Why you're losing clients (and money) before they even book

Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome to the differently aligned podcast for neurodivergent business owners. I'm Adina Levy. I'm an autistic adhd, uh, business coach, speech therapist, professional educator and multiple business owner. I support neurodivergent business owners to create businesses that are sustainable, enjoyable, impactful, profitable and burnout free. I, I provide safe spaces for you to share with like minded community who get it, me included. Everyone is welcome here. Whatever your neurotype, gender, race, any other intersections and special fantastic, unique things that make you you, you are welcome here. This podcast is recorded on the aboriginal lands of the Gadigal and Bidigal people. I acknowledge the traditional owners, elders past and present and I extend my respect to any first nations people who are listening in. If you've been paying attention to how frequently I've been putting up podcast episodes in recent months, you might have noticed it's not very frequent. It's a little random and I am, um, hoping to shift that now. I've been in a real big deep dive, pulling back, quiet, hidden from the world focus or like somewhat hidden, kind of rebuilding my whole business, my systems, my processes, my, my funnels. The way that people flow into the business and out of the business. The project is not complete, it's in progress and I've been sharing a heap of information about that, all the behind the scenes, all the reasoning with my neurodivergent business collective members. I've also been sick like twice recently and I'm just getting over it. You might even hear it in my voice. I have been super sick this last week and my energy has been completely gone today. I've woken up feeling a bit better finally, and I'm riding the energy. It's sunny, I've had my caffeine, I've had my ADHD meds, and I had a big spark to share with you what's been on my mind this week for a couple of reasons. I've had two client sessions with my one on one clients focusing on this topic of how we get people to flow into your business without losing them. People who are interested or who could potentially be interested. How do you not have these leaky funnels, which sounds kind of weird and maybe gross, I don't know. But how do you get people who could be your ideal client or customer to end, uh, up, let's just say it bluntly, giving you money end up being a client or customer. I also reflect on this a heap whenever I'm a customer. And I've had a couple of good and not so good experiences as a customer recently and as a client. And yeah, all of this comes together with my deep, deep and utter passion for helping you have a streamlined business that works for you, works for clients on a human level, on a systems level, on an information level, on a service level. Now, I'm going to say it up front, I am far from perfect here and honestly, a lot of this is stuff that I'm rebuilding or improving in this whole kind of shakeup of my business while I'm changing platforms and updating and renewing everything. So while I have, you know, we'll call it, best practice in mind and the guiding principles and ideas that I'm sharing with you, I also think about them myself. And there are limitations. You know, it takes time and capacity to rebuild a system or create a, um, helpful information document or whatever that is. But the truth is, in the long term, taking these steps is what is going to improve not only your client experience, but it's going to improve your business. Bottom line. You're going to get more money in the door and you're going to get a, uh, more smooth, streamlined version of it on the back end being the provider doing even the admin around these parts of your business. Now, while I'm mostly going to be talking about onboarding clients if you offer them a service, all of these principles absolutely relate to if you're selling a product or a digital product, or if you're providing support in your business, but that are not exactly like one on one client situation. But the concepts are solid no matter what you sell in your business. So we're talking about why you're losing clients before they even book in with you and you know why you're losing money or potential money. If you have an onboarding inquiry intake process that has developed quite organically and possibly quite randomly, you're not alone. It's very common. And that's okay. We all start from somewhere. And I hope that after listening to this, you're going to have a few ideas, including short term ideas and longer term ideas of things that you can fix, tweak, improve and P.S. i'd love to hear from you what you have taken away and any, you know, nuggets, any thoughts, any changes you're going to put into place. So please feel free to send me a line or my contact is in the show notes. What's most important when you're looking at the client journey from interest to inquiry, to perhaps wait list to booking, to actually turning up and paying, is that you need to See it from their perspective. Now, you're not always in every client's head. It's not possible, but you can try and understand the experience from the client's perspective at all stages. I want you also to think about yourself when you're the client. How has your experience been moving through different kinds of businesses? What did you enjoy? What made it easy for you to sign up, to say yes or to, you know, get in touch and take that next step? What were you annoyed about? What were you confused about? What were you frustrated about? Or what made you just ghost them entirely, you know, and not take a next step? Do remember that everyone has a different brain, a different way of learning, different, uh, motivations, different situations, everything. So your experience and reflecting on what you would want is important, and it's a big piece of it, but it's not the only version. So make sure that you are trying to understand the client's journey. For your different kinds of clients who are moving through your process, the best thing you can do is listen to the questions that come up. If somebody takes the step to ask you for further information or to clarify something with you, that is golden, because that is information telling you, where have you not been clear enough for that particular client about something, whatever their question's about? So take that as data, and if it feels that that tracks. And it's not just that particular one instance, but it's possibly the experience that others are having or a question that others might have, go and improve your system to reflect that. I'm going to talk you through five key areas and considerations for why you might be losing clients and money before they even book in with you. We're going to talk about the fact that you may be relying on your brain to hold the process, or is there even a process? Your inquiry process might be unclear or confusing or hard to act on. Like, how do people even get in touch to show they're interested? And along the whole journey, clients might be missing key information that helps them know if your business is for them, or how much does it cost, or what happens next. Your forms and intake process might be asking for the wrong information at the wrong time. Maybe you're not taking in enough information to know whether this is a potential client for you. Or maybe you're asking for too much information before somebody's actually committed to your service. And number five is where you kind of ghost them after they end up on your waitlist or sending an inquiry. And by the time it's time to get them booked in or to actually see them and meet them. There's been a big gap of connection. Let's go into each one a little bit. And I'm also going to share at the end a super fabulous offer for how you can go deeper. If you want more guidance, more support for streamlining your business and improving all of the systems, processes, including automations, templates, everything like that, that's going to help your business just work smoother. I have a 30% off my streamline your business for time freedom course right now, so I'll share all the info in the show notes and I'll tell you a bit more about that course at the end as well. The first fundamental reason why you're losing clients that I see happen way too often in business, and honestly I've been guilty of this for a really long time and I have been turning it around, is that you're relying on your brain to hold the process. If there is even a process. Are you just winging it when somebody contacts you? Are you just making up a different process each time about how they get information or even how you're pricing it, or how you're providing an offer to them for how you can support them? It's inconsistent. It drains you because you're just continually reinventing the wheel along the way. And so whether you have other people supporting you in your business or not, systematizing your inquiry and onboarding process is so deeply important. And here's some practical ideas that you can do is, you know, simply just create a doc, like a Google Doc, that maps out the steps. You can create templates for the most common steps in your process. And sure, you can customize them for the actual response each time, but you know, if 90% of the message is written, then a someone else, an assistant, can help you in your process with your tone with, you know, your process because it's all spelled out there. And B, if you're doing your own admin, it just makes it so much easier. The second reason why you're losing clients and money before people even book in is that it's hard or unclear for how people can even get in touch or what is their next step. It could be that your services are, uh, really hard to find on your website. What do you actually offer? How do people know what you do in your business and therefore how you can help them. If there's no obvious next step, people very easily disengage and run away. Close the tab or just leave it there with the pool of 700 other tabs. Have you experienced that yourself when you've been searching for a support or a, uh, service. I absolutely have. And honestly I've caught myself in not making that next step clear enough. Make it really clear. Make a big button how I can work with you or services and repeat it, put it in lots of places, make it easy from, you know, Instagram, if you're on social media or Facebook, you know, make sure that it's very easy for people to find the link where they can get more information from you or take that next step. So whether you're asking people to book in with you straight away or whether you have, say a wait list or an inquiry, make sure that it's so easy for people to take a next step. Give you their email address and first name if possible, as an absolute minimum, just to indicate that they're interested. We'll talk a little more in point four about how much info you should collect at each point. But you know, just keep in mind there's going to be people who are interested in you. They've found you, they've heard your name, they've looked you up, they found your social media, they've clicked on your website, they're interested. Make it so easy for them to take that next step. The third way that you're losing clients and money before they even book in is that you might be making clients hunt for information at all stages across the whole journey. Things like expected time frames for services, prices, location, what to expect at all stages, and also really even just you know who you're for, what that service is, why it exists. Keep in mind that nobody cares about your business as much as they care about their own problems. And what I mean by that is if you think that you've given them information at a certain point, maybe your website had a bit of information about how your one on one services proceed and then they filled in an inquiry or a wait list form. Please do not assume that the person has read or remembered what was already on that website. Remind them, make it easy for them at all points to find the information that they need. In many cases this might look like a simple PDF with basic information about how this works. Could be 1, 2 pages and the same information can be available on your website right there on the page. But also attach that to a confirmation email when they have gone on your website, attach it to an email when they're seeking more information, attach it to an email when you're offering for them to book in so they're reminded of all the details that will help them understand Whether that is the right support for them at that time. And again, pay attention to the questions people are asking you along the way. That's the data that tells you what might be missing here. How could you erase, uh, the need for that question to even arise? Because you've made it easier for people to find that information and be reminded of it along the way. On both of my businesses I have recently added an FAQ page which I'd been thinking about for a really long time, but I finally did it and my hope is that I can direct people back to it in my auto response. I'm directing people to it on the contact page and I hope that more emails that would have come to me as an email are never going to arrive in my inbox because they'll be covered in the FAQs. I don't have any data about that. It will be more a feeling over time. And these are new pages on my websites, so I'll be really curious to see how that goes. I'm going to be adding the link to the FAQs on my autoresponder and I've done this before where I've added a little bit of info on the autoresponder, like if you're looking for your login link, uh, go here, et cetera. And I ask people to reply if their email has been answered by the auto response. And not everyone does, I'm sure, but I should absolutely have had people email me a question. They get the auto response and a moment later I get an email back from them saying never mind, all sorted. So that's cool, you know, just find any way that you can to make it easy for people to get the information they might need. Don't be afraid to provide more information or say it more times. People will never read it as much as you think they will and they sure won't remember where they saved it or they will absolutely need reminders. So make it easy for people to find the info they need. The fourth reason why you're losing clients and money before they even book is, is if you're collecting the wrong information at the wrong time. I touched on this earlier and I said, you know, if you're going for just an initial inquiry, ask for the minimum information. Pretty much first name and email address is all I ask. And you know, contact forms so people can actually send me their message. But think about your experience handing out information. I think people are getting more and more wary of handing out too much information, which is probably a good thing. I'm um, not saying you do, but don't go asking for like, bank account details and date of birth at an initial inquiry form. That might be an extreme example. But what I'm trying to say here is make it really easy for people to feel safe contacting you in that first instance. If your first contact is often a little bit more extensive, maybe it's getting people on a wait list. And in that case, you do need more information because you need. From a service side, you need the information that tells you, is this a good prospective client for you? You need to be able to vet who's on the waitlist. You might need to add a few questions that help you kind of filter out folks who may not be appropriate for your service. But in doing so, don't just ask the questions. Do add to your form or to the information kind of on that same page, really clear explanations of who you're for so that somebody doesn't go on your wait list if they're not the appropriate person for your service. Maybe they're in a different age group, maybe they're in a different area, maybe they're looking for a different kind of thing. And honestly, I think pricing transparency is really important as well. I think it's super important to be able to share what your pricing model is at the point that people go on your wait list and maybe even adding a line that prices may change, but then at least they've got an expectation of what they're in for, which means you're already going to be having, say, more quality clients on your wait list. And I'm saying quality not as a human judgment, but quality compared to, are they the right clients for your service? Because if somebody doesn't know the pricing information, they've gone to the effort, they've gone on your wait list, they're keen for the support, but they don't know how much it will cost. If you come back to them with pricing, they may get a shock and they may say, oh, no. And they may also be quite frustrated that they spent that effort going on your waitlist without the full information. Pricing transparency is a really good thing because you're going to get more of these quality clients because they're a match for who you can support, they're ready to get the support you offer, uh, and pay the price that you're talking about. And so at this stage, they're ready to sign up or they're ready to go on a wait list and put some, we'll call it some skin in the game. Just think really, really carefully about how much information you're asking at each stage and why it still should be as minimal as possible. But with enough for you to know if that's a client for you, and with enough for them to know if you're the service for them, be very cautious about asking for lots of deep identifying information, like reports, documents, you know, deeply personal things. At that stage, I always err, uh, towards not asking for that stuff unless there's a very, very, very good reason for asking for that. Because when someone's going on a waitlist, they're not in your service, they're expressing a big interest to be in your service, but they don't have that trust in you yet. And you have no need to collect lots of identifying data for people who may not, in fact, become a client. Eventually. People are wary of handing out so much personal data. So before you've built that relationship with them, be very cautious. And the final way that you may be losing clients and money before people even book in with you is, is at that point that they've made an inquiry or they've gone on your wait list or maybe they've even booked in. But for a, uh, far off future time, you need to keep the connection alive with them. And that starts at the moment that they've submitted that inquiry. So some sort of automatic confirmation is really important. And I think it's really valuable to keep in touch with people, let people know what are the expectations, what's going on, and how they can get some support along the way. Maybe it's about sending them a handy link or a resource, sending them to your podcast, to your blog, or, you know, to your social media. This can be achievable. Make sure it's consensual. Like, you know, don't blast people with heaps of emails that they didn't actually ask for. But there might be, for example, a, um, monthly email you send to folks who are on your waitlist to keep them in the loop on, you know, the progress of the waitlist and to send them a quick, handy tool, resource freebie that you have something that you can help lots of those people with along the way. People are really going to appreciate that because they're going to feel that they're starting to know you, that you care, and they're going to remember that you even exist. So when you pop up and say, hey, I've got a spot for you, they're not going to be like, who, who are you? I honestly don't do this enough. And, uh, it's something I'm really working on improving as well. So that's just on my mind. I would love to hear from you. What ideas has this sparked? What are you feeling that you need to shift or change? And I would hope that you can bring a mindset here of continual improvement little by little. Every little step you tweak is going to make a change and improve that leaky funnel of, um, clients potentially going from checking you out all the way to booking in, paying and being your client. And if I've said anything here that feels very different to what you're doing, it might be working for you and that's awesome. But if it's not, think about shifting it. Keep that experimental mindset, keep trying new things that move you towards a, um, more streamlined, more supportive, easier client journey and more consistent workflow for you. If you want more guidance for building a streamlined business that frees you up, you're very welcome to join my streamline your Business for time Freedom course. It is 30% off all the way through till the end of September 2025. You get 12 months access so you can dive in now, make the commitment to improve your business systems and then create some time in your calendar where you're going to go through the course and work through the steps and the ideas that I share. You don't have to do it all immediately. Like I said, you've got 12 months to access that course and you are going to get your time back, you're going to get some calm back, you're going to get more consistency in your business. All the links that you need are in the show notes and I would love to catch up and hear what you've taken away from this episode. Thank you so, so much for listening. Have a beautiful.