Chapter 17
Sustaining Growth: The Fortune Is in the Follow-Up
IN THIS CHAPTER
Understanding the importance of customer follow-up and reservicing
Using the 2+2+2 method for follow-up
Following up with booking leads, hosts, customers, and recruit leads
Consistent follow-up can increase a direct sales rep’s income by as much as 50 percent. The more you connect with people and show interest in them, the more likely they’ll do business with you time and time again. During the pandemic, this percentage actually increased for two reasons:
- The need to stand out in a crowded online space: Brands had to stand out more than ever because everyone started shopping online. A great way to do that was to reach out to your customers in a more personalized way, for example by telling them about special sales and exclusives and contacting them directly because you offered something specific you believe they might like. This built more personal relationships with customers and made them feel seen and cared for.
- The connection factor: Lockdowns and restrictions made most people realize how much they missed interacting with others. By reaching out and following up, you make customers feel appreciated. They often become more than just customers, they become fans or even super fans!
When follow-up is part of your business, your customers will connect with you. They’ll see you as their person for whatever your product line is. In a world where shoppers have many options, effective follow-up is a great way to make them feel like they’re where they’re supposed to be — with you.
In direct sales, your consistent business activities put you in contact with leads — people who show interest in your offerings. You have to cultivate and develop your leads in order for your business to grow. This chapter discusses how to provide good customer service for your customers and leads:
- Hosts or preferred customers have already hosted an event for you or, in the Network Marketing model, are subscribed to your monthly product autoship program.
- Booking leads are those who express an interest in hosting an event.
- Customer leads may be interested in purchasing your product.
- Referrals are leads that come from your circle of influence or current customer base. These could be leads for product purchases, bookings, or business opportunity.
- Recruit leads say they want to learn more about starting a business just like yours. Recruit leads are important in all three models, but are the main focus of the Network Marketing model.
Here is a common life cycle, or progression, of contacts:
Referral or event guest → Customer → Host or preferred customer → VIP → Recruit
To be sure, not all contacts ultimately progress through that pattern, but it’s a common evolution. By implementing a solid follow-up system and then following up with leads, you’ll maintain your customers in the long term, generate higher sales, and have more contacts progress further into that life cycle. Some people leapfrog right over customer and host and become recruit leads. But it’s far more common for people to warm up to you as they develop trust in both you and your business over time.
Differentiating between Warm and Cold Markets
When you begin your direct sales business, your family and friends are naturally your first customers and/or hosts. They’re considered your warm market, because they already know, like, and trust you. People do business with people they know, like, and trust, so marketing your products and building your business with your warm market makes sense.
Everybody else is your cold market. Although connecting with your warm market is easier, people occasionally don’t have much of a warm market to begin with. As they grow their business, they find themselves needing to rely on making new cold contacts to expand their network. The beauty of cold contacts is that they warm up as you do more follow-up and get to know them. As soon as someone becomes your customer, they’re part of your warm market. Excellent customer service through follow-up can make them a customer for life, which is the way to go because it’s much easier to keep your customers than it is to continually search for new business.
The following sections cover things you can do to develop your warm market.
Being likable and trusted
What does it take for people to like you? Well, first they need to be exposed to you and feel like you’re someone they want to know, so make sure you take the time to get to know them, find out what their interests are, what their children’s interests are, and what they enjoy most from your product line. When items they like are featured or are on sale, contact or reach out to them. Take good notes after your conversations, so you can reference those details during future contacts. As you get to know people, they’ll begin to think of you as their friend — as someone they know. Creating fun posts or videos on social media showing your personality will pull people towards you and make them want to get to know you.
The following can help:
- To be likable to the people who know you, you must show your good personality and authentically come from a place of service, not sales. When you serve, the sales will come. Specifically, you want to be known as friendly and someone who offers solutions for people’s challenges. Reinforce your friendly image with little extras, such as throwing in free samples when someone places an order or sending thank-you notes for their order. You can also say thanks through your social media platforms.
- For someone to trust you, be someone who’s reliable and who’s known for doing the right thing. You can reinforce your trustworthiness by providing superior customer service. Make sure customers receive their products in a timely fashion and answer any questions they may have. Being trustworthy in business means following up: calling when you said you would call, being on time, and gracefully handling product returns. When customers are unhappy with any aspect of your products or business, acknowledge and support them by doing whatever you can to correct the situation. You’ll find that when people feel you’re really listening to them and hearing their concerns, they’ll trust you even more.
Getting referrals
When people like and trust you, have good experiences with you, and feel like you’re consistent, they’re more open to referring their friends to you. The bar is higher with referrals than with sales: People need more to go that next step and recommend you. When people make referrals, it’s their own reputation on the line. When they feel they can trust you to take care of their friends as well as you take care of them, they’ll be more likely to refer their friends to you.
Being someone people will want to recommend to their friends is an ongoing goal and requires consistent behavior. Referrals can be a big part of your business, so you may want to offer gifts for referrals. Even though a gift can never replace the know-like-trust part of the equation, it can be a nice way to thank and incentivize your best customers to send others your way.
Being systematic about customer service
The first step to making sure you’re conducting effective, consistent, and profitable follow-up is to capture the leads as they come in. You must record relevant contact information for your previous hosts, your customers, and recruit leads associated with your events. The 2+2+2 system, which I discuss in the section, “Removing the Guesswork: Using the 2+2+2 Method of Follow-Up,” later in this chapter is a great way to do this. You need to create a habit for capturing the contact information of these leads. Many of these leads will come from your events, but you’ll find that as you grow your business and network and get referrals, booking and recruit leads will come to you in other ways as well.
For example, imagine you’ve just come home from your event with a booking lead — or even from grocery shopping where you met someone you now consider a booking lead. What does it mean to capture that lead? It means that you immediately get that person’s contact information, along with some details about the person, while they’re still fresh in your mind. This collection of information is what you reference when you’re following up. As soon as you get home, track the information in a designated area.
You can record this information in many different ways, but the most important thing is that you find one that works for you and stick to it. Having a place for your leads to live is one of the most important ways to be prepared, and ultimately be productive, with your business. Utilizing the Power Hour method, and having separate areas for specific leads, is one of the best — for example, one for booking leads, one for recruit leads, one for current hosts, and one for super fans (your really good customers). You can use folders or notebooks, a designated area in your planner, or if you prefer a digital version, use Trello and Evernote. Chapter 5 discusses recording this information in greater detail.
I used to come home from a party or my errands, go straight to my workspace, take out my notes, and add the details into my chosen system. I included the following about the person: name, where I met them, any information on what they were most interested in, anything they told me about their family, and so on. All the information I needed was right there, at my fingertips. For people who had asked me to call them later for some reason, I’d include the details so that I’d be able to reference them when I reached out. Details like: “Daughter getting married in July. Call first week of August to schedule an event.”
Following Up with Booking Leads
Booking events or future appointments is critical to your successful ongoing business. I call bookings the heartbeat of your business because without them, your business will move at a much slower pace. By monitoring them, you can track the health of your business.
You meet great potential hosts, people who want to introduce you to their circle of influence, all the time, but often they don’t want to commit to a date. Perhaps they don’t have their calendar with them or they have a legitimate reason why they prefer that you contact them at a later date to schedule. People are busy these days. But if you don’t make a practice of effectively capturing leads and following up as promised, you’ll be leaving a lot of money on the table.
The following examines what you need to remember about being prepared and the how-to of following up.
Creating a plan
To protect yourself from forgetting, to develop a reputation of being dependable, and to maximize your earning power, you must have a reliable plan for follow-up that doesn’t rely on your memory. Regularly following up includes consistently reaching out to booking leads, even when you’re not feeling desperate for bookings.
Making booking calls when your calendar feels empty or after you panic about potentially being out of bookings is a big mistake. Trying to get business when you have no business is, quite honestly, the worst time to do it. You’re thinking, “I don’t have anything! I’m not even going to make my numbers this month! What am I going to do?” Reaching out to people when you’re feeling this way will make you sound nervous, insecure, and even desperate. Don’t fall into this trap.
Rather, the best time to work on getting new business is when you have a lot of business because you’re fired up, confident, and feeling good. That energy comes through and people want to work with fun, successful, exciting people. Even when you have a full calendar, you should make booking calls at least twice per week, touching base with people and making the effort to fit them into your calendar — or at least making sure you stay fresh in their minds.
Following up: The how-to
When you connect, make sure your booking lead information is in front of you so you can reference the last conversation you had and their reasons for waiting to host an event. Your voice will be brimming with confidence, certainty, and enthusiasm. For example, the booking lead was remodeling their kitchen, they were moving, or their daughter was getting married.
- You: “Hey, Alex, I just wanted to touch base to see how your kitchen remodel was coming along?”
- Alex: “It’s great! It’s almost done!”
Here is where you’ll also ask a few more questions, like how they’re liking it, what colors did they do, and so on, to show interest. Then you continue with:
- You: “The reason I’m calling is that you asked me to reach out after the kitchen remodel was complete so we could go ahead and set a date for your event. Your friends are going to love the specials we have going on. I have a couple of dates left for the latter half of the month. So Alex — were you thinking a weekday? Or a weekend? What would work best for you?”
- Alex: “Weekend.”
- You: “Awesome. Let me give you the choices I have for weekends.”
Or, you may start with:
You: “Were you wanting an online event or an in-person event?”
Then proceed with the choices.
Handling objections
When you meet an interested person and they tell you that now isn’t a good time to book an event, but they are interested, pay attention and gather information about them so that when the time is right, you can call, have a personalized conversation, and help them get an event scheduled on your calendar.
You may hear things like, “I’d love to, I just can’t right now because during hockey season, I’m at the rink early every morning with my kids for practice. There is just no way I could host an event.”
That’s your cue to get more information so you can plan your follow-up and fit them into your calendar later.
- You: “So when is that over?”
- Lead: “The last week of March and I can’t wait.”
- You: “Well, why don’t I give you a call in early April to get your event scheduled?”
Then find out what their kids’ names are, write down the details about the hockey season, and when you call, reference your previous conversation, and ask how things went.
Why is such detail important? Because it shows you care and that establishes a connection. They’re more likely to do business with you, including booking their event when they said they would.
Following Up with Hosts
The golden customers who host an event for you are the greatest asset you have in your business. If you treat them right, they’ll host events again and again and will lead you to a never-ending stream of referrals. Happy hosts will recommend you to their friends and will sing your praises. You have no better ambassador in the marketplace than your previous hosts.
Due to their special nature, you want to provide incredible service for your hosts. Many reps have a motto: “Hosts Never Pay Full Price.” In addition to representing the perks a host receives from an event, this motto translates into offering special discounts, gifts with purchase, and even exclusive sales just for your previous hosts. Reps often have special customer-appreciation events that they host around the holidays and to make their previous hosts feel special, they sometimes hold a separate event just for them.
Be creative. Think of ways you can surprise and delight your previous hosts so that the message is unmistakable: I truly value you. Incorporate special touches that represent a level of above-and-beyond service and you’ll keep these golden customers for life.
Following Up with Customers
You want to create lifelong, repeat, satisfied customers, and the best way to do that is to provide excellent customer care. What might be a one-time customer can become a repeat customer, who later becomes a host, and possibly even becomes your recruit someday. Happy customers will refer other customers to you and help you grow a more successful business.
When you master a system of providing consistent and excellent customer care that’s focused on effective and well-timed customer-care contacts following their orders, you’ll be able to get everything else you need from your business: bookings, reorders, more sales, and recruit leads.
According to my years of focus groups and studies, shockingly few independent reps make follow-up calls to their customers after taking their initial order. That’s a shame because it’s quite likely that your customers don’t order everything they want from your product offerings with their first order. If you reach out periodically, they’ll invariably order additional products, in addition to re-ordering consumable products they’ve run out of.
This also applies for customers who are on autoship. Many representatives feel that, as long as the order is coming in every month, they don’t need to follow up with their customer. In reality, studies show that, if you follow up to see how your customer is doing and how they’re enjoying their products, they’ll feel valued and remain on autoship for a longer period of time.
So why don’t more reps make those calls? In my experience, they’re afraid they’ll be seen as pushy. They fear that the customer will resent the call because they already placed a large order. That’s an understandable fear, but it’s unwarranted. In fact, the flip side might shock you. I’ve heard things like the following statements:
- “I get put off because I go to an event and connect with the rep, and never hear from them again.”
- “I haven’t used my product. I didn’t order the right thing and needed something else, but I never heard from the rep.”
- “I didn’t even know whether the rep was still in business.”
- “I lost their contact information and ended up going with someone I know from Facebook for my reorders.”
Imagine how much you could distinguish yourself and how much more business you could generate if you behaved with a level of professionalism that included showing your gratitude for each customer’s business and providing excellent, ongoing customer service?
Representatives who followup with customer-care have bigger businesses, are happier, and are taken more seriously. This can also be done through your customer care community, which I discuss in Chapter 10.
Checking In with Recruit Leads
Making sure you follow up with recruit leads more than once is essential because timing is everything. Circumstances change, and you want to be checking in with people who at one time have expressed an interest in the business. They may not be ready today but they may feel differently in the weeks and months to come.
Recruiting is a numbers game. On average, whether you meet them at an event or in some other way, about one in ten recruit leads will join your business at some point. To ensure that you don’t miss out on great potential team members in the future, your follow-up system needs to factor in this potentially long life cycle from recruit lead to recruit. As soon as someone has shown interest, they’re a hot lead. You want to follow up within 48 hours. The conversation that ensues will determine whether they become a warm lead or a cold lead. In the following sections I discuss how you can follow up with warm and cold leads.
Hot and warm recruit leads
To maintain an accurate picture of which recruit leads are most likely to join your team in the next 30 days, you want to assign them as hot leads — labeled H — or warm leads — labeled W, which I describe in greater detail here. I discuss cold leads — labeled C in the section, “Brrr! Cold recruit leads” later in this chapter. This is different from warm and cold customer leads. This refers to the level of interest the recruiting prospect is showing.
Going after hot leads
People who request information on the business or take a business-information packet at a party are definitely Hs. Write an H next to their contact information and contact the hot lead within 24 to 48 hours. If you don’t follow up with them in that time frame, they become a lot less hot. Schedule the call so you don’t forget and make sure you call them during that period, no matter what.
Here’s an example of the type of thing that happens a lot and why your hot lead can appear to have had a complete change of heart. You meet someone who seems excited about joining, and they go home to tell their spouse:
- Hot Lead: “Honey, guess what? I’m going to join this company.”
- Spouse: “Do you really have to do that right now? I thought you were taking the summer off, and we’d be doing a lot of camping.”
- Hot Lead: “Oh, you’re right. Maybe I’ll wait until the kids are back in school.”
You call within 24 hours after meeting the lead:
- You: “Hi! How are you doing? Did you get a chance to look over that packet of information?”
- Hot Lead: “You know what? I did, but I was talking it over with my family, and right now, I just think the timing is bad and that I’m going to pass.”
In that instant, the lead has gone from H to W. It’s important to engage them, acknowledge the validity of the situation, and make an agreement to follow up in the future so the door stays open.
You: “I completely understand. That makes sense, and I want you to start at a time when you’ll really be able to give it the attention that it deserves. How would you like it if I just keep you updated on any relevant specials that come up? I’ll just touch base periodically and definitely reach out in the fall. How does that sound?”
Pursuing warm leads
Most people you recruit will be warm leads. Having people just decide to join your team after one meeting with you is uncommon. The vast majority of your new recruits will come as a result of your consistent and repeated follow-up.
Touch base with your W recruit leads about every three to six months. These contacts are really just temperature reads and opportunities to reconnect, deepen the relationship, and remind the lead that you’re still around.
Have a simple conversation around questions like the following:
- “How are you doing?”
- “Just checking to see how you’re doing with the products.”
- “Is there anything I can do for you or any additional products you may need?”
- “What products might you need at the moment?”
Not every check-in like this needs to be phone call. It can be a Facebook message, email, text, or handwritten note that lets them know you’re thinking of them, want to keep in touch, or have a great special going on. If you do get their voicemail, leave a message with the same sentiments. You may want to alternate methods of contacting them, just make sure you’re making some kind of contact every three months.
Understanding that timing is essential
Timing is crucial when following up with recruit leads because people’s lives change all the time: job changes, moves, marriages, separations, new children, health changes — any number of things. Stay ahead of that curve because when they’re ready to try something different or their needs change, you want to have recently been in contact with them so that they feel comfortable calling you. You want to be in their minds when they consider earning extra income or changing their routine by starting a business.
Here’s an exception to the quarterly call schedule: Any time your company offers a special promotion related to getting started, call all your Ws to let them know. It’s a courtesy, and even if they don’t join in the moment, it plants the seed and reminds them that you’re watching out for them.
In this call regarding the special promotion, acknowledge that you don’t know whether the timing is even right for them, but you didn’t want them to miss the special. Sometimes the timing of these calls will be ideal and on some of those calls the W will say something like, “I can’t believe you’re calling me today because actually… .” Your timing is sometimes coincidentally so good, the lead feels like it was meant to be.
About half the guests leave an event considering your job for themselves. That doesn’t mean that half the people you meet will ultimately join your team. But it does mean that half wonder whether they can do it, whether you make decent money doing it, and whether they’d be good at it and make decent money themselves. That’s why you stay in contact with them because there is potential there when the time is right.
Most people are looking for ways to make more money and for solutions to their current challenges. Your business could be a great fit for a lot of the people you meet and who see the potential as long as you stay in touch.
Brrr! Cold recruit leads
The following section focuses on the recruiting prospect who, after looking over the information, says they have no interest at all in the opportunity. They become a cold lead after you’ve done the initial follow-up. You still want to acknowledge that they had some curiosity when you first met them.
You call this lead 48 hours after you’ve met:
- You: “Hi! Did you get a chance to look over that packet of information?”
- Hot Lead: “Right now, I just think the timing is bad, and I’m just going to pass.”
- You: “I understand. How would you like it if I just keep you updated on any relevant specials that come up? I’ll just touch base periodically. How does that sound?”
- Hot Lead: “No, that’s okay. If things change, I’ll call you.”
Now, unfortunately, this lead has moved from an H to a C. You don’t need to keep calling cold leads to bug them about signing up. You do keep their information among your recruit leads, but you follow up more generally about other aspects related to them being your customer.
Your cold recruit leads can still be a good source of business (for example you have a new catalog or a great customer promotion). Keep in touch with them about things other than the business opportunity. Often, when you’re in front of them again, it can renew their original interest. That’s why moving every customer to your online customer community group (VIP) is important so you can stay engaged and they can stay informed (see Chapter 10 for more detail on this). Oftentimes, seeing the interest within the community as well as how fun your job is can keep the prospect of joining your business alive.
Removing the Guesswork: Using the 2+2+2 Method of Follow-Up
Some reps neglect to call, not just because they fear being pushy, but because they’re also overwhelmed with when to call, how to call, and what to say when they do call. My 2+2+2 Method solves this issue by providing a systematic approach that takes the guesswork out of when to call and what to say. When combined with the Power Hour (see Chapter 5 for more), the 2+2+2 Method will catapult your business.
The 2+2+2 Method helps increase your sales, bookings, and recruiting by ensuring that you contact your customers at predetermined intervals that are proven to be optimal times to connect with them. Some estimates attribute the method with increasing a rep’s income by 50 percent!
Because more and more people are having such great success with their online community groups, you won’t need to follow up every two months because you’ll be engaging with them on a regular basis. You want to get them in your group ASAP, so that you can build a strong relationship right from the start. The following sections examine how you can use the 2+2+2 Method in your follow-up.
Two-day follow-up
The first contact you make to each customer is two days after they place their order or make their purchase from you, whether at an online or in-person event or through an order on your website.
The only purpose of this contact is to thank the customer. That’s it! You’re not asking for anything else. You make this call to demonstrate your gratitude. Simply, thank you:
“Hi, Jordan! This is Belinda, I just wanted to say what a pleasure it was meeting you at Alicia’s house (or at the online event), and I wanted to thank you again for your order.”
Tell the customer when they can expect to receive the order and make sure they know they can call you. That’s all. The call takes less than a minute, and being brief is important because you’ll complete more of your calls and the customer will remember that you’re respectful of their time.
Although you may be contacting people through many different means other than making a phone call, the two-day call will often get you the most results.
I’ve found through the focus groups that I’ve conducted that things stay exciting or top of mind for about three days. After that, the interest fades. That’s true of a great restaurant you ate at, a concert you attended, or a pair of shoes you passed on. It’s also the case with any customer you acquire through online marketing, networking, or the event your customer attended.
Sometimes you’ll call a customer for your thank-you call two days after their purchase at an event and things will go differently. Your customer may have already been talking up your party and your products with their coworkers or friends. Maybe they asked for a catalog. Imagine what your thank-you call sounds like in those situations?
“I was talking to my friends and a few people from work asked whether I could bring in a catalog. Could you send me one?”
That’s your opportunity to suggest hosting an event with you:
“Sure, Jordan, I can send you a catalog. But to be perfectly honest, your best bet would be to host an event, just like Cindy did. You already have friends who want to order, and I would much rather give you the credit for those orders instead of me just taking the orders.”
You’ll be amazed at how often someone like this will book an event. Suddenly your two-day customer-care call has secured another booking. I’ve found this to be about 20 percent of the time.
Or perhaps your customer got home and realized they wished they’d ordered other items. Maybe they gushed to their partner about an item they loved but didn’t get. The partner responded, “If you loved it, you should just have gotten it!” Imagine your thank-you call in those situations:
“Is it too late to add onto my order? Because I wanted to go ahead and get _______.”
Or they say something like this:
“I was talking about it with my partner, and I do want to get that cookware. I thought it might be too much to spend, but we agreed to go ahead and get it.”
This is also your opportunity to suggest hosting an event with you:
“Well, Devon, would you like to go ahead and book an event so that you can get that cookware half off?”
You’ll be amazed at how often someone who had second thoughts and wants to add to the original order decides to accept your offer to host an event during your thank-you call two days later. Suddenly, people are so impressed with your attention to customer service that it increases their trust in scheduling an event with you.
What I’ve found is only about 10 percent of your two-day follow-up calls will result in add-on orders, but about 20 percent of these types of calls will turn into events on your calendar. Understand that it’s rare for someone who has realized that they’d like to add to their order to reach out to you after the fact. They presume it’s too late. Plus, people are busy and they forget. Your two-day thank-you call provides an easy opportunity for them to update their order — and you’re already providing superior service to them.
People often ask me, “Do I have to make a phone call for every one of these 2+2+2 or can I text, private message, or use email?” I always answer that I prefer calling, but other communication is fine. However, I always recommend using the phone for this first two-day call.
Two weeks later
The second follow-up contact you make to each customer — usually made through email or text — is two weeks after they’ve placed their order because by then they’ll have received it. Some people refer to this as the out-of-the-box call. This contact is to provide service. You still aren’t going to ask for an additional order or a booking. You’re showing up to be of service to them as one of your existing customers.
- You: “I just wanted to make sure you received your products and see if you had any questions.”
- Recent Customer: “I did. Thank you!”
- You: “Are you enjoying your product?” or “How is your product working?” or “What have you noticed with your new product?” — or some other question tailored to the product they ordered.
The positive feedback you get during these contacts is valuable because you can use those stories during your events or when you’re sharing the benefits of your products with others. Any feedback that isn’t positive gives you an opportunity to shine and address any issues. That’s your chance to help correct the way the customer is using the product if it’s not optimal, suggest a different additional product, or help them get their money back if appropriate.
Regardless of how glowing the feedback is, ask how you can help and reiterate that you’re available and that they should feel free to contact you with any questions going forward.
Here’s the last thing you say:
- “Is there anything else I can help you with today, Allison? I’d like to encourage you to join my customer community group online where you can connect with other customers, learn about additional products, have some fun with like-minded people, and stay informed about any monthly specials you may be interested in.”
and/or
“I value you as a customer, and customer service is very important to me. From time to time, I’d like to touch base with you to see if there’s anything else I can do to take care of your needs. Would that be okay with you?”
That last part is crucial because you’re making a commitment to keep in touch, which will make it more likely that you’ll actually connect. And you’re getting their agreement so you can feel good about connecting to provide excellent service.
In the rare case that your customer responds to your offer to touch base periodically with something like, “Don’t bother!” or “I’ll call you if I need anything,” consider it a great time saver for you. Just be gracious, agree, thank them, and move on. You may feel a little rejected, but that will pass, and you have just saved yourself a ton of time spent calling someone who isn’t interested in hearing from you (or likely any representative).
Two months later
If a customer, for some reason, hasn’t joined your customer community group, then connecting with them about two months later is important. This will help continue to build the relationship and let them know you’re there to take care of their ongoing needs.
For the most part, people will join your customer community group, which is where the magic happens. It allows you to build your relationship right from the beginning of the customer journey. This also replaces having to make the two-month connection as an ongoing connection to customers because they’ll be informed automatically of new products, specials, testimonials, and overall benefits of your products.
Keep these two things in mind:
- If you have a consumable product, such as skincare, you may want to make that first two-month contact. More than likely your customer will need to replenish their order. This original contact can help establish a better habit pattern for them reordering from you regularly.
- Some people join your group to engage, whereas others are more likely window-shoppers. They may place an order occasionally, but you don’t need to reach out to them personally. Others join your group and are super engaged, always commenting, and order frequently. I refer to these people as your super fans. They’re definitely worth reaching out to personally from time to time. Following up with them shows that you value them and make them feel important.
Reservicing: Customer Care Is Key
Getting new orders, referrals, and business from happy existing customers is easier, more gratifying, and more fun than constantly looking for new customers.
In fact, when you have a large, satisfied customer base, including previous hosts, you also have a ready marketplace at your fingertips for when you want to increase sales for any reason. Say you want to increase your production in the spring because you have a vacation planned in the summer and want to pay cash for it. Or maybe your company has a promotion, and the sales thresholds for that trip or reward are just a tad higher than what you normally average.
In both cases, if you’ve use the 2+2+2 Method and kept in touch with your customers (refer to the section, “Removing the Guesswork: Using the 2+2+2 Method of Follow-Up,” earlier in this chapter), you’ll be able to increase your sales by returning to your current customers to reservice them. To reservice is to go back and take replenishment orders (in the case of nutrition, food, skincare, and so on) or to secure additional orders from an existing customer.
For best results, your online customer community is a convenient place for you to reservice your customers. In addition, you’re building ongoing relationships, so you need to make it a fun place to be. Here are some easy ways to do so:
- Share motivational quotes or fun memes.
- Share favorite recipes or have others share theirs.
- Disclose life hacks to bring value to your customers without always selling to them.
- Go live at least once a week so they can get to know you and your personality. Remember, people do business with people they know, like, and trust.
- Encourage your current members to invite others to the community and conduct a monthly drawing for anyone who invites someone new.
Just because someone is on autoship doesn’t mean you don’t need to connect with them periodically. In fact, if you want to keep them on autoship, letting them know you care will keep them a long-term customer.
Don’t count on your customer community group to do all your work. Continuing to build that personal relationship, especially with your super fans, will help create a customer for life.