Episode #086 Creating a Bookkeeping Automated Follow-up Process – hosted by Angie Martin

Check out the previous 3 episodes to get yourself up-to-date with the automation series:

• Episode 1 https://thesavvybookkeeper.com.au/Podcast/why-bookkeepers-need-a-website/
• Episode 2 https://thesavvybookkeeper.com.au/Podcast/streamline-your-bookkeeping-business-with-the-help-of-your-website/
• Episode 3 https://thesavvybookkeeper.com.au/Podcast/why-bookkeepers-need-a-followup-process/
• Book a free initial consultation with me (Angie)

Summary Keywords: Workflow automation, client follow up emails, sales follow up, sales process, process automation

6 steps to create a workflow automation for the client follow up process

 

Angie Martin  0:01 

Hello, everyone, hope everyone's having a fantastic Friday today. Once again, this is Angie from the savvy team. And I'm joined again, which is super excited with Maia.

 

Maia Coghlan  0:15 

Hi, everyone.

 

Angie Martin  0:16 

Awesome. So we are, again, we make up part of the Savvy team. And we are going to continue on with our conversation about follow up process and really using workflows and automations to make your life easier, just very exciting. And it's something that we've both nerd out to and just love,

 

Maia Coghlan  0:39 

don't we? Yeah, automations and processes and workflows and some of the things

 

Angie Martin  0:44 

it is. And it's one of those things that once you are getting more comfortable with it and understand how much it can help your life. I think it's one of those things that everyone ends up loving them. Because we both love them for different reasons. So you love, like, doing it and setting it up and everything. And I just like the result. I'm like, fine. Yeah, you do like both? That's true. I don't love setting it up.

 

Maia Coghlan  1:12 

I mean, honestly, if I could get the result without setting it up, I would love it.

 

Angie Martin  1:15 

Yeah

 

Maia Coghlan  1:18 

But like I do enjoy doing it.

 

Angie Martin  1:20 

Yeah.

 

Maia Coghlan  1:22 

And detective mystery process of trying to figure out exactly what needs to go where and everything to make it work,

 

Angie Martin  1:29 

You are really good at it too.

 

Maia Coghlan  1:32 

Problem solving.

Sales follow up from a new fresh perspective

 

Angie Martin  1:33 

Yeah, you're really good at it. But I just like the result of how much time it saves me. And it just makes I love it. Because it makes me be able to provide a better customer service quality, that is always just really important to me. And it makes it easier for me to do it. So it's just really great. So what we're going to be talking about today, guys is really going off of the sales follow up chat that we had last week, and talk about how to actually create these sales follow ups and what's basically involved in doing it. And the easiest way I kind of got my head around to be able to present it to you guys over a podcast was creating basically seven steps to creating your follow up process. So I've broken it down into seven steps for you to make it nice and easy. And something you can follow along with we are going to write up a blog to go with this podcast. So the seven steps will be written up as well as for you to actually look through and follow in writing as well just to make life easier. Because that's what we do. So first step is basically you need to start fresh. So many bookkeepers that I talk about who have tried to do sales follow ups or do a sales process of some sort, have all of these know horror stories, but negative experiences that they've had, or something just hasn't worked out the way they wanted to. So they have a already kind of jilted concept of creating a follow up system. So the first step you need to do is you need to forget what you've done in the past and just start over without judgement. It's super important, just to clear your slate I know. You know, when I first started, I completely changed our follow up process. And even just even a couple months ago, I changed it again. And it caused a lot of extra work for Maia.

 

Maia Coghlan  3:45 

It really did

 

Angie Martin  3:46 

It was I think it's been hours of extra work now, hasn't it?

 

Maia Coghlan  3:51 

Yeah, but it won't be it. Yeah, it's really working.

 

Angie Martin  3:55 

Yeah, it's making it amazing. And it's again, delivering a better form of customer service. And it's really helping us connect with clients on another level.

 

Maia Coghlan  4:09 

Yeah, I really like this as the first step, like, stop fresh. It's really good. Because, like, if you've been doing something, and it hasn't been working, and keep doing it, yeah, do it differently. Yes. Or, like so many people will say, yeah, I've tried doing your follow up calls. I've tried these emails, and it just doesn't work. It's just not for me. That's not true. What you've done doesn't work. That doesn't mean the process doesn't work. It just means the way you've tackled it previously doesn't work. So forget about that, or, or learn from that. You know, what doesn't work. Now you need to find a way to do it in a way that does work. And sometimes it's just trial and error.

 

Angie Martin  4:55 

Yeah. And it's sometimes like I've been doing this for so long that I even go, Okay, this is working, but I want it to actually work better. So I want to take the automations to another level in the sales process to another level and get some more work to do. I love giving you more work to do. I'm about to give you more work as well, because I'm going to do a thing with our follow ups as well, which I haven't told. I'll

 

Maia Coghlan  5:26 

bring that I'm in the middle of Yeah, forgot

 

How to map out your sales process

 

Angie Martin  5:28 

to budget it to you the other day. But um, no, it's one of those things that a follow up process is just like your bookkeeping processes, there's always room for improvement. And one way that you've done bookkeeping forever, and let's, let's say 30 years doesn't mean that it's how you do it. Now. There's always ways to improve. And yeah, you're right. Like, if something doesn't work, don't keep doing it. And don't just not do it, find a new way to do it. So hopefully, this base podcast series will help you find that way. So that's the first step. The second step is actually creating your sales experience, you need to actually map out what experience you want your clients potential clients to go through. And this is really important. And this is one of the things that we've started to tell people to basically do for any mentoring session with you, Maya is actually mapping out what they need. Because you can't create a process until you actually know where you want it to go. It's one of those steps, that's just really, really important. You actually need to always like saying strategize, but you can say plan mapped out anything, it's all the same thing. But you need to really think about the experience that you want potential clients to have, you need to break it down. And once you break it down, then you can figure out all the different touch points in actual follow up steps that you need to do. And then you can create the automations. And that's what you're really good at Maia is aren't you?

 

Maia Coghlan  7:17 

Yes. Yeah.

 

Angie Martin  7:19 

Yes. It's amazing. I love watching your your brain work. Once we you're like, Okay, so I want this to happen. This is my plan for the experience. And then you can actually see the wheels turning in your

 

Maia Coghlan  7:32 

head. I know, I was just gonna say the wheels turning like, like, imagine a yield time machine with a little bit, the cogs and everything going. And that's like, when you give me a problem like this, that's when my brain just starts like, turning around and be like, okay, so if we do this thing, then we do this thing, then we might need to do this thing then. But what if we do that it's gonna make that happens and don't want that we want to do this. And basically, it's a problem solving. And you know, bookkeepers love problem solving. Yeah. I mean, that's, it's kind of like, it's, in a way, it's a similar thought process to doing a health check or something.

 

Angie Martin  8:14 

Yeah, I couldn't, I was thinking that earlier, it's very much like a health check, you have to go through and know the end result. So

 

Maia Coghlan  8:23 

create a you need an R where you want to end up and where you want to start at. And then you have to fill in the blanks in the middle.

 

Angie Martin  8:30 

Exactly. So important. Yeah. Especially when it comes to sales. And especially when it comes to sales with people who aren't hundred percent comfortable doing sales. I think that is really, really important. is, you know, not everyone can easily pick up the phone and just like have a chat with someone and then sell something to them. Not everyone are like that. My I learned it from my dad. My dad is amazing at it. He's a pharmacist, but he's one of those people who he provides the value added. He's passionate about what he does, and then he can direct the person to the right thing to purchase. He doesn't think about the sale he's actually doing but it's all in his sales process. He just doesn't talk about it like that. He just says like, like he's helping the people like, yeah.

 

Maia Coghlan  9:27 

And you're all experts. Exactly. Street Exactly. You can all do exactly the same thing. You know, what these people need, and you don't have to treat it like a sales call. Just treat it like a I'm an expert, providing some advice call exactly what they like you. They'll work with sale.

How to automate client follow up emails

Angie Martin  9:52 

It's actually that easy. You know, there's a lot of intricacies in sales and one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about it. And while I've been doing it so long is that if I'm passionate about what I'm, quote, unquote, selling, it's an easy thing to do. And since, you know, with savvy, I'm just passionate about helping small businesses. I'm passionate about hopping bookkeepers, because you buy, domino effect helps small businesses. And it's all you know, the kindness thing, things. So typically, when I'm on a call with someone, and a lot of our listeners are clients, when I'm on a call with you, I'm not giving you a hard sell, I'm having a chat, giving you my value added information and then showing you how I can help you further. That's all a sales call is for bookkeepers, you just need to map that out. So what I kind of did, in this second step for creating your experiences, I kind of broke down the different kind of experiences you can have. So there is experiences that can increase referrals, there's experiences that you can create, to create trust, to strengthen your relationship with the lead to create testimonials and reviews. And that's really important for bookkeepers, because I think on math bookkeepers are horrible to ask for reviews, because you don't want to bother your clients. But you actually get more new clients with the reviews from your existing clients. You can create a experience for getting feedback to actually see how you are doing and providing your service what you could improve. establishing your authority, increasing your social media presence, reducing client support communication, which is really massive, especially right now, because of everything happening, you want to make sure that you can still communicate with your clients, but in a controlled way that isn't taking up your entire day. Also, increasing overall engagement. So if you want people to be communicating to you more, let's say they never contact you or let you know, if they hire a new employee, they just you just find out when you go through the books, you can create a follow up experience to increase that I just forgot that word there. Sorry, guys. And then it's also a way to identify and assign what we call in the industry as hot leads deals that are likely to close really quickly, and are the ones that you really don't want to miss following up. So there's so many different ways you can create these experiences. It's just really following, figuring out how to actually do it, to make it easy for you. I also wrote down in this one in my notes for today, to go through in your sales experience. You know, I just told you a whole heap of different follow up experiences you could do. Once you figure out to be clear, you don't have to do all yet you don't have to do all of those, those ones are just like examples of what you might want to be doing. Because some of you when I say sales experience, it doesn't necessarily mean sales to a new client. This could be just retaining of existing clients as well, because that's equal into one sentence. Exactly, exactly. And just, you know, the one with you know, reducing client support that is for existing clients, it can be whatever you want to streamline that you need to work on, basically. So anytime, let's say you want to increase your testimonials and reviews on Facebook and on Google, let's say that that's your goal for your follow ups. So in it, you need to figure out what the goal is. So for that one you want to that's directly for existing clients. So you need to figure out, if you your goal, overall goal is to collect testimonials. So for every single follow, you would need to then have like a link to actually provide them the option to do the testimonials to just go through and really figure out what exactly the end goal is. And then you can create your follow ups, if that makes sense. The next one is once you've created what the goal is, then people like Maya common and brains like Maya come in, and you tell you, it's time to stablish actual automations that need to be used. So with Maya, what I do is, let's say I want To increase our social media followings. So I'll tell her, this is what I want to do. And then together, we'll kind of sit down and be like, okay, so it's going to be a series of three emails, what automations need to be done?

 

Maia Coghlan  15:20 

Yeah, so we would determine, like what the best software is to use, like, what actually needs to be done? Is it connecting? Like, what are we sending an email? Um, yeah, how you want them spaced out over a certain period of time. What triggers the I think this is part of Step four, actually, what I'm saying?

 

Establishing process automation for your sales follow up

 

Angie Martin  15:53 

Well, let's combine step four. So step four is establishing the automation. So figuring out so let's say you have, let's say you have, you don't have a CRM, but you have a mail delivery service like MailChimp, or, you know, active campaigns is a really good one with bookkeepers. But let's say you have a mail delivery service. So that is going to be your main automation is using …

 

Maia Coghlan  16:22 

Yeah the automation platform. Yeah,

 

Angie Martin  16:24 

creating your emails, and then automating them through there. The next step is four – where you map our the process, which is now you can go.

 

Maia Coghlan  16:37 

So once you've got your goal you've got, you've got your automation platform that you're going to use, then that's, that's when you really get down to the nitty gritty of what needs to be done. So you determine what I guess the first, the first thing you would need to do is, who is the email going to be sent to, you want it to be sent to all of your clients, you want to be sent to be sent to all the new leads that come in through your website or through wherever, and you set up a trigger? That will end depending on what platform you're using? It's going to be called something different? Yeah, they'll generally all have an option of I want to send this, like enrol people in this automation, if they meet these requirements, is he a sickly?

 

Angie Martin  17:26 

I think pretty much everyone has, like every email – or has something like that.

 

Maia Coghlan  17:32 

Yeah, something like that. Um, so yeah, you choose that. And then you want to set like, do you want to set a tag for them. If they're, if it's a new lead, maybe you want to set or add them to a list of new leads or something, then you want to send them this email, then you want to wait seven days and send them this next email. And then at the end, make sure you send them an email with this link to do this other thing. And then once they get to the end of the workflow, like or the end of the automation, what do you want to happen, then? Are they going to then go on to another list? Or is it going to send you a notification to to follow up with them as a phone call? if they haven't already? You know, booked in a meeting with you or something, if that's what it was for? Yeah, it's all you got to have. You got you got you stop point. You got all the stuff that happens in the middle. And then the end point. Sometimes you might need an end point. If it's just like, marketing emails, yeah, newsletter, you really need an endpoint. Um, but if it's for a new client, then you're in point with beta. Follow up says, you can post a deal. Yeah, yeah.

 

How to use analytics for the client sales follow up process

 

Angie Martin  18:49  

No, it's awesome. And then once you map it, then you actually create the plan to do it. So that's when you would start by writing the content like writing the sales process. So in this, we're obviously talking about automation, so it's all gonna be automated emails. So you would then need to write the emails, plan out what let's say it's a series of three emails, right each email. And then you would need to set it up and get all of the mapping process actually happening, and then actually test it and use it. Typically, I like to have the campaign going for about a month to two months depending on how often you get people doing something. And then the main stepOh, it's not seven steps. It's only six steps. Sorry guys. I need to fix that. It's six steps. The last step is learning from your analytics says no one does the perfect sales process. The first Time, you need to learn from what works and doesn't work. So in every email system that is out there, you're able to look at the metrics and look at the open rates, the click rates, unsubscribe rates, the like, average that if you have a CRM, you can check the average sale over time, how often they actually purchase from those emails. Then we need go on to create your next sales process you can learn and just fix things up and fine tune them.

 

Maia Coghlan  20:41 

Yeah, and it's kind of like, you learn and then you get back to step one again. But when you go back to step one, again, now that you've already set up the automation, and you have all the emails done, you don't have to do steps, like two through four. Yeah, you just like skip straight to Step five, and just change the email content.

 

Angie Martin  21:07 

Yeah. And that's what we've done at savvy. And you know, once I figured out the combination that worked, then we were able to just, you know, continually work off of it. And it makes the process really great. So it's really the first one that you do, that's the hardest, then the rest of it. It's just so much

 

Maia Coghlan  21:29 

of it is really just tweaking little bits here and there until you're right. Yeah, yeah. So and again, like we said, At the start, doesn't work. It's didn't change it, it's not that it doesn't work. It's just that what

 

Angie Martin  21:43 

you're doing hasn't been working. Yeah. And that is why this step six is so important. You learn from what isn't working.

 

Maia Coghlan  21:53 

Yeah. And you tweak it, and you go back, and you try again.

 

Angie Martin  21:57 

Yeah. And cuz you know, everyone responds differently to emails, some people like having so they'll be emails that you'll get that you won't even actually notice are done through email marketing that look like exactly like an email. But they're actually scheduled emails as well. And then there's ones that look more marketed. So depending on your client base, your clients might want the look and setup of the more marketed style emails. And your or your clients want the simple ones, they might like to have multiple options to click, or they only want the one option.

 

Maia Coghlan  22:40 

Or you might find that they respond better if you put images. So they might respond better if you take out the images, or if you put more colours when you have less colours, or, like if you're working predominantly with tradies, they probably just want, you know your stock standard information and you can get on with their lives. But if you're working more with creative people, they might find images, you know, a story and

 

Angie Martin  23:08 

yeah, so it's all kind of playing around and seeing what works. And sometimes that takes a couple goes to get it really spot on. But with your analytics that you get through your email systems, it isn't that hard to really go through and go, Okay, this email didn't work. Hardly anyone, like, they opened it, nothing happened. Or this email worked. We everyone was opening it like over five times. But no one clicked. Why didn't they click? That's one of the things to go through and look at, if your emails are doing really well, and people are opening them, but they're not doing that final call to action you've asked them to do, it's really important to figure out why is the call to action not big enough, is it not been mentioned enough? It's all of those things that these are some of the reasons why maybe it hasn't worked for you in the past.

 

Maia Coghlan  24:08 

Another thing to be mindful of is Exodus Step six, one from the analytics is if it goes out once and the person doesn't click on it doesn't buy doesn't sign up doesn't book a meeting. That is not enough of an example, that it doesn't work you need. Like you can't determine I we can't say exactly how many people it should be sent to before you can determine or like if it's if it's based on on a contact form submission, then it will be going out periodically whenever somebody fills out the form so it could take a while before it goes out to a certain amount of people. The other main type of email automation is ones that you send out to a whole list of contacts that you already have. Yeah, um, and that one is a lot easier to, to gauge within shorter period of time because it goes out to a whole bunch of metal and you can see them. But if it's if it's an email that goes out,

 

Angie Martin  25:18 

just whenever someone happens to fill out your contact form or something like that, then 123, even four or five is not really enough, I think of minimum is trying it, if it's just like, like you said, a contact form, you need to have like, 50 to see if it's working, because within that 50, probably 10% of those people are in the process of let's say, it's a contact form to book in there probably 10% are probably having a bad day. And they've just gotten sick of their books, and they want a quick fix.

 

Maia Coghlan  26:00 

The next I feeling better,

 

Angie Martin  26:02 

yes, but the next day, they're like, Oh, no, nevermind. And then another 10% are probably people who are just asking for quote, and actually don't want anything, they're just trying to budget, then getting a bookkeeper next year. Yeah. And then 10% of the next ones, like,

 

Maia Coghlan  26:22 

those people who just want to know a court for getting a bookkeeper next year, then not completely dead to you know, just because they don't want to buy now doesn't mean that they might not want you in future. So you should definitely keep them on your list and give them some tips to help them in the meantime.

 

Angie Martin  26:37 

Exactly. And that's, that's one of the things that's why like, you know, depending on your business, and depending how big your business is, and the kind of sales process you're doing, for savvy to basically figure out if anything I've been doing lately is working, I wait for like 100 results to come in, to really figure out if it's working. But if you're a smaller company, and you you know, basically, let's say you might get one inquiry a month, okay, so then do six months, kind of thing. So it all depends on your company, your clients. And yeah, exactly. So it all kind of depends, but it's one of those things that you would figure out the check up, you know, process when you're in the midst of planning your automation and follow up. So, what I've done is well is today, I thought we could go through actually talking through what a follow up will look like. It really helps to understand the different ways a follow up can be done, especially with bookkeeping, because follow ups should be done for leads. And for client retention. So there's a lot of clients that we have that actually don't want to grow, they just want to continually improve for their existing clients. That does not mean you don't have any follow ups to do. It just means you have different follow ups to do. So wanted to kind of go through and break down the base, just generalised follow up process to help you get a bit of a visual for you to figure out how to do it for yourself. So basically, what you want to be able to do, let's say, a lead comes through your sales funnel on your website, or they fill out excuse me, they fill out a form and through your Instagram or a contact section through social media. Let's say they come through there. If that happens, the goal for you is to do three things. nurture the relationship, educate them on the benefits of your service, and nudge them to work with you. That's your three goals. If you're having someone who is inquiring from your website, about your services, dots, your three goals. This is typically done in three to five emails, again, depending on your clients, and depending on your business. We do typically five emails to do this for savvy. And then for follow ups on our sales process. Let's say we have a launch. We do it in three emails, but the original follow up process is in five emails. Which so we do both so that's why I'm saying three to five emails. And what seems have thought, then it's time to actually create the content. So once you know how many emails you're going to break it down, then it's going to actually figuring out how to wean, whatever thing you want. Done. So by doing it in the three to five emails and not trying to get the sale on the first email, which you should never do, guys, just FYI, I never expected Yeah, never expect it and never even try and do it in the first email. The first email is thanking them for getting in touch with you. The first email is introducing you and the business to this potential client, and showing them ways of how to get in touch with you to go further. It's never Hey, buy my thing right here, boom. Nobody likes that.

 

Maia Coghlan  30:58 

If, if they have contacted you through your website as a new lead, post email should include a link to book in Yes, you should consult with you. Yes. It's not a sale. It's just a Hey, we need to chat more. Yes.

 

Angie Martin  31:14 

Let's click this link. Exactly. That is the difference. You don't want to just say, hey, by my bookkeeping service, right here, it's

 

Maia Coghlan  31:23 

let's have a chat to better understand what you need. And I would probably say, if they've asked for a quote, don't put your hourly rate in the email.

 

Angie Martin  31:38 

No, guys, it's so bad. Please don't do that ever. It's it's, it's it's just, I can't conversation with ya habitat habitat first. Because everyone's different. Just like I always say all the time. Every bookkeeper is different, every business is different. Everyone's needs is different. And you need to make sure that you are understanding what they require you to do before you say anything.

 

Maia Coghlan  32:08 

If – look at it this way, if you don't want to put your hourly rate or your prices on your website, you shouldn't give them out in the first email.

 

Angie Martin  32:23 

Yes.

 

Maia Coghlan  32:24 

If you want to give them out in the first email, you may as well just put them on your website. A lot of bookkeepers do have them on their website. And it works for them for certain reasons, and a lot of other bookkeepers don't want their prices on their website. And that works for them for other reasons. So I should never go in the email. You should either be on the website, or it should be determined often speech.

 

Angie Martin  32:46 

Yep. And then it's sent through as a quote, it's not just sent through as an email, little Oh, yeah, this is how much I charge. It's the first email is to create that little bit of connection. Then in the second email, which is usually sent now this is for sales, it's usually sent two to three days afterwards, to check in to make sure that they received the email that you sent originally, for them to do the call to action of booking in a consult with you. Or whatever the call to action is. Yeah, then the third, maybe you can, yeah,

 

Maia Coghlan  33:24 

go ahead. Go ahead. What were you gonna say? I was gonna say maybe you can like link them through to a blog post. You've done that adds a bit more information. Yeah. Oh, well, like you might be interested in.

 

Angie Martin  33:37 

Exactly. And that brings me on to the third email, the third email, if they still haven't contacted you, you still, you know, gently go, Hey, make sure you book in here. But then this is when you start adding the value added services, the value added showing you showing your clients that you are an expert in your field. And this is when you would do two blogs. This is when you do if you have a lead magnet, you might just send them the lead magnet, the link to download the lead magnet. And this is usually done three to four days afterwards, you send the second email. Then again, if they haven't done anything that you've asked them to do, then it goes to the fourth email where you provide more value added services and can even send the links through to your social media platforms to get to know you a little bit better. Maybe they just need that little extra bit of trust. You can send that to them. That's usually again three to four days after the third email, if you still haven't heard from them. After that fourth email, then go to the closing email and the closing email that's done four to five days after the fourth email. So this is not all done in one week. Guys. This is done Over a period of time because everyone is busy. Remember, everyone is busy, they might not actually your email right away. So you got to get

 

Maia Coghlan  35:11 

it also comes back to what we talked about last week. With the contact points, yes, it takes how many times someone needs to have contact from you in some way? Or they're actually willing to buy? And for most people, what did you say it's more than five times I say I'm usually the hotspot is between five and 12 touch points. So you know, it's a lot to ask you to do 12 touch points. So like them coming to your website is the first touch exam. Maybe they find you on Facebook, and then they go to your website. That's two touch points.

 

Angie Martin  35:44 

Yes. Perfect. I like your thinking. So these these emails are then could potentially be the third, fourth, fifth sixth ones. Exactly. So in the closing email, it's not really a closing email, it's just the closing email for you doing the follow up, it's leaving it open for them to then contact you. And in this, you can be a bit cheeky, I have one client where I don't do this so much for a sappy because it's not as relevant. But I have one client where I go, you know, in this email, I'm assuming you haven't gotten back to me for three reason. One, you're busy and you haven't looked at what I need you to look at to, you just aren't ready to commit. And then three, you've looked over it, and you just haven't wanted to say no to me. Let me know what number it is. And then I can do this, this and this. Or if it's number three, I'll stop bothering you. So it's again, that all depends on your clients on how you actually write the closing email. But in the closing email, you always include your booking link. And you always include a value added resource that they continually go through or multiple value added resources. For savvy we do the multiple pieces, we're all about value. So I send them through to the podcast, I send them through to our blogs, our free resources, anything they could get that can help their business. This is not about me making the sale. This is just about me trying to provide them with as much as possible until they can get back to me.

 

Unknown Speaker  37:30 

And then the balls in their court.

 

Maia Coghlan  37:35 

Or if you've set it up, so you get a notification to follow up with them. You can give them a call. Yes,

 

Angie Martin  37:42 

exactly. Exactly. So this is like this whole series is a completely automated series, this has no touch points for you actually calling them. So it all depends on how you lay out your follow ups. This is for someone who doesn't want to call until they're up maybe the fifth one, and then they call and be like, hey, just wanted to check to make sure you got this email because sometimes it goes into junk box and they never get the email. So after this observation goes through your right, you might be tasked then to do a follow up call just to finally do that final touch point with them.

 

Maia Coghlan  38:23 

It already said about the junk email is a good point as well. Like just because they haven't responded to any of your emails does not mean that they don't want you to call them exactly. If they specifically don't want you to contact them. They will let you know. And if you give them a call and they say hey, yeah, no, I'm not interested. And it's done. Yes. Yeah. Move on. It's something that or not, they might, they might be like, Oh, yeah, I'm so sorry. I've been so busy. I haven't been able to get back to you. But I've really enjoyed the links that you sent through. Thank you so much. Yeah,

 

Angie Martin  38:58 

yeah. And you know, this happens with shopee all the time. Like, there's this one client. We just found out a couple months ago that for four months, our emails for going into her junk mail, and we were getting to the point that was like, it's so weird. She hasn't been contacting me. And so I called her and that's the only reason why we found out and she's like, yeah, you know, I haven't gotten an email from you guys in a really long time, even though I'm signed up to get emails. So it was one of those things that we were actually the whole time going into her junk mail. for some weird reason. Yeah, we're always going in her junk mail. But we fixed it, and now she's getting everything. And then also it happens all the time. We're all call someone after I do all the follow ups and they do the exact opposite. I haven't gotten around to it. You're in my email box. You're starred, you're in my savvy folder, have everything saved, forgotten, I just haven't gotten around to it.

 

Maia Coghlan  39:58 

And that's very normal. We all do that I have so many emails, my personal one that I definitely look at this eventually. Yeah.

 

Angie Martin  40:08 

And you know, it's funny because, you know, we're busy. Typically, it's the things that are all about business development or personal development that get put on the back burner, because it's not working within the business right away. So, you know, when you think about bookkeeping, that is business development. So it's one of those things that it's not 100% necessary to get the test done right now. But it's something that needs to get done. So they just push it to a side and then do all the other emails first. So it's one of those things that it does take a little bit of time. So as long as you can create that relationship to remind them to keep going back, you'll be good to go. And, you know, setting up the automations just saves you time. And it provides that service for them to be comfortable with you.

 

Maia Coghlan  41:07 

Yeah, exactly.

 

Angie Martin  41:08 

Yeah. So I've done one more example for you. Because I know, for a lot of you, you don't want to get new sales right now. So all of that was just like a whole new topic. So what I've done is I've also created a client retention, kind of break down for you so and the ones that I just did was a five, email automation for you for the follow ups. Now I'm going to show you how the three, a series of three emails can work to do a follow up. So typically, what we do, it's to kind of the one I've created is to ultimately do a reviews, referrals and reviews call to action. So in the first email, it's just checking in on them to see how they're doing, asking how their day is going, how's their quarter going. If you know anything personal about them, if they have kids, or if they have horses or like anything, check in on them, see how they're doing. Remember that they're a person that you're talking to, and just check in. Then in the second follow up, let's say strengthen, work on strengthening your relationship. So check in to make sure they got the last email, and then gay, go, Hey, by the way, did you know that we're on social media, I'd love to connect with you and your business, to support you guys. And you know, keep up to date with you a bit more. Send your links to your social social media for them to click on and then connect. Then in your third follow up, go through and then do what you ultimately want them to do, which is do the referrals. You know, again, check in see how they're going that day, and then go, Hey, by the way, we'd love having you as a client, I'd love to be able for you to just do a quick write up on your experience working with with us so far. Then include the link to your Facebook and or Google listings, or whatever you have. doing reviews on Facebook, in Google business listings are really, really good. because it provides a different mediums for people. And it can be something as easy as just giving them a start like giving you a star. Typically with bookkeepers though people will go above and beyond as soon as you ask them to do a review. Typically, they'll do like almost a paragraph of how amazing you are. So by doing these touchpoints of checking in with them wanting to connect and strengthen your relationship, and then asking them to do what you actually want them to do. It's not just stripe sending a random email to your client to be like, Hey, can you write me a review? It's creating that communication and relationship to do that, and to do this, you don't do it all in a week either. So in your first email, obviously, you send your first email, then your second email, don't actually send it until a week afterwards, so you're not hounding them. Then, for the third email, don't send it again. That week, send it two weeks afterwards. So it's actually covers like three weeks

 

Maia Coghlan  44:45 

worth of a one week gap and then a two week.

 

Angie Martin  44:48 

Yeah, that way it's actually creating a communication base. That it's not Boom, boom, boom, boom, ina, hounding them yeah. You you are checking in on clients that you already have. This is just a retention and engagement email process. So you only need three, and you don't send them out back to back to back, because that's annoying. That's really annoying. So that's a way that you can do more of a client retention follow up series. But again, it's automated. You don't really have to do anything, you just create, you map up the process, you create the content, you schedule it out. And then you see how it goes. And that's basically what we do. And it's since we've implemented the strategies, our engagement, our client service base, making sure that people are getting what they need, out of us, has increased, amazingly, because we've been communicating more.

 

Maia Coghlan  45:57 

Even like we set up for Angie, I think, write the emails, and I set up the automation for it for when someone subscribes to get notifications about the podcast. I'm from the website. So now when you do that, and you get a series of three emails, and one of them asks these questions about like, it's like three questions, saying, Why? What made? Or like, how did you discover this podcast? And what? What kind of content? Would you like to hear moral? And I'd completely forgotten about it. I replied to it the other day, and with some really useful stuff, and some good ideas for us for the podcast. And I was like, ah, awesome.

 

Angie Martin  46:49 

And that works. And that's done, take in, create that connection. And also learn more of what you guys actually want to know. The whole point of this podcast is we talk about what our clients are asking. And that's why we've created these last few series, because I've been getting some really great feedback from you guys as to what you actually want to hear. Yeah, that email that we got back is perfect, because it gave us basically an idea for a new product for savvy and up ideas for a new series of doing on a podcast. It's perfect. It works for everyone feedback coming does Yeah, works for everyone. It works for you guys. So you're getting to hear content that you actually want to hear. We're doing more products that are directly related to what you're concerned about right now. It's perfect. And it's an automated series. It's great. So what we'll go into next week is we'll go more into the actual of how to set up the automations. We kind of just skip past that today. Because we're going to do it's quite a big conversation. And I have a feeling you and I are going to possibly ramble with it. Because we do like it quite a bit. So next week, we'll actually go into that little centre part of actually creating the automations and really working on streamlining to save you guys time. But yeah, like my said, If you guys have any things that you want us to talk about, please feel free to let us know like we love hearing from you guys. Everything we do is directly specific for you. Even you know, one of our really top products that we have right now is our email templates that we created for you.

 

Maia Coghlan  48:45 

We are there yet I are like hotcakes or loving

 

Angie Martin  48:49 

them. And to be honest, it was one of our clients asked for them. And we never considered that a thing that people would want. It actually like it baffled us. I was like, Yeah, I could definitely create this for them. So we did and it's actually turned into one of the best things that our clients are just loving. And we would have never thought of it if it wasn't you guys actually saying. So. Also just think about like we learned so much from you guys. Imagine once you open up the communication and relationship with your own clients, how much more you can learn about how you can refine your services to help them it goes both ways. So I hope this some podcast has helped you guys a lot. And yeah, just let us know if there's anything else you want to hear about because we'd love doing it for you guys.

 

Maia Coghlan  49:48 

And I've just thought of something that I should mention. So jump keeper is first round is finishing soon and just this week. I have made up panda templates for off the hook and sent them out to all of our clients, asking them if they would like us to reassess them for job keeper 2.0. And that template will be available in the shop soon. So you can do the same. And we've had I sent it out. Yesterday, I said yesterday, and probably half the people have have signed it already. And so that's not a free service. And it says in the template, how much we will charge them to do this assessment. And yet, half of them have already signed it. So it's just to get it to get it to you. It's just a matter of me turning it into a template that I can give to you instead of one that has off the hook branding on it and make a Word doc version for people who don't use panda doc. Yes,

 

Angie Martin  51:00 

yes. So hopefully, that will be available. Do you think you'd be able to do that within the week?

 

Maia Coghlan  51:08 

Yeah, yeah. I now like saying that, um, well, this podcast is going to go live on Friday, Friday, which means that puts the pressure on me today. Oh, when the podcast goes live? Yes. With that today for you. Listening is now Friday. Or if you don't listen to it on Friday, fine. It's never done. But I yeah, I am now being held accountable to get this product ready for Friday.

 

Angie Martin  51:41 

Yeah, because I know a lot of people have been talking actually, the third. Three people this week has been talking about 2.0. So to save you guys some just time. You guys can just download that product that Maya has created. And she did a great job because already everyone's immediately responding. Yeah,

 

Maia Coghlan  52:04 

yeah, there was someone who signed it within six minutes. That's Oh, yeah. That's the power Canada, your pops up in your inbox and you just sign it and it's done over. Oh, I love it. I love panda dog. It's great. makes me so happy.

 

Angie Martin  52:22 

Amazing. Thank you so much for you guys, listening to us. And as always, if you want to join our I heart, bookkeeping, our I heart payroll, Facebook groups, make sure to just fill out all of the questions. We can't actually admit you until you answer all the questions, and then you can join our wonderful community of savvy bookkeepers. Awesome. Do you want to do the closing again? You asked me to

 

Maia Coghlan  52:53 

Stay safe, stay sane and stay savvy.

 

Angie Martin  52:56 

Bye, guys.