Episode 42
042: Swipe my minimal client processing system
In this episode about creating simple onboarding systems for solopreneur coaches, we talk about the essentials and how to simplify every step of the process. Time is precious and admin is not a nice way to spend it!
These tips will help you minimize your onboarding and client admin processing.
>> Contracts - when you really need them
>> Feedback and Onboarding Forms
>> Google Drive or DropBox
>> B2B Coaches
Episode Links and Mentions:
>> DropBox
>> Google Drive
>> CoachVantage
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Full Transcript:
Hey, welcome today we're gonna talk about administration. So basically how to do as little admin as possible in your online coaching. Now you've probably heard before that you need to do at least 50% marketing and 50% coaching. So break down your time, you know, half of it for coaching and half of it for marketing, this is something that has been going around the coaching grapevine for a while.
But of course, it makes you wonder... where do I squeeze in my admin? Now of course automation is key. Absolutely. I love to do as little admin as possible, but there are some things that you need to have in place in order to save yourself a lot of time. Now I have been in this industry for a while. I've had businesses before and I'm a big, big systems lover.
So what I'm going to share with you today is actually probably a little bit of pre. As to my love for simplicity. I love simplicity - there are many great tools out there. I still have not found one that really suits my systems to a T. So I really haven't found one that can really see my processes through from beginning to.
And I'm going to describe to you what I've done, and I'm going to give you a few tips that will really help you save time because there are some things that you think you have to do. But when you think about it, logically, maybe they are not so necessary. For example, let's start with point number one, and tip number one is actually something that I've started doing based on.
So one thing I do is I don't send out contracts to people who haven't paid me yet. So basically what I do is people pay me first. They decide what plan they want, whether they want the payment plan or the full payment. And then only those that pick the payment plan are going to be sent a contract. And the reason is this, you know, if somebody has actually paid you in for.
They, are the ones holding the risk. You're not the one holding the risk. They're the one's sort of sticking their neck out and trusting you. And of course, you know, you're, you're a great coach, you know, you're going to deliver, you know, everything's going to be fine, but of course, They are the ones holding the risk because they don't know that yet, but because they have paid you in full, you're not really running an asterisk, so you really don't have any need to send a contract.
So what this does is it actually saves you quite a lot of time, because let's say, for instance, approximately 70% of my clients pay in full. This means that out of every 10 clients, I'm actually saving. The time it takes to get the contract signed and everything, everything in order for the contracts, I'm saving all that time for 70% of my class.
The clients that do the payment plan of course are going to require a little bit more admin. And, but this is a service that you need to offer, you know, to close sales for some people. But there is absolutely no reason why you'd need to have a contract for absolutely every client. In reality. When you think about it, if people don't want to break a contract, They can, they can, and they do.
And usually, especially when you're dealing internationally and you're in different countries, it's not going to be so easy for people to hold you accountable or for you to hold them accountable. So you have to calculate your risks and make sure that you're taking us to as possible. And then you kind of take the legal side with a pinch of salt.
You also need to remember that in order to get somebody to sign a contract, you have to have. So if you send that to us, the first thing you're going to be toing and froing with emails or forms to collect their information. So the way I do this is once somebody pays, then they go to a form, which is the onboarding form, where I collect all the information I need for the first session to happen, where I map all the content of their coaching sessions, because I customize my one-to-one coaching to the clients.
So to make sure that they achieve theirs. But basically, this form also contains all the legal stuff. So name, surname, business name, you know, VAT, number, everything you need for the financial and the contractual side. So when they pay, they are automatically taking them going to this form. They're going to give me the information, which is going to stop me from to-ing and fro-ing emails when it comes to getting information for the contract.
So what have I done? I have basically as the first step, sent them the payment link once they have paid, I know that they are serious. So this is the point at which I am happily going to give some admin time before they've actually paid is just relationship building, but I'm not going to stay processing paperwork before any of this is for sure.
And set in stone was if paid for me, this is committed. It's a set. They have received the form. They put in the data, people who don't pay the full amount, then we go and take the data from the actual form, which they filled in the onboarding form. And that information goes into the contract and the contract goes out for that client.
In the onboarding form, the client will also find two other things. They will find some information about how to prepare for the first call with me, which is usually the mapping call. So I get to know them better and I can customize the pro. And then they will also find the link to book the first school.
So they actually book themselves in for the first mapping call. I don't have to do anything. I have days in my calendar that are dedicated to this. They can go in and just book themselves. So, so far, if you track it back, what have I done? So all I have done is I've done the discovery call. I've maybe emailed the client once or twice.
If the call if they didn't decide to buy on the call, once they've done the payments, they got the onboarding core onboarding form in this onboarding form. Then they gave me all the details for the contract so that I can send the contract. And then they also find information to prepare for the mapping.
And then link to book the mapping code. So they have booked themselves in. We have practically started the first step of the coaching and I have burly how to do anything when it comes to admin. Now, what happens on the call? Again? The call is designed to get to know the clients. Get to know them really well, and make sure that the program is customized so that they can reach their goals.
We make sure we have enough time for everything they wanted from the program. And we also make sure that they've picked sort of the right duration and that, you know, take a look at what they have, where they come with. Do they have a website? Are they going to change it? Are they blogging? You know, all that stuff to get a very clear picture.
I also would like to get to know my clients from a different perspective, you know, how they work with their clients. How do you collect testimonials and sort of, we also take a good look at all the business? And this takes, you know, the mapping call, which is about 90 minutes during, which were my pout, all the goals that we're going to achieve during the coaching that they do with me.
But like I mentioned, this call can also be used to save you abdomen time. And the way I do it is very simple. At the end of the call, we will go in and we will decide which day of the week and time of that day, they're going to have the subsequent sessions. So if they picked a six-session coaching my six-week program, that we will then go in, we will say, okay, so for the next six weeks, we're going to meet on Thursdays at 5:30 PM.
That's as confirmed by both of us on the call, I put it into zoom, create the event, and then it's ready for the next step, which is to actually create the main documents, the master document that is going to contain everything that we do together in our sessions. Now you can do this by using Dropbox or Google drive.
I use Google drive. I basically have a folder for the client where I share every swipe file, every template, every checklist that I share with them during the coaching. We also sometimes create copy for their packages for their pages. So, you know, there's usually quite a few documents there, but apart from having a folder, they also have an index.
So they will have a master document that links everything. All the notes, everything they had in each session, and then also a link to the replay now. Offering replays is a little bit time-consuming in the sense that you have to wait for zoom to restaurants, the file, you have to upload it to YouTube.
You have to then link it in the document. But for me, this is an important part of the service because the kind of stuff that I teach is stuff that people are going to want to go back and watch again, sometimes we talk about, you know, SEO things that you can. As a second or third step stuff that you need to do to review your content plan after the first six months.
So these are things that my clients I know are going to do off to some time when they've stopped working with me. So they are going to need to go back and watch them. Now, of course, human may not need to give your clients recordings, but if you do, and they are important, then it's very important to how the links in a main document or in a folder somewhere for.
To be able to access it if they don't need it so badly, you can simply allow them to record the session during your session and then allow them to organize it. In my case, I find they are an important part of the service because it's very important that they can access them in the long run. So usually there is nothing left then apart from actually delivering all the sessions, making sure all the content is organized, making sure a nice follow-up email goes out every week, reminding the clients that their actions for the week, the recording and their swipe files have been uploaded to their folders so they can check everything.
And then from the known words, it's a matter of, you know, coming to the end of. The coaching and sending out the form, the feedback form a feedback form is an important part of the process. You can share it with your clients on the last day, or you can simply send them an email. I like to send an email cause I also have some packages which have special rates only for people who have worked with me.
You know, I don't really. Do one-off one hour bookings or even sort of monthly bookings with people who come straight out onto my website and ask me. But I do allow people who have been through my program to book two sessions at a time just to catch up with me or to also book monthly calls on a, on a different of course client only.
But this form. So the form where you're collecting feedback can be very important. So the way you format, this can actually help you get testimonials. It can help you understand whether the client wants to work further with you, and this can also help you understand how to improve what you're doing. So make sure that you ask the right questions.
I'm sure this is a great topic for another episode, and I'm going to jot this down because I will definitely do on about this. And maybe I live in share my forms with you. But for today, the point of the matter is that you actually have to send the form and, you know, invite them to work with you further to upsell or downsell.
And then of course, put your clients on a list where you keep in touch with them in the long-term. So ideally get yourself a CRM or a very simple Excel sheet. Or Google sheets document, which is actually what I use. Now. This process is going to help you a lot. If you are doing one-to-one, if you are selling online, you're going straight from one thing to the other things can be very simple.
And it's also allows you to scale up a little bit in the sense that you have a very predetermined. System and process. And if you decided to take on more clients and the admin becomes a little bit demanding, you can actually hire a virtual assistant for just a few hours to help you with maybe uploading the videos and preparing the main documents and maybe just you know preparing the calls on zoom and things like that.
It's not a lot of work. It really doesn't take very much time. It's literally takes a few minutes per person, but when you're scaling, of course, there's a little bit of support goes along. If you work with B2B businesses and you're a coach that works with large companies where maybe their employees can book you at different times, then this system is not going to work for you so well, but there are coaching platforms out there like coach Vontage is one of them.
There are quite a few more that will actually allow you to streamline this process in a different way. And in fact we will have an episode about these tools in the future. I am actually recording one in the next couple of weeks, so do hang on in there. But for you, you know, if you're going to scale if you're going to hire coaches, then of course this process will break.
If you have more coaches working with you, this is just for people where it is themselves and maybe their virtual assistant. And, you know, you have a kind of incoming. A flow of discovery calls from your website, and you need to process them as fast as possible because of course you don't want to get stuck in, in the onboarding process.
So this is basically my system. The idea came from a client who actually asked me about this last week and she really enjoyed the fact that it's a very simple system. It's a system that has taken quite a few years to create. But my goal has always been. Whenever I do a change. I simplify, simplify and simplify further.
And this has actually been one of the principles that has really helped me grow and improve my business over time. So if I had to give you one piece of advice, it would be to simplify and whenever you see a chance to simplify all over. That's all I had for you today. I hope you enjoy today's episode.
Don't forget to subscribe and I'll see you next week.
