Why Customers Leave Suddenly: The Vital Importance Of Sequencing

Notice what happens when someone joins a karate class.

That someone gets her first belt: The white belt.

Then as she progresses through the ranks, passing tests as she
goes, she moves from a white belt to a yellow; then green;
brown; and finally black.

And as if that were not progress enough--a student has to go
through ten ranks of black belts to reach judan-the tenth
black belt.

The staff at your local airport do exactly the same thing

They start you checking in your luggage.
Then you pay your airport tax.
Then you go through immigration.
Then security.
Then final check in.
And you board the plane.

So what do airports and karate belts have to do with business?

They're giving you a very clear message that says: You are here.
At every point, you know exactly where you are. Where you've
been. And where you need to be.

But your clients have no such direction, do they?

So let's imagine you teach Yoga

And imagine your client shows up for the yoga class.
They bend; they stretch; they work their lungs to the max.

Then they do three more classes; or seventeen more.
And they're gone.

The loss of a client is discouraging, if not frustrating

As a trainer, you'd want the client to stay longer. To create a
level of mastery. But have you created a sequence? Or is your
service without any sequence at all?

Airports have sequences.
Schools and universities have sequences.
You go from hors d'oeuvres, to the main course, to dessert and
coffee in a restaurant, because of a sequence.

Some business owner somewhere, sat down and worked out what comes next.
And next. And next.

Unfortunately, you are not that business owner

When someone shows up at your business, you simply work on
whatever the client wants you to work on. If a client orders a
product, you simply give the client exactly what they've asked
for.

And then somewhere down the line, when that client leaves, you
feel discouraged.

But who can you blame, but yourself? If you don't set up a
sequence to follow, there's no way the customer's going to know
what to do next. The customer picks and chooses what they think is reasonable, and then leaves.

And if you're feeling all weepy about it, well...don't.

What you really need to do is create the sequence in advance.
Of course, once you sit down to write a sequence, you'll run smack, bang into a set of hurdles.

So let's see how we can get rid of those hurdles, shall we?

Hurdle 1: What do the steps of a sequence look like?
Hurdle 2: What do you do if a client jumps steps? How do you get the client back into the sequence?
Hurdle 3: What if the client doesn't want to follow the
sequence?

Hurdle 1: What does the sequence look like?

It really depends on your business. But if you take a walk down
to a Borders Book Store, your question will be quickly answered.
When you buy a technical book, or a children's book, you'll
always find grades of books. Sometimes the books will be
segregated by three distinct grades: Beginner, Intermediate,
Expert.

Or they will be segregated by: Books for 2 year olds;
3-5 year olds; 5-10 year olds and so on. If all you do is start
with a simple segregation of beginner, intermediate, and expert,
you'll have created a sequence of sorts. Of course, if you're in
the product business or the training business, the same
gradation system applies.

E.g. At Psychotactics we advise the Brain Audit, long before a client can get to 5000bc.com or the Protege, or to any other training or consulting.

Hurdle 2: What if the client jumps the steps?

Again, it depends on your business. If you have a proprietary
system of training or consulting, you may require your client to
go to the first level (and this may not be a beginner level--just
the first level of your training). We do this when customers
come to our website. Customers driven through a clear, sequence.

If they jump the sequence, they're advised to go back to the
initial step. But hey, not all customers are going to pay
attention to your steps, right? Under some circumstances, it's
perfectly okay to let the customer jump in the middle of things.
So if someone is already a black belt in karate, it's not much
use sending them back to train with white-belts.

However, under other circumstances, a customer may need to be
driven back to the start, to systematically work through the
sequence. But what if you realise that jumping the sequence is
detrimental to the customer--and the customer won't listen?

E.g. Sometimes a client may get to 5000bc.com, before they buy
into the Brain Audit. They're gently led back to the start :)

Hurdle 3: What if the client doesn't follow the sequence?

Under certain conditions, following the sequence is vital. If
you're at the airport, you can't go to security first. You have
to go to check in, before security.

In some cases, you'll simply have to firmly lead the customer
back to 'check in', before they move ahead or refuse them entry.

If you're a trainer, you may require a person to do a specific
course. If you're selling products, the client may have needed to buy
something related to that product before. If you're in services,
the client will need to implement certain systems, before you get
started.

You may want to avoid saying no to the customer. But in many, if
not most cases, no is probably the best thing you can do to give
a customer really good value for their money.

E.g. If you do a website strategy workshop with us, you're not
allowed to sign up, until you buy into the Brain Audit. At the point
of writing this article, all courses require you to have read the
Brain Audit. So yes, the Psychotactics customer does indeed
follow a sequence that's university-like. (In fact in our books
and website, a sequence is clearly recommended--then enforced :)

This gets all our clients on the same page, and increases their
ability to move ahead quickly. It helps the client, it helps
their peers, and it helps us.

But is all of this sequencing worth the trouble?

Is it?

Here's the answer. A customer that follows a sequence,
usually stays longer; and gets more value overall. Clients have
gone from the Brain Audit; to 5000bc; to a training course or
workshop; to the Protege; to the Inner Circle and finally to
Casa Loca (Psychotactics University)

When you sequence, you create a sense of direction

A factor of 'You Are Here.'

This of course, brings us to another problem.

"Are we there, yet?"