2255 - Essential Tactics for Service and SaaS Businesses with The Change Hive's Yemi Oluseun

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0:51Also, don't forget, the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for great guests. Go to upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. I'd love to have you.

1:05With us right now, it's Yemi Olassian. Yemi, you are the founder and CEO of The Change Hive. You're found on the web at thechangehive.co. I am so grateful that we are talking because retention is obviously something that we have some focus on in that we're launching, we're about ready to launch a SaaS platform. And I know that is, we're going to get into all that. But Yemi, before we do, you're in London. Tell me what you are currently geeking out on. What are you having fun with? What are you into when you're not working or fulfilling responsibilities? Sure. Josh, first of all, thank you for having me.

1:51It's a delight to be on the podcast. You've been doing this since 2014. it's a mighty long time to have been consistent so well yeah yeah they haven't fired me yet so I I keep showing up but yeah 11 years crazy and that's just this podcast you know the other podcast is uh 2007 so yeah I've been around I've been around but yeah you're a double veteran yeah tell me about your uh your personal life sure so um I have uh so based in London as you say um recently I came across I'm lit to the game I came across the tv show Shrinking and I just really loved it I've been watching it last weekend I didn't know it like it was an apple tv and then that led me to uh watch um what else did I watch um Tryin the movie Tryin about the couple so this is a British couple that was trying to have a baby and couldn't and then went down the adoption routes and seeing all the things that went through was very like eye-opening in a very fun way as well um i've also been very into women's health so i think watching trying and watching women's health it was like oh my god this is very exciting so that's what i'm currently nerding and geeking out on outside of work um right now yeah so this yeah you're right also on apple tv it's called trying it's a british comedy uh with andy okay interesting yeah and they're up to like four seasons it looks like yeah no it's just so very relatable and then i saw stick stick is a golfing one so it's like the ted lasso i've just been on this binge which is very unlike me because i don't even watch tv and i'm ripping off like tv shows like watch this watch that like yeah look at this how fun yeah no that was starring owen wilson as a professional golfer oh very cool yeah this oh this just launched like a few weeks when we're recording this yeah they've got like four trial seasons out and i really hope they continue because it was really good it's like i don't know if you've seen ted lasso did you see ted oh gosh yeah yeah fantastic it's the ted lasso of golf oh okay so good and you love like comedy i think you'll love this all right good good good good well well yummy so tell me about the change hive uh i'm i'm excited to learn all about it?

4:10Sure. So Josh, my background is financial services. I used to work with the big, large corporates. So like JP Morgan Barclays, implementing large transformation programs. But my heritage, I come from a long line of like small business owners. So having done like 10, 15 years in corporate, like my heritage was screaming louder and louder, small business, small business. But for the life of me, I could not think how my fancy investment banking skills was relevant to any small business at all. But then, as I say, if you don't know what to do, the next best thing is to get in the atmosphere of people that seem to know what they're doing.

4:44And that's kind of what I did, right? So the pandemic happened. I didn't necessarily hang around other small business owners. And then it dawned on me that really what I've been doing for big business was really helping them grow because my role in big business was transformation. So essentially my job was to look at big, complicated processes, see the through line through it simplified cut out all the excess fat so we have this lean in machine so that we can reduce cost and also optimize profit so I didn't realize that in small business land that was called growth and also potentially go to market but that's what being around the right people did for me so I took that to then say okay so what can I do with this and then I then went to go work for smaller fintechs so financial service tech companies So going from, I mean, they're still, they're medium-sized companies.

5:34So they have been successful, say, in the UK, and they're now looking to expand internationally. And with those companies, I did a lot of go-to-market planning. So it's like, how do we help the regulators understand what you're looking to do in the market? How do we get the buy-in and get the sign-off and stuff? So, yeah, let's talk about, yeah, let's talk about retention, because obviously that's the big work that you do now. Yeah, so it started off as growth. so helping them grow and I was doing growth generally and then but if you think about it there's only really three ways to grow the business right you can grow by getting new customers grow by increasing prices or grow by selling more to existing clients and I was kind of doing all three in my initial growth journey but then it dawned on me that actually the opportunity or the best of the three growth levers really if you think about it is retention because what happened was I'd worked on the clock with a client and they were getting all this new customers constantly but the business wasn't growing it's like what is happening here like where is it not sticking and by us tracing through so really like observing so the sas platform so you can actually see the user behavior seeing where the users are dropping off by improving the product it meant that the customers were staying longer and we're getting the transformations that we promised them and then we then recorded these transformations and got reviews off the back of it so told stories of the transformations and what that meant was it attracted new people into our business and then we did a better job as well of asking for referrals from our existing customer base which brought warm leads and that was my light bulb moment because it dawned on me that hold on with this one lever of retention if you do it well you get three things right you essentially deepen your existing client relationships because they get better value out of the services that you're offering them which then means you can sell them other stuff because now you build the no like trust with them and they're like oh yeah what else have you got just sell to me please they like open secondly because they get in value you can get better quality reviews which means that when you then have new people coming through the door they come pre-sold because they've read all these reviews and they're like hey they haven't got two heads right if it works for them surely it'll work for me i'm as smart as the next person so i'll be fine doing this stuff so they you get better reviews and then third the customers are happy to tell other people about you because we tend to hang out in packs anyway so if i like you or you like me chances are you probably like other people that I hang out with as well right so why don't you get people that already know you to bring warm leads your way so that's kind of how this retention strategy became the moat right is a retention is the one piece that really touches all three growth levers because if you do retention well you get new customers coming in you can increase your prices confidently because guess what you got the reviews and the credibility to back the higher prices you're charging and also you're making more money from your existing customer base and that's why I lead with retention Yeah, so let's go through.

8:29I understand the importance. Let's talk about some important areas that I think all of us, whether we're in services or we've got a product, we have a SaaS platform, where should we be focusing if we want to find our big retention leaks, if we want to keep more people in the boat? yeah no great question um so we have a five r model that we take our clients through uh we tend to work really with service-based businesses it'll work for product businesses as well but my lens is very service heavy so just bear with me if i'm a bit biased in my answers the first one is around um being clear on the roadmap right so so many service-based businesses we make the sales like now there's money in the bank but buyers remorse starts to kick in right because now the buyer is down because they've given out cash and you're up right so there's this inequity to some degree right and if you don't manage that transition that initial like okay now they've paid me if you don't manage that initial this initial couple of days well that's when you get all the refunds and then the drop off so but you can correct that or you can stop losing customers from the first initial buy by having a clear roadmap and being good at communicating it's like great thank you so much for buying so good to have you here are things to expect and oh by the way here's your first quick win because part of what we show our clients to do is you want to get the time to value for your customers that buy from you you want to get it within two weeks maximum or you want to deliver value in the shortest time possible so they start to feel like aha that was a good decision before people start speaking in their ears about how come you spend 10 grand on xyz stuff was it really worth it right give them the value so roadmap map and giving the value quickly as possible first one second uh point of the five points that we focus on is the routine is helping your clients build a routine around your product right you don't want to be the gym that takes people's money and then they don't show up for three months and you don't even follow up to say hey we haven't seen you how can we support you how can we help you because you could probably say well if if it's not broken don't fix it i don't want to rocker the boat because they're paying me so why should i remind them they're not using my services but chances that they will find out eventually that they've been paying and not getting value so you want to try and make sure they build routine around your service and are regularly using and it becomes part of the habit because then it becomes easier to also upsell them other things the third one being around and this is probably the easiest for any business owner because like maybe the first two perhaps takes a bit more thinking but the third one is really straightforward right asking for reviews it surprises me how many business owners have been in business for like 10 20 years and you google them and they only have like two reviews right and the two are like three stars and i'm like why you've been around 20 years surely there's more people in the world that find yourself as valuable right because otherwise you won't be around that long so it's thinking about who have i served even just this year who can i go and say hey we've been working together for xyz and stuff what value you guys and where were you before you started to work with me what has now changed?

11:38What steps did we take? What would you recommend to somebody that was thinking about working with me? Those four simple questions. And ideally, they can record it on a video even better. I think especially now with all the AI and all the fancy video creation, right? The more user-generated content you can get from your clients speaking about you, the stronger it resonates with other people, right? Yeah. I mean, they're the ones with that. I tell my clients, I'm like, you've got fresh eyes. We've been doing this for many, many years. Please let me know when something doesn't feel intuitive. Please let me know when something doesn't surprise and delight or it doesn't meet your expectations.

12:20But I think that beyond just asking those types of questions, I could probably set this up a little bit better. We have surveys. I think they get four surveys through the course of our build out and stuff. And again, we're just trying to dig and find areas for improvement. But I think that there's probably some other tactical things that we could be doing. Yemi, anything come to mind that you like to deploy with your clients?

12:48So I try to tie the reviews to the first milestone because this is why the roadmap is the first R, right? is if you plot out the roadmap of what your customer would go through when they start to work with you and when the first aha moment of the first like yes value moment is you want to time your review request with those right it's a great I'm so glad that you finally hit this milestone that's amazing how does it feel would you mind jumping on a call together and let's talk through what's working and what's not working and by the way can I record it right so you can actually do it as a mini feedback review video zoom session thing right so it's a they give you feedback because sometimes for clients like they do want to give the review but it's like i don't know what to write like what do i write oh i know right right yeah okay listen let's jump on a zoom call together 15 minutes max like i just want to see what's working what's not working how we can improve it so they tell you ask them the questions like this and you film it that's it right and you can then of course transcribe that video and put it as and maybe send it back to them say hey here is a text of everything we talked about feel free to massage it as much as you want to would you mind copying and pasting that text into google or into linkedin so the same video review of course you edit it to create your video feedback and then also you can take the transcript transcript transcription text and put it as google or linkedin reviews does that answer your question josh if I answered your question.

14:12Yeah, yeah. I agree. You know, that blinking cursor, I think, you know, keeps people from what I do. Yeah, me is I do. So I asked them, I said, can we record a 15 minute or 10 minute zoom conversation? And I'd really love to just get your honest result or honest kind of feedback. And certainly if you have a testimonial to give, you know, I'll just be hitting record. And then out of that. So if anyone wants to see how we do it and yummy, I mean, I'd love your feedback on this. I don't know that it's the ideal thing to do, but I do get pretty good feedback on, you know, just kind of client stories where I have a, that I record on zoom and they put it on my page.

14:54So if anyone wants to see like how we do this, you could just go to upmyinfluence.com, click on, you know, how we, you know, our concierge high-level introductions services. You could watch our videos. All of our clients are like, you know, they're all six to eight figures. You know, we try to get a good cross-section of the types of people that we work with, you know, experiences, stories, that sort of thing. Video is important. Are there any other areas that you like to, because obviously you can use that everywhere and social and so forth, but are there other areas that you like to see engagement with your clients and kind of extracting those experiences.

15:35I had mentioned surveys as well.

15:40So if this are digital products, a good way is to see their actual behavior on the tool, right? Because you can have a heat map and actually record sessions, right? So using tools like Hotjar or Microsoft Clarity, you can see open on your website, seeing how people behave when they come on your website, what is going to drop off, is the button obvious? so you can have session recordings. Another one that we really love and that's really working for us right now, Josh, is round tables. To my point earlier about AI and automation and all the marketing noise being a lot, it's actually harder to get, to build new like trust online because there's so much, people have been bombarded left, right, center.

16:18But if you can get your same potential, the buyers you want to build trust with, getting them round a meeting room table and a round table on a theme, a specific topic and having them come have a nice dinner and talk about a specific topic and do a deep dive and you on the roundtable yourself not there to pitch but there as a peer to contribute industry level insights because the thing about most uh professionals is we're very good at what we do in our own business but not many of us have insights across the industry so as business owners or service providers what we bring is that cross industry insight and that's what our clients really value about us right so inviting your clients or even potential clients to a round table intimate really really fast tracks the sales process right it also means that you can also get videos recorded because right there and then you can get like highlight rolls filmed to kind of say hey yes here's what we're doing and you know get them to give you feedback and of course that goes on your socials and it's not you saying that you're amazing it's your clients in real life you know filming and telling people what they got from the session with you and also you can also get them to say hey we do this round tables regularly who else do you think would be good to invite along to round tables and of course your people like to recommend or refer people right so you get referrals off the back of that as well so round tables are really like something that's working massively for our clients right now something that we help our clients organize um because they're low effort with because the same because about the same as what you would spend on a LinkedIn campaign, right?

17:52But spending that with your ideal buyers, senior buyers in the rooms, they get two hours FaceTime with them is really, really valuable for many of our clients. So, Yemi, how do you work with your clients? Like, what does that look like? And also, too, what is kind of the ideal stage of somebody that you're just an excellent fit? so mostly founder-led businesses so the guys we tend to work with are founder-led service-owned businesses between 10 to say 200 employees um profitable but keen to grow um and like I say we come in and initially we check first of all to make sure that the offer is clear because sometimes part of the reasons that growth is stagnating is over time we've bolted on lots of different features and lots of different things so it's very uh it's not very clear what exactly we're offering so the message is not resonating as clearly and also clarify who the icp is and making sure that the icp is uh ipc as i like to say so it's an ideal profitable client because sometimes we're chasing our ideal client profile but they're not profitable right so it's a making sure that who we love loves us back in cash right um is important so checking those two things first and then seeing okay where is the growth bottlenecks is our third step right are you struggling to grow because you're not getting enough new people or is your pricing kind of off and we can improve pricing hence my point or is it that you're getting the people through the door but they're not staying long enough to make them profitable because of course there's a payback period right between when you are still recouping your acquisition costs before they become profitable so finding what the actual bottleneck is um and then based on that and working out a strategy for growth tends to be how we map it.

19:43But it's all very retention-led. And just I want to quickly go back to what you asked me about the five how we do retention running. I said the first three, the first one being around roadmap, routine, and then the reviews. The fourth one is around revenue expansion. Because to my point about pricing, some businesses that we work with struggle to grow because they haven't thought about the revenue expansion plan, right? So they've sold the first things like, great, fast, we're amazing. and what next can you offer this client, right? So the call to get a review is great for you to get their feedback, but also it's to kind of start to hear what else could be the next challenge that you could proactively say, hey, thank you so much for showing that review.

20:23That's really powerful. You mentioned ABCD. I think we might have something that may potentially help you, right? Not in a salesy way, but it's still collaborative, right? Because when you solve one problem, you create another one, right? is because a solution always creates another problem. So what's the next problem going to be? And how can we make sure that we are upselling and cross-selling to our customer base, revenue expansion? And the fifth one being around rescue, right? So proactively checking customer health and making sure that people are engaging and you want to catch churn before it happens.

20:56It's like, if behavior changes, can you catch that? Do you have the tools and the systems in place to do that? So those are the five things that we do for our clients. And I know you've got some resources, Yemi, on your website, including a quiz so you can do a retention diagnosis. Yeah, I actually just went through it right now. It's really helpful because it actually stimulated some pretty good ideas. I had my COO take the quiz as well, kind of on her take on where we are. awareness i think is a great first step um and and i think like i said you've got some resources available to our friend that's listening right now where do they go from here um i recommend they go take the scorecard that's the entry into our world right is um the scorecard is on the changehive.co forward slash scorecard it takes you to this five minute short survey that takes you 20 questions it tells you where your potential retention gaps might be and then after that you have the option to book a call with me we can jump on the call together and go through your scorecard and see what's come up for you and then based on what we can recommend next steps to take and also follow me on linkedin because i post regularly on retention you do yeah yeah you have some pretty high quality posts that you do and i like that you always have these um pretty um attractive graphics that you include with theirs as well.

22:22Like I'm looking at the one post, the customer growth framework. I saw another one on go to market launch it. Most go to market launch advice is overkill. Very cool. Yeah. Well, Yemi, like I said, again, your website, thechangehive.co, click on the orange button that says, get your retention diagnosis. So you can kind of see what what I've been looking at. And again, Remy, it's been a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you very much, Josh. Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure. Thank you.

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