single day is that they're kind of exhausted from the aspect of
1:25
more marketing, more marketing, more marketing being the thing
1:28
that's going to actually help them to grow their business.
1:31
It feels like this never ending hamster wheel.
1:34
And that often is going to be the experience that you have in
1:37
your business until you actually take the time to understand how
1:42
to improve your retention. And retention is something that
1:45
I think a lot of people see as more of the actual service
1:49
providing to a client. So if you think about a client
1:52
that's inside of your agency, if you're thinking about a client
1:54
inside of a consulting business or a consulting firm, if you're
1:58
thinking about a client inside of your service, you're
2:00
thinking, well, it's the onboarding.
2:02
It's, you know, I just make sure they're more supported.
2:05
But what a lot of people don't do is they don't look at the
2:08
fact of how retention could actually be the hidden spot
2:12
where a lot of your sales are waiting for you.
2:15
And so today we're going to talk about a couple different things.
2:18
I have, I will tell you a list of notes that I want to go
2:21
through with you. Couple things we're going to
2:22
cover why retention actually is one of the most important skills
2:26
that you can have as a scaling business.
2:28
I'm also going to breakdown of all the businesses that I have
2:31
worked with, what some of the most common disconnects are that
2:34
people are making that are often the reasons clients are coming
2:38
in the front door and they're leaving at the back after one
2:41
contract with you. We're also going to dive into
2:44
what I kind of consider to be like the 12 month retention map.
2:47
And basically what this means is it is a calendar, a structure
2:52
for you to understand. And what I want you to do with
2:55
this calendar is to assess where are my clients dropping off?
2:59
Where are the months where I'm finding that they're getting
3:01
disengaged, They're not coming to calls, they're taking slower
3:04
to respond to me. And when those moments happen,
3:07
knowing what that means about their experience and most
3:11
importantly, what you should do. So we first need to kind of
3:15
anchor with, OK, we know we obviously want to keep clients
3:18
happy. We want to make sure clients are
3:19
satisfied. But why do we care about this
3:22
when it comes to scaling and when it comes to frankly the
3:26
sales of the business? And so one of the things that I
3:37
think is an important first place to start is that this is
3:40
not a nice to do, OK? I have seen and overheard too
3:44
many conversations of people who have said, well, you know,
3:48
clients aren't, you know, super upset mid contract.
3:51
They're not having quote UN quote fires.
3:54
So as a result, they're not paying attention to retention.
3:57
And it's one of the biggest alarms or red flags that I see
4:01
within a business is the fact that they don't feel necessarily
4:05
that retention is something that they need to be worried about.
4:08
And so this is not, I want to be very clear, something that
4:11
should be an optional thing for you to integrate in your
4:14
business. If you don't see the retention
4:16
of your clients, meaning the satisfaction of them, the
4:19
results of them, and therefore the renewal or the upsell of
4:22
those clients inside your ecosystem as a complete
4:26
requirement in your business, it could very well be the reason
4:30
that you're not seeing the results that you want.
4:32
So first we need to understand that in order to acquire a new
4:37
client, it on average cost five times more than if you had just
4:42
kept the client that you had that already signed with you
4:45
that's already been in your service in the first place.
4:48
And that's because most people don't look at or give enough
4:52
credit to what it took to generate that client inside of
4:57
your program, inside your service.
4:59
So it may have been, you know, for some businesses, it's they
5:02
were posting on Instagram and then they were maybe having Adm
5:04
conversation and then you maybe you had a sales call, maybe you
5:08
created a proposal or a custom proposal.
5:11
And with all of those pieces, those are hours and those hours
5:15
mean cost. It could be a cost of a social
5:18
media manager. It could be the cost for some
5:20
people of having someone who manages your DMS.
5:24
It could even be eventually for some scaling businesses, the
5:27
cost of having a closer who does your sales calls.
5:30
So this is not something that is as simple as Oh, well, it was
5:34
just, you know, I post on Instagram all of that.
5:36
Even if you're a team of one or two, especially in this day and
5:40
age of AI, if you are somebody that feels like you are a lean
5:44
mean team, even if you are, this is still cost that it took of
5:49
your hours, which ultimately connects to your your money,
5:53
your investment that you put into those.
5:55
So when you think about, OK, well, I need to acquire a new
6:00
customer. This is why I, I kind of have a
6:02
bone to pick with the marketing and the sales gurus because
6:06
marketing and sales, do not get me wrong, is one of the most
6:09
important pieces of a business. You have to know how to market.
6:12
You have to know how to sell. That's not something that I'm
6:14
negotiating, but I think that we missed the mark on.
6:18
But then what? Because a lot of the times the
6:21
same people who are preaching marketing sales, marketing sales
6:25
may inside their same offers, have people that do not stay
6:28
past three or six months, which was the contract.
6:31
And as soon as that contract's done, they're gone.
6:33
So of course, we need to be like marketing sales, marketing sales
6:36
when everybody's leaving. The goal is that if you can not
6:40
only master marketing and sales, but you can also master
6:43
attention, you will scale your business so much faster and
6:47
frankly so much easier with so much less effort because you're
6:50
not feeling like as soon as you sign someone, someone else is
6:53
leaving. So what we see is that there's
6:57
this kind of roller coaster we talk about in scaling, right?
7:00
Sometimes we talk about it as the revenue roller coaster.
7:03
We sometimes in other episodes have talked about the pattern of
7:07
the push pause pattern. This all comes down to this,
7:10
which is we feel like we get a lot of marketing sales.
7:14
We have these new clients who sign and we're really excited
7:16
about that. And then often times those
7:19
people come into our service. We're starting to deliver to
7:21
them in whatever it is you provide.
7:23
And before we know it, we look and we go, Oh my God, these
7:27
people are leaving. I need a new roster of 20
7:30
people. I need a new roster of 40 or 50
7:32
people. And it kind of feels like you
7:35
just can't move the needle. You're like, every time I feel
7:38
like I'm signing people, before I know it, six months later I'm
7:42
right back at 0. And that feeling is a byproduct
7:46
of lack of retention. It's a byproduct of the fact
7:49
that people are not happy inside the offer, which is why they're
7:51
not staying and they're going elsewhere.
7:54
So it also is not just about recurring revenue, OK, So this
7:59
is not just about client comes in, pays $2000 and then because
8:04
we're going to get this person to renew, they're going to have
8:06
more months of $2000. It's not even just as simple as
8:10
how can we continue to have the same payment that they're doing
8:13
for longer. It's also about the fact of how
8:16
do we get this person to not only pay, let's just say six
8:20
months of 2000, but how do we then get them into an offer and
8:23
maybe that's 3500 a month as the next roster and have them and
8:27
not for two rounds, right? So maybe that's another year of
8:30
a contract. It's not even just about keeping
8:32
them the same amount, but also looking at how are you allowing
8:36
and supporting and designing people to evolve inside of your
8:40
ecosystem. And if you don't, it basically
8:44
means that they naturally have an end time with you.
8:47
They see their time, they see their journey as complete, and
8:51
so as a result, they don't really see why they would
8:53
continue because otherwise it just feels like they're spending
8:56
more time in the thing that they just did.
8:58
So also ensuring that you understand if we can increase
9:02
the average overall revenue per person in your ecosystem, not
9:07
just in repeating the same payments they've been doing, but
9:10
potentially even increasing their payments.
9:12
Again, this is another way for you to unlock scaling that has
9:15
nothing to do with marketing and sales in the front end.
9:18
Now I want to run the math for all you nerds like me because
9:22
this is where I was breaking this down with a client actually
9:25
the other day. And she was asking, can you
9:28
please reverse engineer how we would get to 100 KA month in my
9:32
business. And so we did this.
9:33
We ran all the numbers and one of the things that we came to is
9:36
that she probably at her 100K month would have about 40 people
9:41
inside of her coaching program. And so when she saw the 40, she
9:46
was like, whoa, like, that's 40 people.
9:48
I have to make 40 new sales every single time.
9:52
And I said, no, why would you make 40 new sales every single
9:56
time? She said, well, where am I going
9:57
to get the 40 from? And I said, the 40 is not going
10:00
to be a byproduct of 40 new people.
10:04
It's 40 sales, 40 contracts. So let's be very clear that if
10:08
you want to make 7 figures, it is not about 40 new clients from
10:13
your marketing and sales from Instagram, from TikTok, from
10:16
your podcast. It's not 40 new people every
10:19
time. It's 40 contracts.
10:21
So this means that you could very well out of those 40, have
10:25
20 of those people who were in the first round who are going to
10:28
continue into the second round. So I saw this like instant face
10:32
of like relief from her because the thought of like, Oh my God,
10:36
like more grind on social of 40 and 40 and 40 and 40.
10:41
Like, of course that would be exhausting because you feel like
10:43
you're starting from scratch. So let's run the math.
10:46
The client pays $2000 a month for six months.
10:49
OK, So let's just assume that you have a service and I say
10:51
2000 because this is kind of the the run-of-the-mill, if you
10:54
would, in the sense of investment.
10:56
I have a lot of different people that I work with.
10:57
It could be podcast editors, it could be social media or
11:00
marketing agencies, coaches, consultants, all kinds of
11:04
different models. And most people have some kind
11:07
of coaching or consulting service or agency service that
11:12
averages around $2000 a month. So let's just say that you have
11:15
a client right now that's going to be paying you around 2000 a
11:18
month and they're going to stay with you for a six month
11:20
contract, OK, So it's $12,000. Now if you have crappy
11:24
retention, which is how I'm going to put it, if you have
11:27
crappy retention. And that typically means that
11:29
that person after that is going to leave after the six months.
11:34
So you have generated for that total all that marketing and
11:37
sales effort. You have generated $12,000 from
11:41
all of the marketing and sales you did.
11:43
Now if they signed the first time with you and they signed
11:46
two more times after that with you, this client that you
11:49
originated from the same marketing and sales, but the
11:53
difference being that you actually had good retention.
11:55
Now that same marketing and sales has generated you this
11:58
year $36,000 versus $12,000. So This is why we're so bullish
12:06
on making sure with our clients, with people that I, you know,
12:10
have audit conversations with or consultations with.
12:13
I asked not only how many clients are you generating, but
12:16
how many clients are you keeping?
12:17
Because if you are the person right now who feels like, Oh my
12:22
gosh, I signed someone and it's a 12K sale, IE six months for
12:26
2000, but they just go and then I need another person, another
12:29
person. The reason you're feeling
12:30
exhausted is not necessarily a by product of your marketing and
12:34
sales. It could have nothing to do with
12:37
your marketing and sales and it could have everything to do with
12:39
your attention. So ask yourself this, if you
12:43
could triple your business right now without doing any more
12:47
marketing and sales than you currently are in this moment, is
12:51
that something you'd be interested in?
12:53
And if that's the case, the first thing that I would want
12:55
you to focus on is diving into your retention to actually ask
12:59
yourself, am I the person where someone is signing for six
13:02
months and it means 2 KA month, so I'm $12,000?
13:06
Or is that client seeing so much value, so much satisfaction, so
13:10
much, so many results inside of my offer that I'm actually
13:14
spending 36,000 this year with you.
13:17
And if that's the case, that's really where the unlock for your
13:20
growth is going to come from. So what we want to look at is
13:24
that I kind of have this like leaky bucket analogy.
13:28
If you know me, if you coach with me, you know that I'm, I'm
13:30
somebody who loves a good analogy.
13:32
And I see this with so many people, which is why I kind of
13:36
came up with this, because there's this belief in scaling
13:40
of more and more and more, right?
13:41
It's got to be more marketing. It has to be more sales.
13:43
And so the leaky bucket analogy is that when you are trying to
13:47
push to grow in your business and you're like, OK, I'm going
13:50
to really double down on marketing, I'm going to really
13:52
double down on content. I'm going to really lean all in
13:55
on X thing. When you do that and you're
13:58
putting more in, I want you to picture literally you holding a
14:01
bucket and you're pouring in water and you're like, I'm going
14:05
to grow to X level. That's my goal.
14:07
I've got my eyes on it, I'm set on it, we're doing it and you're
14:11
focused. So you put in a lot of effort
14:13
and you're busting your butt with hard work.
14:16
But then what you realize is it feels like you're not getting
14:18
ahead. And that is because your bucket
14:20
that you are pouring that water into that hard work, those
14:24
hours, the expenses, the team, maybe even you're leaning into
14:28
AI. You're trying to find a ways to
14:30
to get around it, to be able to, you know, produce even more and
14:34
even less time. And then you look at your bucket
14:37
and your bucket is not even close to as full as you'd want.
14:41
And that is because we are trying to add when there is a
14:45
massive hole within the thing that you are trying to
14:48
replenish. And this is what happens with
14:51
scaling businesses all the time. You're looking to fix in your
14:55
business with marketing and sales what is actually a
14:58
delivery problem. And So what I tell people is
15:01
that this is not a you issue. This is the thing that is
15:04
exciting about this. It's not a matter of, you know,
15:07
something is wrong with you, something's wrong with your
15:09
marketing. This is something that is
15:11
really, you have holes in your bucket.
15:14
So the exciting part when I find this in a business, regardless
15:17
of what industry it's in, is that you actually say, OK, wow.
15:21
Like we're looking at this business, great brand, great
15:24
marketing, great sales. And we know that because you've
15:26
generated them in the past of your ideal clients, they're
15:29
sending out the packages you want to be offering.
15:32
In that regard, everything's fantastic.
15:35
But then we look at the other side and we say, yeah, but like,
15:37
why does it feel like it's so hard for me to grow?
15:39
It's so hard for me to scale? And that's why I tell people,
15:42
you have a whole problem. You have holes in your bucket.
15:46
So like, your water is not your issue.
15:49
You having tons of water. You have a hose of water
15:51
happening with your marketing and sales.
15:54
But because you have a whole problem, the feeling that you're
15:57
getting as an experience from this is remaining and
16:00
sustaining. And so until we fix that, no
16:03
matter how much water you put in, it isn't going to change the
16:07
experience of your business. And so that's why we want to
16:10
dive into it. So with this, I want to actually
16:13
break down things that you can be aware of.
16:15
OK, So what I love about coaching is that I find the
16:19
essence of coaching is someone being able to come in and
16:22
actually see your blind spots, Someone being able to come in
16:25
and say, OK, I see we're doing here, here, here.
16:28
But here's what I see in this scenario.
16:31
And I love this part of coaching because it's what makes me
16:34
realize that two people can have what they perceive to be the
16:38
same reality. So it could be that you're like,
16:40
I feel like my offer is good. I feel like our service is good.
16:43
I feel like our onboarding is good.
16:45
And then somebody else comes in and they pick it apart and they
16:49
go, well, what about this and what about that?
16:51
And this has this impact. And have you ever considered X?
16:54
And it's in those moments in my business that I go, Oh my God,
16:57
like, how did I not, how did I not see that?
16:59
How was I not aware of that? And This is why I want to unpack
17:04
some of the mistakes that I see in general when it comes to
17:07
things that are influencing negative retention or people not
17:11
staying inside your world. And that's because when this has
17:15
been someone coming outside into my business, this is so helpful.
17:19
It's often why breaking the 4th wall here, you will see, I talk
17:23
about mistakes a lot in a lot of the episodes.
17:25
And that's because it's the fastest way for you to audit
17:28
your own business right now and to say, OK, do I have that?
17:32
Is that something that I'm doing?
17:34
Is that something? Oh my gosh, I do do that and to
17:37
be able to pinpoint it and then go take action on it quickly.
17:40
So let's get into some of the actual pieces when it comes to
17:44
your retention that can actually really be detrimental to people
17:48
staying inside your world. One of them, Oh my goodness, is
17:53
probably one of the most easy to discover, most impactful and
17:59
significant to retention is on boarding.
18:03
And I'm not talking just about like your contract, your welcome
18:07
e-mail that you send to people. It's so much deeper than that.
18:11
And I think so many people believe that that is onboarding
18:14
in a nutshell and it's not onboarding.
18:17
And it was really interesting when I kind of, I'm a nerd, look
18:19
for data on this. And it was saying, research
18:23
shows that 87% of clients who have a positive onboarding
18:27
experience remain inside that offer well after six months,
18:32
while nearly 50% of new clients drop within the 1st 90 days when
18:37
the onboarding is weak. So let's just, let's just
18:41
summarize that, OK? 87% of clients with a positive
18:45
onboarding experience will surpass or well surpass 6 months
18:49
with you, IE they will be retained inside your experience
18:52
and offer. However, 50% of people who go
18:56
through bad onboarding will typically drop off either an
19:00
engagement or flat out as a contract if the onboarding is
19:05
weak. So 50% of people will drop off
19:07
mentally, emotionally, or contractually in the 1st 90 days
19:11
if you have that onboarding. And so some things I want to
19:15
kind of echo between, you know, the moment someone signs and
19:20
when they're inside your offer, this is such like, I, I
19:24
genuinely, I want you to think about me just like holding your
19:26
shoulders right now being like, focus on this because the
19:30
onboarding is so, so, so, so crucial in so many different
19:34
ways. I'm going to kind of brain dump
19:35
a couple pieces. The onboarding number one sets
19:38
the agenda of expectations. And I hear this a lot that
19:42
people will say, people come in and they just kind of they're
19:45
getting ahead of themselves. They're asking questions of
19:48
stuff I haven't gotten to yet. They're expecting results
19:51
quicker than they should be. There's people coming in with
19:54
preconceived expectations around an offer service.
19:57
And one of the first questions that I ask people is I say, did
19:59
you tell them what to expect? And they're like, what do you
20:03
mean? And I'm like.
20:05
Like what did you tell them as to what they should expect for
20:07
results? What should they expect in the
20:09
sense of their role in this relationship?
20:11
What should they expect in the sense of timeline of feedback?
20:14
What should they expect when it comes to how much time they're
20:17
going to need each week to be able to, you know, fulfill the
20:20
service and to participate inside of it?
20:22
Did you actually answer those questions in advance of them
20:27
having them? And often times I hear no.
20:31
And I'm like, OK, so if you know that these are things that
20:35
people care about, that they struggle with or that they're
20:37
ruminating on, wouldn't it make sense that we are going to
20:40
proactively address these within your onboarding so that we're
20:44
not waiting for this person to have this aha moment?
20:46
Especially if we know this is a pattern inside of your offer.
20:50
We're not going to wait for someone to have this moment.
20:53
We're going to know this is coming because many people have
20:56
had this and we're going to pre address it in advance.
21:00
And so one of the things I see is that there isn't a clear
21:03
understanding of expectations, not only of results, but of
21:06
their responsibilities and most importantly of your
21:09
responsibilities. What I tell people is your
21:13
client, the new client that you're working with is a direct
21:18
byproduct. Their response, their messages,
21:21
their questions are a direct byproduct of how you LED them.
21:25
So if you've LED them poorly, they will look and feel lost,
21:29
which is why it's seeming like they're coming to you with tons
21:32
of stuff because in fact, they are overwhelmed.
21:34
They have tons of questions they didn't get answered.
21:37
They have lots of concerns that you haven't pre addressed and
21:41
they don't know any better. So when I go through onboarding,
21:44
one of the first things is expectation.
21:47
Two, I think it's also important to set values and beliefs, not
21:52
instructions. So also anchoring in that people
21:56
often times get bought into an identity of who they need to be
22:01
in a service versus the actions that you want them to take,
22:05
right. So one of the things might be,
22:09
you know, a great kind of quote is inside of our stuff is we say
22:13
run to me, not from me. Can you promise that you were
22:15
the kind of person who is a run to me, not from me?
22:18
Which basically means that in an in an event where you feel like
22:22
you're super overwhelmed, you don't know what to do, you're
22:24
really lost. You feel like you need help.
22:26
You are not going to be the isolated person sitting in your
22:31
room on Zoom trying to DIY this. You are going to be the person
22:35
who raises your hand, who asks for help and has no shame in
22:39
doing so. Is that something that you can
22:41
commit to doing or to being? And what it means is that I have
22:46
now indirectly helped to plant a seed in training this person
22:51
that this is not the identity you have here.
22:54
You don't have the identity here of woe is me, I'm going to hide
22:57
in the corner. And if I'm navigating or
23:00
struggling with something, I'm not going to say anything.
23:02
Instead, you want to create a culture of I'm struggling with
23:04
this, I'm navigating this. Nothing is too negative, nothing
23:08
is too overwhelming. Nothing is an overshare.
23:10
Everything is welcome. And when I plant the identity
23:15
and the belief system in onboarding, it means that what
23:19
that person's doing by saying yes is when someone adopts A
23:24
belief, there's a variety of behaviors that they also will
23:28
adopt. So like if I say, are you
23:31
committed to being a healthy person versus are you committed
23:36
to going for a walk? OK, the walk is the action.
23:40
Being committed to being a healthy person is very different
23:43
because it means that in that day you have this identity, this
23:47
anchor. I'm a health, healthy person,
23:49
which means maybe it's the walk I'm trying to decide on.
23:51
I'm a healthy person. Do I go for the soda versus the
23:54
water? I'm a healthy person.
23:56
Do I go for the sugar versus the salad?
24:01
I'm a healthy person, right? So we're using our brain is
24:04
using the anchor of who we are, not what we're faced with a
24:08
decision of when it comes to the action.
24:11
And so that's what I find has helped so much with onboarding
24:14
is to ask, are you telling people what to do or in your
24:18
onboarding, are you telling them who to be?
24:20
And if you can tell people and guide them, invite them on who
24:24
to be inside of your offer, they will do the things that they
24:28
need to do. And that's because the actions
24:31
you're asking them to take correspond with the identity
24:33
that you've asked them to adopt. So when it comes to onboarding,
24:39
there is the expectations aspect, there is integrating
24:41
beliefs. There is also pre handling.
24:45
And I'm going to have a little Segway here.
24:47
If you have not watched George's episode, which is all about
24:51
customer journey, he talks about his Apple framework.
24:54
It's app PPP, no APPLE. If you have not watched that
25:01
podcast, I highly recommend going and listening to George
25:04
Bryant with AT George Bryant and I's podcast with the Apple
25:08
Framework. That framework is something that
25:11
I have integrated into every single section of my business.
25:14
He gives it away all for free on that podcast.
25:17
And with that, it breaks down these steps in detail.
25:20
But one of the things that he talks about in that episode is
25:23
that you need to pre handle things.
25:25
So a lot of times our reactiveness as a service
25:28
provider to someone having a question or someone having, you
25:33
know, an inquiry and we're like, Oh my gosh, how is this person
25:35
asking this? Or why don't they already know
25:37
that? Isn't that common sense?
25:39
I hear people get frustrated and you might find that you get
25:42
frustrated people with asking you questions and you're like, I
25:45
haven't gotten to that yet, right?
25:46
You know, I'm getting there. That's that's the next step.
25:48
Or they're getting ahead of themselves.
25:50
One of the steps that he talks about is pre handling.
25:53
And so I want you to ask yourself what are like just
25:56
right now think of maybe three things that you know, your ideal
26:00
client. Every time you sign a new
26:02
client, they're usually like, well, when am I going to get
26:05
this report or when's the next step or when do we book a call?
26:07
So why don't you just take a second right now think about
26:10
what are three things that your audience typically has questions
26:16
about frustrations about when they're working with you.
26:20
Now just take a second. Think of those three.
26:22
OK, so mine might be like booking of one-on-one calls.
26:26
So like, how do I get the one-on-one calls booked in 2A?
26:29
Common question is what module should I watch?
26:32
Like should I watch them all? Should I watch them a certain
26:34
order? Can I watch anything?
26:35
Should I wait? Is a common question that I, I
26:37
always get. And then I would say third is a
26:41
common question, which is, you know, how fast should I expect
26:43
to see momentum? How do I know when to evaluate
26:46
the situation to know if I should change my strategy or
26:49
not? So imagine me knowing that those
26:52
three exist and never addressing them or you knowing the three
26:56
that you're thinking of and knowing that those are
26:59
questions, concerns or curiosities they have and not
27:02
addressing them. So what ends up happening is
27:05
that you will end up with the same person asking every single
27:07
time they join your offer. So what I want you to ask now is
27:11
OK, in the onboarding, where do I address those 3 concerns ahead
27:14
of them experience them. So if someone's like how fast
27:18
can I get results? It might be have video and
27:21
you're on board and it says, hey, so let's talk a little bit
27:23
about the timeline and what you should expect as to how you
27:27
audit your success inside of this experience or inside of
27:30
this program, right? If it's modules, hey, you're
27:33
probably an eager Beaver and you are so excited to be here.
27:36
So you want to just dive into information and I want you to
27:38
actually not do that. And here's why.
27:40
So I can actually plant things in my onboarding that pre handle
27:45
to Georgia's framework, which is one of the keys in the Apple
27:49
framework to pre handle. Pre handling basically means
27:53
that when we pre address something before someone
27:55
experiences it, it builds trust on the contrast.
27:58
If something happens or they have a curiosity or question and
28:02
they feel like they can't find what they're looking for or
28:03
nobody has addressed this, it means that they feel alone, they
28:07
feel isolated and they feel like something's wrong.
28:10
So onboarding is truthfully one of the most simple ways to be
28:15
able to get ahead of the concerns that your ideal client
28:20
may have. And so this is a place where if
28:23
you are having problems inside of your offer, you're having
28:26
questions, overwhelm, frustrations, brain dump what
28:29
those are. And then what I want you to do
28:31
is literally have that on one monitor and or one side and have
28:34
that on the other side and say, do I feel like the biggest
28:37
concerns, questions, overwhelm or curiosity that people have is
28:42
actively being addressed inside of my forward facing onboarding?
28:45
If not, that is your first piece of homework.
28:48
OK, Now the second piece that is a, a big theme I see is what I
28:54
consider to be the silence between the sessions.
28:58
And this, I want to be very clear is something that's not
29:01
intentional. I think this is often times
29:04
unintentional by people, but it is something that really does
29:08
weaken a client experience. So when you first onboard a
29:11
client, think how excited you are, right?
29:13
You're like, OK, great. This is a new person in my
29:15
service, new person in my offer. You're like getting back to them
29:18
super quickly. You want to make sure that
29:20
they're, you know, really satisfied that they're very
29:22
excited. They have everything that they
29:24
need and you're really on top of it.
29:27
And then what ends up happening is after you've worked with that
29:30
client, sometimes people get comfortable and they get
29:33
comfortable in taking a little bit longer to reply.
29:36
They get comfortable in taking a little longer to get resources
29:40
to that person. They end up finding themselves
29:44
getting into this level of comfort, this kind of automatic
29:47
way of doing things that ultimately makes the client feel
29:51
like their experience used to be here, Now their experience is
29:55
here and they can't quite figure out why that is.
29:59
And so they just label it as I'm just satisfied or this person
30:03
just isn't the way that they used to be within our service.
30:06
So this can mean less check insurance in between your calls.
30:11
It could also be less accountability for people in
30:15
between sessions to kind of say, hey, we haven't heard from you
30:17
want to check in to see how you're doing.
30:19
And if you find that people are very silent in between sessions
30:25
or your services, it is a red flag.
30:28
And now I, I want to kind of add a little caveat to this.
30:31
This does not mean that you should assume that someone needs
30:35
to be messaging you all the time.
30:37
It's more a matter of do you guys have a consistent cadence
30:40
of communication? If someone kind of feels like
30:43
they're nowhere to be found in a service or they're nowhere to be
30:46
found inside of your offer, in the sense of you're like, they
30:50
don't come to calls, they don't answer messages, they're not
30:52
there. They take forever to answer my
30:54
emails. This can actually be a really
30:57
big sign of churn, which is the fact that people are potentially
31:01
prepping to leave your experience because they're not
31:03
engaged anymore, so you need to keep them engaged.
31:07
And so there is this perception when I talk to people that, oh,
31:11
they're just silent because they don't need anything.
31:14
They're silent because they're good.
31:16
And they see it as they're silent because it's just like
31:19
they're indifferent, like they're fine.
31:20
They don't need anything. And I often tell people that's
31:24
not the case. The reason that they're silent
31:26
is not because necessarily they're happy.
31:30
There are a lot of people right now in this moment, potentially
31:33
even you who have clients right now that are very silent in your
31:37
service. And you take that to
31:38
automatically mean, oh, they're happy.
31:41
They're they're great in the service.
31:42
We've been working with them forever.
31:44
They don't need us. When was the last time that you
31:46
checked in with those long term clients, with those clients that
31:50
are silent, that don't ask too much of you?
31:53
And when was the last time that you actually checked in and
31:55
said, hey, I just kind of want to check in, see how you're
31:57
doing. See, you know, just obviously
31:59
been working together for a long time.
32:01
How are you liking the service? You know, is there anything that
32:03
you feel that could be done better that you'd like more of
32:06
just kind of want to do a little pulse check to see how you're
32:08
feeling about everything. When was the last time that you
32:10
did that? And why haven't you checked in
32:14
with somebody if they are silent?
32:17
Silence does not necessarily always mean things are good.
32:21
OK, so let's not assume that anybody who is in the silent
32:26
bucket is somebody who's automatically just totally fine
32:30
in the service. They're great, they don't need
32:31
anything. It could very well be that they
32:34
are silently struggling. They just aren't letting you
32:36
know and they're basically waiting at the clock till the
32:38
end of your service. So if somebody does not have a
32:42
clear road map with you, if somebody doesn't have, you know,
32:46
wins with you, if they're not having and being acknowledged,
32:49
if there's not a connection in a relationship, even, it basically
32:53
means that they're sitting in silent doubt.
32:57
And silent doubt is what ultimately leads to clients
33:01
cancelling. And if you have ever felt that
33:03
you've been blindsided by a client leaving, like you're
33:06
like, I thought they'd stay forever.
33:08
I feel like they've been with me forever.
33:09
Like they were like a, an OG client.
33:12
I just feel like I never could have foreseen them leaving.
33:16
And then one day they just left. Yeah.
33:18
I would ask these pieces, how many of these did you check in
33:22
on? How many of these did you follow
33:23
up on? And is it possible that the
33:27
reason that they left is because we got a little too comfortable,
33:31
we got a little bit too assuming of the fact that they were happy
33:35
clients instead of actually getting curious to confirm that
33:38
they were in fact happy clients. So silence between sessions is a
33:43
big, a big issue because often times when you're scaling, you
33:47
have lots of clients. Or again, if we have retention,
33:50
you have clients that maybe are working with you for two or
33:53
three rounds. I have clients that I've been
33:54
working with for years at a time that have never taken a break.
33:58
And I have to make sure that I am supporting them in the same
34:00
way now that I did when they first kicked off.
34:03
And so this is a really important thing to ask yourself
34:06
about your own experience with clients.
34:09
The other thing is the renewal conversation.
34:11
And this is something I think that even when people have great
34:15
service and they have great delivery, you have to recognize
34:19
that every time that somebody renews inside of your world,
34:22
you're asking them the same kind of way for as you were at the
34:26
beginning for a new investment. And one of the things I want to
34:30
warn you about is we don't want an assumption that we don't need
34:34
to do anything to onboard someone to another round because
34:38
it is still an investment. It still is a step that you're
34:41
asking that person to take. It's a new six months.
34:44
It's a new 12 months. And So what I recommend is
34:47
making sure, which is why the onboarding is important, that
34:50
you also paint the picture of the journey.
34:53
So if you paint the picture of your experience of your journey
34:58
as OK, great. You're, you sign with me for six
35:01
months, right, You often are going to have that person
35:04
looking as my six months are complete.
35:06
Whereas you can say, listen on average I work with most clients
35:09
that I'm working with right now for typically about a year and a
35:12
half to two years. But we ultimately do 6 month
35:15
contracts to kind of reset every six months as to the vision of
35:19
how we want to leverage the next 6, right.
35:22
So what that does is it says, yes, the six month contract, but
35:25
the vision of really where we can take you or where we can get
35:28
you in your outcome is going to ultimately happen big picture in
35:33
the next year, year and a half of X amount of and this is just
35:36
for a six month offer. It doesn't have to be that long
35:38
for you, but this paints the picture of where they can go and
35:42
they it doesn't make it about the contract and about the fact
35:45
that, you know, as soon as this timer goes off, you're free to
35:48
go kind of thing. Technically, contractually they
35:51
are, but it paints the picture that the North Star is not at
35:54
that six months. It's actually at a year or a
35:56
year and a half. So we want to make sure in
36:00
onboarding that we're painting that picture of where can they
36:03
go, right? I talk about this even in our
36:05
own program, which is the reason you're here is not just to
36:09
collect a module, download a worksheet and be like, hey,
36:12
cool, check. I'm moving on.
36:14
The experience of getting clarity around scaling is
36:19
something that compounds, which means once you have the clarity
36:23
you need, let's say to get to A30K month, great, now you need
36:26
a new road map to get to the 70 K month.
36:28
Then you need a new road map to get to the 110 K month.
36:31
Then you need a new road map to get to 150 K months.
36:34
Like this is a different progression.
36:36
What you work on to generate your first couple sales is not
36:39
the same thing as going to seven figures.
36:42
So yes, there's a lot of very similar, similar principles, but
36:45
there's always going to be something new to focus on
36:48
because you have a new stage of growth that you're trying to get
36:50
to. So when you paint that picture,
36:53
someone can see the vision, they can see where they're going
36:56
versus just assuming I'm signing for six months and I'm ready to
36:59
go. I also see people leave the
37:01
renewal conversation way, way, way too long inside their
37:07
service. And that is because often times
37:10
we have this either assumption people will renew assumption
37:14
that we don't really need to, to sell them on anything because
37:17
like they already experienced our service, they know if they
37:19
want to work with me or not. It's not that actually at all.
37:23
It's about the fact that they are investing again.
37:25
So we need a new setting of expectations as to what that
37:28
vision looks like. And you also should be
37:31
proactively addressing this conversation, not at the time
37:34
when the contract is finished. And so I'll tell you a story
37:37
actually of a client that I have right now.
37:38
I have a private client that I've been working with and we
37:41
are coming up toward the end of our our six months.
37:44
And I was actually sharing with a team member that I really
37:46
appreciate the way that she has approached the conversation and
37:50
the structure and the kind of pivot point that we're at
37:54
because we have a six, we have 6 month contracts.
37:56
So as I said, private clients, I've been working with some of
37:58
them for multiple years in a row.
38:00
Again, always still in six month contracts.
38:02
And this client was her first time working with me in private.
38:05
And I said to her, hey, your six months is coming up in about a
38:08
month. So for me, I always have that
38:10
conversation 30 days before the person's due to be done.
38:14
And I said, listen, you know, here's kind of what the next
38:17
steps would look like. So the first thing I do is I
38:20
recap everything that we've done.
38:21
So I recap results we've generated, I recap momentum,
38:24
we've created things that we've accomplished, projects we've
38:27
completed. I go back and I look through,
38:29
OK, here's all the things we've done.
38:30
You know, in the contrast, I know that your next big goal or
38:34
milestone is X. And so with that being said,
38:36
here's kind of the attack plan of how I see that unfolding.
38:39
This is the approach that I see as to how we would go about
38:42
doing that. And that basically becomes the
38:46
recap of the last six months and the reset of the new six months.
38:49
And this is something I do for all clients, even the clients
38:54
that I've been working with for multiple years.
38:56
I don't assume because they're, you know, some of my OG clients
38:59
that they're going to be with me forever regardless of what I do.
39:03
I respect the fact that they're making a very big investment.
39:07
And so as a result, out of that, I want to say, OK, great.
39:09
Here's what this looks like. So renewal conversations need to
39:13
be handled with care, preparing for how you're going to take
39:17
that new vision with this person.
39:19
What does that look like? Are you recapping the wins and
39:22
the achievements you've created for them in the last round?
39:24
Did they even experience wins and momentum in the last round?
39:27
What do you see as to why this is a smart next step for them as
39:31
to where they want to go with their goal, whatever that goal
39:35
may be? And how are you proactively
39:39
addressing this relationship and this next step?
39:43
Or are you waiting for the client to bring it up?
39:45
Because if that's the case, you're missing out on tons of
39:48
opportunity to not only have better relationships and better
39:51
dynamics with your clients, but you're also missing out on tons
39:54
of opportunity to generate more sales as well.
39:57
So we know that the onboarding is so crucial to setting the
40:02
frame of the entire thing. The meat of the service is going
40:06
to come through feedback and also the communication
40:09
day-to-day and looking at how is our.
40:13
Communication and again, communication doesn't have to be
40:16
you on calls. It doesn't have to be you on
40:17
Slack even it could be looms that you send reports, you
40:20
provide audits, you you leverage automations of reports being
40:25
sent. A lot of smart ways you can do
40:26
this, but it helps a client know that you're thinking of them,
40:29
their results and their experience all the time.
40:32
And then third is also the renewal to say, do you have a
40:36
formal dialed intentional off boarding process or is it kind
40:40
of whipped together and last minute you're thinking of
40:42
something? If so, that's a portion that you
40:45
also want to dial in. So we know that retention
40:49
actually does have a cycle. OK, So retention is not
40:52
necessarily random. So like if you have one client
40:55
that is like leaving and this person's trying to leave the
40:58
offer, this person's not happy. Often times these are not
41:01
random. They do typically take like a
41:03
cycle kind of to them. And there actually is a 12 month
41:07
map of when people drop off and kind of what that means.
41:11
So I have this visual in front of me.
41:13
I was, I'm going to try to memorize this, but I just could
41:15
not memorize it. So month one, why is someone
41:18
going to leave? The root cause of why someone
41:20
leaves in month one is all going to come down to the fact that
41:23
they have buyer's remorse. So if someone leaves in month
41:27
one of your service or offer, it is because you set this
41:30
beautiful picture in your marketing, this beautiful
41:33
picture in the front of your storefront.
41:35
And when they got in, they're like, this is not what I thought
41:39
I was buying. This is not what I was expecting
41:41
based on what the marketing was. So if someone leaves a month
41:44
one, it's often because there's a big disconnect between the
41:47
marketing and where what they actually got when the product
41:50
came. So like, I don't know if you've
41:51
ever bought anything off of Amazon and then it gets to your
41:54
house. You're like, well, I was not
41:55
expecting this, right? Like that kind of experience is
41:58
the same thing that can happen with your offer.
42:01
People ultimately are end up in this place where they go, OK,
42:05
well, I wasn't expecting that. And that's where the disconnect
42:09
comes and it instantly loses trust.
42:11
So it can be, you know, buyer's remorse of the disconnect
42:14
between marketing and the offer. It can also be a very clear,
42:18
like unclear expectations. So again, they feel lost.
42:21
They feel overwhelmed and lost. It's the last thing you want for
42:24
anyone who's joining a new offer.
42:25
You want to pre set up the expectations as clearly and
42:28
specifically as you can. And the other thing, which is an
42:31
obvious one is if there's no early wins.
42:33
So the wins, by the way, do not need to be like, you know, safe
42:37
for myself. They don't even have to be
42:39
sometimes they are, but they don't have to be financial.
42:41
It doesn't have to be. You come into working with me
42:44
and within two days you're a multi millionaire, right?
42:47
Like that's not the expectation, but there should be an
42:50
expectation of clarity. There should be an expectation
42:53
of momentum. Like I had a private client
42:56
intensive the other day, which is like a 5 hour virtual
43:00
session. And this client was like, I have
43:03
been literally struggling with this thing you taught me for I'm
43:07
not even kidding. Like the last year, like I had,
43:10
I had no idea. It was something I was trying to
43:12
put into words and I was so massively struggling with and I
43:16
couldn't figure out what to do or like what I needed to shift.
43:20
And this just brought it all together.
43:21
So it's also making sure that the momentum doesn't have to be
43:26
something that is like so boxed in that's black and white.
43:29
Think about what would provide that person relief, What would
43:31
provide them clarity, momentum and aha moment that they've been
43:36
struggling with? How do we get them relief of
43:38
something that was previously a problem?
43:41
So at the beginning in month one, your risk of drop off is
43:44
very, very, very high. So this is a make it or break it
43:48
period for people long term and for people short term.
43:50
Staying in your offer now months two and three, I would say that
43:53
your level of risk for drop off is still very high.
43:57
It's not super, super high, but I would say it's still in the
43:59
high ish bucket. So I literally think about these
44:01
in like the Green Zone, the yellow zone and the red zone,
44:04
almost like a traffic light. And this is still in the red
44:07
zone similar to month 1. So month two and three, the
44:10
thing that's going to really bottleneck people is slow
44:12
progress. So if they feel like there is
44:14
actually such a thing as a honeymoon phase and an offer.
44:16
So when someone comes in, they're really excited, they're
44:19
like, OK, like new information, you know, new team potentially
44:23
coming in to help, new resources, new insights.
44:26
They're like really soaking up the newness.
44:29
And then this moment comes where we go, oh, okay, well, the
44:34
newness has worn off and the reality is here.
44:37
And so the honeymoon phase fades away.
44:39
And so when the honeymoon phase fades away, in your offer, you
44:43
have to ask what's going to be lying beneath it, which is will
44:46
they see the clarity? Will they see the momentum?
44:49
Will they actually identify? OK, yeah, You know, like, I'm
44:53
not as high, high energy as when I first started, but I see what
44:56
can be done here. I see the momentum, I see the
44:58
potential, I see the resources. If that's the case, then we're
45:02
in a good place. If they don't see that, that's a
45:05
whole other can of worms that needs to be addressed, which
45:08
again goes back to the delivery. Now month four to five I would
45:12
say are less intense in the sense of drop off again,
45:16
mentally, emotionally or physically leaving the program.
45:19
Because this is usually a point where if you've gotten someone
45:22
to month four or five, they're usually one of two ways.
45:25
They already know that they're like this.
45:26
I love this offer, I love this service and I want to stay.
45:29
Now. You also though, may have people
45:31
who kind of do the thing of like quiet quitting where like
45:36
they're kind of mentally starting to pare back.
45:38
So again, less participation, maybe less communication, not as
45:41
present as they once were. And that is because the novelty
45:46
of the offer wore off. And sometimes in month 4:00 and
45:49
5:00, because time has passed, someone can feel almost like a
45:53
plateau feeling. They feel like they're they're
45:55
stuck at this this place, like they're kind of just they're
45:59
stagnant. They're sitting, they're not
46:00
feeling necessarily momentum and they're not feeling yeah, that
46:04
they're moving the needle. They just kind of feel like
46:06
they're just there. And that plateau feeling is
46:09
often what leads people to leave the offer.
46:11
It feels like it's not bad, but it's not incredible or it's not
46:15
super good. And so as a result, I'm
46:18
indifferent. So as I'm as a result of that,
46:20
I'm going to go. So month four and five, you will
46:24
sometimes even see in month 4 when again that communication
46:27
slows down. Maybe they're less engaged.
46:30
What ends up happening is they're kind of prepping for the
46:31
exit on month 6. If you have a six month offer or
46:34
if you have a four month offer, they're like, yeah, I'm not
46:36
going to renew. I don't hate this offer.
46:38
I just am not like stoked by it. I feel like I'm good.
46:40
They're just like indifferent. They're ready to go.
46:43
Now month 6 is very high. So again, think back into the
46:46
red zone and that is because it usually especially if a six
46:50
month offer becomes a decision point.
46:52
So like for me, the six months is a very important factor for a
46:55
lot of our clients to say, OK, when someone's thinking about
46:58
renewing with us, they look back at the last six months.
47:01
They look back at calls they've had, the things they're
47:04
learning, the things that they're integrating.
47:06
And they ask themselves, do I feel like I've gotten what I
47:11
wanted out of the last six months?
47:12
And do I feel like even if I didn't achieve everything that I
47:15
wanted? Because like, let's say you want
47:17
to like blow up as a podcast, you want to blow up your offer
47:19
and you want to do all these things.
47:21
Maybe they hit let's just say like 8 out of 10 of the things
47:24
on their list. And they look back and they say,
47:26
OK, do I feel like my expectations coming in and what
47:31
I've been given or what's been provided to me are generally
47:34
speaking in correlation with each other?
47:37
If so, then OK, great. That means that the the
47:41
expectation I had matches what I got.
47:43
I kind of am excited to see what that next phase would look like.
47:46
And if people have concerns, you should also open that
47:50
conversation with people at the six months to say, OK, great.
47:53
What are those concerns? Because I actually had another
47:56
quick story. I had a client came to me the
47:58
other day and she said, you know, there was these clients
48:01
who they're feeling really stressed.
48:03
Her clients were feeling really stressed about the investment
48:05
and they were having some trouble.
48:07
She's in marketing space, and they were thinking about, hey,
48:10
like, we're thinking about cutting outside, cutting outside
48:12
the offer, like we're thinking about leaving.
48:14
And she was like, I really don't think it's the right choice for
48:15
them. And I said, The thing is, it's
48:17
not about the money. It's not about like, oh, just,
48:20
you know, the investment. Yes, they may be going through
48:23
financial trouble, but the thing that they're actually assessing
48:25
is that they don't feel clear on how more time in this is going
48:30
to help them to get to where they want to go.
48:31
So the real thing that you need to overcome is being able to
48:36
communicate how spending more time with you in this offer is
48:39
actually one of the things they need to do.
48:41
It is the thing that they need to be focusing on and here's
48:43
why. So that's something that we
48:45
talked about and she salvage a client that was paying her, you
48:48
know, multiple thousands of dollars every single month.
48:52
And just because the client had again a resetting of
48:55
expectations around what had they had been thinking through
48:58
and what they were going through mindset wise.
49:00
So again, six months is a very pivotal time.
49:03
Now, if you have a year long program, months 7 to 9 also
49:06
again are not as it's kind of like you'll see the month 4 to 5
49:10
and the month 7 to 9 are not as intense when it comes to drop
49:14
off risk. And that's because typically,
49:16
again, if someone's going to be having that six month check in,
49:20
7 to 9 is kind of like right after that's happened.
49:23
So usually they had a resetting of expectations.
49:26
They sometimes still can feel a little bit fatigued, so they can
49:29
feel a little bit like Groundhog's Day.
49:31
So sometimes in an offer service, they get comfortable.
49:34
It kind of feels like you're doing the same thing all the
49:36
time. There's no fresh energy, there's
49:38
no fresh clarity. And yeah, they just feel like a
49:41
a lack of energy. Generally speaking overall that
49:44
can happen definitely between 7:00 and 9:00.
49:47
And when we think about a year long program, there's you know,
49:51
11:50, which I would say is like the end of a one year, A1 year
49:55
program is a or a one year offer is a pretty significant timeline
49:59
for somebody. Because again, usually what do
50:02
we know happens at the top of each year, we re evaluate our
50:05
goals, we re evaluate our success, we re evaluate what
50:08
we're working on. And so there is this either pre
50:13
anxiety of renewing. So like even for me when I've
50:16
had, you know, experiences with some like consultants, even
50:20
where I felt like I didn't know where we were going to go next.
50:23
And it was once I got that resetting where I was like, oh,
50:26
perfect. Yeah, I would definitely would
50:27
be happy to renew versus, you know, being with somebody who,
50:31
yeah, you feel like you're not clear.
50:33
And then you're like, I'm signing another 6 or 12 month
50:35
contract, but I don't really know what that's going to look
50:37
like. Then that's something that you
50:39
again, can get kind of like pre anxious about because you're
50:41
like, I don't know if I should do this.
50:43
I kind of like it, but I don't know if I want another 12
50:44
months. So again, comes back to his
50:46
expectations and you also that contract ending.
50:51
If you do have a contract ending, you want to be sure to
50:55
to say, OK, like how is this contract ending?
50:57
Meaning do I feel like I'm leaving this relationship with
51:01
clarity, with completion, with support of that person and
51:04
knowing that they are making the right decision?
51:07
Or do I feel like they're kind of leaving, but we don't
51:10
actually both feel like this is a good idea for them.
51:12
That is something that you want to think through because if you
51:15
feel like more often than not you're having people leaving,
51:19
but you don't actually think it's the right next step for
51:21
them or you don't believe it's what's correct, and that's a
51:24
common practice. It actually says something about
51:26
the delivery, which is clients aren't leaving because the
51:29
relationship's truly done here and you both believe that to be
51:32
true. The clients are leaving because
51:35
they're not happy. So that's really where we go
51:38
into, OK, great. How can we go back to those core
51:41
mistakes and make sure to fill up some of those gaps?
51:43
So I'm going to ask you a couple questions that I want you to
51:46
think about as I list them off. Just take a second to reflect on
51:49
each one. And these are going to help to
51:51
be a little bit of a reflection about your individual retention.
51:54
So one of the questions we're going to start with is
51:56
onboarding. So do do you feel that your
51:59
client knows exactly what to expect in the next 136 and 12
52:05
months with you if your offer is that long?
52:07
OK, You could also say if your offer is 6 months, you could say
52:11
do they know what to expect in the first month, month 3 and
52:14
month 6? You're just going to kind of
52:15
chapter it into sections. So does your client know exactly
52:18
what to expect in the phases of your offer?
52:21
OK, do you feel that you often times are able to create a fast
52:26
win in the first two weeks of working with you?
52:29
Now again, this does not mean that you have to make them
52:32
overnight a multi millionaire. You don't have to overnight make
52:36
them go viral overnight blow up their their SEO.
52:40
It's not that, it's to say how do I produce a win.
52:42
As I said, clarity and momentum can be just as much a win as the
52:46
overall achievement is. So how can I produce a win?
52:49
And do I produce wins in the first two weeks right now?
52:52
And do I feel that I give a very clear road map of what my
52:55
clients are going to be doing with me in the 1st 90 days of
52:58
working together? OK, so that's your on boarding.
53:01
Just a quick pulse check, yes or no?
53:04
Do we have those timestamps of the phases of it?
53:07
Do we feel like we create momentum in the first two weeks
53:09
and do we really have a road map of the next 90 days together
53:13
inside of a service? Does a client feel clear on
53:16
those? If not, that gives you some
53:18
things to think about when it comes to your onboarding. 2 Can
53:21
you see how far clients have actually come?
53:26
So do you have a metric to monitor how they're doing inside
53:30
the offer? Do you have a way to analyze and
53:32
stay on top of how good they are within your your results or
53:36
within your offer based off what you said the result should be,
53:40
are you tracking and celebrating milestones or are you just
53:43
simply delivering a service? So this is where you know the
53:47
client may or may not track their results or their outcomes
53:51
or their success inside your service, But you can say, hey,
53:55
did you know that we increased the accounts reached by X much?
53:58
Did you know that you actually have doubled your inquiries in
54:00
the last three months? Whatever it may be, it doesn't
54:03
have to be this massive one thing.
54:06
It can be planting those little momentum pieces and sharing with
54:09
people, this is a win. This is a win and saying to
54:13
someone, hey, this is how you've been doing.
54:16
Look at this versus the thing that they might have their eyes
54:19
on, communication. So the question becomes if
54:21
someone has a call or service or a deliverable from you, what
54:25
happens in between? So when you provide somebody
54:28
like a call or you give them feedback or you provide their
54:32
social media captions or when you, you know, provide their
54:35
their edited videos, what happens next?
54:37
What is that next step that somebody should take?
54:41
What's the next step of what's the natural piece for
54:43
communication? What is your communication
54:45
between or are you silent and is there a system or touch points
54:50
with your clients? Do you have a structure that you
54:53
use whether it's fancy or not to monitor your clients and make
54:58
sure that nobody falls through the cracks, OK?
55:01
Also, do you have a structured conversation at the halfway
55:05
point of your offer to re energize the relationship and re
55:09
establish the goals with your clients?
55:13
OK. And do you proactively position
55:15
the next step at the time of onboarding and before the
55:18
contract ends or are you typically waiting and hope that
55:21
they ask about renewing? So these are really important
55:26
things to ask because even as I'm asking these, you might be
55:29
like, I don't know the road map or no, I don't really have a, a
55:32
tracking system for their results or no, I feel like I
55:37
don't really talk to them. And if they don't need anything,
55:39
we don't message them. I want you to just take a second
55:41
and think about maybe what were like 3 of the ones that landed
55:44
for you that you say, no, I don't really think I have that.
55:48
OK, So what were three of those that you're like, I'm going to
55:52
chew on that. I want you just to take a
55:54
second, whether it's even on your notes as you're listening
55:56
to this. It could be on a piece of paper
55:58
if you're working anywhere to just say what are three things
56:02
that I can do with those questions to improve my
56:05
retention? So ideas could be, do you need
56:08
to have more of a clear road map of the structure of what happens
56:11
in your offer based on the timeline of how long they're
56:13
with you? Is there something you could do
56:16
to create a better win in the first two weeks of someone
56:18
working with you? Do you have a clear road map of
56:21
what their first little small Sprint of working with you looks
56:24
like? So for me, it might be the first
56:25
90 days. Do I create a resource so
56:30
clients can see the progression of their results with me?
56:34
Do I have a reminder to track their milestones or celebrate
56:39
them or acknowledge them more often?
56:41
Do I have a way to structure communication to make sure no
56:45
one falls through the cracks and that if they go silent, we have
56:48
a system to pick up on it? Do I have 1/2 point check in at
56:53
the point of our service to see how they're feeling and how
56:55
they're doing? Do I have a proactive renewal
56:59
process for the time of off boarding?
57:02
And this is what I want you to think.
57:05
Three of those. If you're like, I don't, that's
57:08
what I want you to focus on. The reason I say 3 is you do
57:11
not, I want to be very clear, you do not want to take this
57:13
entire list and be like, I'm going to go focus for the next
57:15
week on my retention. Because if you focus on all of
57:18
these, you're not going to achieve anything.
57:20
The objective is to look at what are three things that I can dial
57:25
in that maybe you even are already doing, but you're not
57:27
doing well. So maybe you have a road map,
57:30
but it's not really dialed. Maybe you have milestones, but
57:34
the system of how they present to clients is not really that
57:36
great. Take pieces and ingredients that
57:38
you already have and refine them.
57:41
Don't look to use this as a huge homework list for you to OK,
57:44
great. I'm going to, you know, really
57:45
fix up my retention. It's something that you can dial
57:49
in these little pieces. And I can guarantee you by doing
57:52
that, your clients will already have a better experience because
57:57
they're things you already have access to.
57:58
You can make 10 times better with a tweak right now than
58:02
starting from scratch on something new that you don't
58:04
even have integrated yet. So remember, scaling comes from
58:08
retention, not acquisition. And that is that keeping clients
58:12
is more important and most important in a scaling business
58:16
in comparison to just more marketing, more sales.
58:18
If you are sick and tired of being on the marketing and sales
58:21
hamster wheel and feeling like you have to live non-stop in
58:25
copy and video editing and filming and social media and
58:28
you're like, it's just this never ending roller coaster of
58:31
social and marketing all the time.
58:34
If you feel like that is exhausting, I want you to know
58:37
that you can unlock a whole other level of sales within your
58:41
business inside of your current client base right now.
58:44
If you can dial in some of these pieces.
58:46
So I hope today was helpful for you as always, if you have any
58:49
questions, if you feel like you're trying to figure out
58:52
maybe what one of these principles might look like for
58:54
your business, maybe you're an agency, you could be a coach, a
58:58
consultant with your offer and you're trying to figure out how
59:02
this looks for you, shoot me a message.
59:03
I want you to know that my DMS are always open for two things.
59:06
If you have questions about something that you're listening
59:09
to and what it looks like for you, reach out.
59:11
I would be happy to give you my thoughts as to how we could
59:13
apply this. And two, I would also say just
59:15
downloads. One of the things that I know is
59:18
huge in seeing momentum, both business and personally, is to
59:22
be witnessed in transformation, which is to have a insight, to
59:26
have an aha moment and to share that with somebody, to be able
59:30
to be seen in it, to acknowledge this is happening.
59:33
And I'm doing this thing to commit to yourself to doing it.
59:35
So also, if you want to shoot me a message in the DMS and just
59:38
say, hey, I listened to the retention episode and I've
59:40
decided that as a result, I'm going to go integrate XI.
59:43
Would love to hear from you, any comments, any questions you
59:46
have. My DMS are always open.
59:47
With that being said, we will see you on next week's episode.
59:51
And, as always, stay ambitious.