Customer Life Journey Introduction

Having a Customer Life Journey in place with all of the right elements will build your business.  It will strengthen the relationships between you and those that connect with you.  In this podcast article I will help you understand the 8 stages to a solid Customer Life Journey.

Over the last few weeks I've been sharing about branding and how important that is to your business. Making sure that the visual brand becomes, in a sense, iconic and a strong way to recognize your business is crucial. Then we went into messaging and consistency. Importance of your messaging is across the board, where your messages go, how often they go, and the “attitude” written or recorded. Consistency in your messaging will help build your audience.

Communicating with potential customers and clients, as well as your existing base while being consistent keeps them looking to you for support, info, tips, because they feel you have a relationship with them. Visuals added to your messaging are a big part of building that brand. Are they cartoony all the time? Are they direct pictures looking more realistic? Once you have chosen that image style/look, staying with it keeps the expected look together and is part of your consistency.

Let’s talk about your client/customer life journey. Business leaders refer to the time clients and customers are involved with a company in several different ways. Customer life journey is one of them. Customer life cycle, customer journey, and the funnel flow are others. A variety of visual representations also represent paths of direct marketing options your clients/customers travel as part of your marketing plan.   

Some paths are linear. Some are visually attractive.  In some cases, boxes with arrows lead prospects in specific directions and some of these are circular.  I’ll share my personal preferences I prefer to call this relationship a customer journey because journey is something we can all relate to. I will refer to a customer journey for these trainings.

The journey of life is ongoing.  Our experiences are part of this journey. Sometimes we are rewarded, and other times life gives us stuff we're not so happy about, but it's all a part of a journey along a path. I like to think of that game, Chutes and Ladders for a visual.

If you remember the board game (or you can look it up), the chutes took you downward to lower levels along the board, and ladders would take you up to the next level. The goal is to make it up to the top. So, for me, it's a customer journey that resembles a Chutes and Ladders board game concept.

Keep your paying clients and your customers excited: excited about you, excited about what you're doing, excited about them and their progress within your community.

Be excited about whatever people purchase from you. Continue the conversation and engagement. Share how to use your product or service and maybe offer some secret tips for it. You know, things like that. You want to excite them and support them – this will lead to their having faith in you and your products AND will lead to the next purchase because you've already converted them into a loyal customer. You want to lead them through the customer journey.

Everybody wants to matter. In my future podcasts I'm going to go through and break down each of the eight steps I discussed and offer tips to make sure you're including them. I hope you enjoyed this podcast!

If you have any questions or need any feedback on what you've been doing, I'm happy to speak with you. Give me a call or contact me. All the information is on this page.

Communication is Key!

I'd like to talk a little bit about communication within and for your business.

When you're running a business, most likely other people are involved in supporting you. Sometimes they are family members; sometimes those who support you are outside team members or subcontractors. In any case, communication regarding information is imperative to getting jobs/tasks completed properly and in the most productive manner.

As an entrepreneur, sometimes it's hard to remember that we live, breathe, and sleep our businesses our dreams but the people who are supporting us, again, family or subcontractors, don't live in that same world, so sometimes we'll be talking to them and we'll either be using lingo they're not familiar with, or we give them half of the information they actually need to complete the task. This in turn can result in multiple emails going back and forth, or even worse, a job or task completed incorrectly.

Being an entrepreneur myself in addition to running a virtual assistant company, I see this happening over and over and over. When I see this happening, I work really closely with my clients, in both Strategies for Small Businesses or VA-a-GoGo, the importance of being clear about their intended results for a task or project that they're assigning out.

Communicate It in order to See It!

I remind them that a full description of the details needs to be relayed to the person completing the tasks associated with the project so that everything can be completed in the best manner possible.

I encourage clients to create a task board. Some of them might be using project managers like Asana, Trello, Monday, or Teamwork and so on. There are a lot of task trackers out there that can be used easily BUT might not be used properly or consistently. If they are not presently using a project managing tracking platform, I suggest they utilize a Google doc or a Google sheet per event or task so that all of the details can be laid out there and their expectations for completion are clear and evident.

I also encourage team members for those clients to step up and ask questions for clarity and not jump the gun if they're not sure. I would rather have questions answered and clarity at the beginning than a messed-up task we have to go back and fix at the end. Communication from the team member or subcontractor is just as important in your business as well and you should welcome this.

Build strong communication between your team 
to set up a WIN!

As an entrepreneur, strong lines of communication with your team creates a win win situation because the team feels more involved; they have the tools they need to do a task and a job well. It also allows for collaboration where they invest in coming back to you, the entrepreneur, with suggestions and ideas to make things better because they're not struggling through getting their tasks done.

If you feel that your business would benefit by having a quick consultation regarding communication with your team and how to improve the situation, we'd love to hear from you. Drop us a line in the question box below and we'll get back to you as soon as possible. Here's to your success!

Hiring an Expert

Hiring experts to support you in your business is important BUT how you work with them is vital to it's success!  Avoid some of these simple mistakes....

Welcome to the Make It Happen podcast, brought to you by Strategies For Small Businesses, #SFSB, and Christina Littrell-Williams, lead master tactician. My team and I have been working as online marketers for over a decade supporting entrepreneurs as they grow, achieve goals, and even surpass them. We love what we do. It is our intention to give you something you can take away from every episode; an idea, a sense of encouragement, a new tool, and/or answers to any questions you might have submitted to the team.

I want to talk to you about hiring an expert. 

There are several opportunities to hire experts for support. Maybe it's an auto mechanic, or a construction worker to build our homes. Or sometimes it is somebody to help us in our businesses.

Let me ask you a couple of questions... 

Do you hire a mechanic to then turn around and tell them, “This is the problem, this is what needs to be done, these are the tools you need to use, and this is how the job needs to be executed?”

OR

Do you take your car into the mechanic shop to get the diagnostic report, and then listen to their recommendations for necessary next steps for maintenance or repair? Do you then approve the plan to implement the fix?

Same thing with building a house or any type of construction project. Do you walk in and tell the contractor what to do and how to do it?

My guess is you don’t do that.

You're paying 1,000s of dollars to have those experts do what they do best. Some have gone to school for what they specialize in and in a lot of cases are licensed. Many have been trained intently while being in the trenches and staying up to date on requirements and best practices.

My advice to entrepreneurs and small businesses is this. When you hire experts or subcontractors, it's important to evaluate the relationship first. The same is true when hiring employees.

Do you trust them? Have you researched them and feel confident enough to say, okay, I'm going to give them a try?

Do you put an agreement in place to work on one project together and see how that goes? Also, do you look at how you communicate with each other?

Are you really a match?

As SFSB works with entrepreneurs and small businesses, part of our Marketing Support includes working with teams already in place, or in some cases we help to put a team in place if needed. We have trained many business owners in processes to work with their support teams so everyone is having the best time they can, and relationships remain harmonious.

If you have any questions or need any feedback on what you've been doing, I'm happy to speak with you. Give me a call or contact me. All the information is on this page.

Register to get your Branding and Purpose Worksheet

Consistent Messaging in Blog Posts, Social Media Posts, Videos and Your Business
Remove the Disconnect and Confusion

Messaging in regards to your business is imperative! As a small business, you know that every interaction with customers and prospects is important. So how do you make sure your marketing materials – your website, blog posts, social media updates, and videos – are sending the right message? In this article we’ll give you some tips for creating content that will help promote your small business in a way that resonates with your audience. Let’s get started!

You have your website, your social media profiles/business page, videos started, and possibly an email list in place. You might have been in business for a while now or you might just be getting started. Is your message consistent across the board?  Are you using the same “tone of voice” in communicating with the public?  Are you sure your message attracts your ideal client/customer?

Messaging Key Points...

1. Messaging is key when it comes to getting your point across in any type of communication, whether that's a blog post, social media post, or video.
2. It's important to be clear and concise when messaging, so that your audience understands what you're trying to say.
3. You also want to make sure your messaging is consistent across all platforms. If it's different on each platform, you'll confuse your audience.
4. Finally, always test your messaging before releasing it to the public to make sure there aren't any errors.

Whenever you are creating content, always account for your brand, your audience, and your intended results. Though your voice will be set and consistent across the board in all platforms, the executable content will be different. You would not post your actual blog post in your social media post; you would not include a ton of written material in your video description when putting up the video. There are limitations to the number of words, the type or number of images, etc. when posting.  Keeping your message, voice, and call to action the same across the board of platforms can be a challenge, but it is necessary.

An audit of all the areas where you put messages out can help ensure that you are presenting a unified front to potential customers. Have you ever noticed inconsistencies in your company’s branding or messaging? Let us know how we can help!

Staying Consistent

Let's talk about consistency!

Welcome to the Make It Happen podcast, brought to you by Strategies For Small Businesses, #SFSB, and Christina Littrell-Williams, lead master tactician. My team and I have been working as online marketers for over a decade supporting entrepreneurs as they grow, achieve goals, and even surpass them. We love what we do. It is our intention to give you something you can take away from every episode; an idea, a sense of encouragement, a new tool, and/or answers to any questions you might have submitted to the team.

Consistency seems to be one of the consistent problems across the board with my clients and most business owners in general.

They want to market their services or products and they see all these different ideas, opportunities and tools to use to make it happen.  They have big ideas … I'm going to do this and then I'm going to do that then the next “marketing bright shiny object/idea” comes in and they are I'm going to do this; I'm going to do that and nothing gets done to create any foothold on their audience.  Sure, they start something, but it seems to be short lived. They lose interest quickly OR they get “too busy” to continue it. They become inconsistent with their efforts and then they lose a lot of potential revenue, a lot of followers, and a lot of people in their tribe/community who have been distracted by a competitor.

Consistency across the board is huge in your business success!

Let’s focus on marketing here.

What is consistency when it comes to marketing?

When you’re planning to market your services/programs/products, you want to do it on an expected path and outcome for your followers, your tribe, your community.

You want to do something that they can expect and that they can count on. Especially if you are providing content that is helping others in a guiding or training manner.  You want them to be wanting more from you. You want them to be looking for you because of the value you provide. (Side note, we will be discussing content and what is TOO MUCH vs JUST ENOUGH in a later episode). Consistency is how you infiltrate their busy lives by making it convenient, because they know when to expect things and where to best get it from you just by you being consistent.

A lot of times, we'll have clients go, I'm going to do a podcast, I'm going to do a blog, I'm going to do it every day. We will sit with them and lay out just what those plans look like, and we tell them, you know, that's great, that's going to be amazing! Then we ask them, but can you keep it up? And show them their projected Marketing Calendar based on their idea.

When you're planning your marketing, always keep in the back of your head and tell yourself, I need to be consistent with this. I can grow but I never want to decrease what I'm doing in my efforts (unless it is not working, and we will discuss evaluating what is working and what is not in a later episode).

You want to create a marketing plan calendar and plug in what you’re looking to do and overlay that on your daily business calendar.  Look at it honestly, is your newest plan something that fits into your schedule and do you have the available time to get it done?

Podcasts are amazing, they're fun, your listener gets to hear your personality, and they get to learn the tone of your voice. They get to connect with you on a completely different level. You have the ability to deliver a podcast in video format as well as audio, as well as a written post like we do, and your audience gets to consume the content on the platform they enjoy. You also end up with three different platform submissions with one piece of content.

When you're planning also plan be consistent!

When we have clients that want to do something short termed and not be locked into a rigorous schedule but want to make sales, we will work with them to produce/services flash sales. Those are short term, you're looking at a week to two weeks tops, on putting out something for a quick marketing venture. These will have an educational set of emails/posts/blogs on a specific topic guiding to purchase the program/service/product that will solve the problem the audience has, and the marketer has the solution for. When that flash sale is done then content creation for the most part can slow back down to a daily routine of just being “seen” in the virtual world.

Flash sales are easier but then you want to set up your consistency in these too. Once a quarter, maybe twice a year. Maybe it's just New Year's, what is that for you and then you stay consistent.

The more you build that foundation of what your followers, your community, can expect from you, the stronger they're tied to you.

Register to get your Branding and Purpose Worksheet

Staying Focused Can Be a Challenge...

As business owners, Small Business – Home Based Business – Network Marketers, staying focused can be a challenge. When we go into business for ourselves, life is still going on around us. When we become our own bosses, we are perceived by those in our circles (family and friends) to have a more flexible schedule than those with traditional jobs or careers.  As true as that is, it’s false at the same time.

Though self-employed you do not have a boss, office manager or corporate America dictating what to do and when to do it, you actually have MORE responsibility. The weight of success vs failure rests solely on your shoulders, along with all of your other responsibilities in life. They are all distractions that can absorb you and cause you to lose focus on YOUR BUSINESS.

Distractions you might get lost in are:

As entrepreneurs, we all went into business for our own reasons. These reasons are important to us and to our families. We must also remember without focus and discipline in getting “work” things done, our success will hang in the balance. Focus and discipline are easier when we work for someone else because we are held accountable for our tasks and responsibilities in a daily manner but working for ourselves with no one looking over our shoulders makes it harder to be accountable for what HAS to get done.

You have Your why

The reason you wanted to be your own boss is your WHY. What is that? Is it worth you being focused every day? Be sure to have a visual of that WHY where you can see it. Create a collage of images, maybe it is family, traveling, free time, no boss and so on. Whatever it is, place a visual reminder in your workspace where you can see it.

Organize Your day

Be organized within your day. Be sure to set “work hours” so you have time you can count on to be “focused”. In order to get support, share this with your family, friends, downline, and team. And if you are like me in a service-providing career, be sure to share it with your clients/customers. If you have small children, and you are responsible for working from home, you’ll be a bit more flexible with them, but ask everyone else to respect your boundaries as they would with any other place of business.

You Have a Job

Don’t kid yourself. Having your own business and being your own boss – you have a JOB. You are the one running the show and you are making up the rules. Because of this, staying focused is even more important than ever. You and your family, along with your business, rely on you. This is where discipline and focus are so important. In the beginning while you are still building your business foundation, you might have to make personal sacrifices and miss out on certain things so that you are setting your business up for success.

Time Management/Structure

Having a clear layout of time allotted for certain tasks is a MUST. Setting up an accurate working calendar is imperative. Sit down and block out time for your daily routine tasks AND be sure to indicate your “OFF TIME” so you can close your business door and have time for yourself and family/friends. Be sure to include any daily “errands” and account for travel time within your block. Once your “life” tasks/must-dos are calendared, review your open spaces and start filling in daily routine things such as social media. For example, set aside 30 minutes a day for social media and for emails set aside 30 mins in the morning and 30 mins at the close of the day to check and follow up on emails. Now that you have those essentials blocked take a moment to review open spaces on your calendar. Is there a pattern to open “working hours”? (We will fill these in during the next step.)

Project Management 

No matter whether you are a solo-prenuer or you work with a team, you need a reliable project management tool. You can always use the proverbial “yellow pad of paper” or the “stickie” method, but these will not help you with productivity and time management. We at SFSB have used many project management methods and platforms and the one we as a team all love is TeamWork. There are a lot of features to help business owners and teams. Organize your projects & tasks and indicate due dates on your list and then fill in open spaces on your calendar for the week/month in whatever way your projects & tasks list requires. REMEMBER, making a call or returning calls are individual tasks that need to go on your list and on your calendar, too. Having time ear-marked specifically for tasks that can be allows you to be focused and get them done! Get them Crossed Off your daily to-dos. When you get things done you are motivated to do MORE. Keep milestones for daily activities – monthly achievements – annual goals.

Non-productive Tasks

If you find that you are spending too much time doing non-productive/revenue generating tasks – delegate them. Find a VA service like VA-a-GoGo or a team member who can take over performing those tasks so you can stay focused on the tasks only YOU can do as you build your business. Things like training a new recruit, following up on new downline, keeping your database up to date, formatting and sending your newsletter, setting up your appointments and so on. Get help with tasks that take too much focus off of building your business foundation. This is true for ANY business.

Reward Yourself

Be sure to reward yourself as you focus and reach your milestones, achievements, and goals. Even the smallest job well done IS A JOB WELL DONE! Celebrate it. Remember to choose rewards that the family can enjoy with you at times – they are in it too

Finding and Keeping a Balance
While Staying Focused

It is hard to always be focused on your business. When you make the rules, it can be hard to hold yourself accountable. Keeping a balance between work and the freedom you wanted by becoming your own boss is tough. It is so easy to say, “I’ll do it later” and then take off to play – on the flip side it is so easy to stay so buried in your business that you never take off to play. How do you stay focused on your business and still maintain a balance between life and work?

Branding and the Importance of a
Clear Consistent Message

Welcome to the Make It Happen podcast, brought to you by Strategies For Small Businesses, #SFSB, Christina Littrell-Williams, lead master tactician. My team and I have been working as online marketers for over a decade supporting entrepreneurs as they grow, achieve goals, and even surpass them. We love what we do. It is our intention to give you something you can take away from every episode; an idea, a sense of encouragement, a new tool, and/or answers to any questions you might have submitted to the team.

Thank you in advance for joining us, and we look forward to engaging and inspiring you

In this episode I talk about Branding and your Business.

I'm working with a couple of clients who are struggling with understanding branding, why they need it, and what happens when it’s not in place.

You might also be struggling with this and I felt this was a good topic to discuss.

Branding, what is branding overall?

It is an identifying force for your business that will tie what your business IS and what it DOES for potential clients/customers. This is a consistent visual “icon” along with your business name and tag line.

Sometimes it's a logo with a strong message. By sharing it consistently with the right audience you build a recognizable brand and people take one look and KNOW.

Think of the Nike swish. Before it achieved worldwide familiarity, no one would know what that image was just by itself, but they paired it over time with their tagline “Just Do It.” After a strong conviction to their vision and message they have taught us all to say “Just Do It” upon seeing the swoosh logo.

Nike’s consistency and staying strong with their message has built their empire.

Maybe you aren’t looking to be a mega-giant like Nike, but the framework for building your brand is the same.

It's important to structure your overall BRAND. It’s not just the image logo that builds your brand. It also includes the colors you use consistently. It includes cohesiveness and consistency across the board, from your website to your emails communicating with current and prospective clients, to your social media post messages. It is important to remember it is not just the images people associate with your brand, but also the tone of voice when you write, how you challenge people or don't challenge people, and even how passive you are. Are you nurturing or are you just sending “special offer” messages?

I invite you to go over to StrategiesForSmallBusinesses.com and download the Branding and Purpose Checklist. This will help you work through the questions you need to answer and really helps you have a focused dive into all of your Branding.

If you have any questions, remember we're always here for you. Just utilize the question button on the website and will get back to you.

Thank you

if you want more from Strategies For Small Businesses, #SFSB, stay connected by subscribing to our list and connecting in Facebook https://www.facebook.com/sfsbagency 

Register to get your Branding and Purpose Worksheet

Who are we? What we do

Welcome to the Make It Happen podcast, brought to you by Strategies For Small Businesses, #SFSB, Christina Littrell-Williams lead master tactician. My team and I have been working in the online marketing guidelines for over a decade supporting entrepreneurs as they grow, achieve goals, and even surpass them. We love what we do. It is our intention to give you something you can take away from every episode; an idea, a sense of encouragement, a new tool, and/or answers to any questions you might have submitted to the team.

Thank you in advance for joining us, and we look forward to engaging and inspiring you.

In this episode I intend to answer two big questions we get asked when people first meet the team and me …

Who Are We? 

What Do We Do?

Strategies For Small Businesses, #SFSB, supports small businesses! Whether online business, offline business, brick and mortar business, knock-on-the-door business, we support them all to become the best they can be and increase revenue.

We work hands-on and side-by-side with our clients to expand their reach and build their circles of influence. We support them to ensure their visions and missions of their businesses are cohesive with the marketing actions they are taking.

We work with businesses to develop website strategies to insure they are relaying the correct information and that the site is easy to navigate, as well as engaging their visitors.

We help create marketing strategies using specific paths for appropriate and intended results.

We work with our clients to develop strategies for taking care of their current clientele as well as strategies for attracting new people to their community.

We also support implementation strategies. If our clients are having trouble completing tasks or even setting up the inner structure and processes, we support them by jumping in to set it up for them.

Register to get your Branding and Purpose Worksheet

5 Elements of Branding and Marketing
And Why You Need All of Them

When starting or running a small business, branding and purpose are two of the most important factors. Having a strong brand can help your customers identify your company as well as what it represents, quickly and easily. And having a clear purpose gives your business a direction and something to strive for. So, how do you go about creating a powerful brand and achieving your purpose?

Strategies for Small Businesses (SFSB) has a free tool to get started. Register here and we will send you our Branding and Purpose Checklist to help you determine how your business measures up and also what might need some tweaking.

I am often asked, “What do you see as the top items to implement in order for my business to be “found” in today’s market?”

BRANDING, PURPOSE, and MESSAGE are at the top!

You need all 5 of these elements to be solid and working together to create your footprint in the world today.  It does not matter if you are offering online services or ship physical products or have an actual storefront for people to walk into and purchase their items. Your business could be a restaurant or a shoe store. You could be a real estate agent or a coach. In any case, you must have all these items in place to build your business.

WHOM ARE YOU TRYING TO REACH?

The purpose of your business should be to support your branding, and vice versa. You need to know whom you are speaking to in order to create a recognizable logo and style that resonates with them. Positioning yourself in the market is essential for reaching your target consumer. Once you have their attention, build a marketing strategy that will continue engaging them. If you want help creating or executing any of these aspects of your digital marketing plan, SFSB is here for you! Just opt-in for our free Brand and Purpose Checklist below and we’ll get started helping you achieve online success.