The Red Carpet Client Experience You'll LOVE To Sell, That Boosts Results And Referrals

Hi, welcome to the "Red Carpet Client Experience."

My name is Mollie. 👋 This is a photo of me, so you know who's talking.

Instead of boring you with a blog post that goes into more detail about how important client experience is for both you (the business owner) and the client... and how much that affects your business's ability to get quality referrals... I thought instead I would just show you.

(I have those blog posts. You can read them, I'll link to them in this post.)

But instead, let's walk through an actual high-end client experience. So you can see for yourself what's possible. And hopefully start to dream bigger for your business. And think outside the box of what you've seen before and see what's possible.

All right. So let's go ahead and walk through this.

What we're looking at now is the onboarding experience I use with my clients.

Every client who lands on this page is someone who I've already vetted. So we've had some kind of conversation. We might've had a one-on-one, like a discovery call, or a sales call, or whatever you want to call it. But we've already agreed to work together.

So this is what they would see if they get that email that says, "Here's the link to sign the contract."

This is for one specific offer I have called the "Client Experience Blueprint." This is a strategy.

And so it just goes into a little bit of detail of like, you know, this is what you're buying. You can click here to sign the contract.

There is more here. So like, here's the 3 steps of how this works. "Click through the self-guided onboarding process to sign the contract, choose your payment plan, and answer 3 short questions." And then here's what I'm going to do next. And then here's what you'll get in the end.

There's also a little downsell here. This could also be something else. This could be like, you know, an "About You" section, whatever. If you had a money-back guarantee or any kind of risk reversal, you could include that here as well. Like this would be a great place for that.

And then definitely I think having an FAQ here is great. Like, "What happens after I sign the contract?" "Well, once you've done that, you'll be redirected to a page with a link to the invoice." "What happens after I pay the invoice?" "What's the turnaround time? What if I have questions?" You know, that kind of stuff is really helpful to have here.

Let's go ahead and begin with signing the contract.

So I click here, it automatically shows up here. We've got the progress bar, step 1 of 3. You would have your actual legal text here, your actual contract. So they would sign off here.

So this is, you know, that's a signature and we're gonna pretend to be— [typing, "Anne Bonny"] That's who I'm pretending to be for this client. Signed on behalf of... [typing, "Captain Anne Bonny LLC"] [typing, "Founder"] (So this is a completely fake client for the demo purposes. )

All right. So once they have filled this out... Again, you know, they've read the entire agreement, your contract here. They've signed, Print their name. They're going to send it off and it's going to take us to the next page.

And so here's where they can choose their payment plan, which one they want. And then in yours, you could put a different description. So like $1,000 per month for 2 months, $500 per month for 4 months. Actually, I might add that to mine as well.

Here you see it's already saved the information from the previous page. If they're not ready to pay right now, they can just pay later.

And look, already saves their info so they can just hit send to get an email with the link back to this page.

(Payment pages should also have reviews/testimonials. I need to add some to this page.)

And there's those FAQs again. I'm gonna agree to the terms and conditions. I'm gonna pause recording while I put in the payment info.

All right. So hiding the payment info, we're gonna complete order.

Now, this (Thank You) page is going to be different based on what you sell.

Most client experiences would just put the intake form here. And it could be this really long form like, "Okay, great, now that you've paid, now fill out all this homework." I like to have something before that point. And honestly, it could be before, it could be after. But I like to put it before because I want my clients to feel like they're getting some kind of result right away. As soon as they pay, within the first minute, I want them to feel some kind of result. So this would be different for every business.

If you do web design, if you do branding, if you do coaching... Honestly, if you're doing any kind of coaching, or like where their results would normally be on the first call with you... I would actually embed a video here of you talking to them. Even better if you can do something like VideoAsk, where you have a video of yourself asking them a question. And then they can reply with either a video of themselves or they can talk it out or they can type it. So giving them those choices of like recording a video, recording audio, or typing their answer to a question you just asked, that gives them a taste of the coaching experience right away, even though this is asynchronous. So you could.

For every coach, you are really good at asking powerful questions and you know the kind of questions you're going to ask a brand new client. No matter what kind of coaching they're coming to you for. So I would put one of those powerful questions right there. I mean, this is kind of like the Thank You page after they've paid. Put that right there on this page. Ask them that deep question, get them thinking about it, and then give them a chance to respond right away.

Another thing you could do is you could have a one-question form right here that asks them, you know, "What about this package are they most excited about?" Get them into that sort of like, "I'm excited for this! I'm thinking bigger!" And, and get that dialogue started right away.

There's going to be so many different ways you could do this. If you're a web designer - and I'm going to show this to you on the last page in just a minute - but if you're a web designer, you could be like, "Here's a portfolio of the work I've done before. Take a look at these different things. And, like in this one-question form, tell me some of the things that you liked or didn't like about those different designs. I'm going to be doing something totally unique for you, but let's start talking about your likes and dislikes for your project." Not only does that show them your portfolio and shows them examples of what you've done before, it kind of gets them like excited to be working with you. But it also like gets them talking about, you know, what they want for their website design.

And so what we're trying to do here is something that's super quick and easy that they can do right away. That gets them excited about the results they're gonna get from you, But it also gets them feeling like, okay, I'm starting to feel like I'm already getting a return on my investment within the first minute after paying you money.

So for mine, all I did was like, "I do have 3 quick questions for you..." Because that's all I need. My intake form is only 3 questions long. It's gonna be on the next page. You can see that in the, the top of the page here. "I have 3 quick questions for you to answer on the next page, but first let's take a moment here."

"You've just signed the contract, made your first payment, and (on the next page), you'll answer 3 brief questions - all without leaving this website. You didn't have to go to your inbox and hit refresh for an email that might arrive in 2 minutes or 20. Hopefully there was never a point where you weren't sure what was expected of you, how many steps are left, or how to use this tool."

Because on each - you might remember - on each page we had step 1, step 2 as a progress bar. And on the next page, we're going to have that step 3 progress bar. "That's what I want for your offers too. A process that feels smooth, eliminates the guesswork, and helps your people get from start to finish with the least clicks and the least confusion while keeping them on your pages surrounded by your branding and your voice. No ads interrupting them like there would be in a Facebook group, right? No inbox overwhelm distracting them. No tech anxiety from a tool they've never used before." This is all very like smooth, like click here, continue. Click here, continue. Click here, continue.

And honestly, I'm probably going to come back and I'm going to change this page over and over again. I'm going to make it better and better. Like right now it's just a little bit of text. It's got some high-five imagery. I'm going to come back and I'm going to make something better.

But for my brand, it's like, we don't need to have a meeting as part of this process. You know, I'm not coaching them. They're really, they're giving me a link to their sales page. I'm going to create a client experience that matches. It's like a mirror, like a reflection of the sales page and like what energy the sales page is bringing. For me to put a video here almost doesn't really make sense because they're not going to be watching videos and they're not going to be meeting with me as part of this program. So click to continue.

And this is where they have their last questions. And then, "If you feel stuck or have any questions completing this form..." Instead of having an email address, like, "Oh, here's my support email, email me. Because again, they're clicking away and they're going to their inbox and they might get distracted. They might be like, "Oh shoot, someone's emailing me, or I've got Slack messages, or I've got something, I should just do that before I get back to this..." No. Keep them here in the zone.

If those notifications are important enough, it's already interrupting them on their phone and they'll stop here. They can always come back to this page. See, and I even say that on every page: "Click away from this page at any time and I'll send an email." With this one, if they don't fill out this form within like a day or 2, my system's going to recognize that it's been 1 or 2 days. If they still haven't filled this out, it's going to automatically send them a reminder.

But for this one, I don't want them to have a support email. Like, "Here's my support email, email me..." and have them leave, go to their inbox, and then hopefully come back. They might even accidentally close this page or whatever. Instead, that's going to be the contact form, like the same form I have on my contact page.

Actually, now that I think about it, I could make this my live chat button. It'd be that little live chat thing right here.

So sorry! I'm talking you through this when really a client is just going to spend like 5 minutes. I've spent more time talking about this than a client would actually doing this.

I'm filling this out in front of you because (in part 3) I'll show you the business side of this experience. We'll look at how to make this process smooth and high-end for you too. Because sales confidence comes from an experience that's enjoyable for you and your clients.

So let's pretend this is the sales page for the offer I want them to build a client experience for. Describe your target audience. And notice how the email is again already filled out. So we're going to hit send.

And now here's that success page. Now, again, this is a Thank You page. This could be video. There could be confetti flying. There could be a video of you talking. Whatever you want to put on your page that makes them feel successful.

I chose short and to-the-point because I want them to feel that like, "Ooh, I'm done! There's nothing else to consume here. Like I'm done with my process."

Like pour the champagne, take a night off.

I'm (as the business owner) going to take care of everything from here. I wanted them to feel the brevity of this page. I wanted them to feel like, "Oh, there's nothing else left for me to do." So that's why I kept this so short.

But again, notice we've got that progress bar saying "Finished." On the page before, we had the progress bar of step 3 of 3. That was clear on every page. And so that hopefully helped them feel how much was left in this process.

That's the end of part 1.

In Part 2 you'll see what the client sees next ~ the Client Portal, private communication channels, the shared files folder, and more.

And in Part 3, you'll see how to make this a smooth and efficient on the backend, for you, the business owner.

You want to make sure that if you're promoting this high-ticket offer, this high-end offer, that the client experience side feels as high-end as what you are promoting and selling.

So, this is where Anne has received a login link to create her password, and she's logging in to the client portal for the first time. So we're going to go ahead and sign in.

The client portal is an important part of a high-ticket, high-end client experience. You want to make sure that it feels very natural to them. And it's not hard to navigate.

You definitely do not want to have videos that explain how to use your tool. This is no shade on other tools. But, for example, if you're using Notion as your dashboard, and the client portal is in Notion... For someone who's never used Notion before, that's going to be very hard.

It's going to feel like you've just put something new on their plate. Like, "Oh, now I have to learn this tool." And like, yeah, you've got tutorial videos and stuff for how to use the client portal. But your people are going to feel like, "I hired this person to make my life easier and this feels harder." So it's really smart to use something that feels familiar.

A tool like this. This is a private channel. Notice, there's no ads. There's no going to other groups or, you know, being distracted by anything. Unlike Facebook, they're not gonna be distracted by a lot of other stuff. They're not gonna see ads for somebody else.

This particular one (Fern CRM) is very customizable. You can change what tabs are here. You can change what channels are here. You can change what they have access to here in the sidebar.

And everyone knows how to use a Facebook group. They're gonna know how to come in here and create a post. Like you click on it, you create a post. It's just like any other Facebook group. There's no learning curve for this.

If they click up here, they can change their profile photo and other things. And if they just start exploring over here, they're going to see "This is where my appointments show up." "This is where my shared files are." "This is where my contracts are." And that kind of thing.

Now for coaches ~ or any kind of consultant that has meetings with your client ~ you can add them to the calendar like this. So here's their one-on-one meeting. But make sure it's super easy to find, Like, here's the location and this just immediately opens up your Zoom or whatever. So they can just join the session very easily. This one has the calendar, it has the meetings already built-in.

And then if they go over here to Shared Files, they can see that contract they signed. What the agreement was, the client signature at the end, the information they put in. Links to the privacy policy and terms of service. And, if I were to scroll down, you would see the IP address of the person who signed that contract. (Which of course is me.) And then it's date stamped of when it was signed and everything like that.

If you were doing invoices instead of instead of the checkout form that we went through, their invoices would be here. If you're doing estimates, like you're doing proposals and they're signing off on it, that would be here.

Now, if we go back to that community... If you're having client calls with them and you're recording those client calls, and then giving them a copy of the recording ~ you could literally just upload that here. You could upload the video and then they would have access to it. And then the two of you could comment on it and ask questions and answer questions and things like that.

But let's say you have a resource vault... Or the kind of coaching you do, you're like, "Oh, I have a workshop on that. Let me just drop it into your account." You could literally just add it right here and it would be available to them.

But anyway, the course opens just from there. They never have to leave that private channel. And then they can access all these different lessons or resources or whatever it is that you include for your clients.

The version I'm showing you right now was done all in Fern CRM. But you probably have the tools to do this already in whatever tech stack you're using.

And back to the idea of the shared drive. Some of my clients are trying to get away from using Google Drive, or sometimes you just don't want them to have to leave and go find that shared drive folder. This is Shared Files. So this works a lot like Google Drive. I can upload files that I want my clients to have. My clients can upload files that they want me to have access to. This replaces Dropbox, Google Drive, whatever.

And then it's all, again, all in one dashboard, easy for them to navigate. No having to go open 5 different tabs to find everything that you're doing in your project together.

And then one last cool thing that's really useful for group programs ~ If you're selling a high-ticket group program, you can give all of your group program members access to the main group. And then anyone who has that one-on-one access to you could have a private channel over here. And so no one can see who has the private channels except for the person with access to that channel. So Anne would see hers, but the other members would only see their own.

Because you want it to be efficient for both you and your clients. You want your clients to have everything in one place where it's easy for them to access and little-to-no learning curve. But you also want it to be efficient for you too.

Now let's look at the backend, what the business owner sees.

Client experiences should be fun, exciting, and engaging for both the business owner and the client. There's no point if it feels hard or sticky or stressful to either side. It should be (good) for both.

You want to find that balance because it's going to be so much easier for you to sell if you're excited about what happens after the sale.

This is in Fern CRM. You don't need to use Fern CRM. I'm just showing you the tool that I use. Here's what we see when we're here.

So we can see that as I was preparing for this video and during this video, the client ~ "Anne Bonny" ~ was clicking on these different pages. I can see exactly when they clicked on the Welcome Page, when they paid the first invoice, what pages they visited.

I can also see first name, last name, etc. With these, I call them "folders," they can be anything. You get to choose what these are called, what order they're in, that kind of thing.

But I can quickly and easily access the answers that were on the intake form with just a click. If I open up the "CX Blueprint," (which is what I call the folder for that form that was filled out), there's the sales page URL, and the soulmate buyer. When it's time for me to come in and build this client experience, I can quickly see their answers all here in one place.

And if I needed to consult other info that I know about them, it's here too. If I wanted to look in "General Info" to find out what their business name was or where they're located or something like that, what time zone they're in, etc. If there were other forms that they filled out, like maybe this client's been with me for a while and they filled out other forms, I could quickly see what they answered at other times.

I have everything I need here to get started with that project. It's all right there.

And I can see ~ did they choose the optional meeting? No. This one didn't. If they had, I would be able to pop over here and find out what time that meeting is. So it would normally be here in "Appointments." This is where I can see the transaction and that it's successful, and I can see how much they paid. I can see if they paid in full or if they chose the payment plan, etc. I can see those documents. So here's that contract that they signed, timestamped and everything. It's the same one we opened earlier. And then if I wanted to leave notes about this client, the automations can also add notes.

I can also see all the, all the emails that went out. So here's the "Thank you for your recent purchase" email, all their text messages, all their emails, all their social media DMs, all here in one thread.

And so you can also see how they're moving through the different stages of my funnel. And the reason we can see the way they're moving through the different stages of my funnel is because I have them in a Pipeline. So this is the pipeline for that funnel. Usually when an application is received... So, they filled out an application saying, "I'd like to work with you." It would show up here. I would get a notification or an email saying "Someone has applied to work with you."

I go over there and look at their application. And again, I would be right back in their contact profile. I'd be right back here and I would see their application answers right here. So I'd be able to just quickly consult it.

If I like the answers that I see, I would then move them over to here. So this card literally drags. So we can move it to "Application approved." By moving it to "Application approved," it has kicked off an automation that's going to send the link to that contract page automatically. I don't have to do anything. In fact, if we sit here and wait long enough, we're going to see that card instantly move on its own. I didn't touch anything. [Laughing]

The automation moved it to "Contract Sent" because now that email has gone out with the link for them to sign. When you were watching me sign that contract, the automations recognized that that had been completed and the sent button was clicked. It automatically moved the contract over to "Signed." When it's signed, it pops off an email to me saying, "Hey, the contract's been signed." And it has that document that you saw ~ the PDF where it timestamps it and includes the IP address. And "Anne Bonny" also received an email with that as well.

Once the checkout form was completed and I paid my $1 to get through the checkout process, it (the automations) automatically moved the card here. You didn't see that because we were busy looking at the client portal and things like that. And so then, when I'm done with the project... When I've handed them their strategy... I'm going to move the card over to "Project Completed." I'm taking that on because I want to make sure that it's really done when I move it here.

And this is going to kick off their offboarding process. And so this is going to check in with them, make sure that they got the strategy. Do they need any help? My strategy actually comes with 2 weeks of asynchronous support in that private channel, while their team implements it or while they implement it, or while they're deciding whether to hire me to implement it. After that, they'll be nurtured until the next time they want to hire me for something else. At that point, they'll be in the "Offboarding/Nurturing" process. And so the automations will automatically move her there. And this is my pipeline.

And we can see everything I just moved. We can see that in their contact profile. You can see "Anne Bonny" moved from "Application approved" to "Proposal Sent," "Contract Signed," "Invoice Paid," "Project Completed," "Offboarding/Nurture..." It's all detailed there. And then of course we can always click to open more details about it. And we can see the notes and everything from there too.

All right. So that is my Red Carpet Client Experience. I wanted to show you a little bit of like how easy it can be on the backend for you, because that's really important. If it doesn't feel easy, it's going to be harder for you to sell because you'll be thinking like, "As much as I want this client, I don't want all this work." But also we want it to be really beautiful and on brand for the client.