Managing Customer Expectations - What I learned In Restaurants

 
I've been... I just want to capture it. I wrote some notes. Yeah, definitely. Let me see where... All right. So pretty much I feel like what's a good balance between spending time on actually getting new clients and doing the prospecting versus actually fulfilling on the current clients that I have. Because I really only have two clients through you. I feel like that's what's taking all of my time up.


I know.


It's the one or two client fallacy of you get them great results, they'll stay. But I feel like I'm putting way too much effort in trying to get them the results and checking the campaigns and making adjustments and doing all that where I feel like I'm doing so much work and nothing's really coming too much of it. They're both on $4.97 a month, which is great. Like you said before, not driving Ferraris or anything on.

That. but.


What's a good way to think about that or navigate that? I feel like I'm doing a lot, but I'm not really getting where I should be doing with all the effort I'm putting in.


It's very much about managing the expectations and it's very much about making sure that the system is more valuable to the client than dropping it. Laurie, no, you need to create a new one. What do I mean by that? So did you catch Matt DeSano's meeting with us during last week?


Was that part of the.


Master class? No, it was just before that. We had a special guest, Matt DeSano, who runs HL ProTools. Pop in and just do a bit of an impromptu session with us on Wednesday. I think we've got the recording in the group. That hour session, and there's 40 minutes of it specifically in the middle, I think should be essential listening for anybody that's running GLL. He talks about three or four different ways that provide instant six figure wins for GHL buyers. So anybody that buys GHL off you, there's some things. And they are so simple and yet so massively valuable. Things like the missed call text back, things like the review automation. There was a few others there as well. The way I'm answering the question is to make the system so valuable to the client that leads is one component of it. So we use the 23 leads, we use the lead generation as the hook, the initial thing. We use the campaigns going out to see instant results, so we can see those moving through the opportunity board. And it's about then managing that expectation. So starting with a client to say, Okay, great, guys, we've got the campaign running, we're going to let this run for a couple of weeks.


We're going to then see our numbers, we're going to adjust our campaigns. There is very, very, very, very few campaigns that hit a home run straight out of the gate. There's enough that it's worthwhile. So you're always always thinking, Write an email. Fantastic. Appointments dropping in my calendar, just like they are for you. But it's not always the same for the clients that you're working with. It's not always the same for each member of white label suite. It's about run that campaign, put some decent numbers through it, tweak and adjust. But alongside that same time, it's about managing the client expectations. So setting up with the client and to make sure there's two issues here. Number one, spending too much time that you don't have time to do other things in your business, and number two, managing that expectation. So managing the expectation, you've had these clients for what, a week now, two weeks?


One of them has been about three months and he's been on... I've been doing other things for him through high level, between some funnels, doing some creating his workflows and everything. So that's been keeping him busy.


That's also what's making it more valuable for him then to stay then go.


Exactly. But then when it comes over to like, oh, how's that leads thing doing? What you're doing in the background of everything? We only gotten one or two appointments from it. Is it going anywhere or what's going on? So that's why I got a feeling he might drop off soon just because it's not producing as much as he would expect it to.


Okay, let's clarify that. Just pause for one second. And with apologies, it's half past 12 at night for my lead Dev, and he's just popped on to check this error.


Yeah, no, take.


Care of that. Brad, that's all working now. Laurie, that's working now. So that is done. I'll come back and grab it in just a second. Then I'll come back to you. You said that he had a couple of appointments?


He had one appointment. I think it was a no show, honestly.


Oh, damn. Okay.


It came in around the same time as the check in, which it worked out well just because I said, Oh, we got someone. He's also pretty understanding that it's at a low enough cost that he understands it's cold, he really understands he's not going to get a million appointments tomorrow. But I'm still not getting the appointments that I would expect him to get, even one or two, even a month or three a month.


So let's tweak the campaign. So managing the client expectations is paramount because Ron, I always answer with a story. One of my first career successes came in the hospitality industry and I was so in love with that industry, still love it, working bars and nightclubs and restaurants and that stuff. My lesson on managing customer expectations came, I was managing a restaurant. My first senior management position in a restaurant was over in New Zealand. We had a client on a table and the order had gone in and they were waiting, Guys, you've been here. When you put an order into a restaurant and the food never comes and you're like, Hello, we've been sitting here for half an hour. Where's my order? I did exactly the wrong thing. I went in and berated the chefs. Come on, guys. Where's table five? Hury up. I didn't go and speak to the customer. I didn't go and speak to the customer. I was scared. I was actually embarrassed. Because I was embarrassed, I didn't do what I should have done and go customer front. I went back a house and tried to fix the problem. The customer is getting more and more and more frustrated and I'm getting more and more anxious and I'm in front of the chefs.


My boss came in and said, What are you doing? I said, I'm trying to get this table five. He said, Come with me. He walked out into the restaurant and he went straight to table five and he said, Hey guys, look, I'm really sorry. The order is taking longer than it should. We're on it. We've got the chefs prioritizing it right now. Meantime, let me grab you a glass of wine from the bar. Again, with my apologies, it'll just be a few moments. The customer went, Thanks. Okay, cool. The very worst thing that you can do is avoid the conversation. Going to the customer and saying, Hey, this is what's happening and this is what we're doing and this is what we're looking at, give us a little bit of time is the best way to handle it. In terms of managing the customer's expectations, we do that from the front. What I mean by that is when we start working with a client, give them the expectation that, Hey guys, all right. So what we're going to do is we're going to bring in 100 leads this week, 100 leads next week, and we're going to run these campaigns, we're going to test it out.


We're going to monitor these conversion rates. We're going to see what's going on, and then we're going to reassess. Now, at the end of a couple of weeks, you're coming in and going, Okay, guys, so here are our numbers. We've sent 250 leads. We've had a 16 % open rate, 6 % of people have checked it. This is what we're doing. We feel like this is a little bit low. We feel like we should work over here a little bit. And this can be done on a Loom video. So what I did with Comet clients was I literally... If you get on a Zoom meeting, you're going to blow an hour. But if you Loom video the results, you can send a Loom video in five minutes and the customer is super appreciative. So if you tell them where you're at, what you're doing and what the next steps are, they are so appreciative because they see that you're working in their business and the money that they're paying you is justified. So jumping into their account, loom video the results. Hey guys, all right. So we sent 100 emails this week. I noticed that the open rates are low.


So next week I've changed the subject line and we're going to go down this. Or, hey guys, I noticed that the people that are clicking through to the sales page aren't converting to an appointment. So we're going to change the sales page a little bit. We're going to see if we can get that moving through. Literally just keep the client informed about what you're doing so that they know that your fee is justified because $4.97 a month is like... So break it down, $125 a week. They're getting so much more value than $125 would buy them. They're getting the software, they're getting you working for them, they're getting those campaigns running. It's incredible the value that they're getting for that. And all you need to do is just let them know. So manage the expectations up front. All clients just talk about the fact that this is a campaign that you'll be running with them side by side for the next six months. These are the things we monitor. These are the things that we make sure of. So doing that up front and then on a week by week basis, let them know what's happened and let them know where you were up to.


Get their feedback and also make sure that you're letting them know that they should be engaging with the customers. Hey, Mr. Customer, did you call these clicks? These people look like they're interested. These people look like they're having some issues. Have you called them? These guys need a follow up. Make sure that you're putting the leads in front of them because quite often they don't know. And Ebony tells a great story where one of our white label suite clients had people that had responded to the email or had sent back a message and she didn't even know that those interested leads were there. Nobody was monitoring the conversations panel and there was appointments waiting to be confirmed in the conversations panel. So make sure that the client is aware of the leads as well. And then part two of that, how do we stop spending so much time on these clients accounts? This has got to come from a level nine VA as soon as you possibly can afford to. That's why I know we had issues with the one time fee coming back to you. That's what the one time fee is for. That first initial client that you ever get, the first initial set up fee should be used to hire a VA that you then give an SOP, standard operating procedure, a checklist of things that they do for a client.


And those things can be as simple as load up the leads. Monitor the open rates, set up the domain, make sure the mail gun system is working, monitor conversations if there are any, literally give a list of what you're currently doing to a VA and get them to do that on a regular basis. And meantime, before you've got enough clients to justify that cost, set them to work of getting more for you. So this is how to afford a VA. As soon as you get that first client, the job for that client is to... The job for that VA is to look after that client, nothing else. You got to load up the leads, monitor their campaigns, give me reports on open rates, set their DMARC records up the right way. Everything that you're doing for a client, short of writing copy, if you've got a VA that can jump in and actually write subject lines or get a suggestion of end of the weeks coming up, open rates are low, get me five subject lines that I can suggest to the client that we're going to test next week so that the VA is constantly monitoring these campaigns.


It shouldn't be you. But also, again, knowing that having one client doesn't pay for a VA and your own food. So while you're getting started, that VA's job is also to get you more clients. And you can do things like update all my socials, post daily on social media about my business and about lead generation, load my funnel up with leads. Make sure that I've got leads and emails going out every week. Get me interviews on podcasts. Reach out to business groups and do my introductions for me. Things that you wish you had time to do that you simply don't. Send a message. Send a personal one to one message to 15 of these clients today and do the same thing for me for the next five days. Like, literally go to their website, fill in the contact us form and introduce me with this script. Like, things that you would do if you were desperate for sales, get a VA to do them because you'll never have time. Go to a Facebook page, introduce me, let me know. Reach out to the admin and make a connection. Log in as me, join this group, message these people.


These are the tasks that you wish you were doing, but you're too busy. So when you first engage that very first VA, that's the task list. Look after the client, priority number one, and let me know if anything from me is needed. And then fill the rest of your days with lead generating activities. I want 100 people on LinkedIn connected this week and conversation started. I want 20 business groups this week on Facebook with interaction from my account. I want leads in my funnel. I want text messages sent, and I want 20 company groups. If your VA is doing that for you day one, week one, you're busy. You're busy, they're busy, and things start to roll. So if you can get on to level nine. The guys are really great. Ron, you picked up a level nine VA, I think.


Almost. I talked to them, planning on it, getting it ready, lined up, just writing up my SOPs because you don't want to give them something that they're totally in their thumbs or doing it the wrong way.


And doing that, that's actually a really good point as well. Like giving them the SOPs. I've hired many, many VAs in my life. One of the biggest traps is bringing somebody on board and then going, What am I paying this person for? I haven't got enough work to keep them busy. And that's why I was like, If you can just write a checklist of all the things you wish you could do or would do if you had time, that'll keep a VA busy and that'll keep the wheels churning for you. And then in terms of process, I gave you guys the checklist that we give our VAs when a new client comes on board, like checklists. So the checklist for that specific one that I'm referring to, we call it the tech set up checklist. Set up mail gun, set up Twilio, set up their DMARC record, set up their account to be like this, put them onto SaaS mode, install this snapshot, configure this, this, this, this, this. It's literally just a checklist. When I created that checklist, I did loom videos at every single step. This is how to set up a DMARC record, three minute loom video.


This is how to set up the mail gun, three minute loom video. Every single step. I did that once and then that checklist has stayed as an asset for the last 12 months without having to adjust it. The next VA, regardless of skill level, can come in, see a step, watch a loom, do a complete checklist in no time at all. I did a race, actually, when I did this with my VA. The first time I ever gave the VA the checklist, I had just done the entire checklist start to finish as fast as I possibly could so that I could have a benchmark. And as fast as I possibly could was a total client set up in 28 minutes. And that was like, just go, go, go. Mail gun, Twilio, DMARC records, as fast as I could in 28 minutes. I did it as fast as I could so that I knew what was possible. And then I said to the VA, I expect you to take two hours. It was like, Oh, you.


Should have said 15 minutes.


Yeah, I can do it in 28. I'll give you 29. But then I knew that if I could do it in 28 minutes and I wanted them to be able to have a standard to work to, two hours seemed like a reasonable time to watch the loom and do it at the same time. Watch the loom and do it at the same time. Watch the loom, do it at the same time. And it got to the point where Giselle was able to do a complete client set up in under two hours. But again, what we're talking about is SOPs. So for you, Ethan, first of all, go back to your client, do the restaurant thing, be at the center of the table saying, Can I get you a free glass of wine? So just go back to the client and just say, Hey, John, just thought I'd let you know, things are progressing. Obviously, we've got a couple of appointments. Here's an important fact, though. That client, what industry are they in, Ethan?


That's also part of the problem. I know I talked about this a while ago with you. They're also in the web design niche. So they're a web design company. I remember when we were talking about how a lot of people reach out to them about web design and it's very... Maybe saturated is not the right word, but a lot of people are getting emails about their website sucks, their website needs to be changed. So that could be also playing into it is that the niche is not the best.


It's interesting. So here's his real fact right now. My business partner Chris has spent the last three days working 12 hours days doing a couple of new web pages. So we've literally just invested one of our top resources for three full days doing a couple of web pages, just two or three web pages. But even as I stand here today, having just invested that money and time, if somebody came to me with a no brainer offer that was like, if you let us have a shot at it and we increase your conversions by whatever % and whatever, and if it doesn't work, we don't pay you, I would say, yes, we've literally just done it. Why would I even possibly contemplate redoing it? If the offer was good enough, I would do it. So it's not it's not the niche and it's not the company, it's the offer always. If the offer is a no brainer, the website design company will have a thing. So what is the website design company sending out? Your job may be to get to work with them and say, Hey guys, what can we do here on this email? How can we make this offer a no brainer?


So what are they sending out, man? Just literally a, Let us audit your website, or, Have you thought about a redesign? What are they sending?


That's so I did take the stance on helping them with their offer. And now that you said that, like the money back thing and all that stuff, conversion rates and all that, I was always having trouble with figuring out what a good irresistible offer would be for a website. So what we've been pretty much sending out is turn your website into a client generating machine and just using hooks and catchy wording. And it's more in the copyright than the actual offer itself, which I know is also a detriment. But I think I've been having trouble with actually creating an offer for just a website. Now that you say something like that with the actual putting numbers to it, that definitely sounds more compelling than just what I've been saying.


I just finished spruiking in the group about... And Ron, I do see the hand up. Thank you, man. I just finished spruking about a book called Cold Email Manifesto and $100 Million Offers. Yeah, you're going to show that one as well.


Yeah, I got that one too.


You got that one too? Yeah, absolutely.


I've got 100 Million Offers.


But it tells you the... But Cold Email Manifesto is.


Really.


Interesting. The way he structures that email is super cool. So the subject line is always, quick question. Then the first paragraph is a compliment. And then the next paragraph is a case study. And then last paragraph is a call to action. So it goes like this. Subject line, quick question. First paragraph, Hey, business name. Looking for an ideal business. Saw you guys in the window cleaning space in Alabama. Love what you've done in the industry. Quick question for you, and then go into the case study. So compliment. And the compliment can be something as lame as, saw you guys in the industry in state that you're in, love what you're doing. It's literally just a mental connection. If we can personalize that introduction, then even better. But doing that on mass is not what is possible at the moment until our AI tool comes in and does that for you. But just... Sorry, just thought I'd drop that if anybody picked that up. But anyway, we'll get to that later. So personalizing or complementing in that first paragraph, Hey, Jones Landscaping and Automation Services, whatever the business name is, saw you guys in the Seattle area and love what you're doing in the space, then it is into case study.


Quick question for you. We need to have a successful case study. So I'm sure you've got one from the client. If not, we can talk about ways of getting around that. But if they've got a successful case study, it literally goes like this. What we were able to do for X, Y, Z, landscaping, helped them bring in more clients with a fresh design. We'd love to see if that might work for you too. Call to action. If you'd like us to look at that for free, drop in a couple of times that we might be able to meet up or something like that. Quick question, compliment, case study, call to action. Awesome way to build it. In terms of the website and the special offer, I think if you've got a successful case study, that is the no brainer offer. What we were able to do for ABC Engineering down the road was increase their ad spend cost because of a few little tweaks to their website. If you'd like us to do that for you, too, no cost, no obligation, let us know. And then putting that into follow up. So the challenge is definitely the offer, making it juicy enough that you'd be stupid to say no.


So work with your client on that. Just say to them, Hey, listen, guys, look, we can see open rates are good. We can see click rates are good. And again, be the guy at the table that's telling them what's going on. Open rates are good, click rates are good, but people aren't booking. And I feel like the offer is not compelling enough for them to get something going. And then gift them a copy of the $100 million offers. Literally buy a copy and put it on the desk if they don't already have one, ask them, Hey, guys, have you read this book? If they say no, take part of their 497, go to Amazon and ship it to them. Because then you're showing that you're invested in them in their success. But if they've read it, just say, Okay, so work with me for 20, 30 minutes. Let's brainstorm some of the ways that we can make this into the best no brainer web design offer that they've ever seen, because, hey, we do web designs and we do really good web designs is not an offer. It's a yawn. So, yeah, make it irresistible.


We do super good.


Website designs. In that case, you got to have a thing in my calendar, man. Yeah. So does any of that help, Ethan? Is that a couple of things that you can work on?


Definitely. And honestly, that's pretty much what I've did with the second client. And we've only been running for three days. We're still running up the email. We've already gotten really good open rates and all that. So now it's going reverse for my first client that I got, and I didn't really know any of that. I was just starting out. I was just pretty crappy at copywriting. And as time has gone on, obviously I've gotten better and getting your advice and everything. So it's going back on that, working with him in the beginning and then really get that no brainer offer, taking the case studies and going from there. And even.


Though you've had this client for a couple of months, it's not too late to do what I did with Jeff the other day and lay out your proven process. So what do I mean by that? Sitting down with a client and literally saying, Okay, Mr. Client, this is our proven process. What we're going to do is we're going to step one, analyze. Who are your clients? What are we sending? What's the offer? How are we going to put this into place? Step two, create the landing pages in the collateral that support that system. Step three, load up your system with leads and start to drip the campaigns out. Step four, monitor, analyze, and tweak. Step five, turn up the heat. Whatever your proven process is, that's just five ways that I laid out with Jeff the other day. It was just literally, what do you got now? Who are we trying to reach? Let's get this in place. And put it into an actual PDF document. There's so much value in that because when you put that in front of a client and you say, Hey, John, come on a Zoom call with me and let me walk through the five steps that we're going to do together.


What you've just told the client is that you're a professional. You're not just shooting from the hip. So now what you can do is go back to the client, the one that you've had for three months and go, Hey, Jeff, great to see you. Since we started working together, I've fine tuned what we're going to do next. Let me walk it through with you. Let's analyze what you've got right now. Let's talk about what collateral you've got supporting that. Let's then analyze the leads we've got coming in. Let's then put them into a system and drip them, and let's tweak and adjust as we're going along and whatever. So putting that into the, Hey, Jeff, great to see you. Let's do a review. This is where we're up to. This is what we're going to do next. And what you're going to do next should be what we would have done from day one, analyze collateral. So, Jeff, let's look at this. What offer have you got? Okay, has your landing page got that loud and clear? Have we got a way of making this work? Go back to the client and again, be the waiter at the side of the table that says, The kitchen is just running slow.


Let's work together and see what we can make happen and manage that client side by side.


That definitely helps. And that's where I'm glad you've been saying all that because that's where I was. I've been working with them for so long and now I'm going to go back and tell them we need to redo the offer. I just felt like I was in a weird spot where I've been so far along with him and nothing's starting a little bit. Make sure you're bringing a glass of wine. You're still giving them something, right?


Yeah, it's nice. Actually, are they local to you? Can you do a face to face?


No, they're in a different state. Okay, cool.


No problem. Definitely ship them something, though. That's not a bad idea. Ship them, damn. Call up a bakery that's close to them or get hold of Dunkin Donuts or whatever and just ship them a box of donuts to their office and just say, Hey, John, marking out three months of working together, just celebrate with you and the staff. Here's a cake, 20, 30 bucks, buys you a long way. But yeah, definitely. The other thing is... Sorry, I just wanted one more point on this before I close it out. Your embarrassment might not be this. They might be looking and going, Wow, a couple of appointments from that. That's pretty cool. Obviously, we'd like more. So don't feel like you've let them down in any way. Just literally, you've created something for them that they can turn the heat up on. Let's tweak it and adjust it and make sure that it's right. So the client to them is $2,000 to $5,000 for a web design. You only need to get one client in six months and the system is paid for itself. So don't lose sight of that either. Like, sure, we want 10 appointments a month.


Who doesn't? But let's make sure that we've got a system and that's also where I said into play. Make sure you've got other things in GLH that are so valuable for them that they wouldn't turn it off even if you got no appointments. Make sure their funnels are set up. Make sure their surveys are set up. Make sure they're using the social media element. Make sure they've got Google review generation going on, make sure they've got mixed call text back going on, make sure they've got some really cool automations in there. Make the system super valuable. They'll never turn it off. Then, of course, manage their expectations and do all that stuff as you go and get a VA and blah, blah, blah, all the recap of what we just covered. But yeah, don't forget that you only need to get them one client in six months to pay for the system. So just work with them along that line. Yeah, perfect.


Thank you. This is super helpful.
 

Dude, amazing to see. I'm so glad to see you coming along and I appreciate you.