The most overlooked part of the sales process

Leah Neaderthal0:02

Welcome to the smart gets paid podcast with me. Leah Neaderthal, I help women land higher paying clients in their B2B, consulting, coaching and service based businesses. But I've never been a salesperson. My background is in corporate marketing, and when I started my first consulting business, I learned pretty quickly that it's about 1000 times harder to sell your own stuff than it is to sell someone else's. So I taught myself how to do it, and I created the sales approach that I now share with my clients so they can feel more comfortable in the sales process. Get more of the right clients and get paid way more for every client contract. So whether your client contracts are $5,000 $100,000 or more. If you want to work with more of the clients you love, do more of the work you love, and get paid more than you ever thought you could, then you're in the right place. Let's do it together. Thanks for tuning in, and don't forget to rate this podcast. Review it and share it. Thanks. Hey there. Thanks for joining me in this episode, I hope that wherever you are, wherever you are listening to this, I hope you're having a great week, making some good progress in your business, and also taking some time for yourself. So I am always so excited when listeners take what they're learning in this podcast or in you know, what I'm sharing on LinkedIn, and they use it in their own business, and then they come back to me and tell me that it worked. It's like the best thing ever. I mean, it just makes me so happy. And I got an email the other day from N Who is an HR consultant who used my shoulder tap strategy with one of her potential clients. Now, the shoulder tap strategy is a way to re engage people that maybe you've talked to in the past, you know, potential clients that you were once talking to, or just past relationships, or just, you know, any relationship that's gone kind of cold where you just want to restart the conversation. So for n, this potential client that she was thinking about had gone quiet for, you know, a while, and she used the shoulder tap strategy to craft an email using the format that's provided, and she pressed send, and seven minutes later, they wrote back and said that there's definitely an opportunity to work together, and they'll schedule a call soon, and I know it's seven minutes later because she forwarded us the email chain to team at Smart gets paid.com and her part just says all caps, OMG. It worked, and that's the kind of thing I just love to see. So if you've taken something that you've learned here in this podcast and it's helped you do something or feel a certain way or approach something differently than you might have in the past, drop us a note at team at Smart gets paid.com and if you want a copy of the shoulder tap strategy that this consultant used to re engage her potential client. Just go to smart gets paid.com/shoulder-tap. So shoulder dash tap, and you can get a copy. So that's smart gets paid.com/shoulder-tap.

Leah Neaderthal3:17

All right. So I'm so excited to share this conversation with you today, because the topic that we're talking about is, without a doubt the most overlooked part of the sales process, and that is loyalty. So if you've worked with me before, you know that everything we do and everything we learn starts with the purchase funnel, right? That series of stages that our prospects go through as they go from just sort of learning about us, knowing that we exist, all the way down to signing up to work with us. And we do that because when we understand where in the purchase funnel a particular strategy or a particular tool falls like where it lives, then we know what role it plays in moving our clients down the stages of the purchase funnel. And the purchase funnel goes something like this. Picture, an upside down pyramid split into five horizontal parts. So at the top is awareness, you know, helping potential clients know that you just exist in the world. Next down is familiarity, where we help them know what you do and just learn a little bit more about you and your services and the value you provide. After that comes consideration, where we help potential clients see that you are the best provider to solve their problems, and then purchase which, you know, of course, we help them say yes and give you the money. And then finally, all the way down at the bottom of the purchase funnel is loyalty, where we are helping our clients buy more or buy again or refer us to other people. And in all the top. About sales and selling and getting clients, like all the stuff you see out there on selling on the internet, almost no one is talking about loyalty. I mean, I guess me and my clients, but it's a huge missed opportunity if you're not talking about this, because your past and current clients are the best source of work, best source of clients and revenue than anything else, because studies show that existing clients spend more, you know, something like three times more than a new client. They have a higher win rate. You know, they already know you and know that you're good, so they're more likely to say yes to you than if you were selling to somebody who's brand new, and they say yes faster. So the sales process is just a lot shorter. I mean, think about it. How much easier is it to sell to someone who already knows you and how amazing you are because they've already worked with you than it is to sell to someone who hasn't worked with you before? Right? So provided that you want to continue on, then past clients are a great source of Work and Income. But like I said, No one focuses on this, which is why I make a point to teach my academy students how to do this part, so that they can turn their work into more work through referrals and upsells, because I don't want you working so hard to get a client only to get to the end of the work and not know what to do to stay on with them. So I am super excited that we're talking about this today. The woman you're going to hear me talk to is part of a small team, and within that team, she's the one that's tasked with getting new clients, and since she hadn't ever done it before in any of her previous work, that's why she came to me, and the challenge you're going to hear her talk about falls squarely into that loyalty bucket. So I want to send a huge thank you to my client for allowing me to share this call with you. And just as a quick heads up, what you're going to hear is I was in the car in this call, but don't worry, I wasn't driving. So take a listen, and I'll come back at the end and share a lesson that you can apply to your business. Do you have an actual sales process? I'm talking about not a general sense of what you should be doing, but a real process where you know exactly what step comes next, who to follow up with, and when, and you can see at a glance where every potential client stands, if the answer is no, or if yours feels clunky or you're reinventing the wheel every single time I made something for you, it's called roadmap to clients. It's a free 20 minute video course, and in it you'll map out your customized sales process, step by step, from the very first contact with a potential client all the way to a signed proposal. It's the same foundational process we use with every Academy member, and it's completely free. Go to smart gets paid.com/roadmap to get started.

7:58

Yeah, the purpose of this call is really to talk about what might still be on your mind or out there lingering, and just make sure you have what you need to move forward. So how can we make this a really valuable call for you today?

8:09

Yeah, so I think today I with everything that I've learned, we had kind of this co founder meeting where we started talking about what needs to happen now that I have all this knowledge, and now that we're losing one of our big clients through, you know, a lot of different a lot of different reasons, but we're feeling this need to kind of, you know, do this really big push, then just see who we can get on board in the next few months. And and I'm finding that in this, the bigger kind of, the bigger challenge is that, you know, it's easy for me to get things off the ground between me and my CEO. We can do these outreach emails, Discovery calls. We can be really in sync with all of this. But when it comes to everything after that, the operations team takes over, and I am, I kind of just stay in the business development side, so I don't have any contact with them after that. So then when it comes to, like, you know, this client that is leaving, we want to do this executive debrief, but I have all of this knowledge about how to do it, but I have not been the one that's been in touch with them on a regular basis. So it would seem kind of at a left field for me to reinsert myself. So I'm just wondering what you think about that just me feeling super siloed and not really sure how to keep myself involved in the full process.

9:33

Yeah, no, this is super important. Let me ask a few questions. So when you get the operations team, who is the operations team. What does that look like?

9:42

Yeah, that is our COO and our team of managers. They are all in operation. They're doing all of the, you know, the work that they sign, that we signed them on to do.

9:55

Dude, are they tasked with any type of account shepherding?

9:59

Yeah. It's all been the COO, if they see a major issue, they'll level it up to, basically to the COO, who will then kind of step in and make the bigger, bigger strategic decisions about the account. What should fix so that you know quality can still

10:14

happen, right? Okay. I mean, what would you want to see happen?

10:18

Yeah, that I am not totally sure, because I feel like, I think I like to control things, but I don't have all of the knowledge to be able to control it, you know, from the industry side and the healthcare side. So, you know, my instinct is for me to take on more, but that doesn't make sense, because if I'm doing more of that account side, then I have less time to do, you know, the the sales side, which has kind of, you know, kind of been the problem in the past. So now that we're trying to separate it out, I'm, you know, it just feels a little bit stuck on how to take that next step,

10:52

right, right? Do you feel like you're having a harder time convincing other people too involved doing this? Or do you feel like you're having a hard time convincing yourself of how to be involved?

11:07

Yeah, it's definitely convincing myself. Because in my mind, once we get the client signed and they are turned over to the other team, I feel like it would be so random for me to pop back in and do this, you know, run this debrief, or, I don't know, just like for me to be at the beginning and at the end. Maybe that's completely normal, and maybe that's all I need to hear. But having not seen that kind of structure before, I because we also, like, need the client there to be able to talk about the issues that have happened, or things that went well and everything. But I haven't been in there for so I have all like, the knowledge of how to do it, but I'm not the only one running the show,

11:47

right, right, right? I mean, that really helps me, because if you're trying to, if it just feels weird because you've never seen it before, then then, yeah. I mean, the first sale of anything is to yourself, right? So I think just sort of being able to get comfortable with it for you, then you can bring it to other people. So, you know, one thing that we talked about and signed is, when we got to Module nine, we well, actually it's, it's all the way through, you know, with the purchase funnel, right, awareness, familiarity, consideration, purchase, but the last one is loyalty. And in loyalty, it's around, you know, selling again, selling more, getting referrals, right? And loyalty is very much a part of the sales process, because, you know, if you are turning through clients, and clients aren't happy, or they're not getting what they need, or they're promised something that isn't being delivered, they're going to leave you right, and then you're going to start all over. And so I would say that, you know, instead of like, your job ending when the contract is signed, it almost instead of ending it almost like starts over. That makes sense. Yeah, so, so I think that's, that's sort of one way to think about it. And the fact that you haven't seen this before, I think, is not uncommon, because a lot of people, a lot of companies, ignore this stage of the sales process. And they're, they're, you know, missing a tremendous opportunity and making life a lot harder for themselves, because they're not seeing loyalty as as a continuation of a sale. It feels like something like a nice to have, you know, like an afterthought, but if you can consider it as like a main part of the sales process and not as an afterthought, then you know you're going to be able to not only avoid what's what's happened, which is one of your major clients and has, you know, canceled their contract, but you know you can also so stay connected, so that you have better data to, you know, maybe offer a new service, increase their level of, you know, their contract level. You know, just get, get data for that you can use for new products and services, and then data that you can bring back to the beginning of the sales process. You know, if you were to ask people at the, you know, at some milestone in their time with you, you know, how do you think that your business is different right now versus three months ago? Tell me, like, what really brought you our way, what was going on at that time, and you use their words, you know, the sort of the sales copyright itself. The website copyrights itself, you know. So it all sort of feeds back into what we would consider the sales process, but it still very much is a sales process that

14:47

makes sense. Yeah, yeah, it does. No, that's that's really helpful way to look at it, because I was seeing myself as the person that shows up at the beginning because we want something. Saying, like, since signed my you know, my brain has changed a little bit, so I don't think that way anymore. But, you know, a few months ago, I would have felt like I'm coming and I'm interacting with you because I want something. And now, you know, if this contract is ending, I'm coming back because I want information from you, or I want to find a different way for it to keep you involved. And so it just felt so greedy for me to have that role. But if I'm offering some kind of value throughout their experience with us, then that feels a lot more natural, yeah.

15:31

And I think it, you know, that sort of by mindset, I'm not surprised by, you know, it's, it's, it's uncomfortable, you know, and you very much feel like you're asking for something, right? I mean, lot of the work that we did in the program is designed specifically to overcome that and just reframe it to more of you know you're offering, you are sort of helping the right clients say yes, all of these things, right? But also, I think that if you were to come back at the even, I wouldn't even say, like at the end, right? I mean, consider it like a milestone along the way, at a certain checkpoint, right? And and revisit it and say, How's it going? And maybe it's, maybe it's with the CEO, and maybe it's even, you know, there's no, there's nothing that says you could be sort of introduced back into the conversation by saying, We really like to see how things are going. You know, our job is to really understand, like, what what it means you're facing. Can we ask you some questions? We'd love to see how, you know, we want to make sure we're still aligned with what your goals are, you know, that sort of thing. You can pull back a little bit of the curtain, and I think it only communicates that the company is listening.

16:39

Yeah, that's good. Okay, cool. That is really helpful. Do you think that maybe up for this? You mean, like, by this, you mean an executive debrief, where you just mean the whole my co founders, oh, yeah, like this. It's a really good relationship, where, you know, if we, if one person, has an idea on something, and we feel good about it, we can just run with it. It's at this point, I think it's just a matter of bandwidth, because, you know, we we have all these ideas. We have a video in the works, and then there's the actual work, and then we want to update the website with our new BBM. And so there's so many things to do that, and my time is so strapped right now, so I think it's a matter of finding, like, those initial things that we need to start and then hopefully soon being able to go with something like this. But yeah, they would totally be down for this, because they they recognize that the business development side is not their strong suit. So it's I have a lot of bandwidth and a lot of freedom to kind of run with whatever, whatever I think is best, and I can take it to them if they agree.

17:45

That's awesome. That's really nice to have that relationship. And you know, I think that maybe the way to start the conversation is, you know, that that loyalty part of the sales process, but also, you know, keeping a the right client happy and continuing to, you know on their contract, it's always going to be more cost effective than trying to get a new contract, trying to get a new client. So I think it's, it's a certain, I mean, the ROI is definitely there in terms of, like, where do you spend your your limited time? That's an obvious,

18:20

yeah, that's value. That's yeah, that's a really good point, yeah, because unfortunately, with this client, they're moving to a different system that isn't compatible with what we do. It's just not cost effective for them or time efficient for us to do it. So this, I mean, as bad as it is, it's also kind of the best case scenario, because it's more out of our hands than anything. But I think there are ways to keep the relationship going, because they're also not our ideal client anymore. You know, like, yes, the ideal client is the paying client, but now that we've sort of shifted to solo practitioners, it's kind of an exciting way to start fresh, too. So, yeah,

19:01

well, I think if you're sort of breaking up with each other on amicable terms, and you feel like you want to, I think it would be a great opportunity to do an executive debrief and sort of ask some of those questions, because you're not selling anything, you know, that's not even available to you or to them, right? And so it may free up, you know, maybe sort of take some the pressure off, yeah, yeah, that's true.

Leah Neaderthal19:28

All right, so I want to pull out one thing that you can apply to your business, which is that current clients are the best clients. And I know that the woman I was talking to in this call, she and I were talking about how they've actually lost a client, but the general sentiment still holds, don't overlook the loyalty part of the sales process and accidentally ignore your current or your past clients, because they're great future clients too. The key, of course, is to have a way to continue that work, which in our world. Starts with something called an executive debrief with the client, so that you can uncover ways to continue to provide value and be able to offer something that's high value in an ongoing way. And chances are they'll want to keep going, because they already know you and love you. And it's important to remember that once people find a provider that they trust. They don't want to go out looking for a new provider, you know, they don't just want to start a whole new search for somebody new who will be untested and kind of a question mark, not to mention the time that it takes to even find that new provider and then get them ramped and all of that. So you have more opportunity, and you have more likelihood that they'll be able to say yes to you than you think. One of my clients works for a very large tech company, and they keep hiring her. They're on their something like sixth project right now, because they know her. They know that she can do great work. And trust me, literally nobody wants to start a whole new search for a new provider. So just back to the macro point past clients are great future clients. And I think this goes to something that I hear a lot where women feel like they need to just go out and look for new clients, like they almost sort of excuse away the clients that they keep selling into, they keep working with but there's nothing wrong with that. So there are a couple of ways of building a client based business. You can go broad, or you can go deep. And I have to credit my business bestie Megan for sharing this idea with me so broad or deep, right? You can go out. You can go broad, you can work with a lot of clients for a little bit of time, or a little bit of work, or you can go deep and develop deep and long, lasting relationships with a small number of clients. And both of those approaches are totally fine. So I just want to offer that if you're somebody who has a handful of clients that keep coming back to you and you're worried that you're somehow not doing it right, don't worry. You are, you're just going deep instead of going broad, and that's totally okay. Hey, everything we're talking about in this episode is part of the system. Women like you are learning in the academy. In the Academy, we help women consultants install the two systems. Every B to be consultant needs a marketing system to consistently attract the right clients and a sales system to lead a sales process to a yes and get paid more for every contract. So even if you've only gotten clients through referrals or word of mouth in the academy, you'll learn how to attract and sign clients outside your network, how to lead a sales process with confidence, and how to get paid for your value, not your time, and there's no cold calling or cold emailing involved, no changing your services or making a course, and you won't use any pushy sales tactics. That's just not our vibe. So if you like what you've heard here, the academy may be your right next step to learn how you can get these two systems in your consulting business and make progress faster and with fewer roadblocks. Head to smart gets paid.com/academy and apply and we can chat about next steps. All right, see you over there. You. Transcribed by https://otter.ai