Episode 125: Where Your Customer Journey Ends

Welcome to Scale to Seven®! Your behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to scale your business to seven figures. I'm your host Kathryn Binkley, business and leadership coach for online entrepreneurs. Here's what I know, building a business that will generate millions requires the mindset, strategy, and action of a future seven-figure CEO, starting now. Ready to Scale to Seven®? Let's go! 

When most online gurus talk about ideal clients, they're focused on the beginning of the customer journey, where clients are when they come to you. But what I don't hear people talk about often, or at least not in the way we're going to talk about today is the end of your customer journey. Sure people talk about how to handle renewals, and how to offer your clients. But something that isn't addressed is what to do. When you help someone accomplish everything you set out to do. Everything that's within the scope of your business, you get, they're still hanging around and would be happy to continue to give you their money, then what? First of all, I think that this maybe isn't an incredibly common problem, because there are a lot of programs and coaches whose clients aren't getting the desired outcomes from their work together. And while I'm not going to dig into that, in this episode, it's an area where I feel I'm particularly unique, I have a very high retention rate among my clients, and have been known to tell my clients when it's time for them to move on. Once they've achieved the results that they set out to achieve. Maybe even before a contract is complete. Some of you might be thinking, maybe I just didn't like the client. Or if I let them go, I didn't enjoy working with them anymore. But that couldn't be farther from the truth. These clients that I'm thinking of are often those who I'm very close with who I've worked with for a very long time. And we continue to stay in touch, and I really miss working with them. Some of you might be thinking, I'm just crazy for turning down the money that these clients would have gladly continued paying me. But there's two very specific reasons why I've made this decision each time that I have. And I honestly haven't really given it a lot of thought in the past until the clients who I've handled conversations with in this way, came back and thanked me later for the push to move on. And then recently when a current client of mine asked for coaching around a very similar situation in her business. And so with that said I felt it deserves to be talked about. So what are the two reasons why I've outlined the end of my customer journey. The first is integrity. It's what's best for the client and out of integrity, I can't continue taking their money, even if they would gladly keep paying me when I know that our work together is done. Honestly, this is my goal for my clients. When they've crossed the million dollar mark or are so darn close, it's inevitable. And they're now focused on bigger goals. They've learned how to think like a CEO and coach themselves through many of the questions and decisions they used to bring to me. They freed up their time. They're working their ideal schedules, they have a high performing team, with other leaders leading inside of the business. They have efficient operations. They're experiencing consistent, predictable, sustainable growth, their clients are getting results without reliance on access to the CEO. Everything is running smoothly, is set up to continue to scaling and it's time for the business owner to turn their attention outside of the business. And that's when I know that our work is done. I can always tell I just get this feeling that our work is complete. It's a great feeling for me. And I'm so happy to release them with love and of course to stay in touch and continue to cheer them on. The second reason is strategy. It's also the best decision for my business. Sure there's a dip in recurring revenue if I choose to release a client, but that revenue and the time spent serving that client can be replaced with one or more new clients who are ideal clients who need the solutions we already provide, who have the same problems we solve every day for other clients. Who wants a result we are brilliant at helping them achieve in contrast to trying to keep a client on board who is an outlier. Maybe they were a perfect fit when they came to work with me. But because they've already achieved what I helped them achieve. They're now beyond the scope of what my business covers. And even with my experience, even if I could continue to serve them. A client whose problems and questions are different than the rest of my ideal clients is a client who had needs solutions and resources that we haven't yet created. And that just isn't the best decision for my business, for my team, or for how we should spend our time. We already have multiple offer levels in our customer journey. And so if you're thinking, you should upsell them to something else, I want to make it clear that the clients I'm talking about have already made it to the very top tier of what I offer. Could I help them? Absolutely. I've consulted for multiple billion dollar companies during my career. But just because I can doesn't mean that's what's best for my business. My business, my team, my other clients, benefit from having clients with similar needs, we get to stay in our zone of genius, and deepen our understanding of the challenges and desires for our ideal clients. And just like we qualify clients on the front end of the business, it benefits us to qualify clients before automatically renewing them. We have a very specific audience that we work with. We're not operating like McDonald's or Netflix, who can just help anyone. And we also aren't like a, maybe think of it like this. We aren't operating like a family physician. If you go to forever, no matter your problem. We are specialists. We specialize in helping entrepreneurs get their freedom back, scale from six to seven figures, begin leading a team, stepping into that role of CEO so they can get results that aren't dependent on their time. So I'm going to ask you, do you know where your customer journey begins and ends? If not, it's worth considering where to complete your customer journey based on both what's best for your clients and what's best for your business. If you want guidance, mapping out your customer journey, and building a scalable business model Join us inside The Scalability Factor. This is where you'll learn how to set your business up to get results for you and your clients. While you work less you can visit our website at kathrynbinkley.com or click the link in the shownotes to learn more and enroll today. See you inside.

Hey, if you're ready to Scale to Seven®, I want to invite you to join the Scale to Seven® Mastermind. It's my coaching program designed to turn your online business into a self-sustaining scalable business that can generate millions. Just head over to kathrynbinkley.com/scale-to-seven. We'll see you inside!