In this episode, Tara discusses the challenge of managing expectations with a growing customer base. She shares strategies to address the issues such as delegating basic customer support and using group interactions like weekly Q&A calls or a community platform like Slack to facilitate 24/7 interaction for your customers. Tara emphasizes the importance of setting clear expectations and providing regular updates to maintain member satisfaction.

About Me:

My name is Tara Bryan. I help business owners break into the next level of success by packaging their expertise into a scalable business. It's my passion to help you find the fastest path to results to create a greater impact and income for you and your tribe.

This podcast is 100% focused on support, tips and example sharing, and building a community of business owners who are passionate about building awesome customer experiences.

We do that by building engaging, motivating, gamified, and customer-centered digital experiences. We come up with ideas and strategies to ensure that our customers can thrive and succeed.

To learn more:

Find us at https://www.taralbryan.com

Here are two ways we can help you create, grow and scale your business:

1. Want to package or pivot your business? Download our free Step-by-Step guide to get the exact steps you need to create and grow an online business.

Step-By-Step Guide

2. ALREADY HAVE AN ONLINE BUSINESS & READY TO INFINITELY SCALE?

Download our free 50 Ways to Engage Your Customers guide or Schedule a 30 minute call with Tara to talk about our offers that will help you master the game.

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Mentioned in this episode:

Strategy Call

Tara Bryan: 00:00:05

Hey everybody, it's Tara Bryan, and you are

Tara Bryan: 00:00:07

listening to the Course Building Secrets® Podcast. Whether you're

Tara Bryan: 00:00:10

a coach or a CEO, the success of your team and clients is based

Tara Bryan: 00:00:15

on your ability to deliver a consistent experience and guide

Tara Bryan: 00:00:19

them on the fastest path to results. This podcast will give

Tara Bryan: 00:00:23

you practical real life tips that you can use today to build

Tara Bryan: 00:00:26

your online experiences that get results and create raving fans.

Tara Bryan: 00:00:30

Why? So you can monetize your expertise and serve more people

Tara Bryan: 00:00:35

without adding more time or team to your business? If you're

Tara Bryan: 00:00:39

looking to uncover your million dollar framework, package it and

Tara Bryan: 00:00:42

use it to scale you're in the right place. Let's dive in.

Tara Bryan: 00:00:50

Welcome to this week's episode of the Course Building Secrets®

Tara Bryan: 00:00:53

Podcast. Welcome, welcome. Hey, in this episode, I want to

Tara Bryan: 00:00:58

address a common problem that a lot of people have. And, again,

Tara Bryan: 00:01:05

like we do a lot of teaching in Learn Academy about creating

Tara Bryan: 00:01:10

your first launch, creating your initial beta launch, where

Tara Bryan: 00:01:15

you're testing with a group of your ideal avatars, your entire

Tara Bryan: 00:01:20

proprietary methodology, so that you know that you can get people

Tara Bryan: 00:01:24

results, so that you can make sure that everything is working

Tara Bryan: 00:01:29

how you want it before you lock and load it into a more

Tara Bryan: 00:01:32

formalized program. But we got this question the other day. And

Tara Bryan: 00:01:37

it's, you know, one of my favorites, because it's such a

Tara Bryan: 00:01:40

common problem. And it is the very exact problem that we

Tara Bryan: 00:01:45

address here with our clients. And so I wanted to go ahead and

Tara Bryan: 00:01:51

just I'm going to just read to you a little bit of the post

Tara Bryan: 00:01:55

that was put out there, because if you're struggling with this,

Tara Bryan: 00:02:00

you're not alone, number one, and number two, there are

Tara Bryan: 00:02:03

definitely some very simple strategies that will help you

Tara Bryan: 00:02:07

sort of dig out of the this particular problem.

Tara Bryan: 00:02:11

Alright, so I had this post come up the other day, and it was

Tara Bryan: 00:02:15

just like, I just finished my first launch. I'm so excited. It

Tara Bryan: 00:02:17

was amazing. And 42 members. And now this person has 108 members.

Tara Bryan: 00:02:24

And and so, you know, 66 people joined there was incredible,

Tara Bryan: 00:02:29

right? And so she was super excited, she went to her beta

Tara Bryan: 00:02:32

launch, she went through the whole process. But now here's

Tara Bryan: 00:02:36

the problem is she's got 108 People who are expecting to be

Tara Bryan: 00:02:43

immersed in whatever she has to offer. And unfortunately, what

Tara Bryan: 00:02:47

started to happen to the beta, which is very common, because

Tara Bryan: 00:02:51

you don't have everything built up yet. And so a lot of times

Tara Bryan: 00:02:53

you're doing one on one, or you're answering questions

Tara Bryan: 00:02:56

individually that people have, just because you're trying to

Tara Bryan: 00:02:59

sort of solidify what you have. And so this happened to her, she

Tara Bryan: 00:03:04

had a really great community, right, she had a way for people

Tara Bryan: 00:03:10

to contact the group and to contact her individually. But

Tara Bryan: 00:03:15

now there's a it's over. And she's like, Okay, what do I do

Tara Bryan: 00:03:18

with these 108 people? Because they've started to all, you

Tara Bryan: 00:03:24

know, Vox her or message her individually, that she sees how

Tara Bryan: 00:03:30

much of a lift that's going to be as she moves forward and adds

Tara Bryan: 00:03:33

the additional attorney people or you just tries to keep up

Tara Bryan: 00:03:38

with what's going on with all of the questions and comments and

Tara Bryan: 00:03:43

all of the things. And so her post goes on and on about how

Tara Bryan: 00:03:49

she does that, right. So she's got somebody who's sort of

Tara Bryan: 00:03:51

taking care of basic customer support, billing, and all of

Tara Bryan: 00:03:54

those types of things. But, but she sort of created a monster

Tara Bryan: 00:03:58

now with these 108 people that they think that they have one on

Tara Bryan: 00:04:02

one access to her 24/7. And and so she was like, how, what do I

Tara Bryan: 00:04:08

do? So one of that. So first of all, if you have this challenge,

Tara Bryan: 00:04:15

it's normal, right? This is sort of part of the building process.

Tara Bryan: 00:04:19

But as you can now see, you cannot possibly help 108 people,

Tara Bryan: 00:04:24

500 people 1000 People in exactly that same way because

Tara Bryan: 00:04:28

your calendar will be maxed out. And even if you keep hiring team

Tara Bryan: 00:04:33

is not going to, it's not going to help right, you're eventually

Tara Bryan: 00:04:35

just going to keep getting maxed out. And so there are a couple

Tara Bryan: 00:04:38

of strategies that we recommend doing right away to counter act

Tara Bryan: 00:04:43

this particular challenge, regardless of what system you're

Tara Bryan: 00:04:46

using, or platform or whatever else.

Tara Bryan: 00:04:49

So the very first thing is start thinking about putting all of

Tara Bryan: 00:04:52

those people into some sort of group situation where they can

Tara Bryan: 00:04:57

come on and ask their questions. So one engagement strategy that

Tara Bryan: 00:05:00

we love to use is a weekly Q&A Call or weekly office hours,

Tara Bryan: 00:05:05

however you want to think about it. But it's a scheduled time,

Tara Bryan: 00:05:09

usually an hour, where you are on a zoom call, or whatever

Tara Bryan: 00:05:14

other platform you want to be on. And people can jump on, they

Tara Bryan: 00:05:18

can either pre register with our questions, so you can research

Tara Bryan: 00:05:21

ahead of time depending upon what your topic is. Or they just

Tara Bryan: 00:05:24

jump on ask their question, or listen to what other questions

Tara Bryan: 00:05:28

other people have. And, and, and then they're getting their

Tara Bryan: 00:05:32

questions answered in that environment. That is the very

Tara Bryan: 00:05:36

first thing that we do to help shift people over, you don't

Tara Bryan: 00:05:40

need anything complicated. You just need, you know, Zoom, or

Tara Bryan: 00:05:43

Google Meet, or whatever else you use to do live virtual

Tara Bryan: 00:05:47

training, is to say, you know, Thursdays at one o'clock, we are

Tara Bryan: 00:05:51

having office hours, and anyone can come on and ask her

Tara Bryan: 00:05:54

questions, that eliminates a lot of sort of the one on one

Tara Bryan: 00:05:59

conversation or banter that's going back and forth in terms of

Tara Bryan: 00:06:03

what people need.

Tara Bryan: 00:06:06

The second thing you can do is set up something like Slack or

Tara Bryan: 00:06:10

Voxer, or something that's not like a text message, right?

Tara Bryan: 00:06:17

Because let's be honest, if you have a get a text, and it's on

Tara Bryan: 00:06:22

your phone, you're going to check it automatically. Because

Tara Bryan: 00:06:25

a lot of times it's the same phone you're using for your

Tara Bryan: 00:06:27

family and for other things. And so because you need to set those

Tara Bryan: 00:06:31

boundaries and see this is when I'm checking it between this

Tara Bryan: 00:06:33

time and this time, putting it onto a platform like Slack, or,

Tara Bryan: 00:06:39

you know, if you have a membership site, you can you

Tara Bryan: 00:06:42

know, kind of put it into a group membership area, or you

Tara Bryan: 00:06:47

know, something else from a community standpoint, where your

Tara Bryan: 00:06:50

audience can answer your team can answer and you can answer,

Tara Bryan: 00:06:54

because that's the challenge is is that, you know, there are

Tara Bryan: 00:06:57

other people who could probably answer the question that that

Tara Bryan: 00:07:00

person has, but if they're just interacting with you, and no

Tara Bryan: 00:07:03

one, no one else can see it. So a lot of times we'll move our

Tara Bryan: 00:07:06

clients to slack so that the entire team can see that message

Tara Bryan: 00:07:11

when it comes in, and then whoever is available can answer

Tara Bryan: 00:07:14

it. So that is one approach in terms of just moving everything

Tara Bryan: 00:07:19

off of your own personal device or personal messaging system, so

Tara Bryan: 00:07:23

you're the only one who is seeing it. And then better yet,

Tara Bryan: 00:07:28

like, you know, the next step in that strategy is creating a

Tara Bryan: 00:07:32

community where you're having people put their questions in

Tara Bryan: 00:07:36

the community that then again, lives outside of one on one

Tara Bryan: 00:07:42

transaction, and is available 24/7. So anyone can jump in and

Tara Bryan: 00:07:46

answer it or contribute to the conversation at any point in

Tara Bryan: 00:07:49

time? Because the reality is, is that if somebody has a question,

Tara Bryan: 00:07:53

most likely one of those other 100. And some people also have

Tara Bryan: 00:07:58

the question, or somebody has the answer. And so the more you

Tara Bryan: 00:08:02

can do that the actually, the better off it is, because number

Tara Bryan: 00:08:06

one, it obviously takes away the you the burden of you and your

Tara Bryan: 00:08:10

time. But it also starts to build a community of people who

Tara Bryan: 00:08:14

are helping each other, which adds an entirely new dimension

Tara Bryan: 00:08:18

to your membership.

Tara Bryan: 00:08:20

And, and so those are just two quick strategies that you can

Tara Bryan: 00:08:25

use to start shifting, that sort of challenge that you have with

Tara Bryan: 00:08:30

the one on one to go into one to many. And in honestly, a lot of

Tara Bryan: 00:08:34

times they're the the opposition that people have is like, well,

Tara Bryan: 00:08:38

but people want to have access to me. And and that's great,

Tara Bryan: 00:08:42

right? Like you can still have people have access to you

Tara Bryan: 00:08:45

without having access to you 24/7 Right. And so there's a

Tara Bryan: 00:08:49

difference between having people ask you a million questions, and

Tara Bryan: 00:08:53

having focused interaction interactions with people that

Tara Bryan: 00:08:57

help them move forward. And hopefully, you know, you kind of

Tara Bryan: 00:09:00

can can gauge the difference there in terms of what that

Tara Bryan: 00:09:04

looks like. So hopefully this serves you those are just two

Tara Bryan: 00:09:07

strategies out of lots of other ones. But these are the two that

Tara Bryan: 00:09:12

start to shift you in a different direction, where you

Tara Bryan: 00:09:15

get out of that just sort of constant one on one churn of of

Tara Bryan: 00:09:22

your time as you are adding more members or customers into your

Tara Bryan: 00:09:27

programs.