You might not think you are in the business of pleasure, but we all are, to one degree or another. If we don’t give our clients a great experience, they’re not likely to come back. That’s why we can learn so much from the entertainment industry, even though we might not be in it directly.

Pleasing Clients

From the day a prospect calls you, emails you, or enters your shop, what do they see, hear, feel, taste, and smell? Is it pleasant?

• In a movie theater, the smell of popcorn is tempting as you take your comfortable seat and watch previews, engaging you while you wait for the start of the movie.
• In a spa, you are treated to snacks and drinks in a comfortable robe while you wait for your session.
• In a restaurant, you are served drinks, music, and appetizers while you enjoy the company of your friends and family.

There’s no reason your customer experience couldn’t be as enjoyable, even if you are a dentist, a doctor, a lawyer, or a professional that’s associated with a somewhat unpleasant service.

Your Company Experience in Surround Sound

The first step you can take to enhancing your prospects’ or clients’ experiences is to map out all of the interaction points they have with you. Your list could look like this:

• Website
• Phone call
• Office appointment
• Email
• Billing

Or this:

• Walk-in to store
• Employee greeting and interaction
• Sales at register
• Charge on credit card statement
• Thank you note

Make a chart like the one below for each touch point and fill in what you think your customer may experience with you at each point. It’s perfectly OK to have some that won’t apply; I don’t know of any technology that will get your email to smell!

As you review your chart, are there any areas in which you could improve? The nice thing about charting it out is that it organizes it for you so that any weaknesses or strengths pop right out. The ones highlighted in yellow could be improved!

Where you have touch points with limited sensory impact such as email, phone, and billing, it is important to make the most of the senses you do have access to since they will be amplified.

If you feel like you cannot be impartial or simply don’t know what your customer experiences, you can hire a mystery shopper to provide an objective report of your customer experience.

A Movie with Great Reviews

Your client already has a movie going on in their mind about what it will be like to do business with you. Your job is to impress them with an experience they won’t forget, and you can do it in any situation, no matter what business you’re in.

Examples:

• Dentists: One of the worst parts of going to the dentist is hearing the sound of the drill. Pass out iPods and headphones with a choice of music styles to drown out the unpleasantness.
• Restaurant owners: If your customers have to wait for a table, hire a mime, clown, or performer that can keep them occupied and make the wait time go fast.
• Plumbers: Leave behind a clean house and scented oils for the kitchens and bathrooms.
• Retail shop owners: Heat up a pinch of cinnamon in your microwave to have the whole store smelling like an apple pie or some scent that coordinates with your merchandise.

If your clients call you by phone rather than see you in person, you can script a pleasant greeting for your employees to memorize. For clients on hold, give them something memorable to listen to such as a poem, jokes, or unusual music. Even with email, you can create a great signature line that appeals to your clients, and of course, craft a message full of gratitude and compliments.

When you can wrap an excellent experience around the products and services you sell to customers, your word-of-mouth will spread, saving you time and money. Think of what will work in your industry, and give your ideas a try.

As our businesses grow and our schedules fill with serving clients, it’s easy to overlook how our personal financial needs might have changed. Here are eight best-practice tips of millionaire business owners and how they personally protect their wealth.

1. Move your money from banks to brokerage accounts.

Instead of having their money tied up at banks, most affluent individuals hold brokerage accounts at investment companies. The advantage is that you can more easily invest excess cash in fairly low-risk interest- or dividend-bearing investments such as bonds. Many multi-millionaire use their brokerage accounts as checking accounts.

The bottom line is your money should always be working for you. Make sure you don’t have huge amounts of cash lying around earning no interest. It’s harder these days to get a good interest rate, but not impossible, and every little bit helps.

2. Protect yourself with insurance.

Are you fully covered for every contingency that could happen, and if not, are you willing to shoulder the risk? Just a few of the types of policies to consider include:

1. Personal: home, auto, health, disability, dental, life, umbrella, and many more.
2. Business: property and casualty, business services liability, director’s and officer’s liability, worker’s compensation, business interruption, auto, non-owned auto if you have employees driving for you using their own cars, health insurance for workers, life insurance for officers, and many more.

Meeting with an insurance professional who can perform a risk audit can help make sure you are aware of any coverage holes, especially if your business has grown significantly or your needs have changed.

3. Keep more of what you make.

There’s nothing wrong with paying the least amount of taxes that are legally required. The fourth quarter is when to make most of your tax-saving moves, so don’t wait until March or April when it could be too late.

Make sure you have a great tax adviser, and reach out to them at least once a quarter for ideas on how to keep more of what you make.

4. Hire slow, fire fast.

You’ve probably heard it before, but it’s more important than ever. It’s a good idea to run extensive background checks on all new hires (and current employees as well if you haven’t done so). A criminal background check is essential, and I’d recommend running employment verification, social security number match, education verification, and social media search.

If your state laws allow it, I recommend running a credit check too. Risk of fraud becomes real when three things are present: 1- opportunity due to poor cash controls (which is more common in small businesses), 2- dire need, which has grown exponentially lately as life savings have been depleted and borrowing has increased, and 3- rationalization in the employee’s mind. You can really only control number one, but with a credit check and where it’s allowed by law, you can see if number two is present. Be careful, though; in many states, it’s illegal to make hiring decisions based on credit checks if the person won’t directly be handling money.

5. Create a bright future.

Pay your future self out of the earnings you make today. Set up a retirement plan so that you can maximize deductions and ensure a comfortable future for yourself.

6. Make it easy on your heirs.

It’s never a good time to think about what will happen after you’re gone. But especially if you run a business, you’ll want to not only have a succession plan in place, you’ll want to make sure someone knows enough about your operations to be able to slip in to do an orderly shutdown, a sale, or continue operations. Something as simple as not knowing your passwords and pins or where all of your accounts or contracts are can wreak havoc on your grieving loved ones, not to mention business operations.

If your personal will is not up to date and your circumstances have changed, then it’s time to revisit documents such as your medical instructions, organ donation wishes, burial preferences, and the like. Gruesome, yes. But imagine these two scenarios: 1- your grieving family and they don’t have a clue where anything is, what to do next, what you wanted, and the confusion that exacerbates the grief, and scenario 2- your grieving family who has a clear checklist of where everything is, who to call for help, what to do next, and exactly what your wishes were in these emotional times. Which one would you wish on your loved ones?

7. Pay attention to your numbers.

I hear it over and over again: the people who become millionaires are clearly on top of their operational numbers. They know their business by the numbers, inside and out.

A good accountant can help you develop the systems and reports you need to stay close to your numbers like the millionaires do. Let us know how we can help you with this.

8. Pay it forward.

When you’ve been successful, you can decide if you want to support causes that are near to your heart. This might mean helping people in need that you can relate to, volunteering, or simply providing a big tip to wait staff. People who are highly successful often create their own foundations and nonprofit organizations so that they can become champions of causes they believe strongly about.

How did you measure up on the eight tips to fiscal responsibility? If you know you have some work to do, mark it on your calendar, break it down into small manageable steps, and get started on building or protecting your financial prosperity. If we can help in any way, please feel free to call us.