Creating Superstar Returning Clients
So here are some interesting statistics to start off with today - did you know that finding a new client can cost up to five times more than returning or existing, clients? That's incredible, isn't it? The success rate shoots up to something like 60- 70%. That's just astonishing, really. But creating returning clients for me isn't just about saving that cost, it's also about building a quality brand and reputation. It's about serving your clients on a much deeper level, in a way that they need at that moment in time.
If you're not monitoring your clients or returning clients, you really should be, and I want to share with you the top five things that I see work all the time to help keep those clients coming back for more and turn them into your superstar returning clients.
The tips that I'm going to share with you today I want you to know really do work. Around 90% of my clients return to me, whether that's an extension of one-to-one or whether that's coming into a different container, or coming into a group program. I'm not saying those figures to brag. I'm saying this to demonstrate these really work and I want you to take note so that you can take away how this can work for you to build a bank of returning clients.
Picking the Right Clients
Let’s start at the beginning, with picking the right clients because if we are attracting the right clients, we are starting off in a good place. Your messaging should be speaking to your ideal client. These are the people that you love to work with, the ones that you can get incredible transformations for, the ones that just get you and your business but equally feel heard and know you can deliver incredible services to them.
I appreciate it when you are at different stages of your business, you might not yet be working with a bank of ideal clients, you might not be working with 10 out of 10 clients and that's okay. But your messaging needs to be speaking to 10 out of 10 because otherwise, you're never going to be attracting them to come work with you.
Start at the beginning and get your message marketing right. Attract those people that are going to be really aligned with you and whom you want to work with repeatedly. What you don't want is to attract people and get them to re-sign or work on repeat with clients that absolutely drain you of energy. You don't want their work. Yes, you want money but you don't want to be working with people who constantly drain you of energy. Therefore don't always just think about it from a monetary perspective.
You need to be asking yourself, who gives me energy, who could I work with, what projects are we going to work on? Repeatedly ask yourself those questions because these are the clients that you want to keep and keep getting. These are the people you want to nurture. These are the clients you want to give 110% to because you want to keep them in your world.
I would invite you even before we start diving into the real question of how do we keep the clients and how do we attract the right clients to firstly remember when you bring somebody in to ask yourself if you would want to work with these people on repeat. If I had to work with them every day, would I be happy? Would I be filled with energy and joy and fulfillment? See where those kinds of questions get you.
2. Are You Creating the Right Experience?
So where do we go next? How are you creating a great experience for your clients? It is our responsibility as business owners to create a great experience. From the first time, they interact with you to seeing you on social media to seeing your website through to them signing on the dotted line and paying for your service. How are you creating that great experience? Where are you exceeding their expectation? Consider every touchpoint, consider every time they interact with you, are you making it easy for them? Are you giving them a good quality service, a good quality experience?
I want you to really consider how you want your ideal clients to feel after this experience with you. How do you want them to feel after having that initial conversation, and how are you creating that intentionally? You have to take full responsibility for creating that great experience.
3. Setting and Managing Expectations
So Number three – Setting and managing expectations. Transparency is huge, I am a huge believer in transparency. Everybody needs to know what is expected of them. Everyone needs to know the objectives. Everyone needs to know expectations and boundaries. It is up to you to do what you say you're going to do and it's up to you to do that to the standard that you set the expectation for and that you promise.
This comes back to your message and marketing. If you're setting the expectation that you are going to deliver high-quality service, that's what you need to be doing at this stage. You're managing the expectation by delivering exactly what you say you're going to deliver. This is so important because when we have mismatched expectations with our ideal clients, there's going to be some friction and misalignment. Clients are going to feel unfulfilled and quite possibly that you have given them a short service, and that you haven't stepped up to the mark. It’s about being incredibly clear from the off. What are the key deliverables of this relationship, this service, and this agreement? How will we know when these deliverables have been met? How will we know if they haven't been?
Whether that's a conversation, a follow-up email, or a way that you work together, everyone needs to know the boundaries. If these boundaries fail someone is going to be left feeling resentment, and they're not going to want to come back to work with you. Always manage expectations. Consistently ask yourself if this is still your priority, is this still a key deliverable? How are you feeling about this? manage the expectations. Don't wait until the end of the project when you can't do anything about it. It's part of the process and it is part of the conversations that you're ready to make sure that you are managing expectations.
If something goes wrong or you misunderstand expectations as long as you take action and get really clear and do something about it, it won't affect the overall impact which has gone really well. If you ignore it and don't deal with it and leave it to the end of your time together then you have no time to create that great experience because your client has been sitting in resentment for the whole time you have been working together with misaligned expectations and a misunderstanding of what you're going to do. So number three, deliverables and expectations and just making sure that you manage them.
4. Make It Easy For Them
Number four, make it easy for your clients to keep coming bacK. It is as simple as that, making it easy to keep working with you. Ask yourself, how can we work together - what do they need? What can you offer them that they need now, how can you make the transition to work with you even easier, how can you make it flow? Do you have an easy onboarding process? Do you have an easy contracting process? Are you telling them what they need to go through? Tell them the journey, tell them what is going to change if they keep working with you.
If we start to create really convoluted, hard processes or overwhelm people with lots of options it's going to give them so many different decisions to make. People are really going to have to think about things and take the time to do that and we all know that people are busy so make it an easy decision and move on.
Creating automation, is a good place to start developing an easy process, because it’s a process you can repeat for each client you onboard. Doing this doesn’t just make the process easy for the client, It makes it easy for you too.
5. Empower Your Clients
Number five, empower your clients to make the right decision for them. Absolutely 1,000,000% no pushy sales tactics here. Not welcome, no thank you. It has to be 100% right for that client at that time, or it's a no thank you or not right now.
Regardless of all the points that I have said about how hard you work with clients, or how you are creating that great experience, it has to be right for them. Just because it’s not right, right now that’s not to say they are not going to come back in 6 months’ time or 9 months’ time and come back to work with you. They might still recommend you to somebody else. But it needs to be an empowered yes when they do decide to work with you. For me, it needs to be yes this is the right thing for me right now.
The decision to work with you has to come from them. So please do not force people into it, don’t trick people into it. It has to be very transparent, absolutely 100% an empowered yes from them.
As soon as you start to become desperate for them to stay with you. Or as soon as you start to feel that you need this now or start to push the sale, it feels icky, it doesn't feel right. That energy becomes so transparent. I think your clients can see it an absolute mile off.
So that's the five tips that I've got for you to keep your clients coming back and turning them into dreamy clients. Finally, I want you to treat people like people. Not like a sale or a number. Imagine being on the other side of that. Treat people like human beings and be compassionate. Emphasizing their current situation and understanding that actually, it might not be right for them now is exactly what's going to build that relationship because they are going to trust you.
They have learned that you are not going to sell them something that is not right for them right now. They know you are going to work with them in a different capacity when they are ready and it does feel right. Treating people like that authentically will keep you on their list as number one on their minds of how you made them feel. And then when they do come straight back to you or when someone else asks you'll be number one on that referral list.
People buy from people they trust, people buy from people that they know will treat them really well. They know that you want to get an excellent service. They know that you've got to create incredible experience. You want to meet the expectations that you set out in the first place and that you can deal with it and still deliver on what they want. So I want you to take a step back, have a look at your clients and returning to clients. And when you think about these tips that I've talked you through and how you can improve these each step how you can integrate these into your processes and how you can create a bank of incredible returning clients.
Come and hang out with me on LinkedIn, please say Hi! I would love to hear from you!