Welcome to Episode 2.26 of Your Biz, Your Rules. In this show, we are going to be picking apart a whole bunch of different ways that you can start really exceeding client expectations in your digital products.
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TLDR:
💛 Benefits of exceeding client expectations
💛 10 simple tweaks and changes you can make to exceed expectations:
💛 Make sure your product suite looks cohesive
💛 Make the onboarding process seamless
💛 Explain how the experience is going to work
💛 Don’t make them do it alone
💛 Include different formats
💛 Be strategic with bonuses
💛 Make your clients’ results impossible for them to ignore
💛 Offer incentives
💛 Provide logical next steps
💛 Have an affiliate program
Show notes:
Welcome to Episode 2.26 of Your Biz, Your Rules. In this show, we are going to be picking apart a whole bunch of different ways that you can start really exceeding client expectations in your digital products.
This topic kind of fell into my lap as I was moving all of my products from MemberVault to ThriveCart. As I was moving everything over, I was looking at the structure of all of my programmes and I definitely saw a lot of patterns that I seem to have, that always result in people loving working with me.
It’s all well and good to simply deliver on your promises but if you can exceed your client’s expectations, then you can pretty much guarantee that they will come back for more or when you have something else to offer in the future, they will be back and eager to get their purses out.
1. Make Sure Your Product Suite Looks Cohesive
So the first way that you can exceed expectations – and this sounds unrelated, but it’s not – is to make sure your whole product suite looks cohesive. And the reason that this is so important is that it immediately establishes your sense of authority. When you look at a product suite like this, you can see that visually, everything goes together. It’s not necessarily matching, but it doesn’t look weird side by side.
This really helps show your clients and your customers that you’re not a flash in the pan, you’re not a one-hit wonder, you’re not a dabbler – you know your stuff. And it might seem like a really shallow way of expressing that but you know what? Sometimes that’s what works.
When people can see a whole lifecycle of different products that flow into each other, both literally in the sense of topic, but also visually, it just enhances that sense of authority that you have. And it allows them to know on a deeper level that they have made a good purchasing decision, that you are the real deal. And already, it’s setting you ahead of the curve, even if they haven’t looked at any of your products yet.
When people log into the student area of ThriveCart they see a marketplace section with all of the courses that are available for purchase. And everything here is very much tied together from a visual perspective.
2. Make the Onboarding Process Seamless.
Thing number two is to make the onboarding process seamless. Again, this feels like a very obvious thing to talk about, but it’s actually not something that everybody puts their time and attention into. Which can often mean that people will find that process clunky so they might purchase something and feel really excited about that investment. But then maybe they don’t get the thing right away, or the link they have doesn’t work or there’s just something that isn’t running that smoothly.
And to get it sorted, they have to email you and it takes you up to 48 hours to get back to emails, and there’s all of this stuff going on.
Even before they’re accessing your product, even before they are seeing how amazing your work is, there’s a sour taste in their mouth. We’re fickle creatures, we like things to move smoothly. And that’s one of the reasons that I actually love using ThriveCart for everything because ThriveCart is my checkout platform. It is my course platform now. And it is also how I manage my affiliate programmes. So everything is in one, which means that as soon as somebody purchases, they are taken to their course page, they don’t have to wait for things to be delivered or access to be given or anything like that. It’s automagically done. Seamless.
And then what happens when somebody purchases when their programme is unlocked, they are taken through my process, my programmes always have a “Start Here” section, which means they always have a clear set of steps to get people in the room, to get them focused, to help them get the most out of the experience. One of these steps is to fill in your intake questionnaire.
So this whole onboarding process for my clients is automatic. I don’t need to do anything, it doesn’t require me to do anything manually, and even though that’s the case, they don’t feel any less taken care of, because they have everything that they need. And they have it immediately.
3. How is the Experience Going to Work?
So the next thing that you want to make sure is really, really clear is how the experience is going to work. This will look different depending on whether it is a live experience or a self-study programme or some kind of hybrid, but just outlining exactly what they can expect, and how it’s going to function as a structure is really, really helpful too.
Sometimes, if you let people just guess they’re going to make assumptions. And then if you don’t meet their assumptions, they’re gonna get salty and we don’t want that because we always want to be leaving them with a positive impression of our work.
You want to be telling people you have X many sessions and sessions are this long, here’s what you can expect during our sessions, here’s what I expect you to prepare beforehand.
4. Don’t Make Them Do This Alone
The next tip that I have for you is just don’t make them do this alone. Do not make them do this alone. And obviously, that is very, very easy to do when it is a live experience.
I believe that things can be self-study and still have a personal touch. And that’s a choice that I make for my own business because I always want to know that my clients feel supported, that they feel seen, that they have everything that they need. One of the ways that I do that now is to include a step for them to get extra support, which is joining my client-only Facebook Group.
There are 101 different ways that people might have made it into that Facebook Group but the point is, if they need something from me, if they want to ask a question, if they need clarification, if they want additional goodies, then this is where they come. And in my mind, this kind of is scalable, because it doesn’t matter how many people are in this group, I can still be here to do these weekly workshops, I can still provide additional resources and gifts, I can still answer all of your questions, I can still do regular card readings and it’s not going to feel overwhelming for me, because I don’t have 100 different groups for all of my different products that I need to be putting effort into, there’s just this one spot.
And I will say that this idea of a client-only community was 100%, inspired by my friend Lizzy. So Elizabeth Goddard has this great course on creating client-only Facebook groups and I highly recommend taking a look at that if this is an idea that you want to swipe for your own business.
5. Include Different Formats
When you’re teaching something, make sure that people’s different learning preferences are factored in. This makes a big difference to people, it really, really does.
For example, in Unshakeable Business Academy, with every lesson we always have a video training so people can listen, they can watch if that’s what they would prefer to do.
If people prefer to read and refer back to things, then I have it all written out here. All of the exercises, all of the tips, all of the action steps are here, which makes it really, really easy for people to consume. And especially if you’ve already watched a training, you don’t necessarily want to sit through that 10 minutes again, but you want to find that one thing that I mentioned that you can’t quite remember, it’s in the write up.
This can be very, very easy to do, like the way that I manage this is I get my VA to help. So yes, I have general outlines for my lessons which are added to the mix too but she will just pop the lesson into Otter to get a transcription and then she edits them for me to make sure they make sense and make sure that the grammar is good and it’s formatted right. And she’ll pop those in there for me.
6. Think About Bonuses
My next tip is to think about your bonuses. So you always want your bonuses to be relevant – be discerning here, what bonus will enhance the experience of the offer?
I’ve seen it so often that people just shoehorn random things to make the product or the programme seem extra high value. And while that’s all well and good, it’s not useful. Chances are most people are not going to consume those bonuses if they’re not actually helping with the thing that they’re choosing to invest in.
7. Make Your Clients’ Results Impossible for Them to Ignore!
Another tip that I have to help you really exceed expectations is to make your clients’ results impossible for them to ignore. I’m sure that you can relate to being in a container, whether that is a mastermind group, coaching programme, or anything similar and you’re in it for so long that you almost forget where you were beforehand, you almost forget a lot of the milestones that you’ve hit along the way.
That is one of the reasons that I will always include that intake questionnaire. Because we take the pulse of where they are now and what they are struggling with right now before they get into all of the magical things that you’re going to do with them. And you will have a record of this.
And then at the end, I always have a lesson called “Use Your Voice”, which is a feedback question. And in this, I am asking people questions about their results. So asking them to reflect on where they were at the beginning, and seeing where they are now. And when you can see those two side-by-side, there is no arguing with the fact that they have seen progress. And when they are hit in the face with the amazing shifts that they’ve experienced and the big wins that they’ve celebrated, they immediately feel excited, they feel the positivity, they feel the impact that you’ve had.
When there’s something you’re ending the experience with, that’s their main takeaway when they leave, they realise that you have really really helped them you have made a difference. You have exceeded their expectations.
8. Include an Incentive
When you want something, include an incentive.
I have spoken to so many clients over the years who have asked for testimonials, or asked people to do some market research, or asked them to give them some feedback and they haven’t received that and they’re low-key bitter about it!
We don’t want you to be feeling resentful, or frustrated about not getting what you need because when that is where you are, emotionally and energetically, you are not going to show up as your best, most vibrant self when you are then working with your clients. And if you’re not showing up as that best version of you, then 100% they are not going to be delighted by what you offer, their expectations are not going to be exceeded.
For example, I have a little dish of names of the people who have filled in a feedback questionnaire. And once a month, I will just pull a name out of that and they get a prize.
9. Provide Logical Next Steps
My next tip for you to really help exceed expectations and cement in that impact that you’ve had is to give them logical next steps and some kind of aftercare system if necessary. You might not need to include the aftercare piece of this if you’re just teaching a straight-up course. But if you’re including something that, you know, dabbles in people’s emotional well-being or their health or their energy, then you want to like give them some aftercare tips just to make sure that they’re taken care of.
I also include next step in terms of if they want to continue working with me. And I don’t make this the same across all of my programmes. I will target it. As with the bonuses, you want the next steps to be relevant. You don’t want it to seem just generic and random.
10. Create an Affiliate Program
And then last, but not least, offer an affiliate option. So this is how I end every single one of my programmes. All they have to do is click on a link, add their details, and they will be added to my affiliate programme, not just for the product that they purchased, but of all the things that I have available.
They get at least 20% recurring commission, some products that are a bit more. But that’s just a great way of incentivizing them to share the programme. And if you have exceeded their expectations in all of these different ways, they will share anyway but they’ll share even more if they’re going to get some money back from it. So that’s just a great way of getting the word out even more.
Final Thoughts
I could talk about this kind of stuff forever and in unshakable Business Academy, we dive into this a lot more. But you can see how, with just a few simple shifts, a few simple tweaks, you can start really enhancing the results that people get and really surpassing the assumptions that they’ve made about working with you.
And you don’t have to tell them about all of this stuff in your marketing, this doesn’t have to be part of your launch copy or anything like that. This can be stuff that is just a surprise for them when they sign up. But really ensuring that that process is smooth, that they are taken care of every step, just leaves a good feeling in their mouth, it will keep them coming back for more, it will keep them returning and referring, which is what we want.
Now one really simple tip to help you integrate all of these is to make yourself a template. So you can do this really easily in Thrivecart. If you create that template, then all you have to do every time you want to create something new, is just click “Clone” and you have all of that information already in so you’re not duplicating work, you’re not having to repeat things over and over. It’s already in there and ready for you.
Your challenge:
If you could pick just one of these and take action on them today or this week. Which one would it be? So which one are you going to go for?
Links Mentioned:
- Thrivecart
- Unlocked
- Unshakeable Business Academy
- Student-Client Only Facebook Groups FTW by Elizabeth Goddard
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