Today's Guest

Dr. Melva B. Robertson is an established leader committed to helping clients successfully achieve their goals. Melva is also an author and the founder of the Own Your Own (OYO) Movement which consists of empowerment tools for entrepreneurs, a branding summit as well as the Own Your Own TV show. She walks us through how The Strategic Planning Process helps people grow their repeat client base through an exceptional customer experience.

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Episode Summary

Your brand is the experience people have when they encounter you. It’s the same idea behind corporate branding or leadership branding, it is your reputation that precedes you. The key behind good branding is to ensure what you are promising and what you are delivering are in sync. No matter the size of your business the entrepreneur sets the tone for the company’s brand.

Your brand experience begins at the moment the consumer first interacts with you and carries through to the completion of the work and even your follow-up process. While there is an aspect of branding that includes your logo, business card, or other creative elements the main driver is the experience you provide to customers along the way. Let’s say you own a home improvement business, the brand experience might start the first time a consumer calls you about a job. If you tell them you will stop by their home between 12 and 2 to provide an estimate, then be there when you said you would be. If something does happen to delay you or force you to reschedule, make sure you proactively communicate with the homeowner to let them know you will be delayed and reschedule if needed.     

The key to improving your customer experience is to ask your current customers for feedback. There are several ways you can go about asking customers for feedback but once you have it, look at what they are saying and make adjustments as needed. One of the secrets behind successful entrepreneurs is they are good listeners, they listen to what their customers or team members are saying and act on it.

As you think about your customer experience you also want to consider how you can leverage technology to create a better experience. Not only does tracking tasks manually create room for error but it limits how many projects or jobs you can do. We are in a digital world today and the companies that have struggled to adapt digitally, especially over the past year, are not likely to be successful in the future.

One of the primary tools we use to help our clients wrap their minds around the customer experience is The Strategic Planning Process. This process revolves around the idea that every action you take is intentional, meaning you have a plan. When I sit down with a client the first topic we discuss are who they are, what do they want to be known for, how do they describe themselves, and who is their target audience? After we work through those topics we get to my favorite part which is what are the short, medium, and long term goals. This helps us understand where we want to go and then we work backwards to fill in the gaps based on where we are today.

Resources Shared

• The Write Media Group
• Congratulations! It’s a Brand by Melva Robertson
• The Brand New Leader by Melva Robertson
• Thryv
  

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