Sheesh, what a year we’re having. I don’t think any of us expected this version of 2020 to be a reality, back at the end of 2019, when we were welcoming in the new year.
Right now, many countries around the world are in lockdown. It’s forcing businesses to close, some permanently, and we’re seeing others making big pivoting decisions.
Your clients are going to be scared. This fear will lead to them thinking about their outgoing costs, cancelling services and aiming to reduce their spending. If they can balance their books, they might feel like they can stem the tide.
Looking back to the 2008 recession, we saw a lot of businesses cancelling marketing contracts and cutting their spending. Unfortunately, a lot of them didn’t survive when they came out the other side, as they weren’t visible to their ideal customers. Competitors had stayed strong and ensured that they would be ready to take advantage.
Care Plans are just as important as marketing. In fact, they are business critical. Without a website, your clients will completely lose their digital presence. As you know, an unprotected website and a client who isn’t educated in website maintenance, makes a dangerous combination.
Now, it’s inevitable that some of your current Care Plan clients are going to approach you and request to cancel their services. You could choose to accept this, but you’d be doing them a disservice. You have a duty to help your clients push through the pandemic and to enjoy the digital revolution that we’re going to see on the other side of it.
So what you can do to help your Care Plan clients who are struggling right now?
- Offer them a payment holiday
I appreciate this won’t work for every agency. Some agency owners are in a really difficult financial position right now, having been working from project to project and not able to build up a cash reserve in their business.
If you can afford to do so, consider offering your worst affected clients a payment holiday for the next 1-3 months. Maybe to June or July. You’ll be helping them when they really need it, and building a lot of goodwill for the future. - Pay what you want
This is a little extension of the previous idea, but I wanted to add it in as it’s quite a novel option. You could consider allowing your clients to utilise a “Pay what you want” or “Pay what you can afford” option. Whilst you will see a temporary drop in income, it’s difficult for any business owner to decide to just pay nothing for a service. So you’ll have people contribute something.
This again, won’t work for everyone – but it’s an idea that might just spark a little creativity in your minds. - Add value
Are there any services that you can add in for free that offer a high level of perceived value? Perhaps you could upgrade a client temporarily to a higher tier of Care Plan than they’re on now. Essentially, we’re not looking to create a ton of extra work – but if there’s something you can add in that doesn’t take more than 10-15 minutes per client, it’s something to think about. - Remove options
This is essentially the opposite of what we’ve just talked about. For clients who are really persistent and want to leave your Care Plans, are there elements that you can take away, leaving them with the basics that will keep their website online and safe? Perhaps you can remove the need to send out monthly reports or any additional time in the Care Plan that they’re not using, to temporarily lower the price.
You don’t need to make drastic permanent changes to help your Care Plan clients. You just need to use empathy and understand that everyone is in a difficult place right now.
Ultimately, there will be some clients that do leave your Care Plans. It’s really important that you don’t let this negatively affect you. No-one is leaving to spite you or because you’re not offering a great service. Remember this, because your mental health is REALLY important right now.
There are some industries in the world who are in real trouble this year. Entertainment, travel, restaurants, hotels etc. It’s going to be a tough journey for them to keep on surviving. We’re likely to see a dramatic change in the business landscape for the most affected industries in the short-term.
If you can stay strong and help your clients, you’re giving them the best possible chance to harness and be empowered by the digital revolution that is coming.
Below, I’ve shared a couple of fantastic free resources from Kristina Romero and Mike Killen, as well as the (paid) Website Owner’s Manual from The Admin Bar. Watch these, read them and use them. They’ll help you now and over the coming months.
For now, stay safe and be kind. We will get through this, together.
Kristina Romero – Care Plan Retention (Free Course)
Kristina Romero and the members of her WP Care Market community have come together to bring a list of tips, ideas and email scripts. Check out the free course!
This free course is such a wonderful thing for Kristina and her community to put together. There are some brilliant ideas and email scripts here that will help you to retain clients on your Care Plans.
The WordPress community has the power to come together to help one another, and Kristina and her community are a great example of this.
Check out Kristina’s free course now!
Mike Killen – How To Deal With Customers Cancelling Care Plans
Email Scripts available here: Google Docs
Mike Killen created a video and also provided some free email scripts to help you deal with customers who are looking to cancel their Care Plans.
In addition to this, he also provided a Revenue Increase Plan, which you can go through with your customers. This is a great opportunity for you to provide additional help to them right now.
I love the addition of the Revenue Increase Plan, as it’s a fantastic way of helping your clients to increase their revenue, and it can bring more money into your business right now too.
The Website Owner’s Manual (WOM)
Kyle Van Deusen and Matt Sebert from The Admin Bar, put together a fantastic product for agency owner’s last year. Meet The Website Owner’s Manual, or WOM as they call it for short.
The Website Owner’s Manual is a PDF document that you can use at the end of your website projects to on-board clients onto your Care Plans. You can also use it for clients who don’t want a Care Plan or who are cancelling.
Here’s a video of Kyle talking to Nathan Wrigley from WP Builds, showing a demonstration of their product…
This is a paid product, and it’s currently discounted to $27.99. Pick up your copy today and help your new and existing clients.
WordPress Care Plans Funnel Pack
It would be remiss of me not to mention that we do have a product that will help you to generate new Care Plan leads as you move forwards with your agency.
Mel and I created a pre-built marketing funnel that will help you to educate business owners on the importance of website maintenance, packed with value and action points that they can use. Ultimately, you’ll be able to position your agency as someone who can help them.
Here’s a video to let you know what’s inside…
It’s our most popular Funnel Pack and for good reason. Care Plans are a great source of recurring revenue, ideal for getting your business through tough times – as we’re all experiencing now.
A number of our customers have even had success with just sending the lead magnet over to clients who were hesitating on saying yes to a Care Plan after they completed and launched a new website.
The WordPress Care Plans Funnel Pack is available right now – check it out and see how it can help you sell more Care Plans to your clients.
