One Simple Strategy to Steady Your Revenue This Summer | Ep. 44

If you've been feeling like summer is just going to be slow. I want to challenge that thinking a little bit.

In this episode, I'm talking about one simple strategy that you can use to bring in revenue during the summer (or any slow season in your business) without having to create a single new piece of content, run ads, or be glued to social media. The strategy is already sitting right there inside your business, you just have to be willing to use it.

I'm breaking down two specific groups of people you already have access to right now, and exactly how to approach them so the conversation feels natural and not awkward. Because the money is already in your business. 

In this episode I'm covering:

• Why slow summers are often something we create for ourselves (and how to break that cycle)
• The two groups of people already in your ecosystem that you should be reaching out to right now
• What to say when you reach back out to someone who inquired but never booked
• Why past clients are your warmest leads and how to reopen that conversation
• My nurture framework — the four parts of staying connected with your clients so it never feels out of nowhere
• How referrals from past clients can lead to some of the easiest sales calls you'll ever get on

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

• Client Experience Strategy Accelerator — if you want to map out exactly what your follow-up system should look like for your specific business, this is where we do that together → Click Here 
• Episode 36: You Don't Need More Leads, You Just Need a System — this one goes deeper on building the actual system behind your follow-up strategy

Watch on YouTube or Listen on the Podcast

🎙️ABOUT THE HOST

Hi, I'm Kenniqua Lewter, Client Experience Systems Strategist, HoneyBook Educator, and the host of the Systems Rehab Podcast. I help service providers create client experience systems that save time, strengthen client relationships, and build a business that runs with ease. 

If you’re a service provider and you want some hands-on support to get your business systems set up and running smoothly, I have something that might help. My Client Experience Accelerator is a 90-minute strategy session where we tackle your biggest client experience bottleneck, clarify your next steps for systems, and create a clear action plan so your business can run more efficiently. Go to YourSystemsPro.com

Let's keep the conversation going. Send me a DM on Instagram or Threads @kenniqua.lewter

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Transcript

Kenniqua Lewter (00:00)
This is the time of year when we're going into the summer where I hear a lot of service providers say that the summer tends to be a slower season for them. And I think it really just depends on what exactly it is that you do in your business. I know that some of the clients that I work with, they are in like the event space type of business or event decorating. And so their business tends to be a little bit faster. Or I work with a pet concierge and during the summertime,

Of course, so many people are on vacation, so they need those type of services. But if you're a service provider and you feel like your business, the inquiries, the leads, the clients that they start to slow up during the summertime, this episode is really going to be for you because today we're going to talk about that there's still a lot that can be done even in the quote unquote the slow season.

Now, there's no denying that there is certain times in your business where things might get slow. I don't necessarily believe that it automatically has to be the summertime. I have a sales and marketing coach and one of the things that she has shared is that slow summers tend to come from slow entrepreneurs.

And really what she really meant by that statement is that because we believe we have the belief that summers are slow, that we tend to just kind of just chill on out. Like we tend to take our foot off of the gas. We tend not to market as much. We tend not to do the things that we were doing the other parts of the year. Thus our actions are creating the result of having a slow summer.

Now, like I said, there are certain times that yes, every month is not going to be your highest month. Like how could it, right? But I do think that there is some truth that a lot of times we do tend to as service providers to kind of settle down during the summertime. And this could be for various reasons. It could be because of the belief.

that we think other people are not buying is the reason why we do this, which is not true. People do still buy during the summertime. Or it could be from a sense of maybe you're wanting to go through and take a break. So for me personally, I'm in that stage where I'm going through and I'm taking a break. Like I offer a done for you system set up offer.

And so doing so many different setups and doing strategy and implementation, when it gets to June, I take a break and December, I also go through and take a break. So what does that mean for my business? But what does it even mean for your business when the summertime, because you take a break, intentionally take a break from selling your offers that what does that mean for your business?

I am one of those people that also I'm not the biggest fan of going through and just market, market, market, market, market. I do understand that I do need to have leads in my business. I do understand that I have to go through and sell my offers, but I'm also not the person that necessarily wants to be on social media all the time. Like I don't want to go through and create reels and.

TikTok, like I'm not on TikTok. I don't want to have to go through and be in the rat race of going through and constantly creating content. So what I believe as a client experience system strategist, I believe that we have clients already in our ecosystem. These are for the clients that we've already worked with. They already trust you. They already have paid you for a service.

And this is the opportunity where you can go through and to leverage those relationships that you've been building all this time to be able to sustain your business and to kind of bring in those cash injections into your business during the season of a slower season. So the slower season could be for you summer, we're talking about summer because it's summer is upon us.

but this can be actually implemented into any slow season that you do have in your business. when it comes down to marketing, yes, we need leads. Yes, we need to have a pipeline of people that are discovering in us that want to go through and work with us.

as a service provider, depending on the type of business that you have and what your offer is that you may not actually need as many clients as you may think that you need, or you don't need as many clients that maybe you're marketing for, like your marketing is sustaining or trying to attract 30, 40 people when you can actually only go through and handle like a group of people, like maybe 10,

you are actually sitting on opportunity for you to be able to get more bookings and referrals into your business without you having to go through and do all of the additional marketing being on all the time in your business, even during the summertime when you're trying to go through and take a break, okay?

So there's two different groups that I actually want to discuss today. So this is going to be group number one, which are going to be the leads who inquired with your business and they never booked your services. And then the second group is going to be past clients that you just haven't spoken to you in a while. Now, like I said, there is so much opportunity for you to then go through and leverage the relationships that you have built.

just by doing this one simple thing. And this one simple thing is going through and following up, following up. So with the leads, so leads who've actually gone through, they have inquired about your services, but they never actually went through and booked. This is what I recommend, is I recommend for you to go back, okay? Go back in your system if you're using a system. If you're not,

using like ⁓ official CRM like I like to use HoneyBook. This is what we design for our clients. But if you're not using a particular software to be able to have this information, maybe you have it somewhere like in your Google Sheets or maybe you can kind of go back through your emails if that's where you have this information. But go back through your inquiries over the last six months and to go back and see who actually inquired with your business.

When I tell you that there is gold that is actually there, when I've had clients come to me, for us to be able to go through and do their whole full systems builds, they literally have had tons of inquiries in their inbox from people that wanted to go through and work with them. And at the time, they just didn't have a system in order to be able to

capture those leads, respond back to those leads, and then move them on to the next spot, right? And move them on to the next step. But that is still potential clients that's sitting right there in your inbox. So in a slower season where you're not necessarily getting a lot of inbound inquiries, right? And you may not have the energy or capacity to be able to do outbound marketing.

to be able to get revenue during the summer or any slow season, go back through the inquiries from people who have already said, hey, I'm interested in your services, okay? Go back through them, reach out to them, review the inquiry and reach back out to them to let them know like, hey, I wanna just touch base with you.

I see that you inquired about whatever that service is. I wanna know, have you already received support in this area? If not, I would love to go through and chat with you. We can go through, we can book a call. Send the link. If you're gonna book a call, send the link to go ahead and do it. Don't wait for them to respond back. Like, hey, if you're interested and you wanna have a chat, here's my link. I would love to jump on a call with you.

Reach out to the people that have already gone through and submitted an inquiry with you because

they may have submitted the inquiry and they may not have actually received the support that they needed as of yet. So they are candidates where you're not having to go through, any additional marketing, you are reaching out to the people that have already inquired about your services.

I typically like to reach out to those prospects at least three times now I do use systems in order to be able to do that I will when it gets to depending on their response like if I get a response from them I typically will go back and send another like personalized response

I would just make sure like in even in your automations, they don't have to be cold. They can sound like you, can insert your personality, your brand messaging, all of the goodness. But what I recommend going back and following with them at least three times, at least three times to touch base with them, to see how you can go through and support them and be very curious, like ask questions.

ask as many questions as you need to. And I'm not saying just bombard them in email and just ask like a whole laundry list of questions all at once. But ask a question that's really curious of like, I'm really curious about how you are doing X, Y, Z. And if you had support in this issue or this problem or what solutions can I really help you to implement into your business or whatever it is that you do,

be really curious about how they're looking for support, and then provide them with the next step of how you can go through and work together.

even when it comes to the summertime, I've actually enrolled into a program for that starts for this summer. And actually I have one more on my list and I'm just ready for that. He's supposed to open the cart for this one offer. It's supposed to be at the beginning of June. I'm just waiting for, and this is a four figure offer. I'm waiting to pay for this. I'm on a wait list.

I can't wait till it opens because I've already had my eye on this service for a long time. And I'm like, okay, I'm sold. I've already read over the sales page. I've watched all the videos, all the FAQs, and this is something that starts in the summer. People still buy in the summer. I'm ready to drop a four figure offer and do something in the summer, even though I do want to.

I still want to spend time with my family. I still want to be able to take a little bit of time off to relax from doing done for you services, but I'm still a buyer during the summertime. And I know that your people, they're still waiting to buy from you in the summertime as well too. This might be the time that they actually may have a little bit more breathing room to join your program.

this might be the time where they have breathing room in order to be able to implement the thing that your program or offer has, where they can actually sit down and actually do it. So just because it's summertime and you think that people want to relax does not mean they don't want to purchase their offers, okay?

So then the second group of people that you have, this is going to be your past clients that you haven't spoken to in a while, okay? Now this one my favorite because there is so much with this.

Like there's so much gold in being able to go through and cultivate and nurture relationships with your past client because your past clients, they already know you. They already have gotten results from you. They already trust you and they've already paid you. And so they are way more likely to go through and to pay you again.

These are going to be the warmest leads that you have, the warmest people, because again, they're already familiar with their business, and they are going to be the ones that are going to be the quickest to be able to speak to them, to be able to see exactly what it is that they need next from you, and then provide them with an offer, and to be able to get them sold on that offer. That is going to be the easiest.

the lowest hanging fruit from you to do. Okay. So you can go back again, talk to the leads, go back, look at your leads here. Look at the leads that have already submitted inquiries with you. But past clients, if I were to go through and I'm trying to fill my summer up with working with people without having to go through and do any additional marketing, I'm going to go to past clients first. Me personally, I'm going to go to past clients first

And then if you're thinking to yourself like, well, I want to take this summer off. maybe you have like some type of like robust offer that you don't want to offer someone during the summertime because you're trying to take a break. What happens is, especially when you're working with past clients, they probably already have that robust offer, right? They might've already did that done for you offer done with you offer VIP offer,

They may have already done your signature offer. And so what you're looking at next is how can I support the next phase of their journey? And a lot of times this may be a this may be I'm not going to say a less offer. Sometimes it may be just depends on what the next phase is, what your offer is going to be. But it may not be as time consuming as the original offer.

So just to kind of give you an example with this. So I was literally just before me recording this, I was recording a podcast episode with one of my past clients. We were doing a case study where after we set up her five star client experience build with HoneyBook that she now is in position and has gone, gotten more clients. She even said that she was able to boost her retention. I helped her to be able to

kind of think about a membership that she can offer with her services, which she has thus been able to go through and do. But even from there, it's like, okay, we're gonna continue this working relationship, but I've already built her system. So now what we're doing is we're just building on to the system that we've already built. This doesn't necessarily take its time, it's me building out a whole system.

We're just adding to it, And so these type of things are perfect for when you want downtime or when it is slow season. These are the mini offers, little miniature offers that maybe you can offer to some of your past clients. I would lean on these strategies. Okay. Lean on these strategies.

But how do you actually lean on your past clients if you haven't talked to them in a while? Okay. How can you do that? How do you create that conversation when it's like, I haven't talked to you in like six months or two a year, but now I'm trying to reach back out to you to see exactly how can I help you? Well, one of the things I would say about this is obviously putting a system in place before it even gets to that point.

But let's say you're at this point where you haven't actually talked to your past clients in a while. Look back over the work that you did. reach back out to them

Again, it's kind of going back to being genuinely curious. Hey, I was just thinking about you. It's been about six months since we worked together and I know that we, set up, we initially set up X, Y, Z. I'm really curious about what is the next phase of your business? Like what is the next stage? What are you working on right now? Literally ask them.

What are they working on? And the thing about that is it opens the door for conversation because especially when you turn the conversation over to them, what are you working on? Then they are more prone to go through and respond to you, especially if you did a good job the first time. they had great client experience with them. They enjoy the service that you provide to them.

They are more likely going to respond back to you. And if they don't, what are you going to do? You're going to follow up with them. You're not just going to go ahead and just leave it for that one time. You're going to follow up with them again, right? You're going to follow up with them again, change the message, change the message up a little bit, but follow up with them again. I have a nurture framework.

there's four parts of this framework. these are things that I really want you to just think about when you're building out the relationship with your clients.

So the first thing is going to be the check-in, So the check-in for your nurture relationship is coming up with a cadence for which you're going to follow up with your clients. So I like to say, like having a cadence of 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days after your project or your service concludes, But again, this is going to totally depend on the actual service and the offers that you do have.

One thing that I like to do, when I work with our venue owners, like we're setting up their HoneyBook services or their system services. one thing I like to do with them specifically is for example, weddings at their venue. I'll implement in automation for a trigger to automatically go out to their client based off of their project, because their project date is typically what their wedding day.

to then have an email go out to them saying happy anniversary. And then that typically will spark that conversation back to figure out, okay, do you want to come celebrate your anniversary with us? Or what I've also done in the past is that I'll trigger the automation for like, let's say at the nine month mark.

This gives them a chance to then go through and for them to actually book that anniversary.

the next thing is going to be celebrate. So.

The celebrate portion of this is like, can you go through and celebrate your clients? How could you celebrate their wins? How could you celebrate their milestones? Literally just today, I had a client that I recently did a setup for their stage in business. And I was so happy to see they sent me a message over today. And they said that they sent over three proposals, HoneyBook proposals this week, and they already got two of them signed.

I was so happy to see that they were able to do that. And the reason why is number one, they claim there is whole phase that they were just not really tech savvy. They were really concerned about, ⁓ after the system is built for me, I'm not really sure how it's going to work. And they went through all the resources that I provided to them, all the training, all of the custom training videos that I've created for them,

and they've been sending out proposals, but this one I think they were really stoked about because it's one of their higher ticketed offers, but to send out three and already have two signed in a matter of a week span is excellent. And I know they were very happy and they felt they, celebrated them for that,

So how can you go through and celebrate your clients celebrate really be invested? This really comes down like the client experience of all of this really comes down to you genuinely being invested into your clients and into their business. Like I literally do care about the clients that I that I work with. I'm genuinely interested in what you're working on. I'm genuinely interested in your success.

And then I know that in the long run, there are gonna be clients that some of them are going to need additional support. They're going to want to have me with them as they go through when they grow their business, and that's fine. And if they don't, that's fine too. You celebrate their wins. The third thing about the nurture sequence is going to, or nurture framework, is going to be re-engaging. So you're thinking to yourself, how are there some ways that I can go through and I can re-engage with my clients?

So this is going to be an invitation. You're going to actually invite them back to actually work together. What is that offer going to look like? Look back based off of what you've already done with the client, like I mentioned, what is going to be that next phase of your work together, And actually be intentional about working together and making that invitation.

I think that it's also very important just to kind of say this as well. And we're talking about follow ups and have that revenue during slower seasons, during summer, slower seasons, whichever, is to be able to go through and be intentional about client retention.

and be intentional about referrals. These things just do not just happen a lot of the times. Now, when you have systems in place, they are somewhat of a result of the systems that you have in place. However, there still has to be some type of intention done about it. So even what I would recommend is putting

on your calendar, even if you want to do something as simple as putting it on your calendar to say, okay, every, like for myself, every Friday, this is when I check in with clients. I have a system that's running for me on the backend, it's doing the check-ins when I forget, right? That knows that, okay, they've been done with service for six months now, they've been with service over a year now. That's a system that I have in the background.

But I can still go through and have an actual, even if you wanted to say manual system that you may put in place to be intentional about making the ask, actually inviting them back to work with you. And that's not gonna be difficult for you to do if you've already put in place this nurture framework where you're already staying in contact with your clients. It's just about being, you don't have to worry about them looking at you sideways or.

thinking that you are bothering them, they wanna hear from you because you have already did a good job for them. So they want to go through and they wanna hear from you. They want to know exactly what is next. And then the last thing is going to be the activate, So this is when you actually ask for a referral. Now I think that this is a part that's not, it's very underutilized.

is actually asking for a referral from your past clients. Like, do you know anybody that's just like you, that I just support businesses just like yours? Do you know anybody that you can introduce me to that would be in need of my services? And if you do, could you also make an introduction for me? Can you introduce me? I literally had a client that I did, again, five-star client experience set up. She's a LinkedIn business coach.

And we worked together and within from her bill time, within less than 30 days, and I think it was actually only two weeks, she already had referred a paid client to me. She already had referred someone and they paid, they actually paid in full and they started working with me in less than two weeks of actually going through and doing the service.

And when I tell you that when you're getting referrals, when you're asking for referrals and they're like, ⁓ yeah, I know somebody that can use this service. When you get on those sales calls, if you do sales calls, those calls are a little bit different. The reason why they're different is because they already are somewhat familiar of the offer and they're already kind of sold.

When I did that sales call, they were already sold. They already knew that they wanted to offer. So it wasn't me trying to, I mean, I'm not going to say convince because I don't convince on sales calls. Like we really literally just talk about the goals. We talk about that type of stuff. What are you, what are your goals? What are you hoping to do? And then if it's a good fit, then we move forward. Right. But I didn't have to do really any of that. I can probably say that that particular call was probably the call that I talked the least.

The least, and my calls are one hour, okay? My calls are one hour, and I literally talked the least on that call. I didn't have to really talk. I allowed them to talk. I allowed them to be able to express themselves, okay? So if you're thinking, again, that your summertime is typically slow, and you've kind of come to the part where you're like, you come to the point that you have accepted that summertime is just gonna be slow because people are just not buying or.

People are out of town, so they don't want to be bothered with your offers. They don't want to pay for stuff. Their kids are out. They want to enjoy their family. All of this could be true. Well, part of this could be true. It could be true that they are going on vacation. It could be true that yes, their kids are out of school, but it does not mean that they are not buying. It does not mean that they're not buying. And let's say, for example, even if they're not buying.

What offer do you have that maybe they can take advantage of at the end of summer? So maybe they're already, maybe you get them in your ecosystem and then the service isn't rendered to them till right when they get back after summer break. You can easily do that as well, okay? So if you're trying to think about ways of how you can get people to kind of boost your revenue up this summer, this summer, or again, any type of slow season that you have, because this does not have to go through and just apply to summertime.

Simply follow up. It's a really simple strategy. And it seems like so simple that you think about Kenniqua like, why are you even telling this? We know this. But are you doing it? Are you doing it? I want you to do it. And I want you to use the strategies in this podcast episode, YouTube video, to actually go through and do it.

Okay, so if you're listening to this and you're like, okay, I know I need to go through and do this. I don't even know where to start or I don't have a system in place to actually go through and get this done to follow up with these people. That's exactly what we can do inside of a client experience strategy session. Okay, this is my accelerator and this is exactly what it's for. We can jump on a call together and we can look at exactly where you are.

and we can map out exactly what your follow-up system needs to look like for your specific business. Okay, so I'm gonna put the link to that in the description box below and all of the resources that you need in order to be able to take your business to the next level.

All right, so if your summer tends to feel a little bit slower for you, again, I just want you to remember that there's money already in your business. You don't have to go out and find it. You don't have to go out and try to figure out a new marketing strategy in order to be able to get leads because

You already have people who have raised their hand and you already have clients that know you, they like you and they trust you. So you want to go back through those two groups of people. You want to follow up with those leads again from the last six months, check in with your past clients. And that is going to be your strategy.

And again, if you wanna go deeper on how to actually go through and build that system out, I want you to go through checkout. It's gonna be episode number 36 is actually called, You Don't Need More Lease, You Just Need a System. Okay, so it's on the podcast. I also have it on YouTube and it's going to walk you through exactly how to set that system up for your business.

And then next week, I am sitting down with one of my past clients, Tina. actually love, love, love, Tina. She is a LinkedIn business coach and y'all this conversation that I had with her was so good. We built out her full five-star client experience CRM system inside of HoneyBook. And part of that build actually included a reminder and a follow-up system.

And within 30 days, less than 30, 30 days of having that system in place, she landed two new clients directly from those follow ups. OK, so what I'm saying to you in this episode, I know this to be true. I know this to actually go through and work. So she was able to go through and land two new clients from those follow ups and so much more. So that episode is going to be available on the systems rehab podcast next week. So definitely go through and check that

and make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss a thing. And I'll talk to you in the next episode.