The Visionary CEO: How to expand your joy, revenue, and time off

Hi, there. I’m M. Shannon Hernandez. I am the founder of the Confident Expert Program, and I am a Joyful Business Growth Strategist, helping coaches and consultants around the globe build a six figure and beyond world-class business without the burnout. And today’s short tutorial is about a subject that’s near and dear to my heart. It’s one that my clients love when I’m able to dive in and do the full training. It’s called Love Your Leads. Now, how did this training come about? First of all, it was a mindset shift that needed to shift on my part. And I will share a little bit about that with you in this training. It was also a call to action for me, for my brand, for my mindset, for everything, to focus on the longterm success of my business and loving up on people, even if they are a no, a not yet, or a past client and showing them how much we love and appreciate them, and really having this whole mindset that I am known for helping people have the CEO growth mindset and helping them develop.

Because at the end of the day, the amount of money in your bank account is a direct reflection to the depth of your relationships. When I heard that years ago, I changed a lot of stuff up about the way I was doing business. And it has been joyful ever since then to get on this path of loving up on people, no matter where they are in their journey and not being so short-sighted as to, “Oh, they said no, next!” You hear that a lot in sales, right? When they say, no, you say next, when they say no, you say next. Well, what if we flip the script on that? And what if they said no? And then we loved them until they said, yes. And that is the essence of this training. I’m so excited to bring this to you today. If you love what you’re seeing, if you’re inspired, if it’s igniting some things in yourself that you’d love to work on for your own business, for your own CEO mindset and for your own growth and expansion, you can hit the button below and you can schedule a strategy call where we will be happy to talk to you about these kinds of things, which are not so well taught in the online world, but have made a tremendous impact on many, many coaches’ and consultants’ business over the years.

So I am going to share my screen with you. I have drawn you a lovely picture here and today we’re going to work off of this worksheet. So grab a piece of paper, grab a pen. I want you to just take some notes as we go through this and really think about expanding your idea of what is possible for your business. What is possible for the people who say, no, they’re not going to work with you right now, or who say not yet. And we’re going to get into the energy of each of these. So what you see here is two people loving each other. That’s what we’re all about in this brand, helping you, right where you are, loving you through life and business transitions and helping you grow this world-class business that you’re proud of. That gives you lots of joy and lots of time off and lots of money.

So how does this start? We all plant seeds. We plant seeds with our content. We plant seeds with, you know, if you have a Facebook group or social media, where people are interacting with you and we water those seeds and we nurture those seeds and we send some sunshine on those seeds and we grow our seeds, we grow our seeds. It’s super important. This is what makes the long-term business success, not churn and burn and grow the biggest list ever. And if they don’t buy now, uh, close the doors and all those kinds of things that just didn’t work for me, my energy, my philosophy, or how I want it to be showing up and leading my business and building this business that loves me and loves me back. So there are two simple steps to moving people from a no, a not yet, a past client or a referral – into a hell yes. 

All right. I’m super excited to bring this to you today. This is going to be a quick overview. So one of the things you’re going to want to make sure you have in place, and if you don’t, this is your first place to start is: do you have a way to track all the people that are coming into your world, people that are referred to you, people you’re meeting at networking events online, or in-person people that are downloading your freebies and your opt-ins, people that you’ve had phone calls with about your programming, about your coaching, about your consulting. And they’ve either said no, they’ve said not yet, they’ve said yes. And they’ve graduated as a client, people that are sending you referrals. How are you tracking all this? Because there’s going to come a point in your business, if you’re not already there where you’re like, I can’t hold any more of this into my brain.

Like, I just cannot keep all of this information here. And so I devise a really easy way. Believe it or not, I have this lovely business that brings me joy. You know, I work three and a half days a week. I have a $500,000 business. And guess what? I use Google spreadsheets. It’s like the best kept secret. But here’s the thing I use Google spreadsheets. I have a list of people who said, no, I have a list of people who said not yet. I have a list of people who are referrals and who sent me referrals. I have a list of past clients. I have a list of people that we’ve had coffee chats with, and maybe they express interest in the future. I take really good notes on what’s happening. And so if you don’t have that process in place, that is your next best step.

All right, you’re going to figure out: How are you tracking? Where are you tracking? What are you tracking? We’re going to go through that in a minute. I’m going to give you some tips and then when are you checking in? I have a practice in my business and it’s something that I teach my clients and students, we call it Millionaire Monday. That is the day that we sit down. We look at our lists. We figure out who are we reaching out to, to nurture and build some relationships. That’s the day we look at our finances. That’s the day we put some love and energy and water the seeds, right? Water the seeds of relationships because in the end, that is going to determine the strength of your business. So as you set up this tracking system, which once again can be as simple as a Google spreadsheet, you’re going to want to think about these questions.

How are you staying connected to these people? What are you saying to them? How are you staying connected? When are you reaching out? Right? What’s the process around tracking these leads or these past clients that are coming in? How are you tracking the interaction? So if I’m talking to someone in messenger, Facebook messenger, or email or Instagram, it doesn’t matter where – this works for all of it. That’s the beauty of it. I am then going over to my spreadsheet and I’m taking some notes. So-and-so said, she’s really interested in this next round of the Confident Expert Program, but she’s having a baby. Can we check back in a month? I type that down with the date where the interaction was and what the person said. This creates no barrier when it’s time to reach out again. In fact, it’s a bridge, right? It’s a bridge.

Oh, Dana, how’s the baby coming along? Like, you know, of course I’m connected with her on social media. I’ve seen the baby, commented, but this is that love. This is that care. This is what’s missing from a lot of people in the online business space where we hear about this, build the biggest list. If it’s a no go next, right? No, let’s slow it all down. Let’s have love and care and compassion for where people are in their life and in their business, they will remember how you make them feel. And when you’re the one reaching out, they’re going to remember that feeling. 

Okay. So how are you tracking the interaction? Where are you kind of putting this data? And then how are you tracking your nurture strategy? All right. And that’s what we’re going to spend the rest of this little mini tutorial over here is – What’s the nurture strategy and the energy for each of these kind of buckets of people. All right. Or planters of people since we’re talking about growing our relationship with people. So first let’s talk about past clients. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve hired many coaches and consultants in the past. They did great work. And when it was done, it was done. I never heard from them again. They didn’t check in to see how it was going. This was very hurtful for me actually. It was like, almost like when the money was done, they moved on. And I decided I’m not doing that. That doesn’t feel good to me. I want to be friends with my clients. I want to watch them blossom and grow. Even if they’re done working with me, I want to stay connected.

So for past clients, the energy here that I want you to play with, the energy is be their friend. How can you be their friends when they’re done paying you? How can you be their friend until the end? How can you be their friend and continue nurturing this relationship? Because here’s what we found when we switched to being their friend energy, right? And, and checking in on them. They came back and bought from us. They were at a new place in their business. They needed to work on maybe the next phase of their business where they were launching a new program and wanted to come back for some joyful business growth and marketing solutions. So the energy here is to be their friend. And what we do here is we put them on a spreadsheet and we reach out to them quarterly.

All right. Now, remember we talked about tracking over here, right. But we may reach out to them quarterly and we are asking them, “Hey, how are things going in your business? What’s happening? What’s something we can celebrate with you? Are there any problems that you’d like to brainstorm on?” We keep the line of communication open and we be their friend. All right. That’s the energy of this particular nurture strategy. So here’s the really cool thing. Over the years, my clients started talking about my business and my community being their biz family. I would have never in a million years thought of using this terminology, but it doesn’t matter. All right. It caught on and people will often say, “Oh my God, I’m in the business family.” Like you guys are my family for business. And we thought, where can we gather all these people and keep the loving vibes go in, in the business family.

Right? And so I have an amazing Facebook group called marketing and selling for coaches and consultants. And that’s where we interact with people. We make sure they know they have a home and they belong. Even if they are done paying us. It is huge. And I think if, if you take one thing away from this video, it’s how are you nurturing people who you are done working with? Because it’s very easy to say and, and then get busy. Sometimes it’s not intentional, but it’s like, “Oh, I’m really busy. I’ve got new clients coming in. I’ve got to onboard new people, a new phase of business.” But those people matter, those past clients, and trusted you with their business, with their success, with their health, whatever it is that you’re coaching around. Okay. So that’s one bucket or one planter of people. All right. The next group of people is referrals.

So referrals are your colleagues, your past clients, your people that are raving fans of yours. They refer business to you. Okay. So the energy here is be the trusted expert. All right. That’s the energy we approach this nurture strategy with. And what does it mean to be the trusted expert? Somebody has said, “Shannon, I need a so-and-so, could use some marketing help. I told her all about you. Like here’s her name. Here’s here email.” All right. Our reach out is pretty much immediately for these people. All right. Now immediately means it’s within our parameters of how I run this business. So we don’t work Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. So we try and reach out within 24 hours of when we’re working. And our action is to get them on a zoom call. Now it is not a sales call. We do not frame it immediately as a sales call. We frame it as, “Hey, Jan. So-and-so gave me your name. I’d love to sit down with you. See what’s going on in your business. See what your goals are, see what your dreams are, see what’s happening in your world and take it from there.” How’s that sound? Permission-based marketing is going to get you very far. How’s that sound is a beautiful question. To enroll people into getting on a call with you. All right. Let’s get their permission instead of just spamming them with a link. All right. So we get on a zoom call and then if it feels appropriate, if it feels aligned, we move them more into a sales call or drop a link. If they’re ready to go and I can get them registered in, whatever it is that they’re looking for support in, right? The no’s and the not yets have the same energy and the energy around these interactions is be the invitation.

Okay. Be the invitation. Now imagine that you’re having a barbecue and imagine that you’re going to have this party and it’s summertime, and you’re really excited. You’re going to have your closest friends, maybe some family over, what do you do? You send an invitation. You say, Hey, I’m having this thing on such and such date. I’d love it if you could attend, are you free? If so, bring some potato salad, whatever, right? Like whatever the parameters are around this party. I am known for invitation selling and teaching people how to use this. Permission-based trust-based marketing and selling to really build deep relationships with people. This comes with being the invitation. If they don’t come to the barbecue, we don’t get upset. We don’t cry over it. We keep it moving with the people who said yes. That’s the energy that I need you to adopt for these two crucial buckets of people.

All right. So let’s start with the not yet. The not yet are okay. I’d really love to work with you Shannon, but now is not the right time. We’re going on vacation. I need a few weeks to like, get myself together. Can you reach out to me in a month or in three weeks when I come back and we can get registered for the program. All right. That would be a not yet. They’re just not ready yet. Okay. And so we have a monthly reach out plan for them. And that monthly reach out plan is really to stay connected, to stay top of mind to say, “Hey, how was your vacation? Was it everything that you dreamed of? What were fun things that you did, right? We’re building the relationship with them. And for them, of course, we want them to be connected in our business family.

That’s the Facebook group. And this is all about being personalized. Right? You’ve already talked to these people. They’re going to remember how you make them feel. All right. So what is something that they said that you can follow up with? Is now the right time for you to follow up and say, “Hey, how was that vacation?” Or, “Hey, you have the baby, how’s everything going now that you’re a new mom?” Whatever it is, this is the stuff that actually matters to people. And if you don’t have a way to track and you don’t have a nurture strategy, you’re missing out on a lot of opportunity to build great relationships with people and to turn people into future raving clients. Which is what we want. Right. We want that. They may not be ready right at that moment. Let’s say you have a sales call or you get an email and they’re like, “no, this isn’t for me,” or whatever reason. You’re still going to make the invitation. All right. And being in the invitation here is we have a quarterly follow-up and reach out plan. All right. Now we know why they said no, because they tell us: “No, it’s money.” “No, it’s timing.” “No, I’m in another program for another six months. I wish I would have found you before.” We hear that one a lot. So how do we continue to be the invitation? All right. We do things like send them trainings. “Hey,” – personalized message – “We’re having this training on love your leads. Would you like to come?” “Yes, I’d love to.” “Okay, great. Here’s the link.” Get their permission, right? That’s the key. We’ve got their permission. All right. Or we send them a personalized email over this quarter. We invite them to join our biz family and we engage with them in the Facebook group, whatever it is, we are actively building this relationship.

Okay. Now I’ve left a blank for you here. You might think of another lead source that you want to nurture and come up with the energy and the action for that. Here’s what I want you to know. This has revolutionized my business and it has revolutionized coaches and consultants’ businesses that we work with. Yes. It takes a little more time. Yes. It takes a little more energy. Yes. It’s not automated. All right. But guess what? We’re building relationships that matter with people. We’re helping people remember why we care about them and why they care about us and why we want to be in each other’s worlds. And at the end of the day, these kind of strategies are what is going to give you this longterm business success that you’re looking for. It might be a little slower path, but it’s more meaningful.

It feels good. And this is a beautiful way for you to start thinking about all these people who are in your world and what is a nurture strategy that we could use to nurture this relationship. So we turn them from a no, not yet, referral or past client – into a hell yes, I am working with you because you care. Because you care. All right. So hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If you’d like to schedule a strategy session where we can talk specifically about your business, what’s going on in your business and how to grow your business more in alignment with who you are and what you believe, click the button below. We will see you on the inside. Adios.