Time Drain: Client Management (and How to Herd Cats)

Being booked out is like having a unicorn show up at your doorstep toting a green smoothie and beer (whatever your preference/time of day is) asking to give you a massage. NIRVANA! Depending on your time and commitments,  that golden number of booked-out-ness can range between 5 to 25 monthly clients.

Holy wow! Amiright? That’s a lot of busy, over-committed clients to manage and keep happy.

Here’s the thing about clients – they take a lot of time to keep smiling. And keeping them joyful is what creates wildfire word of mouth. You’ve seen what it’s like when you’re doing it all the client care by yourself. It usually looks like this:

  • client sends email that talks about if working together is right for them.
  • send back consult call time.
  • client tells you they live in the arctic and that they’re on a different timezone.
  • ten emails later, you’ve nailed down a time.
  • client emails day before to say their polar bear is sick and they can’t make it.
  • ten more emails commence for finding another time.
  • finally get them on consult call and rejoice because they’re your perfect client!
  • send them email with contract attached, link for paying, questionnaire, and possible first session times.
  • client fills questionnaire, pays, and picks first session time.
  • you’re still waiting on questionnaire so you email.
  • you wait.
  • wait some more.
  • day before session client fills out questionnaire to you.
  • you scramble.
  • you get on call and have an awesome time. You write up notes in email and send back.
  • the email volleyball begins anew to find new time.
  • …until the end of time.

We could keep going but you get it. The struggle is real and holy crap, no one wants it.

Now imagine this 5 times or TWENTY FIVE times over. Are you losing your zen?

It’s part of why we made Satori. Even with our *cough*awesome*cough* tool you still need to manage your herd of clients to keep them smiling and paying. So we’ve come up with big factors for keeping ALL your clients happy while being one person.

Welcome Pack

A PDF with all the important links, dates, and login information in one place. That’ll allow you to refer them back to it instead of having to pull it up yourself.

If it’s a group program – link to the FB/slack group, group call times, link to book their 1-1 calls, expected behavior, curriculum, when content will come out, where it’s hosted, etc. Anything they need to know to be a great group member.

If it’s one to one – give them your URL to log in to your scheduler (for Satori it’ll be- YOURBIZNAME.satoriapp.com) to book/reschedule/cancel calls, what they need to do before each call (Do they fill out an agenda that Satori sends out with call reminders? Do they bring a yoga mat?), how they access their notes/recordings of calls, how they should send you link to documents, etc. So that they have all the information to succeed.

Automated Check-ins

Clients are busy people. They need to be constantly reminded to schedule and that their calls are happening soon. You also want to maximize the time on the call together so it’s important to have a pre-call agenda sent out beforehand that way you can focus on solutions vs small talk.

You need to have:

  • scheduling reminder emails
  • call reminder emails
  • pre-call agenda emails

This will help you keep your clients on track and also mean that they feel taken care of. (Ahem, Satori can take over if you want?)

Prompts for Your Group

Keeping a group engaged can be tough since we all have the attention spans of hamsters on crack. Maintain your group’s focus by scheduling weekly prompts or talking points. (If it’s for a FB group, we recommend BufferApp.)

It’s crucial for clients to bond with each other to enriched the experience as well as make the group aspect valuable but no one wants to break the ice first. Give them talking points and watch the friendships start!

Group Calls

We’ve tried all the ways to schedule group calls – let them choose times, vote on the best times, and do the same time each week – and the clear winner is having the same time each week or month.

Set up a Google calendar for your group or use Satori’s group function to schedule group calls.

Get Satori

That way with one link your client (by themselves) can book, pay, sign, fill out their questionnaire and manage their coaching package. We’re biased, we know it, but we’re also generous!

Grab your free month of Satori on us (no credit card needed.)

 

What’s been the toughest part of admin for creating your coaching group?

Ten Ways Your Scheduler Could Change Your Life

You are excellent at what you do. Seriously, fantastic. We want you to spend all your time doing stuff that you adore and spending it with people you love. The only problem is that with the wrong tool you can spend hours doing admin work that could be passed off to robot butlers!

We straddle the line between part scheduler and part robot butler (with a cool bowtie) here at Satori since we’re more than just a scheduler, we’re your full client care suite! Regardless of who you choose, we recommend you getting a scheduler as soon as possible so you can start seeing the benefits!

Ten ways your scheduler can change your life:

1. Deeper connections – as coaches, the people in our lives are crucial for keeping us happy (and caffeinated). Scheduling that recurring coffee date with your pops or BFF is no big deal, your scheduler should integrate with your iCal or Google Calendar so that you can relax easy knowing your special time is sacred.

With Satori – pop it in your Google Calendar and we’ll schedule around it auto-magically!

2. Better health – working for yourself means more sitting and stress-eating (oh hello, lunch that’s oreos mashed up into ice cream covered in coffee, I didn’t see you there). Make time for gym and healthy meals by setting business hours that we’ll never schedule outside of. (Psss, check out this batch cooking 101 to free up even more time for aerial yoga!)

Satori peeps – your business hours are yours for the choosing! What will they be? Pop them into your availability and then book ALL THE THINGS you wanna do in your free time.

3. Less stress – OH NOES! Did you book two clients for the same time?! It was the timezones I tell ya! Your scheduler will take care of all things clients and timezones. WHEW.

On Satori? Don’t worry about double booking, timezone kerfuffles or missing appointments – we send you alerts if you’ve got a scheduling conflict so you can relax while at the pool. Have a mojito on us.

4. Kill off admin – marketing is what brings in more clients but you can’t get it done if you’re hog-tied in admin all day. Free up your success by handing off scheduling/rescheduling, contract signing, payments, questionnaires, pre-session agendas and sesssion alerts to us. We love it so you don’t have to.

Not on Satori yet? Grab your scheduler, HelloSign, TypeForm and Boomerang for Gmail to cobble together an admin solution.

5. Self-managing clients – your clients have busy lives that change constantly – crisis, sickness, winning lotto – all these are admin drains for you if they need to cancel/reschedule (with enough notice). Your scheduler should have a way for your clients to self-manage their sessions (bonus, if it gives them reminders about scheduling their sessions too).

You’re set. Satori does that and we also send you emails to let you know of the cancellations/rescheduling.

6. Stress-free sick time – winter is coming and with it the flu. Even though working from home is like working in a germ-free bubble, you will still get sick. A good scheduler will have a way for you to notify all your clients that you’re more phlegm than human and that all sessions are cancelled till next week.

If you’re using Satori, you can do that by creating an “active client” list in Aweber or MailChimp and then taking two seconds to make sure each package adds them to the list. 

7. Easy vacations – everyone talks about the freedom of working for yourself but let’s get real here for a second – it’s tough taking time off when you’re the boss, secretary, mailman, social media strategist and work love interest. Plan your vacations in advance with your scheduler and stick to them! You (and your business) need it, really. Really really. Your scheduler should allow for booking yourself out in the future.

Set your available work times during the rest of the year and then delete your time away, easy peasy, so you can have your vacation WHENEVER YOU WANT. Where are you going to go? Caribbean and coconuts or your couch and a good book?

8. More productivity – it can be hard to switch between the ten different hats of being a self-employed business owner so why not dedicate specific days to doing email, marketing, copywriting, sales, client calls? That way you’re not switching constantly between different tasks.

Think about creating dedicated days or weeks to working with clients so that you can increase your productivity like woah!

With our recurring availabilities and one-offs you can make the first and third week of every month client weeks or have clients on just Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Set your preference and get productive! 

9. Zen – make room in your life for your meditation practice (your clients will thank you for it). Book 15 minutes a day and feel that stress float away.

Satori users: you can either book meditation spots daily at a set time or have a 45 min buffer period between each client to allow for ultimate zen. 

10. More profit – the less time you spend doing admin the more time you could put towards making money thru clients or writing courses which are the money-makers of your business. Since your clients don’t need your smart brain to help them find times it’s important that you get this task off your plate as soon as possible.

With one URL you could free up four hours a week. Have your booking link in the bottom of your email signature and on your website and we’ll do the rest. 

What’s one way your scheduler has changed your life? We’d love to know.

Psst. You can have a free month of using our robot butler on us.

New Client? Here’s Their Step By Step Intake Process

What sounds even sweeter than a chirping bird, a tiny kitten’s purr or Beyoncé belting out a tune? That would be a prospective new client uttering the magic words… I want to work with you! (or) TAKE MY MONEY!

You’ve wooed them with your brilliant content and sparkling social media repartee, so now you need to continue the feel-good factor with a smooth, professional sign-up process. Satori’s Offer feature makes it quick and easy. In just a few clicks, your new client can:

  • sign up to the Offer (aka an one-off session or coaching package – if you’ve not set up an Offer yet, here’s our tutorial on creating a coaching package in 8 easy steps.)
  • accept the terms and conditions of their coaching Agreement
  • pay in full or with a payment plan (you can offer different options to make it easier for clients to pay)
  • provide you with their contact details
  • fill out a new client questionnaire
  • schedule their calls

All of this information is zapped straight to your Satori dashboard – your calendar is updated, Agreement activated, payment processed and client details added to your Contacts. Kapow! All the admin is done without you lifting a finger (aka sleeping), so you’ve got more time to get ready to deliver a killer coaching session.

Here’s what your clients see during the sign up process with you!

Getting started

(This is the only thing YOU need to do to sign up a client in a fast, professional and thorough way. The rest is automated by us, Satori (and a wheel full of digital hamsters).)

You’ll need the Booking Link for your Offer. Log in to Satori and go to Offers. Click the cog icon beside the offer, click Get Booking Links, then copy the Direct Link. Use this link in your email to your client, and tell them to simply click on the link to begin.

Step 1—Overview of offer

First the client sees an overview of your offer and what it entails, including the price. (No sticker shock here!)

This is also where you can remind them to create a Satori account after paying, so they can easily manage, reschedule or cancel their sessions via Satori, saving you both dozens of emails.

(Again you’re sleeping while all this happens. So if it seems like hard work remember this is the client and Satori hanging out and sweating out the details.)

Select the offer

Step 2—Enter contact details

Now they enter their essential contact info including name, email, Skype and phone number. They can add a message to you as well. These details are used to automatically create a new Contact profile in Satori… no more frantic hunting through your Inbox to find a client’s Skype name before a call!

Step 2 - Client Details

Step 3—Accept terms

Now that they’ve given their name and contact info, it’s time to agree to the terms of working with you. They can read over the terms to get a clear understanding of what you’ll deliver and what is expected of them in return (how early do they need to show up? What happens if you/they cancel the agreement, do you do refunds?), then click the check box to agree to the terms.

Step 3 - Accept terms

Step 4—Start booking

Your client sees your available call times (which you put in as ‘Availability’ in your schedule before you sent the link when you created your Offer), and Satori automatically converts to their timezone (as set in their laptop)! They can book their first call and it will be added to your Satori Calendar. You’ll be notified of their session times as soon as they’re done!

Step 4 - Choose time

Step 5—Make payment

Now the client pays in full for their coaching offer or chooses a payment plan (if you’ve set one up for them). The client then pays via Paypal the first installment or the full price. Once they’ve paid they’ll be brought back to Satori to finish the signing up process.

Step 5 - Make payment

Step 6—Confirmation

Your client is now on the books. They can add their appointments to their favorite electronic calendar with the handy links provided (we also send out reminder emails before your session so being stood up is not an option). You both get an email confirmation and the coaching Agreement will be automatically activated.

 

satori-newpkg-client-6complete

Step 7—Create a login (optional)

They should create a login if your coaching offer is multiple sessions (if it’s an one-off they don’t need to).

All they need do is to add their password into the blank field – the email address will automatically populate – and hit the green button to confirm. (If they forget to do this, you can do it for them.)

To manage their coaching package (schedule, reschedule, cancel) they’ll need your business Satori URL which will look like this – WHATEVERYOUPUTASYOURURL.satoriapp.com

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Get your on-boarding process super smooth. Try Satori for a month, on us!