You spend so much time and money on marketing your business, then you get the client, have a sale, and often that’s it. Sometimes they get back to you, but often no.
How to turn your clients into the fans? How to give them such a great experience that they will want to go back to you? This is the topic of the day.
If you’re looking for more inspiration of creating the remarkable customer experience our today’s guest is my favorite person to look for the ideas whether it’s the after sales customer experience or you want to improve the whole client’s interaction with your business.
In this episode, Joey Coleman shares how to create remarkable after sales customer experience.
Joey helps companies keep their customers. An award-winning speaker, he shares his First 100 Days® methodology for improving customer experience/retention with organizations around the world for example Whirlpool, NASA, and Zappos.
His book Never Lose a Customer Again shows how to turn any sale into a lifelong customer.
In this episode, we will cover:
- [00:22] About the episode and Joey Coleman
- [02:04] Joey shares how from doing many different things he started specializing in customer experience
- [03:50] Why the first 100 days are essential to developing an excellent customer experience
- [05:44] The sales you have are like dating. If you are not spicing up your relationship, it’s not as exciting anymore
- [06:39] The difference between customer service and customer experience
- [07:10] What to focus on when delivering your services and an example of the after sales customer experience for the photography business
- [09:06] How to create a remarkable after sales experience and keep a client engaged
- [12:17] The relationship with the clients begins on the first day when they decide to do business with you
- [15:44] Include the cost of the customer experience into your prices
- [16:42] How to fulfill the customer needs if the service you provide focuses more on bringing joy not solving the painful problem
- [18:26] How to improve the customer experience if you sell art like paintings
- [20:14] How to turn a customer into your fan
- [22:23] When it is the right time to ask a client for referrals
- [23:29] How to stop losing clients
- [24:44] How to find out why a client decides not to do business with you again
- [27:18] How to make a customer experience more personal
- [28:45] How to use social media to create a personal and emotional connection with your clients
- [31:02] Easy ideas that entrepreneurs can implement into their after sales customer experience that will bring effective results
- [36:01] How to connect with Joey and where to find his book
- [37:14] For the show notes go to marinabarayeva.com and subscribe to the Marketing for Creatives show
3 Easy Ideas to Improve Your Customer Experience
- Send a thank you note to a client at the beginning of doing business together
- Keep in touch with the clients after you made the sale. Make sure that everything works and they are happy
- Send short videos to your clients saying how excited you are that they are coming to you tomorrow or something funny happened that made you think about them
Pin the quotes on your Pinterest:
Download podcast transcript [PDF] here:
Resources from this interview:
- Learn more about Joey Coleman on joeycoleman.com
- Read Joey’s book Never Lose a Customer Again
Connect with Marina Barayeva:
- marinabarayeva.com
- Follow Marina on Instagram
- Follow Marina on Twitter
Sold. Now what? After Sales Customer Experience – Interview Transcription
Marina Barayeva:
Joey, please tell us about yourself. How did you become an entrepreneur and why you choose to specialize in customer experience?
Joey Coleman:
My name’s Joey Coleman. I’ve been an entrepreneur for almost twenty years now. I had a very eclectic past. I was a criminal defense lawyer, I worked in the government, I taught, I worked at a promotional products company, I ran an ad agency, and since 2002, I’ve been specializing in customer experience and the reason it’s so interesting to me is because I think it’s the last great differentiator that sets a business apart.
Everybody expects the lowest price, they expect the highest quality, they expect accessibility twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year, and the things that used to allow you to separate yourself from the competition don’t work anymore.
It doesn’t work to say “Our price is better” because everybody’s price is better. It doesn’t work to say “Our quality is better” because everybody’s quality is great. It doesn’t work to say “You can get us online or offline” because everyone’s expected to be online or offline.
The only thing that’s left is “The experience of dealing with us is better. We will make you feel differently. You will enjoy doing business with us more than you will enjoy doing business with our competitors.”
That’s where the future of business lies, at least for the next twenty years if not beyond.
Marina Barayeva:
That’s interesting. Sounds fantastic. We’re going to have an exciting business and everyone will be happy.
Joey Coleman:
Yes.
Marina Barayeva:
You always talk about a hundred days to create that customer experience, to bring us referrals, make them our fans. Why do you have only hundred days, why not a whole year?
Joey Coleman:
It’s a great question. I believe that you want to create a great customer experience the entire time for your customer, but there’s a couple of things I know about entrepreneurs.
Number one, if I say I want you to create a great experience for your customer every single day for the rest of your life, that feels very tiring and daunting to entrepreneurs who like to be involved in lots of different things here there and everywhere.
Instead, I say is I just want you to focus on the first one hundred days, the very beginning of the relationship because much like building a building, this is where the foundation for the relationship gets laid. This is where all of the experience and the beliefs and attitudes around doing business with you are established.
We’re all familiar with the phrase that first impressions matter, the first impression someone has, and this is the perfect example of what that is in a business context. But it’s not only the very first one. It’s the beginning impressions.
In one hundred days, that’s usually enough time for a customer to get a good idea of what it’s like to do business with us, what it feels like to be in a relationship with us, and we can establish that strong foundation.
The other reason I like to focus on the first hundred days is because all the research shows that no matter what business you’re in, somewhere between twenty and seventy percent of your customers will decide to quit doing business with you before they reach the one-hundred-day anniversary.
Now this is crazy to me. We spend all this time and money and effort trying to get people to come to our door and join our business and sign up for our service or buy our product and then almost as quickly as we bring them in the door, they’re running out the back door. They don’t want to do business with us and they never want to do business with us again.
If we can hold on to them and that was the important first one hundred days, we can have a customer for life.
Marina Barayeva:
That’s exactly what happened. We do the sale and then that’s it. The experience, the service and everything is almost over.
Joey Coleman:
Exactly. It’s like dating. When you go on a date with someone, the first date is really fun. We have a good time, we go to dinner, we go dancing, it’s lovely. Then we get into the relationship and then it’s like “well, let’s just stay home tonight.” Then we get married and it’s like ‘oh let’s have the same thing for dinner we had last night.’ And next thing it’s just not as exciting anymore.
We need to constantly be spicing up the relationship in our business lives and our personal lives to keep it interesting and to keep people engaged and wanting more.
Marina Barayeva:
When you talk about customer experience, in your book you mentioned customer service and customer experience. What’s the difference between them? I thought that’s quite similar, don’t you think so?
Joey Coleman:
Yes. Lots of people use both of those phrases to mean the same thing. I think they’re a little different.
I think customer service is what you do in response or reactive to something that happens with your customer usually when there’s a problem.
Customer experience is proactive. You do it before the customer asks the questions. You’re trying to anticipate what the customer wants and deliver a great experience for them.
Marina Barayeva:
What should we focus on when we do our service?
Joey Coleman:
When doing the service, we should focus on creating a personal connection and holding their hand. What I mean by that is making sure that we’re connecting for things other than just our business and what we’re trying to sell them.
Also, realize that you’ve sold your product or your service many many times, but for this customer it may be the first time that they’ve ever had an experience of doing business with you.
For example, I know you’re a photographer and if I’m a customer of yours and I hire you to take some photos for me, maybe some portraits or some headshots, it may be the first time I’ve ever hired a photographer but you’ve taken many photographs.
I’m not going to understand how it works. I’m going to need you to explain to me the process and explain to me ‘well I’m going to take some pictures, then you’re going to pick which ones you like, and then I’m going to touch those up.’
Or what is increasingly what many photographers are doing which I love by the way is, ‘I’m going to take all the pictures and then I’m going to give you all of them. You don’t have to pay for just one or two, you get all the photos and then you can choose whichever ones you like’.
Then, the customer feels like you went above and beyond and did something really special and it also says that you’re not like the old photography schools that used to make people pay for every photo.
I don’t know how you run your business but that’s how I like to see the future of photography businesses and I think all creative businesses fall into this category of what can you do to give the customer more, to go above and beyond in a way that doesn’t necessarily cost you anything.
Because you took those photos anyway and if you give them the raw files without spending time on touch up, it doesn’t take you any longer.
Then they can have the photos touched up by someone else if they want, or they’re probably just going to post them to social media and they’re going to be very small anyway, so it doesn’t matter if there’s a little bit of imperfectly in focus or imperfectly clear.
Marina Barayeva:
As the entrepreneurs, we know that we can do more work with our customers, with the same customers. For example, if I’m a photographer and I’ve done all of these pictures for people and gave them, how can I keep continue to work with them?
We would like to create this remarkable experience after we’ve done the sale but how can we do that? What should we start with?
Joey Coleman:
The way to think about it is to stop thinking about being the photographer. For example, if we can use this photography example, hopefully it’s one that resonates with your listeners, lots of times photographers think about working with their customers for one photo shoot, one setting. I think the best photographers see themselves as being the photographer for that person’s life.
For example, if somebody was trying to be my photographer, I’m a speaker, I give a lot of speeches, if I was the photographer I would come back to me every year and say “I bet you have some new clothes, you have some new speeches, you probably have some new poses and actions that you’re doing on the stage, let’s get some new photos for you, for your website, for your marketing materials.”
I’m a writer as well. I’ve got a book called Never Lose a Customer Again and I’m planning to write more books. If I was your photographer, I would say “well I see you had that book for your book jacket photo, author photo last time, surely you want a new photo for the next book”.
Now you’re helping me to think of creative ways to use the photography and keep a relationship for a long time.
Marina Barayeva:
That’s going to be in a year and you’re talking about a hundred days.
Joey Coleman:
Well, in one hundred days you’re trying to build the relationship so that in a year they keep coming back to you. What I would do in a photographer setting in the first hundred days.
Why don’t you describe what the typical process is for somebody who hires you to take photos and then I’ll explain ways that I think it could be enhanced across the first hundred days.
Marina Barayeva:
Ok for example, if I would get in touch with you and I would offer my service and if you seem to be interesting, we will talk about what kind of pictures you need.
I would send you some files and examples of my work, PDF with what you can prepare, what you can bring to the photo shoot, what clothes to bring. We’ll talk about it before and then when you come for the photo shoot, if you would be a girl you would have a make-up, as a guy, well if you want we can do…
Joey Coleman:
(laughter) I get make-up done too. I’ve had make-up done for a photo shoot, we want to look good.
Marina Barayeva:
(laughter) Okay. So if you want it, you can get it too. Then we do the photo shoot.
After the photo shoot, we sit together and then you pick the photos you like. Then in one or two days, you get the pictures. Basically, that’s it.
Joey Coleman:
And that’s about it.
Marina Barayeva:
That’s it and we get coffee some time.
Joey Coleman:
And we’re done and we are ready to go, right?
So a couple of things. Number one, to me the relationship begins on day one when the customer decides to do business with you. I think you’re already doing a lot of great things. You send them some information about what to wear and what outfits to bring and how to think about it.
When they actually show up for the photo shoot and I’m sure you do this, you want to acclimate them to doing business with you. You want to make sure they feel very comfortable.
They’re going to be nervous, they’re going to be afraid that the photos aren’t going to look good or that they don’t look good or their hair is a bad hair-do or whatever it may be. So a lot is about the psychology and the emotion of making them feel comfortable.
Then you might actually want to stretch the process out a little bit. So maybe take the photos and then it sounds like you show them the photos right at the end of the photo shoot, you could certainly do that or you could say “We’re going to have you come back a week later.”
When they come back a week later gives you the chance to invite them in again, offer them a drink or some refreshments and make a production out of it.
Well not only you show the photos because I imagine you’re showing the photos on screen or no? When you show them the photos, do you print them out or you show them on the camera?
Marina Barayeva:
I print them and when they come back in two or three days, I show them prints.
Joey Coleman:
You show them prints, lovely. A lot of photographers show them on screen and I think that just feels not nearly as personal or special, and then when you showed them the prints, now it feels like something interesting.
What I would do is give them the prints. Then I would figure out a way to build into the cost of hiring you, the opportunity to give them some gifts.
What I would do is maybe a month after they’re done with their photo shoot and have all their photos, you send them one of the pictures that they like the best of themselves in in a frame for them to either hang in their office or put in their house or give to someone they love.
Because lots of times when we have photos taken of us, we don’t necessarily get them printed, we use them on the web or we use them on social media and so having a physical print out is great.
And then as time goes on maybe six months later, you can send them a little flip book with a number of photos from their shoot and say “Remember what a fun day this was? It’s hard to believe it was six months ago. Excited to catch up soon and see what you’re up to now”.
You’re continuing to be in conversation with them and giving them little gifts, little fun things. If you’re a photographer who exhibits, inviting them to shows.
Or when you find out what their interests are or why they’re getting the photos maybe they’re getting the photos for a new website, paying attention to when the new website launches and then sending them a congratulations card that says ‘Oh, congratulations, the photos look beautiful and the whole site looks great and I’m so happy for you and excited for your business’.
There are lots of ways to just make it more personal and long-lasting instead of short and transactions.
Marina Barayeva:
When you talk about all of these extra things, they are probably going to cost some extra money. Would you include it in the price? Are you going to raise your price or…?
Joey Coleman:
Yes, I would include it in the price from the beginning and make it a surprise. Figure out what it would cost. To print a photo and put it in a frame and then maybe send them a little flip book later and maybe a little card, it’s probably only costing maybe thirty dollars, fifty dollars maybe one hundred dollars but probably not even one hundred dollars. Then I would raise the prices by that much and then save that money aside for those ongoing communications.
One of the things entrepreneurs struggle with is lots of times when the money comes in, they spend the money on other things. What I would do is make sure that this is part of the marketing budget so that you have it going forward.
Marina Barayeva:
In your book, you talked a lot about fulfilling customer’s needs. In your situation when you went to a dentist and you got amazing experiences with her… I would want to go to that dentist can you give me some recommendations? (laughter)
Joey Coleman:
Yes, exactly.
Marina Barayeva:
What about creative entrepreneurs when their service or product is more about bringing joy or maybe beauty whatever, it’s not about solving the big problem or need right away. How to fulfill these customer experience?
Joey Coleman:
Well, it depends on the client, and it depends on the creative product you’re offering. If you are a painter and you paint landscape paintings, and I want to buy one to hang in my house, you’re right, it’s probably not solving a business problem, but it is solving a personal problem, a decorating problem or a desire to have something beautiful aesthetic and pretty in my house.
The secret for creatives is to recognize that you probably are solving a problem.
For example, I worked with a great photographer not too long ago to take some photos for my new book and we did a bunch of fun photos and had a great time and she gave me enough photos that I’ll be able to use these for almost a year.
The problem she was solving was I needed a photo for the jacket of my book, that was the number one problem I had. Now while I went in, I had other photos that we could use on website materials too but the number one was for the jacket.
What she did was a really great job of making sure that I felt very comfortable and very excited about the one that we picked for the jacket and it’s gotten great positive feedback and that’s been wonderful. Now all the other photos are kind of added bonus but we still use them, and they’re great, and they will look lovely, but it gives us the chance to have something a little more special.
Marina Barayeva:
How would you offer the customer experience for example for painters if they sell their paintings, what else can they do?
Joey Coleman:
Yes, it depends on where they sell it. I happen to collect art. I love art. You can see I’ve got pictures and paintings in the background here. What I would do if I was selling a piece of art is I would make sure that I connected with that customer about where they’re going to hang the art and how they feel about the art in their home.
I’ve purchased many pieces of art over the years but it is very rare that an artist says “Oh, when you hang it in your house, will you send me a picture of what it looks like?” So that we can continue the conversation.
As an artist myself, that’s something I’d love to see. I’d love to see where did you decide to hang it. How does the light hit it? Do you see it in the morning when you wake up? Do you see it during the day while you’re at work? Where is it living in your space? Now it becomes part of a conversation as opposed to just a one-time interaction.
The other thing I would do is I would say after they’ve had that for a while, I would say “oh, we have some new art that I’m going to be unveiling, would you like to come to a private show and see some of it before everyone else?”
Now I feel like I’m special, I feel like I’m a patron and I have inside access and if I get to see your artwork before the gallery sees it or before it goes on sale, not only do I have the chance to potentially buy it but at the very least I feel special for being invited.
Marina Barayeva:
Wow! This is the customer experience. But you often also mention making customers becoming your fans.
Joey Coleman:
Yes.
Marina Barayeva:
What are the steps to turn the customer to your fan that they will be in your referrals, they will talk about you?
Joey Coleman:
Yes. In the book, I talk about the eight phases a customer goes through. From the first time when they meet you and they try to decide if they want to do business with you, all the way up to when they become a raving fan.
The problem most creatives have and most businesses have is they try to move people from the first step to the last step all at once.
The secret is you have to make sure that the customer accomplishes the goal that they have for doing business with you before you try to sell them anything else or before they become a fan.
For example, using the analogy we were talking about with me getting a photograph for my book jacket; if we had taken all the photos and I wasn’t happy with any of them being on the cover of my book, then I wouldn’t have accomplished the goal and I would never go back to that photographer.
The good news is we found a photo that I’m very excited about. Now if I was the photographer, I would on the day the book comes out, send a message and say “It’s real, we had the photo shoot, you’ve got the photo, now the rest of the world is seeing it, I can’t wait to hear what they say about the photo.”
Then if I was a photographer, I would do a post on social media and say my client Joey Coleman just released his new book. I’m so excited for him, I’m so honored to have my photo included on his book jacket. I would do things like that then keep the conversation going and get people excited.
Once we’ve accomplished the goal, that’s when you can say “Oh Joey, you love the photo right?” “Yes, I did.” “Do you have any other friends who are writers who might need photos for their books?” Which I do and I would be happy to refer but I might not necessarily think of referring them on my own.
The secret is you have to ask for the referrals. But you have to ask at the right time and make it easy for them to refer you.
Marina Barayeva:
When is the right time, like in a certain period? When you remind about it yourself?
Joey Coleman:
I think the period is right after they accomplish their goal. If their goal is to have a great photo for their book jacket, it’s right after that. If their goal is to buy a painting for their house and you say “Oh, why are you buying that,” “Oh, my mother in law is coming or my father in law or my boss is coming to my house, and I want them to see a nice artwork.”
Then it would be the week after that happens, reaching out and saying “Oh, how did it go? Are you happy? Should we get artwork for your living room? Should we talk about getting artwork for your bedroom now or for your kitchen or whatever it may be.”
Now you’re in conversation about helping them to make their home more beautiful, more aesthetically pleasing.
I think depending on your business, it’s really about figuring out what the customer’s main goal is, making sure you deliver that and then asking what other goals they have that you can help with.
Marina Barayeva:
Here we talk about how to keep the customer, how to bring referrals, but what about losing? How to stop losing them?
Joey Coleman:
I think there are two things. Number one, I think the reason we lose client… the cover of the book has a picture of a balloon floating away, and the reason I chose that image is because most customers when they leave, they don’t leave in an angry way. They don’t come into the office and throw things and say “That’s it, I’m never doing business with you again” and they storm out.
Usually, they just drift away like a balloon until one day we realize I’m not holding the balloon anymore. I’m not holding the customer, they’re gone.
I think the secret for keeping your customers is to be regularly in contact with them, talking to them, communicating with them, so they don’t slip away when you’re not looking.
In terms of how to keep them, it’s making sure you deliver on the promises you make during the sales process and make sure that you go above and beyond providing them extra value. Because if someone’s providing you a lot of extra value, you want to hang out with that person.
When someone just does the one thing for you and then they disappear, well you don’t really think missed them much, you don’t think about going back to see them.
Marina Barayeva:
How about to find out why people leave? Sometimes if you would provide bad service and they would leave and you would know probably there would be anger, but if it’s just Ok and they leave, it sometimes happens to me even here.
China is a special place and with foreigners, I can talk and they’re more open, with Chinese sometimes you feel that something is wrong, they are ok with that, they got photos and that’s fine but you can’t understand why it’s not too exciting as it’s supposed to be. How to find out that?
Joey Coleman:
The best way is actually to ask them and to give them a reason to tell you. If a customer leaves or stops doing business, you reach out to them and say “Hey, I’m not trying to convince you to come back but I would love to understand why you left. What was it? What could I have done differently?” And give them a reason to tell you.
So maybe something like “I’d love to pay you for your time to tell me why you left or to give you a gift for telling me why you left” or something like that.
I think often when customers leave, they’re willing to tell us but we never ask. We never ask why they’re leaving or why they’ve grown distant or why they’re not responding, and we just move on. Because like I said usually, most businesses don’t even notice when their customers leave. They don’t notice until much later.
I think it’s about keeping your finger on the pulse and knowing where the customer is at all times and that way if they do start to drift away, you can ask them why are you drifting away? What are you wishing we did that we don’t do?
In the book, there’s an example of a website development company called the Yokoco. They do surveys throughout the project where they ask the customer “How’s it going? What are we doing that you would like us to keep doing? What are we doing that you want us to stop doing?”
And then they ask another survey all the way through the project and then at the end, they do a big survey and get all their feedback and “Would you like to work with us again?” and “What would that look like?” So they’re constantly asking their customers what they want.
Marina Barayeva:
How to make this customer experience more personal?
Joey Coleman:
I think the way to make it more personal is you have to know a lot about your customers. You have to find ways to connect about your customers. You and I are having the chance to connect via video for the first time today. We’ve traded some e-mails but when we first started talking before we hit record, we talked a lot about our experience, my experience in China, my limited knowledge of the Russian language, things that we would have in common.
So I think the way you build rapport with your customers is to talk about things that might be interesting to them, things that you have in common or things that are very different, but the more you can open up and share things about yourself and be open to what they might share about themselves, the better it is.
We didn’t even get the chance to talk about all the time I spent in Russia back when it was the Soviet Union a long time ago. So we would have a whole conversation there that we could talk about.
It’s about figuring out what are the things that they might find interesting and being willing to talk about those. That’s how you make personal and emotional connections.
In the book, I described the whole process of how to do this and how to take advantage of social media to help you get better at this.
Marina Barayeva:
Can you give us a little teaser?
Joey Coleman:
Sure
Marina Barayeva:
How to take advantage of social media?
Joey Coleman:
Mostly, I think most people use social media for the wrong way. They use social media as a megaphone to say “Look at me. Look what I’m doing. Look at this picture of me.” Instead I think the best people use social media as a listening device and a research device.
Become friends with your customers or just go on their profiles because many of them are not private, they’re public profiles and spend time scrolling through all the images, and all the status updates and see what things they’ve liked and what kind of comments they’ve left. You can get a pretty good idea of what interests them.
The Facebook algorithm, the research shows that if you like one hundred and fifty things on Facebook, a post, a picture, a video; that once you’ve gotten to one hundred and fifty items, Facebook knows more about you than your spouse or significant other does.
At three hundred likes, their algorithm is better predicting what you will like or not like than you are.
Marina Barayeva:
So Facebook knows more about us?
Joey Coleman:
Facebook knows more about us than we know about ourselves, absolutely and the longer you’re on social media, the more information you share, the more they’re able to predict what you like and dislike and what you want and don’t want.
The tip I would give is any time you are going to have a phone call with a client or meet a client, you go on their Facebook page, on their Twitter page and you look and see what they’ve been talking about lately, what matters to them:
- Did they just go on vacation?
- Did they just read a good book?
- Did they just see a concert?
That gives you yet an opportunity for a personal and emotional connection.
Marina Barayeva:
Fantastic. For many entrepreneurs, it’s difficult to catch up with everything, there are a lot of things and we talked about how to create the experience, but can you give us some ideas, can you share with us three ideas that our listeners could implement into their after sales customer experience these days that will bring effective results?
Joey Coleman:
Absolutely. A couple of thoughts. Number one, every business should be writing personal thank you notes. On a piece of paper, the old-fashioned way, writing a thank you note thanking your customer at the beginning of the project for doing business with you.
They say “Oh, I want to hire you to do my photos.” Before they even come to the photo shoot, send them a thank you note that says “Thank you so much for hiring me. I’m very much looking forward to our photo shoot. I will take great care of you, see you there.”
Marina Barayeva:
Why before?
Joey Coleman:
Because all customers experience something called buyer’s remorse. Buyer’s remorse is the science behind when we make a decision to buy something, we begin to doubt our decision, and the longer the time period between the decision to buy and when we actually get the product or service we purchased, the bigger the buyer’s remorse. I want to hit them with a thank you note.
Most people send thank you notes at the end of engagement when the project is all over. By sending it early, it says how excited you are and that gives them a preview of what it’s like to work with you. I will do that number one.
Marina Barayeva:
But now it’s the digital world. People don’t really send mails and sometimes you don’t know what the address is or where to send it to. How would you give it?
Joey Coleman:
I would ask them as part of your customer intake process, to give you their mailing address and most people will share the address with you and then you can say “It’s in case we need to send you your photos when you’re done or in case we need to send you whatever it may be.”
People are more willing to share their mailing address than their e-mail address and you’re right, we live in a digital age but here’s the question, how many people want more e-mails?
Marina Barayeva:
No.
Joey Coleman:
None. No one. So sending a thank you note via e-mail just isn’t a good decision, nobody even wants to get even though it’s just a thank you note. Sending something hand written, what that says to the customer is you valued them and you value the relationship enough to take the time to write them a letter and send it to them. I would do something like that.
Another thing that you could do is just think about what happens after the project is done. In the book, I talked about when I was in school I ran on the track team and I was not a good runner on the track team but our coach had a good piece of advice and he said, “When you come to the finish line, you run through the finish line.”
You run, in your mind you see a spot ten feet past the finish line, because if you run to the finish line, you will slow up a little bit, naturally to try to land on the line, it’s the way the brain works but if you believe the line is passed, you will accelerate through the line and you’ll be faster than everybody else who’s slowing down to touch the line.
The same thing holds true for business. When you decide to do a project for a client, to take their photos, to do a commission piece for them, to build their website, whatever project you’re doing, there’s a deadline or a finish line that they think is the reality, you should push for the line pass that.
One of the companies that I referred to in the book the web development firm, their projects last for sixty days past the launch of the website. During that time, they use it to make sure everything’s working ok, to give analytics, to help them do more posts on their blog that kind of thing and so it’s all about making sure that you are delivering beyond what the client thinks is the finish line.
The last piece of advice I would give is to use the phone to send videos to your client. Most of us have a cell phone and we send videos to our friends or our family, maybe our parents or a boyfriend or girlfriend but do we often send videos to our clients? No. We think well that’s too personally, they’re my client, that doesn’t make sense. I disagree.
If we’re going to think of our clients as our family and our customers as our family, and our marking material says “We’ll take care of you like family”, then we should use the tools we use to communicate with family members.
Even just sending them a video that tells them something fun that you did that made you think of them or when you are getting ready for that meeting where they’re going to review the prints, sending a quick video that says “I know you’re coming tomorrow and I was just going through all the photos and I’m so excited to share these with you, I’ll see you tomorrow”.
Just really quick short and sweet that lets them know that you’re thinking of them.
Those are some of the three quick ideas of things I would do in the first hundred days to make sure you’re going to have these customers for life.
Marina Barayeva:
Fantastic. Thank you so much Joey. Please share with us how can we connect with you and tell us more about your interesting book.
Joey Coleman:
Sure. The best way to connect with me is on my website which is joeycoleman.com. You can find the book anywhere where books are sold. It’s sold in bookstores, it’s sold online, on Amazon and there’s an audiobook.
We have a hardback book, an e-book and an audio book and if you like my voice on the podcast and listening to me tell stories, that’s what the entire audiobook is.
I’m the narrator of the audiobook. There are forty-six case studies in the book. Stories that I tell about different companies that are doing great things to create experiences in the beginning of the relationship that help keep the customers coming back for more.
I would love it if you check out the book. I appreciate you listening to the podcast and hopefully we’ll get the chance to connect in person at some point.
Marina Barayeva:
Great. I do recommend everyone to get the book. There are a lot of new ideas. I have a little bit left to finish it. It’s must-have for every entrepreneur.
Thank you so much, Joey, for being here. It’s so awesome to have you.
Joey Coleman:
Oh, it’s my pleasure. Thanks for having me on the show, Marina.
Marina Barayeva is an international speaker and coach who helps women entrepreneurs become recognized experts and confidently sell their services. She is also a TEDx speaker, has presented to audiences in Asia and North America, and has been featured in such media as ArtPeople, CCTV, China Radio International, and others.