How To Retain Clients?

[GetShitDone]

What do you think are some key factors that will keep a client to stay onboard and not leave a service IF results aren't being delivered right away/within the first 1-2 months?

Specifically for high ticket service businesses (Eg. marketing agencies, coaches, consultants, etc).

 

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[alexkuzmov]

What do you think are some key factors that will keep a client to stay onboard and not leave a service IF results aren't being delivered right away/within the first 1-2 months?

Specifically for high ticket service businesses (Eg. marketing agencies, coaches, consultants, etc).

Outside of the client understanding why the results arent delivered, I cant think of anything else.
Maybe doing it for a friend/relative?

 

[Kid]

Give em so kind of bonus for being loyal.
Like make your service $200 for first two months, but every month after reduce it to $120.

 

[Nick T]

What do you think are some key factors that will keep a client to stay onboard and not leave a service IF results aren't being delivered right away/within the first 1-2 months?

Specifically for high ticket service businesses (Eg. marketing agencies, coaches, consultants, etc).

Set expectations clearly from the beginning, and when they call to complain.(Not if, but when) Make sure you keep them in frame.

Its called the velvet ropes. When you go to a movie you walk down the velvet ropes to get to your destination. ALWAYS hold frame. ALWAYS.

If you set expectations clearly from the beginning... Say something like "'remember when we started I told you the process takes at a minimum of two months." They will usually respond with... "Yeah, I remember"... from there send them back on their way.

This is also where vetting your clients comes in... The more they are desperate the more they will complain. In consulting good clients will make your life a lot better.

 

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[Andy Black]

We create a Basecamp project immediately the client signs up and assign tasks for the week and get communication going.

We also create a “Weekly Trading” sheet that we share with the client and update weekly with key changes made, key comments, and stats for the previous week. We ask the client to update their columns too.

We try to get into a weekly rhythm of measure, report, analyse, act.

Sometimes clients refer us on to other prospects even if we’ve not managed to get them results, or even within the first week or two of engaging. I believe it’s because of all the visibility, traceability, and repeatability of what’s being done, and why.

I have a couple of threads in the forum mention the weekly trading sheet, and how we use Basecamp. I can’t remember if they’re on the inside or not. They’re in my courses platform too.

 

[Jon L]

I recently did a custom software project where the architecture I came up with was something we'd never done before. I did it that way because it served the client's best interest. We were late delivering it because the novelty of what we were doing caused a couple bugs that took a LONG time to figure out. One of them, we worked on for a week straight. The other, we've mostly resolved, but is still not completely fixed, a month later. Its a problem with SSL that has always 'just worked' before.

Four things helped this not turn into a problem:

1. The client is really good, and easy to work with.
2. We did good work on other parts of the project
3. We worked 7-days a week to resolve everything, and communicated with the client regularly to let him know what was going on.
4. Finally, at the start of the project, I worked really hard to flesh out all the problems we can come up with that might derail the project. If that weren't part of my process, it would be pretty easy to put all the blame for the problems we ran into at my feet.

 

[Black_Dragon43]

Specifically for high ticket service businesses (Eg. marketing agencies, coaches, consultants, etc).

High-ticket agencies (10K+/project) retain clients because they do a perfect job, and their level of service is unmatched. That's why clients pay a premium. If the client asks for a change at 2 in the night, then it gets done. They want a provider who will take care of each and every need that they have. They want a real, premium service where they know their provider gives as much time to them as is needed to get the job done to the highest standards. They want someone who is an expert who cares about them. If they don't find that with you, they'll go to someone else.

I suggest that you don't try to build a business around high-ticket services if you're not willing to give that kind of service, and address the needs of this market segment. There are lots of other segments where client demands are different that you can address. But rest assured, that unless you can do this, you will fail to build a sustainable business that extends beyond the sales push itself.

There are tens of thousands of deluded 1-man show high ticket agencies out there who struggle to ever have consistent clients because they don't get this. The premium end of the market has different demands than your run of the mill business. Somehow many people would want to serve premium, and charge premium prices, but then have very docile and obedient clients. Such is not possible I'm afraid...

 

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[Andy Black]

Here's one of the videos I mentioned earlier.

• Creating a Simple Dashboard Using Google Sheets

I'm available on Basecamp for client queries, but I don't feel obliged to answer them out of hours.

 

[Andy Black]

Out of curiosity Andy, do you sell high ticket services to clients? As in what would be the usual range, $100-1K/mo or more like 2k-10k?

It's not hard and fast, but our price points for Google Ads clients are typically $250 or $500/mth for productised service clients, and $1,000 or $1,500/mth for consulting clients. Some clients rent landing pages as well as the Google Ads campaigns. Some just rent landing pages.


From 2000 to 2010 I was an IT Contractor (aka a freelance consultant) charging a decent rate (€300-€600/day). I was very good at getting contract extensions. One tip is to think about what they want but maybe haven't articulated, and make sure they get it. I knew that I didn't work for the company that hired me, I worked for the guy that signed my timesheet - and my job was to ensure he looked good and could sleep well at night.

Even in those days I made sure I adhered to the Four T's:

• Visibility - of what was done and why.
• Traceability - of how it was done (with copious before and after screenshots or log files).
• Repeatability - via documenting what was done, why, and how.
• Accountability - people knew who did what because I got people to log their work as above.

 

[Jon L]

High-ticket agencies (10K+/project) retain clients because they do a perfect job, and their level of service is unmatched. That's why clients pay a premium. If the client asks for a change at 2 in the night, then it gets done. They want a provider who will take care of each and every need that they have. They want a real, premium service where they know their provider gives as much time to them as is needed to get the job done to the highest standards. They want someone who is an expert who cares about them. If they don't find that with you, they'll go to someone else.

I suggest that you don't try to build a business around high-ticket services if you're not willing to give that kind of service, and address the needs of this market segment. There are lots of other segments where client demands are different that you can address. But rest assured, that unless you can do this, you will fail to build a sustainable business that extends beyond the sales push itself.

There are tens of thousands of deluded 1-man show high ticket agencies out there who struggle to ever have consistent clients because they don't get this. The premium end of the market has different demands than your run of the mill business. Somehow many people would want to serve premium, and charge premium prices, but then have very docile and obedient clients. Such is not possible I'm afraid...

I agree with all that except for one word, 'perfect.' There's no such thing as perfection. In anything creative, there's always something that can be done better. There are also always problems that will arise. The trick is to do excellent work, anticipate the problems, and solve them professionally when they come up.

 

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[Andy Black]

The trick is to do excellent work, anticipate the problems, and solve them professionally when they come up.

I also find that communicating what is happening and why goes a looong way. If things aren't working then let them know. Radio silence is the worst thing to do.

It's like Dan Sullivan said in one of his videos about what makes people referrable:

1. Manners. (Say please and thank you!)
2. Show up on time.
3. Do what you said you were going to do (or let them know if you can't and what's happening).
4. Be competent.

 

[Black_Dragon43]

I agree with all that except for one word, 'perfect.' There's no such thing as perfection. In anything creative, there's always something that can be done better. There are also always problems that will arise. The trick is to do excellent work, anticipate the problems, and solve them professionally when they come up.

Yes, absolutely. To me, perfection in a creative field is not about guaranteeing results 100%. I am well aware that marketing for example, isn’t an exact science. To me, perfection is about serving your client to the best of your abilities, caring about their results, and having the right expertise for the job all combined at the same time.

 

[Jon L]

I also find that communicating what is happening and why goes a looong way. If things aren't working then let them know. Radio silence is the worst thing to do.

It's like Dan Sullivan said in one of his videos about what makes people referrable:

1. Manners. (Say please and thank you!)
2. Show up on time.
3. Do what you said you were going to do (or let them know if you can't and what's happening).
4. Be competent.

Yes! EXACTLY. I had a client that paid me a lot of money over several years. At one point early in the relationship, they'd paid me to build a system, convinced me against my stated objections to go live (we hadn't finished testing it), and then the thing got into trouble. At one point, as I was working 15+ hour days to fix things, I told them, 'The buck stops with me, regardless of who did what. I'll get this fixed.' And I did.

They ended up having me build a replacement product for 4x the price of the original one because they trusted me. That product worked for years until the division I built the system for was shut down.

 

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[Jon L]

Yes, absolutely. To me, perfection in a creative field is not about guaranteeing results 100%. I am well aware that marketing for example, isn’t an exact science. To me, perfection is about serving your client to the best of your abilities, caring about their results, and having the right expertise for the job all combined at the same time.

so ... "Excellence"

 

[Andy Black]

they'd paid me to build a system, convinced me against my stated objections to go live (we hadn't finished testing it), and then the thing got into trouble. At one point, as I was working 15+ hour days to fix things, I told them, 'The buck stops with me, regardless of who did what. I'll get this fixed.' And I did.

I'm not sure I'd do that. In my mind I'm thinking "Your lack of planning is not my emergency." I'm not working 15+ hour days to fix something the client did wrong against my stated objections, although in our IT Contractor circles we did call that "stupid user tax".

 

[Jon L]

I'm not sure I'd do that. In my mind I'm thinking "Your lack of planning is not my emergency." I'm not working 15+ hour days to fix something the client did wrong against my stated objections, although in our IT Contractor circles we did call that "stupid user tax".

Yeah, there was also the issue of my stupid developer, so there was plenty of blame to go around. I'll have to tell you the story sometime.

 

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[Tom.V]

I've moved away from the performance only model because of too many variables out of my control.

There are many other ways to add value while also working towards creating that perfect storm for clients. One thing we do is provide a full marketing solution, not just paid ads.

The foundation of this is our websites which over time are becoming better and better with more and more features that help them get more leads, nurture them better, and of course sell more.

Other things we are doing is layering in info products and courses specifically for our clients to build even more goodwill and foster the relationship. It's a win win win for everyone.

That said clients will always churn. Just keep plugging the holes as best you can until your ship is unsinkable.