I wanted to give you a “behind-the-scenes” look at some things I’ve been thinking about in my business…
Whenever I’m thinking about making a change or enhancement in a specific area of the business I like to interview my clients.
There is no better way to figure out if you’re doing a good job or a bad job until you really just talk to your clients.
Instead of “guessing” what they need and missing the mark OR copying what some other Guru is doing cuz it sounds cool…
I just ask my clients what would make things better for them.
It gives me clarity…
It saves me time…
And, it’s always good to get feedback from people who pay you and who are benefiting from your services.
After interviewing my client Bonnie, I learned 2 powerful lessons.
Wanna hear em?
Join me for a little “behind-the-scenes” walk and talk in today’s episode.
Transcript / MP3
What’s good, everybody, Greg Hickman here and I got a little, a little different scenery right now.Yeah. Can’t tell. Uh, some bringing a little walk and talk. Uh, it was just too beautiful out today. And, um, we got our clients coming into town, um, for our leverage program, uh, which is like our backend program. After people finish foundations, they’re continuing to scale up. They’re there, their agency through consulting products and training and programs. And anyway, they come into town quarterly for a two-day workshop. And, um, anyway, I wanted to get out and change the scenery a bit. So, uh, walking around, there’s a park half a block from my house. I usually go running now. Anyway, so a little different episode today. I wanted to, I wanted to share something that I’m thinking about personally in our business that we’re working on as we approach the next sprint. … So if you’re new to the show, um, we operate in 90-day sprints, you’ve probably heard of before 12 weeks. Um, and we identify a handful of, of goals that we want to achieve. I’m usually three to five projects that kind of aligned with, you know, a couple of goals and um, we go all-in on those. Anyway. When our clients come, we help, uh, help them set up their, you know, their next 90-day sprint as well. But one of the things that we’re going to be doing over the next 90 days and by the time you’re watching this will be um, or listening to this well into the sprint. Um, we’re kind of ahead on content right now and, uh, one of the things we’re focused on is revamping, um, both of our programs, um, starting with foundations, um, kind of redoing some of the training, diving deeper, adding in some more hands-on one-on-one elements, um, some better prebuilt plug and play systems.And it’s something we’re really, really, really pumped about because, um, you know, the faster we can get our clients results, the more likely they obviously are to want to upgrade into, into leverage. So, um, we’re literally making it way more plug and play than it, than it is right now. And it, and already is pretty plug and play. I mean we give you most of the systems prebuilt, um, scripts, templates, access to myself and the team in different areas. I’m focused on different, you know, different layers of your actual op business operations, right? It’s a very hands on program helping you set the foundations for adding a more leveraged revenue streams, your agency. Anyway. Um, kind of the real purpose of this, this episode I guess is a conversation that I had the first of what will be many conversations with our existing clients. And one thing that I would have done in the past is I would have, you know, hey, we’re going to make all these, you know, our goal is to make this program better.Like we want to make this program world-class. And we could easily go talk to other, other people that have similar businesses and learn what they’re doing and what’s working, which we’ve done in the past. And what I’ve found to be true is the best enhancements that you can make to your service, to your product, to your programs, whatever you’re selling is to literally just do what your clients need more help with. Right? And so I’m actively having interviews with, you know, all of our existing clients and I’m asking some of the common questions that I got to switch hands here. Um, arm’s getting tired. No, I’m asking some of the common questions that you would, you would probably ask like, hey, like how could we be better here? Or like, you know, all that, all that stuff. But how I’ve been approaching it, uh, is kind of in a different way this time.We envision are programs being a certain caliber and thus, you know, be a certain level of investment. And so how I’ve been approaching some of these conversations, which I just thought you might find interesting is, hey, Mr or Mrs client, you know, in, in the midst of the conversation, I say, if, okay, we were to, you know, if our program were to B a, I’m just going to make up an arbiter arbitrary number, a $50,000 a year investment. It’s not a $50,000 investment right now at least. Um, but if it were to be a $50,000 a year investment, what would, what would that program look like to you? Like, what would you want out of a program that, like, you know, you’ve decided it’s worth it and you’re going to pay the 50 grand, what does it, what does that need to have?Yeah. Is there an ROI? Is it, you know, a certain level of access? Is there certain layers of done for you? Like, you know, what, what does it look like? And so I asked this question to my client and, um, you know, she shared tons of amazing information on what she would expect at different price points, but then also where she thinks we could get better. And then we just, we jumped into like, what her actual needs are right now and I’m going to turn this way cause there’s a bunch of kids or walked back this way. A bunch of kids playing, it’s gonna be loud in the background anyway. Um, you know, she shared what things she’s struggling with and where she needs help. Uh, and literally just from a, you know, an hour long conversation with her. There’s plenty of things that a, I know the rest of our clients would find helpful that I now have documented and I can bring to them during these conversations and see how many of them are on the same page.And I don’t need to go out and look at what other people are doing. I can easily just look at my existing clients and be like, what do they need the most? And if I do that frequently, I will never not have something to be creating or helping them with period. And I’m pretty confident it’s the same in your business and maybe you are or have been buying courses or whatever and making your stuff exactly the way that that course is or what have you. And I think that’s actually not the wisest decision. I mean there are some things to be modeling from delivery mechanism and all that stuff, but like what the training should be, exactly how it’s delivered. How much one-on-one should you incorporate, should you even any sort of done for you elements, um, is going to be very unique too. What you actually are selling, what the promise is.The result is that you’re delivering to your clients and also, uh, exactly what they need from you. And so if you could just stay client-focused, you know, constantly helping your clients get more of what they want, you will never, you will never run out of ideas for things you should be helping them with, right? That you to the point where you need to go, you know, mimic somebody else. So our effort now has been, you know, like doubling down on all of that, right? Hey, which of the trains did you find most confusing? Um, what areas of this could we make it easier for you? What if we did this piece for you? Would that be easier? And having these sorts of conversations has really opened up our eyes into how can we make this program world-class for those people? And by doing that, guess what?They’re going to be more likely to refer people just like them, right? Because they’re going to see how we’ve gone in and said, Hey, what do you need? Let’s go fix that. Let’s go build that. Let’s go create that for you. And we just continually solve their problems. And guess what? We work with agency owners are building their business. Just because they get to one level, it doesn’t mean they run out of problems, right? So you constantly have things to work on. Now the one thing that I thought was super interesting in this conversation that, or my conversation with my client, oh, her name was Bonnie, that I wanted to share with you is the ROI piece, right? I think, you know, when you operate B2B, it’s fairly easy to, you know, help people, uh, or how to justify the value that you create by helping them essentially make more than they invested with you, which seems like a no brainer.But what’s, what’s fascinating to me and as I’ve invested in different masterminds and, uh, coaches and consultants, many of these, many of like the successful people that I follow, they don’t necessarily approach and enter into these masterminds or agreements or relationships with like a, hey, I need this to at least, you know, five x ROI for, for this to, to be a valid investment for me. And what she said was, she was like, Greg, when, when I made this investment, this was the biggest investment I had made in my business. And the way I looked at it was I wanted to get help from someone who was where I want to be and is doing the things that I want in a way that I want to be doing them. And if I can just get one nugget, one nugget that makes us PR program pay for itself, like that’s all I need.And so she’s like, when I come on any of the calls or when I ask my ask any questions or when I come to the events, she was like, I’m always looking just for that one thing. And, um, she’s just actually renewed for a second year working with us and she approaches it the same way. And I know that I do as well when I’ve invested in, in certain coaches and programs. It’s like, what’s that one thing that’s going to like propel me and get me to the next level versus, Hey, I just spent whatever, 10 grand and I need to make that 10 grand back as fast as possible. Because sometimes the investment that you make in certain programs or I know in ours, like we’re hoping you save a lot of time, right? Um, and make more money if not, if not more money, at least the same amount of money you’re making, but with less effort and less energy and more profit margin, right?We want to make, make agencies more profitable through the systems and things we’re helping them create. Right? And so depending upon what you’re selling, it might not always be clear cut to the point where they’re looking for, you know, a specific ROI percentage on the investment or, you know, make their money back in a certain amount of time. Like the best clients that will have will be looking at it as, okay, you know, you have something that they want a and have been and are at a place where they want to get to and you can help them get there faster and looking for that one nugget, that one nugget that’s going to help them save time or headache or stress or just kind of change their business. And I know for some of our clients it’s like, yeah, we helped them deploy some specific sales and marketing automation, new client onboarding automation and it’s like that will help them make the money back.Right? But like that system will keep working for them over and over and over and over again. And so it’s like, it’s like the gift that keeps on giving, right? Especially when you know, you like, Hey, we need this one thing. I know this. You know, even if it takes me 12 months, for example, to deploy this whole system. And I’m just making this up. Like, even if it, if I invested in a program and it took me 12 months to set it up and 12 months to break even, but then every year after that it was helping generate an additional $100,000 a year or something like that, or even an additional $30,000 a year and I spent 10 grand on it, but it took 12 months to break even. To me, that still makes sense, right? Because it’s the gift that’s going to keep on giving, right?It’s a system that continues to work for me. It’s not just it worked once to get my money back. Right? And so that’s what’s great about a lot of these systems and structure is like, oh, that one nugget changed my business and is now going to enable me to continue to grow at this exponential rate. And when, you know, she said that obviously I told her I love her. Um, because that’s how I think. And that’s how again, many of the successful entrepreneurs that I follow think it’s like they’re always looking for that one nugget. So I know this is kind of, seems like it was a little bit all over the place. Um, on this little walk and talk, let me know if you like this style of episode, um, and possibly do some Q and A next time.But okay. Two things. One, if you want to improve your service and your program, stop looking outward and look inward to your clients and have conversations with your clients, right? See what they need, see what they’re struggling with, see what, see what you’ve already given them that can be improved, right? And Go from there. It’s amazing to me how many people are like scared to talk to their clients because it’ll remind the client that like, they’re still paying for you, right? Like if you’re that type of agency, like you’re not going to last long anyway. So like lean into your clients, like they’ll give you good feedback. And then secondly, maybe you have to make an investment in yourself and in your business. Um, you know, moving forward and maybe you’ve been thinking about a differently and this, you know, this chat was, was helpful, but start looking for when I make this investment or when I dedicate my, and an investment doesn’t need to be money.It can be time. Like how can I extract that one thing that’s going to, you know, help me move forward, that’s going to make my money back or save me a bunch of time, in which case, you know, I make my money back in the time saved. Right? So some things for you guys to think about. Love you guys. Uh, really appreciate all of you guys listening each and every week, each and every episode. If you haven’t already left a review on iTunes, we would greatly appreciate that. Really helps us get in front of more eyeballs and uh, you know, get more, more eyeballs and I guess more ear getting more ear buds. So, uh, hope you’ve been enjoying the show. We’ve been enjoying it. Let me know if you like the style episode compared to some of the others. Um, I know I’ve been getting a lot of questions about like how I think and some of the things that we’re actually working on and I want to just start sharing some of that.So, leave a comment below whether you’re on, if you see this on Facebook or if you see this on youtube or what have you, or if you’re listening, jump into our Facebook group and um, you know, leave a comment and be like, Hey, I was just listening to, you know, episode 41, and uh, I’d love to hear more of that. Here are some questions I got for you. I’d love to really dive into the things that you need more of. Do you want to see more of the behind the scenes? I’d love to be sharing that as well. Um, so yeah, hope you guys enjoy, uh, this, I’m not sure what day you’ll be listening to it, but it’s Tuesday for me. So enjoy the rest of your day and we’ll chat soon.If I give you five to 10 new clients, would you or your agency break if so, your current agency model is broken? I struggle with this too, until I found a better way. By adding online programs, training, and coaching to our agency, we’ve doubled profits without adding more hours. If you want to work directly with me and my team to transform your agency, visit myscalable business.com to learn more.
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