Ep. 003: Why Raving Fans are Crucial for your Business

Written By Erika Tebbens
 
 

My motto for my business is: “Sell smarter, earn more, create raving fans.”

There’s a reason I prioritize getting raving fans for my business, and it’s not just because I’m a “words of affirmation” person.

It’s costs so much less to keep an existing client who will rave about you to others, than it is to bring in new ones. In addition to research data that backs that up, there’s additional data that shows just how powerful word-of-mouth advertising is for businesses.

Plus, when you have people coming to you ready to spend their money with you, it feels wonderful! And it means you aren’t spending so much time hustling to find cold leads and turn them warm.

Tune in to this episode to hear all the stats on why they are so important to your business, and learn simple things you can do to create raving fans for your brand.

LINKS & RESOURCES MENTIONED TODAY:

  • Erika Tebbens: Hey and welcome back to the podcast. Today, I'm going to be talking about raving fans and what they are, why they are so crucial to a booming sustainable successful business.

    So part of my, I have a, a methodology that I go through for everything I do, client work and my freebies and all of that in all centers around three things. So it's my No Sleaze Sales Method and it is sell smarter, earn more and create raving fans. But maybe you've never heard of that concept of raving fans.

    So I wanted to be sure to spend an episode spend some time and, uh, talk about it a little bit. So I first heard of this concept of raving fans, probably 12 ish years ago, uh, when I was a manager for Calvin Klein, when we lived out near Seattle, all of the store managers would meet once a year for a retreat, and we always had books that we had to read on leadership and management and productivity, all these different things, and we would preread them before the retreat, and then we would talk about them at the retreat. And one of them was the book raving fans by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles.

    So I had not heard of it. And it's, uh, the book has been out for a long time. I'd never heard of it before though. It's a very, very quick read and I instantly was like, "This is it. This is how I would describe my style as a leader, as a trainer, as a seller, all of that."

    It felt like it gave. Language and a framework to what I was already doing and how I was training my people. And I just, I resonated with it so hard. So later, you know, many years later when I started working with entrepreneurs on their own businesses, this was really an important thing for me to teach people about, because I just know that it creates such a more fun and profitable business when you are focused on creating raving fans and really forming relationships with people, like I mentioned in my relational selling episode, rather than just closing sales.

    So to use the analogy again that I use in a previous episode, in case you didn't listen to that one. I love the analogy of a train on the tracks. It's a little hard to get that train going from being completely stopped to full speed, but once it's really going, it takes a lot of energy to stop that train. So I view the train as your business and in terms of getting it going and getting it up to speed and then sustaining it. So it can be a little hard in the beginning to get things really up and running and a good, consistent flow of sales coming in. But when you are really nurturing people and you are cultivating raving fans as a priority within your business, you will then get people who come back and who refer their friends.

    So what that does for you, is, it actually eliminates a lot of the time that you need to spend hustling on getting people to be aware of you on that front end, and you will actually have people who are giving you money and then telling people that they know, "Hey, you should give them some money too."

    So it's really, really great. It's really crucial. And it will take a lot of stress off of your shoulders, when you actually have raving fans, sending other people ready to pay you directly to you. So I'm going to give you a few stats. So in case you're like, "Yeah, but I mean, who cares. Is there, is there any proof to this Erika? Like, are you just, you know, saying it because you like it and it makes you feel good or is this know is a really important for me to be focusing on this?"

    So I'm going to give you some stats because it really is important for you to focus on. So it is six to seven times more costly to attract a new customer than it is to retain an existing one. So that is from the white house office of consumer affairs. A McKinsey report says that 70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they're being treated. That's huge. Customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator by the year 2020. That is from a Walker study.

    Radius global says that millennials ranked word of mouth as the number one influencer in their purchasing decisions about clothes, package goods, big ticket items like travel and electronics and financial products. And in that same study, it says that baby boomers also ranked word of mouth as being most influential in their purchasing decisions about big ticket items and financial products.

    And a Nielsen study stated that 84% of consumers will say they either completely or somewhat trust recommendations from family colleagues and friends about products and services, making these types of recommendations, the highest ranked source for trustworthiness, and 68% trust online opinions from other consumers and place online opinions as the third, most trusted source of product information.

    So that's kind of bananas. Like almost 70% of people say that they trust what complete strangers have to say about a product or a service before purchasing it. So obviously word of mouth is a big, big, big deal. And give it in terms of your own life and how we operate in a modern world.

    We have things, you know, even like Uber and Lyft, it's different than the taxi cab industry, because you can actually rate a driver. If you have a driver respond to your request and you look at their rating and you don't find it favorable, you can deny that car and you can pick the next driver. You can put it back out to the pool of drivers and then get a new one.

    You can look on, you know, when you go, wherever it is online, to look, if you're shopping for clothes or shoes, I do this all the time. I pretty much only buy my shoes through zappos.com now. Because they make it so simple. Their customer service is really good. They have made me a raving fan. I love that I can order a bajillion pairs of shoes, have them shipped to me for free, like literally the very next day. I don't know how they do it. It's witchcraft. Uh, but I will get those shoes. I get them for me and my family. We can try them all on, in the comfort of our own home. I packaged them all back up. I print one single shipping label, slap it on, and I send all the rest back that I don't want for free.

    It's easy to do exchanges. It's easy to contact their customer service reps. So all of that has made me a raving fan of Zappos. And what I do whenever I'm on Zappos is I will look if I'm eyeballing some different pairs of shoes, I will go in and I will read reviews and I will see. And granted, yes, sometimes, you know, you see reviews from people and you're like, "Oh, okay. Nope. Like that's, you're just a very finicky person."

    But a lot of the time we are completely trusting of what somebody is saying, who we have never met, we will never, ever meet, but we are going to go off of what they say to sway our opinion on if we should spend money on something or not.

    Same thing with Yelp. Although I think Yelp maybe doesn't exist anymore. But you know, Google on Google, you can, uh, put up stuff about businesses and you can rate it and you can leave reviews and, and all of that. And so it is, this is why it is so important to really create raving fans out of your clients. And there are several ways that you can do this, but at a minimum, it means putting out a good product or service delivering on what you say you're going to say, and making that person feel appreciated for spending money with you.

    And I will say too, uh, I know last fall I was looking at a jacket from, I believe it was, it was either land center LLB, and I don't remember now, and I really was into this one jacket. I was convinced I was going to get it, read a bunch of reviews. And it said like, "Oh, it's, it's a shame. Like the zipper on this doesn't really work great."

    So I actually skipped that and got a totally different jacket, same company, but different jacket. And it would be a really good thing for that company to look at that feedback go, "Okay. A lot of people are saying the same thing here. They're saying they're having difficulties with the zipper. I'm going to, we're going to go back. We're going to figure out how to make it right. We're going to try to make it right."

    Maybe they don't have time that year to go back to the manufacturer to get a different zipper put in all of that, but at least they can know for the next year. That is a big part of showing people that you care and that they're appreciated and you value their feedback. You might not be able to make it perfect for them right now in this moment, but you can acknowledge it. You can make changes going forward. You can address it, all of that, but ultimately it's, you know, it's up to you to say, "Hey, I see you. I hear you. We we're going to try to make this right. We want to try to keep you as a raving fan, let's see how we can fix this."

    So a few ways that you can create raving fans. If you do something that is a little more high ticket or a really high touch. So let's say it is one on one coaching or consulting or anything like that, where somebody is going to pay you for a specific package or a timeframe, and you're going to be working in a very high touch way with them, at a decent price point. And you're not bombarded with tons and tons of clients all the time. Like you're not just like drowning in clients, which if you are, we need to talk because there's some ways that, I mean, that's awesome and kudos for you, but it's probably time to raise your prices.

    But that's neither here nor there in this episode. But for those people, like, I love to send my one-on-one people. I really love to send them something special. Like a book, a handwritten card. A little gift, like something. I know that they're, they're going to love. I love to do that because I want them to know like, You are awesome. You rock. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it."

    If you have, you know, for my Success Squad group coaching, I have a little pack of swag that I send each new person because I love, and I appreciate them and their, their commitment to invest in me. Now, let's say you are doing, uh, maybe smaller workshops or classes or you have a limited enrollment courses or something like that.

    You can certainly send an individualized message to each person, uh, or, you know, there are wonderful places that you can outsource this to, if you don't already have a VA there's, uh, places like punk posts, where you can actually go on and they make beautiful hand drawn cards and they ship them out and they take care of all of it for you.

    They're fantastic. I'll put a link for them in the show notes. Um, but also one of my clients just had the coolest thing happen. Amy Porterfield, um, she is an Amy Porterfield's course creation class and she posted something in her Instastories over the weekend. She tagged Amy. She was like, "I'm working on my course outline. And you know, I'm so excited about it."

    Amy actually replied in a DM to her with an audio message that was personal to her. And I know that Amy has been known to send personal emails back to people using loom where people can actually see your face and either it's recording you and your screen and all of that.

    And, you know, I don't, she probably doesn't do it with every single person. She has a lot of people, but she does it so that people know it's really her. And that she really cares and is so appreciative of them. And, you know, maybe you have a private community for your core students or anything that you know, where you're directly speaking to everyone who is enrolled in a course of yours.

    And that's really great. They get a little bit of a taste of you in there. Uh, or if you sell on Etsy or at a craft show, you know, see if you can, if people want to opt in and give you their email or whatever, um, or especially if they've ordered online and they have to give their email, go ahead and you can just reach out with a thank you.

    Or if you're shipping that, uh, like a package to them with a physical product in it, make it really special. Put a handwritten note in there that says, you know, "Thank you so much for your purchase. I really appreciate it. If there's any problems, you know, let me know." Something like that. Just those little personal touches nowadays go such a long way because things often feel so impersonal in our world that it really is going to make that person feels super special. And of course, if anyone ever has an issue, a problem, a concern, whatever, address it, listen to them, make sure they know they're heard, make sure they know they're seen and that you value their feedback and you're going to try to make it right, however that looks for you and your business.

    So if you don't have time or you're not choosing to read raving fans right now, maybe put it on your, your, to read list for the future or to listen to on audible or something like that. I really highly recommend it. It's very quick. Uh, but no matter what, think of at least one thing that you can do that will really help make, uh, an awesome personal difference for your clients or customers that doesn't necessarily take a ton of time or money for you, but we'll have a lot of impact.

    I'm also going to put a link in the show notes. It's a free thing I have that is all about getting more repeat and referral business through raving fans. It's totally free. And, uh, you just, you know, you have to sign up for it, but I'm going to put the link in there.

    So if you want more, um, if you also want to see how I use Trello for my followup system, that is actually part of it in there. So be sure to go to the show notes and look for that and sign up for that. I hope this helps. If you loved it, be sure, you know, leave me, leave me a review, let me know, or, you know, make sure you're, you've been subscribing to this, so you don't miss a podcast episode when they come out each week and definitely tag me on your Insta stories. If you are listening, let me know. Give me some takeaway, some ahas. Let me know what is something you are going to start implementing to create more raving fans in your business. And as always, happy selling.

 
 
Erika Tebbens
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