How to Make Customers Remember You

What if the key to explosive growth isn’t finding new clients, but delighting the ones you’ve already got? This week, Michael is joined by Vance Morris, President and Chief Experience Officer at Deliver Service Now institute, who has reverse-engineered the magic of Disney to create what he calls a “Loyalty Profit Engine.” Vance shares his unconventional journey from working at Disney to building a portfolio of highly profitable (and seemingly “boring”) home service businesses. He reveals how the success of these companies, built on a foundation of unforgettable customer experience, led him to his true calling: teaching other business owners how to master the art of client retention.

Vance gets into the nuts and bolts of his retention system, revealing why he believes a tangible, print newsletter is far more powerful than any email campaign. He details the specific, intentional touchpoints he uses to create deep emotional connections – from sending curated articles via FedEx to giving meaningful gifts that keep him top-of-mind long after a project is complete. He argues that the key is to be systematic and personal, creating “tellable” moments that not only retain clients but also turn them into a powerful source of word-of-mouth referrals. Vance also shares a powerful case study of a dentist who transformed her practice by niching down and creating a “pirate” persona, proving that a remarkable client experience is the ultimate competitive advantage.

In this episode you will learn:

• The single most important mindset shift for client retention.

• How to build your own “Loyalty Profit Engine” with tangible touchpoints.

• Why a print newsletter can be your most powerful marketing tool.

• The surprising power of sharing personal stories to build client loyalty.

• How niching down unlocks premium pricing and higher retention.

• How to create meaningful client gifts that reinforce your value.

• The steps to systematize your business so you can remove yourself from daily operations.

Welcome to the Consulting Success podcast. I’m your host Michael Zipursky, and in this podcast, we’re going to dive deep into the world of elite consultants where you’re going to learn the strategies, tactics and mindset to grow a highly profitable and successful consulting business.

Before we dive into today’s episode. Are you ready to grow and take your consulting business to the next level? Many of the clients that we work with started as podcast listeners just like you, and a consistent theme they have shared with us is that they wished they had reached out sooner about our Clarity Coaching Program rather than waiting for that perfect time. If you’re interested in learning more about how we help consultants just like you, we’re offering a free, no pressure growth session call. On this call, we’re going to dive deep into your goals, challenges and situation and outline a plan that is tailor made just for you. We will also help you identify where you may be making costly and time consuming mistakes to ensure you’re benefiting from the proven methods and strategies to grow your consulting business. 

So don’t wait years to find clarity. If you’re committed and serious about reaching a new level of success in your consulting business, go ahead and schedule your free growth session. Get in touch today. Just visit Consulting Success – Grow to book your free call today.

Vance Morris combines Disney magic with direct-response marketing to help businesses build unbreakable customer loyalty. A 10-year Disney veteran and the creative force behind Chef Mickey’s, he later consulted for top organizations like NASA and The Smithsonian. After building his own successful service company from the ground up, he now coaches business owners through his Deliver Service Now institute, helping them implement world-class service systems that build powerful retention engines and dramatically increase profits.

Connect with Vance Morris

Discover more about Deliver Service Now

Hey Vance, Welcome.

I appreciate it, Michael. Thanks so much.

Yeah, let’s dive in. So I’d love to kind of hit the rewind button a little bit and have you share with us why you started your consulting business, how you started the business. I know you spent years with Disney, but give us a little bit of the backstory of how did you get to kind of where you are today or where did the beginning come from?

Sure. Wow, that’s very, actually, smack in the middle of everything. Going back to my corporate days, I found I made a lousy employee, as I just didn’t like to be told what to do. So I started my own businesses here in Maryland, actually, I have three home service businesses. And I took all of my Disney knowledge, customer experience, and retention and marketing, and I packed it into those businesses with systems and processes and was able to position the company as a premium service targeting an affluent market, which means I didn’t have to do as many jobs as everybody else was doing because I was charging more.

So what were those, what were or are those businesses, when you talk about the three different home service businesses?

So one is a mold remediation company, one is an oriental rug washing facility, and the other is a traditional carpet cleaning company. So very boring, benign, highly commoditized businesses.

And do you have experience or expertise in oriental, you know, rug cleaning and mold removal? Is this stuff that you know, or you essentially found opportunities and implemented your knowledge?

No, I hadn’t, I had never vacuumed before, essentially. But I found a hole in the marketplace. Actually, the carpet cleaning came first, and then the rugs, and then the mold was added on last. But there’s a huge hole in the premium service for this kind of business. And I look at it from a Disney perspective in that, you know, Disney is the premium level of the entertainment, family vacation, etcetera, not like your local county fair. So, because the local county fair version of the carpet cleaning is, you know, the guy who tacks up his sign on a telephone pole and it’s, you know, nineteen rooms for four dollars or something silly like that.

But going back to it, people started asking me, “You know, you don’t look like you’re working too hard. How are you doing this?” You know, because I had a couple of employees by then and things like that. So, I started just kind of explaining how I was doing it, what I was doing. And I finally decided, well, I don’t want to do this for free anymore. So I started doing some one-on-one coaching. Usually, this is way before Zoom even existed, so it was telecoaching on the telephone.

And then I had, I was at a mastermind meeting, and one of the members there, we were just going around the table asking, telling everybody what we did and who we were, and I mentioned that I had worked for Disney and had a marketing background and everything. And he says to me in front of the whole group, “I would pay you to take me and my group around Disney.” I’m like, “Wow, okay.” So a whole another line of business opened up for me. So it’s now fully close to 50 percent of my business is taking business groups, business owners, to Disney for three- and four-day, full-immersion boot camps in learning how, essentially, how Disney makes the sausage. So my job, as I see it, is translating as we go through the parks or as we do some classroom stuff, translating what Disney is doing into whatever their niche or profession is. So into an orthodontist or into a home inspector, things like that. So between the coaching and one-on-one consulting and the Disney events, that’s kind of where we are today.

[04:27] – Customer Experience as the Key to Retention

So your focus, if we were just to kind of summarize it, do you position that as focusing on retention, or how do you kind of describe what you do between the one-on-ones and the Disney extravaganza experience?

Sure. The extravaganza is really kind of a kickoff point where I get a lot of my clients because at the end of it, they’re like, “Oh crap, what do I do now?” So, you know, I can take them by the hand and lead them. But the customer experience, if you look at the entire customer journey, which is something that we map out, really the experience is setting the stage for the retention. Because if they have a lousy experience, I mean, there’s no amount of retention effort that’s going to be done that’s going to be able to help keep them. So we want to make sure that the experience that they’re having, either consuming your product or consuming your service, is extraordinary in a positive way and that the retention system that you have is immediate and actually even begins slightly before they’re done consuming your product or your service. So to me, they go hand in hand. It’s really very difficult to separate the two.

How many businesses, or put another way, what percentage of the businesses that you speak to or first come in contact with would you say have an actual system for retention? Like they’ve actually thought about it thoughtfully and have structure in place for retention.

I would say a percentage that have thought about it, probably about 10 percent. A percentage that has actually applied money and budget to it, zero. It’s just, it’s not sexy. I mean, it’s not, you know, everybody, you see all the Facebook ads of, “you know, we’ll get you 10,000 leads for $40,” and, you know, it’s just not a sexy topic. But it’s where all the money is. I mean, you know, customer acquisition is ridiculously expensive. Getting a new customer is not cheap.

[06:55] – The ROI of Retention Over Acquisition

And it’s only become more expensive over time, right?

Tremendously. But keeping a customer, a real quick example, for my carpet cleaning business for the month of May, from my last reports for May, it cost me $126 to get a new customer in the front door. It cost me $22 a year to keep a customer through mailings and email and newsletters and things like that. I mean, it’s, to me, it’s a no-brainer.

And I know that for some people, when they hear those numbers, that might even sound, on both, very low, right? Because in the world of consulting or when you’re dealing with larger organizations, the sales cycles, the time required, can be significantly greater, and therefore, your expense might be significantly greater. So those numbers even add up more. I want to dive into several areas here because you started off talking about these three businesses that you have, which some people when they first heard that may have been like, “Am I in the right podcast? I thought this was the Consulting Success podcast. We’re talking about oriental rugs and mold.” So now you’ve shared that what came next was people were asking you how you build these businesses. They’re running successfully, and that led to the whole retention focus. And so that’s this other work that you do, and you do that through one-to-one consulting as well as these group experiences where you take people through to Disney. When you talked about your three businesses though, Vance, you said that you have positioned them to be premium. And I’d love to first get you to define, does premium simply mean in your mind or the way that you look at it that you charge more than the alternatives in the marketplace, or do you view premium in any way differently? Just so we can set that stage and then we’ll build on top of it.

[09:43] – Delivering Premium Pricing Through Experience

Well, certainly, yes, premium does mean higher price, no doubt. But I can’t just charge a higher price and not have something to support that price. So, some of the additional things that we do are intangible. So just like when you go to Best Buy and they offer you the three-year warranty on your new TV, Best Buy is essentially selling you air for $79. We do the same thing. We sell you a warranty and a guarantee.

Some of the things that we do are experiential. You know, how we enter your home and the theater that we use in entering your home, the theater when we prepare your sofa for cleaning and what we do, I mean, how we move the furniture that’s around it, how we protect the furniture that’s around it. I mean, it’s a full-on production, and we make sure that the customer is watching what it is that we’re doing, because that’s what Disney is. It’s, I mean, it’s a production, it’s theater. And if you can, either yourself or your employees, if you can understand that you are on stage in your own production because you know that your customers are watching you, you’re going to behave a lot differently. And it’s just like going to see Hamilton and the lead character having a rotten night and does a lousy performance. I mean, you’re going to be ticked, right? You’re going to want your money back. Well, it’s the same with us. In any business, we can’t afford to have a rotten night because our customers will be ticked. So it’s like performing a role in a show every single day.

[11:56] – Applying Disney’s “Theater” Concept

Vance, how would you apply that to consulting? So, I mean, obviously home services is still a service-based business, but let’s say somebody is working with an organization, they’re not generally going to be lifting furniture or, so how might you apply it to somebody who’s working with an organization, whether it’s just virtual or in person at their factory floor or in the boardroom?

Sure. Well, I think, looking at all of the different facets that a consultant would use, a lot of times our clients have to wait for things, wait for a proposal, wait for a report, wait for a something. At Disney, you wait a lot as well. I mean, a lot. But Disney has come up with something called “linertainment,” where they entertain you while you’re in line. So I do the same thing. I entertain you while you’re waiting for the next thing. So if you are waiting for- if I’m doing your entire customer journey and we’re busy prioritizing what areas we’re going to focus on, and that takes some time, okay, well, it takes, you know, usually takes me a couple of weeks. So in between then, I will have sent them a postcard, and they will get a small package from me. I have it set up with a gifting company where they’ll get a package for things like candy, pecans, or something, but it’s a reminder that I haven’t disappeared. I’m not not thinking about you. It’s a little bit off the wall. You know, and it’s not an email saying, “Oh, by the way, yes, I’m still working on your project. Don’t worry about it.” That’s not personal, it’s not personable, and it’s not memorable. Don’t forget, when we’re doing all this stuff, we want to be memorable, and we also want to be tellable, because that begins the word-of-mouth process. So all this ties in to not only retention but also word of mouth, because that kind of marketing and advertising, not only is it ridiculously inexpensive, it’s incredibly effective.

[13:51] – Memorable Touchpoints That Drive Loyalty

Let me ask you, what you’re describing right now, it actually reminds me of a previous company that we had in a different industry. We used to send boxes, they’re called “survival kits,” and it was from a local chocolate company, and you’d open up this box and there were many different types of chocolates and chocolate bars. And the concept and the belief that we had was this was selling to different offices. They were the buyers, often in HR or some department like that, marketing. But we thought, you know, no one’s going to take this box, open up in the office, and eat everything themselves, hopefully not. You know, they’re gonna open it, and people around them are gonna be like, “What? What’s that? Where’d you get that?” And so we found that in that business, it actually really spread to a lot of word of mouth.

So, I can see how what you’re talking about starts to come in. I think the hesitation a lot of people have when they hear this sort of thing is, “Well, but that costs money, right? It costs $50, $100.” In the world of consulting, these are small numbers compared to a typical engagement, and I think we can talk more as well about the value or what lifetime value is. And if people understand lifetime value, you can then feel much more confident to invest because you know the value of a client, right? So you know what you can and cannot or should not spend. But for somebody who maybe is listening, going, “Yeah, but that just, that cost me more money to do this. My business maybe isn’t as big as I’d like yet, or I’m not making as much money as I’d like yet, or my margins aren’t as solid as I want. Does spending more money like this, is it really going to help?” How would you respond to them and think about that?

Everything that I teach, especially on these topics, I do it in iterations. So, for example, you know, I’ve written a number of books, and if you order my book from Amazon, it’s going to come in a brown box. If you order my book from me, when we fulfill it, it comes in this grand package. So when I first started shipping it, it came in a brown box. And I said, “Well, you know, I’m the experience guy, I should probably jazz this up a little bit.” So I created a custom box. And a few months later, I’m like, “Well, it’s kind of a workbook, I should probably include a pen.” All right, so great, so now I got a logo pen in there. And then I’m like, “Oh, it’s a book, I should probably have a bookmark,” right? So I put the bookmark in there. “Oh, you know, I’m already sending all this stuff, they bought this book, I should probably put a thank you letter in there,” right? So there was a thank you letter, and “I’m sending them all this crap, I should probably put a sales letter in there.” So there was a sales letter. And that all took 18 months. So it was iteration, iteration, iteration, iteration.

So, you don’t have to have it perfect the first time out the door. Start with something small. Go to your local BJ’s or Costco or Sam’s Club or whatever, wholesaler, get yourself a case of cookies, and make your own little gift basket if that’s what you have to do. When I was first starting out, I used my kids as slave labor. They licked envelopes, they stuffed, they made the baskets. At Christmas time, we delivered stockings to my clients. My kids made them.

I’ll be the devil’s advocate for a moment. Do you truly believe, and have you actually seen, that sending people cookies or sending a book, a pen, does that truly influence somebody’s decision to stay with you or use your services for a longer period of time?

Those items, anecdotally, I would say yes, measurably, not sure. However, I have a very robust retention system that I use, and we can certainly talk about that whenever you’re ready. But those are all things that set you up for retention because it’s not like, “Okay, the deal’s over, the deal’s done, you’ve completed the assignment, and now you send them a little bag of cookies as a thank you.” That’s kind of boring and cheesy. But if you’re doing little things along the way, you know, how you present documents, is it coming in a little manila folder or is this like a high-end thing and it should be in a leather-bound portfolio? You know, again, all this is built into your pricing, you know, so it’s all an investment because you’re showing the client exactly how much you believe in them, how much you value the relationship by what you’re giving them. If you have logoed pens, are they the, you know, $10 for a thousand, the cheapy ones, or did you get logoed Cross pens? What is your brand about?

[19:36] – Proven Retention System Results

Let’s talk numbers for a moment, then we’ll dive deeper into some of this. What have you seen in terms of business impact? If somebody puts in a solid retention system and program into their business, what can that look like? Can you share some examples of what you’ve experienced in your own businesses or even with people that you’ve worked with?

Sure, yeah, definitely. So, I’ve worked with a couple of companies where they’ve literally doubled their retention. So, one financial planning client who, when somebody dies, they call it “the money goes hot,” which means the money is going to leave and go to another advisor or broker, etc. So, the plan is that he meets not only with the individual but also with the wife and also with the children. And he has a system of mailings and books that he sends, and he has events for the families, etc. Industry average on money going hot is 70 to 80 percent of people are leaving that advisor. His turnover rate is under 30 percent. So for advisors, that’s millions of dollars under management that are leaving him every year. Now, there are some that you can’t fix, but to cut more than half from the industry average. And that’s just one example.

I worked with a group of dentists, and they also, you know, you’re lucky if you get the reminder, “Hey, it’s been six months, time for your cleaning.” We convinced this practice to become pediatric dentists. We niched them down quite a bit, and so they could now, they now had freedom to really have fun with their marketing because they now had two audiences: they had the parents and they had the kids. So they were sending the kids- she was actually, we marketed her as, her favorite movie was Peter Pan, and she was marketing herself as the ‘Pirate Dentist’. She dressed as Captain Hook. They walked around the office saying, “Arrgh,” all the time. But once she did that and she was able to put pieces in place in her retention system, people didn’t leave unless they moved or they turned 18, which was when she stopped seeing them anyway. So she’s got a waitlist that’s 10 miles long. Her retention is as close to 100 percent as you could possibly get.

[22:10] – Niching Down for Higher Value

How important, I mean, you just talked about niching down. How important is that to premium pricing or to achieving premium pricing and to also increasing retention? Is that a requirement that you really need to niche down in your experience, or is that just case by case?

No, I think it is. You know the old saying, “There’s riches in niches,” and there is a lot of truth in that. My dentist is a great example. She was a general dentist, and I’ll give you the quick story. She took insurance, so she was one of eight other dentists in her building, not just in her town, but in her building. And she was a commodity. I mean, how many ways to clean teeth? And so we were working with her, and we had to make a change. And so she said, “Yes, I love working with kids.” And I said, “Well, if you really want to make money, you’ve got to go private pay, you got to go concierge, you know, stop taking insurance.” So we did that. We created this whole pirate persona. She put up a shipwreck playground in her waiting room. I mean, really went just for the kids. And when was the last time you ever said, “I can’t wait to go back to the dentist”? And kids are saying this.

So the financial one, she increased her prices significantly. I think she went up like 35 or 40 percent. But she stopped taking insurance, which eliminated two and a half staff positions because she had two and a half people, all they did was insurance billing. And right there, that was like 160, $170,000 straight to her bottom line by eliminating those two positions. And so not only did she have that, but now she has the word of mouth, now she has people that are, the lines of people, waiting list of people to come in, all because she niched down to just being a pediatric dentist. So, I mean, she’s like my poster child. She really is.

[24:30] – Growth Through Events and Content

Hey, Vance, I want to have you share a bit more about what your retention system looks like. It’s called the Loyalty Profit Engine, if I’m not mistaken. But before we do that, just take us back again to the founding or initial building of this consulting coaching business that you have around retention. You mentioned people that you had met through different mastermind groups or whatever it was, and that became the first client, you’re taking people to Disney. How did you grow it beyond that? Has it just been word of mouth and you meeting people at events, or have you done something else to acquire clients?

Sure. A lot of it was, for the Disney events, that was definitely word of mouth. People would come back, they’re like, “Oh my God, this is a great event.” And somebody would say, “Hey, you know, I’m looking for a boutique event for my group.” “Okay, great, you’ve got to call Vance.” That kind of thing. I did a number of events of my own, and that would get people into my group coaching, which then they could ascend to my mastermind. And I did not do online ads at all. That kind of stuff just drives- I’m not on Facebook, so I’m not going to advertise there if I’m not there. So I’m a prolific writer.

And where do you publish when you talk about writing? Is this on your own website, or is it guest publications?

Yeah, so LinkedIn newsletter, Substack newsletter. My own list gets an article from me at least two, if not three times a week. And then I publish a print newsletter, it’s a 24-page print newsletter that everybody…

How often is that, the print newsletter?

Monthly.

Monthly. Is that a paid newsletter? People pay to get it?

Yeah, that’s a paid newsletter. I also have an abbreviated version of that that is a lead gen newsletter that, if I’ve identified somebody who I really want to do business with, they’ll get on that list, and usually for about 24 months, they’ll get that newsletter. And if they don’t buy in 24 months, I’ll take them off. And usually, I’ll hear somebody scream, “Hey, why didn’t I get my newsletter?” “Well, you haven’t bought anything, so.”

Right, right. Gotcha. Okay, that’s helpful to understand. So let’s come back then to your retention system, because the vast majority, if not all consultants, want long-term clients or they at least want to create more value, deliver more value. I mean, they’re getting into this business or they’re still in this business because they really want to make an impact, right? They want to do great work, and of course, they want to be well compensated for that. So it can be even a high level because I know in terms of time, we can’t get into all the nitty-gritty, but what does that process look like? What should somebody who’s joining us right now thinking, “Yes, you know, I haven’t really done anything to formalize my retention, or we have just some little efforts here and there.” What does a best-in-class retention system look like, or what are the key considerations people should have to embark on this?

[28:00] – Core Elements of a Retention System

Well, first and foremost is the mindset of, “It’s not your customer’s job to remember you. It’s your job to remind the customer that you exist.” And that, I mean, put that on a 3×5 card, staple it, not staple it, tape it to your monitor. Because you got to get that through your brain. And if you don’t embrace that, none of it’s going to work. And then you have to be intentional about the system. It is a system. So in my calendar, I have all of the things that I need to do for my members or my clients are in the calendar saying, “Okay, Vance, it’s time to send them this.”

So let’s talk about a couple of those “this” things. So one of them is, I find, now for my private clients, everybody has a box or drawer. And as I go through the Wall Street Journal or magazines or periodicals, I’ll tear stuff out that I know is going to be appropriate for that person. And once a month, I’ll put it in a FedEx and send it out.

A drawer, is this like a physical drawer?

I can take the drawer out of my desk if you want to see it.

No, I’m just wondering, so how many drawers are there? And what does this look like?

No, it’s a drawer. Actually, I have one of those old map desks that they used to put maps in, so it’s got like 30 drawers. Anyway, then there’s a section, two times a year, I’ll send a gift. Now, the gift to me needs to be meaningful, and it needs to remind people of me so that it’s like me in their room staring at them all the time. So one here, real quick, so I have, I only have one saying, and it’s, “You won’t profit unless you implement.” So I sent a canvas of that saying, “You won’t profit unless you implement,” with my name on the bottom. So they hang this in their office, and Vance is in 72 offices right now, hanging there, reminding them that I am there. And so those are the kinds of things that I like to do. It’s not always Vance, but just reminding people that this is- I’m there. And it’s a nice gift, and it makes sense. And it’s great when I get on a Zoom call and 20 of them have that in the background.

I think having a newsletter in print, not an e-newsletter, dear Lord. Having a print newsletter doesn’t have to be big, but part of your program, six or eight pages, maybe not even that long. And it doesn’t have to be formatted. Just get on a Word document, type out some paragraphs, updates, things that have been happening with you. The newsletter is designed to create an emotional connection. So try not to talk about the latest, greatest widget or piece of equipment or whatever. Don’t talk about that stuff. Talk about stuff that’s going on. Like, I shamelessly use my children in my marketing. I have no problem with it. But when I see my mastermind members, they’ll ask me, “Hey, how was Emma’s ballet recital?” Now, that to me is more powerful than talking about, “Oh, hey, I got a great deal on pens from 4imprint. You all should go buy your pens there.” Nobody’s going to remember that. But you know, I took the picture of my kid in the ballet tutu, and five months later, I’ve got people coming up to me saying, “How was your kid’s recital?” That’s an emotional connection. You create those, and they’re not leaving you.

[32:13] – Power of Tangible Client Communication

Vance, why do you, just for everyone, why a print newsletter and not just, because you said yourself, you have the Substack, you have the LinkedIn newsletter, you have the emails. Why the print newsletter specifically?

Specifically, one, you can’t delete it. It’s just too easy. You see people, it just comes in. You don’t even know if people are getting the darn thing. Did it get delivered? Is it in spam? Did it just get sent to a folder that will never have seen the light of day? Mailboxes are empty. You know, right now you get some credit card applications and maybe a catalog, but that’s about it. It’s tangible. You hold on to it, you can feel it. It’s like a book, you know? And you have to make a decision with the newsletter: do I read it, or do I throw it away? So instead of just hitting delete, now you gotta, “Oh, it’s from Vance! Oh, it’s from Michael! Yeah, he usually has something funny in there, or he’s, oh, he’s always got a valuable nugget in there that’s going to make my day. Yep, it goes in the read pile.”

So it’s- everybody learns differently, but I’ve just found that that tangible thing that you can hold in your hands is something. I don’t know the psychology behind it, but it’s that when you’re holding on to something, you can smell it, you can feel it, and there’s just another level of connection you have with that person.

What percentage of the overall retention system that you implement, your clients implement, or that you’ve just found to be most effective, what percentage of that is stuff that you send to people? Because a lot of what you’ve been talking about in terms of examples is related to sending something in the mail. So what percentage? And then aside from that, are there other things that you do from a retention perspective or that you think consultants should be thinking about?

Sure. It’s about two-thirds. Two-thirds. One-third electronic, two-thirds sending. Is it always a canvas print? No. I will, drives my wife nuts, but I send postcards from my vacations to everybody. But I have the postcards printed up and written out before we even go, and I just make sure I bring the stack with me so that I get the postmark from wherever it is that I’m vacationing. So that’s one way.

Some of the other things that you can do for your clients, you know, I’ve got a reminder also to, I give them a, what do you call it, like a tech tip or an app tip. Something that I’ve come across that’s going to make their life a little easier. Again, it’s not selling me, it’s just, “I’ve been thinking of you. Here’s a Chrome extension that I think would make your life easier.” People are like, “Oh, okay, Vance was thinking about me. Great,” and send it on. It’s just those touches, and you program this into your calendar so, you know, you can’t put an appointment on top of it because that’s already on your calendar, so you’ve got to have time to do it. And you program this out for the entire year, and whether you assign it to a VA or you do it yourself, as long as it’s on your calendar and you are honest with yourself about keeping your appointments with yourself, it works.

[36:19] – Creative Client Onboarding

You talked with that financial planning company that there were some things that they did. It sounds like, I’m sure part of it was related to mailings, as we’re talking about now. But are there other things that they did or others have done in that type of professional services area that are more about, let’s say, certain calls with clients or meetings with clients? Anything in that department that people should maybe be thinking about as well?

Sure, yeah. I mean, I worked with an attorney group in California, and you know, we were looking at- they’re probate attorneys, and they really wanted to jazz up their welcome or their onboarding. So they decided that they were going to kind of be like the Starbucks of attorneys. So everybody learned how to make coffee drinks. Everyone, attorney, paralegal, didn’t matter, you learned how to make coffee drinks. And you were led in, the client was led into this boardroom that looked like it was the set of the “Friends” coffee set. You were given a leather-bound menu that listed all of the coffee drinks that they had, and even if they didn’t have it on there, they could probably make it. And that was the setting, that was the initial onboarding. It’s like, “Oh my God, you mean I can get a Frappuccino with a double shot of potato juice and all that stuff?” You know, it made a huge impression, and especially if the attorney’s going to make it, oh my God, you know? So there are, if you have a physical office, there’s so much you can do as opposed to if you’re virtual or if you have to work at the client’s place.

Yeah, and I want to encourage everybody who’s joining us to take in these examples and recognize that you’re likely not an attorney or maybe you’re not a financial services firm, and you’re almost certainly not a mold restoration company. But there are ideas in here, and so the challenge for everyone is to think about how this applies to your specific business and what kernels can you take from this to apply. Another question I have for you here, Vance. I know we’re getting on in time, and I want to be respectful of that, but you have four businesses, from my understanding. I’m also guessing that you’re not involved in all four of those day to day. Just talk us through what that looks like. What does your team look like in the consulting coaching business? What does your team look like in the others? Let’s just start with that, and I have a follow-on to that.

[38:41] – Running Businesses Without Daily Involvement

So on the home services side, as I mentioned, I, over the years, built systems and processes because they give you freedom. And so about eight years ago, I was able to step out of those businesses and put in a general manager. And I told him, “All you do is just run the system. Don’t do anything else, don’t screw with anything, just manage the systems, everything will be fine.” So today, I’ll spend 90 minutes a week on those businesses, cashing checks, kissing babies, and meeting with the general manager.

Sorry to interrupt, is the general manager, is that person responsible for all three businesses, or is it?

Yes. Yep, he runs all three businesses. And when he has ideas on things that, you know, improvements and things like that, he waits for Friday. We meet every Friday morning, 8:30. He knows to wait till then, and we’ll talk through the idea. If we think it’s a great one, great, knock your socks off. If we think it’s an okay one, I’m like, “All right, go ahead and try it anyway.” And you know, that’s how we continue to move that business forward.

What did it take for you to become comfortable with somebody else running not just one, but three different businesses?

I’m not.

You’re not comfortable?

I’m not comfortable with it. Oh, God, no. It’s my baby.

So, but you’re comfortable enough to step away and only have a touchpoint once a week?

Yeah, I am, but it’s still, you’re never 100 percent like it’s out of your mind. It took probably a good solid year, year and a half. That was really the transition because it was, you know, “What toes am I stepping on? What toes is he stepping on?” We really had to work out. I mean, he had already worked for me for eight years. He’s a long-term employee, and so we just had to figure out what we were doing. He was really trying to figure out, “Okay, what am I allowed to do?” And I’m like, “Dude, you are it. The buck stops with you. You know, you got to spend $500 to fix something, spend $500 to fix something.”

So for that, I mean, is it a matter of just essentially building- so you have your systems that run the business, I’m imagining each business has a system for marketing, for sales, for delivery, retention, just different systems, hiring, whatever, all that. And then within that, there’s probably some additional rules or guidelines when it comes to how much you can spend without having to ask me about something, or if this type of problem comes up, here’s how you handle it. So you have all of that documented, and then before you pass the baton, you’re talking with this person, going over all those things, seeing if there’s anything else that you haven’t yet addressed, and kind of playing through situation analysis and making some decisions. Is there anything beyond that that you did that you feel was instrumental for you to make that transition so that you’re not having to be involved in the day to day?

I think my two weeks in Costa Rica where I had no contact with him whatsoever. I mean, it was, it cut the umbilical cord. He had no contact with me. He had to, whatever the problem was, he had to figure it out on his own. And it was probably equally as hard on him as it was on me because I’m just like, “Oh my God, what’s happening?” You know?

Right, right. That makes sense.

[42:14] – Where to Learn More About Vance

All right, well, I want to thank you, Vance, so much for coming on here. I know we’ve just started to scratch the surface on everything that you’re working on. For those that want to learn more about you, I know you’re creating a lot of content, where should they go? Where’s one link or URL that we can put here for people?

Yeah, the best place would be my main website, which is deliverservicenow.com, a whole bunch of little free downloads and things like that there. Or you can certainly connect with me on LinkedIn. I think I’m the only Vance Morris there.

We will link that up in the show notes. Vance, thanks again so much for coming on.

I appreciate it, Michael. Thank you for having me.

Important Links:

Vance Morris
Deliver Service Now
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