111. How do you retain customers?
What are some simple ways to retain clients? 👯♀️ Hosts and brand strategists Phil and Lauren reflect and brainstorm in this solo episode of Brand Therapy. From reflecting on repeat customer wins to suggesting ways to strike up a conversation with past clients, this episode will make you realize that it’s easier than ever to grow your business—if you build lasting relationships.
Episode transcription
Phil
Hello there, welcome to Brand Therapy. I'm Phil.
Lauren
And I'm Lauren.
Phil
And this is the podcast where we help you do some things, position your brand, build your brand and promote your brand. Now it's this week, and it's an off week, which means we don't have a guests with us. It's just the two of us. No video, just the sound of our smooth sultry voices. And I'll tell you something, me and only me, I should say I can see Lauren Moore on a camera and it's a frightening sight. Listener, be glad you can't see.
Lauren
Omg! Frightening.
Phil
Well, you know, okay, it's a little frightening. You're in a you're in a hoodie and a Jedi hoodie.
Lauren
I have a big hoodie , my bangs are everywhere my bangs, I let them air dry so they don't have the texture that they normally have. I got my brows tinted today, so they're really dark. And then I'm wearing no makeup whatsoever. So I think the issue is the contrast between brows to no makeup today, among many things.
Phil
Scary lady!
Lauren
That is so, so mean!
Phil
Anyway, well, sometimes the world isn't fair. And today, we are speaking about things that are fair, that was not a good segway.
Lauren
No, let me step in and my hideous ways. And instead, say that I am going to stick around to record this episode. Even though I'm being verbally berraided, just like the theme of our episode today, which is about sticking around.
Phil
That was a much better segway.
Lauren
You can't have beauty and brains Phil. Anyway. So I have a few statistics that I wanted to just share, to kind of set the stage of the importance of this discussion today. And then Phil, I know, we didn't really plan this that much. But I was thinking it would be cool if we talked about what we've done today with customer retention. And then we can reflect and think about what we wish we had done.
Phil
I think it sounds delightful.
Lauren
Thank you. So I will start off with some statistics. And actually, no, it's not going to be statistics. I'm going to quiz you. So out of the clients that we had in 2020, not group coaching, not audits, just clients, how many do you think we're repeating customers?
Phil
Oh, that's a good question. A number I should know, but don't know off by heart. But I guess that's why we're doing this episode. If I had to guess, which I'm pretty good at doing, I would guess 50%.
Lauren
You are so close.
Phil
Really? Oh, great. Yeah, I would say 50%.
Lauren
You are so close. It's 53%. And this is where it gets really cool. Out of those 53% of returning clients, they actually worked out to be 71% of total income from clients. So not only are they old clients, but they're paying more.
Phil
That's more interesting. I would not have guessed that. I would have guessed 50% again.
Lauren
Yeah, they're paying more, which is really, really interesting. I thought at least.
Phil
That is so interesting. Yes, I definitely would have guessed 50% again. But what's the moral of the story here, there must be a moral.
Lauren
Well, there's a moral it’s that basically, once you earn trust, it's much easier to sell. Another thing that's interesting is that, that number doesn't include our Group Coaching programs, which is for clients only. I didn't even include that. And out of the Brand Audits last year 13% of the Brand Audits that we did, which is the introductory consultation, it's a requirement to start any project together, that was 13% repeat customers. So basically, what I think is really, really fascinating about this information is that it makes me think, okay, if we didn't have repeat customers, where would we be? Can you imagine the losses that would be, the missed opportunities?
Phil
It's wild. And I think people are so quick to focus on how they can get new people through the door, because that's just what we think. I think our minds go to that place of scarcity or excitement about new blood and new people and growth, which growth might mean more heads. But actually what we learned last year, which was our most profitable today, despite COVID and everything else happening, it wasn't our biggest year in business. But we had bigger years, but had way bigger expenses those years. Last year was the year that we made the most profit. And the thought would be, get more people in through the door. But actually, the way we made that profit per year stats was by igniting people that we'd already worked with.
And I think it's really important as people think about business evolution and pivoting and all these annoying words, including growth, that it's not necessarily new people going through the door that you need to grow, sometimes you can grow, a lot of times you can grow, and we're evidence of this, you can grow by just reaching out and prompting a conversation with someone who already knows, likes and trusts you and may have hired you before.
Lauren
Yep, yep. And so today, I would say that until pretty recently, we've kind of left past clients tapped in terms of business potential. You and I have always wanted to keep our projects quick. Never have clients actually, depending on us, that's one of our values is to help clients be independent. And I would say for the most part, clients would come in, we do our work, and then they'd be out and done within about three to four months. However, this year, we started looking at things a little differently. And you brought up the really, really great idea of figuring out some way to keep clients as part of the business like some sort of offering that felt right, that didn't feel like we were selling something unnecessarily to them. So I thought that was a great development.
Lauren
Exactly. And the way we did that we should elaborate a little bit further for our listener, the way that we did that was by creating a program where we felt there was a need, we were so quick to position someone's brand, build something to show for it, and then send them out into the world. And we noticed clients out in the wilderness with their brands, not quite hitting the mark. And we had lots of ideas to help support them and help them keep accountable, so we launched a program called Advance, we don't even talk about it on our website, because it's invite only. The client has to have had their brand designed by us in order to be in this close knit client community. And so they're paying a monthly fee, less than doing a brand, but still enough that they stay accountable. And that's been such an exciting development in our business. And I do have to give a shout out while you helped us take it over the finish line. And then Simon, who's been on the podcast episodes and episodes ago, we had a call with him our friend in Canada. And he said, you guys, what about all those people that have hired you for branding? How are you supporting them now? And we were like, I'm not at all good at it. You know, so that was a cool development. Yeah, that was, that was a cool development, I would say into this year. And it's just so nice to have that six month commitment, and ideally beyond six months is what we're hoping to do.
Now I have another idea. So that that should give you and your businesses, you know, think about your business, that should hopefully give you some ideas on how you can keep engaging people who already know like and trust you, we gave you an example, obviously, your listener, your business is different than ours, but adapt it and get creative.
Here's another idea, because I think there's a lot of value in just getting on the phone, not just hanging out in an email inbox and saying, hey, what are you up to? Oh, this is what I'm up to? What are you up to, like, so much time gets lost in an email. And I think sometimes even for 15-20 minutes to get on a phone call with someone is better. And so I came up with this idea. I'm still honestly in the process of doing this because we are busy. Grateful for that. But how could you help your client or how could you reignite conversation with your client get back on their radar in a way that's meaningful? Rather than saying, hi, here's what we're up to, me, me, me, me, right. People don't care, they're busy. But here's an example in our business. We create websites for people. I've decided to email people individually, particularly when I think there's opportunity to get some work with them, help them in a win, win, and email them and say, hey, I noticed the footer on your website, the date of your copyright statement is outdated. So I'm just going to hop in there and update it for you. I also noticed that boom, boom, boom, boom. Right? Or, you know, by the way, we haven't chatted in ages. lets you know, do you have time for a quick call? Here's my calendly link to sign up.
Show up in a useful way. Not just hey, it's been ages. You do this, well, here's an article I saw that made me think of you. For me. That's my favorite. Because it is thoughtful, though it is thoughtful, and it would take you all of five seconds to find an article that would make you think of them. And I think that just said, an extra little tinge of creativity really stands out. In fact, in fact, let's make this even more meta. But one of the beauties of having a podcast is having an excuse to get on a phone call with someone, could be a past client, has been a past client, get on a phone call with them that has some intention and purpose behind it, not just catching up, but also creating content out of it. I mean, that's not really our main intention. but I mean, certainly, it gets us back on the radar of people. And we're more focused on stories to be told and making good content out of this. But also, it puts us back on the radar. Just yesterday, we had a client approve a scope of work for a new project that came about after we were back on each other's radar, which originally started as here's our link to come on our podcast, we'd love to chat with you. That just happened. Right.
And so it's just I thought, you know, here's some fresh examples of how we're doing this, igniting the conversation with people who already know, like, and trust you.
Lauren
Yeah, I completely agree. Completely. I think that the key is that for any type of sale, which somehow, I guess we've gotten a lot of experience doing it, and I feel like with any type of sale, it's all about helpfulness. So even if your goal is to ultimately sell to that old customer and get them back in terms of receiving payment, I feel like your intention needs to come from a place of helpfulness, first, instead of what are your goals for this year? Or what great challenges are you facing? or How can I help you? Those are really challenging questions to answer. But if you take that initiative and get creative, I feel it's very impactful.
Phil
Absolutely. And I think it just involves a little bit of creativity. Right? I think just and really thinking from their perspective, what could be valuable to them right now? How could you help them even in the smallest way? Maybe something that, you know, they wouldn't think of related to the service that you offer.
Lauren
Yes. So something that I was thinking about is, I really, really wish that over time, going years back basically, since the dawn of Phil Pallen Collective, I wish that we had kept really, really great notes of the clients that we worked with. We do our brand audit recaps, which are great notes, but I mean, more internal notes for us to just know. I wish we had collected birth dates from people so we could wish them a happy birthday, even if they didn't amount into business. And I also wish that we had set up some sort of mechanism to check in with them. A few months after we stopped working with them. I feel like we've kind of got that in place now. But looking back, this is something I wish that we had, you know been doing for a decade, because then we'd have some pretty, pretty valuable pools to tap into.
Phil
Learn from our mistakes, learn from our mistakes. If you're not collecting this data, then now you should be learning from us.
Lauren
Yeah, definitely. I also do think, actually, I'd be curious to know your thoughts on this, Phil. But I kind of wished that we had created courses or programs or some kind of smaller add on thing earlier as well. Because until pretty recently, there's been a pretty big jump from free email newsletter subscriber to working together in a one on one capacity. So I kind of wish we had filled in the gaps a little bit with offerings that kind of go the full scale from zero to full.
Phil
A good starting point of knowing even where to begin with some kind of offering like that is doing a bit of a survey or a post project or post engagement questionnaire, or a collection of information. Asking for people's, you know, feedback for on people's experience. What did you like the most? What did you like the least? Right? And if you can listen to where there's still gaps and think about creating an offering to fill those gaps. It's very true. We go from free, we get a lot of those people on our email list and it grows quickly. But then right up to a brand audit is $1500. It's a lot for some people and not everyone's going to move forward with that. Some will but lots won't. Filling in the gaps allows you to serve an audience where there's demand, you just have to figure out how you can adapt that but it's true, right?
Especially now where people are getting used to virtual engagements, I think it's really valuable to have something that people can experience virtually and once it's made, it's made you get paid for that. That's the beauty of digital products.
Lauren
Well, I would say also, one other thing that we've learned is not a lot of times clients will want to pedal to the metal, do everything in two months. They've got some urgent deadline to meet. But I can count on one hand, the number of times that it actually has been, as quick as they initially wanted. Often they slow it down and the project has been successful with those time constraints. I would really, really recommend it especially if you're in a creative industry to stretch out the length of your projects because the client will be paying less per month, which is great, and then you can develop more of a connection with that client, which will help keep them around for longer.
Phil
Yes, that's a really good idea. We're always so quick to send them off when really it's not even in the clients best interest to be sent off. Totally, some good ideas and this little quick, impromptu discussion.
Lauren
I want to know what our listeners think about retaining customers. Are there any ideas that they have?
Phil
It's true, we always say send us a tweet or send us a DM shout out to a handful of people that actually do that. Shout out to people like Louise, Louise by the way in the UK. Yeah, she always says Phil, I listened to it and you said this, you know a specific thing. So Louise, you get a shout out because you actually do this. But if you are taking the time to listen to this right now, actually reach out to us with your thoughts on retaining customers. Did you learn something from us in this episode? Or do our discussions spawn some ideas of things you might try out? Let us know #brandtherapy I'm @philpallen.
Lauren
I'm @thelaurenmoore.
Phil
We really would love to continue the discussion on this specifically. Reach out to us we love hearing from you, Instagram, Twitter, you know where to find us, Clubhouse is now a new thing. Also, if you've listened and enjoyed then take the time to go over to the iTunes Store and leave us a review five star, five star, that helps other people discover this podcast we work very hard to create. How about this for efficiency. Normally we go about half an hour and we’re going less today because we respect you and your time. You have a busy day ahead. Thank you for spending your valuable minutes with us right here on Brand Therapy. We'll see you back next time.
Lauren
Talk to you later.
