The other day I was helping one of my clients create an inner workflow for one of her services and then I decided I wanted to talk about it a bit more and share some quick insights. I've written a previous article about workflows, client journeys, and your brand, but this article will be specifically with examples of a detailed workflow for a service.
Firstly, your inner workflows are a huge part of your brand because they help you standardize your work and make sure you are giving everything the same attention. Let's share an example of a client call workflow with a few questions...
What do you do to prepare for a client call?
What is your personal ritual before a client call?
What do you do immediately after the call is over?
What do you do in the following 2-3 days related to this call?
What do you do in the following 2-3 months related to this call?
As you can notice, the actual call is not on there. You can go in-depth and create a workflow for the individual calls if you want. Personally, I don't do one of those because every single call goes completely different for me and I do have a habit of going off on tangents.
But here are some example answers to the above questions...
1. What do you do to prepare for a client call?
Take a look at my records to see if I've talked to this client before
Go over all of my notes from previous calls (if available)
Take a look at their website and their presence on social media
Find their intake form and look at the specifics they want to focus on
Write a list of questions and topics to go over during the call
Do any missing/additional research regarding the topic for our call
Go into the meeting room and make sure they have the correct link
Check my camera and headphones are working and charged
Open any tabs, documents, links, or files that are related to our call
Close or minimize everything else that is not related
2. What is your personal ritual before a client call?
Take at least 5min away from my computer to get rid of jitters (I still get them every time, no matter how many calls I do)
Get distracted by a side project, discord server, or personal emails
Make sure the cats are either sleeping or not in the room
Fill up my water bottle and go to the washroom (I've had too many times where I choked from a dry throat... talk about embarrassing!)
3. What do you do immediately after the call is over?
Walk away from my computer for at least 5-10min
Send them a thank you message for the call with what's coming next and when
Re-write all of my handwritten notes on a new page and organize them
Collect a list of resources, docs, links, etc. to send them regarding our conversation
Record the interaction in my CRM system (date and time of call, topic, etc.)
Start working on a different project
4. What do you do in the following 2-3 days related to this call?
(I usually do it on the same day later or the following day in the afternoon)
Re-write my handwritten notes digitally and add all of my resources to it
Go over the call recording to make sure I didn't miss anything
Send the files, links, resources, etc. over to them
Send a private message to confirm they've received my notes
5. What do you do in the following 2-3 months related to this call?
Reach out to them to check how they're doing
This stage only has that one step because what follows is usually different. Sometimes we go on another call, sometimes we chat about different topics, and sometimes we get distracted and start talking about random crap.
I do this every time. For every client. For every call.
This is my inner workflow for client calls!
Here is also an example of how you can organize your own workflows using FigJam (free!).
Now, you probably noticed here that not all of the above steps are included in that workflow. The reason for that is that when I share my workflows as examples, I don't break it down this much. I say work-prep, personal-prep, and follow-up. These three categories are enough to get an idea of what we want to do before our calls.
There may be some parts that change depending on what the call is about (discovery calls have a lot less on that list and some recurring clients have a lot more) and I have reminders in my calendar for the later follow-ups (because I suck at those). But this is an idea of what I mean when I talk about workflows around a specific service.
In this article, I shared with you the three-step version, the turning points version (video), and detailed answers to the specific questions. And I do admit that sometimes I go off-script. But this outline ensures that every one of my clients gets the exact same level of attention.
Now... let's relate this back to your brand.
One of my brand values is sharing knowledge. This can easily be seen in my workflow at multiple points, but here are the two most prominent examples... I make sure to always do additional research before a call and I always make sure I provide additional resources (even if they are not my own) regarding the topic. Otherwise, I am always taking notes, sharing my notes, sharing recordings, and being as transparent as possible.
A lot of my ideal clients are perfectionists like me. Yes, we have all had internet issues and missing files and a miss-step here and there, however, the prep that I do for my clients is there to make sure that this happens as little as possible. There are some things we can't control, but those that we can? I make sure that both my clients and I are in control as much as possible.
And here's one more example! If you haven't noticed already, a lot of my brand content is written. I've been told by multiple people my articles should be half in length and emails in fractions of what they are, and that they are crammed full of info (I take it positively, even when somebody tried to insult me with that).
This translates over into social media where I focus more on the caption than the picture/video and it is also visible in the information my clients get after a call. It is all written, organized, and always more than a page. The only time where my content for clients is not written is when I am sending over specific tutorials or instructions that require video recordings.
So... what does your workflow consist of? Think about it and think about how important it would be to your clients. And then, think about how that workflow connects all the different parts of your brand into one cohesive feeling.
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