January 17, 2024 • 43 mins
Dive deep into the nuts and bolts of scaling your product delivery! Coming hot on the heels of Episode 13's guide to scaling client delivery, this one's specifically for the product-based maestros out there. If you've mastered your sales funnel but are hitting a roadblock when it comes to delivery, this episode is your golden ticket.
📦 Operational Bliss Awaits
Starting your product business often means hands-on packing and sending. But here's the reality check: that's not sustainable in the long run. Even if you've got a helping hand, what happens when it gets busy or your go-to person is on holiday? And if you're in the digital product game, there's a smarter way than manually juggling software links.
🔄 Sourcing, Fulfillment, Satisfaction
We're dissecting the three pillars: Sourcing, Fulfillment, and Customer Satisfaction. Discover the hacks, the systems, and the strategies to streamline your operation and uncork that bottleneck. Because let's face it, you've got products to send and a growing legion of happy customers to keep.
Hit play and unlock the operational magic that takes your product delivery to the next level!
🚀 P.S. Want to share your own delivery wizardry? DM us and let's swap scaling stories!
#scaleproductdelivery #scalingsimplified #FulfillmentStrategies #ProductBusiness
Connect with Us:
Share your thoughts on this topic with us on Instagram @pipharland and @iamgeorgiafitzgerald. At Scaling Simplified, we're dedicated to supporting fellow female business owners on the exciting journey to seven figures and beyond and we always love to hear from you. 🚀💼
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Georgia (00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the
(00:02):
Scaling Simplified podcast.
And this week, we are talking all abouthow to scale your product fulfillment.
So what do we mean by this?
Well, a little while ago, we talked allabout how to scale your client delivery.
But what if you are sellingproducts rather than services?
, today we're going to talk you through howyou can scale that product fulfillment,
(00:24):
both from a physical product, butalso a digital product perspective.
So we're focusing on theoperational side of things.
You know, if you've nailed your salesfunnel, but you're feeling a little bit
overwhelmed with how you're going todeliver that, Or you feel like you might
be capped in how much you can fulfillper day, this is the episode for you.
(00:44):
So, if you have found this Q4 to besuper stressful, we're going to help
you get set up so next year can betwice as good with half the work.
Yes.
Pip (00:57):
Oh, okay.
I love this topic.
Obviously this is a topic close to myheart, but I think a lot of the time
Q4, especially if you have a physicalproduct business is so stressful.
You've got Black Friday,you've got the holidays.
And you probably feel completelyoverwhelmed with getting everything
out the door on time to customers.
(01:17):
So they are happy.
And I know as well with a lot ofservice providers, a lot of people are
selling a lot ahead of the new year.
So they're often findingthey're doing lots of selling.
They get to the new year.
They've got all these peoplesigned up for their new memberships
or courses or what have you.
And suddenly you'vegot to deliver on that.
So I'm really excited tojump in today and talk.
(01:38):
all about how we can reduce the timewe're spending on product delivery
and fulfillment so we can spendmore time scaling our businesses.
So I think with a productbusiness, , it's really important to.
understand how much time we'respending actually literally packing
up and sending out products.
(01:58):
Because to begin with, when youhave a few orders, it's fine.
Like it's quite nice to pack upyour things and you go to see
all those lovely TikTok videos ofpeople like pack an order with me.
, but I can tell you from personalexperience that that is a complete pain
in the bottom if, , the orders startto scale up and ramp up in number.
And it's not sustainable asyou, as the business owner
(02:20):
doing this in the long term.
So, , even if you brought in oneperson to support, what do you do
when it's really busy and actuallyjust one person isn't enough?
Lo and behold, they want to goon holiday and you know who's
gonna do all the fulfillment whenyour team members on holiday.
So it's really important that you startthinking about how you can do this.
And of course, if you sell a lotof digital products, you don't want
(02:42):
to be doing lots of manual settingpeople up on a new membership and
then removing them when they'resubscription fails and linking bits
of software and information manually.
Or if you have a live element to anymemberships or courses like weekly
Q and A's or answering questions,you need to find a way to sort
of scale yourself out of this.
So overall you can focus onrevenue growth within the business.
(03:06):
So there are three things wewant to consider when we're
scaling our product delivery.
The first thing is sourcing.
The second thing is fulfillment.
And the third piece iscustomer satisfaction.
Georgia (03:18):
Okay, great.
So let's hit with a sourcing first,which is really all about keeping your
product on the shelves, making sure thatyou've got enough stock for those all
important customers as you start scaling.
So if we're talking about physicalproducts, then we're literally talking
about the need to keep those productsavailable so that people can buy them.
(03:39):
You know, we want to make sure that weare fulfilling the demand that we've got.
And if we're thinkingabout digital products.
We're perhaps starting to think abouthow do I maintain these products, you
know, keep them up to date withouthaving to completely redo them every
year as the market changes, dependingon the environment you're working
in, there might be new legislations,different way of doing things, updates
(04:02):
and technology that you want to talkabout within that digital product.
So how can you keep those up to datewithout starting again every year?
Pip (04:11):
Okay, let's dive into the product side first, and then we'll
talk about digital products second.
So if you have a product business andyou are ready to scale the sourcing
side of things, you've got fourquestions you need to ask yourself.
So the first one is, can your supplierskeep up with your forecasted sales?
So do you actually have enoughproducts arriving with you to sell?
(04:32):
You then want to think abouthow long it takes to get those
new products delivered to you.
How expensive it is to getthose products sent to you.
And then you need to think about how fastare you selling through your products.
So diving into these in a little moredetail, so the first thing to really
hone in on is can your current supplierskeep up with what you're trying to sell?
(04:54):
Like literally the physical numberof products you're trying to sell.
Do you need to find a secondsupplier or a backup supplier?
, if something went wrongwith your current supplier.
What would you do?
So maybe having a supplier in adifferent location can be useful, , we've
had situations where shipping fromChina has been a complete nightmare.
So somebody wants somewhere who supplieslocally and then you've only got to deal
(05:16):
with like internal country logistics, not.
international logistics.
You also might have something thatis produced in a very specific way.
And so you need to think about whatother suppliers could deal with this.
If you suddenly had to make aswitch or if you suddenly got a
really big order, could you quicklyfind somebody to help with this?
(05:38):
And I think we get so comfortable once wefound that supplier who's producing our
products that we kind of forget about it.
But as you scale, you needto start planning out.
Other options early on so you havethat backup because essentially that's
just a business continuity issue.
You also can speak to your supplierif you're worried about this and just
ask them, , Can they cope with demand?
(05:58):
This is what our projected sales are.
Is this going to be okay?
, what discounts can we getas we scale up the volume?
What does this mean, , for cost perunit, which then means how much more
money can you be throwing at the frontend of marketing in order to acquire a
customer to get more customers buyingand therefore increase your revenue?
And I also think one of the things youneed to think about as you start scaling
(06:20):
up is what QA checks you have in place.
And so that's all aboutyour quality assurance.
Do you have the quality youneed as your volume increases?
And that can be with your currentsupplier who's producing your products
for you, or if you're going to a newsupplier or getting a second supplier
or backup supplier, you need to makesure that as the quantity increases,
(06:41):
the quality does not decreasebecause that is often what happens.
So again, the best thing to do with thisis to just keep in regular communication
with your suppliers and really have thoseconversations back and forth, because
it's really about building trust hereand dealing with issues really quickly.
So once we have made sure thatour suppliers can keep up with our
forecasted sales, we need to diveinto understanding how long it takes
(07:03):
for new products to get delivered.
So what is our lead time?
And you really need to think about here,you'll know how long generally once
you've done a shipment or two of how longthings take, but do, have you factored
in What if something goes wrong or whatif you suddenly get a massive order
or you might get suddenly into retail?
I've seen this with my clients sofrequently, , you're trying, you're
(07:26):
pitching to all these retailers toget your products and there's nothing,
there's nothing, there's nothing.
And then suddenly, boom, big supermarketplaces a huge order for your products
and you've suddenly got to find outwhere you're getting these products
from because you're sure as hell notgoing to tell that supermarket that
you don't have the products for them.
So thinking about what's your lead time.
How quickly can you getthings if you need to?
(07:46):
Can you use air instead of freight?
Can you use a train in some situations?
Now obviously the cost is goingto go up the faster it gets to
you, but have you factored thatinto your pricing so you know what
you're pitching to retailers too?
So it's really again about thinkingabout how long it can take, what your
options are, so when the big opportunitycomes through you can jump on it
(08:07):
immediately because , as product basedbusiness owners, we don't get these
opportunities thrown at us every day.
So you really want to jumpon it when it comes to you.
You also want to think about how expensiveit is to get your products delivered.
So things you can think about hereis can you order more in one go and
therefore you pay a lower cost per unit.
(08:27):
, but you need to then pay more forwarehousing or storing your products,
or if you're keeping them, or perhapsyou have somewhere you can keep them.
So it doesn't reallymatter whether you've got.
A thousand products or 10, 000products, you've already got the space.
So thinking about how expensiveit is to get your products will
help you then figure out how manyproducts you want to be getting at
one go and purchasing in one go.
(08:48):
And of course you want to alsothink about your invoicing terms.
So can you.
, take advantage of promptpayment discounts, or do you
need to access trade finance?
If you don't have the cash, , that'sone really great thing to try and
get yourself as sorted as possible.
I know you can't get every single lineticked off before a big order comes in,
but if you've explored trade financingoptions, when that big order comes in,
(09:11):
, that you're 90 percent of the way there to, , succeeding with that trade financing
application is going to make your life.
Way less stressful.
And then the final piece to thisis to understand how fast you are
selling through your products.
So this really comes to, if you knowhow fast you're selling through your
products and you know how long ittakes for products to get to you,
you can then figure out when you needto start reordering more products.
(09:33):
And the one thing you don't wantto do is to run out of products.
If you get hit on that saleswhim, if an influencer does a
shout out about your products.
And you suddenly get an influx of orders.
You do not want to be hit bythe, sorry, we're sold out.
I know it's good for short term,, building that sense of scarcity, but long
term it's not good for your business.
You want to make sure that peopleare able to buy from you and you get
(09:54):
those customers in, so you can thenturn them into repeat customers.
So make sure you know how tocalculate your reorder rate.
And if this is something that you'veno idea what this means, drop me
a DM and we can talk about this.
, but thinking about how do youcalculate your reorder rate?
How many products areyou selling each week?
How are you managing checkingyour inventory levels?
(10:14):
Like, do you know how much stockyou've got in the garage that
you're selling or in your warehouse?
Like, how are you keeping an eye on that?
Do you know how much of it's good?
Is there any damaged stockthat you need to write off?
You need to be keeping on top of this.
And then also thinking about, , arethere any events that are happening
or coming up that might increase ordecrease the amount of stock you need?
So maybe, you know, we're comingup to Q4 and you need to make sure
(10:36):
you've got enough stock in line.
Or maybe there's a big event thatyou're running with someone or you're
working with a big influence andyou know that there's likely to be
an increase in orders after this.
So making sure you're prepared in advance.
And of course you want to alsojust think about the basics like
minimum order quantities on orders.
You don't want to get to a placewhere you're constantly topping up
by just a few products at a timebecause often A, you can't do that
(10:59):
and B, it becomes really expensive.
So thinking about your MOQsand thinking about how you're
planning for that financially.
So you're keeping enough cash asideso you've got it in the bank ready
to go for when you're ready toplace that order and press send.
There are so many questions
Georgia (11:15):
to ask on that.
But I think actually, although we'retalking about product and digital,
there's quite a few of those questionsthat are relevant for digital.
Even when you're starting out, ifyou're in the earlier stages of your
business, that idea of, you know, packup an order with me could be the same.
If you're sending out a digitalproduct, if you haven't set up all
the different zaps and pieces of tech,and you are emailing out to every
(11:36):
person that signs up, if you suddenlygo viral and you've got, you know.
a thousand, ten thousand, a hundredthousand people that want your digital
product, are you set up for that?
Like, how do you get ready for that?
And equally, if you've got people signingup to your membership, like, how are
you going to deliver that as it scales?
So again, there's a few differentquestions that you want to ask
(11:59):
around maintaining that product.
So.
Imagine that you've got something, maybeit's a PDF, like it could even be your
freebie and it's downloaded regularly, butit does need to be kept up to date because
perhaps it's got some legal issues orsomething to do with certain bits of tech.
Does it need to be you that updates it?
Can you train someoneelse to update it for you?
(12:21):
Can you, and I saw a great example ofthis recently, it was a ads course,
Facebook ads, and everybody knowshow quickly Facebook ads change.
So.
Where she had been talking aboutone particular type of, , I
don't know, entry point that youneed to put some information in.
She just recorded a quick video to goahead of that that said, if I say this,
(12:44):
this is what I'm actually referring tobecause Facebook ads has been updated.
And you were like, great, totally getthat on board, understand, doesn't
matter, everything else is the same.
And then if you're running somethinglike a membership, so again,
it's the delivery side of things.
Imagine that you have a weekly coachingcall on that membership, and suddenly
(13:04):
you've got a thousand new peoplethat sign up for your membership.
You cannot coach a thousandpeople in one hour.
How are you going to deal with this?
Like, what, what is your contingency plan?
Do you have a backup coach that you'regoing to bring in for when it gets busy?
Can you deal with thingsin a different way?
Can you have people submit questionsand you actually get your VA to respond
(13:27):
to them based on the answers thatyou've given to the other 950 people
that have asked questions that week?
Like, what is the contingency plan?
If you're going to host like amonthly workshop, do you need
to prepare all the content?
Can you ask somebody elseto prepare the content?
Can you ask somebody else to turn itinto slides and a presentation for you?
(13:47):
And then you just record thewebinar to put it out there.
Maybe you're getting someoneelse to edit the video.
Like where can you slim down the amountof time that you need to be involved so
that you can focus on all the success?
you are now having with your product.
So that's step one.
Step two is going to beall around the fulfillment.
(14:09):
Like how do you get your productsto your customers on time?
Now, obviously there's a fewreasons why this is important.
Firstly, we want more sales.
So the more time that your packagingAnd posting is less time you've
got for finding those sales andgetting things out to people.
More sales mean more time packing up yourproducts, more time posting them out.
(14:32):
And you can't do all of that.
There aren't enough hours in the day.
Also, if we're thinking aboutphysical products, if we've got a
slow fulfillment, like a delay inthose orders coming out to people,
we're going to have unhappy customers.
And then they're very unlikelyto come back to us again.
Or if the slow fulfillment, so it takesa while to get to them, they might have
(14:53):
ordered something else in the meantime.
And then they might want toreturn what they got from you.
Then you've got more adminto deal with the returns.
And then we get into this badcycle that we're kind of stuck in.
, If it's digital products, like I'vesaid, there is that delivery element, you
know, and particularly if there's a liveelement to it, how do you deal with this
when you've got a growing customer base?
(15:15):
How are you going to look aftereveryone that signs up for this?
Because when you first decided on it, youprobably thought, oh yeah, I might get 20
people sign up for this, 50 if I'm lucky.
What if it really takes off,which I hope it does, how are
you going to deal with that then?
So some questions you might want to startasking yourself is, how do I scale this?
Yes, I'm saying I want 50 people,but how do I make it bigger?
(15:39):
Or with the product, youknow, what if everybody wants
one of these for Christmas?
Do I keep this in house oram I going to outsource it?
So for digital products, Do I want tokeep doing it myself or do I want to bring
someone else in to take over this element?
You know, is my zone of genius actuallyin getting the word out about this digital
(16:01):
product and then I need someone elseto kind of make sure that it's getting
delivered to everybody that's interested?
Or we're perhaps thinking about how doI deal with the busy times of years?
If you're a seasonal business,you know, this is something that's
really relevant for some people.
I work in a holiday industry place,you know, we have six months of
(16:22):
the year, but that are reallybusy in six months that are quiet.
So how do you deal with that increaseddemand at certain points of the year?
Or maybe it's over Christmas, as wesaid, or Easter or whatever it might be.
Pip (16:35):
Yeah, I completely agree.
I think there's a lot of businesses whichare actually more seasonal than we think.
And I think just taking the timeto understand that and preparing
in advance, that means it doesn'tmatter that they're seasonal.
We can enjoy the extra revenue weget during those months without it
actually being a really stressful time.
Because for me, if you have a seasonalbusiness, you should get to that time of
(16:55):
year and be like, yes, this is when we getto make all of our profit for the year, as
opposed to like the, oh, F, this is when,you know, life falls apart for six months
because I know I have to work really hard.
Okay, so let's move into somereally tangible ways to fix this.
So let's start, we'll talk productbusinesses first and then dive into
more the digital product side of things.
(17:16):
So if you have a product business,you've really got to ways of doing
this, of ways of fulfilling yourproduct, as Georgia mentioned.
So we can either keep things in houseor we can outsource and use a 3PL.
So a third party logistics company.
So talking about keeping things inhouse, you really, this is all about
(17:37):
hiring someone or somebody's a teamof people who are going to do all
of your postage, your packaging.
They're going to send things out, they'reoften going to deal with your returns,
and they're essentially taking the orderthat comes in from your website and they
do all of that from the order comingin to making sure that the product gets
(17:57):
to your customer in a timely manner.
Georgia (17:59):
And as somebody that has worked as a picker and packer in a, um, a
factory, a warehouse for clothing thatused to get really busy at Christmas.
I understand this.
So if you're thinking seasonal orbusy periods, what you want to do is
create a really clear system so thatyou can quickly train up other people.
Then you will have members ofyour team that are there all the
(18:22):
time and they are going to train.
The influx of kind of extra staffyou might have for the busy period
on how to do things and have themreport into that person, that
person managing their day to day.
Yeah, I
Pip (18:36):
love that.
It's all about keeping thingsreally organized, isn't it?
It's like, having that dedicated zone,so you've got your packing area, you've
got your picking area, you've got your,once it's all ready to go, there's a
place where you put boxes so you knowthat they're ready to ship, and when
Royal Mail or DHL or DPD or whoeveryou've got coming to pick it up comes,
you know exactly what to send out,and you're not going to be sending out
something that's a half packed box.
(18:58):
So I think it's just aboutkeeping that really, really clear.
Simple, have a nice,simple system in place.
And you can do all sorts ofthings to make this easier.
So for instance, , if you've gotbestsellers, don't put them at the
very end of the warehouse or the veryend of the room where you have to get
up and like traipse a hundred metersto find something, keep them close.
(19:18):
If you've got a certain like.
Scent of candle that is just your topscent or a certain size of clothing
that is always the one that's picked.
Make sure that everything's organizedso you can easily find it, but put
the best sellers close to hand.
And I think another thing youwant to think about as well is
again, just being organized.
If you've got products which So forinstance, you know, some candles and
(19:41):
some beauty products often have, , food,obviously always has sell by dates.
You want to make sure that you're rotatingyour stock and you've got the newest
things at the back and you're pickingthe oldest things to go out first.
So what you don't do is keep onputting the new things at the front.
And when you have a really busy time,you get back to the end of the shelf
and you suddenly realize that you can'tactually sell whatever you're trying to
sell because it's past the sell by date.
(20:03):
So I think it's really justabout being very organized.
And then with this comes stock counts.
So obviously for your annual accounts,you'll need to understand how much stock
you've got because it's a number thatgoes on your balance sheet and it's a
number that affects your profit as well.
So you need to understand how muchyou've sold, , and what you've got left.
And You need to just also dothis to help with your ordering.
(20:25):
So, you know, when you need to order anew product, the last thing you want to
do is, you know, Sally from the packingteam comes up and she's like, Oh Pip,
we've actually only got three of thesebooks left and we've got an order for 20.
Well, that's a bit of a shamebecause it's going to take us
three weeks to get some more in.
So, , we could have beenorganized there and actually
got enough stocking in advance.
So I think it's just here.
It's about just.
(20:45):
Being really organized and reallylogical about how you run things.
And Georgia, as you said, it's justabout having the right team members.
If you've got somebody that's reallyorganized, these are the people
who are made for roles like this.
You know, that person who just loves thesystem loves to keep everyone on track.
That's really who you needto find for a job like this.
Definitely.
And
Georgia (21:05):
it's them, them keeping like ahead of the game
as well in terms of the staff.
So, you know, like we've talkedabout on 90 day sprints, if you
know that you always have a busyChristmas period, you need to think
about, okay, so how many temporarystaff do I need to bring in for Q4?
When do I need them by?
How many do I need?
You can look at Okay.
On average, how many, how manyorders to my current team get out
(21:29):
and what orders am I expecting?
You know, you can use the data to workthat out, but you also need to think
about who's going to train them up.
So imagine that you want them tostart at the beginning of December
or the beginning of November.
If you haven't allocated the trainingto someone by the beginning of
November, you're already behind.
So it's thinking, okay, who isgoing to train this person up?
(21:50):
Do they know how to train them?
And then when are they starting by?
How many of them?
What does the training process look like?
When do they need to be up and running by?
And it's kind of thesame with your returns.
Like, you know, that is a hugepart of the business that perhaps
we're not always thinking aboutputting enough resources into.
But who is managing the returns?
Who's checking thereturns when they come in?
(22:11):
Who's issuing the refund.
And as your team grows, this issomething that you really need to start
thinking about, and it might become aslightly separate arm of the business
when we think about the returns.
Pip (22:23):
I think returns is something we always forget about being a job.
And actually when it gets busy, we'regoing to get more returns as the
natural, , thing with the business.
And it's the same.
If you have a service based business,you're going to have a number of people
who are unhappy with your service, whowant to leave, and you need to off board.
And you need to ensure that you've plannedout enough resources to support with that.
Cause the last thing you want to doas the business owner is to have to
(22:45):
manage and jump in yourself to dothat when you're really busy doing
all the other things on your plate.
Okay, so we've talked about ifwe're going to keep in house, keep
all of our fulfillment in house.
But the other option that we have,which a lot of product businesses
will use is to outsource to a 3PL.
So that is essentially a fulfillmentcompany that does everything for you.
(23:05):
You send your stock to them, youget your website matched in with
their software, and then as orderscome through, they do everything.
everything for you.
Now, this is personallywhat I use in my business.
I love it because it means I justdon't need to think about it at all.
I make the sale, the product getsshipped out, and I make money
and I have no part in it at all.
(23:26):
And so personally for me, that works.
Some people like to keepit all in the house.
So they really have controlof that customer journey and
what they're sending out there.
So some of the things you want to thinkabout if you're thinking about whether
you're ready to outsource to a 3PL, youwant to be thinking about the costs.
Usually it's not cost effective tooutsource to a 3PL to begin with, because
(23:48):
that extra revenue you can be using tohelp grow your business to begin with.
But as you hit that certainthreshold where you're really
starting to scale and the orders.
Really growing that's probably thetime when it's worth putting that
investment into the 3pl You want tothink about where your 3pl is based?
So if you have loads of customerssay in germany but your 3pl's in
(24:10):
the uk maybe you need to get another3PL in Germany, or maybe you just
need to move your 3PL to Germany.
You need to really think about whereis it logical for this warehouse
to be so you can get your productto somebody as quickly as possible.
And of course, with Amazon Prime, Wehave ruined people's expectations of
how quickly people think they shouldget their product, and it makes it so
(24:31):
hard for a small business to compete.
So we've got to do everything we can, notonly in signposting this to our customer,
but also in, you know, setting ourselvesup for as much success as we can get.
So you also want to think about whichdelivery and courier services do they use.
You might have a preferred one,, obviously the prices of them is different,
(24:52):
so depending on the size and the weightof your parcels, it might make quite a
big difference to your postage costs.
So understanding that is agood idea before you just sign
up to somebody willy nilly.
And then you also want to thinkabout if they deal with returns.
Are returns going to that 3PL everythingfor you, or are the returns coming to you?
So A, making sure it's really clearon your website, and B, understanding
(25:14):
do I need to find somebody to helpwith this, or actually can I pass
everything off and I just know howmuch it's going to cost me per return.
You also, I think in terms of findingthe right partner, there's loads
of people who do 3PL, but findingthe right one can be quite hard.
So one of the secrets to success,I would say is, , test it out.
This is a business relationship.
(25:34):
One of the most important businessrelationships in a product based
business, if you do use it.
So I ask yourself, arethey good at communicating?
Do they tell you when.
Things are going wrong.
And even before you've signed upwith them, like, are they, do they
respond to your emails quickly?
Will they jump on a phone call with you?
Will they let you comeand visit the facility?
I know these are small things, but theygive you a really important view into
(25:56):
like their values as a company and howthey're going to treat you as a customer,
if they can't treat you amazingly.
As a pre customer, they're definitely notgoing to treat you well as a customer.
So really think about thatbefore you sign up for someone.
You also want to justunderstand like the basics.
Like if the connection between yourwebsite and their software breaks.
(26:17):
Who's responsible.
So for me, I wanted a 3PLthat they're responsible.
If something breaks, I email them.
And to be honest, they usually tellme that something's wrong and they've
already fixed it before it even happens.
I see the email beinglike, there wasn't downage.
We fixed it.
And now I know great, brilliant.
But what I don't want to do is ona Saturday night, get emails from
somebody being like, it's broken.
You need to go and fix it.
(26:38):
And then try and be in the back end of my.
Website trying to figure out APIs.
Cause let's face it, thatis not my strong point.
So it's again, figuring outfor you, what works for you.
And then of course you need tothink about, do they fulfill for
the marketplaces you're selling on?
So if you're selling on Amazon or Etsy oryour own website, wherever you're selling,
are they going to fulfill for that?
(26:59):
Are they happy to do that fulfillment?
Do they have the software thattalks again, if they don't.
Probably not the people to go to,because pretty much everyone at this
point can access software that has that.
So just making sure that they'resuited for your business.
And then finally, it's kind of morelike the financial side of things.
So what are their invoicing terms?
, how much are you paying monthlyversus how much are you paying?
, , net 30, net 60.
(27:20):
Does that work with howyou work as a business?
Can you afford that?
So just think from a cash flowperspective, is this going to work?
And then finally, can theydeal with the seasonality?
I know we've touched on seasonalitybefore, but, you know, it's great if
they're brilliant at sending everythingout in summer when it's really quiet.
But if you're super busy in the winterand all their other clients are busy
(27:41):
in the winter, How do they manage that?
And don't be afraid to ask the question,like, do you bring on temp staff?
How do you manage this?
Like, ask the hard questions beforeyou sign up to something, because
the last thing you want to do is getyourself stuck in a situation where
you are actually not in control atall, and something has gone wrong.
Yeah,
Georgia (28:00):
absolutely.
So important.
So many things to think about there,but I think it's, as you say, it's
that relationship, like understanding,are they the right 3PL for you?
And you, and really testingthat out in different aspects.
And actually, when we think aboutthe fulfillment on the digital
products, there's also elementsthat we really need to think about.
And I think the difference with thedigital products is that a lot of what
(28:23):
you're considering might be who elseyou're bringing in, and they will have
to be quite client facing with yourclients, because they're not going to
be in the background picking and packingand posting and all the rest, you know,
This is really about taking some ofthe load and talking to your clients.
So, for example, if you are sellinga digital product, maybe it's a
(28:43):
membership, but you have a weekly Q&A and you have a big influx of new
clients, do you need to add more calls?
Do you need to changehow you run the calls?
Is it, you know, questions in advance?
Are you starting to pick thequestions if you're getting
a lot of the same questions?
Or do you want to bring in someone elseto take the calls or additional calls?
(29:05):
Are there areas of expertise that mightbe useful alongside yours if you're having
particular types of calls coming in?
It's all very well selling loadsof places into a membership.
But if you are then not looking afterthose people, or the calls are just
getting so lengthy because there'sso many people on the call, you are
not gonna have a repeat business.
Those people aren't gonna continue to,to stay in that membership or buy that
(29:28):
service because they will feel thatthey're not getting what they signed up
for the, the product that they bought.
Yeah.
So slightly different in digitalproducts, but still, still
the same kinds of questions.
Pip (29:40):
And that really so beautifully leads on to the point three.
keeping your customershappy, it's so important.
As you say, if your customers arenot happy, they're not going to
be returned customers, and as soonas you start to lose customers, it
makes it so much harder to bringthem in, , as, as we all know, it's.
cheaper for us to resell to a customerthan to acquire a new customer.
(30:02):
So how do you keep your customers happy asyou scale and how do you prioritize that?
And that's something that I thinkbecomes more and more important as
you grow and reducing that churn andmaking sure you're increasing the
lifetime value of your customers.
So really this is where customer servicescomes in and I think customer services
often if you sell, , you know, servicesthat are very high ticket, you don't need
(30:25):
to outsource the customer service partof things as quickly because you have
fewer people you have to converse with.
But if you're selling100, 200 products a day.
Customer queries reallystart to come in quickly.
And if you've just signed a thousandnew people up for your membership,
those questions are going to come in.
And they're really basic oneslike, Oh, I've lost my password.
(30:45):
I can't log into my account.
When's my order being delivered?
I haven't received an order confirmation.
, really.
Mind numbing questions if we're beingreally honest about it, but, , we
shouldn't be doing this as CEOs.
Also, there's a part of it thatwe need to protect ourselves.
So if somebody complains or somebody, , ismaking a point that, , whether it's valid
or not, because the customer is not alwaysright, , you let them believe they're
(31:08):
right, but they are not always right.
And you don't need to believeeverything that they say.
It's, it's really important for us thatwe're not Necessarily reading all of that.
And sometimes that our teamprotects us a little bit from that.
So we keep in a reallygood mindset about this.
So how can we start to outsource thatcustomer services and ensure that our
customer satisfaction stays really high?
(31:30):
Well, you generally could.
Bring someone on, you couldoutsource, you could use an agency.
If you're bringing someone on,often it's a VA to start with,
or a customer services rep.
Often that's how we start these thingsout, where we bring somebody in to do an
hour a day, or half an hour, twice a day,and then it builds up, then they're doing
an hour twice a day, and then before weknow it, they're doing all day, every day.
(31:53):
And then it might get to a point where, it's a full time role for somebody or
a full time role for multiple people,or potentially we go, actually, we
want this to be completely separate.
We're going to completelyoutsource this to an agency.
I think this is more relevant if you'rea product based business, because
it's often the nuance of what you'reselling is less intricate than a, , a
(32:13):
very specific services based business.
You, , you have to spend a lot oftime getting it right, I think,
with the services based business,so they really understand your
products and your customer.
, but these are generally thetwo options we've got first.
So it's really thinking about which oneworks for you for your stage of business.
And also, we just want
Georgia (32:31):
to make it easy, don't we?
Like, let's find simple processes andways of dealing with these things.
As you said, as you scale, you get loadsand loads of mind numbing questions.
And many of them Are the same in one wayor another, you know, so let's get some
written template examples to speed up theresponses and, and then they're always
going to be in the right tone of voice,keep them somewhere simple, you know,
(32:53):
people can start to adapt those handover the responsibility to your team, you
know, yes, every customer is different.
So it's sometimes hard to haveclear rules, but you could have
what I like to call some guidingprinciples within the business.
So.
Yes, some people want a refund.
Others might want a replacement.
Others would value just fromsomeone listening to them.
(33:15):
But if we're thinking about thoseguiding principles, for example, say
you are selling products to, uh, forbabies, you know, and the guiding
principle might be nobody knowstheir baby better than the mother.
So if the mother is saying that thisisn't right for my baby, So we go with
that, you know, the mother knows best.
(33:36):
We can't force the mother tofeed the baby something that
they're not supposed to have.
So that kind of can become that.
You can also give that responsibility.
There's an amazing, I can't even rememberthe hotel brand because my brain isn't
working, but they basically say to theirteams, okay, you have the authority.
If a client has really had a badexperience or something has gone
(33:59):
wrong, you have the authority tooffer them up to X amount in discount.
Or money off in the restaurant, ora voucher for the bar, or whatever
it might be, or a free treatment inthe spa, because our customers are
more important than anything else.
You can, you can let that customer have500 worth of value, or whatever it might
be, or it could be 25 voucher for thecustomer to try and fix the problem.
(34:24):
But just set some rules where theteam can have responsibility for that.
Also, I think we're always Askingwhy something's been returned.
We want to know, we want to trackthe reason for returns in Google
spreadsheets, because we wantto try and make that better.
We want to stop necessarily having tohave that return, whether it's in the
way we market the product or somethingelse, , we're going to track all the
(34:46):
common questions that are coming in sothat we can better signpost the answers.
or have things on the website that tellpeople before they even buy the product or
before they even have a product, a problemwith the product, you know, we can use it
in our content, all that sort of thing.
Um, we also want to have somereally clear rules on what is and
(35:07):
isn't expected, but we also want togive people the autonomy to make.
The best decision in the moment for thatspecific situation, because if we're not
giving that autonomy, we're going to getpulled in all the time to that problem.
And that's not what we want.
Our time is more valuable somewhere else.
We're also thinking about gettingthe customer service team to
really update their SOP withnew responses as they come in.
(35:30):
They are responsible for that.
It's a living document and how yousee the proof that, that it is being
updated is up to you, but theremust be a way of making sure that
they're taking ownership of that.
Perhaps you're also keepinga folder where you keep good
replies that you've received.
You know, you're also keeping the teamin the loop about what's happening.
You know, they're,they're your front lines.
(35:52):
So if there's something wrong withfulfillment, if we've got a backlog
in the stock, if, if there's somethingthat we really need to shift, you
know, we're letting them know whatis going on because they're the ones
that are dealing with the client.
Pip (36:03):
If we're
Georgia (36:04):
thinking about digital products and questions coming in about what
you're providing, it might be thatinitially, as the product builds, as
popularity builds, you haven't gothuge amounts of questions coming in.
So you could just have someone that'schecking, you know, 30 minutes in
the morning, maybe in the afternoon,and then as that demand builds
up, we're increasing their hours.
But that's something that you want to talkto that person about in the first place.
(36:26):
Make sure that they're going to beavailable as those hours increase.
It might be that they are.
Just getting back into work and they'relike building up the number of hours
they work could be perfect for that.
So it's thinking about how is this rolegoing to grow as the popularity grows?
Or how is this service goingto grow as demand grows?
Yeah, I love this.
Pip (36:46):
I loved also how you talked about asking why somebody wants a return
or a refund because I think there'sso much we can take away there.
, I actually have a reallygood example of this.
I had a client who justused to accept returns.
Like she just, somebodywanted to return it.
She'd be like, yeah, fine.
Here's the address, return it.
Get it back, refund.
And then she started, we were talkingabout it and, , refunds were, they were
(37:09):
quite high for one part of the business.
And we're trying to figure outlike, what's going on here?
, , it's a good product, but there'sdefinitely a mismatch between
obviously what people are expectingand what they actually get.
So we started asking why, and itactually turned out that a lot of people
were buying the incorrect product.
So they were expecting somethingcompletely different because it
just wasn't clear on her website.
(37:31):
And actually, When you then went back toreread the website product description
with the knowledge of, , the people,the customers, actual words of why they
returned it, it became so clear, but itwasn't clear when you read through to
begin with, because obviously you readyour product description or, , your
sales page information in your own wayof interpretation, take you because you
(37:52):
wrote it or you, you've signed it off.
You're like, obviously thismeans this, and actually maybe.
A phrase or something means somethingcompletely different to somebody else.
So it just goes to show thatit's so important to get the
customer's viewpoint on this.
And I also think if you're tracking,, what customers are saying, using their
(38:12):
specific language is a really goodway to then drop into your marketing,
whether it's a pain point or if somebody,you've had something returned, you
know, that you bought from somebodyelse and they send you an email that's
just like, hits the nail and you'relike, yes, you treated me really well.
Taking those little snippets and.
Incorporating them in your business,wherever you feel is appropriate
in your way of doing things.
(38:32):
But it's just, , putting thatlittle sort of, I guess, sparkle
on everything to really kind ofbring it together as a brand.
Okay.
So I know we have covered a lotin this episode, and if you are
a service based business owner, Iwould definitely recommend that you
go and listen to how to scale clientdelivery, because this is something
that really goes hand in hand with this.
(38:52):
If you're offering digitalproducts and services.
So we'll make sure that we dropthat episode in the show notes,
but as a quick reminder, a takeawayof what we've talked about today.
So the first thing you want tothink about is your sourcing.
If you are selling physical products.
Where are you getting them?
And is it scalable that you can continueto get them from wherever that source is?
(39:15):
If you sell digital products, do youhave a plan of how you're keeping your
products up to date so you continue tosell them and they can become a cash
cow for you rather than, , an annualnightmare where you're thinking, gosh,
I've got to go and update this courseagain, because it's got, , some tax
numbers in, or this, that, or the other,that's no longer relevant or a social
media strategy, which no longer exists.
(39:36):
The second thing we want to dois think about our fulfillment.
So, how are you delivering your products?
Are you going to, if you're fulfillingphysical products, are you going
to keep this in house and havesomebody come and help you package
and send things out yourself?
Or are you going to startmoving over to user 3PL?
If you're selling digitalproducts, What aspects can you
pass over to somebody else?
Can you bring it in?
(39:56):
Any co-coach?
Can you get somebody to do answerquestions in your Facebook group for you?
Are you making sure you're, , makingthe most of Zapier and other automations
to make all your software speaks?
, somebody leaves the membership,, you've definitely made sure that they
don't have access to the membershipanymore, and , all of your billing
and everything is working for you,so you don't have to do it manually.
(40:16):
And then the third pieceis customer satisfaction.
So.
Who are you going to pass thisover to, , as you start to scale?
Because it cannot be you as the CEO.
I'm going to make that loud and clear.
You are not going to be answering customerqueries for the rest of your life.
Secondly, how can you systemize this,but in a way that gives flexibility?
As Georgia mentioned, every customerwants something slightly differently.
(40:40):
So how can you have those?
General guiding principles, butthat works within your business.
So people have, you know, your teamhave the autonomy to make the right
decision for that right scenario.
And they don't have to come to youall the time asking permission.
Oh, do you mind if we refund this too?
Oh, do you mind if we give somebodyan extra discount off on this or an
extra free month of the membership?
(41:00):
You want to empower your team tobe able to make those decisions
for you and your business basedon those guiding principles.
And then finally, we really needto make sure we're thinking about.
The customer and understandingwhat they're actually saying in
the feedback they're giving us.
So whilst we're not in the weedsof , , doing customer services,
(41:21):
we still have that connection withour customers and our clients.
And we still understand, , theirpains, what's going well, what's
going wrong, because we really wantto take some of that language and
some of those concerns and issues.
Into our products to improve theminto our marketing to help us nurture
our customers well, and really makingsure that we keep that connection.
So we continue to growin the right direction.
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the
(00:02):
Scaling Simplified podcast.
And this week, we are talking all abouthow to scale your product fulfillment.
So what do we mean by this?
Well, a little while ago, we talked allabout how to scale your client delivery.
But what if you are sellingproducts rather than services?
, today we're going to talk you through howyou can scale that product fulfillment,
(00:24):
both from a physical product, butalso a digital product perspective.
So we're focusing on theoperational side of things.
You know, if you've nailed your salesfunnel, but you're feeling a little bit
overwhelmed with how you're going todeliver that, Or you feel like you might
be capped in how much you can fulfillper day, this is the episode for you.
(00:44):
So, if you have found this Q4 to besuper stressful, we're going to help
you get set up so next year can betwice as good with half the work.
Yes.
Pip (00:57):
Oh, okay.
I love this topic.
Obviously this is a topic close to myheart, but I think a lot of the time
Q4, especially if you have a physicalproduct business is so stressful.
You've got Black Friday,you've got the holidays.
And you probably feel completelyoverwhelmed with getting everything
out the door on time to customers.
(01:17):
So they are happy.
And I know as well with a lot ofservice providers, a lot of people are
selling a lot ahead of the new year.
So they're often findingthey're doing lots of selling.
They get to the new year.
They've got all these peoplesigned up for their new memberships
or courses or what have you.
And suddenly you'vegot to deliver on that.
So I'm really excited tojump in today and talk.
(01:38):
all about how we can reduce the timewe're spending on product delivery
and fulfillment so we can spendmore time scaling our businesses.
So I think with a productbusiness, , it's really important to.
understand how much time we'respending actually literally packing
up and sending out products.
(01:58):
Because to begin with, when youhave a few orders, it's fine.
Like it's quite nice to pack upyour things and you go to see
all those lovely TikTok videos ofpeople like pack an order with me.
, but I can tell you from personalexperience that that is a complete pain
in the bottom if, , the orders startto scale up and ramp up in number.
And it's not sustainable asyou, as the business owner
(02:20):
doing this in the long term.
So, , even if you brought in oneperson to support, what do you do
when it's really busy and actuallyjust one person isn't enough?
Lo and behold, they want to goon holiday and you know who's
gonna do all the fulfillment whenyour team members on holiday.
So it's really important that you startthinking about how you can do this.
And of course, if you sell a lotof digital products, you don't want
(02:42):
to be doing lots of manual settingpeople up on a new membership and
then removing them when they'resubscription fails and linking bits
of software and information manually.
Or if you have a live element to anymemberships or courses like weekly
Q and A's or answering questions,you need to find a way to sort
of scale yourself out of this.
So overall you can focus onrevenue growth within the business.
(03:06):
So there are three things wewant to consider when we're
scaling our product delivery.
The first thing is sourcing.
The second thing is fulfillment.
And the third piece iscustomer satisfaction.
Georgia (03:18):
Okay, great.
So let's hit with a sourcing first,which is really all about keeping your
product on the shelves, making sure thatyou've got enough stock for those all
important customers as you start scaling.
So if we're talking about physicalproducts, then we're literally talking
about the need to keep those productsavailable so that people can buy them.
(03:39):
You know, we want to make sure that weare fulfilling the demand that we've got.
And if we're thinkingabout digital products.
We're perhaps starting to think abouthow do I maintain these products, you
know, keep them up to date withouthaving to completely redo them every
year as the market changes, dependingon the environment you're working
in, there might be new legislations,different way of doing things, updates
(04:02):
and technology that you want to talkabout within that digital product.
So how can you keep those up to datewithout starting again every year?
Pip (04:11):
Okay, let's dive into the product side first, and then we'll
talk about digital products second.
So if you have a product business andyou are ready to scale the sourcing
side of things, you've got fourquestions you need to ask yourself.
So the first one is, can your supplierskeep up with your forecasted sales?
So do you actually have enoughproducts arriving with you to sell?
(04:32):
You then want to think abouthow long it takes to get those
new products delivered to you.
How expensive it is to getthose products sent to you.
And then you need to think about how fastare you selling through your products.
So diving into these in a little moredetail, so the first thing to really
hone in on is can your current supplierskeep up with what you're trying to sell?
(04:54):
Like literally the physical numberof products you're trying to sell.
Do you need to find a secondsupplier or a backup supplier?
, if something went wrongwith your current supplier.
What would you do?
So maybe having a supplier in adifferent location can be useful, , we've
had situations where shipping fromChina has been a complete nightmare.
So somebody wants somewhere who supplieslocally and then you've only got to deal
(05:16):
with like internal country logistics, not.
international logistics.
You also might have something thatis produced in a very specific way.
And so you need to think about whatother suppliers could deal with this.
If you suddenly had to make aswitch or if you suddenly got a
really big order, could you quicklyfind somebody to help with this?
(05:38):
And I think we get so comfortable once wefound that supplier who's producing our
products that we kind of forget about it.
But as you scale, you needto start planning out.
Other options early on so you havethat backup because essentially that's
just a business continuity issue.
You also can speak to your supplierif you're worried about this and just
ask them, , Can they cope with demand?
(05:58):
This is what our projected sales are.
Is this going to be okay?
, what discounts can we getas we scale up the volume?
What does this mean, , for cost perunit, which then means how much more
money can you be throwing at the frontend of marketing in order to acquire a
customer to get more customers buyingand therefore increase your revenue?
And I also think one of the things youneed to think about as you start scaling
(06:20):
up is what QA checks you have in place.
And so that's all aboutyour quality assurance.
Do you have the quality youneed as your volume increases?
And that can be with your currentsupplier who's producing your products
for you, or if you're going to a newsupplier or getting a second supplier
or backup supplier, you need to makesure that as the quantity increases,
(06:41):
the quality does not decreasebecause that is often what happens.
So again, the best thing to do with thisis to just keep in regular communication
with your suppliers and really have thoseconversations back and forth, because
it's really about building trust hereand dealing with issues really quickly.
So once we have made sure thatour suppliers can keep up with our
forecasted sales, we need to diveinto understanding how long it takes
(07:03):
for new products to get delivered.
So what is our lead time?
And you really need to think about here,you'll know how long generally once
you've done a shipment or two of how longthings take, but do, have you factored
in What if something goes wrong or whatif you suddenly get a massive order
or you might get suddenly into retail?
I've seen this with my clients sofrequently, , you're trying, you're
(07:26):
pitching to all these retailers toget your products and there's nothing,
there's nothing, there's nothing.
And then suddenly, boom, big supermarketplaces a huge order for your products
and you've suddenly got to find outwhere you're getting these products
from because you're sure as hell notgoing to tell that supermarket that
you don't have the products for them.
So thinking about what's your lead time.
How quickly can you getthings if you need to?
(07:46):
Can you use air instead of freight?
Can you use a train in some situations?
Now obviously the cost is goingto go up the faster it gets to
you, but have you factored thatinto your pricing so you know what
you're pitching to retailers too?
So it's really again about thinkingabout how long it can take, what your
options are, so when the big opportunitycomes through you can jump on it
(08:07):
immediately because , as product basedbusiness owners, we don't get these
opportunities thrown at us every day.
So you really want to jumpon it when it comes to you.
You also want to think about how expensiveit is to get your products delivered.
So things you can think about hereis can you order more in one go and
therefore you pay a lower cost per unit.
(08:27):
, but you need to then pay more forwarehousing or storing your products,
or if you're keeping them, or perhapsyou have somewhere you can keep them.
So it doesn't reallymatter whether you've got.
A thousand products or 10, 000products, you've already got the space.
So thinking about how expensiveit is to get your products will
help you then figure out how manyproducts you want to be getting at
one go and purchasing in one go.
(08:48):
And of course you want to alsothink about your invoicing terms.
So can you.
, take advantage of promptpayment discounts, or do you
need to access trade finance?
If you don't have the cash, , that'sone really great thing to try and
get yourself as sorted as possible.
I know you can't get every single lineticked off before a big order comes in,
but if you've explored trade financingoptions, when that big order comes in,
(09:11):
, that you're 90 percent of the way there to, , succeeding with that trade financing
application is going to make your life.
Way less stressful.
And then the final piece to thisis to understand how fast you are
selling through your products.
So this really comes to, if you knowhow fast you're selling through your
products and you know how long ittakes for products to get to you,
you can then figure out when you needto start reordering more products.
(09:33):
And the one thing you don't wantto do is to run out of products.
If you get hit on that saleswhim, if an influencer does a
shout out about your products.
And you suddenly get an influx of orders.
You do not want to be hit bythe, sorry, we're sold out.
I know it's good for short term,, building that sense of scarcity, but long
term it's not good for your business.
You want to make sure that peopleare able to buy from you and you get
(09:54):
those customers in, so you can thenturn them into repeat customers.
So make sure you know how tocalculate your reorder rate.
And if this is something that you'veno idea what this means, drop me
a DM and we can talk about this.
, but thinking about how do youcalculate your reorder rate?
How many products areyou selling each week?
How are you managing checkingyour inventory levels?
(10:14):
Like, do you know how much stockyou've got in the garage that
you're selling or in your warehouse?
Like, how are you keeping an eye on that?
Do you know how much of it's good?
Is there any damaged stockthat you need to write off?
You need to be keeping on top of this.
And then also thinking about, , arethere any events that are happening
or coming up that might increase ordecrease the amount of stock you need?
So maybe, you know, we're comingup to Q4 and you need to make sure
(10:36):
you've got enough stock in line.
Or maybe there's a big event thatyou're running with someone or you're
working with a big influence andyou know that there's likely to be
an increase in orders after this.
So making sure you're prepared in advance.
And of course you want to alsojust think about the basics like
minimum order quantities on orders.
You don't want to get to a placewhere you're constantly topping up
by just a few products at a timebecause often A, you can't do that
(10:59):
and B, it becomes really expensive.
So thinking about your MOQsand thinking about how you're
planning for that financially.
So you're keeping enough cash asideso you've got it in the bank ready
to go for when you're ready toplace that order and press send.
There are so many questions
Georgia (11:15):
to ask on that.
But I think actually, although we'retalking about product and digital,
there's quite a few of those questionsthat are relevant for digital.
Even when you're starting out, ifyou're in the earlier stages of your
business, that idea of, you know, packup an order with me could be the same.
If you're sending out a digitalproduct, if you haven't set up all
the different zaps and pieces of tech,and you are emailing out to every
(11:36):
person that signs up, if you suddenlygo viral and you've got, you know.
a thousand, ten thousand, a hundredthousand people that want your digital
product, are you set up for that?
Like, how do you get ready for that?
And equally, if you've got people signingup to your membership, like, how are
you going to deliver that as it scales?
So again, there's a few differentquestions that you want to ask
(11:59):
around maintaining that product.
So.
Imagine that you've got something, maybeit's a PDF, like it could even be your
freebie and it's downloaded regularly, butit does need to be kept up to date because
perhaps it's got some legal issues orsomething to do with certain bits of tech.
Does it need to be you that updates it?
Can you train someoneelse to update it for you?
(12:21):
Can you, and I saw a great example ofthis recently, it was a ads course,
Facebook ads, and everybody knowshow quickly Facebook ads change.
So.
Where she had been talking aboutone particular type of, , I
don't know, entry point that youneed to put some information in.
She just recorded a quick video to goahead of that that said, if I say this,
(12:44):
this is what I'm actually referring tobecause Facebook ads has been updated.
And you were like, great, totally getthat on board, understand, doesn't
matter, everything else is the same.
And then if you're running somethinglike a membership, so again,
it's the delivery side of things.
Imagine that you have a weekly coachingcall on that membership, and suddenly
(13:04):
you've got a thousand new peoplethat sign up for your membership.
You cannot coach a thousandpeople in one hour.
How are you going to deal with this?
Like, what, what is your contingency plan?
Do you have a backup coach that you'regoing to bring in for when it gets busy?
Can you deal with thingsin a different way?
Can you have people submit questionsand you actually get your VA to respond
(13:27):
to them based on the answers thatyou've given to the other 950 people
that have asked questions that week?
Like, what is the contingency plan?
If you're going to host like amonthly workshop, do you need
to prepare all the content?
Can you ask somebody elseto prepare the content?
Can you ask somebody else to turn itinto slides and a presentation for you?
(13:47):
And then you just record thewebinar to put it out there.
Maybe you're getting someoneelse to edit the video.
Like where can you slim down the amountof time that you need to be involved so
that you can focus on all the success?
you are now having with your product.
So that's step one.
Step two is going to beall around the fulfillment.
(14:09):
Like how do you get your productsto your customers on time?
Now, obviously there's a fewreasons why this is important.
Firstly, we want more sales.
So the more time that your packagingAnd posting is less time you've
got for finding those sales andgetting things out to people.
More sales mean more time packing up yourproducts, more time posting them out.
(14:32):
And you can't do all of that.
There aren't enough hours in the day.
Also, if we're thinking aboutphysical products, if we've got a
slow fulfillment, like a delay inthose orders coming out to people,
we're going to have unhappy customers.
And then they're very unlikelyto come back to us again.
Or if the slow fulfillment, so it takesa while to get to them, they might have
(14:53):
ordered something else in the meantime.
And then they might want toreturn what they got from you.
Then you've got more adminto deal with the returns.
And then we get into this badcycle that we're kind of stuck in.
, If it's digital products, like I'vesaid, there is that delivery element, you
know, and particularly if there's a liveelement to it, how do you deal with this
when you've got a growing customer base?
(15:15):
How are you going to look aftereveryone that signs up for this?
Because when you first decided on it, youprobably thought, oh yeah, I might get 20
people sign up for this, 50 if I'm lucky.
What if it really takes off,which I hope it does, how are
you going to deal with that then?
So some questions you might want to startasking yourself is, how do I scale this?
Yes, I'm saying I want 50 people,but how do I make it bigger?
(15:39):
Or with the product, youknow, what if everybody wants
one of these for Christmas?
Do I keep this in house oram I going to outsource it?
So for digital products, Do I want tokeep doing it myself or do I want to bring
someone else in to take over this element?
You know, is my zone of genius actuallyin getting the word out about this digital
(16:01):
product and then I need someone elseto kind of make sure that it's getting
delivered to everybody that's interested?
Or we're perhaps thinking about how doI deal with the busy times of years?
If you're a seasonal business,you know, this is something that's
really relevant for some people.
I work in a holiday industry place,you know, we have six months of
(16:22):
the year, but that are reallybusy in six months that are quiet.
So how do you deal with that increaseddemand at certain points of the year?
Or maybe it's over Christmas, as wesaid, or Easter or whatever it might be.
Pip (16:35):
Yeah, I completely agree.
I think there's a lot of businesses whichare actually more seasonal than we think.
And I think just taking the timeto understand that and preparing
in advance, that means it doesn'tmatter that they're seasonal.
We can enjoy the extra revenue weget during those months without it
actually being a really stressful time.
Because for me, if you have a seasonalbusiness, you should get to that time of
(16:55):
year and be like, yes, this is when we getto make all of our profit for the year, as
opposed to like the, oh, F, this is when,you know, life falls apart for six months
because I know I have to work really hard.
Okay, so let's move into somereally tangible ways to fix this.
So let's start, we'll talk productbusinesses first and then dive into
more the digital product side of things.
(17:16):
So if you have a product business,you've really got to ways of doing
this, of ways of fulfilling yourproduct, as Georgia mentioned.
So we can either keep things in houseor we can outsource and use a 3PL.
So a third party logistics company.
So talking about keeping things inhouse, you really, this is all about
(17:37):
hiring someone or somebody's a teamof people who are going to do all
of your postage, your packaging.
They're going to send things out, they'reoften going to deal with your returns,
and they're essentially taking the orderthat comes in from your website and they
do all of that from the order comingin to making sure that the product gets
(17:57):
to your customer in a timely manner.
Georgia (17:59):
And as somebody that has worked as a picker and packer in a, um, a
factory, a warehouse for clothing thatused to get really busy at Christmas.
I understand this.
So if you're thinking seasonal orbusy periods, what you want to do is
create a really clear system so thatyou can quickly train up other people.
Then you will have members ofyour team that are there all the
(18:22):
time and they are going to train.
The influx of kind of extra staffyou might have for the busy period
on how to do things and have themreport into that person, that
person managing their day to day.
Yeah, I
Pip (18:36):
love that.
It's all about keeping thingsreally organized, isn't it?
It's like, having that dedicated zone,so you've got your packing area, you've
got your picking area, you've got your,once it's all ready to go, there's a
place where you put boxes so you knowthat they're ready to ship, and when
Royal Mail or DHL or DPD or whoeveryou've got coming to pick it up comes,
you know exactly what to send out,and you're not going to be sending out
something that's a half packed box.
(18:58):
So I think it's just aboutkeeping that really, really clear.
Simple, have a nice,simple system in place.
And you can do all sorts ofthings to make this easier.
So for instance, , if you've gotbestsellers, don't put them at the
very end of the warehouse or the veryend of the room where you have to get
up and like traipse a hundred metersto find something, keep them close.
(19:18):
If you've got a certain like.
Scent of candle that is just your topscent or a certain size of clothing
that is always the one that's picked.
Make sure that everything's organizedso you can easily find it, but put
the best sellers close to hand.
And I think another thing youwant to think about as well is
again, just being organized.
If you've got products which So forinstance, you know, some candles and
(19:41):
some beauty products often have, , food,obviously always has sell by dates.
You want to make sure that you're rotatingyour stock and you've got the newest
things at the back and you're pickingthe oldest things to go out first.
So what you don't do is keep onputting the new things at the front.
And when you have a really busy time,you get back to the end of the shelf
and you suddenly realize that you can'tactually sell whatever you're trying to
sell because it's past the sell by date.
(20:03):
So I think it's really justabout being very organized.
And then with this comes stock counts.
So obviously for your annual accounts,you'll need to understand how much stock
you've got because it's a number thatgoes on your balance sheet and it's a
number that affects your profit as well.
So you need to understand how muchyou've sold, , and what you've got left.
And You need to just also dothis to help with your ordering.
(20:25):
So, you know, when you need to order anew product, the last thing you want to
do is, you know, Sally from the packingteam comes up and she's like, Oh Pip,
we've actually only got three of thesebooks left and we've got an order for 20.
Well, that's a bit of a shamebecause it's going to take us
three weeks to get some more in.
So, , we could have beenorganized there and actually
got enough stocking in advance.
So I think it's just here.
It's about just.
(20:45):
Being really organized and reallylogical about how you run things.
And Georgia, as you said, it's justabout having the right team members.
If you've got somebody that's reallyorganized, these are the people
who are made for roles like this.
You know, that person who just loves thesystem loves to keep everyone on track.
That's really who you needto find for a job like this.
Definitely.
And
Georgia (21:05):
it's them, them keeping like ahead of the game
as well in terms of the staff.
So, you know, like we've talkedabout on 90 day sprints, if you
know that you always have a busyChristmas period, you need to think
about, okay, so how many temporarystaff do I need to bring in for Q4?
When do I need them by?
How many do I need?
You can look at Okay.
On average, how many, how manyorders to my current team get out
(21:29):
and what orders am I expecting?
You know, you can use the data to workthat out, but you also need to think
about who's going to train them up.
So imagine that you want them tostart at the beginning of December
or the beginning of November.
If you haven't allocated the trainingto someone by the beginning of
November, you're already behind.
So it's thinking, okay, who isgoing to train this person up?
(21:50):
Do they know how to train them?
And then when are they starting by?
How many of them?
What does the training process look like?
When do they need to be up and running by?
And it's kind of thesame with your returns.
Like, you know, that is a hugepart of the business that perhaps
we're not always thinking aboutputting enough resources into.
But who is managing the returns?
Who's checking thereturns when they come in?
(22:11):
Who's issuing the refund.
And as your team grows, this issomething that you really need to start
thinking about, and it might become aslightly separate arm of the business
when we think about the returns.
Pip (22:23):
I think returns is something we always forget about being a job.
And actually when it gets busy, we'regoing to get more returns as the
natural, , thing with the business.
And it's the same.
If you have a service based business,you're going to have a number of people
who are unhappy with your service, whowant to leave, and you need to off board.
And you need to ensure that you've plannedout enough resources to support with that.
Cause the last thing you want to doas the business owner is to have to
(22:45):
manage and jump in yourself to dothat when you're really busy doing
all the other things on your plate.
Okay, so we've talked about ifwe're going to keep in house, keep
all of our fulfillment in house.
But the other option that we have,which a lot of product businesses
will use is to outsource to a 3PL.
So that is essentially a fulfillmentcompany that does everything for you.
(23:05):
You send your stock to them, youget your website matched in with
their software, and then as orderscome through, they do everything.
everything for you.
Now, this is personallywhat I use in my business.
I love it because it means I justdon't need to think about it at all.
I make the sale, the product getsshipped out, and I make money
and I have no part in it at all.
(23:26):
And so personally for me, that works.
Some people like to keepit all in the house.
So they really have controlof that customer journey and
what they're sending out there.
So some of the things you want to thinkabout if you're thinking about whether
you're ready to outsource to a 3PL, youwant to be thinking about the costs.
Usually it's not cost effective tooutsource to a 3PL to begin with, because
(23:48):
that extra revenue you can be using tohelp grow your business to begin with.
But as you hit that certainthreshold where you're really
starting to scale and the orders.
Really growing that's probably thetime when it's worth putting that
investment into the 3pl You want tothink about where your 3pl is based?
So if you have loads of customerssay in germany but your 3pl's in
(24:10):
the uk maybe you need to get another3PL in Germany, or maybe you just
need to move your 3PL to Germany.
You need to really think about whereis it logical for this warehouse
to be so you can get your productto somebody as quickly as possible.
And of course, with Amazon Prime, Wehave ruined people's expectations of
how quickly people think they shouldget their product, and it makes it so
(24:31):
hard for a small business to compete.
So we've got to do everything we can, notonly in signposting this to our customer,
but also in, you know, setting ourselvesup for as much success as we can get.
So you also want to think about whichdelivery and courier services do they use.
You might have a preferred one,, obviously the prices of them is different,
(24:52):
so depending on the size and the weightof your parcels, it might make quite a
big difference to your postage costs.
So understanding that is agood idea before you just sign
up to somebody willy nilly.
And then you also want to thinkabout if they deal with returns.
Are returns going to that 3PL everythingfor you, or are the returns coming to you?
So A, making sure it's really clearon your website, and B, understanding
(25:14):
do I need to find somebody to helpwith this, or actually can I pass
everything off and I just know howmuch it's going to cost me per return.
You also, I think in terms of findingthe right partner, there's loads
of people who do 3PL, but findingthe right one can be quite hard.
So one of the secrets to success,I would say is, , test it out.
This is a business relationship.
(25:34):
One of the most important businessrelationships in a product based
business, if you do use it.
So I ask yourself, arethey good at communicating?
Do they tell you when.
Things are going wrong.
And even before you've signed upwith them, like, are they, do they
respond to your emails quickly?
Will they jump on a phone call with you?
Will they let you comeand visit the facility?
I know these are small things, but theygive you a really important view into
(25:56):
like their values as a company and howthey're going to treat you as a customer,
if they can't treat you amazingly.
As a pre customer, they're definitely notgoing to treat you well as a customer.
So really think about thatbefore you sign up for someone.
You also want to justunderstand like the basics.
Like if the connection between yourwebsite and their software breaks.
(26:17):
Who's responsible.
So for me, I wanted a 3PLthat they're responsible.
If something breaks, I email them.
And to be honest, they usually tellme that something's wrong and they've
already fixed it before it even happens.
I see the email beinglike, there wasn't downage.
We fixed it.
And now I know great, brilliant.
But what I don't want to do is ona Saturday night, get emails from
somebody being like, it's broken.
You need to go and fix it.
(26:38):
And then try and be in the back end of my.
Website trying to figure out APIs.
Cause let's face it, thatis not my strong point.
So it's again, figuring outfor you, what works for you.
And then of course you need tothink about, do they fulfill for
the marketplaces you're selling on?
So if you're selling on Amazon or Etsy oryour own website, wherever you're selling,
are they going to fulfill for that?
(26:59):
Are they happy to do that fulfillment?
Do they have the software thattalks again, if they don't.
Probably not the people to go to,because pretty much everyone at this
point can access software that has that.
So just making sure that they'resuited for your business.
And then finally, it's kind of morelike the financial side of things.
So what are their invoicing terms?
, how much are you paying monthlyversus how much are you paying?
, , net 30, net 60.
(27:20):
Does that work with howyou work as a business?
Can you afford that?
So just think from a cash flowperspective, is this going to work?
And then finally, can theydeal with the seasonality?
I know we've touched on seasonalitybefore, but, you know, it's great if
they're brilliant at sending everythingout in summer when it's really quiet.
But if you're super busy in the winterand all their other clients are busy
(27:41):
in the winter, How do they manage that?
And don't be afraid to ask the question,like, do you bring on temp staff?
How do you manage this?
Like, ask the hard questions beforeyou sign up to something, because
the last thing you want to do is getyourself stuck in a situation where
you are actually not in control atall, and something has gone wrong.
Yeah,
Georgia (28:00):
absolutely.
So important.
So many things to think about there,but I think it's, as you say, it's
that relationship, like understanding,are they the right 3PL for you?
And you, and really testingthat out in different aspects.
And actually, when we think aboutthe fulfillment on the digital
products, there's also elementsthat we really need to think about.
And I think the difference with thedigital products is that a lot of what
(28:23):
you're considering might be who elseyou're bringing in, and they will have
to be quite client facing with yourclients, because they're not going to
be in the background picking and packingand posting and all the rest, you know,
This is really about taking some ofthe load and talking to your clients.
So, for example, if you are sellinga digital product, maybe it's a
(28:43):
membership, but you have a weekly Q&A and you have a big influx of new
clients, do you need to add more calls?
Do you need to changehow you run the calls?
Is it, you know, questions in advance?
Are you starting to pick thequestions if you're getting
a lot of the same questions?
Or do you want to bring in someone elseto take the calls or additional calls?
(29:05):
Are there areas of expertise that mightbe useful alongside yours if you're having
particular types of calls coming in?
It's all very well selling loadsof places into a membership.
But if you are then not looking afterthose people, or the calls are just
getting so lengthy because there'sso many people on the call, you are
not gonna have a repeat business.
Those people aren't gonna continue to,to stay in that membership or buy that
(29:28):
service because they will feel thatthey're not getting what they signed up
for the, the product that they bought.
Yeah.
So slightly different in digitalproducts, but still, still
the same kinds of questions.
Pip (29:40):
And that really so beautifully leads on to the point three.
keeping your customershappy, it's so important.
As you say, if your customers arenot happy, they're not going to
be returned customers, and as soonas you start to lose customers, it
makes it so much harder to bringthem in, , as, as we all know, it's.
cheaper for us to resell to a customerthan to acquire a new customer.
(30:02):
So how do you keep your customers happy asyou scale and how do you prioritize that?
And that's something that I thinkbecomes more and more important as
you grow and reducing that churn andmaking sure you're increasing the
lifetime value of your customers.
So really this is where customer servicescomes in and I think customer services
often if you sell, , you know, servicesthat are very high ticket, you don't need
(30:25):
to outsource the customer service partof things as quickly because you have
fewer people you have to converse with.
But if you're selling100, 200 products a day.
Customer queries reallystart to come in quickly.
And if you've just signed a thousandnew people up for your membership,
those questions are going to come in.
And they're really basic oneslike, Oh, I've lost my password.
(30:45):
I can't log into my account.
When's my order being delivered?
I haven't received an order confirmation.
, really.
Mind numbing questions if we're beingreally honest about it, but, , we
shouldn't be doing this as CEOs.
Also, there's a part of it thatwe need to protect ourselves.
So if somebody complains or somebody, , ismaking a point that, , whether it's valid
or not, because the customer is not alwaysright, , you let them believe they're
(31:08):
right, but they are not always right.
And you don't need to believeeverything that they say.
It's, it's really important for us thatwe're not Necessarily reading all of that.
And sometimes that our teamprotects us a little bit from that.
So we keep in a reallygood mindset about this.
So how can we start to outsource thatcustomer services and ensure that our
customer satisfaction stays really high?
(31:30):
Well, you generally could.
Bring someone on, you couldoutsource, you could use an agency.
If you're bringing someone on,often it's a VA to start with,
or a customer services rep.
Often that's how we start these thingsout, where we bring somebody in to do an
hour a day, or half an hour, twice a day,and then it builds up, then they're doing
an hour twice a day, and then before weknow it, they're doing all day, every day.
(31:53):
And then it might get to a point where, it's a full time role for somebody or
a full time role for multiple people,or potentially we go, actually, we
want this to be completely separate.
We're going to completelyoutsource this to an agency.
I think this is more relevant if you'rea product based business, because
it's often the nuance of what you'reselling is less intricate than a, , a
(32:13):
very specific services based business.
You, , you have to spend a lot oftime getting it right, I think,
with the services based business,so they really understand your
products and your customer.
, but these are generally thetwo options we've got first.
So it's really thinking about which oneworks for you for your stage of business.
And also, we just want
Georgia (32:31):
to make it easy, don't we?
Like, let's find simple processes andways of dealing with these things.
As you said, as you scale, you get loadsand loads of mind numbing questions.
And many of them Are the same in one wayor another, you know, so let's get some
written template examples to speed up theresponses and, and then they're always
going to be in the right tone of voice,keep them somewhere simple, you know,
(32:53):
people can start to adapt those handover the responsibility to your team, you
know, yes, every customer is different.
So it's sometimes hard to haveclear rules, but you could have
what I like to call some guidingprinciples within the business.
So.
Yes, some people want a refund.
Others might want a replacement.
Others would value just fromsomeone listening to them.
(33:15):
But if we're thinking about thoseguiding principles, for example, say
you are selling products to, uh, forbabies, you know, and the guiding
principle might be nobody knowstheir baby better than the mother.
So if the mother is saying that thisisn't right for my baby, So we go with
that, you know, the mother knows best.
(33:36):
We can't force the mother tofeed the baby something that
they're not supposed to have.
So that kind of can become that.
You can also give that responsibility.
There's an amazing, I can't even rememberthe hotel brand because my brain isn't
working, but they basically say to theirteams, okay, you have the authority.
If a client has really had a badexperience or something has gone
(33:59):
wrong, you have the authority tooffer them up to X amount in discount.
Or money off in the restaurant, ora voucher for the bar, or whatever
it might be, or a free treatment inthe spa, because our customers are
more important than anything else.
You can, you can let that customer have500 worth of value, or whatever it might
be, or it could be 25 voucher for thecustomer to try and fix the problem.
(34:24):
But just set some rules where theteam can have responsibility for that.
Also, I think we're always Askingwhy something's been returned.
We want to know, we want to trackthe reason for returns in Google
spreadsheets, because we wantto try and make that better.
We want to stop necessarily having tohave that return, whether it's in the
way we market the product or somethingelse, , we're going to track all the
(34:46):
common questions that are coming in sothat we can better signpost the answers.
or have things on the website that tellpeople before they even buy the product or
before they even have a product, a problemwith the product, you know, we can use it
in our content, all that sort of thing.
Um, we also want to have somereally clear rules on what is and
(35:07):
isn't expected, but we also want togive people the autonomy to make.
The best decision in the moment for thatspecific situation, because if we're not
giving that autonomy, we're going to getpulled in all the time to that problem.
And that's not what we want.
Our time is more valuable somewhere else.
We're also thinking about gettingthe customer service team to
really update their SOP withnew responses as they come in.
(35:30):
They are responsible for that.
It's a living document and how yousee the proof that, that it is being
updated is up to you, but theremust be a way of making sure that
they're taking ownership of that.
Perhaps you're also keepinga folder where you keep good
replies that you've received.
You know, you're also keeping the teamin the loop about what's happening.
You know, they're,they're your front lines.
(35:52):
So if there's something wrong withfulfillment, if we've got a backlog
in the stock, if, if there's somethingthat we really need to shift, you
know, we're letting them know whatis going on because they're the ones
that are dealing with the client.
Pip (36:03):
If we're
Georgia (36:04):
thinking about digital products and questions coming in about what
you're providing, it might be thatinitially, as the product builds, as
popularity builds, you haven't gothuge amounts of questions coming in.
So you could just have someone that'schecking, you know, 30 minutes in
the morning, maybe in the afternoon,and then as that demand builds
up, we're increasing their hours.
But that's something that you want to talkto that person about in the first place.
(36:26):
Make sure that they're going to beavailable as those hours increase.
It might be that they are.
Just getting back into work and they'relike building up the number of hours
they work could be perfect for that.
So it's thinking about how is this rolegoing to grow as the popularity grows?
Or how is this service goingto grow as demand grows?
Yeah, I love this.
Pip (36:46):
I loved also how you talked about asking why somebody wants a return
or a refund because I think there'sso much we can take away there.
, I actually have a reallygood example of this.
I had a client who justused to accept returns.
Like she just, somebodywanted to return it.
She'd be like, yeah, fine.
Here's the address, return it.
Get it back, refund.
And then she started, we were talkingabout it and, , refunds were, they were
(37:09):
quite high for one part of the business.
And we're trying to figure outlike, what's going on here?
, , it's a good product, but there'sdefinitely a mismatch between
obviously what people are expectingand what they actually get.
So we started asking why, and itactually turned out that a lot of people
were buying the incorrect product.
So they were expecting somethingcompletely different because it
just wasn't clear on her website.
(37:31):
And actually, When you then went back toreread the website product description
with the knowledge of, , the people,the customers, actual words of why they
returned it, it became so clear, but itwasn't clear when you read through to
begin with, because obviously you readyour product description or, , your
sales page information in your own wayof interpretation, take you because you
(37:52):
wrote it or you, you've signed it off.
You're like, obviously thismeans this, and actually maybe.
A phrase or something means somethingcompletely different to somebody else.
So it just goes to show thatit's so important to get the
customer's viewpoint on this.
And I also think if you're tracking,, what customers are saying, using their
(38:12):
specific language is a really goodway to then drop into your marketing,
whether it's a pain point or if somebody,you've had something returned, you
know, that you bought from somebodyelse and they send you an email that's
just like, hits the nail and you'relike, yes, you treated me really well.
Taking those little snippets and.
Incorporating them in your business,wherever you feel is appropriate
in your way of doing things.
(38:32):
But it's just, , putting thatlittle sort of, I guess, sparkle
on everything to really kind ofbring it together as a brand.
Okay.
So I know we have covered a lotin this episode, and if you are
a service based business owner, Iwould definitely recommend that you
go and listen to how to scale clientdelivery, because this is something
that really goes hand in hand with this.
(38:52):
If you're offering digitalproducts and services.
So we'll make sure that we dropthat episode in the show notes,
but as a quick reminder, a takeawayof what we've talked about today.
So the first thing you want tothink about is your sourcing.
If you are selling physical products.
Where are you getting them?
And is it scalable that you can continueto get them from wherever that source is?
(39:15):
If you sell digital products, do youhave a plan of how you're keeping your
products up to date so you continue tosell them and they can become a cash
cow for you rather than, , an annualnightmare where you're thinking, gosh,
I've got to go and update this courseagain, because it's got, , some tax
numbers in, or this, that, or the other,that's no longer relevant or a social
media strategy, which no longer exists.
(39:36):
The second thing we want to dois think about our fulfillment.
So, how are you delivering your products?
Are you going to, if you're fulfillingphysical products, are you going
to keep this in house and havesomebody come and help you package
and send things out yourself?
Or are you going to startmoving over to user 3PL?
If you're selling digitalproducts, What aspects can you
pass over to somebody else?
Can you bring it in?
(39:56):
Any co-coach?
Can you get somebody to do answerquestions in your Facebook group for you?
Are you making sure you're, , makingthe most of Zapier and other automations
to make all your software speaks?
, somebody leaves the membership,, you've definitely made sure that they
don't have access to the membershipanymore, and , all of your billing
and everything is working for you,so you don't have to do it manually.
(40:16):
And then the third pieceis customer satisfaction.
So.
Who are you going to pass thisover to, , as you start to scale?
Because it cannot be you as the CEO.
I'm going to make that loud and clear.
You are not going to be answering customerqueries for the rest of your life.
Secondly, how can you systemize this,but in a way that gives flexibility?
As Georgia mentioned, every customerwants something slightly differently.
(40:40):
So how can you have those?
General guiding principles, butthat works within your business.
So people have, you know, your teamhave the autonomy to make the right
decision for that right scenario.
And they don't have to come to youall the time asking permission.
Oh, do you mind if we refund this too?
Oh, do you mind if we give somebodyan extra discount off on this or an
extra free month of the membership?
(41:00):
You want to empower your team tobe able to make those decisions
for you and your business basedon those guiding principles.
And then finally, we really needto make sure we're thinking about.
The customer and understandingwhat they're actually saying in
the feedback they're giving us.
So whilst we're not in the weedsof , , doing customer services,
(41:21):
we still have that connection withour customers and our clients.
And we still understand, , theirpains, what's going well, what's
going wrong, because we really wantto take some of that language and
some of those concerns and issues.
Into our products to improve theminto our marketing to help us nurture
our customers well, and really makingsure that we keep that connection.
So we continue to growin the right direction.
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