You are listening to My Freedom Grove podcast with Gretchen Hernandez, episode 129.

Welcome to My Freedom Grove Podcast, your calm space for practical help to get your dream business up and running while being authentically you and taking care of your mental health. I'm your host, Gretchen Hernandez. I'm so glad you're here!

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Hi My Strong friends.  Hey, are you familiar with the concept “people come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime?”  I find it very helpful.  If you are someone like me that prefers all my relationships to be for a lifetime, it can be emotionally challenging when some are not.  

I want to dive into this concept a little bit as a lead in to talking about Service Process.  Service process includes all of the repeatable steps we take with a client for them to get their result.  When you are offering transformation or multiple deliverables as a result, the process and length can get a little hazy.  All successful businesses form relationships with their clients.  Adding relationships into the service process can also create some haziness.

SERVICES FOR A REASON, SEASON OR LIFETIME

 

Sometimes when a relationship ends we think something went wrong.  But the reason, season, lifetime concept helps us to see that nothing went wrong.  Some relationships are really just for a reason.  When the reason is met, the relationship is complete.  Not over.  Just complete.  Everything went perfectly right.  For example, my friend Sade Curry is a Dating after Divorce coach.  When her clients remarry, the business relationship is complete.  Nothing has gone wrong.  Everything was perfect.

Sometimes a relationship really is for a season.  It could be a season of the year.  For example Pumpkin patches.  As businesses some pumpkin patches are open to the public for 2 months out of the year.  They have so many fantastic experiences like corn mazes, hay rides, face painting and food booths.  They create an experience.  And then the season is complete.  The relationship with their customers is complete for the season.  Nothing has gone wrong.  Everything was perfect.

The Pandemic was also a season.  It lasted for almost 2 years. Some people leveraged extra help from businesses to get through the emotional challenges of the Pandemic.  Now that the Pandemic is almost over and life has returned to normal, they may not need that extra support anymore.

Sometimes a relationship can be for a lifetime.  This can be a business or a personal relationship.  There was a point in time where employees would stay with their employer for their whole career.  When I was working at Genentech that was my original intent.  I was there for 13 years. But then I changed my mind.  It wasn’t an easy decision.  It was heartbreaking actually.  I decided I wanted to be an entrepreneur instead of an employee.  I changed the category of that relationship.  Instead of a lifetime relationship, I shifted it to a season relationship.  A 13 year long season.  I raised most of my children while there.  I met and married my husband Ricky while there.  I evolved into a different person because that wonderful company exposed me to a whole new world.  Nothing went wrong.  Everything was perfect.

There is a little question in the last two sentences.  For anyone that has left their employee job to be an entrepreneur there is almost always discomfort in the last few months.  Things appear to be going wrong.  It doesn’t seem perfect.  That discomfort is absolutely part of the journey.  It is necessary for the end of this seasonal relationship.  How much harder is it for you to make a huge leap if everything was perfect?   All of the imperfectness is what makes it perfect.  Nothing went wrong.  All of it was necessary to help you move to your next season.

I bring up this concept because I got to see one of my clients from last year.  She was celebrating her 1 year anniversary from when she left her corporate job.  She was also celebrating that she made $217k in that 12 month period as an entrepreneur.

I’m going to be honest.  I had a mixture of emotions.  I was so incredibly proud of her.  I knew she had what it takes to generate that kind of income.  I was also a bit disappointed that I wasn’t her business coach for that whole time.

Remember, I prefer lifetime relationships.

But, business coaches can be leveraged for just one piece of the whole journey or all of it.  I helped her with one piece of it.  Our Business relationship was a Reason relationship, not a lifetime relationship.

I helped her make the leap from her 6 Figure corporate job into Entrepreneurship full time.  Let me tell you friends, that leap is hard.  It is hard to walk away from what I call The Golden Handcuffs.  The money is there.  It is a guaranteed paycheck.  And there are lots of benefits.  Life is cushy.  They may even dangle extra raises, bonuses and opportunities in the last few months to sweeten the pot.  That’s exactly what happened to me in the last 6 months at Genentech.  It is exactly what happened to my client in her last few months.

But she had my help.  I had already done what she wanted to do.  Take the huge leap into the Unknown.  There was no guaranteed paycheck every 2 weeks.  She knew it would be a lot of learning and growing.

It takes courage.  It takes self belief.  It takes a lot of effort.

Once she completed that leap, she had my support for the first few weeks.  It’s an emotional roller coaster.  And then our business relationship was complete.  The real reason she needed me was met.  Could I help her with more?  Absolutely.  But honestly, she already knew how to do the rest.  She didn’t need help with that part.

She’s amazing at what she does.

As business owners it is helpful to consider the concept of reason, season, lifetime when we set up our products/services.  If we offer several transformation milestones or specific deliverables, how do we want to offer them in relation to reason, season, lifetime?

Sometimes our clients are not even sure what type of outcome they are really seeking.  They just know they need help.

Your service will help them.  

Your Service Process will help you AND them.

SERVICE PROCESSES HELP BUSINESS OWNERS

First let’s talk about how your Service Process can help you as a Business Owner.  A Service Process is a repeatable series of steps to give a desired outcome.  

1. When it is clear, defined, repeatable and effective, you can train others in how to do it.
   
   This helps you be able to take vacation, have sick days or bring on employees to help as you have more customers.  At anytime, somebody else can be a substitute for you.  You can step away and your business will still make money.
   
   That’s exactly where my past client is today.  Her service processes were so dialed in and documented, she could train employees.  She also has her Sales Funnel processes defined and effective so she has plenty of customers lining up to work with her.
   
   
2. You can divide up the work based on skills and pay grade
   
   Pay grade increases with the higher valued skills.  Some skills take years to develop.  People are compensated for their investment and sacrifice over the years.
   
   Other skills may be more common or require less development.  You can evaluate your Service Process to determine if you can hire a contractor or employee to do some of the steps on your behalf.  That way you reserve your time for the specialized skill activities. If you have multiple Services, you may train new employees or contractors to fully deliver 1 service. This frees you up to focus your time on the higher value service.

      3.  You are clear on your deliverable and the timeline

This can help you avoid scope creep and overworking.  You feel the dopamine hit of being “done”.  You know exactly what to do and when to do it. You have a way of measuring your progress and effectiveness so you know if your service is High Quality. You can plan your workload and revenue around your year long schedule better.

SERVICE PROCESSES HELP CLIENTS

Your clients may or may not have an idea of the general process to get from where they are to where they want to be.  For those that know, they may be turning to you to help execute that process faster or better than they could do it on their own.  For those that don’t know, they are relying on your knowledge.

1. Service process ease client anxiety

When people have a roadmap or a process that works for any journey, they relax.  Fear of the unknown eases.  It may still be unknown territory, but they feel safe with a guide that already knows the territory.

      2.  They get to choose if the business relationship will be for a reason, season or lifetime

People know what they prefer.  Some people love to find 1 brand and stick with it for life.  Think about your toothpaste for example.  Are you someone that discovered 1 brand and you plan on using them forever?  Maybe you even got specific to a particular version of the brand’s products.  I did.  I use Colgate with breath freshener strips.  I can’t remember the flavor, but I know it has the blue strips, not the green strips.  I am someone that chooses based on Lifetime. 

Are you someone that focuses the result of the toothpaste?  Let’s say it was teeth whitening.  Are you the person that will hop around from brand to brand to find what whitens your teeth the best?  Perhaps you even switch the method from toothpaste to whitener trays.  You are someone that chooses based on a Reason.

Are you someone that switches between brands or versions within a brand for different times in your life?  My kids didn’t like the spiciness of mint when they were little, so we went for the Colgate for kids.  There were times I was having tooth sensitivity, so I temporarily switched to Synsodyne. Eventually the kids and I go back to our favorite Colgate.

       3. Clients get to plan and budget

When they client understands the duration of the service process, the amount of their time investment and the cost, they can plan it into their lives.

Clients want what you offer.  They need to know the guardrails to making progress.  If they purchase something for a general outcome and you say “show up whenever you like” it makes it harder to get the outcome.  If when they show up you only say “what would you like to do today?” it may go all over the place.  Or worse yet, get a blank stare. 

Depending on your Service container, asking “What would you like to do today?” may be appropriate.  If your Service container also includes the road map, the routine process, or instructional materials, your other part of the process may be to ask which part they want help on.

HOW TO CREATE A SERVICE PROCESS

As a new entrepreneur, this can be one of the most challenging parts.  You have an amazing skillset.  You can help anybody with anything.  There are 2 approaches you may take.

1st Approach - Market & Customer Research

Invest time in Market and Customer Research first.  Market research will help you determine what Results people want and are currently paying for.  You can determine if there are any unmet needs, with a high demand, that you can fill.  Market research may also help you find a “Blue Ocean” where nobody is providing the service yet.

Customer Research helps you get into the nitty gritty.  You learn their exact starting point.  What type of experience is most desirable, the specific deliverables they need, their time frame and budget.  Remember, there is a market for every price point.  Ensure your customer research is done with the market segment you want to work with.

Once you know the exact outcome, their starting point and all of the requirements, you can flush out your service process.  You may even choose to divide it into specific service processes.

Pro - You have a fully built service with high success rate and accurate timeline that will sell well

Con - First Sale date is delayed to allow an extensive amount of research time

2nd Approach - Build the Plane as You Fly It (AKA General Service)

This one is a bit trickier.  It relies heavily on a repeatable process for goal achievement.  You can teach others this process.  It is not specific to 1 particular outcome.

You can give an approximate timeline, but it may be harder to predict.  You may encounter goals you have never helped someone with before.  When this is the case, you may spend extra time learning topic specific information as you go.

If your Business Process includes the time for your additional learning, this can work.

Pro - 1st sale happens sooner.  Customer research is collected at the same time as executing the original paid service.  Your business service can evolve over time.

Con - Harder to sell. Messaging is ambiguous. Success rate and duration is unknown for any given outcome.  

Both approaches work.

THE CLARITY STEPS PROVIDES THE FRAMEWORK

The great thing is that The Clarity Step goal achievement process gives you the framework for creating your service process.

1. It helps you define the Vision - the outcome

2. How you would measure the progress along the way

3. How you break the journey down into the different steps

4. Identifying which obstacles need to be resolved for your client

5. Which experiments to do with your client (either mindset or process)

6. How to help them learn what works best for them

7. And how to keep up their motivation by celebrating the wins along the way

The Clarity Steps helps no matter which approach you used.

If you already did your Market and Customer Research…we use The Clarity Steps to flush out all of the process steps to achieve their desired outcome.

If you are choosing the Build the Plane as You Fly It…The Clarity Steps become your repeatable process you can use to help them achieve any goal.  And it helps you collect all of the customer research along the way to evolve your services down the road.

So let me ask you…Why would you want to create your Service Process?  How can it help you?  How will you personally benefit?  How will your business benefit?  How will your clients benefit?

If you already are good with creating processes, you may not need my help on this.  But, if you need help creating your processes, you know I’m here for you.

I’m also here for you on some of those big personal transformation steps like taking the leap from being an employee to being a FT entrepreneur.

I set up my services to be for a reason, season or a lifetime.

In 1:1 my clients get to choose if they want a specific deliverable.  Or if they need several deliverables and personal transformation.

The Unshakable Business Co-Lab membership is there to help you through a season and up to a lifetime.  I’m actively creating the Self-Serve material for your business deliverables and personal transformation.  Inside the membership you get access to everything plus twice weekly coaching calls with me to help you through all of it.  It is priced with your business profitability in mind and to support you through your business seasons or lifetime.  Enrollment is currently closed but you can get on the waiting list.  To get on the waiting list go to my website at www.myfreedomgrove.com/join.

My friends, remember, all relationships are golden.  They can be for a reason, a season or a lifetime.  Relationships complete.  They don’t end.  Don’t be surprised if some of your reason or season relationships pop back up.  Sometimes there is a new reason.  And they know you are the one to help them with that reason.  There may also be a new season they didn’t expect.  You may be there person for that season.

Nothing has gone wrong.  Everything was perfect.  When the timing is right, they know your relationship was always gold.

Have a great week.  I'll talk with you soon.  Bye - Bye.

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 Thank you for listening to My Freedom Grove Podcast. When you are ready to make your dream business a reality and take care of your mental health, I invite you to join the Unshakable Business Co-Lab. This is the mastermind membership you've been waiting for. There's no limits on your imagination, nor your timeline. We're with you every step of the way. To learn more, please visit www.myfreedomgrove.com/join. I'll see you there!