So you’ve probably heard lots of noise in the online space about the importance of growth. And more specifically, client growth. Whether you’re serving clients 1:1, in Masterminds, in group programs – these can be both live and evergreen, in memberships or in passive programs, traditionally speaking, you need more butts in seats in order to grow your revenue, and subsequently, grow your business.
This means client growth, which we can also call client acquisition for the purposes of this episode, is essential.
Now there are all sorts of ways that you can work with clients – I just mentioned a few examples. Likewise there are also all sorts of ways you can convert clients, or acquire clients.
You can increase your visibility. You can up your lead gen strategy. You can beef up your content marketing. You can start to play around with paid advertising. You can put out new offers. You can work on paid partnerships and affiliate marketing.
There are SO many ways you can get in front of your ideal audience and convert clients. Now obviously if you are running a 6 or multi-6 figure business, you’ve probably already honed that pretty well.
But. There is one key overlooked strategy for actually scaling. And that’s not focusing on client acquisition.
It’s focusing on client retention.
Okay so what in the world does that actually mean?
Client retention is retaining the clients that you have already converted.
Now please don’t misunderstand me here, you do need to be acquiring new clients, or at least having a way to acquire them. Even if this is something like a waiting list that you can go to when a new space opens up.
But my point here is that retention is essentially an untapped asset for your business. And one that can add five and six figures to your bottom line, depending on the size of your business.
It is more cost-effective to keep clients you currently have than to try to go out and find new ones. It’s also typically easier; after all, you already have a relationship with this person, you already know some about their business and their struggles, and you offer a solution to their problems. Now here’s where the rubber meets the road.
You have to actually provide results to your clients. Not just pretty marketing and cheap promises that you can’t deliver on – but actual results.
So I’m actually gonna share a real-life example. I know when I was trying to build my business, I had a difficult time finding anyone lifting the veil and showing true behind-the-scenes, especially of some of these nittier grittier convos that aren’t rainbows and sunshine.
So I’m going to share about 2 different mentors I worked with recently and who I worked with for at least a year.
Both were at multi-6 figures when I signed on. Both served women growing businesses online. Both had been in business for over 5 years, and they both actually started their business the same year.
So by all intents and purposes, there were A LOT of similarities there.
Their containers were slightly different, one focused on one on ones and one focused on Masterminds. But the experiences could not have been different.
So let me start with the first one. Immediately upon signup, there was a super clear onboarding guide and a nice welcome video. I had a lot of clarity on what was going to happen when, and how it was going to happen.
Now these were mostly just systematised things (yay for good automation), but it was still a great start to the experience and paved the way for what I could expect.
After the first couple of weeks of working together, I knew that if a call was scheduled, that mentor would be there, on time, every time. I knew the timeline for questions to be responded to outside of calls, and I knew the process for getting support – either from the mentor or from the team will technical or billing queries.
This continued for our time working together; it was always consistent and I always felt supported.
Let’s shift to the second mentor. After I signed, I received nothing, and was then double billed. Okay, shit happens sometimes, no problem, but I had no idea how to access the platform, how to get the link to book calls, or what happened next.
It was off to a bumpy start, but honestly stuff does happen.
After the first couple of weeks of working together, I knew that if a call was scheduled, that mentor may or may not be there, randomly rescheduling calls with a few days notice. I had no idea the timeline for questions to be responded to outside of calls, and I had no idea the process for getting support – either from the mentor or from the team will technical or billing queries.
This, too, continued for our time working together. The behaviour was always consistent and I very rarely felt supported.
Now I completely understand that different people and different personalities hear, receive, and react to things differently. And I actually got a lot out of working with both mentors. But with the first, I felt this mentor honest-to-goodness was IN it with me. I felt supported and seen, and my business basically blew the fuck up working with this person.
With the second, I learned what not to do. Which was worth every penny to be honest.
Now shifting back to retention versus acquisition. The first mentor has a waiting list a couple hundred people deep. People sign on and DO NOT leave. They also pay this mentor four, five, and six figures per year depending on the business and the mentor has been able to grow alongside them. This mentor obviously focuses on retention.
The second mentor has a huge paid lead generation strategy. So there are constantly new audience members coming in, and then of course some that convert into clients. But the retention rate is abysmal.
Is one strategy better than another when we’re talking about retention versus acquisition? Well in reality, both work. Both can propel you to a multi-6 and even 7-figure business.
But when you’re focused on the current clients that you have… their experience and their results… it is such an easy transition in the customer journey for them to work with you in a higher capacity or to continue working with you.
And you know there is so much talk about getting more clients. But seriously such an overlooked strategy for scaling your business is to take care of the clients that you already have. Client retention is going to give you a higher ROI, it’s a more cost-effective strategy than acquiring new leads and subsequently clients, it gives you increased loyalty – after all, happy clients tend to buy more often and spend more than new customers – and I’m pulling this from Fred Reichheld’s article published in Harvard Business School Publishing. And happy clients are great for referrals and singing your praises.
So how do you shift your focus on client retention versus client acquisition?
First – actually give a shit about your clients. Not the numbers they bring to your business in added revenue, which yes of course that’s important, but I’m talking about the actual human behind that conversion.
Second – focus on getting your client results. Now of course our clients are responsible for doing the work, but as business owners, especially business owners in the online space working in service industries, we can help guide them. We can help support them. We can give them recommendations. You know this is of course going to vary on exactly what you do and what you’re working with them on, but my biggest point here is they hired you for a reason.
Focus on supporting them in getting results instead of just converting them with shiny marketing gimmicks with smoke and mirrors that don’t amount to anything. Now that gets us into ethical business practices lacking integrity, but if you actually want to retain your clients instead of throwing a ton of money, time or resources at acquiring new ones, you likely won’t be doing the marketing gimmicks anyway, so I wouldn’t worry too much there, but I would make sure you’re on results.
Finally – let them know other ways you can support them. That can be a new offer and maybe shifting them from a group program into 1:1. That can be extending their current agreement, like if they’re working with you on a 6 month contract you can continue supporting them on a recurring retainer. It could even just be re-enrolling them in whatever program you’re currently offering if it’s still a good fit for them. The sky is the limit, but the point is to actually let them know how you can continue to support them.
I know, I know, these sound totally obvious right? But you’d be surprised at how many businesses focus on just getting clients through the door, but they either don’t care or they don’t make their client experience or client results a priority.
And that is a gap in the market and the number one most overlooked strategy you can use to scale your business.
I would love to know – what takeaways did you have?
Do you find yourself on team retention or team acquisition, and did this give you any useful insights?
I sure hope so and I would love to know and love to hear from you.
Thank you so very much for tuning in. I appreciate you being here so much and will see you next week!
