One of the Most Overlooked Phases in Your Marketing Strategy

INTRO: After generating over a million dollars in sales and selling one of her businesses with a single email, your host Kathryn Thompson takes an unconventional approach to marketing and sales. So if you're ready to tap into a more powerful way to be seen her and a sought after entrepreneur in your industry without having to spend endless hours marketing your business and chasing clients, you're in the right place. Be the sought after entrepreneur podcast is here to help you ditch the cookie cutter one size fits all approach to marketing and use your unique energy to effortlessly attract the most aligned clients. When you do this. You can spend less time marketing your business and more time doing your soul work and enjoying the richness of your life. Welcome to be the sought after entrepreneur podcast. And here's your host, Kathryn Thompson.

Kathryn Thompson: Hey, Hey, super stoked that you're tuning into this week's episode. And I cannot wait to [00:01:00] dive in today's topic because I'm going to be talking about something that I think is often overlooked when we're talking about marketing. And I want you to think about this right now, as you're hearing me. Speak and contemplate, just think about when you hear marketing and what marketing is, what comes to mind first?

What I see in the online space and also in the offline space, when people are talking about marketing, it's often in relation to how can I attract more clients? How can I reach more people with my message? How can I get more visible? How can I put my product and service in front of more people? What do I need to do?

What are the tactics and the strategies to make that happen? But one of the things that we often don't talk about is how to create this amazing experience for the customers that have chosen already to invest in our [00:02:00] business, whether it's a product or a service. How do I keep them so freaking happy that they either want to come back and buy more, invest more, work with you more, and how do I keep them so freaking happy and meet these expectations that they had coming into this relationship with you and your business?

How do I meet that in a way that has them raving about me? While they're still working with me, while they're consuming the product or service that they've just purchased, how do I create that environment for them that they go and then rave about me to other people to create this beautiful ecosystem of word of mouth?

This is something that we often Don't even talk about because we're so focused on wanting to get more. But the problem with that is, is that we overlook what I call retention marketing. We spend so much of our time on this outward facing marketing. And [00:03:00] that outward facing marketing is about getting more visible, attracting more people, making more sales, putting the offer in front of more people.

And we negate or forget that there's this really beautiful opportunity within our business to create an experience where people want to come back or they want to shout your name from the rooftops and share it with everybody that they know. Which is, in my opinion, just this little beautiful opportunity for each and every one of you to sort of consider within your business.

And what I want to do on this episode is really pull back the curtain in both of my businesses so you can see how I've really done this and also how I lean into this. That is very much in alignment with who I am as a human, because I'll often get asked, and you'll probably maybe walk away from this episode and have these thoughts.

And so I want to answer this question straight up front is I often get asked, well, how do I create [00:04:00] an experience that's exceptional for my people? And what do I need to do in order to make that happen so that I do have this beautiful retention or really amazing word of mouth on the back end of my business?

And the answer to that is. It varies depending on who you are as a human, which is why I want to share what I do to potentially spark ideas for you, but also for you to see how I approach this, because I approach it in a very non rigid way. I don't... I'm not looking at what other people are doing, uh, in terms of their client delivery.

I'm not looking at what they're doing in order to create an experience. Because I've done that in the online world and it never really worked, it never really jived with me. And I started to get pulled away from who I was in a lot of ways, because I was, you know, implementing things that I was like, this just doesn't really feel right, or I feel like I could offer a better experience [00:05:00] based on who I am and my core values.

And a big part of my core values is integrity, and really walking my talk, and having that be... For everybody that comes into my world, right, and really aligning with those values to create that experience, which is why knowing what your core values are, knowing what you stand for, and knowing what kind of experience you would love and what would make that experience really special, for example, maybe it's a handwritten note that comes with the product that's delivered, and when you receive it, it's like this beautiful personalized touch that came with the product, and you think as a customer, you're Wow, they obviously really care if they're handwriting every note, they must care about every purchase.

And that really is the essence of amazing customer experience, is when the customer feels seen and heard. At the end of the day, that is all that it is. [00:06:00] And so, you have the capacity to make that whatever you want within your business. And the first place that I start is often asking myself, like, how would I feel if this was me?

How would I feel if I was in this experience and I was experiencing what was happening? Would I feel good? Would I feel bad? Do I agree with that? Do I not agree with that? And I don't really think about it. So there's lots of things that I think we can think logically about, like how to do this right and how to get this so that my customers are really happy and what do I need to put into place and how do I make the experience like the best experience they've ever had.

The thing is, is that everyone's going to experience everything differently through their own lens. All that really matters is that you're grounded and anchored in the experience that you're delivering and you know. At the heart that it's that you are confident and in [00:07:00] integrity with your core values.

Well, simultaneously being open to feedback, which I think is huge because sometimes we might not get it right, but when we're so rigid and I'm right, these are my values, this is what I'm doing, you're wrong, we can shut ourselves off to some really amazing feedback or we can start to make it an us versus them environment, which is What you don't really want to do when you're selling a product or a service, right?

You want your clientele or your customers to feel seen, heard and understood and valued at the end of the day. And when you can do that, you will notice your retention in your customer base becoming better, but also that word of mouth. will start to really impact sales and drive sales in your business, which is really beautiful.

Now, if you've been following me for [00:08:00] a while, you know, I owned a brick and mortar business, and you also now know I've got my online business creatively owned, where I support soulful coaches and consultants, articulate the value of what they do, put into words what is intangible, um, and really help them ditch the cookie cutter, one size fits all approach to marketing.

So that they can build a business that's truly authentic to who they are while being really successful in that and that they feel good in that. And I want to share both perspectives with you today because not because I want to tell you how to create your own customer experience, because you've got to do that work.

That's totally up to you and what fits and works for you. But I wanna share them both. So you can see how I've approached it differently and I've, how I've created two very different experiences with two very different business models and products and services. So hopefully, maybe it sparks some ideas for you, but also [00:09:00] how I really lean into my core values and what I stand for as a human being and integrity being at the core of that.

So if you've been following me for a while, you may have heard parts of this story because I have done some podcasts on it and been a guest on some other people's podcasts where I shared the whole customer experience process that we created at Vintner Cellar, which was the wine business that I owned, and we did that very intentionally.

We went into that business knowing that we were a local business, therefore our reach was only so far. It wasn't like a global business or a global company like Creatively Owned is, where I have this massive global reach, right? So it feels infinite in a lot of ways. Whereas when you have a local business, there's only so much foot traffic.

And this isn't a scarcity thing, this is just a numbers thing, right? There's 300, 000 people that live in your city. That really is the reach [00:10:00] to some capacity. We reached beyond that, but we also had to consider there were other wine businesses like us in the market and we also had to consider how far are people willing to travel to come to our store.

And we knew that going into it. So the customer experience and really having that retention and that word of mouth was something that we really wanted to lean into, but also because keeping our customers happy was like at the forefront of what we were doing. We wanted them to have a really amazing experience, but also be really satisfied with the product.

So we leaned into that. And when we built our business plan, we knew that. All we needed was 600 to 700 repeat customers to buy four times a year to have a sustainable business model. Now that, one, in and of itself, just to know those numbers takes a lot of pressure away. [00:11:00] Because I think when we are constantly trying to reach more people, get in front of more people, sell more, more, more, more, more, There's a lot of freaking pressure there, right?

There's a lot of pressure there to be doing a bunch of things. When you focus on the retention aspect of it, there isn't a lot of more work there that you have to do when you've got this experience in place, right? I'm not having to show up all the time on social media and promote myself. I'm not having to invest a ton in ads, right?

Because I'm focusing on My repeat customers and having them come back, but also having them share what we do. It's a very different energy. And when you can combine the both in business, there's this relaxed feeling, right? You might be feeling this right now where you're, where you're feeling, Oh man, I've got to reach more people.

I've got to get in front of more people. I've got to, you know, attract more clients. [00:12:00] And there's this like go, go, go, go, and this push and this force energy. And maybe you're even feeling burnt out with your marketing in general because you're constantly promoting yourself. You're constantly having to show up and promote yourself and that doesn't feel aligned with you.

And when you can look at your business from this perspective where you're looking going, I've got this beautiful community in front of me, that's already purchased from me, like maybe they need something more for me. Maybe there's something else I can offer them. And it's, it will be, it will feel less of a hard sale because they know you, they like you, they trust you.

Right. So what we did within our brick and mortar and how we approach that was very much from that customer centric approach of like, how do we create this amazing experience for our people that keeps them coming back? But also has them talking about us. And one of the biggest things that we did was [00:13:00] having customized wine labels where they could come in and they could pick a wine label, and then I would print on it in the moment.

whatever they wanted to say. So some people put their names. Some put a funny joke. It was always so much fun when people would come in with like their ideas already fleshed out like repeat customers would be like, these are the ones I'm thinking about. Like, what do you think, what are your top ones that you like?

And it was just a really fun process. What I'm going to share with you is, is that to invest in that equipment cost a little bit more. To do it in the moment took a little bit extra time, but what ended up happening was is people would walk away feeling so awesome and feeling so excited about their wine labels.

And then when they brought it to family and friends houses for supper, it was a point of conversation. And then people would be like, well, I want that wine label, or I want to go there and [00:14:00] try that. And that sparked the conversation about what we did in a beautiful way that created word of mouth, but also a really satisfied customer base.

Now I'm going to give you another perspective of my online business within Spellbound when my clients want to take a break, want to go on a holiday. Maybe they're experiencing something traumatic in their life, like a death, or maybe an illness, or they're a breakup, or divorce, or something along those lines.

I allow them to take a break. I just add on additional time at the end of their experience at no additional cost. They continue to pay their month to month or if they've paid in full, it's painful, but they don't, there's no sort of sweat off their back if they want to take a holiday or if they want to, you know, navigate maybe grief or loss that [00:15:00] happens.

And I'll tell you this right now. There's nobody that's come into my experiences in all of the years that I've done. This business that haven't experienced some type of change or transition or pivot or illness or death or whatever in their life in a six or 12 month period. And there's no other program that I know, and I've been in a lot of them and some high ticket.

Where this is even an option. And when I offer this to my clients, they're like, wow, that's so generous of you. And I'm like, well, it actually really isn't that generous if you think about it, right? But it's generous to them because Nobody else is really doing it and they've probably invested in other programs and maybe gone through some type of similar experience and never really were able to utilize maybe the full six or twelve months of an experience because they were [00:16:00] derailed with life stuff.

And This gets people talking, this gets customers satisfied, and I'm not doing it to satisfy them. I just know that when I was in other experiences and I experienced things in my life that pulled me away from the business or didn't have me 100% focused on the business, that I was never offered a break or an opportunity to step away for the moment or anything like that.

And I remember feeling in that moment. That I had to just keep going because I had to, I had this investment that I was making and I had to make the best out of it. And what's so interesting about this is, is that. Nothing in life is consistent. There's so much that's unpredictable. And a big part of who I am is, and a big part of what I stand for is valuing the life that we live.

And that not everything is about building your [00:17:00] business and attracting more clients and getting more sales, that there's so much more to life than that. And that why should we have to sacrifice And the things in our life and navigating through the things in our life in order to a maintain an investment or continue to build the business, right?

That feels very like industrial and masculine. And the reason I'm sharing this is because when I experienced it from a customer perspective, it felt very. Like, this is about the person running the program. This is about them and their business and what's scalable for them and what's manageable for them.

And not about the customer itself, that customer centric approach, sure, takes a little bit more admin to track when people are taking holidays or when they're taking time away because they're dealing with a death or a breakup or an [00:18:00] illness or whatever. It takes a little bit more admin on my side. It takes a little bit more tracking and, and, and noticing, right?

It takes a little bit more effort from my part, similar to the machine I invested in to make the custom labels and the extra time I spent with my customers, which on the backend of that, like the ROI of that, the return on investment of that was huge because I had them coming back, but I also had them talking about the business and I also had them really happy and similar.

To my Spellbound program and working with any of my clients, any time I say this to them, when they ask for a holiday or they ask for a break because they just want to take a break and refresh and detach. It's always met with this, wow, that's so generous, you know, and as I said is like the ROI on that the return on investment is you can't even, [00:19:00] you know, track that from a metric perspective, because you've got a really happy client, you've got a really satisfied client, and then you have a client that either is going to potentially come back and work with you again, or whatever.

So, yeah. Start talking about you to other people and that you can't put some type of metric on that now I'm not saying that you turn yourself inside out to appease everybody in your business and all of that I mean, you've got to have some boundaries in place But when you actually look at the the time like what it takes you to actually administer that it really isn't that much In my opinion right to give people a break.

The other thing is is that I'm so much about taking breaks, resting, not being fully tethered to your business 24 7 that there is more to life than work, and there's more to life than building. You know, what it is you do for work, right? On the grand scheme of [00:20:00] things, life to me is about experience and experiencing things with the people that I love and my family and my friends and adventuring and traveling and all those sorts of things.

And if I'm so consumed in my business, I don't get to do that. So I'm not going to build a business. Where I expect my clients to do that because to me, that's not fair. That's a big part of my brand and what I stand for. Right. So when we talk about integrity and we talk about what's in integrity to us.

Are we creating experiences within our business that are in integrity to our core values? If spending time away from your business and having that balance in your life is one, then you can probably look around in your business and go, Am I walking my talk? Am I Expecting myself to take a vacation, but I don't allow my clients and customers to because they're, they've paid me, you [00:21:00] know, because that was another, that's a big one.

I see a lot in the coaching industry and not to rag on the coaching industry, but I see that a lot, right? Coaches have their programs and containers that they have and they want to break and they want to take a break. But what about their clients? So they can take, I don't know, a month off or a couple weeks off and lots of what you'll see is you'll have like coaches come in, you'll have coaches come in to the experience and teach for them or you know, what not, that's what you'll see and the coach will go away for a couple weeks or a month or whatever, but what about the client, right?

Why can't the client then take four weeks off? I have clients in my experience that take four weeks off and I'm like, good, I'm glad that you're doing that. And we'll just tack that on to the end of your experience, right? They still pay their monthly payment plan. They still pay their, Like if they paid in full, it doesn't [00:22:00] matter.

So there's no pausing of payments. There's none of that. It's just they get added time on the end. There's not that much of an additional, um, administrative work at all there. So that's part of the experience, right, that I'm creating within my containers that help me really walk the talk, but also play into that whole retention piece.

Satisfied customers that like

Life can also hit them with a shit ton, and they don't have to worry about, Oh shit, you know, I've made this big investment in an experience, and now what? Right? Like, now I'm watching a thousand dollars or five hundred dollars go out every month, or two hundred dollars go out every month, and I'm dealing with an illness, a death.

a divorce, maybe even a birth of a baby. You know what I mean? Like when someone has a baby, right? It's like, do I get to take time and just [00:23:00] navigate motherhood and be able to do that without feeling like, oh shit, I'm watching this money go at every month and I'm not really utilizing the investment to the best that I know that I could because of these life circumstances.

That to me is really important that We get to live life and we get to navigate life circumstances, as well as build this business that we love and adore. To me, that's a fulfilled business, which is why I create the experience that way. So that's just really two examples from a business perspective of what I've done to cultivate some mission.

Thank you. You're welcome. Beautiful customer experiences. And the reason I'm sharing these two examples with you is because I wanted to share what it did to the customer and how it supported the customer experience, but also the additional maybe time and effort it took me, which to me on the grand scheme of things was [00:24:00] very, very minimal.

So given the return on investment, which is sometimes not always measured by money, by the way, it can be just measured by how your customer actually feels, um, and how they feel about the experience in and of itself, uh, I think is actually really important, which is a big part of my messaging, right?

Selling the invisible. Uh, those are the invisible or intangible things that we often don't really look at because we're so focused on metrics. in the marketing world. We're so focused on measuring everything, but also we're so focused on measuring everything in life, right? We measure our height. We measure our weight.

We measure our food. Sometimes we measure everything. Everything's by measurement, right? And that even is in marketing and business. We measure what is our sales? What's the revenue? What's the expenses? How many clients did we attract this month? And how many sales did we make? It's very. [00:25:00] masculine. And the things that I'm implementing and the things that I also equally look at is the feminine, right?

How do people feel? Do they feel seen? Do they feel heard? Do they feel understood? Do they feel excited? Are they joy? There's their like joy that comes out because they get to print some funny quote. On a label with an inside joke that only makes sense to them, but they're dying of laughter because it's hilarious and they can't wait to show their best friend because their best friend will know, you know, it's watching that expression or it's watching the expression of them come into the store with full excitement because they finally came up with like three really cool sayings to put on their label and they can't wait to show me or whoever was working in the store.

Right? And then there's that feeling of like, Oh my gosh, this is so generous. I can't believe the compassion that you're showing me in this time of transition in my life that was unpredictable and unexpected. [00:26:00] And so many times we expect our clients and our customers to. Stay the same to show up in the exact same way every single time.

And if they don't show up in the exact same way, they're not committed. They're not trying hard enough. They're breaking contract. There are all of those sorts of things. And what's interesting is, is that in a world that's constantly changing, contracts are broken all the time. Commitments are broken all the time.

Think about it. People get divorced all the fricking time. Well, you promised you'd stay with me forever. Yeah. Well, I changed my mind. This happens all the time. And as a business owner, we've got to navigate that because we also change. So we can't project onto our clients that they have to stay the same for the 3, 6, 12 months that they're working with you, or that they have to stay the [00:27:00] same every time they come in and buy the product, let's just say.

We can't expect people to stay the same, and that was a big learning when I had the brick and mortar, because I had customers that had come in consecutively for 12 or 18 months, they'd made like 5 or 6 batches of wine, and then all of a sudden sort of like disappeared. And of course, it's really easy as a business owner or just a human in general to start to run these stories or narratives through our brain going like, why aren't they coming anymore?

Did I say something that pissed them off? Did the product go bad and they just didn't tell us? Do they not like the product anymore? And it's all about us as that business owner, like, Oh, something must be wrong with us. We're not doing enough. And what I found is, is that rarely is the case, but my husband also reminded me that's just a natural life cycle of any business that people will move.

Some people may pass away. Some people might get really sick, all of those sorts of things. And I'm sharing this with you because one of the other things that I, [00:28:00] So of my businesses, my brick and mortar and my online businesses, is like having those touch points with your customers and clientele, especially ones that maybe you noticed a pattern change in their behavior.

So they were showing up a lot in your program for the first three months, and then all of a sudden they kind of dropped off or disappeared. It's like you are able to sort of recognize that pattern and reach out as that business owner, service based business owner, and just check in and see how they're doing.

And that goes such a long way. And again, as business owners, we can look at it from this perspective of like, Oh, it's going to take me so much more time. Or why should I have to be the one that reaches out like they're self led and empowered? Why don't they just show up and dah, dah, dah, dah, like we can start to make it all about ourselves.

But when we actually look from that customer centric perspective, we go, I can reach out and extend some line of communication that takes no time at [00:29:00] all, really, so that they know that I actually cared about them, whether they're buying a product or a service from me. And this happened in my brick and mortar with this one particular client who had come consecutively for 18 months, and then all of a sudden sort of disappeared.

And I couldn't figure out why, because every time he came in, he like raved about the business, raved about the service, raved about the product, and then out of nowhere sort of like dropped off. And I wanted to reach out, number one, just to check in and see how he was doing. And when I did that, he thanked me right away because what ended up happening was, is that he had gone to the doctor and the doctor had said that he needed to reduce his wine consumption.

And so that's what he was starting to do was to reduce his wine consumption. Therefore, Not needing as much wine as he once needed, but the thing that he said to me was that he really appreciated me reaching out because it showed. that I actually [00:30:00] cared, but it also showed that I noticed that he wasn't there, wasn't coming in the same way that he was.

And he said no other business that he had really interacted with in his life, like, had ever really spent the time to do that. Um, and he had, you know, was talking about all types of businesses, but he was just like, the fact that you reached out, it was very personal. It wasn't like, uh, email blast that was like, Hey, I've noticed you haven't been around lately.

You know, one of those like cookie cutter framework emails that you can just put in if somebody hasn't purchased in X amount of days or whatnot, that it was actually very personalized, um, and short and sweet and just a nice. And I do this with my spellbound clients and my one to one clients as well, where I'm like checking in if I've noticed maybe a change in behavior or a fall off, or, um, maybe not as connected as they once were, because I think it's really important.

I think it's really important. And [00:31:00] sometimes We're in a state, we're in a place where reaching out and asking for help or reaching out and whatnot is, is, it feels hard or it's like, I don't even know why I'm reaching out. I don't even know what I'm asking for. I don't know why maybe I'm not showing up or I don't know why.

Things have shifted or whatever. There's lots of things that can happen. And I think again, from that customer experience perspective is like, how do I integrate compassion and make it really customer centric and less about me as a human, but still maintain boundaries. So you're not being taken advantage of.

And really the boundaries come down to you walking your talk and living in integrity. So when you're really anchored and grounded in that, you know, This doesn't really feel right, so I'm not going to do this, right? Or this feels really good, and thank you for bringing this to my attention, and I'm going to adapt and adopt it into [00:32:00] my practices.

The other thing that I do I think that's really different than most people in a lot of ways is that I sell this whole idea of ditching the cookie cutter, being authentic, showing up as your authentic self, and therefore, in my experiences, I treat my clientele and my customers the same way because not, they're not the same people.

And so some people within my experience may need a little bit more handholding and that's fine. And others might not. And some might. Not even ever need to show up on a call but get the work done and others might need to show up on every single call Some might navigate grief or loss or illness very differently than somebody else And so there's also this flexibility that I bake into both of my businesses.

I had baked into it There are people that came to the wine business that I don't want to say that I treated differently because I didn't [00:33:00] it was just That they were just different Customers and required maybe different service or support, for example, some of my customers had reaction to sulfate and so they were like, Can you not put the sulfate in the wine?

Yeah, I absolutely can do that. But the wine won't last as long because the sulfate is the thing that helps the The shelf life of the wine they knew that it was something I did but again It took a little extra time took a little extra management because you've got this wine store full of wine jugs You can't mix the wine up, right?

So there was a little bit extra process that had to be put into place. But again It satisfied the customer, but it also had the customer coming back because it was wine they could actually drink. Similarly, in Spellbound, right, if I've got a client that needs a little extra hand holding, with, you know, obviously boundaries in place of what's, what I can do from an energetic perspective, I'm gonna offer that, right?

If you're [00:34:00] struggling a little bit more with your Facebook ads than somebody else, Let's just jump on a quick call and hash it out versus, you know, going back and forth on Facebook with typed up notes, you know, let me just jump in there with you and show you. But not everybody needs that, right? Some people can watch a training video and apply it.

Lots of people can't and it's just not, they're not wired that way. They look at the technical training video and they're like, somebody just show me. I need that human to human connection. You know, showing versus just like listening to a video and trying to apply it. And so that's how I navigate a lot of my customer relations within the online business because not everyone's the same and if I'm preaching and living by this ditch the cookie cutter, don't follow all these rules and don't try to conform yourself into a certain way in order to be successful, then I can't create an experience within Spellbound or any of my other experiences one [00:35:00] to one and expect them to show up.

In the way that I think and the way that I'm wired and the way that I work the world, the way that I think and the what I see is very different than somebody else, and it doesn't make us any less skilled or doesn't make us any less, you know, able to be successful. It's just we don't think and view the world the same way.

So therefore, we've got to be accommodating, which is another big piece of this whole customer customer. Experience piece of it. We've got to be accommodating and flexible with clients and customers and that not every customer and client who doesn't think like you or isn't able to apply the knowledge that you're teaching from videos or written form.

is a bad client and a soul sucking client. You know, I think there's lots of messaging out there that is shaming clients. Like, oh gosh, if I don't, if I don't, if I'm not successful in this program that's teaching me how [00:36:00] to run Facebook ads or, um, build a funnel or, you know, write copy, then therefore I must be like, I'm this delinquent shitty client, you know?

And, and in reality it's not, you're just, you, you view the world differently and that's okay. Which is why A few days ago I posted, you know, if we really want people to live in their authenticity, we can't be offended or insulted when they express it. And so if somebody comes to you within your experience and they express feedback or frustration or this doesn't really make sense to me or I need a different way of you explaining this, there has to be a level of compassion, but there also has to be a level of anchoring within yourself and knowing within yourself that just because they're frustrated and having a difficult time understanding doesn't It's nothing about you.

Just because maybe they're not as engaged as you thought they were going to be or should be or whatever, doesn't mean that they're not super satisfied and happy, right? Just because they fell [00:37:00] off and aren't coming back to buy wine doesn't mean they hate you and think your wine is shit, right? Which is the narrative we often default to.

We default to, uh, Oh man, there must be something wrong with me, which plays off of that. Not enoughness, which is what I'm going to share on the next podcast. Cause I think it's really valuable to sort of start to contemplate within your own business and identify where that not enoughness is coming out.

Um, and potentially being projected onto your clients and your customers and how to sort of navigate that. So I really hope that this episode has given you some insight into. The importance number one of retention and really expressing and showing gratitude to the humans that have chosen to invest in you and that when you pour into that, there is this pressure that gets released of needing to always attract more clients and always make more sales in that way and [00:38:00] reach more people and get more visible and The pressure gets released around being on that, like what I call hamster wheel, which is a never ending hamster wheel that you're just running and chasing to get more.

And when you pour into the people that are sitting in front of you that have already invested within you, there's beautiful things that can happen as a result of that. You'll probably see your sales go up. Because of word of mouth, but also repeat purchases, which is also a really effortless way to grow and scale your business and that too, that you're able to sort of like step back and out and up and look from the big picture of like, what can I do within my business?

To create this experience that's customer centric, that isn't just about me, where in my business do I have practices and policies in place that are there to protect me as the business [00:39:00] owner, that are there to protect my boundaries as a business owner, without considering or having that compassion or grace to the human sitting in front of you, right, to make it of it.

a dual co creative relationship versus I'm the business owner who has to protect myself, my boundaries, my time. And if you are asking for even an inkling more of time for me, then you're delinquent or soul sucking or whatever, right? That we actually look at it from a co creative space, which is another big core value of mine as a business owner.

Specifically in the marketing space is that I'm not here to tell you what to do, how to say it, when to say it, how to market, all those sorts of things. I'm doing this in co creation with my clients. And so if I'm in a co creative space with them, then this is a two way street. This isn't me as a business owner telling [00:40:00] you.

How this is going to go, right? So I hope you can see again, that sort of like integrity, like when we sell one thing on the front end, also how that impacts the experience on the back end. Like if you're walking around going, I want you to ditch the cookie cutter. I want you to live your authentic self, but then people come and work with you and it's very rigid and it's my way or no way.

Or, you know, I'm. The only way you can get support is in these office hours and there's nothing outside of those and these are my boundaries and like stick with it and oh, you've got to sign this contract, which is basically, you know, might as well just like prick your finger and sign it with blood because, you know, you'll never get out of this contract.

You're in it for. six or 12 months and I don't care what happens to your life in that time period that might be unpredictable that will actually not allow you to fulfill it, fulfill what you kind of agreed to because you experienced illness or [00:41:00] death or a divorce or whatever. Um, all of those sorts of things to me is, you know, it's, it's front facing marketing that doesn't really match the back facing experience and Also, we don't, I don't think that we take enough time to look at that when we're looking at the whole ecosystem of marketing and by ecosystem, I mean like that big picture of what the message is and what you stand for, who you are, what you do, why you do it.

And it's easy to put together this front facing marketing that's like flashy and really good at selling you on something. And then you get into this experience and you're like, That's so disjointed from like what was being sold because I don't think we take enough time to look at that inner experience and and what that retention and customer satisfaction looks like because we're so hyper focused on [00:42:00] getting more.

Making sales on the front end that we really forget about the back end. And again, it's not about, you know, oftentimes I'll hear people say, well, I'm going to enroll in this program so that I can learn from the insight, how they run their program, what the customer experience looks like and all those sorts of things, which I think is great to get perspective.

But at the end of the day, you have to model your self. Like it can't be. Well, I'm looking at what Joe Smith is doing and that's how Joe Smith sets up his onboarding, offboarding client relations. So therefore that must be right. And I've done that. I've made that mistake. I've made that mistake where again, I'm modeling what others are doing.

And so I'm sharing this because in the brick and mortar, it came so natural to me. And then as you probably have all heard me say, as I walked through like this online [00:43:00] vortex, where I kind of forgot who I was and forgot how to really trust myself and therefore was looking at others to, to model, model everything right by what they were doing and what industry standards was saying is right and all that.

And so I was creating experiences that were good and my clients are happy, but they. It never really felt right to me and and particularly around like the holiday thing, right? Like I can take a holiday, but you can't and you still have to like show up Without a break for six months, which seems crazy or even 12 months like imagine not taking a holiday for 12 months or investing in something and then taking a holiday for a month or even six weeks and And not being able to, like, have that tacked on at the end seems kind of weird to me.

Or, again, these unpredictable things in life to me that I think we can do so much better in [00:44:00] showing people compassion through life's most unexpected transitions. Um. Whether it be, you know, some type of trauma or grief that comes with it, and I think we can do so much better as business owners in creating a safe space for people to navigate that and to really help them remove the pressure that I think we often and all feel, and I know I've felt it, right?

I've felt a ton of pressure in some of these programs where I felt the pressure that I had to show up for the 6 or 12 months or 18 months or 24 months that I was in them otherwise I was sort of just investing in something and not really Seeing that return on investment because I was detached for whatever reason it might be, um, life transition, trauma, whatever it is, right?

So I think we can do better in terms of compassion towards our [00:45:00] customers and clients and create more of this energy of oneness versus us versus them, me versus So I'm going to leave you with that because I think there's just really two key takeaways, which is that whole retention piece of it and that customer centric approach when it comes to creating any type of experience, whether you're a product or service based business and how you can really align that with your core values and what you ultimately stand for and what you expect from your life and the life that you're creating.

And is that reflecting in the experience you've created for your customers? So with that, I'm going to leave you and I hope that you enjoyed this episode and I cannot wait for next week's episode. Cheers.

OUTRO: Thanks for listening. We'll see you right back here next time. You can also find us on social media at Creatively Owned and online at creativelyowned.com. Until next time, keep showing up as your authentic self.[00:46:00]