In today's video, Ben and I are going to talk about something that is extremely important.
How do you frame your initial interaction with a client once they are ready to work with you? If you can do this right you will ensure client success. Do it right and this is how your clients will be left after your first meeting:
- Knowing exactly what working with you looks like
- Knowing they agreed to something, so it's official
- Having an understanding that they set this in motion and it frees them up to go be the CEO of their business and let someone else handle it.
If working with clients is something that you have never done before, let us just warn you, you will run into this at one time in your career. Let me set the scene for you. You go in and you talk with a new client. You're going to think you're on the same page. You're going to think you're speaking the same language. You will feel great about what you are going to be doing. Because you pitched exactly what is going to help that client the most because you are the expert.
And then you go back in for a second meeting and they want to change everything you had pitched them before. Because of someone's brothers, cousin said doing XYZ instead would be better.
The problem typically is that the changes they want to make are going to completely destroy the result that you were going to get for them. And this happens a lot, and if you don't have the nerves to say, “Well, that's not what we agreed upon.” It's going to be a BIG problem.But here is the other side to this. There is a better way to do this. It's called a Client Service Agreement.
It's sort of like a contract, but not really. It's more of a one pager that lays out all of the details to make sure you are both on the same page. And it makes sure that you have proof that you are on the same page.
Having helped build a digital marketing agency in the past, I have used sheets like this on a weekly basis. Although I didn't when we first started and I wished that I had because it would have saved me a lot of time and headaches dealing with client communication. And it is so simple to use.
So, let me walk you through exactly what I would do with this sheet and exactly what I would say. I would print a few of these sheets to keep with me. If I were going in to meet with a new client and the initial meeting went great and they are on board to doing a trial with me this is when this sheet would come into play. Before I walk out of the door, I am going to pull out this sheet and I will say, ” Okay so just so we both know that everybody is on the same page, let's go through this and make sure that we are both very clear on who is doing what.
So let me walk you through exactly what I would do with this sheet and exactly what I would say. I would print a few of these sheets to keep with me. If I were going in to meet with a new client and the initial meeting went great and they are on board to doing a trial with me this is when this sheet would come into play. Before I walk out of the door, I am going to pull out this sheet and I will say, ” Okay so just so we both know that everybody is on the same page, let's go through this and make sure that we are both very clear on who is doing what.
On the first line, we are going to fill out the business name (XYZ Dental) and the next line will be the client name. In this moment, I would say “I know you are extremely busy working in the business. I am going to assume that I am not going to be communicating with you and you most likely have someone else in the company who you would rather I communicate with. Let's go ahead and establish who that is right now so that I am not interrupting your work day when you are busy. ”
Now, this is HUGE. When Ben had his chiropractic business running, anyone that he had ever worked with, when this did this right, everything went very smoothly. If they tried to communicate directly with him, it was terrible. So they key is to set expectations and communication lines now before you even get going.
So from there, you are going to establish who it is that you are communicating with and how they prefer to be communicated with. You're going to fill in contact information (phone number & email address) as well.
Once you have all of that filled out you're going to talk with your client about what the two of you agreed upon in your initial conversation. There is an area where you will fill out the services that you will be providing that client. You will include the start and end date so that that is established up front.
Next, comes the greatest part of the entire document. You're going to discuss what their responsibilities are for the services you are proving. Yes, you are running ads and doing Lead Generation. But, there are things that they need to do as well. Like setting up the appointment, and up-selling. Your client needs to understand that this is a partnership and that both parties have work to do to make it truly successful. And this document helps you spell that out clearly. You can also have them check mark that they understand what it is that they need to be doing.
In the section where you fill out what it is that you are doing it may look like the following list:
- Run Facebook Ads
- We are going to send people to the landing page
- We are going to get people to call your office
- We set up all of the tech that makes everything work smoothly
- We report weekly as to how to the campaign is going
And Finally, if you are doing a trail for your new client, in the section where you will out the costs you can say, ” My service fees are typically X but since this is a trail, I am going to waive my typical fees and you can put a big, fat 0 in that section. Next, you will put in the amount of the ad spend that they are providing, because you want them to have some skin in the game too. So they will have a document that just reassures them that you are really not charging them for your amazing services. What a deal they are getting!
At the end of the meeting, you both sign this sheet of paper. And you can either make a copy there in the office or you scan it and email it to your contact person as soon as you get back home. Emailing it is a great way to open up a conversation with the person whom you will be communicating.
Here's an example email: “Hi, [[First Name of Person You're Emailing]], My name is Tabitha and I just left a meeting with Dr. Z and I am very excited to be working with you on a new campaign! Attached is a document that describes what will be happening during this campaign. If you notice there is a section of what I will be doing and also a section of what your office will be doing as well. I would love to set up a meeting with you to discuss in detail what those will look like. Let me know what day this week you have free. I look forward to working alongside you.”
And that's it! Make sure you follow up with your contact person if you don't hear back from them in a day or two. If you do this right out of the gate, the communication you have with your client is going to be spot on.
Will you be implementing this agreement in your workflow? Got question about it? Let us know in the comment section below.
