530 | 3 Rules To Hedge Against Customer Loss

Chris LoCurto 0:00
Is client loss the hole in the bottom of your company ship? If so, how can you retain customers or even get them to tell others about you? All of that is coming up next.

Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are. Welcome to the show, folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are. On today's show, I am joined by the lovely Mr. Joel Fortner. Welcome back to the show, Joel.

Joel Fortner 0:50
Hey, great to apparently be lovely and to be here.

Chris LoCurto 0:55
At as well as the illustrious Brian Alex all away from some other country. Welcome aboard. Brian.

Brian A 1:03
Always good. Always happy to be called illustrious. And I don't care. I don't care who's calling me that.

Chris LoCurto 1:10
Doesn't matter who it is. I'm gonna take it as a couple of years about. Well, it's so good to have you guys on we are doing a another three rules episode. So we've got a fun lineup here. And what we're talking about on today's show, is client loss and retention, repeat customers customer loyalty. So we're going to jump into HIPAA, I know Brian, you have got an incredible amount of statistics. And this is the opportunity where you are asking us you have got some rules that you are floating out there for us to agree with challenge push back on whatever it is. But before we get into that, Joel, I wanted to kind of talk through, you know why businesses might struggle to keep repeat customers? What are what are your thoughts on that?

Joel Fortner 2:02
So my initial thoughts are one is that this assumes that you have a business that you can keep repeat customers, because some businesses sell a thing. And it's like, one offs. Yeah, like, have a good life Have a nice life with the thing that you just bought off of Amazon. But you're never gonna buy it again. You know, I mean, how many? How many army tanks do I need? Like, I only need one and I bought it? Now, you know. And so, so it can have, you know, this is true. That's a deep reference right there. Some people are gonna be like, I'm with you. I'm tracking tracks. Yeah. This is this is it's deep thoughts with liccardo. Team. It kind of assumes that but you know what, you know, the number one reason why people don't have repeat customers? Sadly, it's because you may not be very good at what you do. You just your product may not be great. Your service may not be great. Yeah, there are those times when your customers like man, that customer is just too over the top. They're impossible to please. But I think this is the thing. We've got to humble ourselves and look at man, are we just the problem?

Chris LoCurto 3:16
Yeah. And Brandon, you got a lot of stats coming up. But for me, I've, the thing that I feel like is like the number one, you know, out of personal research out of stuff that we've looked into that when a client, it's amazing. You can have incredible loyalty from customers. Even when you screw stuff up, we've screwed stuff up. But our response is always a very quick go solve something. The thing that I have seen, I think the most is when somebody feels like you, as a company, just don't care. It's not that you screwed up, it's not that you're perfect. It's not the level of screw up, that's the issue. It's that you seem disinterested, that they are purely just a number and you really don't care. And that's when I see a lot of people jump ship, go somewhere else. But man, we have had, you know, out of my 30 plus years that you know, I can think of times where I might have a client where something got screwed up multiple times. And it's like, we're gonna lose this client, but you jump to it, you solve it you over deliver, right? You give them all kinds of free stuff. You do everything you can and the clients like, Oh, thanks no big deal. It's like on their end, like, Oh, that's cool. But on our end, it's like oh, for the love, how did we screw that up? And how do we, you know, over deliver on the fix. And I think that's one of the things that if you understand the resiliency of the client, you know, the person

Joel Fortner 4:53
that's selling knowing what are their expectations? Yeah,

Chris LoCurto 4:57
if you just know that what their expectation is just take care of me. You know, if you screwed something up, I can deal with that, you know, we deal with a lot of business owners and leaders, they have screw ups all the time. And it's like, you know, just take care of me, that's the most important thing. So I think those are, you know, the things that you know, are prominent are two key things. But here we insert, prime Alyx

Brian A 5:23
the wrench into the machine.

Chris LoCurto 5:27
So we'll see what all codes information he's got to throw out. And then we'll run.

Brian A 5:31
Now, this is great. No, you guys are tracking already I want to I mean, that those are great disclaimers, as well, as you know, who we might be be speaking to. But just to zoom out for a second and say how widespread this kind of thing is, and this may be affecting people's businesses, without them really processing that or thinking that it can be having an impact. And it is, I mean, just Okay, so a few statistics to kind of set the the mainstream marketplace so to speak. These statistics are within the last three months. And of course, US businesses don't affect me over here. But where you guys are, it's important. But here we go, companies have a 60 to 70% chance of selling to an existing customer versus a five to 20% Chance selling to a new customer. And so, you know, the question that we asked just a minute ago is, why do businesses Why do leaders struggle to keep these, you know, repeat customers, it could also be that it's just not entering into their brain, it's not on their radar as much as it could be or should be if like we said, they do have a business where that's a possibility. You know, even the Walmart example, getting a product there, Walmart wants repeat customers coming back into the store, even if it's not for that same widget. So think about this 65% of a company's business comes from existing clientele, wow, six to 7%, more six to seven times more.
It costs, the cost, the energy, the focus goes into six to seven times more to acquire new customers then retain existing. So I mean, talk about low hanging fruit and all of that, and where you want to focus energy where you maximize your potential here, 72% of customers switch to a competitor after one bad experience with the brand. That's Chris, you were just talking about that I mean, and we've screwed up before, but you know, the clencher is, and this already kind of gets into some of the rules, when the client doesn't feel like just a nobody like a number, then that statistic begins to skew. Here's the last one, businesses lose overs are lost over the last year, this is 2022 now lost over 75 billion to customer, you know, not retaining their their client base. poor customer service in particular, was cited as that. And and again, it goes to how does the client feel that their relationship is to the company? So we're gonna get into some rules in a second. But, you know, just to talk about this, why isn't this a huge priority? Statistically, only one in five businesses? I think it was 18%. But we'll say one in five businesses prioritize retention over acquisition. So helped me wrap my head around. If this is the way it is, if these statistics are true, why isn't this on more leaders, radars?

Chris LoCurto 8:56
Yeah, one thing I do want to hit so the one caveat, because I know that there's some people out there going, well, let me just poke holes in the stats, keep in mind the stats, these are averages. So when you look at a you know, it's so much easier to sell to a current client than a new client. Again, all things being equal, if you have a one off item that nobody's coming back for, then that's that means nothing because it's absolutely incorrect. What we're talking about is that you're selling stuff that people have the ability to come back and buy more of the same thing. You know, you sell coffee filters, while they need more coffee filters, they come back to you, or you sell coffee filters, coffee makers, coffee, you know, coffee mugs, whatever it is and then you're able to get them in and buying more more products. So I don't want people to shut this down because it doesn't apply to one specific situation that they're thinking of. The second thing is and this is this is rare, but it's still something that sunk companies run into a lot of companies, the first purchase is a high end purchase, it's it's a higher ticket purchase, then the second, third, fourth, fifth purchase. So maybe they come in and make $1,000, purchase a $10,000, purchase $100,000 purchase, then the next thing they buy is the ancillary pieces. So it's a $50 piece or, you know, a $75 piece. And so I want to remove those from the thought and just go, Okay, we're talking about the bulk of businesses, if that's you, this still is incredibly important and applies immensely. But I just don't want people get hung up going round. That's not exactly accurate. So there's that caveat.

Joel Fortner 10:40
So I think some things that hold leaders back your whole business is back here is that people can be so sales focused, and it's about sell, grow new customer, and they're so sales focused. And that's where the pressure, the priority and the energy is. And then there's a lot of intentionality to I've got to sell, we've got to sell, we've got to sell, and there can be more leadership focus on selling. And but then all lack of a focus on well, okay, woof, we got the customer. Okay, we got another one, we got to know that when especially entrepreneurial people that are in a startup phase, or they're trying to get this thing off the ground, or they're launching a new service, or they're launching a new product. And so we've got to go, we've got to crank, we've got to get this revenue coming in.
And there's so much priority put on selling it. And it's what we got another we got another we got another one and we got it in house. And then all of a sudden, it's Oh, what happened there? They're upset. Hey, what's up with that Google review? Hey, why don't we get trashed on Facebook? Why this? Why that? Why this. And then it's a Oh, no, and this thing is starting to come apart. But this can be a mindset that people can carry through business all the way forward to grow and sale grow and sell, or a leader or a team can make assumptions that well, that's the nature of the beast, well, that's the best that we're doing, when really come to find out. They don't have great leadership and culture, within their team and within their business. And that's why we're actually losing out on people. But you have to stop and look at that stuff and say, gosh, are we really broken? Here? Is our culture a mess? Are we driving people away? Are we the problem, but you've got to slow down enough to even focus on things like that.

Chris LoCurto 12:27
Yeah, I'm gonna say it all comes down to mindset. All different areas, like Joe was pointing out, mindset is the key. So you can have the mindset of, you know, somebody who is just all about the win. And you know, somebody's a shipper high economic and the values in the you know, what motivates them, then the return on investments, the important thing, go, go, go, go, go put up as many numbers as you possibly can. That's a mindset issue. You could have somebody who's never been trained, they don't know, they just look at business. And they go, Well, the key is to keep selling the product that we have, you know, we made a widget, go sell as many of the widget as we possibly can. And they have no clue, no training, no understanding, you know, they don't have business training, they don't have you know, quality coaches in their lives, saying, Hey, let me show you an easier way to go about this, their thing is just keep going, keep going, keep going. And they do really well. And what we find is usually, you know, though, they'll come to us 567 years in, because they've plateaued. And it's like, I don't know how to grow the business, because I've only done the same thing over and over and over again. The other thing, and I'm gonna, you know, kind of share a personal situation without getting into too much detail. But the other thing is the incredible lack of care about customer service about taking care of the process, I've got a vendor who is more focused on the amount of money they can make, not the quality of what they're putting out. And I got caught up in this myself.
And it's interesting, because I had a conversation was somebody else who was like, Hey, are you using this vendor? Are you experiencing this thing? And kind of, you know, a great, yep, that's something I've been experiencing. And he put it out he goes, a lot of their clients are going to this incredibly smaller business over here. Because this small business treat some right, you know, they're they they're not all about putting up all the numbers. And so here's the situation where somebody's asking me, Are you experiencing this, this? What seems to be again, indifference, they don't care, because that's what they were experiencing. And then they're like, Yeah, I know, this smaller firm that's getting a ton of their business. And I'm like, well, that's that's good to know, because I might check on that smaller firm in the future. But the point is insanely important to understand when money and greed is more important than taking care of the client, you may get numbers. But here's what I can promise you. Eventually, it is all going to fall dice the House of Cards, right? Eventually, the Google reviews will pass up, you know, the good reviews, eventually the desire for all of those dollars is going to cause so many clients to never want to come back and purchase from you again. Because all they've had is terrible experiences. And again, like I say, I'm gonna keep using that word indifference. If they experienced that it just doesn't seem to matter to you no matter what, then the last place they wanted to be is, you know, with your business giving you their hard earned money. So those are my thoughts.

Brian A 15:50
Yep. So many great comments there and good perspective and helps us set up for getting into some of the rules. I have so many office references going through my head, right now, Dunder Mifflin and why it can compete with the big guys like Staples and Office. But yeah, there is that customers are I was thinking to, you know, Chris, do your disclaimer that you mentioned a moment ago, just about the whole repeat business thing. I'm thinking of like a real estate agent who you know, is not looking for that serial buyer of you know, somebody is going to come along and buy 15 houses from them, but they are going to do the things that we're going to talk about in a minute, to have that rapport, that mindset, like you mentioned, because they know that the word is going to get around, they know that that that referral is going to happen. Other people are going to inquire and that's almost like what we're talking about retaining, maintaining and causing the multiply the client base here, the customers that you take care of. And so yeah, I want to get into some practical element here and solving some of this, now that we've set up some of the challenges.
And so, you know, our format here is, is meant to be kind of light hearted and fun. It hasn't really turned out like I've wanted in the past. I'm hoping that we get some, you know, some frustration and some combativeness. And no, that's right, that's a stupid rule or you know, back and forth, that just hasn't happened. But hopefully, we'll get we'll get a little bit of a motion today. The three rules are just rules that I kind of plucked out of the air. And they're designed to see if we can find things to either agree but hopefully disagree over. And in that ideation and thought process, people kind of can track with how we think and how, you know, Chris, and Joel, how you guys would lead some of our business leaders and some of our CEOs to do the same things. And so let's get into some of the rules here. Rule number one, I think he's already touched on.

Joel Fortner 18:07
Yeah, I think I agree. I agree with you.

Brian A 18:14
You're not No Don't don't disagree with me disagree with each other? Oh, I didn't explain that. Oh, that's my fault.

Chris LoCurto 18:27
Joel, I agree.

Brian A 18:30
The ironic, ironic thing here is that we're we're talking about rapport rapport, it's all about rapport, how we relate to the client and how they relate to us. And here's, here's the rule. When it's good, it's golden. And when it's not, it's not and can let that sink in. You'll get that later. But, you know, having a strong on board thinking deep think we lost, we lost the Okay. Okay, the CEOs back and now the President's but okay, a strong onboarding process. And we're not talking about those new hires a new employee, we're talking about your new client. It's the net that we cast out there how crucial that is, it's a first impression is a lasting one. Do they really trust you? Does their voice matter? Does the client feel valued? Special important, not just a number we talked about that? Will they be cared for if they return? And can they talk to their friends about do they want to? Are they inspired enough by the mission and vision of the company? So it's all about rapport? I maybe that's hard to argue with. But I'd love to dig into that just a little bit.

Joel Fortner 19:41
Yeah, I don't know what rapport means. But I know what trust means. And it sounds an awful lot like trust. You know, I made seven I made a bunch of D's in fifth grade everybody and then I thankfully got a little bit better as I went through school, but no, I mean, yeah, I agree. I mean, this is just at the heart and soul of we've covered this a little bit already. Have these relationships with with clients is when you have a sales process and somebody is buying anything from you, generally speaking, or very specifically speaking, you have set expectations. And now it's about delivering on or exceeding those expectations. And you either do that or you don't you recover well when you fail, or you don't. And so that's when trust really is on the line, because it's okay, I trust you enough to buy your thing. Now, I'm really looking at certain expectations going forward. Why? Because you probably set them. You told me, that's what it's supposed to be, you told me the quality of the product would be x, you told me it would be shipped by this point, you told me you would provide this kind of service. Now I've come to expect it. And so if you can't deliver and fulfill on that part, you're going to have a problem. That's where looking at it with this intentionality back to Chris, you were talking about mindset, adopting this kind of a mindset of, hey, we're responsible here, we can't just sit around and be victims to the customer, we've got to look and say we're the ones who are setting these expectations. So we're the ones that have got to train, organize, equip, and develop teams in order to meet those expectations.

Chris LoCurto 21:23
You have to think along the lines of how do I want to be treated as I'm, you know, creating a relationship with a new vendor, right. So if you can empathize and put yourself in the shoes of the person who's giving you their money. Hopefully, it's their hard earned money. But it may not be. But that's besides the point. The rapport is so incredibly important. Now, again, if you're just selling a one off, rapport is not incredibly important, it still has its value. But if you're just selling a one time thing, and moving on, then no big deal. But you should treat every single experience as though we've just started a relationship, you know, this is something bigger than a one off sale, Well, Chris, I'm only selling to, you know, Justin's got a hit the fire started, one of our coaches in our business, also has a side company that, you know, he sells the fire starters. And, you know, it's a, essentially, it could be a one off.

So well, I wanted to buy some to go start a camp and fire, you know, something like that. But here's what he's discovered that the bulk of his buyers are the moms, the grandmas that are looking at, you know, the grandma that's looking at the son in law's or, you know, the sons in the family that will go and buy five of these things, right? You take care of that Grandma, you know, you take care of that person, you build a rapport with her, because guess what her family is gonna keep growing, or then she's gonna think, you know, at holidays that, you know, here's three other people that needed as well. So it doesn't just because you have what you consider to be a one off sale, or a low ticket price, a low price item, it doesn't mean that you don't focus on the relationship, the more you focus on the relationship, and I'll go back to what you commented about what the real estate, you need to create walking billboards. You know, I see those pictures that people take if they've sold a house, and it's a picture with the people that bought the house. And the concept is, oh, I'm marketing, my ability to sell a house. Man, I'm gonna tell you, there's never going to be a time that I'm ever going to look at one of those pictures and go, I need to contact that real estate agent. But when somebody tells me about it themselves, when when that person who's purchased talks about the amazing, phenomenal experience they had with that that real estate agent, that's shifting things from me, you know, that is that is changing things. We have got a concert that we're going to tonight, we've paid for the tickets we've got, everything's been done for months, and my wife is reaching out going, Hey, here's something I didn't know about or didn't think to ask about. And the gal who's taking care of us is going above and beyond to continue the relationship. She's already got her money. We're already going to the concert.
Why is she doing this in hopes that we come back to her again in the future and go, Hey, here's another one we want to give you money for. So it cannot be overstated. If your mindset is this is a one and done or if your mindset is, you know, it's not as important as getting the next sale. You're missing out on the ease of the repeat sale. And by the way, and I'm sure you're probably going to hit this I haven't read the notes. But I'm sure you're probably going to hit this. Not only is it an easier sell to repeat sell, but there's a high probability the net profit is considerably higher.

Brian A 24:57
Now it's excellent point. And no that's not in the notes so we can revisit that as much as you want. But no as as I was thinking, I mean, yeah, it's not just that real estate agent. It's that the repeat customer, it's the setting up others to be that successful billboard. It's also just the reputation. I mean, we're talking about, you know, communities that you're in, all of these clients are kind of connected. And when you've got a good buzz among your clients, among your customers, they they talk and they share and like you said, You'd much rather go off of the testimony of somebody who's relating an excellent experience than some billboard. And so this kind of marketing can go viral as well. But how have we invested in that rapport in that relationship? Yeah, excellent point. Rule number two. And this is going to sound like oh, well, of course, Chris and team are going to talk about communication. That's all they talk about. Well, yeah, I mean, high quality communication, let's talk about what we mean Exactly. When it comes to retaining clients, a lack of quality communication is the biggest reason that clients will bail after their initial onboarding, going through their, their journey as a client, out of sight, out of mind. So how consistent are you? Have you established a rhythm of high quality communication, newsletters, podcasts, remembering anniversaries, et cetera, et cetera? No, I mean, is there any non sales kind of vernacular or or value add that you're communicating? Is that happening? And do you invite them to ask questions and make suggestions? How are you getting them involved? And and again, it's undergirding that rapport, but it's taking them a step further, I don't know where do our minds go when we hear this kind of thing.

Chris LoCurto 27:05
So where my mind goes is I agree with the rule. But for me, it's high levels of quality, highlight star circle, the word quality communication. So as you're reading through that, I think of how many people I've given money to that bombard the living daylights out of my email inbox, and I unsubscribe and forget about them. Here's the truth. You I unsubscribe massively from marketing emails, I don't care about them. But I will keep a company that I like, I will keep their newsletter coming into my inbox, on the off chance that, you know, I may be giving them money again, six months from now, because it's a reminder to me, I want that marketing email, I don't even maybe care about the content. But I, they've served me in a way they've done something that I, I want to really consider giving them money again in the future. So I think the key is, if you're communicating with quality, you know, obviously, email is a fantastic way. But show and I'm going to hit this in today, I'm always going to have these little caveats sorry about that. And I'm not sorry. If it's a one off item, then it's continuing to communicate in hopes that you're going to get them back to buy another item. Right? So keeping that level of quality flowing, you know, checking out, I bought a ship handling system, which probably sounds really weird to a whole lot of people who aren't farmers,

Joel Fortner 28:38
isn't that called the shepherd?

Chris LoCurto 28:42
Well, this is a little bit more mechanical, but something out on the farm to take care of the sheep as their you know, you do checks, you know, a few times a year on them, all that kind of stuff. And the company that sold it to me just sends me a text once in a while Hey, man, how are things going? How are you liking the system? I do this for a living. I know it's a marketing text, I know that they're reaching out to just keep that, you know, that relationship going that communication going in hopes that, you know, I will probably get a text sometime in the future. Hey, by the way, we have this new thing. You know, it's great. I don't mind that. But here's the deal. I got this unit. And there were a couple of the weld spots that had rust on it. And so I responded, I'm like, Hey, I love the system, but I got a couple of spots with rust. He goes, I'm putting a bottle of paint in the mail for you right now. Got it like two days later. That right there makes me go crud, I will keep taking your texts, you know, where I don't take marketing texts from squat, you know? So that's one big piece right there. Here's the other piece that I've really, really got to pound home. And this is something that we have made this a part of our culture that you know, we will push on our team members to make sure that they're continuing to communicate. Sometimes like for us, you know, somebody might be booking a Next-Level Life a StrapPlan, and it's six months out, you know, the thing that fits their calendar, sometimes it's a year like a strap plan might be somebody's like, I can't even get my team there for a year. But I want to get this on the calendar. You know, and obviously, that's just working with their, their calendar, whatever works out, if you don't stay in communication, even just a once in a while. Even if it's a you don't have to directly communicate, you just send a you know, here's a, here's a podcast that's going to relate to your event coming up. How about you listen to this now, any touch, that helps the person? No, we're still with you. We're still waiting on your we're still looking forward to the event. You know, we're here that allows that person to stay, you know, really solid on the thing that they spent money on, right.

So one of the big issues that you can have with client retention, and we can if you want to, we could talk about how you could jack this up. But one of the biggest issues is buyer's remorse, that I've spent money on something, and I now hate the fact that I gave you money. Right? So if you don't have quality communication now, I'm just gonna go ahead and share it. I'm sorry, my answer is gonna be, you know, 20 minutes long. One of the big ways we get buyer's remorse is when people are feel high pressure on a sales call, right? So we don't need to dive into that high pressured sales call, you might get the sale, but I promise you, they're gonna call you back in a week and tell you that their, you know, third cousins, mother has this strange disease that she just got from some other country, and they need their money back to pay for it. They're going to have buyer's remorse, they're going to want their money back. If you do a great job selling, but you do not keep communication up. And it's a long process before they get their product. Then buyer's remorse will settle in, even to the point if they don't hear from you. And they can take that money, get that money back and go buy it from somebody else and get it faster or at least get response. they very well may do it.

Joel Fortner 32:13
Yeah. All that's just terrible advice. Terrible rule. Disagree with all of it. I totally, totally, finally, disagree with myself on all that I disagree with everyone on this podcast episode, everybody. You know, yeah, I think what the only thing I would I would add, because I think that's all just fantastic I would add is, even when it comes back to again, expectation setting like in your marketing, let's say you are a one off product, that even with a one off product that go to Amazon, because so many of us buy from Amazon, you read those super long product descriptions and sales pages that people have built to sell their $20 product. And you know, you're selling to a high C personality that's very detail oriented, wants information to make the decision. And they're checking out nine other people that sell the $20 product. And oftentimes, there are strong expectations that are being set along the way, even that speaks to your company and your service and your quality, even though they're selling a $20 quote unquote, one off product. So it's you're still setting those expectations. So then, if you don't meet those expectations, how likely are is that person who bought your one off product going to refer you to the neighbor or to the friend that has the same problem that you do and says, Hey, go buy that thing here recently? I mean, I bought a flagpole ground sleeve recently. Why? I mean, how many of those do you buy? Like I don't, I didn't buy a flagpole for a flag. I bought it for my Starlink dish so I can get the thing up in the air. Well, then I moved it recently. And I need a new ground sleeve because my other ones in concrete. So I went and researched and found I need the exact size that I needed, found it. And it's a one off product. I'm probably never going to buy one again. But if Chris said, Hey, where'd you where'd you get your pole? And where'd you get the ground sleeve? And how'd you do all that? Or I'm in Starlink communities online. It's like I would say this is where I would go get it. It's been great. It came with an additional feature I didn't even know that it was going to have it was the exactly exactly what I needed. It totally meets my needs. I'll never buy one again. But I'm going to tell you guys, hey, they'll get it to you super fast. It was right on time, but they don't have a relationship with this company. I just researched it bought the thing because they convinced me we're trustworthy. And so the rapport was established through their marketing. And then I purchased the thing and then they did a good job delivering on the product. They met the expectation. It's now in my front yard buried in the ground right now with the poll. And so that's a lot of us. That's a lot of our businesses, a lot of you all run businesses or work in businesses. That's what you do. So but that's how intentional we have to be about men. Is it really that important that we build trust and rapport? When all we sell? Was this one off thing? The answer is yes.

Brian A 35:20
Yep. No, it's good. It's really good. It makes me think I bought something the other day, a carry pouch for something and I ordered it online. And my got the tracking info, my heart sank, oh, Jesus coming from China, okay, and I'm thinking just about the length of time it's going to take to arrive, and are they actually going to deliver it what the quality is going to be, you know, and then, within an hour or two, I received an email from what appeared to be a real human at the company, saying, Hey, Brian, I noticed that you purchase this product, you're gonna love it, it's on its way to you, if you have any problems, let me know I thought, wow, I don't care if it's coming from the moon, I have a report I've been communicated with, there's something somebody a human that I can talk to, if I've got a problem with this product, and it totally set me at ease. And maybe that's just, that's something that's missing in in somebody's conveyor belt process here that you can fill in the gap on. All right, let's run to rule number three managing client outcomes. And, and this is a bit tongue in cheek what what we're talking about here is having a strategy for your customers journey. And, and being excellent about leading them down that path, whether again, you're that real estate agent, whether you're the the one off, you know, widget creator online, you know, whether you're the local business that somebody can walk into, and have that repeat business and sharing that with others. We've talked about kind of the rapport, the onboarding, the communication, but what about the expectations on the journey that you would like them to have whether you have that one off product, you would still like that that client becomes a testimonial for somebody else that then comes to you as a new client. And so how are you investing in that or even educating your clients, we do a lot of that around here, for our customers, for our clients, for our friends, and you know, the people that we have relationship built with, it's built around information, inspiration, education, all of that is so vital to creating a community among our clients. That's vital to us. And it's part of our mission, but it's also inspiring to that person. And it serves them in their growth and success and progress. And so managing those outcomes and sense of the expectations that you have on where you want your client to go.

Joel Fortner 37:58
Gosh, I feel like I've spoken to this, like the entire episodes. I mean, this is it's another way of saying managing expectations, that this is vital. It's when you know your market and you know your audience, that's when you really start to know what their needs are, and what are their pains and what problems do they have? And then are you offering solutions to those, that so the journey, the journey implies that they've become a customer, and they're sticking with you, and they're going to be loyal to you. This is where getting to know your customer is just so important of knowing what is their life, like what is going on at work, what's going on at home, and having that information so that you again so that you know what their needs are. Because there's so much trust that's built, when you can communicate, like we get you we know you and you communicate in a way that tells them this company really understands what I'm going through here or what my problem is, whether it's a pair of loppers that you're buying, or something that's really complicated, or something very expensive, like a luxury automobile or a fifth wheel or, or an expensive piece of farming equipment or whatever it may be. It's like what is the journey and that's just about investing in knowing who in the heck you're even selling to?

Chris LoCurto 39:21
Yeah. In strat plan, we would call this key deliverables. And what's so important about managing the outcome is that it allows you to reverse engineer the process. So, you know, we've got most of the folks that come through straightaway. It was interesting. We found out that people thought we're only dealing with like fortune 500 companies, most of these are small businesses, almost all of them are small businesses. We have some medium businesses and a couple large businesses. The inability for this All business to understand how to prioritize and manage the process is huge. Because who's teaching them this stuff? Right? So if you are managing the outcome, if you're managing the key deliverable, what do we want this thing to look like? When it's done? Right? If we expect a testimonial, if we expect a walking billboard, if we expect or even just desire it, then how do we want this thing to look? When it's over with, right? How do we want them going? My gosh, I'm so excited. You know, this is just the this is fantastic. It's funny, I think in my world, you know, we're so busy that a lot of times, you know, we do a lot of the, you know, purchasing through mail, right, we have stuff that showing up, you might keep it you might send it back. And I find that one of the things with me is I will always keep the box, the bag, the whatever, until I have it figured out whether or not this thing's going by by sending this thing back does this word whatever, I do the same thing. It's it's now standard write it because I have an expectation, unfortunately, through this process, that there's a probability I'm sending it back. And I love when I understand that the outcome, the deliverable is going to be satisfaction. You know, I know its quality.

I know, it's good. I know, I can trust it. So if I understand if I'm managing the expectation, the outcome, the key deliverable of a client experience, then I can reverse engineer, how do I get to that? What is the thing that I want them to experience? How do I make it happen? How does my team make it happen? How does the customer service person if there is a bad, you know, product that we put out there bad service or something? And they call in and they get somebody on the horn? How do we make sure that they understand the process and the experience that we're looking for? And they can speak into it that way? Right? There's nothing worse than calling up a company and saying, hey, you know, I literally did this yesterday, I call up the company, my Hey, I got your product. But when I look at your video, the stuff that came in the package doesn't align with your video. And I'm wanting to know if this is going to screw me or not. And she's like, I don't know. I'll see if I can get our technical guys to call you back. You know, when's a good time? I said any time zero phone call, like, Ah, so guess what? Not only did they mismanaged the outcome, but they mismanaged the customer experience that they could have solved in a heartbeat. Just make me feel like you care. Man, I am so sorry, your experience and that I'm gonna do everything I can to try and get somebody to call you and solve this for you right away. But the answer is, I don't know. And I mean, that's now I don't want to ever go back to that company again. So understanding that it's not sell a widget. It's not just sell a widget, if we want repeat customers, if we want customer loyalty if we want walking billboards, manage that expect that outcome, that key deliverable, so that you know that you've got the right process to get the thing that you're looking for.

Brian A 43:22
Yeah, yeah. So good, guys. So many different things we could have talked about this is only three rules, not the only three rules, but just three, probably out of 50. Of how to retain clients. Hopefully this has been helpful. Let's just recap real quick. So the average company loses 23 to 30% of its customers each year due to what lack of loyalty and so don't let that be you. And here's here's a recap. The report is huge communication, high quality, and outcomes, what's the journey and the expectations that's going to set you up for success?

Chris LoCurto 44:02
Absolutely. Good stuff, man. Great, great rules. Fun discussion. Sorry, we didn't disagree. Folks, hopefully this has helped you today. Hopefully, this is helping you to take another look at your business and ask yourself the question, is there ways for us to do this better? To retain more clients to to make smoother processes. So as always, we hope that you take this information, change your leadership, changed your business, and in this process, change your life. Do all that. Join us on the next episode.