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you’re listening to the sweet life entrepreneur podcast Simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business, mental and entrepreneur activator a probe Age Hey there, and welcome to the show. This is episode number 168 And today we’re talking about how to launch your service is online. This is small business help for those of you that are facing tough times right now in our Corona virus economy, this is actually part one of a two part series where we’re gonna be diving into this two weeks together and I’m going to be giving you step by step of exactly how you want Your online service is today.
We’re diving in because the world has seen an entire shift and people are noticing hall of these different online business opportunities. And they are vast pivoting your business offer online service is is not only essential right now, but it’s also strategic in smart. In case you weren’t aware, my business has been consulting entrepreneurs, small businesses and corporations. Tow launch digital in online service is for over 12 years. In these service is they aren’t by default. They aren’t second best. These are actually smart ways to grow your business,
reach more people, grow your profit and expand your company’s capacity. So that’s what we’re talking about on today’s show. This episode is particularly for those of you guys who are small business owners looking to expand your reach and serve your customers through digital online service is right now in our Corona virus economy, either. Short term, you just want to do this for a small period of time until you can get back to normal or long term. This is also for those of you guys who are established business owners and you’re ready to scale.
So you ready to grow ad Online service is coaching, consulting digital communities or products, and you aren’t exactly sure where to start. If you’ve been asking yourself this question, that hair, I want to grow my business online, my company has reached its band with. We can’t serve any more people the way that we’re doing business. We’re maxed out. What do we do? How do we grow than this particular podcast episode? And actually the entire suite live under of Europe on gas? These air? This is what we talk about here on this show if you’re a new listener and if you’re a new entrepreneur and you are looking to launch online service is so you can work from anywhere.
This show is for you. Now, all this show now. So we’re gonna talk about today cause I’m gonna give you a lot of really quick software tips, software, recipes, meaning I’m going to make it so easy for you. I’m going to say, do this, Do this, Do this if you want these results and I’m going to be giving a lot of difference offer recommendations because software is the walls there, the structure of your online business. So if you had a brick and mortar business in the past or if you currently have a brick and mortar business,
you’re rebuilding the walls in the foundation of your business online through the software that you choose. And that also tends to be some of the most overwhelming part of launching. Normally business there so many different choices and not everyone is right where for every single business. So we are gonna walk through the steps of how to choose the right software, how to create and set of parameters for your service is the steps to get your service is up and running, and I’m gonna give you specific, softer recommendations. So that sounds good.
But that’s what you’re looking for. Let’s go ahead and dive into the show. All the show notes can be found by visiting and sweet life. Podcast dot com forward slash 1 68 Okay, in this episode, part one of two parts I’m specifically talking to those of you who want to take your established one on one service is you might have done face to face or in person and scale them online. So we’re focusing on one on one in person, bringing that toe one on one online in next week’s show.
I’m gonna be talking about how to take your established service is where you might have coached groups of people. Maybe you were a speaker or you hosted events. Or maybe you did provide one on one. This service is in person and you want to scale those and now provide him two groups of people. So next week is for groups. This week is for one on one. Before we go any further, I want to make sure that you know about this shows bonus for this month,
actually through April 30th 2020. If you’re listening to this real time, I will be hosting workshops in these workshops or three our hands on workshops that actually take you step by step through the process of launching your online service is planning them,
pricing them and taking your specific business questions. These workshops were designed for small groups of businesses at a time,
and because you’re a podcast listener, you can receive a $50 coupon off these workshops. So I’m giving you $50 off attending one of these workshops.
To find more information about that, please cruise over to sweet life co dot com Ford slash scale online and use the coupon code podcast to register and get $50 off.
It also gives me a great opportunity to work with you one on one and take your specific business questions,
something that we just can’t do here in a podcast settee. And I’ll go ahead and make sure that that coupon,
the discount and the link to register for the next live workshop is found in the show. Notes at Sweet life podcast dot com for its lush 1 68 Okay,
for those of you guys for listening to the show you have done one on one service is in the past.
Maybe you work with clients, even if it’s a group of clients. But it is one business, and you’re asking yourself,
How do we take these service’s I provided for my clients? And how do we offer them online? First things first.
Not every single business can be offered as an online business. Not every single service can. So, for example,
of you do eyelashes or if you are a massage therapist, clearly you can’t do those exact things online.
But there are amazing opportunities for you to continue to serve. Your clients may be indifferent creative ways. We’ll talk about some of those on today’s show,
so we’re gonna take you through three different parts. The first thing we’re going to talk about us, how to set up the parameters for your one on one coaching service.
The second thing I’m going to go through is giving you a menu of different software that we recommend, and then the third part of this show,
I’m gonna actually walk you through step by step, how to set it up and hop on board new clients.
So step number one, when you are changing your service, is from face to face to digital, you have to set up new parameters for how those service’s are offered,
which means that in the past, if you have hosted clients, maybe for a two hour in office strategy session,
then we want to scale. Those service is online. So just as you set up parameters for maybe a one hour appointment to serve people or two hours or whatever the parameters were in person,
we have to set up those same parameters online. I’ve seen companies start to scale online and because it’s online because they’ve eliminated drive time,
you know, in all the different logistics that come together when you’re delivering service is face to face, they somehow forget to establish parameters for their digital service is.
And so what happens is the service is just turn into kind of hang out sessions, and it doesn’t give your customers the right opportunity to set up how they know that they’re gonna be able to work for you.
You have to set up healthy Bram parameters, just as you did for your face to face service is online,
and I want to encourage you to do that right From the very beginning, you have to set the expectations.
The second thing you need to do is you need to set the goals in the scope for that meeting.
Some of those goals or things that you have been able to do in person to just simply aren’t gonna be able to do online.
So you want to be honest with your clients and talk about Listen, this is what we can do.
This is what we can work on. This is what we can accomplish, and you set up the scope for your virtual coaching session or your virtual service session or therapy session or whatever it is that you’re doing.
You set up the scope in the very beginning, so your client knows what to expect. They know what you can dio.
They know what you can’t do. They know how they will leave that meeting and what they can expect at the end of that meeting and when you set up clear expectations in the very beginning of what it looks like when we work together,
virtually versus what it is look like when we’ve worked together in person in the past. Then nobody’s disappointed and everybody walks into it with eyes wide open.
One of the best ways to do this, if you are scaling to virtual service, is whether short term right now with what everybody’s facing with Corona virus or this is something you want to do is a long term strategy.
You need to make sure you’re communicating. You have to communicate your plan with your clients. So my recommendation is to send an email out your clients and say,
Hey, listen, I’m so excited we’re gonna be offering virtual service is this is what they’re gonna look like.
This is how long they’re gonna last. These are the things that we can work on together. Are you ready cause we’re ready to serve you and you have to communicate.
You don’t want there to be a gray area because there are many people that have never received a service online before.
They don’t know to expect, and they don’t know whether or not receiving service is on line is just as effective as receiving service is air support from you in person.
So when you approach them with a plan, a strategy, the scope of what you’re talking about, the parameters of that service and you come to them and you say,
Here goes This is what we have prepared for you. It gives them peace. It gives them confidence in your leadership,
which is something that right now customers were desperate for leadership from you, and it helps to sustain your business and sustain your sales.
If you’re doing this to actually increase in scale your service is, then this will, of course, increase your sales based on where they were just with your in person service is so I want to make sure you are communicating clearly exactly what these parameters are and how people can start working with you.
And I’m gonna walk you through the steps of that here in just a minute. The other thing that I recommend that you set up is how and when you are gonna deliver any supplements to that service.
So your business is different than anybody else’s. There’s tons of different industries that listen to this podcast, but let me just give you an example of what a supplement could be.
Maybe you need to send them an email with action items or recommendations to do after their meeting. A supplement is anything you need to share with them,
whether it’s a pdf or a video tow watch or an email with steps or anything else that they need in order to take action in implement.
The service is that you provided to them virtually. For example, I’m gonna try to bring in a bunch of creative examples here to get your wheel spinning if you weren’t as citizen and you started providing online consulting.
Service is where you are doing face time with your clients, and you can’t actually work on their skin.
But you can talk about their skin. You can give them recommendations on what it looks like. You can sell them products After that meeting,
you might want to send them a list of the things that you talked about in the products that you recommend in links to buy those products from you during the time that maybe you can’t see them online.
That’s an example of a supplement that would go with the service in a couple different softer recommendations that I want to share with you that we love.
We provide the supplements. Your clients all the time is actually Boxer Boxer is a great way to continue to serve your clients.
You can actually send them links. You can send them video recordings of the recommendations, maybe a summary of the service you provided for them in action items for them to move forward.
Other options that they know. A lot of businesses use our slack channels where you can create a private slack channel with each specific customer.
Or, of course, you can just use good old fashioned email and send them your recommendations by email.
So to summarize, the first part is setting up the parameters of your service in making sure that you are clearly communicating what they can expect,
how long that service will be and you’re providing ways you can give them supplemental support if that’s necessary. After that service,
the key takeaway here is being clear in Lane the road map because many of your clients have never worked with anybody in this capacity before,
and even if you have never known it before, you need to take the lead it brings peace, it brings trust,
it brings confidence, and it continues to build a loyalty that your client’s already have with you. So let’s now dive into how exactly you do that.
Because if you’re listening to this, there’s a really good chance that you have never done this before in.
So in order to instill that confidence in your client’s, I’m gonna show you how to be a pro at it.
We’re talking about it today on the show, so the first thing to do is to choose your online platform.
This is where the service is going to happen. There are 100 different opportunities you can choose from, and we’re gonna go ahead and put a list of different software recommendations and recipes in the show notes for you.
A many of them have given us free trials to share with you, so make sure you’re cruising over to the show nuts for this episode at sweet life.
Podcast dot com forward slash 1 68 But you want to choose where is it’s gonna be done. How is this gonna be done?
And you can go all the way to old school. You can just pick up the phone and call somebody.
I mean, what a better way to connect, then the way that people connected you know, at least the last 60 years is by picking the phone up than calling somebody on the phone.
That’s totally fine. You don’t have to go super online Fancy. You could just set up a phone call with him.
Other software, which I’m sure you’ve heard of by now, is that Zoom. You can use FaceTime on your phone.
Or you can also use WhatsApp in many of those air, really just based on your preferences. But has your choosing your software.
I want you to think of your customers. Which one do you think is going to be? The least intimidating need to them that is going to give you a platform to actually provide service is successfully.
Whatever software you choose, I highly recommend that when you’re sending out that email to them about the expectations of your virtual service is that you also include a step by step guide on how to connects to the software that you’ve chosen.
Don’t just think that everybody knows and don’t think that your customers we’re going to follow probably the very clear tutorials that the software provides.
Some people just have a total block when it comes to software, and they just honestly feel very intimidated by and they don’t want to learn it.
And so, if that’s your clientele, they include maybe a PdF type out, a step by step guide and maybe even provide a telephone number for this software support.
So if anybody has any questions, you’ve really done all the work for them. You’ve taken away any nervousness that you possibly could have from this type of working relationship.
So the first thing you’re gonna do is you’re gonna choose that platform. The second thing I recommend you do is setting up an online calendar,
so we want it to be easy to work with you. That’s how you make money. If it’s hard to connect with you and book you and get on your calendar and work with you,
you’re never going to make money. And so we have to make it really easy for people to book with you.
So that second step is setting up an online calendar. Our favorite online calendar that we use is called acuity,
and I’ll give a link for that as well. But we also have a lot of clients. Use calendar Lee,
and it really depends on what you know and how you need your online calendar to function. Do you need and want it to sync with another calendar that your business uses?
Do you need to take money? Many calendars give you an opportunity toe. Actually accept payments at the time of booking,
and we’re talking about accepting payments next. So as a Segway into that, if you’re having trouble and you don’t currently have a payment processor,
an online payment processor set up for your business, check out different online calendars because many of them can enable that.
But going back just to the purpose of a counter block off times in your calendar where people can schedule with you where you always have open and you have them set aside for virtual medians.
And then we’re going in now to that third step of being able to take online payments. This is absolutely essential,
even if you are strictly a brick and mortar business and you don’t plan on offering scaled online service is for very long.
It’s still highly recommend that you have an opportunity to take money online because, frankly, it’s a lot easier for people to pay you online in.
So couple of those options can be pay power, obviously papal for business Stripe Square. And you can even accept payments through Venmo,
which is actually owned by PayPal. If you didn’t know that, and then the fourth step is setting up an email marketing responder,
we can’t go in depth about this in this particular show because this in itself is an entire business training.
But I want you to know that you could actually go to our website over its sweet life podcast in Just search in the search for our email,
marketing or email set up. And it will bring you to all of the podcast episodes I’ve already recorded teaching you how to get this set up.
But the fourth step is to set up an email responder. This means as soon as somebody books with you two things happen.
You get an automatic email saying, Hey, somebody’s on my calendar. I’m so excited and they receive either one or a series of e mails getting them ready for your appointment.
This is important because it takes the work out of your hands. When you’re a busy business owner and it creates an amazing client experience,
it shows them immediately the red on top of it and you can program these emails to go to them automatically.
That says, Hey, this is how to get ready for our appointment. This is also a great place to reiterate the parameters of the appointment,
the scope of the appointment and give them steps on how to get on your choice software platform and just really get them ready for their appointment.
So that last step is making sure you’re setting up an email responder. Sometimes his emails responder can automatically be built into your only calendar.
If he only calendar you have isn’t that way. Or if you’re choosing to book people a different way,
even manually, you want to make sure that you’re creating email responders that already pre written pre programmed to save you time and to give your clients an amazing customer experience.
Okay, in the last part, and all this will be in the show notes with a bunch of really cool bonuses from the software providers,
many of whom we work with, but this last part is actually telling you the names of all the software’s.
We’ve dropped a lot of names in here, and this is one of the problems. There are so many different software providers.
Others there’s so many different ways that you can connect with people. Virtually. Finding your way is the most important thing,
for I need a way that’s sustainable in the worst with your budget. So first things first. If you have very little budget,
even know budget, maybe you have no money coming in your service business right now. As many of people in the world have fallen on tough times again,
I know that we have listeners in over 150 countries to this podcast. So if that’s you just go with good old fashioned phone.
You can even do face time on your phone. Or you can use Facebook’s App, which was called WhatsApp.
We use what’s happened our company to connect with international clients when they want to jump on just a really quick business triage call without with us.
It’s a really easy way to connect with people that doesn’t cost any money. So that’s recommendation number one for those.
You guys really have no budget to come to the table with this. Or maybe you were just trying it out,
and you want to see what the feedback is from your clients. The next option up would be Zoom.
Zoom is an amazing platform that millions of people use across the world to connect. You can connect with people one on one or you can connect with people want on group in one of the tips I want to give you her on the show is Zoom has two different platforms there.
Zoom meeting and then there zoom webinar for the sake of coaching people. One on one you on Lee need zoom meeting Zoom Webinar will talk about next week on the podcast for coaching groups of people or live streaming your videos into different social media platforms.
But just for the sake of coaching people, one on one continuing to provide great service is to your clients or launching new virtual coach and service is just go with Zoom meeting other options,
which were actually out long before Zoom ever emerged that are very reliable options as well. Our go to meeting and go to Webinar,
which will talk about next week, but you can also use to suffer cold. Go to meeting, which provides very similar service to zoom in.
Might not be so inundated right now with what’s happening with all the businesses that have turned to zoom. And then,
of course, don’t forget good old face time. If you have a phone that’s enabled with face time,
perhaps you don’t have your computer set up the way that you like to your home. Yet if you’re kind of in this limbo state with the economy and maybe being a little bit uprooted from your stationery office due to Corona virus,
just use your phone and do a FaceTime call with your clients. Get a tripod out so you’re not constantly holding the phone in your hand,
and so that can free you to actually open up desk space to work with your clients. Went on one.
Okay, I hope you found this episode helpful again. This is for those of you guys that are ready to launch Virtual Coaching Service’s and specifically those of you who are ready to launch a virtual one on one coaching and consulting type service is next week we’re gonna talk about different types of virtual service is for providing them to more than one person at a time.
On today’s show, we talked about the importance of setting up the parameters and how to actually set up the parameters in the scope of your service.
How to get your customers ready for what they can receive from you and have them confidently walk into an online virtual relationship with you.
We talked about the actual steps of how to set up your virtual service is and what you need to have in place in what order to make it happen.
And we talked about very specific APS everything from Zoom to go to meeting toe wet sap. And of course,
there are so many more. We talked about Slack and Boxer in every single one of those software has a different role,
has a different job. It’s a different building block in your virtual online store, and so they all have different functions and so will summarize the functions for you again in our show notes.
I will lay out for you exactly what software is to be used in what circumstances, so we’re taking all the s work away for you,
and we just hope you find this show helpful again. All of the recommendations and the summary can be found by visiting Suite Life podcast dot com forward slash 1 68 And if you would like to join the workshop that I’ll be teaching walking you through step by step,
how to do this? How does that you’re pricing? How to set the parameters of your offers and even coming up with your offers and how to get all your software in place.
You are welcome to do so and receive $50 off by using the coupon code Podcast podcast all in caps in the link to join that workshop or the next upcoming live workshop will be found in the show Notes for this episode again,
a sweet life podcast dot com for its lush 1 68 Or you can simply join my virtual workshop and use coupon code podcast by visiting suite life co dot com.
Forward slash scale online. All right, you guys stay. Well, I’ll talk to you next week.
That’s all folks!