How to grow with client retention with Hemant Varshney

Episode Notes

Transcript

Hemant: Hey, I’m Haman Vay. I’m the founder and CEO of Digicom. I’m very excited to be on Council Cast today. Karin, thanks for having me on.

Karin: Thanks, Haman, for being here. This is gonna be an interesting conversation. We were talking about kind of how to make this sound more glossy, but honestly I feel like, you know, we’re all grownups. We can just kind of talk, talk about the topic in terms of how to grow law firms, and this is an important one that I feel like it’s overlooked a lot, so, With all of that build up, the topic and the title for the show today is Strategies for Growth through Client Retention.

So we’re gonna talk a lot about client retention and why that matters and why that’s a big deal. And, I feel like you’ve been around long enough and so have I, and you kind of realize. A certain amount of time into your career that, sales is not all about going out and just getting more and more and more and that top of the funnel and bringing people in, right?

Like all of a sudden, I feel like at some point there was this light bulb moment where it’s like, You know, it would be a lot smarter to just hang on to the ones that I have and focus on, building that. And, you know, they’re already here, they’re already warm and welcome. And so let’s talk about that Hayman.

so let’s talk about you. And you also have a history of huge client retention, 82%, right? I, I think that was what I read in, in the info you sent over. So, so what are some strategies that you have?

Hemant: Yeah, I think, you know, e everybody loves the top line, fancy growth numbers, and, I’ve fallen trapped to that too. It’s just, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s part of business, it’s part of the excitement, it’s part of the allure. But with all that growth, if your clients are churning, you bring a client in month one and they’re gone month two.

that’s, you put in a lot of effort and work and you know, the reality of the ROI on that, on that specific deal, or that client might just not be there. Maybe you spent $10,000 going to a trade show and you landed a client and you united 5k and that was it. And, so you’re in the whole 5k, right?

Like very, very like straightforward, simple. Way to think about it. And, client retention is super important. You know, if you’re any sort of service-based business, it’s about delivering good service. It’s

Karin: Yeah.

Hemant: building that relationship. It’s about providing information, and helping your partners out in any which way you can.

And you know, there’s this whole scope creep, like, oh, this is out of our purview, but. There’s so many different strategies that, you know, I’d, I’d love to just kind of, talk through,

Karin: Yeah, I feel like this is one of these things where people, even early in my career, I would have friends or family say, what’s the difference between marketing and advertising? And I think people generally think of, first of all, marketing and advertising and all of those things, all in one little tiny, narrow category.

And, You know, even like attorneys look and they’re like, okay, I see a billboard for this. You know, say personal injury attorney every time I drive to my office. That’s their marketing, and it’s like there’s so much more. There is traditional marketing, there’s offline marketing, there’s every other part of marketing, and there’s, we’ve had so many episodes lately where we’re talking about this reputation building side of marketing where providing good service and doing a great job.

Is part of your marketing strategy. And I’m not just saying this kind of like hyperbolic, like this, doing the doing great work is going to then boost your referrals. It’s gonna boost, your name out there. So that’s kind of what we’re digging into today. Doing great work, providing, you know, that kind of, experience for your clients, that you create a reputation.

Hemant: Yeah. and, you know, I guess like if we are, we break this down into multiple categories for retention, right? Let’s just say the first is testimonial and social proof, right? the work you do, just like you, mentioned, Karin, it’s, it’s important, you know, be a good partner, listen to what your partners are looking for, identify challenges and.

be the support system if you can. Sometimes you’re not able to like, solve for that issue, but maybe if you’re not able to solve for that issue and you have a partner that is able to say your,your client needs some sort of liability insurance and you work with, you know, you represent a liability insurance,you know, person, lack of better word right now, you can connect them, right?

And so like there’s a value add there or. if your client is not understanding something in a, in, in the way, maybe you’re providing that information, trying to break it down and ask them like, Hey, like, you know what, part of this, isn’t, very clear. Like, how can I provide, like, provide you this information in the clearest way possible that builds relationships, that earns the testimonials and that social proof that’s so important.

Karin: Yeah. and also, kind of setting up your systems and I feel like it’s a constant review and adjustment with your systems. I have gone through my systems and had different ways of doing a similar, you know, I’ve done a similar kind of work for more than 15 years But I have done it differently probably at at least 10 or 15 different ways.

So I used to have, you know, a certain kind of, intake call and then I used to have a certain kind of process for proposals and I’d used to have a certain kind of process for going through the project and following up on the project and, you know, taking care of the clients afterwards. And I’ve gone through each of those steps of that client kind of lifespan completely differently.

Over the years. And so, reviewing and making sure that you’ve got the best systems and then recognizing that that needs to change over time as

Hemant: Yeah. Yeah. And that feedback loop, right? Like I’m, I’m sure as you’ve been changing the systems, it’s because of feedback you’ve either gotten internally, or from your clients. you know, something I like to ask partners on deals that we don’t sign. it’s, Hey, you know, why did you decide not to go with us?

Could, is there anything we could have done better? please let us know so that we can be better for our partners in the future. And sometimes it’s, you know, some, couple years ago it was, Hey, you don’t offer creative services and we need that. So I built out an entire creative team, so that would never be an issue again.

And. like that also increased our stick with clients. So our, once we provided the creative support, our clients just stayed with us much longer, right? And that helped with that overall retention. So that feedback loop is very important.

Karin: It’s huge if you can get them to reply, because I mean, you know, let’s be honest, we all have a million emails, we all have all these requests for thoughts and feedback and all of that stuff, you know, and it’s like, you know, everybody says it’s just one quick minute. Well, one quick minute times, however many emails you have adds up pretty quickly.

recognizing that you’re not gonna get every single person to respond and say why they didn’t choose to work with you. But when you get those feedback emails, it’s amazing because you have to recognize that it’s probably representing at least 10 or 20 other interactions that you had with other people similar to that.

It’s kinda like roaches. You see one, there’s probably at least a hundred more, right?

Hemant: Yes, yes.

Karin: but you know, in a good way, like if you get the feedback, it probably represents at least, you know, a handful of other people that felt the same way. So, yeah, if, if you have a process for following up and it’s kind of a painful, awkward question to ask, like, why, why didn’t you want, want me?

You know? But at the same time, if you can get that feedback super valuable. 

So tell us, break it down some of the processes that you have in place to make sure. That you, kind of give that sort of experience that keeps your clients sticking with you?

Hemant: Sure. so, you know, before we take on any project, the first part is, we audit their work. It’s a free audit. There are partners out there that. We will charge like two to $4,000 to do the audit. We do, we do it for free. a lot of people will come back to me and be like, why don’t you charge for it?

The reason we do not charge for it is because I want to know if that goal the client wants to hit is actually attainable. That’s the first part. And being real about 

1. sometimes these goals aren’t attainable and you’ll put the media plan together. You put all the information together and, you know, you might be like halfway through that plan and you realize, hey, you’re not gonna hit that goal.

Karin: But if they’ve already hired you and they’re spending a th you know, however many thousands of dollars for this audit, then you feel responsible to a goal that’s not attainable. And so it puts you in this really awkward position where they’ve hired you, they wanna do this thing, and they’re saying, listen, I wanna build a rocket and I wanna get to Mars by Tuesday, and here’s some money.

And they assume that money. Is gonna do whatever thing they throw at you. But I think that’s really smart that you, you bring them in without any kind of false pretense. Like, okay, let’s take a look and then we’re gonna work together to set a goal. Like I don’t have the ability to get you to Mars by Tuesday.

Hemant: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And like, you know, the goal might be like, Hey, we wanna spend $10 and make a hundred dollars, but in reality, they might be able to spend $10 and only make $12. And so doing that audit allows me to understand, Hey, can we get you to, to the point you’re looking for or not?

And do we have similar partners we’ve worked with where. I can take like in market, you know, data points to understand if this is achievable. so we do the audit first?

Karin: So I have a question. So in that process, do you have, a way of kind of evaluating those clients as well? I mean, I’ve been doing this long enough and I think you have too, where part of knowing who is going to be a great long-term client is kind of evaluating them from the beginning and knowing, that if they don’t meet a certain set of criteria, That it’s gonna be a lot of waste of time and effort and it’s, it’s never gonna work out in a certain way.

So do you do that also?

Hemant: Yeah. And, this is more like qualitative than quantitative. The audit is entirely quantitative. The qualitative part is, is the partner willing to take some of the feedback and, you know, is the partner excited to make the changes or, are they going to loop the ripe? Team members in cuz like, oftentimes if they’re leaders in the organizations and they’re the ones fingers to keyboards, it’s like sometimes it’s very guarded for them, right?

It’s like, no, like I run this process, it’s mine. And those partners might be hard to work with because they’re so hands to keyboards for running their marketing versus running the business, right? so when we find like friction points like that, I will talk to the team and, you know, before, like say the numbers that the partner wants are achievable, it’s also, hey, are we a good fit?

so I will ask my team, and eight outta 10 times I’ll probably listen to my team like, you know, 80% of the times. and if they’re like, Hey, don’t think they’ll be a good partner, then. You know, we’re just kind of candid with the client. Like, Hey, your goals are achievable. We just don’t think we’re the right fit.

Like,

Karin: What are some examples of, a not good fit?

Hemant: I have an example where someone’s not a good fit and I have an example of a partner that we’ve done the audit, we are testing through this stuff and it’s not working. So the first part right, is, We were working with a partner. We did the audit, they were asking for.

they basically wanted the audit. So we present the audits, but we don’t share them with the partner because you can easily take the audit and not hire us or give it to your existing agency or whatever it is. so they, we went back and forth. They wanted a media plan, they want, you know, and we executed across a lot of work after we would sign a contract, And then we were kind of, like the ball was kicked down, you know, and you’re just kind of like jostled around here and there and it’s like, okay, this probably isn’t gonna be a good partner for us.

Like that’s one example. and you know, the other example, great partner, absolutely great partner and. We are doing everything we can for this specific partner. you know, running tests quickly, developing the creatives, providing all the feedback. The issue we’re running into is that the media buying costs we forecast for similar products that we are running.

It’s almost four times the cost for this other partner, right? And so, the math just doesn’t work out. And so instead of holding the partner to, you know, the two, three month period, we have like, our contracts are the first basically 90 days, then it’s month to month. instead of holding this partner to the first 90 days, we’ve gone through a month of like really rigorous testing.

We need certain things in the site, rebuilt. and instead of holding the partner to the 90 days, we’re like, Hey, like, let’s test this one more week. Let’s get all the learnings. Let’s give you a wrap up campaign report. We will help you build this other piece and not charge you for the next two months because it’s throwing money down the window,you know, and that’s just being a good partner.

Karin: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so then they appreciate, they realize that you’re kind of an honest and truthful place. They can actually see kind of the results of where they’re trying to go. And, it’s just feels like a different kind of relationship then where, the first example that you were,

Hemant: Yeah.

Karin: providing.

Okay. So what other kinds of things do you do long term? Like let’s say you’ve done a kind of involved project with a client, and then let’s say it’s something like a website. You launch the website. How do you keep them around? And obviously this is different for a law firm than it would be for a marketing agency.

But what kind of strategies do you use? You know, because for a lawyer, a lot of times they’ll have some issue that comes up similar to our work where we are doing a project or a website or something and there’s a significant thing like the website or a legal issue, and then it kind of goes quiet. But they wanna keep them, you know, involved and sort of aware that they’re there if they need it.

So what do you guys do for that?

 

Hemant: we use Slack for communication. And, you know, maybe, other lawyers might use Microsoft teams or something of that nature. we have direct channels with all of our partners, so if our partners have a question, they can like, ping us. And, you know, most of the times, within two to three hours, they’ll have an answer of whatever it is they like, the, the information they’re looking for.

and so that direct line of communication. it builds that relationship with the client, it builds the trust and, you know, it creates like longevity. Whereas if the partner is working with another agency, that other agency will only jump on calls with them once every two weeks.

Versus for us it’s like, Hey, you want to speak today? Like, sure, here’s the time. If we can’t do it today, here’s the time tomorrow. or, and, and we’ll answer your questions pretty, you know, in, in a fair amount of times, like couple hours.

Karin: Yeah. Well, I, it is, and I feel like I, I know I’ve seen all these different, surveys and, you know, reports on. Basically just communication and the way that law firms are really poor. I know there was a recent one that talked about the number of firms that, first of all, they just don’t even answer. They don’t have a receptionist service, they just have like a voicemail where when someone is calling for a legal issue, and they, and you don’t answer, they’re not going to wait around.

They’re gonna go to the next guy. So that. Basic concept of communication and being responsive. I mean, that seems so sort of basic, but it’s amazing these days. Who doesn’t reply? Who doesn’t respond, who doesn’t have a system set up? Like, listen, I, I don’t respond to every single call immediately. I’ve got other things going on in my day.

If I were to get a phone call while we’re recording this episode, I’m obviously not gonna pick up the phone, but I have a system and a receptionist service set up so that the phone is answered and it’s answered by a human, and then it’s, it’s handled in a way. That’s professional and they feel like they’re taken care of.

So it’s not like it’s just going into nowhere land. It’s handled. So just setting up systems for that kind of stuff seems super basic, but you, you have to do it. This is basic business stuff.

Hemant: It is, and with every, you know, with AI and automation and there’s, you lose this human element and especially for something that is. Legal and somebody might have anxiety or a pressure and they need some sort of information.

Karin: Yeah.

Hemant: Having that receptionist, that receptionist service, sure it might cost you, you know, a couple hundred to a couple thousand dollars more a month, but you continue to build rapport with your clients and they understand that there is somebody there, and that is so invaluable and often forgotten right now.

Karin: Well, and honestly, you should be able to pretty quickly and easily put a value on that. Like if you’re getting so many calls a month and you look at how many you wouldn’t have answered. and if just one in any way pays for a thing, It pretty much covers the cost of that service. So, it should be one of those services that pays for itself at least a few times over.

if not, you’re kind of using it wrong, but, okay. So basic communication, I mean, you know, it sounds like some of these things are, are so common and easily understood. But I think people skip over them because of that reason. So basic communication, staying on top of things, you know, giving people an understanding of what they’re in for before they actually start paying you for anything.

What else do you use to, you know, kind of keep your, your client retention rate so high?

Hemant: I love getting to know our clients on a personal level outside of just work, so, If we can go do happy hour, we can go do dinner. If I am traveling across Europe and I have clients in Europe, I will make sure to stop by say hello and talk about something else that’s just doesn’t have to do business.

Like do you love golf? Do you love cars? Is it fashion week? What is it that excites you? What makes you tick outside of the working world? Because, you know, we’re, we’re connected to everything these days and it’s good to know. Your clients on that, like on a personal level especially because if there is an event going on, I’m going to use Fashion Week, and our client loves fashion and it’s like, Hey, I saw this thing on the news.

What are your thoughts on this?

Karin: Yeah.

Hemant: And like doing it in a meaningful way where you actually care, not in a way where it’s like, oh, I saw this. Like what are your thoughts? Like, it’s like, Hey, no, this was really cool. I thought maybe you could check this out. What do you think, you know, like building that sort of, understanding and rapport and being a human over just a business person that you know is getting paid, I think.

Goes so far beyond in building relationships and is just so unbelievably important.

Karin: It a hundred percent. I have some clients that I’ve been working with since the first year I started my agency, which is going on. 15 years now and a hundred percent of, not a hundred percent of the reason that they continue to work with me. But I would say, well, well over 50% of the reason that they continue working with me is they feel like they know me and they feel, not only do they know me, but they know I can just handle it.

And so they don’t necessarily know what their questions are, but I’ve got the answers And we’ve been working with each other for so many years that I’ve got this historical knowledge of their firm that would be really hard to replace by just getting some other person. And so we get on the phone and it’s like, Hey, this thing came up.

And oh, you know what? That ties back to that other thing that happened four years ago. Or also, you know, we just know each other personally, and it just feels like this is a colleague, this is someone I know. It’s not just this sort of faceless person on the end or other end of an email. and so that’s super, super important to kind of have a, a face and a personality and a relationship with that other person and as a human being, I think that’s awesome.

Hemant: yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Karin: So, what kinds of things do you actually do, in terms of kind of, do you send out any sort of little client gifts or reminders or what kind of actual tactics do you use for keeping in touch or, communicating with them?

Hemant: Yeah. so during the holidays we’ll send out like gift baskets and, you know, have gift baskets pretty much, but it’s. It’s, but that’s during the holiday. I, I think we do less just gift giving in that sense. But if I’m going to a client’s office and I know they like red wine, I will get a bottle of red wine or.

You know, their kids love this specific cookies and I’m down the block and I’ll, you know, buy a box of those cookies and bring, but that’s where the personal relationship part is important. So you, you know, you can, you can be a good partner and show that you care. And the fact that you remember these small details shows that you actually care, right?

Like, yeah.

Karin: yeah. And honestly, like when I think back over, there’s been probably a handful of sales experiences that I’ve had where I got off the phone or you know, walked away from whatever that experience was and I was like, That person was a master at kind of client, either client engagement or retention or just sales in general.

Like they, and like I, I think of, of these handful of people from time to time, and these are the things that make you really good at sales retention, business in general are all of those little details. Kind of having a conversation that doesn’t feel so smarmy and salesy and feels much more human

Hemant: Yeah.

Karin: And learning how to do that is really an art.

Hemant: Yeah. it’s, it’s in art. It’s also a lot of listening like it’s. Being patient and listening and understanding, and sometimes putting yourself in your like client’s position of like, Hey, they’re going through X, Y, and Z. They might feel like this, this is how we can help. and it’s that how can we help?

Right.

Karin: Right, exactly. Well, and that leads right into my next question, which is, do you have a system for kind of follow up and going back to clients after a certain amount of time and saying, you know, like you were just saying, how can we help? What’s, what’s next? What do you need from us? How, what’s, what are you trying to do that, that we could support?

Do you have a system for that?

Hemant: so I’ve used SurveyMonkey, and. I have basically done like the whole net promoter score kind of system, to understand if your client will promote you, how they feel about, you know, your, your services. and then I also like to ask, you know, if there is something that we are not doing and that can help you, what would that, what would you like us to do more?

So sometimes we’ll get. Information of, Hey, you know, reporting can be more streamlined or X, Y, and Z can happen. And if we see a pattern with multiple partners saying the same thing, then it’s, Hey team, here’s what we found out.

Karin: Yeah.

Hemant: How do we make this better?

Karin: Exactly. Yeah, I think That’s awesome. Just kind of asking the questions and letting it be sort of open-ended. feel like I, I’m k kind of such a systems person that I sort of want to put things in buckets and sort of, I think we all naturally wanna sort of categorize things, but if you’re asking for feedback a.

About how things could be better. It’s probably not an answer you already have, right?

Hemant: Yeah.

Karin: So you need to leave this as like, I’m picturing forms, you know, like your name, your email. This needs to be the big open box option where you are just letting them free form and fill in information so that you can get that super valuable feedback and, and make things better.

All right, so it is time for the book review. If you’re looking for some inspiration for your reading list. We have this really cool if I do say so myself, library on the website of all the books that our guests have recommended. business books usually tied to the topic that we’re talking about. And so, Haman, what’s the book that you’re gonna add to our library that you wanna recommend today?

Hemant: I am going to recommend Ray Dalio’s, book called Principles.

Karin: Okay. Tell us about that.

Hemant: So, Ray Dalio, he owns, the largest private hedge fund, in the world.

Karin: Oh, nice.

Hemant: yeah. And, basically his book of principles are principles that he created over time, to help ’em be a better, you know, entrepreneur, family member, husband, father.

and it talks about all different principles that you could, create and employ in your life. One of the most important principles is create your own principles, like what are your actual values and

Karin: Oh, I think that’s good. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz I mean, it makes you sit down and not just sort of like rinse and repeat and take what other people have already said. It makes you really think it through.

Hemant: Exactly. and I think it’s a, a great book because it’s taught me a lot of different, just a lot of different things, and made me question or understand like, what is, you know, what are some of my principles? Like there’s a principle that, that’s Ray Dalio’s, like just, you know, be cautious of someone that speaks in absolutes.

And that’s Ray’s principles, right? But like, as I was reading through this, I, I was reading through another book, 10 X Rule Grant Cardone before I even knew who Grant Cardone was. And there were just so many things and absolutes in this book. and I was just reading through it and I was just like, but this isn’t absolute, this isn’t, like, it doesn’t, you know, fit so many different frameworks.

and then I Google Grant Cardone and it’s just like, you know, he’s a just speaker, billionaire person, like, just doing all these things. But, even after I learned all of that, about Grant Cardone, I still don’t agree that, you know, things are in es There are specific, yeah, they’re just, you know, specific, unique situations to everything.

Ended up using in like, things I learned from 10 X rule, for Digicom. Right. But, yeah, that’s just one of my principles. Like not, it’s, things aren’t absolute, things are unique. Yeah.

Karin: honestly, and I like the part about, it’s like be kind of wary of the people that are speaking in absolutes. Because first of all, a lot of times they’re, these coaches and coaches have become such a trendy thing and there are some really awesome, valuable coaches out there. But then there’s a lot of knot, there’s a lot of ones.

So it’s, it’s become sort of this very muddied, really high traffic area of, the world where it’s like, I do a hundred percent agree. If you’re speaking on absolutes, you are talking about one little narrow part of a certain kind of an industry, and you likely don’t know what my business is like, what my clients are like, the kind of work that we do and how we adjust for.

There are specific kinds of needs and so your absolute, even if I, it could be so much more valuable if you just take it down to 60, 70% of what you’re trying to say and like walk it back a little bit and say, Hey, listen, this applies to X, Y, Z, and it would be different in your situation by the following ways.

And it just all of a sudden you become so much more trustworthy by saying that instead of saying, This is the only way, this is the only way you can do things. And you know, I’ve, I’ve learned this the hard time. I’ve done a lot of different coaching programs and all of that stuff. I’ve read a million different business books and I’ve tried things that absolutely didn’t work and learned the hard way that.

No, I had this figured out and the way I was doing it was right. It just needed a, a minor tweak, not this complete left turn, you know? So I think that’s super valuable. This sounds awesome and I really think it ties in, to just add one more point. With everything that we’re talking about because we’re talking about marketing ideas, but they really are principles.

They’re all about kind of being human being, just a, a great person at whatever you’re doing and kind of setting these rules for how you’re gonna run your business. And so then as long as you’ve kind of defined these rules, then You know, it’s much more likely that it’ll be successful. So my next question, which I’ve kind of led into is, what’s a big takeaway that you’d like everyone to get from this episode?

 

Hemant: I think that it’s important for like, you know, the listeners to, We, we are speaking about retention and we’re speaking about marketing, right? But like to have all of that, it’s very important to be a good partner, whether it’s like in your, you know, personal life or it’s, with a specific client.

Like put yourself in their shoes, understand their pain points. If they’re not understanding what you are trying to inform them, maybe try something else. and it’s not about, Do. It’s, it’s not all about dollars and cents, it’s about like helping people for, you know, like at Digicom it’s helping our partners grow their businesses, right?

Like, and sometimes it’s a hard conversation of, Hey, we can’t, like, we think we can get you here, but we actually can’t, we don’t wanna hold you to a contract that we don’t think we can, you know, do. And so like, that’s putting our partners first, right? So,

Karin: Yeah, we wanna be honest with you. Like we, we expect to do X, Y, Z, but we’re not gonna guarantee it because of the following variables that are outside of our control. So we’re not gonna pretend like we have control over Google because. That would be nice, but we don’t, or you know, or whatever the case might be.

But we’re gonna be really honest and upfront with you and not promise you things that we’re gonna later regret and you’re later gonna be upset about. yeah. And so, I mean, that kind of goes in line with everything that you’re saying. Just be a great human, do a great job, all of those things. But it, it then leads into you having a great business.

Hemant: Exactly.

Karin: Awesome. Haman Varshney is the founder and c e o of Digicom, and we were talking a lot about client retention, but also just these great principles, which is the book that we will link to, obviously on the show notes and everything. and all of these things that lead to a path of client retention that then brings you the kind of revenue that’s so much easier and so much.

More manageable. And, what I’ve found over time is these retained clients, they trust you. They bring in more money. It’s, it’s the best client you can possibly have. So figuring out how to do that and get more of those is really the best path to a more sustainable, calm, successful business from, from what I’ve seen.

So, thank you so much. I thought that was a great conversation.

Hemant: Yeah, me too. Thank you so much for having me. This is awesome.

 

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