Many business owners like to continually improve customer experience but let's face it... sometimes it can take so long to know what to do and how to implement it.

The good news is, this can be so much quicker and easier than you may think.

Today, we're continuing our deep dive into the exciting world of using AI (yep, that includes the fantastic ChatGPT!).

In our third and final post for this series, we’re going look at how to use AI to supercharge and improve customer experience.

If you missed Part 1 and Part 2, where we looked at specific examples of how you can use AI internally in your business and for content marketing, you can check those out here (Part 1) and here (Part 2).

So this week, we’re going to explore how AI can take your customer experience game to the next level and the fantastic benefits it brings, not just for you but for your customers too.

Picture this: You're a small business owner, hustling hard to make your place in the market.

You've got an amazing product or service, but there's one thing that can take you from good to legendary – providing your customers with an unforgettable experience.

Now, why on Earth would you want to enlist the help of AI to make this happen?

Great question!

Using AI to improve customer experience can be a game-changer for both business owners and their customers. Let's dive into the fantastic benefits it offers to both sides of the coin.

Benefits Of Using AI To Improve Customer Service:

Efficiency Boost: In addition to using AI tools that are designed to handle routine tasks like answering common customer queries, processing orders, and managing appointments 24/7, other AI tools can help you to better understand and help your customers.

This frees up valuable time for business owners to focus on more strategic aspects of their operations.

Cost Savings: By automating repetitive tasks, businesses can reduce labor costs. AI can often handle customer inquiries and support without the need for a large customer service team, especially during non-business hours.

Data-Driven Insights: AI can analyse vast amounts of customer data to identify trends, preferences, and areas for improvement. This data-driven approach helps business owners make informed decisions and refine their customer experience strategies.

Personalisation at Scale: AI can create highly personalized experiences for customers by analyzing their behavior and preferences. This personalisation can lead to increased customer loyalty and higher conversion rates.

Improved Decision-Making: AI-powered analytics and predictive models can provide business owners with actionable insights to optimise their product offerings, pricing strategies, and marketing campaigns.

Competitive Advantage: Businesses that leverage AI to enhance customer experiences often stand out in the market. Customers are more likely to choose companies that provide efficient, personalised, and convenient interactions.

In summary, using AI to enhance customer experiences benefits business owners by streamlining operations, reducing costs, and providing valuable insights. Simultaneously, customers enjoy improved accessibility, personalisation, and efficiency when interacting with businesses.

It's a win-win situation that propels businesses to new heights while delighting their customers along the way.

Let’s look now at some specific examples of how we can use ChatGPT, the AI tool we’ve been demonstrating in this series of posts, to help improve customer service.

Develop A List Of FAQs For Customers:

Firstly, we’re going to ask for ChatGPT’s help to develop a list of FAQs for our customers.

Here's what I entered as the prompt (instructions):

"Here's a summary of what Automation Made Easy does..."

(Here, I copied some text from our website to give ChatGPT a very general idea of what we do.)

Then I added:

"Write a list of frequently asked questions and answers that will provide helpful information for my customers."

And here's what ChatGPT generated for me in just a few seconds:

That's pretty good! For less than 10 seconds, that's saved me so much time! Now I just need to go over those FAQs and edit them a little as some of the information isn't quite right. But it's a very good start.

Increasing Customer Retention

Okay, so what about increasing customer retention. How could AI help us with that?

There are so many ways AI can help with this, but for our example I decided to ask a very general question to help come up with some ideas.

Here's what I entered:

“I'm looking for creative ideas to improve customer retention for my automation services business. Can you provide me with some options?”

Here's what ChatGPT gives us:

For any sort of brainstorming and ideas like this, you can keep digging deeper if you want to. The thing is, you can brainstorm and get new ideas you may never have thought of, even if you're working on your own.

And the good news here is that Automation Made Easy is already doing many of these customer retention strategies. 🙂

Managing Communication With Clients:

Now, let’s see how ChatGPT goes with managing communication with our clients.

One way that we regularly use ChatGPT in our business is to rewrite emails that I need to send.

But sometimes you can get stuck even getting started, right? Or maybe you get a customer complaint and are stumped on how to reply.

So for this example, I began by asking ChatGPT the following:

"One of our customers is complaining about not being able to attend our live webinar at the scheduled time. Please write an email to respond that shows I understand them and will do everything to help them solve this problem."

And the response was:

We Could Request A Rewrite:

This reply is pretty good, but perhaps a little too formal for our style. So in this case, I would ask ChatGPT to rewrite this in a slightly more relaxed, conversational tone.

Of course, you can also edit the response further before sending it.

The point is though, that in each of these examples, AI has helped us to get over that initial staring-at-a-blank-screen-not-knowing-where-to-start phase. It's then given us a great draft we can work with.

Your Chance To Get Hold Of Our AI Secret Weapon - The ChatGPT Bible!

The ChatGPT Bible is a nifty little resource that has been a game-changer for us here at Automation Made Easy. It's where we get many of the prompts we ask from. 

The better your instructions - or prompts - the better the results you'll get. 

Grab your own copy here: ChatGPT Bible

Do you know how to use AI for content marketing? If so, are you sure you’re getting the most from your AI tool?

Welcome to the second installment of our three-part series on unleashing the power of AI within your business. If you missed Part 1, where we looked at specific examples of how you can use AI internally in your business, you can check that out here.

In this series, we're delving deep into the magic behind using AI tools like ChatGPT (which you can access for free!) to supercharge your business. We're keeping it simple, showing examples of how we use this super-weapon in our business.

Watch these videos below, then schedule time THIS WEEK to start testing out your own personal AI assistant in your business:

Use AI For Your Content Marketing:

Hey, it's Jason Buckner here from Automation Made Easy and the Follow Up Formula.

Alright, so this week we're going to have a little dig into what we can do with ChatGPT some more. I have to tell you, I'm just loving it so much.

I'm using it for so many things. For example, I'll write an email that might be an invitation to a speaker to come and speak at an event. It's terrible. I put it into ChatGPT and I literally say “Rewrite this email” and ChatGPT makes such a good sense of it.

Anyway, maybe I'll dig into that a little bit later. But for now, let's go and have a look at how we can use ChatGPT in some content marketing type scenarios.

Research Your Ideal Client’s Pain Points:

First we're going to have a look at what we can do with our ideal customer’s pain points. So let's take a look here.

“Write an emotional 500 word journal entry from the perspective of a small business owner who is struggling with email deliverability. They feel stress and anxiety and want to have a successful email follow up.” Let's give that a go.

And we hit go. I'd like to say we put our feet up and go from there, but in actual fact we can't because it works so quickly!

Here’s what ChatGPT gives us:

So it's pretty dramatic I guess, but it certainly has put it in perspective.

Understand Your Ideal Client's Problem Further:

Now, let's add to that then…

“Describe the potential frustrations of someone who wants to follow up and get more sales, but cannot do it because the technology is struggle.”

There we go… let's have a look at that.

“The frustration of someone who wants to follow up and generate more sales but is struggling with technology and can be incredibly demoralising. Insufficient CRM Systems, Integration Challenges: Modern businesses rely on a multitude of software tools for various purposes from email marketing to inventory management.”

Yeah, connecting them all up is quite difficult, isn't it?

“Email Deliverability Issues: As mentioned in the previous journal entry, email deliverability…” You can see it's referring to that previous response, which is really good.

And there are quite a few points of difference for small business. I could be writing an article on each one of these and digging in there and going a little bit deeper. Maybe I will.

But let's take the next one… “What are some of the common desires and frustrations of small business owners?”

Let's go and dig into that some more.

See what it seems to be doing, which is really cool, is taking the chat and making the responses in reference to the things above.

“Financial success, independence, passion and purpose, growth and expansion, customer satisfaction, work life balance.”

Look… “work life balance”. You could write a whole series on that, couldn't you?

“Frustrations, financial challenges, regulatory burdens, marketing and visibility.”

That's the biggest one, isn't it? Being able to market your business and get new leads coming in.

Find Your Audience:

Let's have a look here now. I love this one. Let's see how it goes though. “List 20 possible types of audiences on Facebook who could be interested in follow up solutions for small business.” Let's give that a go.

“Entrepreneurs, marketing managers, sales teams, eCommerce…”

It's giving me the types of people that could be a Facebook audience now because I asked for 20 possible audiences on Facebook. So audiences on Facebook, these are people we can target on Facebook. That's a really cool thing to do there as well.

Super-Engaging YouTube Script:

For this next one I'm actually going to add onto this chat. Now that we have some of the details of what small businesses are going through, let’s put in here: “Can you write a super engaging YouTube video script on email follow up?”

Let's take a look at that…

“[Opening with some exciting music and visuals of successful business and entrepreneurs.]

Host (smiling and energetic.): Hey there folks. Welcome back to Automation Made Easy’s YouTube channel, the place where we share game changing insights to supercharge your business.

Today we have got a topic that's an absolute game changer for email follow up.

[Cut to quick shots of people on their phone, using their phones and computers, checking their emails.]”

It's pretty cool!

“Host: Think about it. How many times have you received an email and thought, I'll deal with this later, and then it gets buried in your inbox or perhaps you're a business owner and your email responses have been about as active as a sleeping sloth. Well that changes today.

[Exciting graphic transitions]

Part 1: The Power Of Email Follow Up

[The host stands in front of a whiteboard with Power Of Email Follow Up written on it.]”

This is pretty cool. Let's go through the rest of it.

“Let's kick off by understanding the incredible power of email follow up. Did you know that on average it takes five interactions to close the sale? Yes, you heard me right – FIVE!”

Actually, it's five to seven so it's slightly incorrect there, but…

“Host: People need time and reminders. Email follow-up is your secret weapon.”

It's actually talking the language that I usually talk, so that's really quite cool.

“Part 2: The Art Of Email Follow Up

Now let's talk about the art of perfect email follow-up. I've got some golden nuggets for you. First, timing is everything.”

Yes, it is everything. This is really quite cool.

“Part 3: Tools And Tricks For Automated Follow Up

[Host at a desk with a computer demonstrating your…]

Now let's dive into tools and tricks for automated follow up. If you're a small business owner, you don't have to do all the heavy lifting yourself.”... “With the right email marketing software, you can do the automated follow up yourself.”

Yeah, this is really good.

But Can AI Write A Quality Blog Post?

Okay, so now I'm going to dig a little bit deeper. I'm going to try and see if this is going to get a little outside the box.

“Can you write a 500-word blog post on email marketing and follow up with Keap” (the software that I use) “mentioning the benefits of:

Email deliverability

Increased sales

Increased engagement

Then turn it into engaging YouTube video script.”

Okay, so we're going a little deeper there.

First, it'll do the article…

“Supercharge your email marketing follow up with Keap

Are you looking to take your email marketing game to the next level? If so, you’ve come to the right place.”

Yeah, it looks pretty good.

“Improved email deliverability, authenticate your domain, monitor email performance, automate list management.”

This is really quite cool. So it's gone and it looked up the features of Keap CRM and then put it into the document. That's very cool.

“Skyrocket your sales, automate follow up sequences, enhance engagement, design stunning emails, AB testing, automated responses.”

All of these things Keap does, but I didn't tell it that. It's gone and looked that up, which is really quite cool. And then it's done a YouTube script in there as well.

What About Open-Ended Prompts?

I'm going to be a little bit less direct in this example, okay? I'm going to do what we call open-ended prompts.

So I'm going to do a new chat, completely new in this case. And let's go in here:

“Can you write a script for my upcoming podcast episode on doubling your sales with email follow up?”

Okay, let's give that a go.

“… Before we get into that, if you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to subscribe here.”

So it's doing the right thing with a podcast.

“Segment 1: the importance of email follow up, nurturing relationships, reengaging leads, personalization.

Segment 2: crafting email follow up sequences…

And segment your list… Timing is key… Provide value…  AB testing.” 

Yeah, so this is really upper level kind of stuff, but it's really cool.

“Mistakes to avoid: over emailing, generic content.”

Yeah, you can be very specific with marketing automation.

“Ignoring analytics… Start segmenting, test and optimise…”

You know, this is really quite cool and really quite easy.

More Specific:

Now, my brain has just gone off on a tangent. I'm going to do something like this:

“Write a 500-word article on using SMS for appointment booking. Include stats on attendance.”

I'm going pretty specific here, but let's see if it comes up with what I need.

“Boosting Appointment Attendance With SMS Booking: A Game Changer

In today's fast paced world…

The SMS Booking Revolution

SMS booking is a streamlined method that allows customers to reserve appointments through text messages.”

Not quite what I was after, but…

“High confirmation rate: Studies show that SMS have got a high confirmation rate…

Reduced no show rates: no shows can wreak havoc on businesses causing lost revenue and disruptions to schedules. SMS booking, with its high confirmation rates, helps combat this problem effectively. Businesses will report up to a 50% reduction in no-show rates after its implementing SMS appointment reminders.”

That's gone up. It used to be about 37%.

“Convenient and timely updates…. personalised communications.

Why SMS works so well: Mobile accessibility, instant delivery, non-intrusive simplicity.”

So this is pretty good – a 500-word article on something that I'd given it no previous information on, so you can get creative in there.

Multiple Requests In One Prompt:

Now I'm just going to get creative in this one here. I'm going to copy a problem that ChatGPT gave to me previously. And I'm going to say: “Write a 500-word article on email deliverability: emails may end up in spam folders or not be delivered at all, which can negatively impact campaign effectiveness.”

Let’s see what we get for an article on that…

“In the digital age, email marketing remains a cornerstone of communication.”

I feel it's a bit pompous here. I think it's given me some pompous communication inside there.

“The spam folder conundrum, sender reputation, content triggers, misconfigured email servers, high complaint rates… “

Yeah, all of that is relevant, but what I'm going to do is say: “Rewrite as if you were talking to an eight year old.”

Let's see what that does.

“…little email enthusiast…” – Maybe it's taken me quite literal in writing this for an eight year old. But, often we're told when we're writing our content and we're speaking in public to use language that you would use with an eight year old. Maybe I need to ask that again. Although actually, it's very simple to understand, isn't it?

“Use kind words. Ask for permission, keep your friends happy. Listen to the rules.”

It's literally for an eight year old. So we might change that and say: “Now rewrite to an adult.”

A Little Too Simplified?

Let's give that a go…

“Let's chat about something important. Email deliverability. It's like making sure your mail gets to the right mailbox, but in the digital world, even though we're adults, sometimes our emails end up in the spam folder.”

Maybe we don't need that line. But yeah, it does take you quite literally, but it's a good result.

“Why do emails go into spam? Sometimes bad behaviour – if someone sends lots of annoying or sketchy emails. Tricky words – imagine if people use secret words to talk about stuff.”

So we simplify the words. People can read them quicker and comprehend them much quicker, which is why we communicate like we're talking to an eight year old sometimes so that it's comprehended very quickly. And that's rewritten that for me. It's not a bad start.

We might use that in one of our upcoming blog posts because it's pretty good. You know, it's fairly simple, although it's probably repeating on something we've done before. But you could even take a blog post and have ChatGPT rewrite it in a more modern voice or something like that, and then utilise that as well. It’s just super cool. I love it!

Want to get your hands on the ChatGPT Bible?

The ChatGPT Bible is a nifty little resource that has been a game-changer for us here at Automation Made Easy. It's where we get many of the prompts we ask from. 

The better your instructions - or prompts - the better the results you'll get. 

Grab your own copy here: ChatGPT Bible

Quite probably, you’ve heard about how AI tools can help you with your marketing. But did you know there are so many other ways you can use AI internally in your business, to save loads of time (and perhaps your sanity!)?

Welcome to the first installment of our exciting three-part series on unleashing the power of AI within your business.

In this series, we're going to demystify the magic behind using AI tools like ChatGPT (which you can access for free!) to supercharge your business. No techno-jargon here – just a simple guide to make AI your secret weapon.

We'll look at the art of asking the right questions, or "prompts," that'll conjure up the exact information you need in action. Think of it as your AI genie – you rub the lamp with the right prompt, and voilà!

In Part 1, below, we dive into real-life examples that showcase precisely what to ask for when you need stellar content for some of the most common – and often most boring! – internal tasks that keep your business humming.

Plus, you’ll discover a nifty resource that'll turn you into a prompt-pro wizard, making your AI tool work its magic like never before.

Watch the video below or read on if you're ready to discover the secrets of how to use AI internally in your business and level up your business game:

The Art of Asking: Crafting Effective Prompts:

Hey, it's Jason Buckner here from Automation Made Easy and the Follow Up Formula.

If you know me, you know I'm all about automating follow up in your business to make life easier, to make life more efficient, to double your sales and to go through that whole follow up process and automate it.

And, as part of automation – or as part of making life easier – I've discovered ChatGPT.

Now, I have to be honest with you… I am no expert in ChatGPT. But I bought this little package and if you'd like to know what it is, you can click on this link. All I did was spend a very small amount to get these really cool tips on how we can use ChatGPT to make our business better.

It's super cool, and these tips are really great. So I'm actually going to show you some of them. First, we’ll talking about using AI internally in your business and what sort of things we can do to make things better and easier for you.

So what I'm going to do is just some of these ‘prompts’ from the ChatGPT Bible and see what we can do to make our business better.

Competitive Research with ChatGPT:

This first one is about potentially researching our competitors. So what I'm going to do is paste the details in there.

My industry is automation. Now it's a bit like follow up. You say the right thing at the right time and you get the right results. And so in here it's the same thing. You've got to say the right thing to ChatGPT to get the right results.

So you can't just blurt out any old questions. The way you position the questions is the way you're going to get the good results inside there.

That's why buying a tool like this was so valuable for me. It shortcuts the learning process immensely, to help me get better results.

Let’s do this… competitor one. So here are the names of my top competitors in marketing automation and follow up. Okay, first one, let's go in here and say Frank Kern. And let's go in here and say Launchy. They're a business here in Australia.

And then let's go in here and say another one – Dobbin Buck.

Generate an analysis of their strength, weaknesses, and market position. Okay, so we go through and we hit enter and go ahead and get this information. And this is just churning through.

The Results Are In:

Let's have a read.

It says here:

“However, please note my knowledge base is based on information available as of September, 2021. Competitive landscape may have changed since then.”

Okay, that’s good to note.

ChatGPT even automatically gives the conversation a name. It's great!

“Frank Kern is one of the biggest in the industry now. Strength, strong personal brand.” Okay, that's important.

“Strong personal brand: Frank Kern is a well known figure in digital marketing space,”… “Marketing expertise: Kern is known for his marketing expertise, innovative strategies, content and training offers, various training programs and courses.”

“Weaknesses: limited automation focus. While Kern is a marketing expert, his primary focus may not be on marketing automation software, which could limit his offer in the niche.” Good.

“Competition: the marketing automation market is highly competitive and Kern may face challenges from more specialised competitors.” Interesting.

Then we've got here “Market position: Launchy Strength: specialised automation. Launchy specialise in marketing automation follow-up solutions that can be a strength and a competitive market. Their software may offer advanced features, functionality. Weaknesses: they don't have brand recognition.”

Frank Kern has brand recognition, so there's some details in there and so I can go and analyse and get some information here. This is a great way to gain a more important up-to-date, understanding your competitors strengths, weaknesses, and market positions.

“Consider conducting competitive research and analysing customer reviews and monitoring industry trends.” That's interesting.

Analysing Marketing Channels and Messaging:

I'm just going to go off on a tangent here. They're saying customer reviews, analyse, let's see what it comes up with. Maybe it won't give us enough information.

So 2021, aggregate reviews, customers collecting ratings and sentiment analysis, common theme. There’s a lot of stuff there that we could potentially need to go through to analyse our market.

Then we could go something like this:

“A list of marketing channels used by my top competitors. Analyse their messaging, targeting.” There we go. Give it a go.

Frank uses email marketing. He uses content marketing, social media, webinars, events, and online paid advertising. Okay, that’s good to note.

Launchy uses email marketing, content marketing, social media. Could use social media areas for improvement and competitor advantage. Personalisation, customising messages for individual leads. Automation.

So there's a bit of information in there we can use for competitive advantage…  analysing our customers and see what we can be doing more of.

That sort of data collation could take you hours. But ChatGPT – when asked the right questions – can do your research incredibly quickly!

Elevating Your Brand's Tone and Style:

Okay, so the next one we are going to do is a bit more about branding and that sort of thing as well.

What I'm going to do is just do a new chat insight here. And then I'm going to go to my website and I'm going to take some copy out of my website and use that to be analysed. Let's go to presenting. And what I'm going to do is copy this bio out of here. Let's put it into there first.

So I've got that copy in there and then I'm going to put some text in: “Analyse the following text for tone of voice and style. Apply that exact style and tone of voice to all your future responses.”

Just paste that into there.

And then it goes through and it reads that:

“The tone of voice and the style provided can be described as informative, motivational, and somewhat persuasive. The text begins acknowledging the challenges of running a small business. The tone then shifts to more positive motivational one. The style is informative.”

Okay. What we could do there is do something like ask it to “Add more playfulness.”

That's cool. Already it's taking my bio and making it a bit more playful:

“Running a small business? Well, buckle up 'cause it’s no walk in the park. You've got to juggle effort, concentration, skill, dedication, and...”

I love this! This is really good. I'm actually going to use this.

This has actually rewritten my bio about professional speaking and made it a bit more fun.

It’s as simple as just doing that. And so it's super cool and you can use it for so many things just so long as you're asking the right questions inside there. Super cool.

Revamping Your Company Vision Statement:

Okay, so the next one we're going to do is have a look at our company vision statement and maybe improve that a little bit or give that a little bit of pizzazz inside there.

This is something else we can do internally with ChatGPT that, for someone who doesn’t have a writer's-brain, it might take a long time to write or rewrite this to make it good copy. But we can utilise this to make it happen fairly quickly.

So first we put in this snippet, then what we want to do is put in the top here:

“Generate a vision statement that includes these details: Introduction. Our vision is to make follow up automation easy for small business success.

Our values. We believe in empowering our customers, integrity and what we say we'll do. We hold ourselves accountable and our customer's voice is our voice. Most importantly, we love a challenge and believe in our customer's dreams. These values guide our actions, decisions,…”

And our call to action. “Join us as we make follow up automation easy for small business success. Register for our Three Biggest Small Business Follow Up Mistakes Masterclass if you want to learn more. Sign off: Jason Buckner.”

Okay, so let's give it a go again, utilising the Bible, if you like, that that has given me so much success.

“At automation Made Easy, we're driven by a set of core values that define who we are and how we operate. We believe in empowering our customers, providing them with the tools and knowledge they need to thrive in the competitive world of small business integrity is at the heart of everything we do.

We hold ourselves accountable for delivering on our promises. Our customer’s voice is our voice. We listen to their needs, we relish changes,…” “…Just as we make our follow-up automation easy for small business success, register for our Three Biggest Small Business Follow Up Mistakes Masterclass”

Okay, so that's taken a little blurb and made it a little bit better. So then we can use this in some better ways.

Creating Persuasive Project Proposals:

So let's go and take a look at seeing what we can do to utilise that. Let's take a look at this…

“I'm pitching a project to Brett McFall. I need to write a proposal for a project that is focused on following up automatically to get more attendance at a live webinar.

That what are the key deliverables and timeline for the project?

How will I ensure the project meet needs?

Write a proposal that is concise and persuasive.”

Let’s give it a go.

“I hope this message finds you well. I'm thrilled to present a proposal that addresses the core objective, increasing attendance of your live webinars through automated follow-up strategies.

Our aim is to ensure that this project aligns perfectly with your needs, delivering tangible results.”

It sounds very professional, doesn't it?

“Project title: Automated Webinar Attendance Booster.

Key Deliverables: Customised automated follow-up sequences, personalised engagement, integration with webinar platform, data-driven optimisation, comprehensive reporting.”

Well, I might change some of that.

“Approach: Thorough understanding, continuous communication, flexibility, expertise.

In our conclusion…”

Well, it's a pretty professional sounding proposal, but what I might do is this:

“Rewrite to include extra key deliverable: SMS attendance plan.”

I don’t know whether this is going to work. I’m just flying by the seat of my pants now. Let’s see what it's done.

There we go. So it's rewritten it to include that in there. Yeah, really cool!

So it's just another way that we can use it internally to save time and look more professional, okay? It’s super, super cool.

And how long did that take? Five minutes? It would've taken me a lot longer than five minutes to write a proposal like that

Want to get your hands on the ChatGPT Bible?

This handy little resource has been a game-changer for us here at Automation Made Easy.

Grab your own copy here: ChatGPT Bible

Continuing on with our ongoing discussion about the Follow Up Formula over the recent weeks, it’s time to explore how to assess your campaigns… and why you want to.

This is Jason Buckner here, Founder and CEO of Automation Made Easy - your go-to-team for business automation

In our recent posts we’ve been looking in depth at each of the 3 phases of the Follow Up Formula and how it can help you maximise your webinar results.

Today, we're delving into a crucial aspect of running successful campaigns – how to assess your campaigns.

Best of all, I’ve made it easy for you with a simple formula you can follow when assessing – the B.L.A.T. formula.

Watch the video below or read on for all the details:

How To Make It Happen:

Now some entrepreneurs say:

• “I don't know how to make it happen.” 
• “But how will I know what to say?”
• “How can I make sure it's the best it can be?”

I don't have that answer for you right now other than to follow the formula. Just follow the formula that works, right?

The truth is, you can't know. I don't even know. Just follow the formula. That is, ACTION > TRUST > CONVERSION. And then we assess the campaigns as we go, okay?

The Campaign Assessment Formula:

We have a little formula for how we assess the campaigns as well. I follow this process every time I launch a campaign.

Sometimes I just do it in my head. And sometimes I say, “Okay, we're in the build phase now we're in this phase now.” And I go through that. But you've got to follow a formula for this as well.

Otherwise it becomes overwhelming and we stop driving. We put on the brakes sometimes.

The B.L.A.T. Process:

I call it the BLAT process. Build > Launch > Assess > and Transform.

We need to follow this process.

We need to go through the BUILD phase as quickly as we can.

Then the LAUNCH phase as quickly as we can.

And then we ASSESS. We look at the numbers. We pay for learning, and then we TRANSFORM it.

If we go through the build phase slow when we do this and we perfect this and we personalise this and we make it the best it can possibly be, it could be that the market tells us that that's not okay.

So we need to go through this process fairly quickly so we can build, launch, assess and transform. And we continue doing that through our business.

What Makes Me Accountable?

Now, this is actually what makes me accountable in my business. One time, quite a few years ago, my accountant said to me one day, “Jason, what are the last three months of profit and how's that going compared to this season, last year?”

I said to him… well, I just looked at him and I said, “I don’t know.”

And I felt like a bit of a failure. I'm thinking like, “Oh, maybe I should know this.”

I said, “Well, I feel comfortable. I know there's money coming in and I'm covering the expenses and all of that's good.”

And he is like, “Well, no, that's not enough. Are you profitable? How are you going to know if you need to do things better if you're just doing this on kind of survival mode?”

So I thought to myself, “Yeah, that's really important. I've got to do this in my business, but I've also got to do this in my campaigns as well. I don't just want things coming through. I want to know every single point where we can assess it to make it better.”

That's what holds me accountable. And for you, it's going to be something else. What I usually find is chunking information and doing little bits and pieces, holds people accountable as well as engaging in this BLAT process.

Want to know more about how to implement the Follow Up Formula in your business? 

Great! 

We'd love to offer you a free consultation. Simply book a free, no obligation call with us today.

In our recent posts we've been discussing the Follow Up Formula – a powerful, proven strategy to increase conversions and drive sales. But none of this means much for you if you don't know how to hold yourself accountable for your business.

It's Jason Buckner here, CEO and Founder at Automation Made Easy - your go-to-team for business automation

If you've been following our recent articles, you know we've dived deep into the three phases of the Follow Up Formula: ACTION, TRUST, and CONVERSION.

It's been an exciting journey so far, and today, we're taking things up a notch by exploring a crucial aspect - how to hold yourself accountable in your business.

Believe me, folks, this is a game-changer! I've seen countless businesses struggle when they don't take the wheel and drive their success forward. It's like being stuck in the trying it on lane (I'll explain more about that in a moment).

Let's dive in and discover how to become the driver to hold yourself accountable not only in your business, but in all aspects of your life.

Are You Driving This?

Now secret number three, how to make sure you're driving this in your business, to hold yourself accountable. I see so many people not sitting in the driving lane, and I'll tell you what I mean about that.

Some entrepreneurs say, “I don't know how to do it. Can you just do it for me?”

Most of the time now, I say, “No, I'm not going to do it for you.”

In my experience, the businesses that we do a Done-For-You service on are the businesses that don't actually succeed with the formula.

Those that learn it and embrace it and make it their own, and make themselves accountable for it, are the ones that actually have success.

You know, going back to me and the first speaker I worked with (whom I bought a done-for-you program from – you can check out that story in this video if you missed it or want to recap)… I was not accountable for that. I didn't hold myself accountable.

It's almost like I spent the money and that was gone, and this was a little bit of an occupation, if you like, and I didn't do what I needed to do with it. I wasn't in the driving lane.

One of my customers, Sue Stevenson – I love Sue… we were having a one-on-one session about her business.

And so Sue uses the Follow Up Formula in many different places in her business.

Sue uses it for automated webinars.

She uses it for live webinars.

And she uses it for live webinars so that she can help parents.

She wants to get as many people onto her webinar as she can so she can help parents of anxious kids turn up to her webinars so that she can help the parents help the kids that are anxious, okay?

Sue described this for me, with these three lanes, and I just had this explosion go off in my mind. It's like, “Oh my God, everything's just fallen into place here.” Let me describe it to you.

The Three Lanes:

So we've got these three lanes in business… in life… in getting things done. And there's this first lane here that's usually thinking about it, maybe, or not actively engaged in it.

Then we've got this second lane here that's kind of… I call it the trying it on lane.

And then we've got this third lane here, which I call the driving lane.

Example - Changing Lanes To Give Up Smoking:

So let me explain to you, I used to smoke and I smoked for seven years. Let's call them my party days. You know, I go out drinking and have some cigarettes and smoke during the week. Every time I had a coffee, I had a cigarette.

It was my seven years between sports. I was very sporty when I was younger, and I'm very sporty now, but there was this time where I thought I had to rebel. And so I smoked cigarettes.

All the time I was smoking. I'm sitting in this lane (the thinking about it land) – I am a smoker, okay?

And then I jumped into this trying it on lane and I thought, “I need to quit.” And I was trying it on. During the week, I didn't smoke at all. “No, no, I don't smoke during the week. I'm quitting... I'm quitting... I am a quitter.” 

That's all I did was I'm quitting, yeah? And then on the weekends, I'd go and have a drink with my mates and out comes the cigarettes, and I'd smoke all weekend. I'd smoke a packet all weekend. I actually smoked more on the weekends than I did during the week where I was quitting.

And, you know, I'm trying it on. In actual fact, I'm giving myself a reason to say, “Oh, no, I'm quitting. This is okay. I don't smoke during the week. I do smoke on weekends, and eventually this is going to pass.”

In actual fact, no, it is not going to pass.

You will stay in that lane forever.

The Lane You Want To Be In:

But then one day my little sister came to Sydney (when I was living in Sydney), and she was about 12 at the time. We’d just taken Mum out for a birthday lunch, actually. Mum and my little sister came up.

She said, “Jason, why do you still smoke?” She said, “You know, it's bad for you… (and this and that), ...and you know, we don't want you to die.” All of the sorts of things that come out of a 12 year old's mouth.

It just hit. It was just the right thing I needed at the right time to give me that emotional connection. And I jumped into the I'm a non-smoker lane.

The last lane is the I'm a non-smoker lane. The middle is the I'm a quitter lane and the left is the I'm a smoker lane.  

And so I jumped into this last lane and then all of a sudden I didn't smoke.

I literally was smoking a cigarette. I butted it out. Actually I nearly caved two weeks later, and I picked up that cigarette. It's the most disgusting thing you'll ever taste in the world when you get your taste buds back. I picked it up and, and I haven't had another cigarette since, but I jumped into the, I do not smoke lane.

It was only when I got into that lane, I was emotionally holding myself accountable for being that person. And it was easy for me then.

How To Use This To Hold Yourself Accountable In Your Business:

It's the same in business. So many of us are like me. “I'm trying it on.” I got this done for you service, and I tried it on.

I tried to put all the responsibility on somebody else. “I'm going through this program and someone's doing it for me. I've paid all of this money and I'm going to become an internet marketer.”

Rubbish I was going to become an internet marketer!

I'm sitting this in this middle I’m trying it on lane.

And I see so many people come along as well, that in my Done-For-You service – when I had it done for you service – they'd come along and they'd jump into that same lane.

“Yep, Jason's doing it for me. He's going to do it for me and put it all together.”

And they don't take any responsibility whatsoever. They don't take the responsibility to market their business. They don't take the responsibility to learn about what comes next. And as a result, they sit in this trying it lane and never quite jump into the driving lane.

So which lane are you going to be in? 

Which lane are you in right now?

You want to be in the driving lane. You’ve got to jump over a few hurdles to be in the driving lane.

Meet Tom Hua:

So I want you to meet Tom.

Tom came to me and he said, “Jason I need you to help me make these webinars great.”

He was doing a webinar series, okay? He was doing some live webinars and then automating it afterwards. And Tom wanted me to organise the follow up for him.

And I said, no. I said, “Look, Tom, this is what I need you to do to make it work.”

We went through the action, the trust and the conversion.

He said, “No, don't be ridiculous. I'm just going to do what I've always done.”

And so he did what he'd always done. He followed the old school internet marketer kind of process… sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. Okay? And he got nothing in return.

Now when I say he got nothing in return, he ran the webinar and he actually got no sales from the follow up whatsoever. He got sales from the webinar, but he didn't get any sales from the follow up. And I knew that he wasn't engaging in what he had to do. He had to go through that process to learn that.

Then he said, “Well, I haven't got enough return out of this. I have to do this.” And he jumped into the driving lane then.

Coming Back Into The Driving Lane:

So when he came back in the driving lane, I told him what he had to do. He said, no, but then he came back.

As a result of coming back, we implemented the Action and the Trust and the Conversion, but we chunked it into small pieces. Okay, we're going to do this Action now. And he became responsible for the Action.

Then I said, “Okay, now we need to do this Trust.” In Tom's case, we actually put in place 21 trust building emails… and it was too many. We didn't actually need to do that many, but we got a few extra incidental sales out of that as well.

We tested and found out that five is the sweet spot in there, but Tom got $57,000 in low ticket, monthly recurring sales. This is just the sales for one month though.

So that was $57,000 in sales – $197 a month, okay? And some in there at $97 a month as there was a downsell as well.

From $57,534 in sales, $29,384 came from the webinar directly; $28,150 came from the follow up.

Now, it's only because Tom jumped into the driving lane because he had this problem, okay? He had this problem where he actually didn't get any returns when he was doing what he wanted to do.

He jumped into the driving lane, and put the Action, Trust and Conversion in place where he made the extra money. So he doubled his income, basically.

He doubled the sales on this as a result of putting that Action, Trust and Conversion in place that he wouldn't have done, had he not have jumped into that driving lane.

The driving lane… I've seen a few excuses come up where those excuses are literally the things that are holding you back from jumping into the driving lane. You're trying it on kind of thing. You know, you're running a webinar, you're doing an ad campaign, you're trying it on.

I need you to drive, okay? I need you to get in there and drive.

Interested in finding out more about how the Follow Up Formula can help build trust for you and your business? 

We'd love to offer you a free consultation. Simply book a free, no obligation call with us today.

Are you ready to unlock the potential of follow up to double the sales from your webinars?

It's Jason Buckner here, CEO and Founder at Automation Made Easy - your go-to-team for business automation

We've previously talked about the three phases of the Follow Up Formula - ACTION, TRUST and CONVERSION.

In this post, we're going to continue to explore this game-changing strategy that can help you double (or even triple) your sales.

More specifically we'll dive into real-life examples and show you how to make successful follow up happen.

Watch this content-only, no fluff video now to see how to transform your campaigns and maximise every lead that comes your way:

How To Make Successful Follow Up Happen:

Now secret number two, how to make it happen.

Many small business owners think, “I'm not good at the technical stuff, let alone what to write in those emails.”

I want to share with you though a quick story. So remember Mark Ling in the earlier video (Turn Failure Into Business Success) and we went through the process there to develop the Follow Up Formula – going through and actually putting the follow up in place.

Then with Brett McFall we had this formula for webinars, but they were for an automated webinar. (You can read more about this on our How To Follow Up To Get Customers post.)

I then had this customer come to me, Build Her… well actually before this time I started doing what we were doing on the webinars, on the automated webinars – action > trust > conversion follow ups.

I started doing this in lead generation campaigns, and started seeing results internally. Then I started doing it on live webinars and I started doing it on all sorts of campaigns and well, actually we'd been doing it all along for many years in my business.

But I just didn't realise it was a formula. We just did it. “Okay, we need to do this… we need to do some trust and we need to then sell to them.” And I didn't put it into the formula until much, much later.

Lead Generation Campaign Example:

But Build Her came along and they didn't have any action, trust, and conversion process in their campaigns at all.

In actual fact, they had a bucket load of lead generation campaigns – and when I say lead generation, they had one opt-in. So prospects would opt in, Build Her would send an email and they'd deliver whatever it was they’d offered and they'd have no trust or conversion phase whatsoever. They had literally about 17 opt-ins. They were all getting good opt-ins, they were getting good numbers on the database, but they were relying on their weekly broadcast – their weekly newsletter – to get any conversions.

Every now and again they’d do a broadcast to the database to get people to come along to a webinar. And they were getting such low conversions – such low open rates, such low conversions from these campaigns.

So they took my advice. Actually, initially they looked at me and said, “Oh, do we really have to do that?”

And I said, “Yes, yes, you actually do. You have to do this action, trust and conversion phase.”

In actual fact, we built one conversion campaign. Now the action was actually done inside each of the little opt-in campaigns. So when someone opts in, they get their action-based email. Okay? So that was all inside there.

Then we built this monster. I can't even show you the whole thing on the screen.

We built this campaign. And so they go into the trust phase – remember the action is done separately, okay? It was already in place. Then they go into this trust phase that goes for five emails long. And then they go into this conversion phase that is a little bit longer. There's a bit of conversion, a bit of content, then conversion, then content.

We built out this and tested it and got it running.

Now in this campaign here, out of 294 people – 294 people, do the math – that went into this campaign, they got 46 customers. Just from people opting in.

So they opt in for a lead magnet and then we put them into this conversion campaign where we take them on a journey. 46 customers. That's a 15% conversion.

Now here's where it gets really cool. The lead cost is $5 per lead. So it's about $1,500 in ad spend to get 294 people and they're getting sales at $1,000 per customer.

That's $49,000 in sales for $1,500 in ad spend.

Just because we put this follow up formula process in place: action > trust > and conversion.

Now, who wants to get that sort of conversion on their campaigns?

You've just got to put it in place!

You've got to follow the formula and put it in place. It's super important, but it's also super simple.

So many of us are putting up this barrier and not letting ourselves take that next step.

Do you think they're on the path to double their sales?

Absolutely!

They did more than double the sales from the lead generation campaigns ‘cos they weren't getting any sales from them… literally! We just followed the formula.

From before, there was nothing. To now, 7½% to 15% conversions. 7½% is the average, but it spikes up and we haven't discovered why the spike is there, but it spikes up to 15% conversions.

So they know they can spend x amount of money on an ad campaign and get x amount of money at the other end and get x amount of customers. Super cool.

They just do the math and then they up the ad spend because the follow up is in place and it's working… it's converting.

Okay, so the background is we used a tried and tested formula and created a template from it. In actual fact, we just created that from one and then 17 lead magnets all feed into the same template.

And then we adjusted it for the relevant campaign that it is.

So we did it once there, and then in each of their other individual niches they have in their business, we repeated it and we've done it now three and four times.

We're just using the template in their business and changing the wording in there, changing the content in there, changing the conversion in there, that's relevant for that particular niche. Okay? Three or four times, getting exactly the same results. Every campaign that we are running it in is getting between a 7½% and a 15% conversion.

In each of their slightly different niches, we’re just using exactly the same one. What we do is we copy that campaign, we go and put it into another campaign. They go in and personalise the emails, change the links inside there and we make it live and it works every… single… time. Super cool.

Live Webinar Campaign Example:

Who wants that in their business results from a live webinar?

Okay, so that was a lead generation campaign. Now this is a live webinar campaign.

I started working with Pat Mesiti a couple of years ago and we just followed the formula.

He was getting industry average show rates on his live webinars, okay? About 30% show rate is industry average for a live webinar.

So, we put action in place for when they register, okay?

We put trust in place between the registration and when they have to turn up to the live webinar. We've got to build trust through that whole phase. And then the webinar is actually building trust as well. It's part of the trust building phase and the conversion phase.

And then we did conversion after the event.

So the three phases: action > trust > conversion.

Usual webinars are getting 30%; he was getting about 30%, sometimes a little bit less than 30%. Now he's getting 40% to 50% show rate on his webinar, just by implementing the action and the trust.

And then the sales from that come higher as well.

So this is all it is. When someone opts in, we register them through a system and then they get their welcome email – so their action-based email.

Then they get a trust email here nine days before. A trust email here, one week before; then three days before, 24 hours before, and one hour before the webinar. Then we give a Going Live email.

And so we implement emails and SMS. SMS is super important for webinars. If you're running webinars, you’ve got to have SMSs in place.

The trust building phase comes afterwards.

Now, do you think that that Pat's on the path to getting double the sales and Build Her are on the path to getting double sales?

Absolutely they are!

Action – registration – we send an email and an SMS. In actual fact, on all of my webinars I send a Bonjoro as well. 

That personalised message… an automated trigger to send a personalised message where I can make it about THEM and what they're going to learn. I can use their name, they can see my eyes, they can see I’m doing something for them. I spend 15 minutes a day sending these personalised messages.

It increases the show rate even above 50%. On my last webinar, I got a 70% show rate just by implementing the Bonjoro.

Trust emails and SMS – a minimum of three inside there. If we can do five, we do five as well.

And then conversion – we get them to buy after the webinar. There are three emails after, getting them to buy.

This formula went from 30% to 50%. That's 20% more customers to sell to.

We've got to maximise every single lead that's coming in there and build a relationship with them while we’re doing that.

If you'd like to find out more about how to implement the Follow Up Formula in your business, we'd love to offer you a free consultation. 

Simply book a free, no obligation call with us today.