Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: If you want more time, money, freedom, and have a business that's not reliant on you, then you're in the right place. Each week, Mark Creedon, along with some of the very best business minds in the world, will take you through simple, practical steps you can take to create the business you always wanted. From his own practical experience, Mark will show you how to work less, make more, and get the business you always wanted, the one that you deserve.
Now, here's your host, one of Australia's most sought after business coaches, Mark Creedney.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Welcome to the latest edition of the Mastermind for Business podcast. I'm Mark Creedon, your host. We are recording this episode just before Christmas, and it reminds me of the fact that one of the big questions I get asked around this time of the year is, mark, what are the things I should be working on for next year? What are some of the really simple things that I can look at in my business that's going to help me get that little bit of freedom and give me that reason why I started the business in the first place? If that's you, if that's what you'd like to achieve, congratulations. You are 100% in the right place. In this episode, we're going to look at a simple five step process that you can implement to start to review where the gaps might be in your business and how you're going to fill them. Get underway.
All right, so we're flying. I'm flying solo. Where? I'm flying solo today. We've got no Nick, unfortunately. Yeah, we're going to miss him. But Nick will be back after the Christmas break. He's spending time with his family across Christmas. Hey, the thing that I think is really relevant and the thing that I'm hearing a lot of right now is, Mark, what are the things that I should be working on? You would have heard me say a thousand times, actually, there hasn't been that many episodes, but you would have heard me say lots of times that in any given moment, there's a whole bunch of things that you could be working on in your business, but really only three to five things that you should be working on. And I think that as we get to the end of the year and we start thinking about the coming year, I reckon there's something that we should be doing and something we shouldn't be doing. Let's have a look at what we shouldn't be doing first. And where I'm going to go with this is New Year's resolutions.
If you google how long New Year's resolutions last for. You'll get a whole range of answers, anywhere from nine days to two weeks to a month to three days. The reality is we know that it's a mistake we make.
We sort of run down to the end of the year. I often think, you know, those, those images you see, those videos of marathon runners, they just get almost to the finish line and then they just collapse and they've virtually got to crawl across the line. And I think that's often what the end of the calendar year really feels like. And so what people do is that they're sort of so run down, they're dragging themselves across the finish line that they then go right in the new year, I'm going to do everything differently.
I'm going to do everything differently so I don't have to be like that at the end of the following year. And it's just nonsense because you can't do everything differently. I mean, I'm a big fan of the concept of revolution versus evolution. We've spoken about that in earlier episodes. But you can't go change everything. So what's one thing that you shouldn't do as we head into a new calendar year? You shouldn't be looking to try and change everything. Remember, incremental growth means sustained growth. Incremental change means sustained change. And at the end of the day, that's what we're really looking for. We're looking for change which is able to be sustained so you can scale your business and then ultimately scale yourself out of it doesn't come from changing everything in one hit. That's what you shouldn't be doing. Let's talk about what you should be doing.
I've got this little model, and it's really all about the client journey. And I think that in most service businesses, or probably in all service businesses of any size, I think that this model works. I think there are five stages that your clients go through on the client journey. So five stages. I'm going to go through those five stages, but just let me rewind just a little bit and talk about what is a client journey, in case you're listening to this podcast and going, fantastic, mark. But what the hell is a client journey? And why do we look at it as we look at our business and we all want to try and plug the holes. We want to try and plug the gaps. And I think one of the easiest ways to work out where those gaps are is to essentially put yourself in the shoes of your clients and walk the walk that they walk. There's an awful lot of walking there. But walk the journey that they walk, and I think how you do that is to develop a client journey process or a client journey model. I remember a number of years ago when I was doing consulting, going into businesses, doing consulting and coaching within the business, and we'd often do what we do, a door to door audit. And basically, I'd walk into the front of a bricks and mortar business, a bricks and mortar service business. I'd walk in the front door and I'd walk my way through it over a day or two until I'd walked out the back door, essentially, so that I could really get an idea of how the business runs and what it's doing and what's going on.
This is a similar process, but this is now, rather than the door to door audit of your business. It's like a door to door audit of the journey that your client goes on, the journey that they take in doing business with you. And that's what I want to look at today. And that's where I think there's five steps. Let's have a look at what those five steps are. I think the first step is when the client, before they're a client, when they're a prospect, and they make an inquiry.
So they make an inquiry. And what we need to do is, as we map out these five steps, I'm going to run through what the five steps are, then we're going to go back and pull each of them apart a little bit. So the first one is when they make an inquiry. The second one is when they say yes. So they've made an inquiry. You've spoken to them, your sales team spoken to them, whoever it might be, but they've agreed to work with you. Now, whatever sort of service business you're in, maybe that agreement to work with you is a very long process. Maybe they work with you over an extended period of time. I mean, certainly in our mastermind group, most of our clients stay in our mastermind group for two to three years. Maybe they work for an extended period of time, or maybe it's actually quite short. But whatever the cycle is, we're looking to make sure that we understand the journey part of that cycle. So number one, step number one is the inquiry stage. Then step number two is when they say yes. Step number three is when they are. Then they start working with you within that first period of time, whether it's days, hours, weeks, or months. But it's as the relationship is starting to rev up. And in most service businesses. That's often the time when we look at getting a really clear brief, mapping out the scope of the role, the scope of the job that we're going to be doing. Step number four is when you're delivering the service. And finally, step number five is when the relationship comes to an end, and all relationships will come to an end in a service business in one form or another. You may keep clients, and we've had clients in our mastermind program for six, seven years, you may keep those clients for an extended period of time. But it may be that the brief that you're working on or the particular scope that you've got over a particular brief has a much shorter time frame, and so it becomes cyclical. So they go through those five steps, they get to the end, and then they go back to step two, where they say yes to the next brief. So let's have a look at each one of those steps, and let's talk about how we can work out what you need to do in order to improve that client journey. So let's start with making an inquiry.
What you want to do here is examine, how is the inquiry made? How is the answer made? What's the time frame between making an inquiry and when they get to actually speak to someone? How easy is it for them to access? I mean, if they got to go through a paywall in order to chat to somebody in your business, have they got to go to a calendar link and find that the next available appointment is three weeks away? You actually have to stop and go, right. I'm thinking about what happens to a prospect when they make an inquiry, to work with our business, and then to look at each of those steps, break it down. And what you want to do is don't go about setting an ideal picture yet. What you want to do is look at what is actually happening and then ask yourself this question, is what is happening ideal?
And the reason that you do it that way is that if you simply set an ideal picture, then if you're going through, like, a self assessment of what's actually happening, you can fall into the kind of near enough trap. I really want to make sure that when an inquiry comes in, it's super easy for them to do it. They know how they're getting an answer. They get an answer within 24 hours. Oh, we do it in two days. It's near enough. So instead, what you want to do is work out what's currently happening. And in each step along that way, to ask yourself the question is that actually what we want. Is that good enough? Is that meeting what we would expect if we had designed the perfect arrangement? So we've got a five step process and then with each step we're going to peel the layers back and have a look at what are the steps within each of those stages. So number one, when they make an inquiry, how easy is it? How well are they answered? What kind of collateral do they get?
Do they download free things?
Is it easy and comfortable?
How quickly do you respond? It's a whole criteria that you can look at to make sure that you're delivering. Super easy, super simple. What you want to do is make it easy to do business with you. I'm always amazed how sometimes I'll make an inquiry about something, like most of us, I'll see something on socials or online or something and, oh, yeah, that sounds pretty good, I'll make an inquiry about it. And then ten minutes later, I'm still trying to fill out forms, you know what, and it's just too hard. And there's been plenty of times where I've got halfway through a process and just quit. And you know what? You can get all the emails in the world after that that say, oh, we see that you didn't finish the application or you didn't finish your inquiry. Would you like to finish it off? Honestly, if it's too hard, no, thanks.
Life can be hard enough, right? There's enough complications, there's enough hurdles to jump without me having to jump hurdles in order to do business, to buy something that I think that I'd like or that I need or that I want. So look at your processes when it comes to making inquiry and ask yourself a critical question. How easy is it? How straightforward is it? How prompt is the response? How detailed is the response? How much information do we give them? Do we give them collateral? Do we give them free things? Do we make them feel really comfortable? And do we show in the material or response or conversations that we have, that we actually have the solution that the prospect is looking for? Number one, look at the inquiry now. Number two is when they then have a sales conversation, whether it's you or your sales team, whoever it might be, they have a conversation, they go, do you know what? This sounds fantastic. I want to do business with you.
So now they're saying yes.
Once they say yes, you then need to pull that apart as well.
How do they say yes?
Do they have to go through a very long winded process? Can they say yes very simply and easily?
Do they get a contract? Can they sign it up super quick.
I did something a couple of weeks ago and you had to download a PDF and. Too hard, too hard. I just want to click a yes button. Yes, please, an esignature, whatever it might be, and pay my credit card and job done. So at the time they say yes, how easy is it for them to move to the next stage?
How uncomplicated is your contract? How clear are your terms of service?
We've got this great thing in mastermind, that rather than it being a contract or a term of service, we call it an expectations document. Right? Nice and simple.
The purpose of the expectations document is simply, it's to map out, hey, this is what you can expect from us, and in return, this is what we expect from you. And we always make what you can expect from us much bigger and a lot more detailed than what we expect from you. We make what we expect from our clients at the time they say yes. We keep that super simple and it's just designed so that they feel comfortable. Once they say yes, how do you remove buyers remorse?
Do they get a phone call? Do they get a welcome letter? Do they get a welcome pack?
Again, if I use mastermind, anybody who says yes, we sign them up. We put them into a secure eway program where we secure the payment encrypted details, and then they get a welcome box and a physical welcome box to their address, to their home, or to their business that actually has a kit in it that explains who we're all about. And then what we do is we book them in for a kickoff call so they can get to see exactly how it's going to work. And then we book them in for their first game plan session. So there's lots of activity and lots of excitement. But we're really removing buyers remorse. We're making it dead simple for them to say yes, for them to pay us to agree to the terms and conditions, make the terms and conditions very much in their favor. So that, again, this is all about removing that buyer's remorse and then get them excited. I think Jay Abraham sort of refers to that as shock and awe. I'm pretty sure it was Jay Abrahams that did that. But it know, what do you give them that just shocks them and puts them in awe? Oh, wow, how cool is that? And so as you look at your business and the ability for people to say yes to how they're going to work with you, do you give them shock and or, I mean, in a good way, do you make them feel really welcome?
Are there ways that the buyer's remorse would easily be removed. Do you find it easy to get the money?
How do we just get this thing happening, get the ball rolling? Super simple. Step number three, that's when they actually start working with you. Now, there's two things that I believe is really important in a service business and certainly true within the coaching industry. And something that we use in our mastermind program is we want to get them started as soon as possible. Nobody wants to get a link to a calendar to know that you're going to start.
You're buying it on what's today, the 21 December, and you're going to start on the 19 January. It's too far away. So if we bring somebody into mastermind, we want them to have a kickoff call and a game plan session within about three days, because then we know that they're going to get excited. We can maintain that excitement, we can get the scope clear, we can get ourselves briefed on it, and then we can get cracking. So two things when it comes to getting started. Number one is you want to get them started sooner rather than later. There's going to be some exceptions to that because people buy something that has a particular start date or a start date that suits them, that's a little bit further out. But in the majority of cases, you want them to start sooner rather than later. And then the second thing is you want to give them a quick win. So when people join our mastermind program, we always give them a quick win. What's something that they can do almost immediately that's actually going to shift the needle for them and make them feel more comfortable? Again, all we're doing here is proving the value. Look, you've paid for something. Let us prove the value by finding you a quick win. Whatever your service might be, or if it's a product you're delivering, you can find a quick win by, if you're delivering, say, you're delivering windows, for example. Well, the quick win might be that you can say, look, normally it's a 28 day turnaround to deliver the windows, but because you've come on now and become a client now, we're going to get them to you in 21 days. It's kind of a quick win. Right? So again, we're predominantly talking more here about a service business rather than a product based business. And so you can find ways to get a quick win for them and to get them into your world. You want them in your world as soon as possible, because what happens is they agree to start working with you. And they agree on a Thursday and then on Saturday or Sunday they go to a barbecue and they say to somebody, I've just signed up for this life coaching program or for this fitness program, or I've just signed up to get my mortgage looked at or my financial planning done or whatever it might be. And there's always an expert at a barbecue, right? And their expert goes, oh, I wouldn't do that.
You can get that stuff off YouTube or I got a mate who, he works daytimes, but over nighttime he does that sort of stuff part time and you'll probably save a ton. You want to have them feeling so comfortable that they can resist that kind of information. They can go, yeah, no, that's great. Thank you. Really comfortable. Because I've joined, I've become a client and already I can see there's some benefit to it. They've removed the buyer's remorse. They're not going to use that term, but they've made me feel really comfortable and they've taken me into their world. So at the time that they start doing business with you, you want to get them into your world as quickly as you possibly can. We're going to come back in a second and have a look at the next two stages in this five step process as you examine the client journey and identify the gaps in your business and what you can actually do a whole lot better next year.
You all right? Stage four. Let's look at stage four. Stage four is when you actually deliver. So we're just going back over it and what we've done is they've made the inquiry, they've said yes, they've started working with you now. This is when you deliver your product or service. And I think what's really important here is around three major things. What's the communication like?
How clear are we on the scope of delivery and how well is that communicated?
How are you going to report either you to them or them to you, depending on what service you're offering. So let's use mortgage broking as an example. So somebody's come along and said, yes, I actually want to work with you.
They've made an inquiry, they've said yes, and they've signed all the paperwork to become a client of your mortgage broking. You've sat down and you've done a needs analysis with them. That's the start. Then how do you deliver the service? One of the mistakes that I see people in finance, in real estate, a big mistake I see them making is not making no news calls. Sounds like a double negative, doesn't it? They're not making no news calls. What I mean by that is they know that they're working on things for the client. They know that using the mortgage broke example, they've put that up to a panel or a financier and they're just waiting for some answers, or they're dealing with some questions that are being asked by the financier that they've selected as being the most appropriate, most suitable for that client, but they don't let the client know. And so what you've got to remember, as you examine this client journey, this is just how vital this proactive communication is, because the client can be sitting there going, I haven't heard from these guys for like two weeks. I don't know what's going on. I don't even think they're doing anything. And meantime, you're working your butt off really hard to do the right thing by the client. And then they ring you and go, oh, look, do you know what? I've actually gone to the bank, I've got my loan sorted out.
I see that happen all the time because people don't make no news calls. A news call that goes out and says, hey, george, just letting you know we've lodged applications, a few things, we're working on them and we'll be back to you within 48 hours. It's amazing how much time you can buy by managing the expectations. It's when expectations are allowed to run rampant and they're not managed that you find yourself in the biggest trouble. And when people are most likely to go, I've had enough of this, I'm just going to go and do it for myself or I'm going to go somewhere else or I'm going to go directly to the bank or whatever it might be. So as you look at the way that you deliver your business, as we're examining this client journey, you need to look at what is the scope, how's that been communicated? What kind of communication processes do you have in place?
How is the reporting going on and how is your performance going to be measured? So how is your performance in providing the service actually going to be measured? And I think that's a really important component.
You've got to work out how you should be kpiing yourself on the way you deliver your end, your service or your product to your clients.
The other thing too is that, and I had this conversation with one of our mastermind members who's a builder and it was about giving updates and there's nothing better than getting a phone call from someone that just says, hey, look, I was thinking of you and I thought I'd give you a quick update on what's going on. They don't need to know that you've actually put that in your diary, that it's already calendar. I'm going to ring mark at 02:00 on Thursday and I get a phone call from someone, oh, hey, just drove past the property and I was just thinking of you, wanted to give you a buz, let you know what's going on, give you a quick update. Not a lot of movement this week because we've had bad weather or whatever it might be, but just acknowledging and giving an update, even if there is no news. And the point I'm trying to make here is that often we think that we want to do that and we kind of plan to do it. And how do we make these random calls? Right. How do you remember? Well, how you remember is by putting it into your calendar. And it can be random in the point of view, from the point of view of the client, doesn't have to be random for you.
So you will have seen that when it comes to delivery, how do you communicate? And I think communication is undoubtedly the biggest area where those things can fall over. Finally, we're at stage five. Stage five is when the relationship, or that particular part of the relationship, or that brief actually ends. And what I want you to look at here is how do you close it off? Do you do some kind of an exit interview?
Do you offer the opportunity for referrals? Do you offer them another product to resell them? Now, if you listen to the podcast episode about the five step referral process, you'll remember that when you asked for the referral, if you had actually pre framed it. So as a part of the starting work with you, you'd said them, by the way, we've got a referral program, and we may ask you, we don't ask everybody, but we may ask you to refer somebody just like you to us when the relationship comes to an end, presuming that's come to an end amicably, and it's because a particular scope has been finished that's come to an end, you can say to them, hey, do you remember that six months ago, three months ago, twelve months, whatever it might be, when we first started working together and I mentioned to you that we had a referral program? And I go, yeah, I remember that conversation. Fantastic. I'd love it if you could refer someone to me. So as you examine the client journey and you get to the end stage, you need to ask yourself those questions. How do I close it off? Do I have a resell process? Is there a way that I can get them to come back and or is there a way that I can get them to refer?
What I want you to do is think about your business, your service business in those five stages and to map out what happens. What is the step by step journey that your client takes? And then to ask yourself, is it good enough? Is it actually good enough? And if it is, that's fantastic. But I'll guarantee you there's going to be some gaps. There always is. We do this every year and we find gaps. We sit around November, December, and we look at those exact five steps in our mastermind business, and we always realize that either there's some gaps there that we just hadn't seen before, or that they've crept back. They have a habit of doing that. You think you got rid of them and they come back, or gaps that have appeared because circumstances have changed or you've changed your process, your model, you've got different clients, whatever it might be. So the whole idea is to go, do you know what? I want to map out this client journey, and I want to use that mapping out five stage process to see where are there some gaps. And that gets us back to the things that you should be doing in the next year. And that is looking to fill those gaps. The more that you can fill those gaps, the more you're going to retain your clients, the more satisfaction you're going to have, the more that you can charge them for your product or service, and the more likely they are to stay with you, to return to you, to buy from you again, or to use their contacts to refer to you. You want to make sure that the gaps are as filled as they possibly can be so that they're super happy with the entire journey. That's my challenge to you for the end of the year, although you're probably listening to this podcast now in January. But that's my challenge. It's a great time, by the way, January. Even before everybody comes back while business, if you're not in a January busy business like a blue shop, or then January is a great time just to go before the madness starts again. Let me just have a look at the five stages of the client journey in my business. Determine where there may be some gaps and see what you can do to fill those gaps. The more that you fill those gaps, the more retention you'll get with your clients.
The other thing is to keep this in mind. The more those gaps are filled, the less work it requires from you. Which means it's so much easier for you to scale yourself out of the day to day operations of the business and leave those to someone else, because you don't have to sit there and go, oh, I hope that whoever's doing that doesn't let clients fall through the cracks. Clients aren't going to fall through the cracks if there aren't any there. They're not going to fall through the cracks if there aren't any there. How you make sure there's no cracks. Close those gaps up. Follow the five stage process, map out the client journey and fill the gaps. Improve the process.
These are the sort of things that we teach in our mastermind program all the time. Metropolmastermind.com au love to have a chat with you. Hey, if you've got value out of what we've spoken about today, I would absolutely love you to share the podcast. Please don't forget to subscribe because that's how other people find out about us and our mission to help people to get freedom from their business and have the business that they always wanted to the one that they deserve. So like it, subscribe it, share the podcast, and if you've got some topics that you'd like to hear us chat about, then please go to our socials and share those with us. This is Mark Creedon signing off from the latest edition of the Mastermind for Business podcast. We'll catch up with you next time. In the meantime, please make sure you spend time with those who matter most.
[00:29:14] Speaker A: Thanks for joining us on the Mastermind for Business podcast. If you're ready to have a business that you're not a slave to, check out Metropolemastermind.com au or have a chat with Mark and the team at all the W's, see what's possible today.
