Nathan Wrigley: [00:00:00] Welcome to the WP Builds podcast bringing you the latest news from the WordPress Community now welcome your hosts David Waumsley and Nathan Wrigley.
Well, hello there, welcome to this episode 151 one of the WP Builds podcast. This episode is entitled are we leaking clients? It was published on Thursday the 24th of October 2019. My name is Nathan Wrigley from picture and word dot co dot uk-- a small web development agency based in the north of England and I'll be joined a little bit later by David Warmsley from David Waumsley.com for our discussion.
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Okay today. I'm talking to David Waumsley. It's one of our discussion episodes a few weeks ago. We talked about this miniseries that we're going to be starting and that podcast episode really was laying the groundwork for for what's coming in the weeks to come this first one is all around based around a book by a lady called.
Bryony Thomas called watertight marketing and this episode is all about well the easiest thing to shore up if you're really losing clients left right in the center or indeed. If you are just leaving money on the table, surely the. The first people that you need to be speaking to other clients that you already have.
So that's what this is about and David and I talked about the things that we've done in the past some successes some failures some quite Innovative stuff from David. So yeah, if that's of Interest, I hope you enjoy it. And
David Waumsley: [00:04:50] today's discussion is called are we leaking clients? So Nathan and I are really following on from the last discussion.
We had where we were using a book work to frame our conversations water type marketing by Bernie Thomas, so probably want to check that one out if this is make sense, but it stands alone. We're talking about how we look after our clients. Really?
Nathan Wrigley: [00:05:13] This is such an interesting area because as we described at the end of the last podcast that we did where we talked about marketing and our funnels dead or whatever.
The title was a current member of the top man. Now, we we have this kind of like at the bottom of the The Leaky van. In the picture that was shown and yet it's the first leak which is probably the easiest to fix and because very simply these are people you already know I suppose that just makes common sense.
David Waumsley: [00:05:45] Yeah, absolutely, and I've been looking at this for a long time because we got to thank Jim Galliano at the same time. I was thinking jarm a bit rubbish. I lose customers because they don't know what I do. He was talking about this very topic itself is doing a whole load of stuff on there. So and we haven't talked about this before have we?
Nathan Wrigley: [00:06:02] No, I don't think we have I mean we've maybe tangentially touched upon it we've never. Really gone into in depth with trying to get either get back clients who are close to leaving or speaking with clients that you already have that you don't really communicate very well with
David Waumsley: [00:06:18] yeah. So I mean go back to the book on this one and it's one of the leaks here. Obviously, it's pretty simple to understand where the leak is customers who may be paying us ongoing have forgotten who we are and why they bought from us in the first place and you just forget to tell them about other things that we. I can offer them which they don't know about so they go elsewhere.
Yeah, and you know the easiest people and she's got a big thing about where all these different leaks are and how they kind of rape emotionally because I think everybody says this that our emotions dictate at the you know, I kind of spending Behavior more than logic does and this is one that's a kind of.
Hi emotional area. This is something whether human connections involved with this one. So it's a really good one to plug of all the leaks out there.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:07:07] Yeah, I think there's a great deal of truth about that because I know in my situation nothing to do with websites or the internet or anything like that.
Once let's say for example, I've used a plumber in the past or a building or something like that. I am I'm always going to phone my Builder if I need any building worked on theirs. I'm just not even going to look I'm going straight to him because he's my Builder. He's the guy that I've trusted in the past and along that journey to find him.
I've had many upsets and things that have gone wrong, but I found this guy so he's the man and the same with plumbers and things like that. Once you've got somebody that you trust you just you default to them and I don't even. Don't even question the pricing. I just get the bill and pay it on the assumption that they're doing the right thing.
David Waumsley: [00:07:59] Yeah, that's that's so true. Yeah, she makes a really good point and I think it's true of me. Definitely that my vision of support for clients. So we're really thinking of our care plans is reactive rather than proactive. So, you know, I think of support it's about them. You know the how much is going to cost me for their problems that they might come to me and what I'm going to be responsible for when I'm pricing this thing out.
That's what I'm thinking about. I'm not really thinking about how I can meet their ongoing needs which is where I'm going. But I have I didn't start there
Nathan Wrigley: [00:08:34] No and I'm exactly the same but I think what you're suggesting here is really transformational. Genuinely think it could transform your business because if you have a legitimate reason to reach out to them because you've discovered something that you think they could very well make use of some I don't know.
Let's say for example, you're using a page builder and you suddenly discover a new feature or I don't know gravity forms come out with something or you discover something that they could input in their marketing funnels. It would be stupid not to contact them because they would they would really want to hear that and they probably be delighted that you bothered.
David Waumsley: [00:09:11] I know we were talking earlier when we about this. I mean, you gotta hand it to Elementor just the way they would kind of keep everybody permanently in a state of excitement over their product. Yeah. I mean like nobody else, you know, it's not ipage builded and my needs but you've got to hand it to them.
They really know how to. Keep people involved in you know, they're very
Nathan Wrigley: [00:09:33] yeah. And so the marketing Works in sort of two ways. Doesn't it? Number one? It satisfies you that the product that you've bought is going to be is going to be updated and you're very pleased about that and you've got these lovely new features.
So you're thinking to yourself great when the renewal comes no problem. I'm happy with that. But also the marketing is. Is helping new users to come on board because it's constantly shown look what we're doing. We're updating all the time and so on so yeah brilliant absolutely brilliant.
David Waumsley: [00:10:02] Yeah, and we do, you know, I mean we use Beaver Builder gets a lot of criticism for not doing good marketing and selling the features.
It does keep adding another you find them buried away in some changelog and and that's the way I actually because a lot of my clients are using the page Builders now why I'm not telling them. They've got some new exciting stuff through using this via me. I don't know.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:10:25] I think it's just inertia, isn't it? But I mean it yeah common sense. It makes absolute common sense that you you could tell this to your clients. They would you know at the very least they wouldn't be interested but I don't suppose many of them are going to be actually upset with you for reaching out to them to say look. I've got something that might actually enable your website to perform better or to generate leads better or to create revenue for you better.
They're not going to be it's just inertia. You haven't got the processes set up to communicate with them or you simply haven't got the time to do it, you know to create the the video or create the the email or whatever it is that you're going to send their way. But nobody's going to be ticked off with you for a system them and yet I bet that the majority of people listening to this will be able to raise their hand to the question of you know, are you not doing this?
Do you feel that you could do this slightly better?
David Waumsley: [00:11:22] Yeah, I'm in the video we talked about in the the last discussion is really is a tick box list for everybody. Are you doing this and you just find yourself saying no to most of them and it's the case it the only good thing is that thanks to kind of gym and other people talking about this before I came across this book is that I part they got there because that's my aim to be build these long-term relationships with people so have started some stuff.
Okay, and so is that where the direction of this? Podcast is going are you going to talk about some of the things that you've done? I'm going to talk about me.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:11:55] Yeah. No, it's good. I have to say that before before we started recording this David demonstrated what he's about to talk about to me and I think some of this is really really smart. I like a lot of this so, you know strap yourself in some of this I think is actual good. Good good goal. Don't you
David Waumsley: [00:12:15] just scared me. Now? That's a build up.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:12:17] Its a load of rubbish don't bother listening stop.
David Waumsley: [00:12:20] That's more like it. Yeah, I think the book though is quite interested in the sense that it is this thing that we need to do with, you know be what she's trying to say is that you know, the more you can learn about your customers the better off you're going to be but then you're going to need to find some way of being consistent with what you're delivering. So you need some processes so you don't lose your people. So you need to understand them and then you need to have something in place. So my start on this a little bit.
Is the fact well the Facebook group I mentioned to you quite like I've set one up for clients and it's not a success of the moment.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:12:55] So you've set up a Facebook group just for your clients. I wonder how many people are doing that that seems ingenious to me. What's the what's the okay. So you say it's not much of a success at the moment. It's new. But what are you hoping to do in that Facebook group with let's say that you get a doesn't 2030 clients in there. What's the point?
David Waumsley: [00:13:14] Well, I think it's just I mean, I mean face were addicted a little bit Facebook groups, even though we're trying to get away from it. So I'm hoping that that will help just this constant contact and to get some sense of the problems that they have.
So I hope it will go a bit wider into more General things and I'll learn something about their businesses and have a clue as to not. But to offer them in terms of website help but the the conversations will get wider. I don't know how much of a success this is, but I have tried.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:13:45] Sorry. No, I was just going to say I think it's a genius idea in that you get all of the people, you know, they can consume content that you put in there. Should they wish to access it my only fear which is just occurred to me. Is that if the conversation turned. Went South and somebody started to complain then that is equally public. Whereas a ticketing system. Shall we say doesn't present that same problem, but assuming everything is hunky-dory and working out. Alright, it's great.
David Waumsley: [00:14:12] Yeah, I've had to put this in context for the I opened it up because my care plan doesn't give them time for support them for things that they might want. I look after the software's and they keep the cheap. So this might be a little cheat to them to get some extra support that they wouldn't have to pay for.
So that's the advantage of them. Okay, that's that's but you know, I mean, I'll see. The one thing I did do recently which is I've again this is where WordPress comes into it. I've used WP admin Pages Pro to set up these Pages within their websites of the back and one of them's got a little iframe in attached to my site where I could change the content.
So when someone goes into their dashboard I can serve up some different content depending on what I want to get out there. One of those at the moment is the Facebook group a little bigger. But same please join our Facebook group and links them to it.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:15:06] So you've got again. I just think this is so smart really clever. You've got a page on your main website, which presumably you don't link to in the public facing internet. And yes, that is I framed into every every one of your clients WP admin area. So in the dashboard with WP admin Pages Pro, you've I framed that page. And so whatever you put on it will go straight into their admin area.
And thereby if you got a new I don't know new idea or a new marketing idea or something. You could put a YouTube video embedded in there and they'd all get to see that or some new feature that you've added. You can just just write it once and everybody gets it.
David Waumsley: [00:15:51] Sent just stick it on the top and make it colorful. So it you know shiny and hopefully it will hit some people. I don't know how this is going to work out. And I mean, of course you could use any other tools as quite a lot of plugins there free ones as well. So you can just change content that's in your dashboard.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:16:07] Yeah, I mean the I mean it's a bit like you get emails from companies. Don't you all the time about what's changed and what's new and what why you should go and log into their service and so on and this is this is at the point that they are logging in. So you've sort of you've overcome that problem this content can only be for the people who have made the effort so you don't have to you have to do too much in terms of trying to persuade them because you know, they've already logged in of course. You run into problems that many people simply won't login and therefore won't see it. But yeah still think it's a great idea.
David Waumsley: [00:16:39] Yeah, I mean, do you know at least that's something if you don't offer a care plan to somebody I mean they can still offer them to join a group cunt you and still keep it intact with them. So it's you know, it's a way of just staying in touch even if they leave I guess if they leave your service that might still remain in that Facebook group.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:16:57] That's an interesting conundrum, isn't it? Do ya do you. Do you prefer? Yes, I suppose you've got to only put the order that raises so many interesting questions because if you did use that as a marketing channel and it remained in there at WP admin area, let's say they don't go to another developer who then obviously quickly figures out how to remove it. They might be there might be persuaded to come back should you put stuff in there which is persuasive about what you know latest things that we learn. Yeah, that's fascinating.
David Waumsley: [00:17:28] Yeah, you know I never even thought about that. I was just thinking that once they've joined your group. They might forget to leave that group. Even if they leave the rest of your service.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:17:37] Stuck with them forever. Even if you don't want them.
David Waumsley: [00:17:41] Yeah, what do you know what you know and. In the real world in our own Facebook experiences that happens we get a solution that we want and we join these other groups don't way and there's a mention of another solution. You probably don't need this but then you're quite intrigued to see how it compares with something you already have.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:17:57] So, you know, that's a great idea though our Facebook group with content also pushed into the back end of of your WP Dashboard. What else have you been doing?
David Waumsley: [00:18:09] What do you do this as well client reports, but we were saying that we're rubbish with this on we had another one.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:18:14] Do you know what the client reports from my point of view are very much and exercise in. Okay, at least we did something, you know a demonstration that we did something each month. I send out a brief summation of. The Google analytics, you know, just so page views and things like that plus indications that I've back things up properly and indications that the plugins and themes and core has been updated but that's kind of where it ends.
There is a sort of leading question in there somewhere which basically says if you need anything click this link to get in touch, but that's it. I don't. And we again talked before we started recording about how that email itself could be such a useful way of keeping in touch with the clients. So instead of it having the same verbatim content each month.
I could modify that each month spent two minutes changing the the beginning of that email so that it had information about. You know stuff that's going on within within the business things that they that you think that they might need and it can be very generic. But, you know, did you know we also offer this as a service?
What about this? Have you ever tried to do emailing or email marketing while we deal with that and so on and so forth, that could be a great way in.
David Waumsley: [00:19:29] Yeah, absolutely. And you know what? I think there's there is one thing I've learned because I did try to put some interesting content in for a while in those but of course it was doomed because the header was still the same.
It's still said it's their their monthly care plans. Yeah, so, you know, they'd already learnt at this point that this is the email that has no interest for them. I would delete it before opening so I realized that. Yeah, we're going to have to have some kind of bit more clip Beatty email titles to be able to to make that work. I'm not quite sure.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:20:00] You know what the very least it does demonstrate that things have been happening and he even if it's never really opened the the fact that they've probably seen one or two of them before they worked out that these are simply to be deleted and then they have to go through the process of deleting them. There is at least that okay. Okay, things have been against it delete. It's something it's not a lot, but it's something.
David Waumsley: [00:20:24] You know, I was thinking as well because I'm a friend of ours was trying to make their client reports look nice. It was stylizing them because they just moved to Maine WP and they're doing a great job, but suddenly what struck me afterwards was the fact that I wonder if they're putting anything that personalize it do they put their own pictures of them there something that. Kind of you know that connection all the time.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:20:46] No that I'd that doesn't I don't think they did but none but I think that's genius. Why not do that. Why not add a picture of yourself to the footer as you're signing it off and why not make the text a little bit more playful instead of very businessy. I haven't minor all now that I think about it, they're all absolutely dry as a bone. I should I should fiddle with that and make them a little bit more quirky and interesting and fun to read.
David Waumsley: [00:21:14] Yeah that you know what, I mean the same person we're talking about is is like me a digital Nomad and I've realized that sometimes people love to hear about where I am now, so why didn't I put little photo in I don't do this, but this is you know, this whole topic is making you think I should think about this. Is it worth doing because we do it once you put a photo of yourself in and maybe there's something you can change that says something interesting about what's going on with you. Yes. Yes, not too self-absorbed. Yeah, just chatty. You know like they're your friend.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:21:43] Yeah. Keep it short keep it sweet. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you got a judge whether or not the clients that you're sending it to can cope with that but having two templates for the one for the clients who don't like that kind of stuff and one for the clients that do maybe.
David Waumsley: [00:21:59] This is you know, this is the problem with all this is and how much time you're going to put in. Yes, you know to how much it's going to give you back. Yeah, you know, I'm certainly something I need to sort out because it's there. I I take all that payments through woocommerce. And I have a system than this ultimate Woo is what I've got and I'm just not using it. There's also woocommerce follow-up emails, but you can set them to not just do what I'm doing, which is tell them their care plans are put in so many days, you know, you can really set it to any kind of anniversary or any event that's happened and time it come out.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:22:38] I suppose it goes no little bit like you were just saying a minute ago about person. I'm the message. If you're going to send things out on their birthday and things you just gotta be a little bit mindful about whether people would perceive, you know, judge the event suit, you know, if it's suitable to send an email at this point do it don't always use every single possible reason to send out an email because you know, it's your birthday. It's Thursday. It's Tuesday the day ends in a 'y'. Yeah, okay. Yeah, just got to use that with a bit of bit of thought but I think like anniversaries for billing and things are a perfect opportunity to sum up what you could be offering.
David Waumsley: [00:23:16] Yeah, you know mine are just as dull as ditchwater. I got really think about this when it comes to the renewals, you know, the the thankful for the business but it's just, you know, just the usual platitudes. It's not anything we know that makes them excited about staying with us or reminds them. Why they they are on their care plan. There's nothing there.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:23:36] Yeah, I think it's a stretch isn't it emailing people is a stress is always going to be a difficult one to get people excited about an email which they know is basically a functional email so a client report or a woocommerce recurring kind of bill or something like that. It's it's an edge case, but you never know tell you what though? We've missed one out we missed the one about videos out. So I think we should. Talk about that because I think that's exactly the opposite. I think you have an opportunity here to be very personal very bespoke very unique.
David Waumsley: [00:24:07] But you do they study Jim Jim Galliano game was the one who was talking about sending out video messages, but you've done it not quite for clients, but had success sending it to other people.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:24:17] Yeah. I don't know if you've come across things like Loom and Cloud App and drop ler and things like that. But these these lovely little things which sit in your either maybe they citizen a browser extension or in. In the tray and your Windows machine or whatever you click a button and then within a matter of half a second, you can create a video of yourself or your screen or whatever.
I found those to be so unbelievably powerful and easy to do. You know, I've got a long since given up sending emails of complicated tasks. Click this then go to this menu then click. It's so much quicker to send that kind of stuff but to repurpose this to say hi there Jim just to let you know just thinking about you.
I was just I was in your sight just now. Updating it as part of your care plan and it just occurred to me that you haven't got a contact form where I think you could have one or I didn't know that that button. Have you noticed how it's not being clicked. I was looking at your heat map data and it's not really not really getting any action.
Maybe we should fix that. Give me a call and that would be so powerful and so easy now to say all of that. I haven't really done it. That way mine has been more of an Outreach tool and a little while ago there was. That's all that came upon appsumo called dub, which is d u BB. I'm not sure if it's.com or what not.
But anyway, it's a job and it enables you to create these little videos, but add calls to actions underneath them. And the best part is it creates a short three or four second animated gif which with one click of a button you can embed in an email. It's trivial it does it all for you. So you click a button record a video click another button and it embeds the animated gif in an email and I found that to be really powerful I've sent I think three of those and every single one of them has converted so like pretty much.
And not only that but all of them have written back to say yet the sound that sounds like a good plan, but they've also said boy love the video. What a good idea. Well done, you know, so I'm a big fan of video. But then again, yeah suppose I'm a bit comfortable with it would require you to be happy talking to a camera and not you know, not feeling like you've got to get it perfect just being normal about it not trying to edit it to within an inch of its life.
I don't do any of that. Just yeah the way I am letting you know brush the hair or anything. It's just what you get is what you get first.
David Waumsley: [00:26:49] Yeah, you know, I think Carl Van Dusen did some of this as well sending out to his clients some some emails common, but I'm sure it was a pretty successful. Yeah, I mean
Nathan Wrigley: [00:26:58] Sorry. I was just going to say that I don't know how long it will remain interesting. You know, these quirky little Technologies like these dog videos. It's quirky. So it's interesting maybe if everybody starts doing it'll be less effective. So actually can nobody else do it, please and just let me corner that much.
David Waumsley: [00:27:18] But I think you know reminding people of your personality and that your real people. Yeah under service that you provide for them is because that's not going to get old. Isn't it? It's better than an email.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:27:29] No, no and it's and if you actually think about it, you could you could shoot this after you've finished doing something for a client or your on your wit.
I don't know what your process is. Maybe you're on your weekly checkup to make sure all the sites of functioning. If if you can spot something which you think they could have done better or you think you could have done better for them. It will take 20 seconds to shoot that video and send it off and if it gets viewed fabulous if it gets ignored, well, you've lost 20 seconds. So be it, you know, I think it's worth the effort. I really do.
David Waumsley: [00:28:04] Yeah, it's going to be interesting. It's here's the problem with all these things again. And this is the thing that comes in this water type marketing book. It's about getting these methods. So you're consistent and what you're going to do, so I think.
You need to try all the different ideas and and find out but getting feedback is that is one of the things that she's quite Keen, you know that we don't as businesses kind of find out what it is that the client wants and I've started to do it. I've always done this a little bit indirectly because I'm monitoring what clients are doing with a sight so.
I'm because I use main WP it's already got included in that the reports there where you can actually go in and check those to find out what the clients actually done. So you might get an idea about what the fiddling around with or but also mostly for me because they don't do too much of that. Used to be there with wordfence where it would tell me straight away if somebody's gone on logged in so I get some picture for how many times people are going in to do stuff and change stuff sets.
I don't know so it's been a bit of useful Intel that because at least it tells me who's quite Keen to do more with the content.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:29:10] Yeah. I think that's really useful in the if you've got a client who's logging in every single day. I'd say they are absolutely Prime father for a video or an email or whatever just to say, you know, look, I've looks like you've been playing with the site loads recently.
You know, I can you might even notice what they've done and then mention it. Let's have a chat. Let's get on the phone and see see what we can do to to. Further your reach to improve the page load time, whatever. I don't know what it might be.
David Waumsley: [00:29:41] But yeah, just get a picture for people. I think there's also another plug-in you'd have to be on Main WP because they fought a plug-in called stream which keeps our measure of what different users on the site are doing where they're going. Let me just give it full information. I don't think he'll tell you what they're doing on a page builder page, you know when edit mode but it will tell you you know where they've gone and sort of content they've updated so I think it's quite I don't look at it as much as I should do but I think it's it does tell me a lot about the clients.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:30:10] Do you know what this strikes me as the sort of thing that everybody should set I mean including me. Don't please don't get me wrong. It's the sort of thing that we should set 20 minutes a week of aside for 20 minutes half an hour whatever for this activity. Let's let's look at those logs. Let's see who logged who's logged in?
Let's log in ourselves or look at their website. Let's shoot a video write an email and even if you just did to a week you'd been you've been making a lot of Headway and really expressing to those clients. Carpi. This is this guy's really these guys are really working on my behalf. This is fabulous.
David Waumsley: [00:30:45] Hey, hey, do you do you ever give your clients? I know some do any free gifts, not a Christmas gift or something
Nathan Wrigley: [00:30:52] Interesting. I did experiment with that for a while. I don't but there was I think I know where you're going with this and I used to offer kind of a referral. Thing which was basically a bottle of wine. So if you referred somebody to me because like I said a lot of my I've said in the past a lot of my referrals come through word of mouth. I do very often say how did you hear about? Uh, so it was John John Smith, whatever. Alright thanks. I'll make a note of that and I'll tell them that I'll give Jim John Smith rather a bottle of wine. So that's as far as I've ever really gone to be honest.
David Waumsley: [00:31:31] So this is just for all new customers, but do you just for the existing clients for now.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:31:35] I'm sorry to say no. I'm not as kind as I should be clearly. Why where are you going with this? What are you?
David Waumsley: [00:31:42] Well, I don't and to be honest. You see also it's part of the message. I'm trying to get over for my business which is like, you know that we're trying to keep the costs as low as possible so you can achieve more for your business. So I think there might be slightly suspicious if I started to give them free gifts, you know.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:32:00] Yeah, that's right. You're far too comfortable.
David Waumsley: [00:32:04] Yeah, it's likely that's my big fear about that one. But no, the other thing of it something I have started to do is I have got a page now and and again using their dashboards to advertise it in Facebook. I am now got a incentivised referrals there. So they get a set amount if they find someone and they can give to their friend also a discount code to they'll get reduction in their hosting, you know, and I sell it that.
You know these benefits them their friend and also to us because we could do more of what we love that kind of cheesy stuff.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:32:38] So you actually send cash out of your account to their account not just give them a discount on there. They're their housing each month. That is that is interesting. Okay.
David Waumsley: [00:32:48] Well, I will do that. I mean it should prove it. I've just started this up but made it official so and it's really not gone out yet, but it's going to just sit there. I'm not going to push this because it's going to sound desperate. But because I fact I'm sticking it permanently in their dashboard. It's going to probably sink in
Nathan Wrigley: [00:33:05] Did you toy with any other referral incentives aside of cash? And cash off things with I mean do you ever think about other things like real world things? Perhaps time on a Skype call or you know time with me 30 minutes dedicate time where we'll go through your site after it's finished. I don't know.
David Waumsley: [00:33:24] I don't know I didn't really do you think I should?
Nathan Wrigley: [00:33:30] I was just going to say occurs to me that maybe maybe a not, you know, multiple choice there. If you like you could choose 50 50 pounds off or you could have 25 minutes with me talking through your site or I'm just making it up but maybe some of these referral schemes like cash might work for some or it might just be an immediate Nair whatever to others whereas actual you're imparting knowledge to meet might be worth more to them than cash.
David Waumsley: [00:33:58] Yeah. Well, I think you're right. I need to think about this again. I might get I can always change these things out. That's right.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:34:04] Yeah, but whatever the incentive is, I do like it, you know, whether I'm sure that people are love Don incentive schemes for a you know, Myriad different range of things, but I have I suppose on WP Builds we have something akin to that. We have these sort of like giveaways where we incentivize people to. To win competitions and the way that they do that is by sharing things or social media. Those can be quite powerful. I can't see this applicable in this case because it's about acquiring new customers, but I suppose it could be repurposed.qYou know, we'll give you a bottle of wine. If you refer five people over the next month or 50 Quid off or a consultation or whatever. It might be.
David Waumsley: [00:34:43] Yeah, it's a really tricky one. I think I mean I spent a long time trying to write my little landing page then we will go to if they're interested because I I really wanted to get over the fact that you know, they they won't refer to some I wanted them to not feel like they would refer somebody because they were desperate for the money.
So I you know, I had to write it in such a way that this is you already do this for us and so grateful we want to say, thank you. We know the money won't be important to you. So likely ideas that you'll send those people that are nice like you and yeah, it's you know, maybe it's that kind of approach with it because it can be really dangerous is that if you're trying to build a close relationship to try and stick, you know money directly in their faces.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:35:25] Yeah, I suppose this also comes, you know, the conversation might come about as to when do you deploy this? You know, is it is it is it as soon as you've signed the contract with them and before you finish the website or is it six months after the website is up and running and it's really pretty obvious that they're they're happy or is. Part of an email sequence after they've done a certain action. Do you then offer the incentive scheme? I don't know what the answer is to that you could spray out to everyone that you've you've ever come across in all honesty. Couldn't you an incentive referring people to your website building service for 50 Quid in cash that it's like affiliate marketing anybody could be involved in that but whether or not you want everybody involved, I don't know.
David Waumsley: [00:36:08] Yeah, and I tried to make it just it's just here for clients only people who know as well and just us but you know my way around this rather than sort of pushing it out to them is I put it as a sticky in the Facebook group at which as I say is and he got a few 14 people in it at the moment because I haven't pushed it but also as people come on for new bills, it's going to be sitting there in their dashboard. So I went actively go and it'll just be sat there was information they can act on it they want however he say. Here it is. Do this.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:36:38] It was my accountant actually many years ago that gave me the idea of the bottle of wine and it was one of the things that he said right off the bat, you know soon as we'd agreed that he was going to be my County said look I'll give you I'll give you as many bottle of wines as you can drink as long as you refer people to me, you know, one referral equals a bottle of wine, and he actually he drives it over.
And brings it round if you ever do it literally comes over the bottle of wine presents it to you and says there you go such and such just came and signed on. I really appreciate it. Thanks a lot. It's really it's great touch.
David Waumsley: [00:37:11] Yeah, it sounds it sounds nicer than my money thing. I'm going to have to rethink this
Nathan Wrigley: [00:37:15] while no because you're always moving all over the world. It's going to be impossible for you to rock up boy. That really would be a stretch you would be I would be your customer for life. If you came from India to England to give me a bottle of wine,
David Waumsley: [00:37:30] But I have contacts in the UK. Yeah. Okay, right. Okay, and the Glamorous assistant is yeah.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:37:38] So what else have we got on our list of things?
David Waumsley: [00:37:42] We'll let you know what we didn't finish off say I wanted to mention and that was instead of gifts and I haven't done this again. This is all this little my theory stuff, but I thought about it last year and I bought something you didn't turn out to work out plug-in that was going to give to clients for Christmas instead.
But now I'm thinking about. Tools which I've bought which are not using because they're not doing the digital marketing so much that I could offer them for free like a cure anchor which can look at this kind of rankings of certain of their pages and stuff and how that's changing or heat mapping or Google reports and all those stuff.
Now, I'm thinking I might as well give these away as gifts because that the research that will come from them. What could start a conversation for you know doing more work for them?
Nathan Wrigley: [00:38:26] So is this your offering your expertise in using that tool? Are you or are you literally offering to give them the the license that you bought?
David Waumsley: [00:38:36] I'll use up some only stole it for them so they can get the reports and and send that to them. So accurate anchors fairly simple thing. I'm not really using it. I bought great deal AB Sumo again. So I got a lot of its not being used I could just add that is a bit labor-intensive. But with some people I think that's going to be their interest.
I could just say, you know, just you've been with us a long time going to set you up for this in might be of interest to you.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:38:58] I think that's and let me see idea. I think it's a really good idea. No just the I can imagine reading that email and you know, we've got this we've got this service. We think it might be of use to you will set it up for you.
It's just a congratulations for sticking with us for a year. We don't offer this to everybody but as you've stuck with us and you know, we've got a great relationship going on. Here we go. This is for you free of charge Mmm Yeah like it.
David Waumsley: [00:39:23] Yeah, and it just might you know Peak their interest because at least they'll be starting to get some interested in how the traffic is which hopefully will lead on to some, you know, some needs that they have a need for filling that I might be able to fill.
Yeah. No.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:39:37] Yeah. No, that's a great idea and you've put in our little show notes, you know, there's a whole load of other things like you. You could give them an analysis of like Google reports or give them help with like heat mapping or something here that I great great idea really good.
David Waumsley: [00:39:51] I think the heat map is a good one because actually I mean some of the earlier sites that we had. I think they've got some really a Humdinger of mistakes in their navigation. So just if I just went stuck it on and show this might give a little job, but maybe I don't know again, it's balancing, you know the work and you've got to pick the clients well, but which is why I think you need. More info on you know, then...Yeah.
Yeah.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:40:13] No, I think that's a great idea really good ideas of incentivizing by offering something which you can already do and would normally cost much I think maybe that I would frame it like that. Actually, I don't know how I'd frame it, but it would be something like, you know, we've got this service that we normally offer and I wouldn't lie would have to be something I did offer we do SEO but because you've been you know, it's normally charged at six. I don't know. So I've 60 pounds a month or something. But we're going to give you 6 months of it for free. Maybe that's a an interesting way and you know, give them a nice nice free period of something which you might ordinarily charge.
David Waumsley: [00:40:53] Yeah, but you know, I bet we've all bought kind of some great lifetime deal on a product that would now cost a lot per month, you know.
So yeah I certainly have and I'm not really using them because the clients haven't requested it. So I really it really is time to just suddenly say, you know will give you that and I'll set you up with some of our you say. Just point them to where they can see the price it right the value of what we're giving them.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:41:18] Yeah, great idea really good idea. Yeah, I like that a lot. But really great. Yeah. What else have we got?
David Waumsley: [00:41:25] Well for me not much, but surely maybe just cover what brownie mentions in her book about stuff that other businesses, perhaps do?
So some you know, I don't know if we can apply this to what we do satisfaction tracking. You know, I guess this is some kind of rating as along the way, you know, actually we do have it. I say we don't have that but no one uses it so I do use a tool. For support tickets, not that get many of them and it does actually say I think something on there about rating the satisfaction. I don't think anyone's ever rated me ever.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:42:01] Did you see there's a as a new plugin. I think it's called WP helpful, which is going to offer this capability at the end. If this is really about your the content that you put out but there's going to be this satisfaction rating. What's that scale called where you see it on all sorts of products and services like just you do it's like a.
NPR rating or something like that? No. Yes. Yes that what it's called where you just basically say out of one to ten quickly. What do you think about our service and you click seven and then it says why did you put seven and you just spoke to do it in like 10 seconds? I've never deployed that ever but I understand it's quite effective because it's so short lived and it takes seconds to do.
David Waumsley: [00:42:44] Yeah, I think so. Do you know I honestly don't think I would any satisfaction tracking. I don't have enough people to implement and mystery calling. I don't have some companies do that don't know how we could apply that to our color businesses.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:42:59] I mean again, I'm sure it's very useful but in my. What are you thinking about? I mean, I know what it means in terms of like a shop or something you go and explore the experience of the shop and then kind of report back to the shop owner exactly what it was like and how the staff behaved and so on and so forth. How would you deploy that with a website?
David Waumsley: [00:43:17] Yeah thing has yeah, it's been sending your spies in I was a mystery shopper for but not when I say I was a mystery shopper. I did it with actually a member of my staff of occasions to go on the her adventures. It was quite good fun
Nathan Wrigley: [00:43:32] really?
David Waumsley: [00:43:33] Yeah, but I don't know how we could possibly because we haven't got sort of physical place where you can go I suppose we could send.
But again, that's user testing, isn't it? So yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we can't do that one forget that one regular check-ins with a count managers like again, it's not something I think we could do so easily
Nathan Wrigley: [00:43:54] no, no. Okay. What else have you got?
David Waumsley: [00:43:58] Exit interviews is something all the businesses do so, you know, I think that's a really good idea.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:44:04] Yeah, you know, I I've got such a story about this from the last week. I've basically I don't do it and you can explain to us in a minute why you think they're a good idea but either had a fairly. Gut-wrenching one this week where a client left and as part of the as part of their final package our or whatever it was of their care plan. They got me to explain to another business how they were they WordPress website was kind of run I couldn't really argue because they'd already said that they were going to leave and I was like, yeah and then. Got me on the call and said can we just you know, make sure that all the migration is going to happen during the last hour?
And I said, yeah, that's all fine. That's yeah you paid for the hour. I'll give you the out there was a bit strange to have to have to explain how the website was all configured. And what have you during that hour? I I did it and I I coped with it, but I should have used that as an opportunity to ask them a whole bunch of things like you're about to elucidate.
David Waumsley: [00:45:07] Yeah, but you've already told me that they were really nice about that.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:45:11] So it is yes. So it turns out after the fact even though it was a little bit strange. It turns out that after the fact they they then the lady in this case wrote me an email and said, you know, you've been so good. It's been really, you know a great experience working with you. We will happily come back to you as soon as our needs change. So that was really nice. That made me think okay, because there's no there was absolutely no need for her to send that email, but she did so I was delighted by that.
David Waumsley: [00:45:41] Yeah, I think that's great. You know, I've had similar one thing that was quite happy about somebody who left and it's with my encouragement they left as well, but it got a bit tense because they were really they knew my colleague better and they had a whole different relationship and I was expecting things that we couldn't offer but.
Just the way that kind of handled that I didn't get much information. But the way he handled it refunding instantly when I don't think they were expecting it and being quite kind and and helpful about their move did mean that this person who was at, you know kind of arguing with us, and we couldn't move to just said I think it was all my fault.
At the end. I just thought well that's left that the route open and I think being an adult does but maybe that's not what I'm trying to get to actually so the exit interviews why I think they're good is because it's just going to give us the truth. Maybe about how rubbish our services are that we don't really want listen to and we're not good at that.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:46:37] Not well, no. I not particularly. I mean it is is hard to hear that people have found somebody better. They've got a new girlfriend. Oh, you know you're feeling is you've sort of been dumped a little bit and there's a better thing on the horizon, especially if you know that they're actually moving over to a different agency, but I think it's useful stuff.
You know, it'd be good to know. Well, you don't. You don't ever speak to us. You don't contact us this agency kept pestering us every week. Okay, right tick I need to get better at that or your phone man is not very good or you I don't know you'll never available on the phone. Even when we phone you up your your promise of answering a replying to emails every couple of days. It just doesn't exist. It's good. Good good Intel, you know.
David Waumsley: [00:47:19] Yeah, I think so. I mean I've experienced of exit interviews because I had to carry them out Falstaff when they used to leave hmm our employment before and. You know, you have to treat them with a pinch of salt but yes, I mean the different kind of mood and they're probably be more kind and it would but I think anything I think if we're a adult enough and can bear it.
I think it's really useful to get some of the negatives or perceptions. I guess it'll be down to the questions you ask and you probably. You want to get to their feelings? I think if this is all about emotions, which is the idea of keeping this that they love you that they feel attached to you.
That's what you want to get to I guess with the exit interview.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:47:58] Yeah. Absolutely. I think I think it's a good idea despite the fact I never do it. I do think it's a good mother and as with all these things there's more processes that we should Implement them. I've got time for but yeah fair enough good technique.
David Waumsley: [00:48:10] Yeah. I don't know if all that I'll ever do this as well. But it's just good to know that there's that it's a thought isn't it? Yeah, we're getting close to the end. I don't really looking through what she said before. Oh, they already do that check. How much people are you making use of your services as a whole so that something from the book?
That's something that we probably want to look at and that's what I've started to do by spying on when people log in but I don't think there's any other ways the other ways we can kind of track clients that is base of is
Nathan Wrigley: [00:48:41] no not really because most of the interactions that I do not based on computers, you know, it's it's things like telephone calls or why I shouldn't have said computer. I meant websites. It's based upon telephone calls. It's based upon emails and things so I can't really see ways to track them. I just think going back to the stuff that we said at the beginning, you know, just being being out there in front of them all the time in a non sleazy non. Well, Judge for yourself how often you've got to do it, you know find an important reason to contact them.
So for example, you've spotted something which is a glaring error on their website. You got a typo on the header of your homepage that kind of thing send them a video do that kind of thing and it's a Justified reason for keeping in touch as far as I'm concerned.
David Waumsley: [00:49:23] Yeah, sure sure something I want to do. I don't know if I'll get it done. I'm pretty Keen to do it but I was thinking about lead generation things what I could come up with because I think we tend to do the same stuff which is like well, you know will analyze your site for free or whatever, but I thought about just maybe a series of small little videos 5 minutes one that a week that comes out taking from somebody else who did similar kind of.
Content weekly and it's just gives them ways that they could improve, you know, small little things they can do to perhaps get more business from the site but include some of our services but I thought this is a lead magnet, but I thought. This will have this will be perfect to give to people who haven't come through that lead magnet my existing customers as a way of just being before their faces and look like I'm helping them without selling them.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:50:12] So yeah, yeah that seems like a good idea. You're full of good ideas today. Some of this is gold. I'm sure
David Waumsley: [00:50:19] probably stuff. I'll never do that.
Nathan Wrigley: [00:50:22] It's gold, but it's still buried in the ground. I think we're done.
David Waumsley: [00:50:29] Indeed. Yes, I love that was
Nathan Wrigley: [00:50:31] a good chat thing. Yeah, really? Nice charred. Like I said, a lot of those things were just really revelatory to me. Is that even a word they were revelations to me. That was really very good. Thanks. Thanks. Dave. So will will be returning to this topic slightly differently talking more about this. Ladies book next time. We we did we chat
David Waumsley: [00:50:53] bye
Nathan Wrigley: [00:50:53] bye. Well, I hope that you enjoyed that it's always a pleasure chatting to David Waumsley. Not only because I like him rather a lot. But also I just think he's full of really interesting innovative ideas. Lots of the things that He suggests I would never have thought about so that's really nice. I hope that you managed to find some value in that please leave some comments come and join us in our Facebook group.
It's a WP Builds.com forward slash Facebook and we'd be glad to get the discussion going around this topic. The wp builds podcast was brought to you today by WP and UP one in four of us will be directly affected by mental health related illness wpn up supports and promotes positive mental health within the WordPress Community.
This is achieved through mentorship events training and counseling. Please help enable WP and up by visiting WP and UP org, /give. Okay, join us later today. If you're listening to this on Monday every week inside the Facebook group or at WP Builds.com /live we host our. Live event where I get on a video chat with two or three more people from the WordPress community and we talk about the news which was published on Monday, and then of course, we've got our regular podcast, which is coming out on Thursday.
So I hope to see you at some point during this week, and if not, bye. Bye for now.
