The Profit Scale

Feeling Overworked and Underpaid? This one's for you! - Ep. #4

Episode Summary

Salutations friend and welcome to another episode of The Profit Scale! This is the podcast for service-based coaches, consultants, and creatives looking to stop living paycheck to paycheck, pay themselves more, and scale their business beyond the 6-figure plateau all without being overwhelmed by working 60+ hours work weeks. For today’s episode, we are going to cover how you can grow your service-based business without working over sixty hours a week. We are going to talk about The Secret To Scaling Your Business. So if you're "Feeling Overworked and Underpaid", then this episode is for you!

Episode Notes

Salutations, friend! Welcome back to another episode of The Profit Scale podcast.

But before we proceed with the discussion of today's episode, I would like to know if you ever felt the following in handling your business:

If yes, then stay tuned because I'll cover the following topics to help you  scale your business:

  1. Sales is the lifeblood of your business
  2. It’s easier (and cheaper) to retain the clients you keep than to attract new ones
  3. I offer a one-time service. How can I retain my clients?

Links:

 

 

Episode Transcription

Episode 4: Feeling Overworked and Underpaid

For today’s episode, we are going to cover how you can grow your service-based business without working over sixty hours a week. We are going to talk about The Secret To Scaling Your Business.

But before we proceed with the discussion, I would like to know if ever felt the following in handling your business:

4-5 Major Topics 

  1. Sales is the lifeblood of your business
  2. It’s easier (and cheaper) to retain the clients you keep than to attract new ones
  3. I offer a one-time service. How can I retain my clients? 

Introduction

Salutations, friend! Welcome to another episode of The Profit Scale! The podcast for service-based coaches, consultants and creatives who want to stop living from paycheck to paycheck, pay themselves more, and scale their business beyond the six-figure plateau all without the overwhelm of working more than sixty hours a week. 

Episode Content

Salutations, friend! RJ Connell here. I am so excited about today’s conversation! Today we are going to talk about how to grow your service-based business without the 60+ hour workweeks. 

If you are like me and you love the work you do, you love being service-based and getting to know the clients you work with as you deliver your service. You love consistently getting to apply your expertise and do the thing you love regularly.  

What you do not love is the amount of time it takes to make the income you are currently generating. What you could do without is the stress of having to calculate your income when you want to take time off, especially if you are a solopreneur and you are the only person in your business who delivers your service. What you definitely could live without is the stressful idea of having to increase or double your hours to make more money in your business. If any of these sounds like feelings or thoughts you can relate to, my friend, let’s start changing your perspective.

Let me ask you something. When you think about what you need to do as the business owner to grow or scale your business, what comes to your mind? Do you think about increasing your marketing budget and turning up your Facebook ads? How about growing your email list and adding another 500, 3,000 or 10,000 subscribers to it? Maybe you even think about increasing your social media presence and adding more Instagram followers to your page or doing something completely different. I would love to hear your thoughts on our IG page.

In the world of online business, there is so much emphasis on tasks that are going to drive new sales in your business, like marketing, paid advertisements, funnels, launches, and so much more. The ability to drive new sales is a necessary component of both maintaining and growing your business, but some often forget to think about what happens to a client after they make that initial purchase. All of the money, time, energy and resources go into marketing and acquiring new clients, some may not have taken the time to think about how to continue serving each client once they get into their business.

By the time a client has purchased from you, you have already done 90% off all the heavy lifting. You have attracted them, built trust with them, demonstrated your expertise, shown how your service can be a solution to their problem, and converted them maybe first from your email list and finally into a paying client. You have developed an effective system to get clients into your business. Now, delivering the service, that is the easy part! 

Once you get behind the computer to crank out a copy for your clients, design the most functional and flawlessly beautiful website for your client, or jump on that coaching call to shine a light on the beliefs that have been holding your client back, you are in your zone.

Let’s be honest, all of the backend stuff, funnels, social media posts, content creation, and the ads are all a means to an end — this end, the one where you get to do the thing that lights up your soul and transforms your clients' lives, all in one shot.

So now what? Your hard work has paid off. The client is in. The service is delivered or being delivered, and the client is happy! What comes next? If you are like most people at this point, the client got the results they were looking for. You and Ariana Grande are singing, “thank u, next” as your rinse, repeat and do it all over again.

Well, friend, pump the breaks and slow it all the way down for a second. Let’s take a look at that for a second. You spent your time, energy, resources and your money to acquire this client, and now are you just going to let them walk out the door? That is the definition of what I call “dropping coins.” I can literally hear the coins dropping on the ground right now. It is so important to have a client retention strategy in place before new clients get into your business so that you can actually keep more of the clients you have spent your time acquiring.

Research shows that there is a 60-70% probability of selling to an existing client in comparison to a 5-20% probability of selling to a new prospect and this has been proven time and time again across various industries. Hence, I said you are dropping coins, my friend, because there is still so much you can offer that client. You have to be the one to let them know. 

Having a client retention strategy in place does 3 key things for you:

1. It ensures that you are optimizing the lifetime value of each client that comes into your business.

2. It shows them that you understand not only their current problem but the journey that they are on well enough to continue supporting them even after you have solved their initial problem.

3. It grows your business, which means you collect #AllTheCoins. Again, research shows that increasing your client retention by just 5% can increase your revenue by 25-95%. 

That is a crazy amount of coinage up for grabs that you are consistently walking away from! That means if your business is earning $100,000 a year and you serve 100 clients in a year, keeping just five of those clients — just 5, can earn you an extra $25,000. What would an extra $25,000 mean in your business? Would it allow you to pay yourself more, hire a virtual assistant, or finally stop managing your website by yourself? Maybe it could reduce your workweek to 4 days a week, allow you to spend more time with family and friends, or binge-watch Suits? Now, this is how you grow a business! You make sure you are efficient not only in attracting but also in retaining your clients. That is why you need a client retention strategy in place.

Have you ever called Verizon, Bell or Rogers to cancel your phone account or cable account with them? The first thing they do when you tell them you want to cancel is they transfer you to their client retention department whose sole job is to offer you discounts and promotions in hopes that you will stay. Where these big companies get it wrong is that by the time you are calling to cancel, it is too late for them to start thinking about how to retain you at that point and you have already made up your mind.

Do not get me wrong. Having a retention strategy is better than not having one at all, but being proactive about retention is even better! 89% of companies see customer experience as a key factor in driving customer loyalty. Loyalty means they will buy from you again. That’s it! That is their whole strategy.

In other words, companies cross their fingers and hope you enjoyed working with them enough to want to do it again. For the most part, this is a sufficient strategy — not efficient or highly effective but good enough, if you are a product-based business. 

Think about it going to Winners. If you see something you like and have a decent experience, you are more likely to go there again. In my case, you may shop at Winners like it is a pastime. Maybe there is a key grocery store that you shop at. It may be Costco, Walmart, Sam’s Club or a website that you love to buy your books from, like Amazon, a local Marshalls or Winners that you love to shop at. 

For the most part, you make the majority of your purchases from your favorite sellers. However, if you are on your way home and you need to pick up some flour and eggs and there is no Walmart in sight, you might just head to the closest grocery store. If there is a new book you want to buy, you are in the mall, and there is an Indigo or Barnes and Noble, you are probably going to pick up a book instead of waiting to order it from Amazon.

We have all had these experiences before where we trade in our loyalties for convenience. That’s just life. I am sure you can think of many examples from your own life and maybe you are a living example right now as you run errands and listen to this podcast.

As a service-based business, you cannot afford to be passive or reactive about keeping your clients. It costs you so much to attract them that I want to challenge you to put that same level of energy into keeping them. This is such an important part of growing a successful business, and yet it is so rarely spoken about, especially in the world of online business.

Before we move on, I put together a swipe sheet for you with five ways to help you skyrocket your revenue without attracting new clients. Just click the link in the show notes to download it or head over to rjconnell.ca/5.

Okay, I know what you are thinking. “RJ, I am a wedding photographer, a branding strategist, or running a snow removal service. My clients really only need my services once or during a specific season. How do I get them to buy from me again?” Well, I am so glad you asked because I have an extremely simple answer for you. Whether or not you offer a seasonal or seemingly one-time service, what you need to do as a business owner and expert is to make sure you write this down: you need to anticipate their needs along their journey. I am going to say that again, anticipate their needs along their journey.

When clients initially hire you, they are usually clear on what they are looking for. In other words, they tend to have a high level of awareness around their existing problem and are actively looking for a solution for it. I call this their position problem. After they have worked with you, you have solved their problem, or at least put them on a path to doing so, but there are still challenges that are going to arise for them on their journey no matter what kind of service you provide. The work that you do and the results you get your clients are a means to an end — rarely ever is it the end itself. 

So whether you provide services as a birthing doula, you help clients have a safe delivery so that they can enjoy life with their newborn. If you are a wedding photographer offering wedding photography sessions, you capture pictures on a couple’s special day so that they can constantly be reminded of the love they share together. As a branding story specialist, you help business owners share their company stories so that they can build connections that convert with their customers. If you are a mindset coach, you help ambitious women shift their mindset so that they can level up in their professional lives.

No matter what kind of coach, consultant or creative you are, you have a “so that” too. Once you know what that is, you can anticipate the challenges that your clients will face on their journey to that destination. I call these trajectory problems. 

You have position problems which are the problems or needs your client currently has right now in their lives or business. Then, there are trajectory problems which are the problems or needs that will arise on your clients journey towards their greater goal. 

It is your job, as the expert, to anticipate their needs in advance to create a solution in meeting their trajectory needs or in solving their trajectory problems after their first purchase with you. The solution you create becomes a part of your retention strategy. Keep in mind that you can have more than one solution and remember #AllTheCoins.

We have covered a lot during our conversation today and I am sure by now your wheels are turning as you think about either creating or improving your own client retention strategy.

Episode Recap

So let’s recap! 

While sales and attracting new clients is an important part of running and growing your business, it does not end there. Retaining your existing clients is an extremely effective way to grow your business revenue. Research shows that it actually costs you a lot less to retain your existing clients, than it does to attract new clients. 

Even if you offer a service that clients traditionally do not purchase more than once, you can still create a way for those clients to purchase something from you again. It starts with anticipating their future needs and challenges along their journey and not just where they are now. I call these trajectory problems/needs.

The amazing thing about having a solid client retention strategy in place is that you begin to see an immediate increase in revenue as those new clients come into your business. A client retention strategy compliments your sales strategy and sets your business up to grow bigger, better and faster.

Friend, it has been a pleasure to spend this time with you! Make sure to head over to rjconnell.ca/5 to download the free infographic on skyrocket your revenue with existing clients. I call these episodes a conversation because I actually want to hear your feedback on them! So, make sure you join us over on IG @rjconnellconsulting and join the ongoing conversation about today’s episode!

I am excited for next week’s conversation where we are going to talk about what it looks like to be a CEO vs an Employee in your business! There are a few important differences between the two. As a CEO, you have to make sure you are doing this one thing on a regular basis. It is crucial to both the growth and sustainability of your business. Without it, you could find your business failing!

Friend, as someone who has a huge vision for your business and big plans for where you want it to go, you do not want to miss next week’s episode. Hit subscribe so you won’t miss when it drops. I will see you same time and same place next week and until then, #NoCoinLeftBehind or leave no coin left uncollected! 

Cast vs execute vision (for yourself, your team, and your clients)

Work on vs. work in the business

Website for statistics: https://www.invespcro.com/blog/customer-acquisition-retention/

Another website: https://www.clickz.com/are-ecommerce-customer-retention-strategies-improving/105454/