Imagine that you had three new enquiries for your one to one service tomorrow, you have a call with them, and they all want to work with you. Hooray!
Imagine that you had 30 people all want to join your membership or group programme within the space of a week. Wouldn’t that be amazing!
When you read the two statements above, how did you feel? Excited and positive and how it really would be amazing. Or did the thought fill you with dread about how you would cope with those new clients and members joining in a short space of time?
I wrote here {Link to GWC blog] about capacity, and how as business owners we need to pay attention to our capacity for what we take on in the business, both functionally for service delivery and energetically for ourselves. It’s all too easy to say yes to many opportunities, that are both great and not so great, to be busy and feel like our business is growing.
Having capacity in a business isn’t just all about the people and whether they have the space, it’s also about the systems that support the business, and whether they will continue to support what is needed if they are put under pressure.
Let’s look at these two scenarios and the basic systems that support them:
New Client onboarding – multiple clients
At the very least, you will be raising a contract or agreement to work together, sending an invoice, arranging a kick off call, familiarising yourself with information that is needed for their work, and getting access to any platforms to carry out what you need to.
System: raising invoices and contracts: If you are still raising contracts and invoices manually there will be a time element involved here for creating the documents and sending over. This can be clunky, so it’s a good move to get set up an invoicing software and have template agreements saved in signing platforms such as Dropbox Sign making it quick and simple for you to raise and your client to sign.
System: booking calls: Calendly or Acuity Scheduling are both great tools for booking in appointments without the email back and forth trying to find a date.
System: information sharing: set up a shared Dropbox or Google Drive folder to share documents you need. Passwords can also be shared securely on encrypted platforms such as 1Password or LastPass.
Pressure Test: Onboarding works best with a mix of in person and automated systems. You have just started working with a new client so it’s important to keep that personal touch, but adding in the use of invoicing, signing and calendar systems means you can quickly get these key elements done.
These systems will make the basics of onboarding one or many clients easy and streamlined.
New members joining
If you have an online membership or group programme, you are likely to have the payment and access parts automated, so for many members joining at once this shouldn’t be a problem, but there are still things to consider.
System: payment software
Can the software you use handle a lot of purchases in a short space of time? Some platforms have caps at so many transactions per day or week, and some can get a little backlogged with processing if there are a lot of attempts at once. It’s worth looking in to this to make sure the platform you use can handle many requests. You never know when you might need it!
System: platform login details
Similar to the payment platforms, can your membership software handle many new members joining? I have worked with many online membership platforms, and I would say that nearly all of the standalone options such as Kajabi, Teachable or Thinkific will be able to handle multiple members joining. Some website plugins however can be a little more temperamental so it’s worth checking out their capabilities.
System: welcoming new members
This part should be a breeze, as you will hopefully have an email welcome sequence that automatically goes out when a new member joins, and have an area in your membership or programme that guides them where to go and what to do next. You may choose to do a welcome call, but you’ll likely be organising one for all new members at once so without the scheduling headaches!
Pressure Test
With little or no one to one time needed here, if your systems are robust and your software limits can cope with multiple transactions or joining members at once then there shouldn’t be anything needed other than keeping a watchful eye to make sure there are no tech glitches.
The success of your business is reliant so much on the systems that support it. Without you knowing and truly understanding what systems you need, and how any tech you use works, your business foundation will be flakey and it will be harder for you to deliver the service you really want and deserve.
Take a moment today to run a few systems through the “What if I had….” scenario and see if it highlights anything in your business that needs review.
