Recently I spoke at #clienthustle hosted by Jai Stone in Atlanta, GA, and I shared with her event attendees how to increase your client retention.
When I finished my talk, the room was in awe because it gave them a new sense of clarity on how to redesign how they managed their client experience. They now know how to wow their clients from the start and safeguard themselves from taking on opportunities that might not be in alignment with their core values.
That got me to thinking about if entrepreneurs as a whole were pulling out all stops to give their audience their best so they could retain more paying clients.
Just for perspective, let’s revisit who I am and what I do. I am a business systems strategist, and I teach service-based professionals and entrepreneurs how to streamline and automate their business systems so they can escape burn out, increase their profits, work with the right clients, and save time.
There are several things you can do to position your business to retain high paying clients. Today we are going to talk about ONE of those things Client/Prospect Onboarding.
Why?
Onboarding sets the tone and expectations of the professional relationship.
It eliminates noise, cuts out any opportunity for misunderstanding, and it puts the prospect/customer at ease.
It positions you as a trusted leader.
People hire you because they trust you to help them with their thing, so lead them from the start. Don’t be all over the place. Guide them and watch your client satisfaction skyrocket.
You should have an onboarding experience for prospects, and you should have an onboarding experience for paying clients.
I am curious, what do you have in place when people inquire about your services? How are you nurturing these leads?
Have you automated your onboarding process when people hire you?
If you don’t have anything in place, why is that? How are you managing everything without letting anything fall through the cracks?
What is your situation? In the comments section below, let me know.
Today I am going to give you the baseline of what should go into an onboarding sequence so that you can understand how this could work for you.
In a freebie/lead generation onboarding process, you should consider providing the following:
- Give them the THING they asked for. Normally people “opt-in,” aka give their name and email in exchange for a cheat sheet, checklist, video training series, ebook, etc. to gain access to the thing that you are promoting.
- Introduce Yourself Set The Expectations of the TYPE of content they will get from you and tell the frequency of how often you will show up in their inbox.
- Ask them a question so they can reply to you and answer you. This way, you have a better insight into what their needs and goals are. A great question to ask your readers is, what are your top 3 business goals and or what is the number one thing that you are struggling with? Ask them a question that is aligned with the solution that your services offer.
- Introduce ways you can support them, aka ask for the SALE.
- Tell them who you are, what you do, whom you provide services for, and what inspired you to do what you do. Remember, most people want to know your story; this is an excellent opportunity to build rapport with your people.
- Ask them to share with you what inspired them to connect with you
- If you have a Facebook group, you should ask them to join you there or whatever platform you spend the most time on so that they can have the opportunity to know like and trust you without feeling like you have to do extra work to convert them into a paying client.
- Client Case Studies
- A timeline of your professional accomplishments to showcase your credibility
- Two to three emails outlining the what and why they need your thing with a call to action to buy
- and a few other things I will give you after you book your profit injection strategy session
This process WILL capture your prospect’s full attention and have them ready to BUY whatever you are selling because you have given them enough information to make an informed decision.
In a paid onboarding process, you should consider providing the following:
- A welcome email that provides them with the thing they asked for
- Set the expectation for the professional relationship
- Cover business hours of operation, cover everything that they need to know about your program
- Provide links for them to schedule their initial session, follow up meeting, workbooks, and or login creation to your pre-recorded training/course
- Cover terms and conditions and anything they need to know to work with you
- Follow up emails in the funnel- It should remind them to book the session and or ask them to respond to different checkpoints throughout the program to hold them accountable.
- and a few other things I will share with you after you book your profit injection strategy session
This process will ensure that your paying clients are fully aware that you mean business. You want them to respect your time and boundaries, so address these things from the start.
There are several other moving parts to retaining high paying clients, but if you do this part right, you will never have to worry about people playing games with you and undermining your professionalism.
If you don’t have this in place for your business, I would love to help you create it AND help you to identify what you need to do to take your business to the next level.
Book Your 90 Min Profit Injection Strategy Session today to get the support you need. You have a goal to achieve. Your vision might be clear, but it doesn’t help you if you don’t know exactly what to do to manifest it. Let me make this easy for you so you can move on to other things vs. spinning your wheels, getting upset, wondering why people are buying your thing or wondering why your paying clients are falling through the cracks.
Click here to book your session now.
Your Business Systems Strategist
Wendy Nicole Anderson
P.S. Want more of the good stuff? Join my Free Facebook Group, Rebel Queen.