The fastest way to level up your business is through the client experience! Your client experience is what keeps people coming back, referring you, and raving about you online and in person! The way you build a great client experience is knowing your client’s lifecycle and how you can walk them through every step of the process. Download the client lifecycle worksheet and watch this week’s video to start today!

Transcript: Welcome back! Today, we are talking about the client’s life cycle. Last week, we talked a little bit about the basics of the wedding industry– and today, we are talking about the client’s life cycle. So, this is from them finding you online to inquiring with you to doing their wedding, off-boarding them, what is that entire process like. For this, I’ve got a downloadable, it’s in the link in the bio. So, go ahead and open that up because as you follow along with it through this video. It’s going to be super helpful for you to visualize it. If you’re a visual learner, or if your brain is running, you can go ahead and start filling in those little areas. So, check that out, it’s in the link. Let’s get started. 

Alright, so I’ve got it pulled up here on my computer. I might be looking over here a little bit. Just a heads up so you know. This worksheet is called the client experience worksheet. 

 We talked a lot about client experience in my courses and my coaching calls. But basically, your client experience is your workflow for the day. You want to make sure that your workflow is on lock. So, the way that you can utilize this worksheet is, you are going to take every step of the process. So inquiry and booking, when they reach out to you and your sales process. You’re going to write out every step. And then, they’re going to move on to the planning part. This is leading up to the wedding day. You’re going to write out every step before the actual wedding day. You’re going to write out every step of your service. And then, after the wedding day, you’re going to write out every step of your delivery or your offboarding process. 

So really quick, this is kind of how I do mine:

When someone inquires with me, I send them an email, and I say: “Hey, let’s hop on a call. I want to learn about your day.” I do go ahead and give them my pricing upfront. There are lots of different opinions on that, that’s just what I do. It works for me. So we hop on a call, we talk about their day. I get all the info I need, I send them a proposal, and the proposal, they can come back to me and give me changes, or if they have questions, they can always ask. But my proposal is signable. If they like what they see, they can go ahead and sign. Now, they are officially booked with me. I send them their invoice, they pay for it, we move on to the planning part of things.

In the planning part of things, I send them a bridal guide. I let them know:

 “Hey, since I’m a videographer. I’m not super involved in the planning part of things. You’re going to be working on your timeline with your planner during this time. So, feel free to reach out to me. But I’m going to circle back with you a little bit later. Once you kind of has a working timeline, we can talk over a couple of things at that point.”

So, after that, they send me their timeline. Usually, about a month or two out from the wedding. We will look over that and make sure that there’s ample time to do everything that we need to do. And that we’re going to work well with their photographer’s timeline and things like that. There are a couple of other things that are proprietary to my workflow that I’m not going to share here. But I do share them in my coaching calls. So, if you’re curious, we can hop on a call, but I don’t always put it out there. 

 Then, we move on to the wedding day. The way that I film the wedding day, you can kind of see this laid out in my How-to Film Weddings Guide. It’s my e-book. And it lays out the process that I still use to this day. I’ve used it for years, and it’s pretty tight. So, feel free to check that out.

 So the wedding day, I show up, I say: “Hey, we film getting ready.” I get the details. We move on to the ceremony reception. And then we say goodbye to them at the end of the night after their grand exit. The wedding day is pretty straightforward. If you’re a planner, you probably have a lot more going on that day. If you’re a photographer, it might kind of look the same as what my day is. If you’re a cake maker, it might look a little different as well with transportation and things like that. On the wedding day, you just kind of want to have a loose idea of what’s your standard process. And then, it can change from wedding to wedding. 

 Now, we’re gonna move on to off-boarding and delivery. So, if you don’t have any deliverables after the wedding day such as videos or photos, or maybe a painting. If you’re a live painter, the delivery part of this isn’t going to be super applicable. But the offboarding part is: so if you are like me, and you’re a videographer, of course, you’re going to send them an email saying:

“Hey, I’m working on your films. This is how long it usually takes me to edit them. Thanks for having me on your wedding day. I’ll talk to you soon when I get your films ready.”

 Then I deliver their films, the same thing for photographers. You’re going to be delivering their photos. You’re going to ask how they like it. If they loved it, you’re going to say: “Oh my gosh! I’m so glad!” And then you’re going to say: “Hey, thank you so much for letting me be a part of your day. I cannot wait to work with you again on either family film.”

 If you’re a photographer, maybe doing their Christmas card photos every year, and then, you’re going to say: I would love a review. 

 This can be kind of scary. You want to make sure that before you offer a review that you have settled anything that they didn’t like about their day. So, you’re going to ask for that review. Send them a direct link to leave a review on whatever platform you want them to leave a review on. If you like your reviews on the Knot, or Wedding Wire, or Google or Facebook, send them a direct link to do that. Make it so easy for them. But if they don’t love their end product, and you still have a little bit more work to do on your end, you need to handle that. Make sure that they’re happy, and then, send them the request for the review. Because if you haven’t served them completely and if you haven’t gone the extra mile and done everything you could to make them happy– then, why would you ask for a review because you haven’t even finished your services yet? 

 Make sure that’s a manual piece. You may or may not want to automate this entire process. You can do that through CRM, or you can do it on a Google Drive sheet. Whatever you want to do is fine. I do this process pretty manually because that’s the way I like it done. I like it very personalized to each person. But you can do it however you’d like. And that is pretty much how we craft a workflow and a client experience. 

 So, I hope that this worksheet is easy for you to use. It helps you think through a couple of things. It can elevate your client experience and keep your clients booking with you and telling their friends.