Tier Services and Segment Your Clients

Don’t exhaust yourself by trying to be all things to all people. After all, are you really trying to make just anyone your client? Of course not, because one ‘A’ level client is worth 10 ‘C’ level clients. Be a few things to a few people. Twenty percent of Starbucks’ customers visit the store sixteen times per month! You’ll notice they do not do many specials to attract new customers, but instead target specials towards people who are already loyal to them. Segmenting allows you to do two things: make the most of time spent with your best clients and focus on your niche market.

Be Consistent

Deliver what you promised. In my many trips to Starbucks, I cannot recall ever seeing a customer return their order unsatisfied. The extensive training of their baristas means when a product is ordered, the barista knows exactly what to deliver. The only real way to do this is to sit down and create protocol for every typical scenario your employees encounter. Don’t leave your employees to wonder and flounder on how to handle certain situations. When a client calls the office and is concerned about how the investments in their portfolio are performing, there should be a protocol. When a client calls, eager to open a new investment account right away but you are booked solid with meetings for three weeks, there should be a protocol. Being seen as reliable, trustworthy and dependable is built on consistency. You can achieve this by making your protocol thorough, empowering your employees through training and ensuring clients receive the same great service over and over again.

Offer a Superior Product

If Starbucks coffee wasn’t any good, it simply would not sell. So while customer experience is incredibly important, you must first have a quality product. I know what you may be thinking. How is my product as a financial advisor any different from other advisor’s? The secret is that it is personalized to each client. There may be no worse product than cookie cutter financial services. If you are not remembering the important details of your clients’ lives – their hopes, dreams and goals – you are failing to provide them with a superior product designed to meet their needs.

Give Clients an Experience They Want to Share

Starbucks creates a pleasant atmosphere by carefully selecting things like music, seating arrangements and decorations. When someone enjoys this experience, they return with a friend.

Do something memorable for your clients that they would not expect. It may be something unique about your waiting area, like having entertainment not typically found in an office setting, fresh cookies or their favorite drink on hand. Your office should have a unique atmosphere so that clients look forward to their time with you and in turn, refer you to their friends.

1. Your building quality matters

Your website is like a building and just as people don’t want to be inside a building that is poorly built, they don’t want to be on a website that is poorly built either. Just like buildings too, you tend to get what you pay for. There is a reason you can pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for a website. They aren’t all created equally. Your site speed, a safe connection, ease of navigation, and how fast your pages load are all factors that influence bounce rate or how quickly someone leaves your site. The faster users bounce, the less Google trusts your site and the further down the search results list you’ll end up.

2. Content

The content of your website is of extreme importance. If your content is outdated, incorrect, or a cookie-cutter of another website, your website will be bumped down the list of search results displayed by a search engine. How clearly your content is written also matters. If you’re a nutritionist and you write the question “How many carbs should I eat?” and give a clear answer to this question in a blog post, Google could display your website directly under the search bar when users google that question.

3. Mobile Responsiveness

If your website is not optimized for mobile viewing, you have a big problem, because the majority of web searches today are conducted from a mobile device. If your website is not optimized for mobile, it will not even be displayed in the search results when a mobile user tries to search for your website. One can see if a site is mobile responsive simply by trying to view the website from a mobile device. When you view a non-mobile responsive site on a mobile device, it is very difficult to navigate. You will have to use your fingers to pan around the pages instead of experiencing them automatically resized to fit your device’s screen.

4. Age isn’t just a number

You may have a beautiful, wonderfully functioning site with all the right content but you aren’t getting the ranking you deserve in the search results list. Give it time. We would trust that a 40-year-old was an expert on a subject over a 4-year-old, right? Google works the same way. The more often people click on your site after their keyword search and the lower your bounce rate, the higher you will rise on the search results list. Good SEO is not something that happens overnight. It usually takes about one year for a brand new business with a new website to achieve good ranking results.

5. Internal linking

Something you may have noticed is that bloggers tend to link back to other blogs on a similar topic that they mention in their other blog posts. This is not just done for your convenience or for organization. When you link back to a topic, that gives Google one more reason to put your site on the search results list.

6. Keyword phrases

You may be wondering what key phrases are going to help someone to land on your site. Begin by making a list of relevant words that are important in your industry that need to be mentioned in your content. Do a Google search and see what other key phrases you see appearing often in your search. And lastly, check to see if your competitors are high ranking when you search specific key phrases. This is an indication that you for sure want to include key phrases in your content.

7. Off-site directories

How your website ranks is also important in off-site directories. Off-site directories are like the yellow pages of the internet. When you go to Google for example and type in the name of a business, a list of the closest businesses to you with a map marking their locations appears. This is Google’s directory. Other popular directories include Bing and Yahoo. You want to ensure your business is listed in these top directories as well as other directories which are commonly searched in your industry. It is also important to make sure your business is listed only once in each directory and that the way it is listed is exactly the same in each directory down to abbreviations or complete spellings in the address. If you are a locally owned gym in your city and you are not even showing up when people search for a gym in your city or worse, gyms in a neighboring city are ranking above you, you know you need to reach out to be listed in the directory or discover what the problem is.

1. Messenger apps are on the rise.

Per a recent Business Insider survey, more than half of customers surveyed said they were more likely to make purchases from a company that can be reached out to via a chat app. 63% of those polled use message apps with businesses more than they did in years past and 67% plan to use more message apps to communicate with businesses in the future.^{^}

So how do you take advantage of this trend? Many businesses are using these apps to offer general customer service, to answer product questions, make recommendations and reservations. With this trend has come the rise in chatbots. Chatbots are computer programs that simulate human conversation. Chatbots can help companies lower their team’s customer service issues load by answering many basic questions customers may have. Facebook has designed their messenger app to help customers feel heard, even when you’re not online, and they offer the opportunity to send a business a message as soon as someone lands on your page.

2. Video content is taking over.

Hubspot reports 75% of internet traffic this year will focus on video content due to the rise in popularity of live video content from platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.^* Live video features provide a unique way to launch products and services as well as host live Q&A sessions to connect with your audience. Many mobile users will watch videos without sound as they scroll through their social media feed. Be sure to include captions to your videos to grab the attention of mobile users.

3. ECommerce on social media is increasing.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest have all made the purchasing of products available via their platforms. Snapchat began testing eCommerce in the spring of 2016. Instagram has also been in the testing phase of an ecommerce option since late last year with clickable posts that have a “buy now” option that is expected to take off with its 600 million users. You should never feel like you must make purchasing available across all popular social media platforms though. Consider your audience. The majority of users on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter are between the ages of 18 and 34, but most Snapchat users are younger, with the majority of users being 24 or under. Pinterest users also tend to be female.

4. “Stories” features are taking center stage.

Some experts are predicting that Instagram will surpass Snapchat in popularity because of the addition of a “stories” feature which allows users to make content permanent or only available for a set period. Instagram also offers more analytics than Snapchat, allowing you to better determine the effectiveness of content.

5. More options for social media ads.

Until now, Facebook had the monopoly on social media advertisements and the data they provide to you is hard to beat. Although, Twitter is now seeing an increase in advertising, especially in the mobile format. Snapchat and Instagram of course, are not letting themselves get left behind. Snapchat recently made it easier to purchase ad space and added a variety to video ad options and sponsored filters although ad space on Snapchat is not as affordable as advertising on Facebook or Instagram. Instagram’s advertising options now include photo ads, video ads, carousel ads, and stories ads. Over one million companies advertise monthly on Instagram and since the company is owned by Facebook, ads are managed on Facebook manager, making it easy for those already running ads on Facebook to start with Instagram as well.

6. Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

In 2014, Google Cardboard, a foldable cardboard virtual reality viewer designed to hold a smartphone, was purchased by 5 million consumers in the first 19 months. Since then, more expensive VR viewers have emerged, but at $15 each, Google cardboard offers an easy way to reach the masses. Many big-name companies are using VR to provide users an inside look at their brand and their products unseen before.

Augmented Reality is the superimposing of a computer-generated image upon the real world. Pokémon Go made AR a hit with the world last year. Pokémon Go is a gaming app which allows users to search for and collect fictitious characters hidden all over the world using a smartphone. We launched our own Pokémon Go marketing campaign for a local client last year which was a huge success. Facebook is currently working fast and furious to add AR to all its apps to allow users to leave virtual notes or images for friends. This technology is sure to open new marketing possibilities like never seen before for corporate users.

1. Be willing to let go.

You cannot effectively lead if you are trying to manage every little detail. You need to properly train your employees so that they are confident that they know how to handle sticky situations. Don’t continue to do a job you are paying someone else to do. If you feel like your employees are coming to you to make every tiny decision in the office after being with you for months or years, something is wrong. Either you have not properly trained these employees, you have not instilled confidence in them that they know their job well, or you have not effectively communicated your goals to them. If you have hired the right people, the right people don’t need to be managed. For tips on hiring the right people, read my blog on Employment Retention Strategies.

2. Be willing to learn.

If you have the attitude that you have nothing to learn from your employees, you are managing and not leading. Everyone you hire has a different skill set and something to teach you. Most of the members of my team at LMG did something else before they got into marketing, graphic design, or web development. They have a wide variety of past experiences as different as the military, education, and banking. From these experiences, they bring a wide variety of skill sets to the table. Everyone knows something you don’t. If you think being a leader means you’re the only one that has solutions to problems that arise within your company, you’re wrong. Take the weight off your shoulders and let your team suggest how they would solve problems that arise.

3. Communicate.

When you mess up, admit it. When your team does something awesome, brag on them. When you’re not sure how to improve your leadership, ask them. Some may be intimidated to tell the boss what to do better. Simply asking employees about past employers can teach you a lot about what type of qualities your team values in a leader.

4. Allow employees to grow in the direction they chose.

I’m going to assume for a minute that most of your employees are not students working in their first job. That means by the time they get to you, your employees have a good idea of what their strengths and weaknesses are. In our office, I make it a priority to not set a new employee’s job duties in stone right away. Let your employees show you what their strengths are. Don’t focus on weaknesses. Let your employees grow into a role that fits their interests. Make it a point to ask employees what parts of their role they enjoy and which ones they don’t. No one enjoys 100% of the tasks they have to do in their position 100% of the time, but if you have someone completing a task they dislike that someone else is capable of doing and wants to do, let them do it. If you have a task that needs to be completed, before assigning it to someone specifically, ask your team who would like to take on the task.

1. Hire the best.

If you want to keep your employees, first you need to hire the right people. Take your time deciding who to interview and don’t be afraid to have multiple interviews. The right person will keep coming back and be willing to do what you require. Here at LMG, depending on the position, there are a variety of steps we take to ensure we are hiring the right people from the get-go. We may ask to see a portfolio to decide if the candidate’s work ethic and skills are what we are looking for. We may ask them to take an aptitude test. We also commonly give group interviews to see how the candidate interacts with our team.

2. Make team members valuable as quickly as possible.

According to a recent Gallup poll, 87% of millennials feel that professional development and opportunity for growth within their career is one of the most important aspects of choosing a workplace.^* Your strategy here will depend on the size of your business and industry, but the bottom line is to train and train well. Training should be an ongoing process and employees should be encouraged to continually grow into areas of the company that fit their interests.

Every aspect of making someone part of your team does not have to be formal training. As many of our employees that can work in one room together do, cultivating teamwork in our office. Onboarding a new employee and putting them in an office alone to figure things out is not the best idea. Not knowing how to deal with unavoidable workplace problems and who to reach out to leads to frustration and feeling unappreciated. Your business may include different strategies, such as new employee orientations to ease first-day anxieties and help employees learn the ropes or training apps employees can refer to and learn at their own pace.

3. Offer the best benefits you can.

You may only be a five-man operation and cannot afford to offer traditional benefits such as 401ks or life insurance, but that does not mean you cannot compete with a larger employer. These benefits do not even have to cost you a cent. One of the best benefits you can give employees is flexibility. The Gallup poll I previously referenced stated that providing work-life balance was key to keeping employees satisfied in the work place^*. Can you allow employees to set their own schedule or trade out holidays for other days they would prefer to be off? This is a great incentive. Can you offer a more relaxed environment where employees dress casually? Do it!

4. Create a family culture.

Although this is the last suggestion I’m mentioning, it is far from the least important. As previously mentioned, our employees all work closely together. Everyone learns from one another and has a hand in nearly every project we do, helping employees to feel equally valued. Our company has seen incredible growth in the last few years. Some of our employees work remotely to alleviate this growth in our office, but we ensure everyone feels connected and part of our “family.” We pay the travel expenses for employees to return to the office for a day or two on a regular basis. We celebrate birthdays together, have happy hour events and host quarterly company fun days.