Are You Focusing on Transformation or Transactions?

This past week has been a bit of a learning whirlwind – And I need to share something a little personal…Besides the fact that I’m a learnaholic (and love sharing what I’m learning), I’m an avid reader.

The thing that’s a little personal is that I’m not your average reader, and I actually don’t read a lot of fiction, mostly nonfiction. And I read about 5 or 6 books at once (sometimes more!). I know, kind of crazy.

And the cool thing about it is that usually the 5 or 6 books I’m reading are all related to each other, not purposefully. Most aren’t even the same subject. Yet, they all feed off each other – does that make sense?

Here’s what I’m reading now: The Wizard of Ads by Roy H. Williams, True Believer by Eric Hoffer, Overdeliver by Brian Kurtz, The Story Factor by Annette Simmons, The Ultimate Marketing Engine by John Jantsch, and Mother Hunger by Kelly McDaniel.

My favorite at the moment is between The Wizard of Ads and True Believer (This book was published in 1951 and is a classic on how to create mass movements.)

If you ever need book recommendations, leave a comment or send me an email – shannon@soulfulmarketing.com – I’m happy to share. And you can check out my book review site by clicking here.

I could probably turn these posts into a book review each week. Yet, I think I might get bored, or you might! 😉

Oh, and I finished Brian Kurtz’s Breakthrough Advertising Bootcamp – holy moly, I want to share some awesome info – check out the Notes section below for more. If you’re writing or editing copy, it will be an eye-opener for sure.

Now for today’s deep dive, I want to share with you the one thing that will make a huge difference in helping increase your client/customer retention.

Have you ever been on your phone or tablet and clicked on an ad and bought the thing they were selling? If you did, you probably went on a short online journey to place your order.

Then if you’re anything like me, you forget about it until you get an email receipt and confirmation.

And if you’re lucky, you may even get a thank you and information about how to access it (If you bought something electronic.) or when it’s arriving in the mail. (If you purchased it on Amazon and also signed up for USPS notifications – as I did, you get a serious amount of email delivery communications!)

This process seems easy enough, right? (For the most part.)

Then after you get what you ordered, you often never hear from them again unless they add you to their buyer’s list and bombard you with sales and coupons – sheesh – not what I’d suggest.

What I’ve noticed is unless the coach, expert, or business you’re buying from is incredibly schooled in what happens after the sale, the majority of the time, there’s minimal follow-up, if any.

The sad fact is that most entrepreneurs when, I start working with them, tell me they spend about 90% of their time and money on acquiring a new client/customer (or getting new business, etc.)

Then there’s the scary part – They forget about or hardly do anything AFTER they acquire a new client/customer).

The real truth is – I’m all in to help you create a long-term sustainable business that passes the test time of time.

For you to do this – create long-term success, you have to do BOTH of these really well – Getting new clients/customers and keeping them! At its core – it’s about creating a better client/customer experience.

The hard work is AFTER the sale. Your ultimate goal is to “Wow” and “surprise and delight” them. What are you currently doing after you get a new client/customer?

I want to inspire you with some ideas that I work on with my clients:

• Give them a welcome onboarding call
• Mail them a surprise gift, card, book, etc.
• Give them surprise bonuses.
• Send them a heartfelt welcome email and keep connecting, adding value, and following up with them (And no, I’m not talking about constantly bombarding them with sales emails.)
• Use a friendly, informal, honest tone to convey your welcome and to congratulate them on taking the step to invest in themselves and you – especially if it’s a course, book, service, or attending an event.

Your ultimate goal is to create a client/customer for life. You want them to keep coming back, and THIS is how you create a long-term sustainable business.

I hope you get how important it is to focus on what you’re doing AFTER the sale.

There’s another more soulful goal, and that is to focus on transformation, not transactions.

I love this, and it is definitely something to live by as a mindful entrepreneur.

Happy Fall… The pumpkins are coming…

NOTE: As I mentioned – I just finished Brian Kurtz’s Breakthrough Advertising Bootcamp. It’s based on Eugene Schwartz’s book – Breakthrough Advertising. Have you read it? It’s jam-packed with so many ideas for marketers and copywriters. Mind sufficiently almost blown.

The Bootcamp delved deeper into all the principles of the book. Its focus is on looking at these three things BEFORE you write your copy:

1. What’s Your Dream Client’s Core Desire?
2. What’s Your Dream Client’s Level of Awareness of your product, solution, or of their problem?
3. What’s Your Dream Client’s Level of Market Sophistication? The thing that bolded me over was after being in online marketing and copywriting for 15 years. I learned some pretty ninja stuff that I can now use in my business and with my clients.

I’ll share some of it next week…hope you’re game. 🙂