January 22, 2025 • 40 mins
In this episode of The Bold Blueprint, Claire Bartlett is joined by marketing expert Chris Dillon to explore the transformative power of effective marketing strategies. Together, they dive deep into the future of business communication, focusing on customer experience, long-term relationships, and the untapped potential of WhatsApp as a game-changing tool for businesses.
Chris reveals why emails are no longer the most effective channel for communication and how WhatsApp’s higher open rates and personalised messaging capabilities can revolutionize customer interactions. From optimizing customer journeys to enhancing event experiences and automating follow-ups, Chris shares actionable insights to help you stand out in a competitive market.
This conversation is packed with strategies to engage your audience, foster stronger client relationships, and adopt innovative tools that drive long-term success.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:🔹 Why the customer experience is the cornerstone of successful businesses 🔹 How to use WhatsApp for personalized and effective business communication 🔹 The benefits of automation in enhancing customer engagement 🔹 How to optimize customer journeys and encourage valuable feedback 🔹 The power of follow-up strategies tailored to your audience’s needs 🔹 Why adopting new communication tools can give you a competitive edge
Takeaways to Apply Today:💡 Personalization is key: Tailored interactions foster trust and loyalty. 💡 WhatsApp’s open rate surpasses email, making it a powerful communication channel. 💡 Automation tools can streamline follow-ups and improve customer experiences. 💡 A clear, optimized customer journey is essential for long-term success. 💡 Feedback from clients is invaluable for refining processes and strategies.
Why This Episode Matters:In a world where emails often go unread, businesses need to explore new ways to communicate effectively with their audiences. WhatsApp offers a direct, innovative approach to customer engagement, with features that allow for personal connection and automation. Whether you’re looking to enhance event experiences, maintain strong client relationships, or increase conversions, this episode is packed with practical advice you can implement today.
Upcoming in Season 3:Don’t miss out on upcoming episodes featuring incredible guests like:
- Holly Matthews – Founder of The Happy Me Project, discussing resilience and happiness.
- Matthew Hughes – The YouTube king, on building an impactful video presence.
- Connect with Chris Dillon → https://chris-dillon.co.uk
- Learn more about The Bold Blueprint community → https://www.facebook.com/groups/ffcollab
If you found value in this episode, here’s how you can help grow The Bold Blueprint: ✨ Follow, rate, and review on your favorite podcast platform. ✨ Share this episode with your network to help others optimize their communication strategies. ✨ Tag us on Instagram @cs_bartlett with your biggest takeaway!
Your support helps us continue to bring expert insights and actionable strategies to entrepreneurs and business leaders worldwide.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hello everyone and welcome to this week's episode of the Bold Blueprint.
This week I am joined by Chris Dillon from the marketing autopilots.
And I'm really looking forward to this session actually, because I think it's an area thata lot of people won't have ever considered before for their business, but I've seen how
transformational it can be.
So Chris, thank you so much for joining us today.
(00:23):
Thank you very much for inviting me.
It's going to be a really good session.
Now I first came across you, think, at an event in London, which was, I don't know, maybeOctober 24, I think it was.
And you were sharing about this tool that you use in business.
I don't want to give it away just yet.
And it was really, really interesting to me and something that I had never consideredbefore either.
(00:46):
So before we dive into that, do you want to just give us a bit of background, you know,how you got onto this journey and what's led you to be where you are in your business
today?
Yeah, thank you very much.
So I started in the sort of sales and marketing world way back at university when I wasgoing around knocking on doors to sell one pound to nightclub tickets to keep 50p that
(01:08):
will hopefully see me through the week, which was very lucrative, but also my feet hurt alot.
So I started to get an understanding of how to do this organically on social media andstarted understanding this was back in 2009.
So it was still fairly early days of social media marketing, shall we say.
(01:28):
Fast forward.
I've done marketing for a number of years.
I know how important that is.
And I got very good at running paid ads for lead generation.
So I understand what the front end marketing needs.
And also I'm very, very clear that's an incredibly important part of your business.
You could have the best product in the world.
(01:48):
If nobody knows it exists, it's not the best product in the world.
However, what I started to realize was the quality of somebody's experience with yourbusiness is very often overlooked by businesses.
And when we dive into everything, it will be kind of focusing on the importance ofunderstanding that the people you're interacting with as a business are actual human
(02:11):
beings that have an actual life.
And sometimes we assume that because we know what we offer either solves a problem orgives a large amount of pleasure.
And we know that better than the person that we're interacting with that we sometimes takefor granted the fact that they don't care yet.
And we need to make things easy for them to be able to do the next step.
I love that.
I think this is also, you know, through the onboarding process, but afterwards as well,when they become a client, I think so often we put so much energy and effort into getting
(02:39):
them to sign up with us and becoming a client.
And then we sort of maybe neglect that customer service a little bit in that relationshiponce they're on board.
yeah.
100%.
I like to say that you have two first impressions with a business.
You have their first impression of your business and then their first impression of beingyour client.
And we've put a lot of emphasis on the one.
(03:01):
I will say not everybody puts a lot of emphasis on the first bit.
And that's part of the reason why I do what I do.
But people have a good understanding that their first impression with a business isimportant, but forget that their first impression as a client is a whole new experience.
And there's nothing worse than going through an amazing sales process and then a terriblepost sign up onboarding process.
(03:24):
And I was actually watching a podcast last night with Rory Sutherland, who is an absolutegenius when it comes to marketing.
But he was talking about the important, he was talking about a car salesperson who heinterviewed and how he was the most successful car salesperson in the entire region for
years and years and years.
(03:45):
And he said it's because he asked the question that most car salespeople don't.
Most car salespeople at the time will say, how can I sell this person a car?
Whereas he will ask, what can I do today to make sure they come back to me for the nextcar?
I like that.
And I'd inadvertently been doing this, I say to every client when they come on board withme, my aim is to make sure that in 10 months when I call you and say, we're about to come
(04:09):
up to the renewal, that it's an absolute no brainer for you to do it.
By looking at it that way, and by looking at it as the car salesman who's planning fortheir second car, the decisions you make earlier are for your long term relationship.
And you might lose a few short term sales in that, by the way, but long term and longevityon that side, that's where you scale.
(04:30):
And that's, think a lot of people forget about that.
I think that's the bit in business that a lot of people struggle with.
And we talk about this a lot, don't we?
know, that overnight success and people are wanting to be bringing in the big money andseeing the results instantly in their business.
There's so many that don't play that long game and don't realize that actually thefoundational work that you do today is setting you up for long-term success.
(04:55):
So it is about
when you win that client, amazing, you've got that initial income, but keeping them as aclient long term and getting them to buy the next product and the next product, refer you
on to, you know, to their friends and relationships.
And that's how a business grows.
And that's what you need to do and nurture that relationship.
So it is a long standing one.
(05:16):
Yeah, unless you have a product that can only ever be bought once, which is a very, smallminority of businesses out there, you need to be optimizing for people buying again and
again, but also people being an advocate for your business.
(05:37):
Because if they have a bad experience, I guarantee you they'll be an advocate for notdoing business with you.
We've all gone to a restaurant where everything might have been lovely but the waiterspoke to us a little bit off once and we've told 10 people about that that's put 10 people
off.
We're much more likely to share a negative experience, aren't we, than a positive one.
Yeah, that you're about 10 times more likely if you have a bad experience to leave a badreview than if you have a good experience to leave a good review.
(06:05):
And it's, it's why when you start understanding that, like, if I'm looking at a restaurantthat has 1000 reviews, 50 of them are negative and 950 positive, actually, there's about
9500 positive experiences that haven't been noted down in that.
And yet,
Again as human beings I guarantee you somebody will be listening to this and the firstthing they would do at restaurant is go, that's a new place right?
(06:31):
I'm gonna read all the one-star reviews They'll dismiss and ignore all the five-starThey'll ignore the fact that strangers have had an amazing experience but then we read one
review where one person said that the prawn cocktail was off or it was undercooked andthey'll go I don't want I mean the risk of seafood and you're like
It's one person having one potentially erroneous opinion or just one mistake that wasmade.
(06:59):
Yes, the difference between trusting the kebab shop and the kebab van.
The kebab shop you trust a little bit more because it's got an established place.
You know that it has to have had repeat custom because there's only a certain amount ofpeople that you can serve and if it's been around for ages people will go back again and
again.
Whereas a van that you see at a festival you're not necessarily going to trust because youknow that they could have a really crap
(07:20):
offering and they don't need to worry about longevity they'll just go to the next show.
Now we know that psychologically but we don't apply in business.
Yeah.
So how do you support people and what is this method that we've hinted at already thathelps with this area of business?
How can we make it easier for business owners to build the quality in the ongoingrelationship with their clients?
(07:45):
The main thing is communication, the quality of your communication.
I say the sentence all the time that conversations lead to conversions.
The more people you speak to, the more people will buy from you.
Assuming your product is good and your general demeanor and service are good, but mostpeople have that.
Most people understand that.
They're just not having enough conversations or enough people talking about them.
(08:09):
what I specialize in helping with is planning out customer journeys and the shiny objectthat most people come to me for is
automating WhatsApp through that process.
Because, and I'm going to preface the following sentence by saying email is incrediblyimportant.
Not enough businesses use email the way that they should.
And it is so underutilized in business nowadays.
(08:30):
Anyway, however, a good email open rate, you'll be looking sort of 20 to 30%.
People have higher email open rates.
And somebody said to me the other day, yeah, but my email is amazing.
It's a 55 % open rate.
I went, so you're celebrating the fact that 45 % of people ignore your emails.
Yeah, we're just accustomed to that because of the nature of email.
(08:52):
WhatsApp's open rate, my open rate on WhatsApp is 95%.
My lowest client's open rate is 78 on average, and they send about 30,000 a month, whichyou can do.
can bulk send WhatsApp through WhatsApp API.
stat that kind of resonates with me when you're comparing WhatsApp to email is globally ofthe 1 billion messages that are sent per day, which is a mind blowing stat in itself.
(09:20):
80 % of every WhatsApp message is opened within the first 10 minutes of it beingdelivered.
Yeah.
And I can believe that as well because we're all addicted to our phones.
We're all on them, you know, constantly.
And WhatsApp is one because it's the way that we communicate, you know, we don't reallyuse text messages and quite often we don't even actually phone each other anymore.
(09:41):
It's all done on WhatsApp, isn't it?
So when you see a notification ping up that someone's messaged you, you will stop whatyou're doing to check that message.
And actually it's probably one of the biggest distractions we have in our lives right now,but it's such a powerful business tool that
is actually very rarely being used by businesses.
100%.
And even then people, not many people know that you can automate WhatsApp messages.
(10:05):
So when an inquiry comes in, send them a WhatsApp straight away.
Even the ones that do typically try and just replicate what their emails will be.
So they might have a welcome email that says thank you for your inquiry and everythinglike that.
But I turn around and say, imagine that your friend or you communicate and watch out withyou all the time sends you four paragraphs in one message.
(10:25):
When you open that message, you're like, dear God, Claire, what's happened?
That's your overall emotion is very rarely a positive.
If somebody sends you a whole length of a message, you're not going, because that's nothow we work.
not how what's up.
I've got a friend who voice notes me like absolute, you know, war and peace.
And I know that I need to get a cup of tea and curl up on the sofa to listen to it.
(10:47):
You know, I have to make time to listen to it.
So yeah, you need to, it's a different method, isn't it?
It's a different communication method.
does need to be changed.
It is.
it's the way that I say it is imagine.
So Claire, imagine with your business, right?
Imagine you had somebody going through your customer journey as it sits at the moment.
And then imagine a friend came up to you and said that they want to go through it.
(11:10):
What you would be telling your friend on WhatsApp how to go through the process becauseyou know them and you have that personal connection is what you can replicate in a
business setting.
It's a bit like when you go to the TV section of a store to go and buy a TV.
The email serves as the leaflet that's handed to you with all of the information.
You'll read it if you want to read it.
Sometimes you won't read it.
(11:31):
But what's being said from the person that's standing there and answering the questions,the quality of them is going to be what dictates, whether you buy or not, but also whether
you buy the best TV there or buy the cheapest or.
walk out because you didn't know if it answered this question.
All of that kind of stuff.
That's the way that I approach it.
(11:51):
WhatsApp should be the customer service wing, but you know, as well as I do, the betteryour customer services, the more sales you generate at the back end and the more referrals
and recommendations you get further because the experience has been better.
I remember during your talk that you did in London, you did some like visual aids.
(12:13):
you said, or if you're interested, think if for memory, I think you had like a downloadand you said was a QR code scan this and it will get you into the system.
So I remember looking around the room and I can't remember how many were there, probably300 or something.
And everybody got up their phones, including me.
(12:33):
because we all wanted to test it.
And then you said something really funny.
You were like, well, I've just grown my contact list by 300 people.
It's that easy, which I loved.
And then you showed us how personalized it is.
We can just send one word and we got loads of information from you.
There was one quite funny one that had, it was like a quirk to a friend, I think.
(12:55):
And they got quite a funny picture back.
So you can build.
whatever you want to build, can't you, in this system, and it can be really personalised.
Do I remember correctly that you can, if anyone texts you and it includes a certain word,that the system will pick out that word and then know what to, how to respond?
(13:17):
So there's two, well, there's a few ways to do it, but there are two ways that most peoplewould use.
We can use things like Zapier and CRM systems to trigger that first message.
So during the talk, I had a QR code with a simple form that was filled in and thatautomatically sent you a message at that stage.
(13:37):
I can then put buttons in the message, which are really engaging.
So I might have buttons which are...
in the talk, for example, it's a selfie of me.
And then the buttons are your hair is messy.
What stunning beauty.
You scared me.
Now, all I want to do is I want you to get used to interacting with me while I'm on stage,because when I'm asking you to send things later on, it's easier for you to do it.
(13:58):
But you can set up keywords where if you send me that word and that word exactly, it willtrigger.
So I have a lot of one set on that.
And then you can set up words that if that's in the message that they're sending, you canalso do that.
You can also have AI in it as well, something I've been experimenting with.
I'm not going down the dive of, turn that into your AI channel yet.
(14:20):
But it's more about, again, making it easy.
So if I use the talk, for example, I have that message that gets sent to you when you scanthe QR code at the start.
And also that event in London was quite female heavy.
So typically, and this is a stereotype, but...
Typically women would store their phone in their bags, whereas men would have it in theirpockets, generally speaking, very much a generalization.
(14:44):
So the slide before that, have get your phones out and turn them to loud because I want tohear your phones during the presentation.
Now the curiosity on that will prompt a lot more people to get their phone out of theirbag than if I told them straight off to scan a QR code.
And that's done very deliberately.
It's a lot easier for you to scan it when it's already in your phone because you've justturned, in your hand because you've just turned it to loud.
(15:04):
Yeah.
That message goes, I get you to interact.
I point out who's taking the mic out of me from stage.
So again, more people will do it.
And because everybody's phone around you is pinging, it feels like everybody else is doingthe same thing.
So you feel like you're left out if you don't do it.
There's been a slide about five minutes later where everybody goes and takes a picture.
Well, not everybody, but there's always somebody in every talk that goes and takes apicture of that stage.
(15:27):
So I tell people they can send me the word slides and they get the full presentation.
I then have a few quirky, funny ones.
You could send me the word plan during the presentation where it will send you a full 24page customer journey plan that I have.
So all of this, you're interacting with me.
And if I was trying to do this on email and say, just reply to my email six or seven timesand talk, you're never doing it.
(15:50):
But it means at the end of the talk, when I have some sort of call to action, which mightbe book a sales call in with me or get a copy of the book, I will tell you to send me a
specific word.
And it feels natural because you've been doing it as you've been going along.
And one thing we haven't spoken about is I can use
somebody sending me that word to tag that person in my CRM system as being interested,whether they go and take that step or not.
(16:13):
So if somebody sends me the word meeting, whether they book a meeting or not, it raises atask for my sales guy to go and call that person.
And if they then book the meeting, it removes the task.
So he'll have a list of people to call that at the time expressed interest, but didn'ttake the action.
So I've got even more of a breakdown of the people that have come into the system.
I love that.
(16:33):
I think from if we compare the two options, so it was all about building thatrelationship, wasn't it?
And breaking down, you know, the distance, I suppose, between you and the people in theroom at the time.
And if we looked at the ease of doing it through WhatsApp or doing it via email, email tome is a lot more just destructive than is that word destructive?
(16:58):
distracting than WhatsApp.
So because I do it all day, I feel like I can send a WhatsApp, especially a one wordWhatsApp and still be engaged in what you're talking about and what's going on in the
room.
Whereas if I need to go into my email inbox, you I'm having to go in, then I getdistracted by other emails that might have come in.
And then I'm having to like type out your email address, which is much harder to do than aQR code, obviously.
(17:21):
And I would just find it much more off putting.
situation to be in than just sending a quick one word on a WhatsApp.
And I'm also weirdly much less inclined to do it via email because my email inbox is fullof so many other previous things that I've signed up for.
And it's quite overwhelming at this point that I am really holding back on signing up foranything else.
(17:46):
But because WhatsApp is clear at the moment, you know, there's barely any businesses doingit.
It feels like a safe space to engage with you.
So I think it's
You know, and that's why I've asked you on today, Chris, because I really liked themessage and that different way of communicating.
And I suppose it goes all the way back to when we went from post and mail, know, physicalmail to emails.
(18:10):
If you were one of the early adopters, and it was relatively clear space still, you wouldstand out from the crowd.
And now I hear a lot of people saying you should be doing physical posts, because no one'sdoing that anymore.
And you'll stand out.
But WhatsApp is still a really early space to adopt, isn't it, into your business?
(18:30):
Definitely, and I'd say Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp,obviously, Meta are really keen to not make WhatsApp like email.
So the barrier to entry is a lot higher than just setting up a domain and setting up someemails.
you could functionally go and create a new domain, send 50,000 emails, you'd get flaggedreally quickly, but then go and buy a new domain and do it again and buy a new domain and
(18:57):
do it again.
You could functionally do that and people do have that strategy of as part of theirbusiness.
With WhatsApp, your number has to be associated with your business in the back end of Metaand you used to have to do this.
You don't have to do this now, but there are sometimes occasions where
you send enough that you then do have to.
(19:17):
You have to verify that your business is a real business.
So you have to submit documentation to Meta to say, no, I'm using this for the rightreasons.
Whenever somebody, you might not have noticed this during the talk, but whenever somebodygets sent the very first message, WhatsApp actually says, this is from a number that you
don't recognize.
It's not on your phone.
What do you want to do?
And then it goes block and report.
(19:37):
Now you might not have noticed that in the talk because I put three buttons there to takethe mick out of my hair with the selfie.
and any of those buttons that you press will automatically go, yeah, no, you're You'rereplying.
You're engaging.
You're good.
We'll remove the warning.
And they can still go and block and report you.
But generally speaking, it's done differently.
(19:57):
So you're completely correct.
It's in the early stages.
It's also the barriers to spammy entries is a lot higher.
And it's also a bit of a warning to make sure that when you do adopt it, you don't justgo.
brilliant, put my whole database in and I'll send them a 15 % off voucher because theyobviously love me.
That's not how people work.
They'll block you immediately.
(20:18):
So like the levels are slightly higher, but I think the real bit behind it, you kind ofhit the nail on the head with emails are quite overwhelming at the moment.
I get 50 to 100 emails a day, the majority of which I can put to one side.
And there's a big update.
This sounds like doom scaring to even the
Email providers really get annoyed at me when I say the following bit.
(20:42):
But Apple's new generation of phones coming out have Apple intelligence as part of it,which they very intelligently made AI so that you start conflating Apple intelligence with
normal AI.
They have a function in the email section where the AI will scan and read the email andthen it will just give you a summary of the email.
So even where people have been
(21:03):
saying for years about making the subject line really engaging, which again is important.
said that at the start, email is an important part.
But Apple intelligence will just bypass all of that, read the whole thing and go, Claireis trying to tell you something.
So you'll never open it anyway.
WhatsApp is still very much a very untouched space and the coverage of it in mostcountries with the odd exception of the United States and then China.
(21:31):
and places that have their own state controlled social media.
The countries that have a massive coverage of it, it's an insanely underused tool.
When you talk about then the phone number has to be attached.
So that's when you have your Facebook profile or your Instagram profile.
(21:53):
It's the number that you have entered for that profile, isn't it?
Not for that profile.
So above the profile, there's what's called a meta business manager above it.
And that meta business manager controls your assets.
You don't have to have a business manager.
Sometimes people have it set up without them realizing.
But your meta business manager can then own your page, your Instagram account, WhatsAppaccounts, ad accounts, pixels, all of that kind of stuff in the back end of meta.
(22:21):
It's advisable to have one because if you as a personal profile ever got hacked,
You could still demonstrate that your business owns the assets, not your profile.
The reason I know the backend of all of this is the reason I have no hair.
You can create.
by the way, to everyone when he was putting on the messages about, you know, insulting thehair is that there isn't any or not a lot is the
(22:43):
Or as my four-year-old son said to me, no daddy you do have hair I've seen it in yournose.
I'm like absolutely amazing.
the truth that come out of babes' mouths.
tell me about it.
But you can have, so a business can have multiple business WhatsApp API numbers.
You have to get them validated with Meta, so it will send you a verification code.
(23:04):
I do that on board and when I first start with clients.
So there's a particular way it needs to be set up.
But it doesn't have to be your phone number.
It can be a virtual number.
The number that sent you the messages when we were talking is my 0208 number, which isjust a virtual number that redirects through to my.
Now it redirects through to my AI agent that answers the phone for you.
(23:24):
But it's just a virtual number and I just have it redirected to a number that I own.
So it doesn't have to be a new device.
You can have it on the same device that you have now.
You don't need to buy a new phone.
You may need an additional phone number, but I provide them for my clients.
They cost me 12 pound a year per number.
No, I didn't know that.
that's it makes it even easier then.
(23:45):
And so do you need to have a professional profile on Facebook and Instagram?
No, so you can do it just from a standard personal profile as well.
from a standard personal profile.
You would need to set up the business manager, which is free to set up.
Some people have it set up already.
You can get to it by going to business.facebook.com forward slash overview.
(24:06):
It will typically show you there.
Or if you're ever in the ads manager, so not in the business sweep, but in the ads managerside, there's an option on the left where you can click all tools, go to business
settings, and it will typically take you through to the business manager settings.
If you already have one set up.
Amazing.
And I have been in a WhatsApp community that is to do with a business networking sort ofcommunity that I'm part of.
(24:35):
And they actually have different rooms within WhatsApp now.
And I think I believe that's a relatively new thing.
So do you envision that, you know, there's so many Facebook group communities that we'reall a part of free and paid for.
Do you think the next thing is
they will be actually on WhatsApp or they'll be, you know, a complimentary addition tothose groups or.
(25:02):
I'm not sure on that side.
The reason being, when I talk about WhatsApp automation and API, you can't actually have aWhatsApp API number added to a group because you can broadcast out.
I could send my entire database right now, WhatsApp, if I wanted to all at the same time.
There are a few things I need to do first.
(25:23):
I need to verify with meta the message I'm sending so that it's nothing that's untowardand
I need to be able to demonstrate that the person receiving it has opted in for thosemessages in the first place.
It's not quite the same as like GDPR, but because they have to accept terms and conditionson WhatsApp on their side, it's a bit like being served an ad.
(25:44):
But the problem that I found with groups and I use WhatsApp groups all the time.
I'm in quite a few of them.
I don't discourage them.
There comes a point where there are so many people in that group that everybody startsmuting it anyway.
Yeah.
So again, you'll start having your messages missed or just flat out ignored with the API.
(26:07):
You can send messages on messages on mass.
And yet they're still one to one conversations with the person that's there.
Yeah, yeah.
I've been to in the last sort of second half of 2024, I went to quite a few events, one ofwhich I met you at, actually used it as part of the event experience.
(26:29):
So you, yeah, so you signed up and they gave you sort of information of what was happeningon each stage.
The you know, all of the event information, the dates and times and addresses and
All of those things, asking for feedback, did you enjoy the day, you know, little yes, notick boxes and things.
And it just was a new level of relationship building with those events and making youfeel, know, and that was just one-on-one.
(26:56):
wasn't a mass group with every single person attending those events all in this one space.
And it also weirdly gave you the freedom to really be honest.
So if I hadn't enjoyed something, I could have, and I would have felt comfortable.
saying actually, no, I didn't enjoy today.
valuable as well.
Like, people shy away from getting that feedback.
(27:19):
I've got six core values that I stick to and one of them is I reflect and self assess.
I want you to tell me when something hasn't been perfect, because you learn a greatbusinessman that I know, a guy called Henry Gidgen runs a podcast called Fail Forward.
He talks about reframing a failure.
Every single person I speak to will agree they've learned more from their failures thantheir successes and yet they're afraid to fail.
(27:44):
It's like if you want to learn how to do something, fail at it, you'll learn more fromthat than anything else.
And yet, especially with events, there's so many people there, they just don't have thetime to call all of them afterwards.
That's completely understandable.
Yeah, you can't you can't have that one to one relationship, they might send an emailafterwards.
But again, we've already discussed about how they can get lost in the inbox.
(28:07):
Or, you know, quite often, you'll think, well, come back to that in a couple of weeks, andthen you forget.
But having it in your WhatsApp is instant, isn't it?
Yeah, you're also asking that person to do a lot.
I know it sounds really silly, but going back to the point that made at the start, thepeople you're speaking to have lives.
You you're asking them to take time, which is the most valuable asset any person has onthis planet.
(28:31):
You're asking them to allocate an amount of time purely for your benefit.
When I frame it like that, people go, actually, that's a good point.
You're asking somebody to take time out of their day purely to benefit you.
Now, some people incentivize that by going, we'll give you a voucher and stuff like that.
There's ways of doing it.
if I can make it really easy for you to do the thing that I want you to do, where it mightjust be a message afterwards which says, we're always looking to improve.
(29:02):
Let us know which of the three options below suits you.
Absolutely loved it.
Yeah, it was good.
There's room for improvement.
And if they press the room for improvement, look, thank you so much for letting us know.
We've got an option now of giving us some feedback and letting us know what areas you canimprove because thank you for giving us that feedback.
If they say absolutely loved it, brilliant.
(29:22):
Here's a link to leave us a review.
Little things where too many people are asking for a big chunk of time.
If you ask for a little chunk of time,
then give them the option of giving you a little bit more chunk of time.
You'll actually end up with more time that they've allocated.
But I think I talk about this in the talk.
(29:43):
Very often people see where people are right now in their process.
So I filled out a form, for example, and they go right the next stage is I want them tobook a call.
So how do I make that as quick as possible?
And in reality, that's not how we work.
You want to go right.
They filled out a form.
How do I get them to engage at that stage immediately?
How do I capture their attention for a little bit more time?
How do I get them to open a message?
(30:04):
I send it on WhatsApp.
How do I get them to watch a video if I send that video via WhatsApp?
Well, the text I put in the body of the text is, Hi, hi, first name.
So hi, Claire.
Please watch a video above.
Let me know which of the options suits you best.
Your curiosity takes over.
And then I make sure the first few seconds like social media, the first few seconds of thevideo are.
(30:27):
hooky enough that you'll stay and watch because if you're staring at my face for anextended amount of time, I'm building trust or I'm qualifying you out.
You might not like me.
Brilliant.
I want to know early.
I'm building trust.
I'm using my voice.
I'm getting the sentences over the way that I want.
(30:47):
And this is one thing that we haven't talked about, but I know I mentioned it in the talkand I think it's really important when you're looking at the WhatsApp versus email
argument.
What type you can send a video that somebody will watch so they can hear your voice.
How many times have you read a sentence in an email in one way and then realize when youspoke to that person later that they didn't actually mean it the way that you read it.
(31:08):
It was completely different.
And the the sent I always risk saying this when I'm on podcast but the sentence that Isaid on stages I didn't tell you to kill him which is a sentence that has seven words in
it six different meanings based on which words you put the inflection on.
Yeah.
because I didn't tell you to kill him, was different.
I didn't tell you to kill him and all of the other variants.
(31:30):
Yeah, I remember that and I encourage everyone listening to go and say it to yourself overand over and emphasise each individual word the next time you say it.
And it's true that actually every single time has a completely different meaning, which isactually quite mind blowing.
And the other quick thing to note on this is if I, because occasionally you get a videowithin an email and the worst thing possible is if you, you know, you're working in a cafe
(31:57):
or wherever you're working and suddenly
a really loud video starts playing from your email that you've got no real control over.
Whereas a WhatsApp, you you know, that it's the same as a voice note, isn't it?
You're going to find the space that, you know, you have control over it.
So I think for me, WhatsApp has a lot of power and untapped potential at the moment.
(32:17):
So if people are, you know, inspired by this episode, Chris, and they're like, yeah, Ireally want to look into this more and potentially how this can help my business.
What would be the first steps that they would take to potentially begin, bring this intotheir business for 25?
The first thing that I would always encourage every business to do is have a reallycritical look and invite feedback.
(32:42):
I'm going to put an asterisk there and come back to that.
Have a really critical look at your own customer journey and invite feedback and I'llbring the asterisk back in from people that have no idea what you do.
So don't go to your closest confidence that know how your business operates.
Go to people that you know, that you trust and say, I am giving you carte blanche to giveme feedback on this process where you have no idea what I do.
(33:11):
Because we very often look at it from a perspective, I know that WhatsApp is a reallyeffective channel.
the person I'm speaking to might not know.
Now if they interact with my WhatsApp, all of a sudden I can say the sentence with, thatis, how difficult did you find it?
Really easy, brilliant.
I have a bit of a leg up, but understanding the experience your customers are goingthrough is so underappreciated and yet so incredibly important.
(33:40):
Because I asked this question, when was the last...
Have you ever experienced interacting with a business and been left thinking, right, whathappens next?
Everybody that I asked that question to says yes.
And I would say, and in that moment, did you feel more likely to spend money with them orless likely?
And everybody says less.
(34:01):
And yet we don't look at what our experience is.
So that would be the first thing that I would do.
The second thing would be to plan out that journey to answer as many questions as you canto make it easy for people to do that one step.
So don't try and optimize for I've got a lead coming in.
I want them to book a call.
I then want them to buy.
(34:21):
Don't do a two step process.
Literally think about each of the micro bits.
If you're sending them something, send them a video, use your voice.
What are you saying in it?
How are you answering questions?
how is your tonality coming across?
How professional are you?
What options are you giving them?
Like all those little micro bits.
It takes time this by the way.
This isn't something that you could you know look at an afternoon, block out a day, blockout two days and really have a look at it.
(34:48):
Because if I said to you I've got a restaurant that I'm opening and I've done the bestpromo in the world to get people there's a queue out the door.
I've got the best chefs in the world, Michelin star, the food's amazing, the staff areabsolutely brilliant.
And yet when you walk in, the tables are dirty, there's feces on there and everything likethat.
(35:09):
It does not matter how good your marketing is, it doesn't matter how good your product is.
Their experience will mean they either walk out, but they definitely never come back andthey'll tell everybody else.
So when you run future marketing campaigns, then you don't understand why they're notcoming back, because you didn't look at of the table.
When I say it in a restaurant context, everybody understands.
But when you think about your business and you're getting people to inquire online andyou're not giving them a good experience up until the point that you either get in touch,
(35:37):
you just put it down to the fact that, that person filled out a form and then didn't pickup.
They obviously weren't interested.
That's not the case.
Sometimes it is, but it's definitely not as often as you think it is.
You might have just tried to call them when they were in the toilet.
Yeah, there's a lot to the follow up as well, isn't there?
And knowing when to sort of give up on a lead, I suppose.
(36:02):
by using WhatsApp, you get that clarity early.
you said, you get to, yes, you get to move people through the journey, but you also get tocut out the people that aren't, you know, the time wasters really, and the people that
aren't actually aligned with you and your business.
And that in itself is just as valuable.
because you're not wasting any further of your time.
(36:25):
The talk that you saw us at, if you hadn't have either booked in a meeting with me or toldme you weren't interested, the follow up from that is there's a message at seven o'clock
that night, very deliberately, because I know that you will have left the conference oryou'll be at the bar and everybody's phone goes off, which is even better for me.
Seven o'clock, then there's one at 24 hours, 48 hours, seven days, 14 days and 30 dayslaid out.
(36:47):
And there are videos at each of those.
Every single one of those, one of the options I give you is, I'm not interested, thiswon't work for me.
One of them even says F off Chris, because I say that in the video.
That's my personality, but I want you to tell me that this isn't going to work for you,because otherwise I'm going to keep sending you messages.
So I want to qualify you out, but if I'm giving you three, four options to tell me thatyou're flat out not interested and this won't work, and you're watching them because
(37:15):
almost everybody looks at their WhatsApps.
the fact that you're interested, I'm just not doing it at the right time.
And I then need to be professional.
said, no, I'm not interested, and you're letting those messages continue, then there is anelement of interest there, isn't there, that you just need to keep going until you hit the
right time.
I've had clients genuinely come on board who waited until that last message because theywanted to see the series before they signed up.
(37:40):
Because they wanted to see what the follow up was.
And I was like, could you not have told me that 30 days ago and I would have signed you upand just not taken you out of the series.
But you know, it's all about generating conversations.
Because if you can't speak to people, then very few people are going to buy from you.
(38:02):
Yeah, Chris, that has been an amazing session.
Thank you so much for joining us.
And you've really shared some, you know, some huge value there for the listeners.
So if anybody is interested in learning more, there is a book that you have out and also Iwill put all of your social media links in the show notes for everybody so they can come
and find you to find out more.
(38:24):
But yeah, I think it's a really, really interesting area of business that we're right onthe cusp actually of it becoming
mainstream and I think now is the perfect time because you will stand out in that crowd.
So thank you so much for coming on today and sharing all of those little tip bits with usand I will speak to all the listeners again next week.
Have a great weekend.
(38:44):
Thank you,
Hello everyone and welcome to this week's episode of the Bold Blueprint.
This week I am joined by Chris Dillon from the marketing autopilots.
And I'm really looking forward to this session actually, because I think it's an area thata lot of people won't have ever considered before for their business, but I've seen how
transformational it can be.
So Chris, thank you so much for joining us today.
(00:23):
Thank you very much for inviting me.
It's going to be a really good session.
Now I first came across you, think, at an event in London, which was, I don't know, maybeOctober 24, I think it was.
And you were sharing about this tool that you use in business.
I don't want to give it away just yet.
And it was really, really interesting to me and something that I had never consideredbefore either.
(00:46):
So before we dive into that, do you want to just give us a bit of background, you know,how you got onto this journey and what's led you to be where you are in your business
today?
Yeah, thank you very much.
So I started in the sort of sales and marketing world way back at university when I wasgoing around knocking on doors to sell one pound to nightclub tickets to keep 50p that
(01:08):
will hopefully see me through the week, which was very lucrative, but also my feet hurt alot.
So I started to get an understanding of how to do this organically on social media andstarted understanding this was back in 2009.
So it was still fairly early days of social media marketing, shall we say.
(01:28):
Fast forward.
I've done marketing for a number of years.
I know how important that is.
And I got very good at running paid ads for lead generation.
So I understand what the front end marketing needs.
And also I'm very, very clear that's an incredibly important part of your business.
You could have the best product in the world.
(01:48):
If nobody knows it exists, it's not the best product in the world.
However, what I started to realize was the quality of somebody's experience with yourbusiness is very often overlooked by businesses.
And when we dive into everything, it will be kind of focusing on the importance ofunderstanding that the people you're interacting with as a business are actual human
(02:11):
beings that have an actual life.
And sometimes we assume that because we know what we offer either solves a problem orgives a large amount of pleasure.
And we know that better than the person that we're interacting with that we sometimes takefor granted the fact that they don't care yet.
And we need to make things easy for them to be able to do the next step.
I love that.
I think this is also, you know, through the onboarding process, but afterwards as well,when they become a client, I think so often we put so much energy and effort into getting
(02:39):
them to sign up with us and becoming a client.
And then we sort of maybe neglect that customer service a little bit in that relationshiponce they're on board.
yeah.
100%.
I like to say that you have two first impressions with a business.
You have their first impression of your business and then their first impression of beingyour client.
And we've put a lot of emphasis on the one.
(03:01):
I will say not everybody puts a lot of emphasis on the first bit.
And that's part of the reason why I do what I do.
But people have a good understanding that their first impression with a business isimportant, but forget that their first impression as a client is a whole new experience.
And there's nothing worse than going through an amazing sales process and then a terriblepost sign up onboarding process.
(03:24):
And I was actually watching a podcast last night with Rory Sutherland, who is an absolutegenius when it comes to marketing.
But he was talking about the important, he was talking about a car salesperson who heinterviewed and how he was the most successful car salesperson in the entire region for
years and years and years.
(03:45):
And he said it's because he asked the question that most car salespeople don't.
Most car salespeople at the time will say, how can I sell this person a car?
Whereas he will ask, what can I do today to make sure they come back to me for the nextcar?
I like that.
And I'd inadvertently been doing this, I say to every client when they come on board withme, my aim is to make sure that in 10 months when I call you and say, we're about to come
(04:09):
up to the renewal, that it's an absolute no brainer for you to do it.
By looking at it that way, and by looking at it as the car salesman who's planning fortheir second car, the decisions you make earlier are for your long term relationship.
And you might lose a few short term sales in that, by the way, but long term and longevityon that side, that's where you scale.
(04:30):
And that's, think a lot of people forget about that.
I think that's the bit in business that a lot of people struggle with.
And we talk about this a lot, don't we?
know, that overnight success and people are wanting to be bringing in the big money andseeing the results instantly in their business.
There's so many that don't play that long game and don't realize that actually thefoundational work that you do today is setting you up for long-term success.
(04:55):
So it is about
when you win that client, amazing, you've got that initial income, but keeping them as aclient long term and getting them to buy the next product and the next product, refer you
on to, you know, to their friends and relationships.
And that's how a business grows.
And that's what you need to do and nurture that relationship.
So it is a long standing one.
(05:16):
Yeah, unless you have a product that can only ever be bought once, which is a very, smallminority of businesses out there, you need to be optimizing for people buying again and
again, but also people being an advocate for your business.
(05:37):
Because if they have a bad experience, I guarantee you they'll be an advocate for notdoing business with you.
We've all gone to a restaurant where everything might have been lovely but the waiterspoke to us a little bit off once and we've told 10 people about that that's put 10 people
off.
We're much more likely to share a negative experience, aren't we, than a positive one.
Yeah, that you're about 10 times more likely if you have a bad experience to leave a badreview than if you have a good experience to leave a good review.
(06:05):
And it's, it's why when you start understanding that, like, if I'm looking at a restaurantthat has 1000 reviews, 50 of them are negative and 950 positive, actually, there's about
9500 positive experiences that haven't been noted down in that.
And yet,
Again as human beings I guarantee you somebody will be listening to this and the firstthing they would do at restaurant is go, that's a new place right?
(06:31):
I'm gonna read all the one-star reviews They'll dismiss and ignore all the five-starThey'll ignore the fact that strangers have had an amazing experience but then we read one
review where one person said that the prawn cocktail was off or it was undercooked andthey'll go I don't want I mean the risk of seafood and you're like
It's one person having one potentially erroneous opinion or just one mistake that wasmade.
(06:59):
Yes, the difference between trusting the kebab shop and the kebab van.
The kebab shop you trust a little bit more because it's got an established place.
You know that it has to have had repeat custom because there's only a certain amount ofpeople that you can serve and if it's been around for ages people will go back again and
again.
Whereas a van that you see at a festival you're not necessarily going to trust because youknow that they could have a really crap
(07:20):
offering and they don't need to worry about longevity they'll just go to the next show.
Now we know that psychologically but we don't apply in business.
Yeah.
So how do you support people and what is this method that we've hinted at already thathelps with this area of business?
How can we make it easier for business owners to build the quality in the ongoingrelationship with their clients?
(07:45):
The main thing is communication, the quality of your communication.
I say the sentence all the time that conversations lead to conversions.
The more people you speak to, the more people will buy from you.
Assuming your product is good and your general demeanor and service are good, but mostpeople have that.
Most people understand that.
They're just not having enough conversations or enough people talking about them.
(08:09):
what I specialize in helping with is planning out customer journeys and the shiny objectthat most people come to me for is
automating WhatsApp through that process.
Because, and I'm going to preface the following sentence by saying email is incrediblyimportant.
Not enough businesses use email the way that they should.
And it is so underutilized in business nowadays.
(08:30):
Anyway, however, a good email open rate, you'll be looking sort of 20 to 30%.
People have higher email open rates.
And somebody said to me the other day, yeah, but my email is amazing.
It's a 55 % open rate.
I went, so you're celebrating the fact that 45 % of people ignore your emails.
Yeah, we're just accustomed to that because of the nature of email.
(08:52):
WhatsApp's open rate, my open rate on WhatsApp is 95%.
My lowest client's open rate is 78 on average, and they send about 30,000 a month, whichyou can do.
can bulk send WhatsApp through WhatsApp API.
stat that kind of resonates with me when you're comparing WhatsApp to email is globally ofthe 1 billion messages that are sent per day, which is a mind blowing stat in itself.
(09:20):
80 % of every WhatsApp message is opened within the first 10 minutes of it beingdelivered.
Yeah.
And I can believe that as well because we're all addicted to our phones.
We're all on them, you know, constantly.
And WhatsApp is one because it's the way that we communicate, you know, we don't reallyuse text messages and quite often we don't even actually phone each other anymore.
(09:41):
It's all done on WhatsApp, isn't it?
So when you see a notification ping up that someone's messaged you, you will stop whatyou're doing to check that message.
And actually it's probably one of the biggest distractions we have in our lives right now,but it's such a powerful business tool that
is actually very rarely being used by businesses.
100%.
And even then people, not many people know that you can automate WhatsApp messages.
(10:05):
So when an inquiry comes in, send them a WhatsApp straight away.
Even the ones that do typically try and just replicate what their emails will be.
So they might have a welcome email that says thank you for your inquiry and everythinglike that.
But I turn around and say, imagine that your friend or you communicate and watch out withyou all the time sends you four paragraphs in one message.
(10:25):
When you open that message, you're like, dear God, Claire, what's happened?
That's your overall emotion is very rarely a positive.
If somebody sends you a whole length of a message, you're not going, because that's nothow we work.
not how what's up.
I've got a friend who voice notes me like absolute, you know, war and peace.
And I know that I need to get a cup of tea and curl up on the sofa to listen to it.
(10:47):
You know, I have to make time to listen to it.
So yeah, you need to, it's a different method, isn't it?
It's a different communication method.
does need to be changed.
It is.
it's the way that I say it is imagine.
So Claire, imagine with your business, right?
Imagine you had somebody going through your customer journey as it sits at the moment.
And then imagine a friend came up to you and said that they want to go through it.
(11:10):
What you would be telling your friend on WhatsApp how to go through the process becauseyou know them and you have that personal connection is what you can replicate in a
business setting.
It's a bit like when you go to the TV section of a store to go and buy a TV.
The email serves as the leaflet that's handed to you with all of the information.
You'll read it if you want to read it.
Sometimes you won't read it.
(11:31):
But what's being said from the person that's standing there and answering the questions,the quality of them is going to be what dictates, whether you buy or not, but also whether
you buy the best TV there or buy the cheapest or.
walk out because you didn't know if it answered this question.
All of that kind of stuff.
That's the way that I approach it.
(11:51):
WhatsApp should be the customer service wing, but you know, as well as I do, the betteryour customer services, the more sales you generate at the back end and the more referrals
and recommendations you get further because the experience has been better.
I remember during your talk that you did in London, you did some like visual aids.
(12:13):
you said, or if you're interested, think if for memory, I think you had like a downloadand you said was a QR code scan this and it will get you into the system.
So I remember looking around the room and I can't remember how many were there, probably300 or something.
And everybody got up their phones, including me.
(12:33):
because we all wanted to test it.
And then you said something really funny.
You were like, well, I've just grown my contact list by 300 people.
It's that easy, which I loved.
And then you showed us how personalized it is.
We can just send one word and we got loads of information from you.
There was one quite funny one that had, it was like a quirk to a friend, I think.
(12:55):
And they got quite a funny picture back.
So you can build.
whatever you want to build, can't you, in this system, and it can be really personalised.
Do I remember correctly that you can, if anyone texts you and it includes a certain word,that the system will pick out that word and then know what to, how to respond?
(13:17):
So there's two, well, there's a few ways to do it, but there are two ways that most peoplewould use.
We can use things like Zapier and CRM systems to trigger that first message.
So during the talk, I had a QR code with a simple form that was filled in and thatautomatically sent you a message at that stage.
(13:37):
I can then put buttons in the message, which are really engaging.
So I might have buttons which are...
in the talk, for example, it's a selfie of me.
And then the buttons are your hair is messy.
What stunning beauty.
You scared me.
Now, all I want to do is I want you to get used to interacting with me while I'm on stage,because when I'm asking you to send things later on, it's easier for you to do it.
(13:58):
But you can set up keywords where if you send me that word and that word exactly, it willtrigger.
So I have a lot of one set on that.
And then you can set up words that if that's in the message that they're sending, you canalso do that.
You can also have AI in it as well, something I've been experimenting with.
I'm not going down the dive of, turn that into your AI channel yet.
(14:20):
But it's more about, again, making it easy.
So if I use the talk, for example, I have that message that gets sent to you when you scanthe QR code at the start.
And also that event in London was quite female heavy.
So typically, and this is a stereotype, but...
Typically women would store their phone in their bags, whereas men would have it in theirpockets, generally speaking, very much a generalization.
(14:44):
So the slide before that, have get your phones out and turn them to loud because I want tohear your phones during the presentation.
Now the curiosity on that will prompt a lot more people to get their phone out of theirbag than if I told them straight off to scan a QR code.
And that's done very deliberately.
It's a lot easier for you to scan it when it's already in your phone because you've justturned, in your hand because you've just turned it to loud.
(15:04):
Yeah.
That message goes, I get you to interact.
I point out who's taking the mic out of me from stage.
So again, more people will do it.
And because everybody's phone around you is pinging, it feels like everybody else is doingthe same thing.
So you feel like you're left out if you don't do it.
There's been a slide about five minutes later where everybody goes and takes a picture.
Well, not everybody, but there's always somebody in every talk that goes and takes apicture of that stage.
(15:27):
So I tell people they can send me the word slides and they get the full presentation.
I then have a few quirky, funny ones.
You could send me the word plan during the presentation where it will send you a full 24page customer journey plan that I have.
So all of this, you're interacting with me.
And if I was trying to do this on email and say, just reply to my email six or seven timesand talk, you're never doing it.
(15:50):
But it means at the end of the talk, when I have some sort of call to action, which mightbe book a sales call in with me or get a copy of the book, I will tell you to send me a
specific word.
And it feels natural because you've been doing it as you've been going along.
And one thing we haven't spoken about is I can use
somebody sending me that word to tag that person in my CRM system as being interested,whether they go and take that step or not.
(16:13):
So if somebody sends me the word meeting, whether they book a meeting or not, it raises atask for my sales guy to go and call that person.
And if they then book the meeting, it removes the task.
So he'll have a list of people to call that at the time expressed interest, but didn'ttake the action.
So I've got even more of a breakdown of the people that have come into the system.
I love that.
(16:33):
I think from if we compare the two options, so it was all about building thatrelationship, wasn't it?
And breaking down, you know, the distance, I suppose, between you and the people in theroom at the time.
And if we looked at the ease of doing it through WhatsApp or doing it via email, email tome is a lot more just destructive than is that word destructive?
(16:58):
distracting than WhatsApp.
So because I do it all day, I feel like I can send a WhatsApp, especially a one wordWhatsApp and still be engaged in what you're talking about and what's going on in the
room.
Whereas if I need to go into my email inbox, you I'm having to go in, then I getdistracted by other emails that might have come in.
And then I'm having to like type out your email address, which is much harder to do than aQR code, obviously.
(17:21):
And I would just find it much more off putting.
situation to be in than just sending a quick one word on a WhatsApp.
And I'm also weirdly much less inclined to do it via email because my email inbox is fullof so many other previous things that I've signed up for.
And it's quite overwhelming at this point that I am really holding back on signing up foranything else.
(17:46):
But because WhatsApp is clear at the moment, you know, there's barely any businesses doingit.
It feels like a safe space to engage with you.
So I think it's
You know, and that's why I've asked you on today, Chris, because I really liked themessage and that different way of communicating.
And I suppose it goes all the way back to when we went from post and mail, know, physicalmail to emails.
(18:10):
If you were one of the early adopters, and it was relatively clear space still, you wouldstand out from the crowd.
And now I hear a lot of people saying you should be doing physical posts, because no one'sdoing that anymore.
And you'll stand out.
But WhatsApp is still a really early space to adopt, isn't it, into your business?
(18:30):
Definitely, and I'd say Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp,obviously, Meta are really keen to not make WhatsApp like email.
So the barrier to entry is a lot higher than just setting up a domain and setting up someemails.
you could functionally go and create a new domain, send 50,000 emails, you'd get flaggedreally quickly, but then go and buy a new domain and do it again and buy a new domain and
(18:57):
do it again.
You could functionally do that and people do have that strategy of as part of theirbusiness.
With WhatsApp, your number has to be associated with your business in the back end of Metaand you used to have to do this.
You don't have to do this now, but there are sometimes occasions where
you send enough that you then do have to.
(19:17):
You have to verify that your business is a real business.
So you have to submit documentation to Meta to say, no, I'm using this for the rightreasons.
Whenever somebody, you might not have noticed this during the talk, but whenever somebodygets sent the very first message, WhatsApp actually says, this is from a number that you
don't recognize.
It's not on your phone.
What do you want to do?
And then it goes block and report.
(19:37):
Now you might not have noticed that in the talk because I put three buttons there to takethe mick out of my hair with the selfie.
and any of those buttons that you press will automatically go, yeah, no, you're You'rereplying.
You're engaging.
You're good.
We'll remove the warning.
And they can still go and block and report you.
But generally speaking, it's done differently.
(19:57):
So you're completely correct.
It's in the early stages.
It's also the barriers to spammy entries is a lot higher.
And it's also a bit of a warning to make sure that when you do adopt it, you don't justgo.
brilliant, put my whole database in and I'll send them a 15 % off voucher because theyobviously love me.
That's not how people work.
They'll block you immediately.
(20:18):
So like the levels are slightly higher, but I think the real bit behind it, you kind ofhit the nail on the head with emails are quite overwhelming at the moment.
I get 50 to 100 emails a day, the majority of which I can put to one side.
And there's a big update.
This sounds like doom scaring to even the
Email providers really get annoyed at me when I say the following bit.
(20:42):
But Apple's new generation of phones coming out have Apple intelligence as part of it,which they very intelligently made AI so that you start conflating Apple intelligence with
normal AI.
They have a function in the email section where the AI will scan and read the email andthen it will just give you a summary of the email.
So even where people have been
(21:03):
saying for years about making the subject line really engaging, which again is important.
said that at the start, email is an important part.
But Apple intelligence will just bypass all of that, read the whole thing and go, Claireis trying to tell you something.
So you'll never open it anyway.
WhatsApp is still very much a very untouched space and the coverage of it in mostcountries with the odd exception of the United States and then China.
(21:31):
and places that have their own state controlled social media.
The countries that have a massive coverage of it, it's an insanely underused tool.
When you talk about then the phone number has to be attached.
So that's when you have your Facebook profile or your Instagram profile.
(21:53):
It's the number that you have entered for that profile, isn't it?
Not for that profile.
So above the profile, there's what's called a meta business manager above it.
And that meta business manager controls your assets.
You don't have to have a business manager.
Sometimes people have it set up without them realizing.
But your meta business manager can then own your page, your Instagram account, WhatsAppaccounts, ad accounts, pixels, all of that kind of stuff in the back end of meta.
(22:21):
It's advisable to have one because if you as a personal profile ever got hacked,
You could still demonstrate that your business owns the assets, not your profile.
The reason I know the backend of all of this is the reason I have no hair.
You can create.
by the way, to everyone when he was putting on the messages about, you know, insulting thehair is that there isn't any or not a lot is the
(22:43):
Or as my four-year-old son said to me, no daddy you do have hair I've seen it in yournose.
I'm like absolutely amazing.
the truth that come out of babes' mouths.
tell me about it.
But you can have, so a business can have multiple business WhatsApp API numbers.
You have to get them validated with Meta, so it will send you a verification code.
(23:04):
I do that on board and when I first start with clients.
So there's a particular way it needs to be set up.
But it doesn't have to be your phone number.
It can be a virtual number.
The number that sent you the messages when we were talking is my 0208 number, which isjust a virtual number that redirects through to my.
Now it redirects through to my AI agent that answers the phone for you.
(23:24):
But it's just a virtual number and I just have it redirected to a number that I own.
So it doesn't have to be a new device.
You can have it on the same device that you have now.
You don't need to buy a new phone.
You may need an additional phone number, but I provide them for my clients.
They cost me 12 pound a year per number.
No, I didn't know that.
that's it makes it even easier then.
(23:45):
And so do you need to have a professional profile on Facebook and Instagram?
No, so you can do it just from a standard personal profile as well.
from a standard personal profile.
You would need to set up the business manager, which is free to set up.
Some people have it set up already.
You can get to it by going to business.facebook.com forward slash overview.
(24:06):
It will typically show you there.
Or if you're ever in the ads manager, so not in the business sweep, but in the ads managerside, there's an option on the left where you can click all tools, go to business
settings, and it will typically take you through to the business manager settings.
If you already have one set up.
Amazing.
And I have been in a WhatsApp community that is to do with a business networking sort ofcommunity that I'm part of.
(24:35):
And they actually have different rooms within WhatsApp now.
And I think I believe that's a relatively new thing.
So do you envision that, you know, there's so many Facebook group communities that we'reall a part of free and paid for.
Do you think the next thing is
they will be actually on WhatsApp or they'll be, you know, a complimentary addition tothose groups or.
(25:02):
I'm not sure on that side.
The reason being, when I talk about WhatsApp automation and API, you can't actually have aWhatsApp API number added to a group because you can broadcast out.
I could send my entire database right now, WhatsApp, if I wanted to all at the same time.
There are a few things I need to do first.
(25:23):
I need to verify with meta the message I'm sending so that it's nothing that's untowardand
I need to be able to demonstrate that the person receiving it has opted in for thosemessages in the first place.
It's not quite the same as like GDPR, but because they have to accept terms and conditionson WhatsApp on their side, it's a bit like being served an ad.
(25:44):
But the problem that I found with groups and I use WhatsApp groups all the time.
I'm in quite a few of them.
I don't discourage them.
There comes a point where there are so many people in that group that everybody startsmuting it anyway.
Yeah.
So again, you'll start having your messages missed or just flat out ignored with the API.
(26:07):
You can send messages on messages on mass.
And yet they're still one to one conversations with the person that's there.
Yeah, yeah.
I've been to in the last sort of second half of 2024, I went to quite a few events, one ofwhich I met you at, actually used it as part of the event experience.
(26:29):
So you, yeah, so you signed up and they gave you sort of information of what was happeningon each stage.
The you know, all of the event information, the dates and times and addresses and
All of those things, asking for feedback, did you enjoy the day, you know, little yes, notick boxes and things.
And it just was a new level of relationship building with those events and making youfeel, know, and that was just one-on-one.
(26:56):
wasn't a mass group with every single person attending those events all in this one space.
And it also weirdly gave you the freedom to really be honest.
So if I hadn't enjoyed something, I could have, and I would have felt comfortable.
saying actually, no, I didn't enjoy today.
valuable as well.
Like, people shy away from getting that feedback.
(27:19):
I've got six core values that I stick to and one of them is I reflect and self assess.
I want you to tell me when something hasn't been perfect, because you learn a greatbusinessman that I know, a guy called Henry Gidgen runs a podcast called Fail Forward.
He talks about reframing a failure.
Every single person I speak to will agree they've learned more from their failures thantheir successes and yet they're afraid to fail.
(27:44):
It's like if you want to learn how to do something, fail at it, you'll learn more fromthat than anything else.
And yet, especially with events, there's so many people there, they just don't have thetime to call all of them afterwards.
That's completely understandable.
Yeah, you can't you can't have that one to one relationship, they might send an emailafterwards.
But again, we've already discussed about how they can get lost in the inbox.
(28:07):
Or, you know, quite often, you'll think, well, come back to that in a couple of weeks, andthen you forget.
But having it in your WhatsApp is instant, isn't it?
Yeah, you're also asking that person to do a lot.
I know it sounds really silly, but going back to the point that made at the start, thepeople you're speaking to have lives.
You you're asking them to take time, which is the most valuable asset any person has onthis planet.
(28:31):
You're asking them to allocate an amount of time purely for your benefit.
When I frame it like that, people go, actually, that's a good point.
You're asking somebody to take time out of their day purely to benefit you.
Now, some people incentivize that by going, we'll give you a voucher and stuff like that.
There's ways of doing it.
if I can make it really easy for you to do the thing that I want you to do, where it mightjust be a message afterwards which says, we're always looking to improve.
(29:02):
Let us know which of the three options below suits you.
Absolutely loved it.
Yeah, it was good.
There's room for improvement.
And if they press the room for improvement, look, thank you so much for letting us know.
We've got an option now of giving us some feedback and letting us know what areas you canimprove because thank you for giving us that feedback.
If they say absolutely loved it, brilliant.
(29:22):
Here's a link to leave us a review.
Little things where too many people are asking for a big chunk of time.
If you ask for a little chunk of time,
then give them the option of giving you a little bit more chunk of time.
You'll actually end up with more time that they've allocated.
But I think I talk about this in the talk.
(29:43):
Very often people see where people are right now in their process.
So I filled out a form, for example, and they go right the next stage is I want them tobook a call.
So how do I make that as quick as possible?
And in reality, that's not how we work.
You want to go right.
They filled out a form.
How do I get them to engage at that stage immediately?
How do I capture their attention for a little bit more time?
How do I get them to open a message?
(30:04):
I send it on WhatsApp.
How do I get them to watch a video if I send that video via WhatsApp?
Well, the text I put in the body of the text is, Hi, hi, first name.
So hi, Claire.
Please watch a video above.
Let me know which of the options suits you best.
Your curiosity takes over.
And then I make sure the first few seconds like social media, the first few seconds of thevideo are.
(30:27):
hooky enough that you'll stay and watch because if you're staring at my face for anextended amount of time, I'm building trust or I'm qualifying you out.
You might not like me.
Brilliant.
I want to know early.
I'm building trust.
I'm using my voice.
I'm getting the sentences over the way that I want.
(30:47):
And this is one thing that we haven't talked about, but I know I mentioned it in the talkand I think it's really important when you're looking at the WhatsApp versus email
argument.
What type you can send a video that somebody will watch so they can hear your voice.
How many times have you read a sentence in an email in one way and then realize when youspoke to that person later that they didn't actually mean it the way that you read it.
(31:08):
It was completely different.
And the the sent I always risk saying this when I'm on podcast but the sentence that Isaid on stages I didn't tell you to kill him which is a sentence that has seven words in
it six different meanings based on which words you put the inflection on.
Yeah.
because I didn't tell you to kill him, was different.
I didn't tell you to kill him and all of the other variants.
(31:30):
Yeah, I remember that and I encourage everyone listening to go and say it to yourself overand over and emphasise each individual word the next time you say it.
And it's true that actually every single time has a completely different meaning, which isactually quite mind blowing.
And the other quick thing to note on this is if I, because occasionally you get a videowithin an email and the worst thing possible is if you, you know, you're working in a cafe
(31:57):
or wherever you're working and suddenly
a really loud video starts playing from your email that you've got no real control over.
Whereas a WhatsApp, you you know, that it's the same as a voice note, isn't it?
You're going to find the space that, you know, you have control over it.
So I think for me, WhatsApp has a lot of power and untapped potential at the moment.
(32:17):
So if people are, you know, inspired by this episode, Chris, and they're like, yeah, Ireally want to look into this more and potentially how this can help my business.
What would be the first steps that they would take to potentially begin, bring this intotheir business for 25?
The first thing that I would always encourage every business to do is have a reallycritical look and invite feedback.
(32:42):
I'm going to put an asterisk there and come back to that.
Have a really critical look at your own customer journey and invite feedback and I'llbring the asterisk back in from people that have no idea what you do.
So don't go to your closest confidence that know how your business operates.
Go to people that you know, that you trust and say, I am giving you carte blanche to giveme feedback on this process where you have no idea what I do.
(33:11):
Because we very often look at it from a perspective, I know that WhatsApp is a reallyeffective channel.
the person I'm speaking to might not know.
Now if they interact with my WhatsApp, all of a sudden I can say the sentence with, thatis, how difficult did you find it?
Really easy, brilliant.
I have a bit of a leg up, but understanding the experience your customers are goingthrough is so underappreciated and yet so incredibly important.
(33:40):
Because I asked this question, when was the last...
Have you ever experienced interacting with a business and been left thinking, right, whathappens next?
Everybody that I asked that question to says yes.
And I would say, and in that moment, did you feel more likely to spend money with them orless likely?
And everybody says less.
(34:01):
And yet we don't look at what our experience is.
So that would be the first thing that I would do.
The second thing would be to plan out that journey to answer as many questions as you canto make it easy for people to do that one step.
So don't try and optimize for I've got a lead coming in.
I want them to book a call.
I then want them to buy.
(34:21):
Don't do a two step process.
Literally think about each of the micro bits.
If you're sending them something, send them a video, use your voice.
What are you saying in it?
How are you answering questions?
how is your tonality coming across?
How professional are you?
What options are you giving them?
Like all those little micro bits.
It takes time this by the way.
This isn't something that you could you know look at an afternoon, block out a day, blockout two days and really have a look at it.
(34:48):
Because if I said to you I've got a restaurant that I'm opening and I've done the bestpromo in the world to get people there's a queue out the door.
I've got the best chefs in the world, Michelin star, the food's amazing, the staff areabsolutely brilliant.
And yet when you walk in, the tables are dirty, there's feces on there and everything likethat.
(35:09):
It does not matter how good your marketing is, it doesn't matter how good your product is.
Their experience will mean they either walk out, but they definitely never come back andthey'll tell everybody else.
So when you run future marketing campaigns, then you don't understand why they're notcoming back, because you didn't look at of the table.
When I say it in a restaurant context, everybody understands.
But when you think about your business and you're getting people to inquire online andyou're not giving them a good experience up until the point that you either get in touch,
(35:37):
you just put it down to the fact that, that person filled out a form and then didn't pickup.
They obviously weren't interested.
That's not the case.
Sometimes it is, but it's definitely not as often as you think it is.
You might have just tried to call them when they were in the toilet.
Yeah, there's a lot to the follow up as well, isn't there?
And knowing when to sort of give up on a lead, I suppose.
(36:02):
by using WhatsApp, you get that clarity early.
you said, you get to, yes, you get to move people through the journey, but you also get tocut out the people that aren't, you know, the time wasters really, and the people that
aren't actually aligned with you and your business.
And that in itself is just as valuable.
because you're not wasting any further of your time.
(36:25):
The talk that you saw us at, if you hadn't have either booked in a meeting with me or toldme you weren't interested, the follow up from that is there's a message at seven o'clock
that night, very deliberately, because I know that you will have left the conference oryou'll be at the bar and everybody's phone goes off, which is even better for me.
Seven o'clock, then there's one at 24 hours, 48 hours, seven days, 14 days and 30 dayslaid out.
(36:47):
And there are videos at each of those.
Every single one of those, one of the options I give you is, I'm not interested, thiswon't work for me.
One of them even says F off Chris, because I say that in the video.
That's my personality, but I want you to tell me that this isn't going to work for you,because otherwise I'm going to keep sending you messages.
So I want to qualify you out, but if I'm giving you three, four options to tell me thatyou're flat out not interested and this won't work, and you're watching them because
(37:15):
almost everybody looks at their WhatsApps.
the fact that you're interested, I'm just not doing it at the right time.
And I then need to be professional.
said, no, I'm not interested, and you're letting those messages continue, then there is anelement of interest there, isn't there, that you just need to keep going until you hit the
right time.
I've had clients genuinely come on board who waited until that last message because theywanted to see the series before they signed up.
(37:40):
Because they wanted to see what the follow up was.
And I was like, could you not have told me that 30 days ago and I would have signed you upand just not taken you out of the series.
But you know, it's all about generating conversations.
Because if you can't speak to people, then very few people are going to buy from you.
(38:02):
Yeah, Chris, that has been an amazing session.
Thank you so much for joining us.
And you've really shared some, you know, some huge value there for the listeners.
So if anybody is interested in learning more, there is a book that you have out and also Iwill put all of your social media links in the show notes for everybody so they can come
and find you to find out more.
(38:24):
But yeah, I think it's a really, really interesting area of business that we're right onthe cusp actually of it becoming
mainstream and I think now is the perfect time because you will stand out in that crowd.
So thank you so much for coming on today and sharing all of those little tip bits with usand I will speak to all the listeners again next week.
Have a great weekend.
(38:44):
Thank you,
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