There are so many things we COULD and SHOULD be doing to ensure that our clients remember us, use us again and refer us in the meantime.
But there are:
-2 outcomes
-2 intermediate goals
-2 must-dos
Remembering this simple formula will clarify EXACTLY what you should be doing and when you should be doing it to allow you to ENJOY retaining clients, and their referrals, for life.
FULL AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION:
Justin Stoddart 0:00
Hey, what’s up everybody Justin Stoddard here, we’re excited to be with you. And sharing some quick thoughts on long term client retention. I actually did a broadcast yesterday. And I didn’t like it. And I forgot some things I wanted to share with you. So I’m back today with a better improved version 2.0 Version of long term client retention, I had some things on my mind that I didn’t share. And so today, we are going to get right into that, here’s what I want you to know is that we’re gonna be talking about the Rule of Two. Okay, this is a very simple framework that will make it easy for you to remember exactly what you should be doing. When it comes to retaining clients, I know that there are literally endless ideas, endless things that you could be doing. And the reality is, those that giant list, the bigger the list doesn’t matter, that doesn’t help you. What actually helps you is when you do something endlessly, and when you do something that choose something, and it’s the right thing, and you do it endlessly, that’s where this really starts to work. That’s where long term client retention becomes effortless, because you’re doing it so consistently. Okay, so the Rule of Two allows you to run every idea through a simple framework, and allows you to choose which key items you should be doing. Okay, which items you should and should not be doing. Now, if by chance you are listening to this as a podcast, thanks for being here. If by chance you listen to this as a live stream, also glad that you’re here. We are pulling in people from a couple different audiences. And I’m grateful to have you if you’re not yet a member of the successful real estate agents, Facebook group, join that because not only are you going to get this live stream, but we’re going to give you a one page summary at the end, that’s going to make it very easy for you to take this into your business and move forward, I’m also going to talk about a way that we are going to be able to help you hands on so I have a coaching company, but it’s different than anything else. In fact, I had a new client yesterday, say, Justin, you need to know how different this is, like what you’re doing is so different from what’s out there. She said, I signed up for another coaching company. And immediately, they just pointed to me to some videos, and I’ve got to go find it. And I said to me that feels like I need to build a home and I’m gonna, so I’m gonna walk in the Home Depot, and try and figure out like where I need to go to get started. Okay, the concrete aisles over here, I guess I’m probably going to need that. That’s not why you hire a coach folks. And all too often coaching looks and feels like that. I believe rather than walking into a Home Depot coaching should feel like you hire a contractor. Now, are you still involved? Absolutely. Like you need to be involved to get what you want. But there should be some real effort on the person who you’ve partnered with. And that’s what coaching plus is all about brought to you by Think bigger real estate, and that you aren’t hiring a coach, you’re hiring a partner, you’re hanging somebody who actually works alongside you with you doing the work with you, so that you get the results. So if you’re interested in having that conversation about men, I’ve tried coaching before, or I’ve thought about it and it just hasn’t worked for me, it’s probably because it’s more of a do it yourself manual, than it has been an actual, let’s do it together. methodology. So let’s get right back into this. There are two again, we’re gonna talk about the rule of two. So I’m going to walk you through this, you should be able to see my iPad screen. Okay. So, just so you, you know, here I’m gonna, I’m gonna do something here really quickly, just to be sure that this is properly working. Okay, great. So this is without the iPad screen. Now, let me here share with you. This is what it should be. If by chance you’re watching this live, let me know if you’re seeing that. Okay. That would be really, really helpful. So let’s see here. I gotta make sure. Okay, good. I’m still live. Great. Good. And I still got a couple of people here live with us. Thank you for being here. All right. So the rule of two says this, that there are two outcomes that we are looking for. Okay, only two. This is the only thing we care about. Outcome number one is that we want people to use us again. Okay. And the other outcome that we want is we want them to refer us in the meantime. Okay, to outcomes. That’s what we’re looking for here. Now, do we appreciate friendships? Do we appreciate people saying hey, we really am added to their life? Absolutely. Right. Those are the fringe benefits of doing what we do. But at the core, we’re looking for two outcomes long term client retention, is that they will use this again and they will refer us in the meantime case, let’s not confuse this or muddy up the waters as to what this is all about. There’s two outcomes. That’s what we’re going for. Okay, that’s the first two. Okay, there are also some intermediate goals. Okay, intermediate goals. Now, before we get to that, let me just share, let me back up here just a second.
Justin Stoddart 5:00
And one way that we could describe this. If we’ve done this, we know that we own more real estate. Now what I mean by this is we’re not talking about the kind that you sell, we’re talking about the kind of real estate that is in their brain. Some people refer to it as mindshare. Okay, that we, we occupy a certain amount of real estate, we have the deed, to the term real estate in their brain when they think of real estate, they think of us. Okay, so. So those two points of referring us and using us again, comes because we own a piece of real estate in their brain, the piece of real estate that they associate with real estate, okay? They can’t differentiate the two when someone says real estate, they think of you. Okay, so that’s, that’s the outcome. That’s one way to summarize it is we have, we have a deed to their brain when it comes to things, real estate, okay? Now, the two intermediate goals, that you need them to know these two things. Number one, is that, you know, oops, you know, what you’re doing? In other words, there’s ample evidence in front of them regularly, that says, hey, this person is pretty good at what they do, hey, this person just helps somebody like me, hey, this person, just help somebody like my friend who’s in need of help. Okay, so regularly, whatever it is that we choose to do to retain our long term clients, we need to be sure that it has this component, this is one of two, okay, this is number one. And we’re gonna talk about number two, this, here’s number one of the outcomes. That’s number two. Okay. Number one, you know what you’re doing. So if your long term client strategy only has you reaching out as a friend, and creating friendships with people, it’s not going to be enough, guys, it’s just not going to be enough. Okay, they need to also know that you know, what you’re doing that there’s again, ample evidence that you are helping people accomplish things that they want to accomplish as well. Okay. And that’s where sometimes I believe agents go wrong, is they extend tons of friendship, but I’ll say this is just salespeople in general, is that all too often, we spend so much time trying to build relationships of trust, that we don’t actually show that we know we’re doing now the other side is true as well. And I’ll get to that here in just a second. Because the second goal is to know is for them to know that you, you the agent know them, okay? Meaning know them personally, can we have very specific strategies inside of our private coaching circles, that help you do this on a very consistent, almost effortless basis? Okay, we won’t get into that today. But these are the two intermediate goals to accomplish the two outcomes that we talked about up here. Right, let me just circle some of this. So you keep in mind, kind of where I’m talking about these two outcomes come about winning, they use us and they refer us because we get really good at fees to intermediate goals. Okay, number one, you know what you’re doing. Number two, you know them, there’s a personal relationship, because the opposite is also true that we can spend so much time talking about who we helped, what homes we sold, that if there’s no personal connection, they don’t really care that much. You’ve heard it said before, that people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care. When you couple those two things together. When you couple those two things together, that you know what you’re doing and you know them, you become nearly invincible to that person. Okay? Because there’s personal and there’s, in other words, you become the bridge between the market and their real estate goals and their financial goals. And themselves, right. So if you could picture this, you draw this out here, okay. They’re here. And there’s this chasm. Now, if you’re listening to the, to the podcast, you can’t see what I’m writing. So get inside the successful real estate agent Facebook group, and you’ll see the recording on this. Okay. Now, if you’re looking at this, this chasm here, this is who they are today. This is who they want to be tomorrow.
Justin Stoddart 9:42
You become this bridge for them, right? That’s a bad example of me laying across that chasm, helping them walk across. They are here and their wealth goals are over here that include real estate. They need someone to walk them across, right they need someone that can get them from there to Are you become that bridge, you become the person that helps them to get from where they are to where they want to go. Okay, so those are the two intermediate goals. Now, let’s go back to what I said at the beginning, because there are endless amounts of ideas of what you could do to retain your long term clients. And if by chance you get caught up doing this one for a little bit, and then that one for a little bit, and doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that, I’m telling you, it is not going to be effective, endless amounts of activities don’t help you when they’re disconnected. What does help you is when you choose something that is helpful and you do it endlessly. You do it consistently. There is no activity that is the magic bullet. The magic bullet is consistency. But how do we do that when we are very inconsistent human beings right? When we are very good at being inconsistent. How is it that we do that? Okay. So there are two MOUs. MOUs TS two musts, okay. These two must include the key to consistency. Okay. Must number one, is it, they need to appreciate it. They like it. Now, if you can hear that I’ve got a loud airplane flying overhead. Anyway, I can hear that. Maybe you can’t. Okay, so they like in other words, if you’ve ever read the book, like The Five Love Languages, for me, I can like say sweet things to my wife, I can be romantic. And she’s like, I just want you to fold the clothes. And all of a sudden, I’m folding the clothes. Like I figured this out at one point she was working. This is funny. I was work. She was working full time as an RN, she’s not anymore. But she was at the time. And she came home. And I was on my hands and knees on the floor. Mopping. I won’t tell you what I was wearing. That’d be too much information. It wasn’t it wasn’t too weird. This is getting really weird quickly, isn’t it? But I was mopping the floor and she came home and she was just gushing over that she’s like, Oh, my goodness, that was probably the sexiest thing you’ve ever done. And I’m like, I was mopping the floor. She’s like, I know, it was absolutely awesome. So there’s a different love language I’ve learned now that if I really want to get her attention, I go clean a bathroom. Right? Maybe some of you can relate that’s like what, you know, cleaning a bathroom would actually speak to my wife, right? Or would actually be something that would that would like, make her like Love Me romantic? Yeah, like that actually is what she wants. It’s like, okay, whatever it takes, right? So they need to like it, you actually need to know and understand their love language. Okay, this is super important. Because if we are not careful, we will be doing a lot of activities that don’t actually matter to people. Okay, so you, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that you customize everything entirely to the point to where you can’t be systematic about it. But I do think you can take kind of a large sample of the people who you care about the most. And you can say, I think my people are our young families, therefore, a summer events with families and a snow cone truck and a bouncy house that’s going to really speak to them. Whereas if you’re working with seniors, it’s like, hey, come over to the to the park, we’ve got a bouncy house, they’re like what, what do you what, what the totally disconnected, right? So you can take a look at. And one way to do this is to say who are the people that I want to attract into my business? Right? There’s a certain subset of people I wish I could work with them all day long. Start to cater your long term client retention systems around those people. Maybe they’re foodies, right, maybe they’re their dog lovers. Maybe they’re hikers, maybe they’re bikers, maybe they’re like, whatever it is, I would encourage you to start to create your specific long term client retention plans centered around the subset of people who you love working with the most. Okay, once you nail that, all of a sudden, a couple of things happen number one, they like it. You’re speaking their love language. Okay, that’s number one.
Justin Stoddart 14:21
Number two, you like it. As soon as these activities start, stop feeling like a grind. As soon as they stop feeling like, man, I’ve got to go do that man. I’ve got to go knock doors, man, I gotta go cold call man. I’ve got to go do that thing client event. I got to see all these people and I get anxious in groups. And it’s like, ah, like as soon as you find stuff that’s actually true to you. Could be small group stuff could be one on one stuff. Could be coffee meetings could be whatever. I don’t care what it is. It just needs to speak to your audience and needs to speak to you And when you think about it, if you really want to work with people that love you, those two will go hand in hand, right? People who are like you, which makes it really easy for you to be yourself, you don’t have to like, put off being somebody else around your people Bite your tongue all the time you just be yourself, your professional self, your best self. But you can just be yourself. And when your long term client retention strategies start to align with those couple of things, they like it and you like it, it becomes effortless, okay, you actually have more energy at the end. Then before now, you’re still maybe physically tired, but emotionally, you’re like, that’s my jam. That’s my thing. We’re actually working with a private client. She’s like, I don’t know about these. I don’t know about these client events. She said, I’m a runner, I kind of like to get out and just like run by myself. Like, I’m like, I’m kind of like that. We said, Okay, what if what if you were to do a 5k? A family 5k, or maybe a family one mile? Because her demographic was young family. She’s like, you know what? That sounds kind of fun. And like, I’ve seen it done before, my lender did it. And it was actually pretty cool. And there were pictures. And it wasn’t a race per se. But they were in their elements, right? And I think this is true for you as well. Okay, is it they need to like it, and you need to like it again, going back to the point that the only way this is going to work is if you are wildly consistent. Because if you’re inconsistent, you’re going to be forgotten. Can going back to our previous step here. The goal is to own more real estate in their brain, the goal is to is to is to have them use us again, and to refer us in the meantime, the way for us to do that is to is to be sure that we’re covering the two areas. Number one is that you know what you’re doing and that you know them. So what are the tactical activities, it needs to be something that they like, they appreciate it speaking their love language, and it’s something that you can do, right? That’s a quick summary of what we just discussed. Now, you might be saying, Okay, I like the concept. And I’ve got some things that are kind of a smattering of things that that that I’ve done, or that I would like to do. And I’m just kind of trying to put all the pieces together, I like this simple framework, the Rule of Two, this makes sense to me. I just like to put it all together now. Okay. If that’s you, I would love to have a conversation with you. Okay, if you’re not already in my private coaching circles, if you are just scheduled time with me, you got full access to my calendar, you know that. If by chance, though, that you’re not, and you’re like, look, I would love to just bounce some ideas and kind of apply this rule of two to my business, I’d be more than happy to do that. And here’s what it will be, we’ll walk you through this process, I’ll help you get some clarity on this. And then the process, I’ll be able to sample and demo what it looks like to be partnered with us. Right? This whole coaching plus concept that I’ve been telling you about how it’s not just a matter of let me give you some ideas, and you go do them and I’ll hold you accountable. No, guys, that’s like searching online to figure out how to fix my phone versus walking into an Apple Store, sitting down at a genius bar, having them grab my phone and say, here’s how to do this. Now touch here, now go there, now do this. That’s the difference. There’s a distinct difference. And you need to know that. Because we are not here to just give you more things to do. We’re here to take things off your plate to do them with you, and to be the contractor instead of walk into Home Depot and do it all by yourself. Okay, so if that’s of interest to you, direct message me put in the chat, just say let’s chat, I will for free at no cost. I’ll walk you through this process. Okay, I’ll walk you through this process help you get clarity around this. And that will give you a bit of an idea of what it looks like to work with us. So again, for those that don’t know, we’re doing a special promotion right now in which we’re allowing 10 more people, many of those spots are actually I’ve already taken. We started officially at the end of the week with 10 openings. And we’ve we’ve we’ve filled several of those. And we’re having conversations we have conversations scheduled with others. So if you’re interested in having a conversation about what coaching plus looks like, then I would strongly encourage that. Let’s have a conversation with it looks like so anyway, appreciate you coming on tonight. Hopefully this has been helpful the rule of to remember that go through that audit your own. You know your own client, long term client retention strategy, and see how that works for you. Appreciate you being here. Thanks, everybody. Talk soon