Quicken the process from first appointment to advice delivery & your business getting paid.
In coaching businesses, when we notice that there are issues with efficiency, effectiveness and in particular cash flow we will take a look at their pipeline and the reason being is that there are a few different issues that will stop businesses from making progress.
The Problem
One of those things, typically, is how long it takes from first appointment through to advice delivery and the business gets paid and often when we have a look inside the pipeline we notice there that there’s a little bit of stickiness there.
There are two main reasons why pipelines end up stalling:
- Turn around issues
- Unresponsive Clients
One of the challenges there is when you get an agreement from a client, you shoot through a fact finder and next thing you know – the line goes blank. (We’ve all been there).
You follow them up you follow them up and follow them up but they just don’t get back and next thing you know six months have gone and you’re still trying to get the client’s advice delivered.
The Solution
Firstly, don’t be the business that keeps following up with the same follow up. Or worse still, just doing the work yourself.
The answer is to escalate your follow up in the following sequence:
- Email or call the client and let them know what’s required; this is the outline and the action items and gives them two to three days. If nothing comes back….
- An accountability call or email – ‘Hey, I just want to check in. We’d love to get this back. When can we expect to see it? Two to three days later if you’ve not heard back it’s time to up the game…
- Offer a helping hand. This is where you might say ‘Would you like to jump on to an online meeting or a call and potentially we can do it together? ’. You’ll notice here we’re not trying to fill out the fact find for the client or in advance. We’re allowing them the possibility of doing it and then jumping in with the offer. This a) Assures that you are not the one doing all the hard work and b) You are giving the client a chance to get involved. In the event that clients still aren’t getting back to you…
- It’s time to take it from the level of the team who’ve been following up to this point to the adviser. This the point you jump in as their adviser and get on a call or email and say ‘Hey, the team has let me know they haven’t heard back from you I just want to check that everything’s okay and are we still on track.’ The final step of this process…
- Give them an ultimatum. Frankly, human beings are motivated by a lot of things but one of the things that motivates them the most is when you take something away from them. Suggest that it might be time to halt the whole process. You get the opportunity to gain a bit of motivation here.
The Take-home
Pipeline velocity is key in reducing how long it takes from first appointment through to advice delivery and your business getting paid.
Following up with the 5 step Escalation Process outlined above is more effective than just doing what most businesses do which is just follow up on repeat.
I hope that this has been useful and if you are an absolutely ninja at getting this stuff done I’d love to know what your top tip is.
Need a bit more help …
If you do find yourself suffering either from an escalation problem or you may have an internal efficiency problem feel free to drop me an email or jump on a call with me . I’ll diagnose exactly where you should start and what it’s going to take for you to see some big shifts.
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