August 8, 2024 • 26 mins
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@breannaaponte
@thesoftlifeceo
Website:
www.thesoftlifeceo.com
Community:
www.thesoftlifeceo.com/society
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www.thesoftlifeceo.com/free-training-optin
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@thesoftlifeceo
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www.relationshiprestored.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Knowing how to package your offers can make or break
closing a lead. Hey, I'm Brianna Aponte, your host of
the Soft Life CEO podcast. I dropped out of college
at the age of nineteen to start my first business.
I worked seven days a week, wore way too many hats,
and was the true definition of a hustler. Years later,
I'm finally living the dream that I worked so hard
(00:21):
to make my reality. I've transitioned from a hustler to
a soft Life CEO, working only two days a week
to maintain and run a high earning business that gives
me the freedom to live a life I love. Now
it's my mission to help as many entrepreneurs as I
can elevate the brand, increase their income, and reclaim their time.
Join me and guest experts as we share our transparent journeys,
work smart, not hard, strategies, and the behind the scenes
(00:42):
of running a successful brand in business. You're tuned in
to the Self Life CEO. We're going to be covering
Step one, Brand and business, the difference between building the two,
and how to make the best first impression. Step two
my proven formula for crafting offers that sell. Step three
onboarding and offboarding strategies to maximize your success. Step four
(01:04):
automations and workflows to better serve you, your team, and your clients.
And Step five social media strategies to save you time
and make you more money. Let's first talk about the
difference between building a brand and a business. When you
think of brand, I want you to think of the experience,
the image, the personality, the voice, the impact, the content,
(01:24):
the community. And when you think of business, I want
you to think of the result, the product, the service,
the offerings, the company, the transformation. The goal is to
build the brand in order to grow the business. So
how do they work together? Because this is important. You
must master the experience and the result for a successful business.
(01:46):
If you have someone that works with you and they
have a bad experience but they get a good result,
all they're going to take away from that is that
they had a bad experience. If someone comes to you
and they have a great experience but they hated the results,
all they're going to take away from that is that
they hate it the results, So it equals a bad
experience again. But if you give someone a good experience
and a good result, that is good business. Every business
(02:10):
needs a brand. But do you need a personal brand?
Let's talk about it. The benefits of having a personal
brand is that it's another vehicle that will bring clients
to your business. It also adds a personal element touch,
It creates a deeper level of trust with your potential clients,
and it will open doors for more opportunities such as
(02:32):
online courses, communities, speaking events, partnerships. The list goes on.
But the cons of building a brand is that it
is just time consuming. Right, it's everything times too. You
need to run two different social media platforms, your brand
can't be too personal, and clients may expect to work
with you and not your team. This is something that
(02:53):
I myself have struggled with. So my suggestion is that
you only do both if you're already doing a great
job at doing one. Your personal brand is something that
you'll have forever. Right. You can change your interests, your passions,
your businesses, but you remain consistent, and so I always
tell people invest invest, invest in your personal brand first.
(03:16):
If you have a business, you are then in a
position where you can add the benefit of using your
personal brand as a vehicle to get people to your business.
You have to make sure that you're choosing the right
route for you, But first do one great and then
jump into adding on the other. Since branding matters either way,
let's talk about my favorite thing, branding red flags. Everyone
(03:40):
who knows me knows that I am all about first impression.
You want to make sure that you're considering the following
when you're setting up your social media profiles. So your username,
it should be something that is easy to say and remember,
it should be consistent across all of the social media platforms.
You want to make sure that it's not hard to spell,
(04:02):
that's not easily confused with something else, and that ultimate
lyan it is speaking to what it is that you do.
If you're not able to use your personal name like
I do, then for your profile image, you want to
make sure it's clean, close up and welcoming. A lot
of people have far away images or images with filters.
(04:23):
No no, no, no no. You want to scratch all
of that. Make sure that it is super clean and professional.
And by welcoming, I mean crack a smile, let people
know hi, I'm here, I'm happy to see you. Your
bio should be straight to the point, clear and intentional.
I'll go over tips for that momentarily and then highlights.
Oh my gosh, I can't stress how poorly people have
(04:43):
been utilizing their highlights. Either don't set them up at all,
or set up five intentional highlights that actually showcase the
highlight what it is that you do, who you do
it for, how they can get involved, and or showing
proof that what you do actually works. Now, let's talk
about website branding. Your website is so important because it's
(05:03):
literally the proof that turns the lead into a client.
If someone comes to your site and they don't get
that best first impression, if it's not professional, if it's
too much to read, if it's not giving them the
experience they're looking for, they're not going to turn to
a client. So here's some simple dos and don'ts. Keep
it short and straight to the point. People's intentionspans are
so short, so you want to make sure that you're
(05:25):
getting out all of the appropriate information in a very
concise way. You want to showcase your work and testimonials
to overall share your story. You need people to see
the transformations that your services provides. You need them to
hear from other real people about their experience working with you,
and then Your personal story, whether for you as an
(05:47):
individual or you as a company, is so important because
it makes your potential client feel like they can relate
to your brand or business. So make sure to share
that story. Include a call to action on every page,
whether it's book a call, get in touch, contact us, subscribe.
There should always be somewhere where your potential client is
(06:10):
being asked to do something, and it should always be
that something that is that trigger to starting a onboarding process.
So for me, it's for them to complete our application
so they can book a free call. You want to
include a lead magnet for subscriptions, and this should be
done as a pop up light box, but also it
can be in your header and footer. I say do
(06:31):
all three. When someone comes to your site, let them
know that they can subscribe so that they never have
to miss a beat. With everything that's going on with
you and your brand or business, you want to make
sure that you have a user friendly mobile site and
a custom link in bio. I can't stress this enough.
When I click into people's link in bios, they possibly
have a beautiful website somewhere, but if their link in
(06:53):
bio is janky and looks crazy, I'm not making it
to the website. And then there's also time times where
you go to click into the website and on the
mobile it's just not a good experience. So make sure
that with your website you have an actual custom mobile
site that is created for the mobile device. Majority of
our potential clients are viewing our sites from their phone,
(07:16):
so they should have the, if not a better experience,
the same experience that they would receive if they were
on a desktop. Lastly, pay a professional. It makes a difference.
If you aren't happy with your website. Hello, come to
all about your brand and let us help you out.
Paying a professional allows you to really hit the ground
running and making you feel just ten times more confident
(07:39):
and what it is that you offer because of this
beautifully branded and strategic site that you are so excited
to put out into the world. So if you need help,
you know where to come. Your potential client's first experience matters. Okay,
So here's what you need for your onboarding. You need
a comprehensive application process. Your application should only ask the
(08:00):
absolute necessary questions needed to make sure that this person
is a good fit. You don't want to ask them
a bunch of detailed questions at the very beginning, because
it's not needed at this point. Only ask them the
questions that you need to know in order to determine
if they are a good fit or not. Then you
want to have a personalized consultation element. Whether this is
(08:22):
a video call, a quick fifteen minute over the phone call.
You need something to where they're actually talking to a
human and they're able to express their needs and get
a validated response of you being the person that can
help them. Then you want to have a seamless contract
and invoice process. This is important because if someone goes
through the process of having a consultation with you, but
(08:44):
then the actual act of signing their contract and paying
their invoice is difficult or confusing, you're already giving them
a bad experience. And lastly, you're onboarding client workflow. So
when a client goes through the steps of completing the application,
going through the consultation, their contract, or signing their contract
paying their invoice, they then need to be brought through
(09:05):
a series of steps that successfully onboards them as a
new client. Get my free training from Hustler to soft
Life CEO, which includes my untold Entrepreneurial journey, the soft
Life CEO Roadmap and my winning recipe for elevating your brand,
increasing your income, and reclaiming your time. Head over to
the soft Life ceo dot com backslash free training. Let's
(09:26):
do a quick step one recap create the best first
impression with these four action steps. Number one, master your
experience and the result that you're giving to update your
social media platforms. Three, update your website and link in bio.
And four comb through your onboarding workflow to make sure
you're giving your clients the best first impression and the
(09:49):
best experience. Step two is my proven formula for crafting
offers that sell. Let's talk about the rule of three. Now,
all that you have everything in place for the best
first impression, you need offers that actually sell. So you
want to figure out your cold offers, which are no
investments or ungated offers. We'll talk about that more in
(10:11):
a second. A warm offer, which is your reasonably priced investment,
and then your hot which is a significant investment. It
is on the high end of what your consumer is
going to spend with you in your business. So first,
with the cold no cost offer, this is considered ungated.
It allows you to provide a small result or resources
(10:35):
that helps the client succeed. Examples of this is a podcast,
a blog, a free course, or a community trial. Your
warm or mid cost offer allows you to provide a
big result and or resources that help your client succeed.
An example of this is a signature course, group coaching,
or basic services. Your hot or high cost offer allows
(10:58):
you to provide a big resis while executing a direct
service and giving support. An example of this would be
a one on one done for you service or one
on one coaching. So let's talk how to package your offers.
Knowing how to package your offers can make or break
closing a lead. So you want to combined offers that
(11:20):
compliment each other, offer them as a package, and then
provide a bundled discount. An example, if I offer web
design services, a way that I would make the service
more valuable is by also including a website planning call,
a tutorial, video, newsletter, templates, basic SEO setup, Google Share settings,
and a pop up light box. If somebody sees that
(11:41):
they're getting web design services plus all of these things,
then it makes it more valuable. Let's talk specials and
how to create incentives for your offers. Using discounts to
create incentives is literally one of the easiest ways to
make sure that you are continuing to have people come
through the doors. Running specials are optional, however, they are
great for creating incentive and breaching financial benchmarks. The times
(12:04):
that you should be discounting is around holidays, when you
offer a bundle or bogo deal, or during invoicing. This
is one of my favorites. Whenever I provide an invoice
to a client, I make that invoice and the special
connected to it expire after seven days. This way, if
they don't move forward in seven days, they're then paying
full price for whatever that invoice was. It creates again
(12:25):
that level of incentive. So let's do a step to
recap crafting offers that sell action steps Action. Step number
one is to decide what your cold, warm, and hot
offers are. Then you want to package them to increase
the value, and lastly provide a temporary incentive. Step three
implementing workflows and automations. You want to work smart, not hard,
(12:49):
save time and money. By implementing workflows and automations, you
want to perfect your offers, processes and customer journey so
that you can work smart, not hard. You want to
use workflows and automation for onboarding and offboarding, the customer journey,
which is how your client is completing their services, and
then project management, which is for your team. Let's first
(13:10):
talk about how to serve yourself using automations. Create a
list of all of the repetitive things that you do
when working with clients, and then create automations for them.
For example, welcome messages, frequently ask questions onboarding and offboarding,
and when I say onboarding and offboarding, this could be
things like filling out reviews, completing an intake form, scheduling appointments,
(13:30):
all of the steps that your client takes as they
are completing their services. Now, how to serve your client
by using automations. Create a list of all the helpful
resources that you could provide your client along their service journey.
Examples of this could be a client portal guide, tutorial videos,
clickable links, or a coaching community. For me, what I've
(13:52):
seen the most success with is anytime I ask my
clients to do something, I always take the approach that
they have no idea this platform is or have never
gone through this process before, so I always provide some
sort of visual guide, step by subaction plan, tutorial video
or clickable links that are helpful resources to help them
do whatever it is that I'm asking for. And when
(14:14):
someone asks a question, I then say that, oh, if
this client has this question, so will other clients. And
so I create something that will answer that question for
me so that it's not a question I have to
answer again in the future. Are you ready to go
from hustler to soft life ceo? I'm here to help.
I've created the soft Life Society, a membership based community
where I provide weekly events such as group coaching calls,
(14:36):
brand and social media audits, masterclasses and featured guest speakers.
Get access to members only in person events, and discounts
on soft life CEO services. And here's the best part.
You can join today for free. Visit the soft Life
Ceo dot com backslash Society and use code free trial
for thirty days free access. How to serve your team
(14:56):
using automations, create a list of all the tedious tasks
team has to do in order to complete a client service.
And this is something to actually check in with your
team about. I've had my assistant go through and write
down all of the things that she felt was tedious
or repetitive, and then we created automations for those examples.
Our service emails back and forth emails with other team members,
(15:17):
getting work approved, or following up with clients. An easy
way that we've been able to do this is with
Monday dot com. So instead of my assistant having to
send emails back and forth to team members, what happens
is there's an automation that's triggered by a status change,
so she can click a button and it'll automatically send
an email to that specific team member who is connected
(15:37):
to that project, which is amazing because it takes out
that act of having to type these messages. It's just
a simple click of a button. Here are my recommended
tools for workflows and automations. Number one is Dubsado. It's
a CRM for bookings, payments, contracts and forms. It includes workflows,
can emails, and schedulers. Number two is Monday dot com.
(15:58):
This is a user friendly project management tool with automations
and team features that creates a seamless work experience for
your team. And three quick books for financial tracking, payments, accounting,
and payroll for your team and or contractors. Let's go
over as step three recap workflows and automations. Action steps.
(16:19):
Step one create your personal automations and workflows. Step two
create your clients automations and workflows, and step three create
your teams automations and workflows. Step form onboarding and offboarding strategies.
Onboarding is the process of bringing on a new client
or closing a lead. Your onboarding process should start the
(16:39):
moment a lead gets in contact with you or your business.
You should have an onboarding workflow that is triggered when
a lead completes an intake form on your site. Things
to include for onboarding Number one is a call or
a video. Potential clients want the opportunity to have a conversation,
ask questions, and build trust before investing. Number two is
(17:00):
your portfolio. Sharing examples of your work will further build
trust with that potential client. The bigger the investment, the
more important your portfolio becomes. And Number three contract and invoice.
Make it simple and easy for your potential client to
sign their contract and pay their invoice. A big thing
that you want to do for potential clients is set expectations.
(17:21):
You want to clearly list your business hours and methods
of communication. You want to clearly state your rescheduling fees
or cancelation fees. Clearly state the requirements of your clients,
Clearly state the service completion times and deadlines, and then
clearly state your refund policy. The easiest way to make
sure that you don't take on a client that doesn't
fit your actual business or the criteria of your client
(17:45):
tele is to make sure that they are very clear
on all of the things that you and your business
expects of them, and then what your policies and procedures are.
This way, if there's any issue in the future, you
can point them right back to that contract or your
policy and let them know that they signed off saying
that they were aware of X, Y and Z. And
what I like to do is in my client contract
(18:08):
the things that are really important to me, which is
like boundaries of business hours anything like that, they have
a line where they actually have to initial so they're
signing the contract, but for specific things that I need
them to review and make sure that they are aware of,
they do have the initial so it creates a second
step for them to initiate that they understand these specific things.
(18:32):
Let's talk onboarding strategies Once a lead becomes a client,
things to include for their onboarding is number one, a
welcome message. As soon as a client pays, they should
be greeted with a welcome email which includes next steps
and introducing them to your team or the individuals that
they will be working with. Number two is your intake forms.
Provide your client with intake forms directly connected to the
(18:54):
individual service or services that they purchased. With automated reminders
and number three booking links easily allow your clients to
book their appointments with scheduled reminders leading up to their booking.
You shouldn't have to do a bunch of back and
forth emailing. They should be able to receive their welcome
message and then directly after being welcomed into your platform
(19:16):
or to your business, they should then be able to
fill out their forms and book their calls with these. Now,
let's go over intentional offboarding for reoccurring leads and referrals.
Offboarding is the process of closing out a client. Your
offboarding process will start the moment a client ends their
service or uses a product. The trigger for starting your
offboarding workflow should be the final step of completing your
(19:39):
client's service things to include for offboarding is number one,
a client review. Before closing out a client, make sure
to ask them for a review if they don't leave
a review within seven days, and make sure to provide
an additional incentive. What I do with my clients is
I have them agree in the contract that anything they
provide in writing can be used as a reviewer testimonial
(20:01):
on our website. But at the end of their service,
I then allow them to click a button, leave their name,
lists the service they got, and then provide their experience
as a testimonial. And if they complete that quick form,
I give them fifty dollars towards their next service. So again,
creating that incentive allows somebody to just take a moment
(20:21):
and do it. Then number two is a referral incentive.
So for example, refer ten people and get a two
hundred and fifty dollars credit towards your next service. This
results in more leads and most likely a returning client.
Number three push your community if you have one. When
you have a free or paid community or membership, you
can provide ongoing support to your previous clients and potential
(20:44):
new clients. So always always always push your community. What
I do with my clients is the day they complete
their service, I follow up with a link to the
referral and then details for joining my community for thirty
days free. So this is a great way to make
sure that they continue getting the support and then it's
also that incentive of thirty day trial. Step four recap
(21:04):
for onboarding and offboarding. Your action steps are to one,
revisit and update your onboarding workflow, revisit and update your
offboarding workflow, and then add trigger to every page of
your site. Step five social media strategies to make money
and save time. Build your brand using social media. You
can first build trust. You can use your social media
(21:26):
to connect with your followers and share your unique story
through authentic and intentional content. Number two, you can build credibility.
Don't just talk the talk, walk the walk. Use your
social media as a tool to share your subject knowledge
and the results that come from it. And then number
three awareness Collaborate and partner with a like minded creatives, entrepreneurs,
(21:47):
brands and businesses who share a common interest. Now here's
three different ways to build your business using social media.
Number one, proof of concept. Showcase the benefits of your
products and services by featuring past clients and showing their
results or success. Number two, build your email lists. You
can use many Chat to automate conversations, collect emails, and
market your services right from your DM. This is so
(22:10):
important because what I have seen with using many Chat
is that one I'm definitely saving time, but two I'm
able to give people immediate responses. So just like how
you saw with my bios where it says dmjoin for
thirty days free coaching, it's my number one call to
action because who doesn't want free coaching? And when somebody
(22:30):
dms join, it will automatically generate a response that says, hey,
super excited to give you thirty days free access to
my coaching community. Click here for your free trial use
code free Trial. So this is great. If you have
multiple things that you offer, think of lead magnets for
each of those things, and then set those lead magnets
up to a specific trigger word in many Chats so
(22:51):
that your conversations are being automated for you. Number three
your portfolio and BTS access. You want to showcase your
work in one place while dividing your followers with behind
the scenes access of your business. Now let's talk post strategy,
content pillars, and platforms for your social media. So number one,
you need a post strategy. You want to choose the
(23:12):
social media platforms that align with you and your audience
to then create your post strategy. In order to create
the post strategy, you need to know what your content
pillars are. Break your brand or business into three main
pillars to stay consistent and intentional with content, and then
three trial and error. It's all about testing. To know
what works, you have to try it first, try a
(23:34):
combination of reels, images, and graphics, and then check your
analytics regularly to see what's giving you the best bang
for your time. Because creating content definitely takes time, and
you want to know that if you're spending time creating it,
that these actual pieces of content are working for your benefit.
Let's talk about creating your lead magnets. This is how
you capture your leads. A lead magnet is anything that
(23:57):
you can offer your audience in exchange for their contact information.
You should have one for each of your signature offers.
Lead magnet examples are a free call, a free download,
an intake form, a webinar, or a free course. This
is then when Manichat comes into play because you can
use Manichat to automate your lead magnets. Choose a trigger
word for each lead magnet and then create an automation.
(24:20):
My example being comment joined for thirty days of free coaching.
This is something that you can put in your captions,
in your reels, in your bio, in your ig stories,
and every time somebody hits this trigger word, it's going
to then initiate that automation and then create intentional content
that promotes your magnet. The best content to create is reels, pinposts, stories,
(24:43):
and collaborative posts. I want to talk about this for
a second because reels obviously has the best chance of
being viewed right now. Video content is everything, so the
more video content you can create, the better. Your stories
is a great way for reposting this same types of
messages without having to put it on your feed. So
(25:04):
I post my promotion for my free trial on my
story every single day. It's the exact same promotion, and
I'll continue to post it every single day because if
just one new person sees it, I have another lead.
Pinposts are great if you are trying to make sure
that your audience when they come to your page for
the first time is receiving the exact information that you
(25:25):
want them to see. And then collaborative posts are great
for building awareness. You can do collaborative posts with you
and your business and or with other creatives, entrepreneurs or brands.
Step five recap for social media strategies. Your three action steps.
One create your lead magnets, two set up automation in
many chat, and three create intentional content to promote whatever
(25:48):
your offers are. In conclusion, I want you to make
sure you're creating the best first impression. I want you
to be clear on your offers and package them to
showcase maximum value. Set up automations and workflows to save
you time and give the best experience. Customize an onboarding
and offboarding workflow, and be strategic on social media. Thanks
(26:08):
for tuning in to soft Life CEO. I hope that
today's episode gets you a little bit closer to achieving
your definition of a soft life. If you're ready to
start the journey from hustler to soft life CEO, go
to the Soft Life ceo dot com Backslash Society for
a thirty day free trial in my coaching community. If
you found this episode helpful, share it with a friend,
leave a review, and don't forget to subscribe.
Knowing how to package your offers can make or break
closing a lead. Hey, I'm Brianna Aponte, your host of
the Soft Life CEO podcast. I dropped out of college
at the age of nineteen to start my first business.
I worked seven days a week, wore way too many hats,
and was the true definition of a hustler. Years later,
I'm finally living the dream that I worked so hard
(00:21):
to make my reality. I've transitioned from a hustler to
a soft Life CEO, working only two days a week
to maintain and run a high earning business that gives
me the freedom to live a life I love. Now
it's my mission to help as many entrepreneurs as I
can elevate the brand, increase their income, and reclaim their time.
Join me and guest experts as we share our transparent journeys,
work smart, not hard, strategies, and the behind the scenes
(00:42):
of running a successful brand in business. You're tuned in
to the Self Life CEO. We're going to be covering
Step one, Brand and business, the difference between building the two,
and how to make the best first impression. Step two
my proven formula for crafting offers that sell. Step three
onboarding and offboarding strategies to maximize your success. Step four
(01:04):
automations and workflows to better serve you, your team, and your clients.
And Step five social media strategies to save you time
and make you more money. Let's first talk about the
difference between building a brand and a business. When you
think of brand, I want you to think of the experience,
the image, the personality, the voice, the impact, the content,
(01:24):
the community. And when you think of business, I want
you to think of the result, the product, the service,
the offerings, the company, the transformation. The goal is to
build the brand in order to grow the business. So
how do they work together? Because this is important. You
must master the experience and the result for a successful business.
(01:46):
If you have someone that works with you and they
have a bad experience but they get a good result,
all they're going to take away from that is that
they had a bad experience. If someone comes to you
and they have a great experience but they hated the results,
all they're going to take away from that is that
they hate it the results, So it equals a bad
experience again. But if you give someone a good experience
and a good result, that is good business. Every business
(02:10):
needs a brand. But do you need a personal brand?
Let's talk about it. The benefits of having a personal
brand is that it's another vehicle that will bring clients
to your business. It also adds a personal element touch,
It creates a deeper level of trust with your potential clients,
and it will open doors for more opportunities such as
(02:32):
online courses, communities, speaking events, partnerships. The list goes on.
But the cons of building a brand is that it
is just time consuming. Right, it's everything times too. You
need to run two different social media platforms, your brand
can't be too personal, and clients may expect to work
with you and not your team. This is something that
(02:53):
I myself have struggled with. So my suggestion is that
you only do both if you're already doing a great
job at doing one. Your personal brand is something that
you'll have forever. Right. You can change your interests, your passions,
your businesses, but you remain consistent, and so I always
tell people invest invest, invest in your personal brand first.
(03:16):
If you have a business, you are then in a
position where you can add the benefit of using your
personal brand as a vehicle to get people to your business.
You have to make sure that you're choosing the right
route for you, But first do one great and then
jump into adding on the other. Since branding matters either way,
let's talk about my favorite thing, branding red flags. Everyone
(03:40):
who knows me knows that I am all about first impression.
You want to make sure that you're considering the following
when you're setting up your social media profiles. So your username,
it should be something that is easy to say and remember,
it should be consistent across all of the social media platforms.
You want to make sure that it's not hard to spell,
(04:02):
that's not easily confused with something else, and that ultimate
lyan it is speaking to what it is that you do.
If you're not able to use your personal name like
I do, then for your profile image, you want to
make sure it's clean, close up and welcoming. A lot
of people have far away images or images with filters.
(04:23):
No no, no, no no. You want to scratch all
of that. Make sure that it is super clean and professional.
And by welcoming, I mean crack a smile, let people
know hi, I'm here, I'm happy to see you. Your
bio should be straight to the point, clear and intentional.
I'll go over tips for that momentarily and then highlights.
Oh my gosh, I can't stress how poorly people have
(04:43):
been utilizing their highlights. Either don't set them up at all,
or set up five intentional highlights that actually showcase the
highlight what it is that you do, who you do
it for, how they can get involved, and or showing
proof that what you do actually works. Now, let's talk
about website branding. Your website is so important because it's
(05:03):
literally the proof that turns the lead into a client.
If someone comes to your site and they don't get
that best first impression, if it's not professional, if it's
too much to read, if it's not giving them the
experience they're looking for, they're not going to turn to
a client. So here's some simple dos and don'ts. Keep
it short and straight to the point. People's intentionspans are
so short, so you want to make sure that you're
(05:25):
getting out all of the appropriate information in a very
concise way. You want to showcase your work and testimonials
to overall share your story. You need people to see
the transformations that your services provides. You need them to
hear from other real people about their experience working with you,
and then Your personal story, whether for you as an
(05:47):
individual or you as a company, is so important because
it makes your potential client feel like they can relate
to your brand or business. So make sure to share
that story. Include a call to action on every page,
whether it's book a call, get in touch, contact us, subscribe.
There should always be somewhere where your potential client is
(06:10):
being asked to do something, and it should always be
that something that is that trigger to starting a onboarding process.
So for me, it's for them to complete our application
so they can book a free call. You want to
include a lead magnet for subscriptions, and this should be
done as a pop up light box, but also it
can be in your header and footer. I say do
(06:31):
all three. When someone comes to your site, let them
know that they can subscribe so that they never have
to miss a beat. With everything that's going on with
you and your brand or business, you want to make
sure that you have a user friendly mobile site and
a custom link in bio. I can't stress this enough.
When I click into people's link in bios, they possibly
have a beautiful website somewhere, but if their link in
(06:53):
bio is janky and looks crazy, I'm not making it
to the website. And then there's also time times where
you go to click into the website and on the
mobile it's just not a good experience. So make sure
that with your website you have an actual custom mobile
site that is created for the mobile device. Majority of
our potential clients are viewing our sites from their phone,
(07:16):
so they should have the, if not a better experience,
the same experience that they would receive if they were
on a desktop. Lastly, pay a professional. It makes a difference.
If you aren't happy with your website. Hello, come to
all about your brand and let us help you out.
Paying a professional allows you to really hit the ground
running and making you feel just ten times more confident
(07:39):
and what it is that you offer because of this
beautifully branded and strategic site that you are so excited
to put out into the world. So if you need help,
you know where to come. Your potential client's first experience matters. Okay,
So here's what you need for your onboarding. You need
a comprehensive application process. Your application should only ask the
(08:00):
absolute necessary questions needed to make sure that this person
is a good fit. You don't want to ask them
a bunch of detailed questions at the very beginning, because
it's not needed at this point. Only ask them the
questions that you need to know in order to determine
if they are a good fit or not. Then you
want to have a personalized consultation element. Whether this is
(08:22):
a video call, a quick fifteen minute over the phone call.
You need something to where they're actually talking to a
human and they're able to express their needs and get
a validated response of you being the person that can
help them. Then you want to have a seamless contract
and invoice process. This is important because if someone goes
through the process of having a consultation with you, but
(08:44):
then the actual act of signing their contract and paying
their invoice is difficult or confusing, you're already giving them
a bad experience. And lastly, you're onboarding client workflow. So
when a client goes through the steps of completing the application,
going through the consultation, their contract, or signing their contract
paying their invoice, they then need to be brought through
(09:05):
a series of steps that successfully onboards them as a
new client. Get my free training from Hustler to soft
Life CEO, which includes my untold Entrepreneurial journey, the soft
Life CEO Roadmap and my winning recipe for elevating your brand,
increasing your income, and reclaiming your time. Head over to
the soft Life ceo dot com backslash free training. Let's
(09:26):
do a quick step one recap create the best first
impression with these four action steps. Number one, master your
experience and the result that you're giving to update your
social media platforms. Three, update your website and link in bio.
And four comb through your onboarding workflow to make sure
you're giving your clients the best first impression and the
(09:49):
best experience. Step two is my proven formula for crafting
offers that sell. Let's talk about the rule of three. Now,
all that you have everything in place for the best
first impression, you need offers that actually sell. So you
want to figure out your cold offers, which are no
investments or ungated offers. We'll talk about that more in
(10:11):
a second. A warm offer, which is your reasonably priced investment,
and then your hot which is a significant investment. It
is on the high end of what your consumer is
going to spend with you in your business. So first,
with the cold no cost offer, this is considered ungated.
It allows you to provide a small result or resources
(10:35):
that helps the client succeed. Examples of this is a podcast,
a blog, a free course, or a community trial. Your
warm or mid cost offer allows you to provide a
big result and or resources that help your client succeed.
An example of this is a signature course, group coaching,
or basic services. Your hot or high cost offer allows
(10:58):
you to provide a big resis while executing a direct
service and giving support. An example of this would be
a one on one done for you service or one
on one coaching. So let's talk how to package your offers.
Knowing how to package your offers can make or break
closing a lead. So you want to combined offers that
(11:20):
compliment each other, offer them as a package, and then
provide a bundled discount. An example, if I offer web
design services, a way that I would make the service
more valuable is by also including a website planning call,
a tutorial, video, newsletter, templates, basic SEO setup, Google Share settings,
and a pop up light box. If somebody sees that
(11:41):
they're getting web design services plus all of these things,
then it makes it more valuable. Let's talk specials and
how to create incentives for your offers. Using discounts to
create incentives is literally one of the easiest ways to
make sure that you are continuing to have people come
through the doors. Running specials are optional, however, they are
great for creating incentive and breaching financial benchmarks. The times
(12:04):
that you should be discounting is around holidays, when you
offer a bundle or bogo deal, or during invoicing. This
is one of my favorites. Whenever I provide an invoice
to a client, I make that invoice and the special
connected to it expire after seven days. This way, if
they don't move forward in seven days, they're then paying
full price for whatever that invoice was. It creates again
(12:25):
that level of incentive. So let's do a step to
recap crafting offers that sell action steps Action. Step number
one is to decide what your cold, warm, and hot
offers are. Then you want to package them to increase
the value, and lastly provide a temporary incentive. Step three
implementing workflows and automations. You want to work smart, not hard,
(12:49):
save time and money. By implementing workflows and automations, you
want to perfect your offers, processes and customer journey so
that you can work smart, not hard. You want to
use workflows and automation for onboarding and offboarding, the customer journey,
which is how your client is completing their services, and
then project management, which is for your team. Let's first
(13:10):
talk about how to serve yourself using automations. Create a
list of all of the repetitive things that you do
when working with clients, and then create automations for them.
For example, welcome messages, frequently ask questions onboarding and offboarding,
and when I say onboarding and offboarding, this could be
things like filling out reviews, completing an intake form, scheduling appointments,
(13:30):
all of the steps that your client takes as they
are completing their services. Now, how to serve your client
by using automations. Create a list of all the helpful
resources that you could provide your client along their service journey.
Examples of this could be a client portal guide, tutorial videos,
clickable links, or a coaching community. For me, what I've
(13:52):
seen the most success with is anytime I ask my
clients to do something, I always take the approach that
they have no idea this platform is or have never
gone through this process before, so I always provide some
sort of visual guide, step by subaction plan, tutorial video
or clickable links that are helpful resources to help them
do whatever it is that I'm asking for. And when
(14:14):
someone asks a question, I then say that, oh, if
this client has this question, so will other clients. And
so I create something that will answer that question for
me so that it's not a question I have to
answer again in the future. Are you ready to go
from hustler to soft life ceo? I'm here to help.
I've created the soft Life Society, a membership based community
where I provide weekly events such as group coaching calls,
(14:36):
brand and social media audits, masterclasses and featured guest speakers.
Get access to members only in person events, and discounts
on soft life CEO services. And here's the best part.
You can join today for free. Visit the soft Life
Ceo dot com backslash Society and use code free trial
for thirty days free access. How to serve your team
(14:56):
using automations, create a list of all the tedious tasks
team has to do in order to complete a client service.
And this is something to actually check in with your
team about. I've had my assistant go through and write
down all of the things that she felt was tedious
or repetitive, and then we created automations for those examples.
Our service emails back and forth emails with other team members,
(15:17):
getting work approved, or following up with clients. An easy
way that we've been able to do this is with
Monday dot com. So instead of my assistant having to
send emails back and forth to team members, what happens
is there's an automation that's triggered by a status change,
so she can click a button and it'll automatically send
an email to that specific team member who is connected
(15:37):
to that project, which is amazing because it takes out
that act of having to type these messages. It's just
a simple click of a button. Here are my recommended
tools for workflows and automations. Number one is Dubsado. It's
a CRM for bookings, payments, contracts and forms. It includes workflows,
can emails, and schedulers. Number two is Monday dot com.
(15:58):
This is a user friendly project management tool with automations
and team features that creates a seamless work experience for
your team. And three quick books for financial tracking, payments, accounting,
and payroll for your team and or contractors. Let's go
over as step three recap workflows and automations. Action steps.
(16:19):
Step one create your personal automations and workflows. Step two
create your clients automations and workflows, and step three create
your teams automations and workflows. Step form onboarding and offboarding strategies.
Onboarding is the process of bringing on a new client
or closing a lead. Your onboarding process should start the
(16:39):
moment a lead gets in contact with you or your business.
You should have an onboarding workflow that is triggered when
a lead completes an intake form on your site. Things
to include for onboarding Number one is a call or
a video. Potential clients want the opportunity to have a conversation,
ask questions, and build trust before investing. Number two is
(17:00):
your portfolio. Sharing examples of your work will further build
trust with that potential client. The bigger the investment, the
more important your portfolio becomes. And Number three contract and invoice.
Make it simple and easy for your potential client to
sign their contract and pay their invoice. A big thing
that you want to do for potential clients is set expectations.
(17:21):
You want to clearly list your business hours and methods
of communication. You want to clearly state your rescheduling fees
or cancelation fees. Clearly state the requirements of your clients,
Clearly state the service completion times and deadlines, and then
clearly state your refund policy. The easiest way to make
sure that you don't take on a client that doesn't
fit your actual business or the criteria of your client
(17:45):
tele is to make sure that they are very clear
on all of the things that you and your business
expects of them, and then what your policies and procedures are.
This way, if there's any issue in the future, you
can point them right back to that contract or your
policy and let them know that they signed off saying
that they were aware of X, Y and Z. And
what I like to do is in my client contract
(18:08):
the things that are really important to me, which is
like boundaries of business hours anything like that, they have
a line where they actually have to initial so they're
signing the contract, but for specific things that I need
them to review and make sure that they are aware of,
they do have the initial so it creates a second
step for them to initiate that they understand these specific things.
(18:32):
Let's talk onboarding strategies Once a lead becomes a client,
things to include for their onboarding is number one, a
welcome message. As soon as a client pays, they should
be greeted with a welcome email which includes next steps
and introducing them to your team or the individuals that
they will be working with. Number two is your intake forms.
Provide your client with intake forms directly connected to the
(18:54):
individual service or services that they purchased. With automated reminders
and number three booking links easily allow your clients to
book their appointments with scheduled reminders leading up to their booking.
You shouldn't have to do a bunch of back and
forth emailing. They should be able to receive their welcome
message and then directly after being welcomed into your platform
(19:16):
or to your business, they should then be able to
fill out their forms and book their calls with these. Now,
let's go over intentional offboarding for reoccurring leads and referrals.
Offboarding is the process of closing out a client. Your
offboarding process will start the moment a client ends their
service or uses a product. The trigger for starting your
offboarding workflow should be the final step of completing your
(19:39):
client's service things to include for offboarding is number one,
a client review. Before closing out a client, make sure
to ask them for a review if they don't leave
a review within seven days, and make sure to provide
an additional incentive. What I do with my clients is
I have them agree in the contract that anything they
provide in writing can be used as a reviewer testimonial
(20:01):
on our website. But at the end of their service,
I then allow them to click a button, leave their name,
lists the service they got, and then provide their experience
as a testimonial. And if they complete that quick form,
I give them fifty dollars towards their next service. So again,
creating that incentive allows somebody to just take a moment
(20:21):
and do it. Then number two is a referral incentive.
So for example, refer ten people and get a two
hundred and fifty dollars credit towards your next service. This
results in more leads and most likely a returning client.
Number three push your community if you have one. When
you have a free or paid community or membership, you
can provide ongoing support to your previous clients and potential
(20:44):
new clients. So always always always push your community. What
I do with my clients is the day they complete
their service, I follow up with a link to the
referral and then details for joining my community for thirty
days free. So this is a great way to make
sure that they continue getting the support and then it's
also that incentive of thirty day trial. Step four recap
(21:04):
for onboarding and offboarding. Your action steps are to one,
revisit and update your onboarding workflow, revisit and update your
offboarding workflow, and then add trigger to every page of
your site. Step five social media strategies to make money
and save time. Build your brand using social media. You
can first build trust. You can use your social media
(21:26):
to connect with your followers and share your unique story
through authentic and intentional content. Number two, you can build credibility.
Don't just talk the talk, walk the walk. Use your
social media as a tool to share your subject knowledge
and the results that come from it. And then number
three awareness Collaborate and partner with a like minded creatives, entrepreneurs,
(21:47):
brands and businesses who share a common interest. Now here's
three different ways to build your business using social media.
Number one, proof of concept. Showcase the benefits of your
products and services by featuring past clients and showing their
results or success. Number two, build your email lists. You
can use many Chat to automate conversations, collect emails, and
market your services right from your DM. This is so
(22:10):
important because what I have seen with using many Chat
is that one I'm definitely saving time, but two I'm
able to give people immediate responses. So just like how
you saw with my bios where it says dmjoin for
thirty days free coaching, it's my number one call to
action because who doesn't want free coaching? And when somebody
(22:30):
dms join, it will automatically generate a response that says, hey,
super excited to give you thirty days free access to
my coaching community. Click here for your free trial use
code free Trial. So this is great. If you have
multiple things that you offer, think of lead magnets for
each of those things, and then set those lead magnets
up to a specific trigger word in many Chats so
(22:51):
that your conversations are being automated for you. Number three
your portfolio and BTS access. You want to showcase your
work in one place while dividing your followers with behind
the scenes access of your business. Now let's talk post strategy,
content pillars, and platforms for your social media. So number one,
you need a post strategy. You want to choose the
(23:12):
social media platforms that align with you and your audience
to then create your post strategy. In order to create
the post strategy, you need to know what your content
pillars are. Break your brand or business into three main
pillars to stay consistent and intentional with content, and then
three trial and error. It's all about testing. To know
what works, you have to try it first, try a
(23:34):
combination of reels, images, and graphics, and then check your
analytics regularly to see what's giving you the best bang
for your time. Because creating content definitely takes time, and
you want to know that if you're spending time creating it,
that these actual pieces of content are working for your benefit.
Let's talk about creating your lead magnets. This is how
you capture your leads. A lead magnet is anything that
(23:57):
you can offer your audience in exchange for their contact information.
You should have one for each of your signature offers.
Lead magnet examples are a free call, a free download,
an intake form, a webinar, or a free course. This
is then when Manichat comes into play because you can
use Manichat to automate your lead magnets. Choose a trigger
word for each lead magnet and then create an automation.
(24:20):
My example being comment joined for thirty days of free coaching.
This is something that you can put in your captions,
in your reels, in your bio, in your ig stories,
and every time somebody hits this trigger word, it's going
to then initiate that automation and then create intentional content
that promotes your magnet. The best content to create is reels, pinposts, stories,
(24:43):
and collaborative posts. I want to talk about this for
a second because reels obviously has the best chance of
being viewed right now. Video content is everything, so the
more video content you can create, the better. Your stories
is a great way for reposting this same types of
messages without having to put it on your feed. So
(25:04):
I post my promotion for my free trial on my
story every single day. It's the exact same promotion, and
I'll continue to post it every single day because if
just one new person sees it, I have another lead.
Pinposts are great if you are trying to make sure
that your audience when they come to your page for
the first time is receiving the exact information that you
(25:25):
want them to see. And then collaborative posts are great
for building awareness. You can do collaborative posts with you
and your business and or with other creatives, entrepreneurs or brands.
Step five recap for social media strategies. Your three action steps.
One create your lead magnets, two set up automation in
many chat, and three create intentional content to promote whatever
(25:48):
your offers are. In conclusion, I want you to make
sure you're creating the best first impression. I want you
to be clear on your offers and package them to
showcase maximum value. Set up automations and workflows to save
you time and give the best experience. Customize an onboarding
and offboarding workflow, and be strategic on social media. Thanks
(26:08):
for tuning in to soft Life CEO. I hope that
today's episode gets you a little bit closer to achieving
your definition of a soft life. If you're ready to
start the journey from hustler to soft life CEO, go
to the Soft Life ceo dot com Backslash Society for
a thirty day free trial in my coaching community. If
you found this episode helpful, share it with a friend,
leave a review, and don't forget to subscribe.
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