YouTube Transcript:
Website Discovery Workshop

hey welcome everybody Welcome to the
agency Discovery blueprint My Hope in
this Workshop is to give you all the
actionable strategies we use in our
agency to be able to execute Discovery
ultimately to be able to close more
deals and more higher value deals okay
so for those of you that do not know me
I'll spend a few minutes a minute
telling you a little bit about me but
first off I want to let you know why
this blueprint at the end of the day I
know that there are a lot of agency
owners out there that do
some sort of Discovery they usually do
it for free a lot of
agencies do not do any sort of Discovery
at all and I want to let you know that
if you follow this blueprint you will be
able to get paid and close more higher
value deals right so no matter how many
leads come into your agency whether it's
a couple of dozen or just a few the idea
is you want to close as many of them as
possible and it's important to do that
by delivering value by building trust
and demonstrating your expertise we
built my robotic in a similar manner to
be able to deliver value in that
strategy call and establish some
Authority and build some trust and show
them that you can do what you're talking
about
and in a similar way Discovery is just
an extension of that model okay so my
hope here is that once you know how to
do this or if you already know how to do
this by following some of the tactics
and strategies here you'll not only be
able to close more deals but close
higher value deals by asking the right
questions and following the right
sequences to also making sure that you
minimize things like scope creep and
budget creep which ultimately lead to
disappointments right so oftentimes
we'll see in many of the Facebook groups
that we're in that someone says
something like hey this project went on
too long or we under bid this and one of
the benefits of an effective Discovery
is also to minimize that and we'll cover
that in a minute so the common sales
problems that I had earlier on my agency
that maybe some of you can relate with
is that someone calls you or sends an
email and then ultimately you jump on
some sales calls and you realize you're
just dealing with the tire kicker
someone who is interested in figuring
out
how much it cost to build a project but
really they're not looking to work with
you you're treated as a commodity where
they look at you and say something like
hey look you're charging ten thousand or
five thousand for this but I realized if
I use Wix or Squarespace or this
offshore company that I can get it for a
fraction of that price and then you have
other other projects where you think
that you're going to close the deal
because everything looks good and then
you realize they come back to you and
say something like hey no I only can
afford 50 of what you actually quoted
and there's no way to fill that Gap
you've spent hours in sales prep what it
looked like for me before was before we
built Marvel bought it was I jump on a
call people would give me a little bit
of information I would then go and do a
bunch of audits from different places
I'd ask them a lot of questions we'd
even do some research on how to code it
what plugins to use and then we'd bring
all of that and then present it to them
and then realize sometimes we'd win the
deal and other times we wouldn't
and a lot of hours were spent and we did
that work for free and ultimately I hate
selling I'm not big on using these sales
tactics and so I needed to find a way to
add value in the process and I just
struggled with that and that led to me
having low close rates so I want to give
credit where it's due I run a very
successful agency here in Phoenix I've
learned along the way from many
different people so what I'm sharing
with you is this discovery process that
I initially learned from a group called
you gurus led by Brent and then I
learned some other things from Troy Dean
and the agency Mavericks now which used
to be called WP elevation maybe seven
years ago I learned a few things and I
took that and adapted it what I'm going
to share with you here is my version of
that obviously take whatever you can
applied to your agency model because
you'll see here that Discovery for
example for maybe a five thousand dollar
brochure site may be different from not
maybe will be different from maybe a
twenty thousand dollar sales and
marketing brochure side or a thirty
thousand dollar web application or a
thirty thousand dollar e-commerce site
or a ten thousand dollar e-commerce site
if that's what you build the reason I
share the slide is just to let you know
that like many of you I started out
somewhere and I've had the opportunity
to work with Mom and Pop companies all
the way to large National non-profits
and Fortune 500 companies or Google
partner have great reviews all of that
type of stuff the point is anything I'm
teaching here today is not theoretical
it's what we apply in our agency today
and it works today
I sold my first website for 400-ish
dollars over 20 years ago since then my
agency has been able to close millions
of dollars all kinds of deals from 10 to
multi six figure deals and along the way
I've adapted this discovery process to
work with no matter who I'm working for
so it doesn't matter where you are in
your business or the type of companies
you work for my hope is the framework
I'm giving you today will be something
that you can put in place to to to
leverage and effectively close more
deals with whoever you work with Okay so
it's really important not to hear what
I'm saying and say oh we don't charge
this or we don't work with those type of
companies at the end of the day you have
to figure out
what works best in your agency and for
the type of customers you work with
so what should you expect from this
presentation I'm going to give you a
quick overview of What discovery is our
Blog has like a 5 000 word Discovery
blog so if you want to spend more time
learning that at a slower Pace check
that out but I'll be covering What
discovery is I'll be talking to you
about the benefits of Discovery
especially paid obviously if you do free
Discovery that's totally fine I'll be
making my case as to why I believe you
should be charging for it and why
Discovery is even more important this
year than it's ever been in the history
of web agencies in my opinion especially
with the ongoing growth of AI and its
impact on our industry I'll be talking
to you about the meeting structures and
how I do that the questions I ask for
those of you that took action and jumped
on there was something that I was
looking to build into a paid resource
with this Workshop but because you took
the time to invest in yourself I will be
providing you with a Word document with
100 or so questions all by category that
we've put together over the years and
I'll give you some of the emails I used
to position Discovery and one for just a
basic side and one for an Ecom site so
you can see the difference of how I
position that as well as some insights
to what we put together as
so in our Solutions presentation as a
deliverable and then we'll go through a
live q a all right I speak fast please
feel free to tell me to slow down if
needed again I want to condense this
into
as much actionable points as I can as
well as removing the fluff so I'll just
be sticking to what what I believe you
guys need right now okay so what is
Discovery for me I believe Discovery is
a series of Consulting questions where
we can map out the specific needs of a
client or Prospect
to a project deliverable when I speak to
our clients or potential prospects I
tell them they get to benefit from 20
years of experience of me building
successful businesses online oftentimes
I tell the people that I'm working with
is they're paying for what's in my head
and not the type of coding or design
work we do that is part of what they see
but really it's me being able to map out
their challenges to a solution and I'll
walk you through how we do that in the
framework we use and ultimately the big
thing here is we believe in investing
time to analyze the goals and challenges
of the organization or business we're
working with to develop a solution to
their problem that drives growth okay so
this is really important because many
times people are that when I teach this
or share this with either our prospects
or customers or other agency owners
they're asking things like hey Cliff how
do we take this down instead of four
meetings to three years sort of three
meetings to one or how can we avoid it
the reality is in our agency we charge
based on the value we can deliver and
the reason we can deliver value is
because we're able to ask the right
questions
to the right type of businesses and then
get those answers and then deliver a
value that can solve that solution think
about it this way each of you have a
business right you've worked hard you've
learned how to develop code or design or
put multiple aspects of Consulting
together to solve a business problem if
anyone were to come in and say to you
hey look in an hour I can change your
business do you really think they could
do that probably not right because
within an hour it's going to be really
hard for them to understand your
business model who you serve how you
serve them what which of your services
are most profitable and easiest to
execute things like that once people
know those type of things about your
business then they can effectively put
together a solution likewise you for
your prospects and your existing
customers
okay so does your sales process look
something like this mine used to look
like this to Circle 2015. generate lead
I'd be like yes I'd jump on the sales
call maybe one or two more and then
after that I'll get a little bit
information do my leg work put together
a proposal send off a proposal cross my
fingers and hope that I see a
notification from
my proposal app that they've signed it
and if not I'm just going to set up a
call
or an email to follow up sometimes they
ghost me if your process looks something
like this I highly recommend you you
change that up I have another training
inside my robotic called the V4 agency
sales framework where I talk about that
I'm only putting this in place so that
you understand the context of how we
present Discovery so our pre-sales
qualification process ensures that I
speak to the right people who one can
generally afford to pay me that I can
help and that ultimately are going to
understand the importance of Discovery I
do that by putting them through an
intake form and asking them questions
like what problem are they trying to fix
what's it costing their business this
way I can understand that they're
looking to solve a bigger problem than
just build a website because building a
website usually is just a remedy to a
bigger problem that they have which is
we need more leads or we need automation
or we need better sales and marketing
resource for a company to grow whatever
that is I want to ask questions so that
when we get 10 or so or 100 or so leads
coming into our pipeline or recorder
that I'm only speaking to the 20 25 of
those that I know I can help the others
I'm usually passing them on or letting
them obviously find another solution for
their business so once I get on that
sales call before we get into Discovery
I'm usually doing some research
understanding who they are doing a
couple of audits presenting some value
to them so the so my sales call Strat I
don't call it a sales call my strategy
call outline is about
60 seconds to meet and greet and set an
agenda another minute or two telling
them about us just the results we offer
what they can expect with working with
us asking them some questions I then go
through presenting some value through
showing them insights we've identified
from our audits
I address any objections they have about
what next steps look like and then I
tell them look I hope you enjoyed the
strategy call in the last 30 minutes or
25 minutes the next step is really doing
a deep dive into your business the big
thing that I want you to take away from
this is that what would it look like if
you could present Discovery in a manner
like this if you could tell your
potential prospects or customers hey
what would it look like if you got an
actionable blueprint that would grow
your business by 20 or 30 percent in the
next 12 months what would that mean for
your business would what would that be
worth to you our in-depth Discovery
process does exactly that I want to
pause here because most people don't
look at Discovery in this perspective
whatever the outcome is let's just say
you do a web application or it's
e-commerce if it's e-commerce something
like this may matter and work if it's a
brochure website I want to challenge you
that by following again best practices
is of conversion optimization meaning
just building your website design to
convert more visitors into customers
doing on-page SEO helping them with
their GBP a lot of the things that we
put in place with my robot right you
really can help a business at least grow
their business by 20 30 from their
online growth or Revenue so think about
positioning it that way because once you
can come in to the mindset of hey when I
position Discovery it's really an
investment for that business you can
easily you can much easier
communicate that with confidence to your
prospect so that they can with
confidence sign up and pay for that or
do it for free depending on which way
you go so this is really a mindset that
you need to have which is it's an
investment once you believe it and are
able to present it in that manner it is
very important for your client or
Prospect to also have that same mindset
going into it so once I'm done with my
strategy call now we're diving right
into to Discovery for us it's a paid
Discovery okay so I'm not going to go
through this verbatim but really
this is what I'm saying to them right
like Discovery gives us the ability to
have a clear understanding of our
clients projects needs and goals once we
understand that we're able to develop a
clear scope but not just a clear scope
to build a website but to better
understand their business once we have
an understanding of their business we're
able to then provide them with clear
expectations of what we need from them
that might be copy or not branding or
not effective messaging for the USP or
taking them to store through story brand
or not and then we're able to say here's
this fixed scope of work it could be set
into multiple phases or not here's an
investment number or budget
and ultimately we're able to do this
effectively so that we can avoid
expectation gaps which ultimately lead
to disappointments we can avoid delays
in Project launch and additional
unnecessary expenses right so these are
benefits right here these are all
benefits that every business owner wants
no one wants expectation gaps no one
wants delays in their project and really
no one wants unnecessary expenses and if
you flip that around to you that just
means you have fixed scope you have
ample time to do the project and you're
ensuring you're getting paid fairly for
the work you're doing or paired well
paid well
right and then I tell them something
like the investment amount for discovery
for a project like this is two thousand
dollars now the way I usually look at it
is Discovery is going to be about 10 of
what I'm going to be charging for the
project all right you have to figure out
what works for you
but that's usually around what we charge
and then one of the things that we tell
them to again Lower the barrier to entry
to the next step is that hey look
whatever you invest in Discovery that's
applied as a credit towards your project
so when you work with us for example
with the website web application even if
we do for example digital marketing
whatever we end up putting into the
research for discovery that becomes a
line item for planning and strategy for
their project right I tell them planning
to failing to plan is planning to fill
and the important thing I want to tell
you here that we also do just because
we're comfortable with the services we
offer is I tell them look if you are
concerned for whatever reason obviously
you know you're getting a discovery
credit but past that I want to let you
know that we're also offering you a
hundred percent money back guarantee
book the first discovery call if you
don't feel like it's the best value
you've received all week or you're not
happy with the process after the first
call you can just go ahead and let us
know and we'll pay you back
would you pay this and we'll part ways
and we've not we've never had anyone for
the last seven eight years we've been
doing paid Discovery we've had no one
take us up on that offer okay so be
confident with what you do so before we
jump in to Discovery
you don't have to make a decision now
whether you do paid Discovery or free I
believe it's important for us to do paid
Discovery and I'll cover a few reasons
why and we'll take it from there so the
reason we like my agency does pay
Discovery is that it positions this as
an expert right I have two decades
loss of Industry experience in this
space even if I had just five years it
doesn't matter the reality is you do not
get to pick up the phone or just walk in
to your dentist or lawyer or accountant
and just say hey give me an answer to
this and look at all my information file
my taxes or diagnose me for this symptom
right you have to schedule something you
have to pay for the time you have to
answer their questions before you get a
solution so there's no difference
between us and anyone else and I hope
that understanding is is perceived
believed and shared with your prospects
it definitely is with us the next one is
that by doing this we attract better
clients who value expertise remember
again as I mentioned most of the people
that work with our agency aren't just
working to build a beautiful or brochure
site that can sell they're looking to
solve a solution and that's why they're
coming to us for that it also weeds out
the bad ones right the ones that don't
show up for calls
the ones that believe that they're doing
you a favor to pay you or that they're
doing your favor to join a call when
you're spending time trying to learn
about their business and put together a
solution
and here's the really awesome thing for
me once I realized I was getting paid to
take the time to better understand my
clients needs or my prospects needs it
gave me the times for me and my team
didn't have to rush through things right
we could better understand their
business model who they served their
competition the technical needs we could
take time to analyze the right plugins
do effective scope so again at the end
of the day we were able to provide a
better solution for them and ultimately
it was a win for the clients and it was
a win for us and this led to higher
value projects one of the biggest
takeaways I want you to have from this
discovery is that if you ask the right
questions you'll get some answers that
will help you solve much bigger problems
or help understand your client or
Prospect has much bigger problems than
just the need for a website so this
becomes a win-win I often tell the
business owners that look we boast an
amazing retention rate with our
customers but this is a great way for
you to try before you buy whatever
whatever this engagement looks like
it'll be a better it'll be a great
understanding of how you work with us
and we work with you if it doesn't work
out for whatever reason which has not
really happened before
you can take what we give you and just
go to the next company and say Here's
everything I need can you Scope it out
otherwise
we'll continue this relationship and
we'll bet we'll have a great
understanding and Foundation to deliver
a solution that delivers results for
your business
so what do we cover all right depending
on who we're working with we'll cover a
range of different elements during our
Discovery process okay so what do we
cover a business overview we need to
understand the clients USB stands for
Unique selling proposition or there's
other terms what's your proposed value
of services or products
and then really we're trying to ask them
what their goals are usually they'll say
I need a website we'll ask them why and
keep asking them why till we have a
better understanding of they're looking
to use it as sales and marketing
resource they're looking to sell more
products they're looking to build an
automation whatever it may end up being
then we try to understand their ideal
customer Persona who do they serve Why
do those people need those Pro need the
product or service what started what
state of mind were they in when they
come to our customer or customer's
website where what are their ways of
driving leads to their website or their
business or we'll talk to them about
customer acquisition what did they do to
reactivate customers for by the way for
those of you that don't do reactivation
strategies that's one of the easiest
ways to drive value for your existing
customers or even as a selling point for
your prospects if they've had a business
for three to five years they have a list
of 50 100 200 or more customers that
they've worked with in the past there's
some easy reactivation strategies that
you could use to just add value and
quickly sell the service for email
marketing to reactivate past customers
we'll talk about the customer buying
Journey where they go from a lead to a
customer and upsell and we'll talk to
them about transactional analysis if
they're in Ecom or just business numbers
if they're just a regular business like
how many leads do they get what's the
average cost for a lead what is the
average value for a lead and by the way
it's these questions when asked and
answered help us with our website so
let's just say none of you do any
marketing right
and I'm sure there's a few of you here
that only love building websites
wouldn't it be great for you to know
what it costs a customer to get a lead
whether they use Facebook or whether
they just do trade shows it doesn't
matter what it costs for lead and what's
the value of a lead because this way
let's just say you don't do any
marketing for them but you do a care
plan what would it look like for you to
have Google analytics where or whatever
analytic tool you use to track click to
calls and to track form submissions or a
live chat initiation and then be able to
say to your customer like hey look you
told me when we built the website that
you didn't want marketing but your each
lead was worth this and we just want to
let you know that we tracked seven leads
from your website this month and let's
say that was worth I don't know 200
that's fourteen hundred dollars worth of
leads and let's say there was a there
were a home remodeler you know that
might be a five thousand dollar lead and
multiply by that by seven and that's 35
000 now if you know that they close one
third of their leads
you just do simple math and that could
be anywhere from five to seven thousand
dollars that they are more that they
closed right ten thousand
understanding their numbers really
matter then we talk about their
competition and that's why like in my
web audit you'll see like we have a
competitive analysis report these are
quick ways for us to gain insights that
we can include in our Discovery or in in
a part of our sales call
okay
and then this technical analysis and
scope which is the thing most of us do
already right we better understand how
many pages they need do they need any
custom functionality things like that
and then what we do last is a Solutions
presentation okay so if and by the way
we have a Blog and I have a document
that I'll be sharing with you all with
this information but I wanted to share
with you sample questions I'm not going
to go through each one but like under
about the business we're talking about
the unique selling point what are the
desired outcomes or pain points
that they solve what are common
objections and questions their customer
asks Now by asking these questions if
we're writing their copy and for those
of you now that are using like AI like
once you know this you could literally
say something like write an about us
page or write a service page for a home
remodeler with these common objections
and challenges that are faced and now
you have very effective page copy versus
just writing random stuff right or if
you have a copywriter which I do I then
take these responses provided to them
and they're able to put together very
effective copy and and at the end of the
day the business understands that we
know and understand their business model
and who they serve
about the oops duplicate slide here and
then under wait a second what happened
to all my questions okay understanding
their customers this is these are things
like what is the age range the gender
income location right what are their
spending habits personality traits by
the way some of these questions are very
important because for example let's just
say you were dealing with moms and
you were selling a product to young moms
while the design is going to be this
much different than for example if the
website was for men that were 50 to 65
that were looking to become better
golfers in their retirement stage right
so understanding who the ideal customer
profile is and asking them those
questions so that later on let's say in
the design they're like oh do this and
do that you're able to say hey look you
told us this is who you serve this
design does not make this design was
built and meant to serve them the design
feedback you're giving is for your
personal preference so those are the
type of things that you're able to
figure out sometimes we'll even ask them
things about who do you not want as a
customer and that helps us both with
design but most importantly messaging
boom understanding their sales funnel
for those of you that do any sort of
email marketing SEO paid ads or anything
like that it's really important for you
to be able to have a better
understanding of what the website does
where they're getting the leads from or
what brings customers back to repeat
feedback do they even have a CRM who
follows up with them and by the way
these are questions the sales funnel
questions are generally not questions I
would ask in in a common Discovery okay
if I know that this is a larger company
that looks and plans to do some sales
and marketing that's when I put this in
otherwise this is not going to be part
of that because this is going to
overwhelm a general small business owner
and they're not this is not going to add
value so again I'm just giving you
different
groups and categories of questions and
meetings we have not to say that you
should be doing all of this for sure in
a website
in a website Discovery okay a couple of
questions that you should definitely
consider asking are things like why you
PR why are you pursuing this project now
what's it actually costing your business
and how would you measure success of
this project
these are these are great questions to
be able to really understand what their
pain points are and then quantify the
value of the services you're offering
right so when you ask a question like if
this problem was resolved what impact
would it have on your bottom line in
your business over the next year when
they say something that could
potentially add two hundred thousand
dollars now whatever you're charging is
going to be anchored to that outcome of
two hundred thousand dollars so
potentially let's say you go through the
discovery and then you make
you provide an investment amount of
let's just say sixteen thousand or
twenty thousand dollars and John who
this Prospect you're speaking to is
struggling with investing sixteen to
twenty thousand dollars in your services
you literally can tell John look John
where in the world can you really get a
10x investment a return on your
investment and there isn't a way right
but our web services can do that and
often do that but we're not measuring
outcomes or potential outcomes we're
just building brochure websites or we're
just you know running campaigns and just
saying we're generating these many leads
but oftentimes we forget to quantify the
value of the lead and the cost to
generate the lead that our services are
ultimately generating at no cost for
example with GBP or on-page SEO or web
design if you put those together
you have to make sure that you're able
to quantify that okay what I want to say
now is I Look to to wrap this up we'll
be talking a little bit about providing
options and then ultimately what a
Solutions presentation looks like for uh
for providing options what I want you to
know is that in our agency we have a
couple of different types of projects
that come our way one is that basic
brochure website that is going to
usually be like a six to eight thousand
dollar website they're not looking to
they don't really care about sales and
marketing their new startup company they
they don't care that much about the copy
either they're now at this point open to
AI leveraging it or they are open to
writing it themselves they're looking at
five six seven eight pages Max then
we're looking at the company that is a
seven figure company or eight figure
company that we work with that is
looking for a custom website they want
it to be a sales and marketing resource
so they want a little more custom
Solutions at that point what we are
offering them is a little bit more of a
detailed
discovery not just who's your customer
what's your competitors and what content
do we put in place that's usually the
basic website is usually going through
two sessions and we just cram that in
there and that's not a two thousand
dollars that's a 500 to a thousand
dollar Discovery depending on whether we
choose like a eight to ten thousand
dollar price point or a six to eight
thousand that's they're looking at one
or two meetings and that's it and we
just have enough information to solve
that we rarely do those because we
rarely do to do those type of projects
the custom websites are usually between
that sixteen to twenty four thousand
dollars and those are the two thousand
fifteen hundred to twenty five hundred
dollar in Discovery and that is going
through understanding who their business
is understanding their customer Persona
their competition
and then we do technical scope of work
and then the solutions presentations
that's four to five meetings there and
then the last the biggest ones that we
do are web applications and those could
be anywhere from 50 to 50 to 100 or more
and then those are larger discoveries
because not only do we have to
understand like who they are and it's
less marketing about who they serve but
what they want in the application and we
have to do the research and maybe do
some storyboards and UI ux screens and
things like that and so those will again
about 10 of whatever the project is what
we're charging for that Discovery and
then we have an add-on our project
add-ons vary in different ways based on
what they need sometimes it's design
work to build out some screens sometimes
it is some branding work and messaging
work and story brand is one of those we
charge fifteen hundred dollars on top of
so if a company has sometimes we work
with really large companies or small
ones that have no idea about their brand
message who they really serve how they
serve them and how to put all of that
together with the online and offline
messaging and brand voice and so we take
them through story brand and that's like
an add-on we would charge on top of it
so we provide options and based on what
we feel the business needs is what we
propose here okay
so oftentimes we get questions like hey
thanks for sharing uh sharing your
process with this Cliff what does a
deliverable look like I want to tell you
that if you do Discovery really well
your prospect or customer is going to
care less about the discovery and more
about the fact that you better
understand them they better understand
their business now and that they want to
work with you but obviously you do want
to have some level of presentation some
level of a deliverable that you may pass
back on to them because that's part of
the promise and again just like the last
section it depends on what the customer
needs are and what the discovery process
is but usually what we're doing is a
PowerPoint slide
the those of you that are like on the my
robotic agency plan we have a PowerPoint
export of all of our reports we in
essence take that PowerPoint and embed
it with a couple of custom slides like a
cover and like what road mapping looks
like we recap key findings so we'll talk
to them about who their customer Persona
is what we want to accomplish with the
website I'm then taking key insights
from the GBP from the website design
from the on-page SEO to tell them look
when we build your new site all these
issues are going to be resolved where
I'm usually pulling the analytics with
my web audit again there's a couple of
slides that we can with a click of a
button pull some insights I'm taking
some of those insights and then putting
them
into our presentation if the company is
large enough and we know that this
discovery is going to span over a couple
of weeks we'll then put and they get
enough traffic we might even do heat
Maps so we'll tell them look outside of
just trying to design stuff we're
looking at your analytics so we can
identify what pages require the most
time and attention as well as heat Maps
so we can actually see where and how
people are using your website we then
cover scope of work which is just really
bullet items on the key modules that
we're going to be building out or
sections of the site we then talk to
them about the project investment and
then I'll tell them something like hey
look so now that you know that this
website is going to cost this or the
investment is this are you ready to move
forward I do not do a proposal or any of
that till I get a verbal approval here
so they're going to say something like
hey Cliff that looks really good or they
might say something like look and
through Discovery I'm asking them things
like what's a ballpark so we know what
to work on or maybe they'll start going
through and answering a whole bunch of
questions and I'll tell them look that
might add another three to five thousand
do you want to do that and they might
say no
and so I have a great idea by the time
I'm working on the solutions
presentation of what they can invest and
for what and so I put those in they have
the opportunity to move things to
another phase if they want or not and I
say something like are you ready to move
forward and again we have not lost we've
lost actually one company in the since
2015 that we've taken through discovery
that has not moved forward with the
project with us and that's because they
ended up hiring someone internally
within six months to a year they never
hired back out and they just took what
we did and shared through Discovery and
built that out internally but otherwise
we've not lost a project and there's
psychology behind it in many ways the
first one is they've taken the time and
invested it in you two they now know you
understand their business and they don't
want to go through that with someone
else and three and there must be there
might be others but three is that
they've already paid you and there is
psychology again on someone who's done
some sort of financial transaction with
you will want or is more likely to do
that again than go to someone else so we
then position the investment we get a
verbal okay and I tell them something
like okay let's schedule a call for next
Wednesday or next Friday or this Friday
and we will cover the agreement and I do
not call it a proposal because at this
point they have verbally agreed to our
project it's similar to a proposal but
there's no messaging around
accepting this because this is a
proposal list here's the agreement sign
here and make an initial deposit via
credit card ACH or drop a check in the
mail and we begin the project usually
within five business days and they
understand that then I just talk to them
about the next steps which is the
payment and all the things I just
covered and I'll ask them if they have
any questions about what we've done by
going through and taking the time to go
through these meetings usually there's
very little questions at the end because
I'm all I'm doing is I'm restating back
to them in a summary type of manner all
the key things that they've told us that
we can now take condense and then build
an effective solution that drives the
results for them
okay
so thank you I know we covered a lot
here I want to make sure that we now
spend this time in Q a I am going to I
ideally I'm going to ask people to
unmute versus drop something in the
comments just so that for the recording
others you know others are able to hear
as well in the future versus me trying
to read back questions so what questions
do you all have let me share back my
screen
there were a couple of points that I
wanted to bring up let me pull this up
just so you'll have context here oh and
by the way if y'all aren't in our
Facebook group please feel free to join
that and I'll be doing more q a there as
well for those of you that are my
robotic customers I know that both this
training and this document will go into
the bonuses resource section later this
week okay
what I wanted to share with you is just
how simple this could be okay this is
for that 5000 type dollar website it's
literally just telling them hey thanks
for jumping on the call really look this
is what Discovery looks like
and here's the meetings click here to
pick something that works for your
schedule take a look at the questions
that's and by the way this email also
positions a different process I take for
the companies that are looking for the
basic website I'm having them do a lot
more of that leg work right because
they're not paying us a ton of time for
the ton of money for the time and so I'm
having them go through and answer a lot
less questions but I'm having them do
that and then we cover them and get
clarification I'll let them know if you
don't answer them that's cool there's
some that you may not know and we'll
cover them on the call but for the
larger
projects I am and again you just have my
verbiage Here season it to taste but I'm
talking to them about the importance of
Discovery how it can benefit them and
really positioning it as an investment
and so there's all that messaging here
feel free to take it and run with it
and this document here has a ton of
questions and they're all grouped by
category okay so you can go in and and
identify which ones you want and then
take and run with them but there's tons
of different categories many more than
what I covered there and then what I
wanted to tell you is that for those of
you that use AI or are thinking of using
AI just understand that like with for
example chat GPT from open AI there's
some really awesome things you can do
about identifying demographics goals
motivations pain points and challenges
so what's really cool is if you were to
do some of this as Discovery you
literally and I put in prompts here with
an example so all you have to do is
change the industry and drop these in
and you'll be able to gain some amazing
insights that you could bring to a
discovery to wow your customers or if
you even wanted to do that as like a
preemptive element for your Discovery so
let's just say you do the strategy did
you call and you want to tell them hey
look part of our Discovery is
understanding your pain points and
challenges of your customers we already
did some preliminary research here's
what you can expect if you go through
Discovery and just share some of those
insights it can blow their it can blow
them away with Wow Cliff or Sarah or
Kristen or Beth they understand my
business maybe even better than I do in
some cases and all you have to do is
leverage chat GPT to be able to do that
cool so now I am going to just go into q
a to see how I can answer your questions
this is going to be the Brave One
and I know I didn't do that great a job
yes go ahead Chris yeah firstly thank
you so much Cliff for doing this there's
there's a lot of good information in
there I yeah Discovery is something
that's always interesting for me a lot
of the projects that I do are brochure
style websites and I've been doing this
for so long I just baked that Discovery
into the overall project but if I'm
getting a project that's over like the
12 and 15 000 Absolutely I'll pull that
out and I've never had any problem
pitching that because it's work that's
got to get done regardless and it you
got to do it up front or people are
going to end up spending more in the
long run so when you just even saying
that to people they're like yeah that
makes sense okay one of the things I do
fall flat on though and I'm grateful for
your documentation here sorry this isn't
a question just my contact is really
sussing out from them okay if you do
this now what's that going to do for
your Revenue next year and and I think
my sales are generally pretty good but I
think doing that will really get people
on board a lot a lot quicker and so I
look forward to looking at some of those
resources so thank you very much you are
welcome Chris one or two points on what
you shared first is people are very
apprehensive to share their numbers
especially like if they feel like it's a
sales strategy call because they're like
if the boy if I tell the person how much
I make then now they know how much or
they think they know what they can
charge me right so one of the biggest
things that I do is if we do a four
meeting session usually at the tail end
of two or three is when I bring up
numbers transactions because I don't
want them to think I want them to know I
care more about understanding their
business than just figuring out numbers
okay that's one the second one is in
order part of the things we've built
into my web audit are have many of them
have stemmed from Discovery and one of
them is the ROI analysis report that we
have all right so if someone is I'm just
sharing this generally here not just for
you Chris is that if people are
apprehensive and I don't even know my
numbers or I don't want to share my
numbers then some one of the things I'll
do is just say hey look I did this
project for Jane and here's some
projected numbers she puts in she gave
us and in their mind now when they see
like they give numbers and they can see
projected outcomes for our services it
lowers their guard down to oh he's just
looking to our Cliffs just looking to
figure out like how much I make so you
could determine if I can afford XYZ yeah
well it's very true and I don't I never
ask people about their budgets I my my
sales workflow is they call her email or
whatever I get on the phone with them
and I'm gonna tell them okay it's it's
nine grand to start and if they haven't
fallen out of their chair then then I
know I can move forward with them and
I'm willing to invest that time but um
but people I I obviously don't open with
that I explain a lot of my value and
things like that and how we get to that
number but damn it I had another Point
too that but yeah you get a sense to I
don't know what everybody else is but I
get a lot of the same types of clients
like accountants and and I would say
probably a good 60 to 80 percent of my
clients are a duplicates so you get a
bit of a sense if it's an accountant
roughly what an annual value of one of
their clients could be and things like
that or if it's home home builders or
things like that yeah no it's
interesting yeah cool thank you for
sharing Chris yeah no worries thank you
yeah Beth
I have a statement and a question yeah
okay I'll get to my question in a minute
I believe in paid Discovery I teach my
students inside the wp project managers
Academy how to do paid discovery
but what most of them fear is what never
happens to Cliff which is the client's
gonna leave and I'm going to do this
discovery and sure I'm going to get paid
for it but then the client's going to
leave so the way that we manage that and
what I teach my students and the way I
do it
is in that initial proposal I give a
range estimate right based on what I
know just from that pre-proposal meeting
right where you don't you get the high
level understanding of what they need
and then then we do then we position and
if they say yeah anything within that
range is great then that that puts them
under contract at that point and then if
when we get and so phase one becomes the
discovery and we get to the end of phase
one is when we spell out everything we
learned during Discovery right and we
say okay we've got a new estimate for
you
oh it fell right within the range we
already gave you so you're still under
contract let's move on there's no
decision making at that point because
they've already made the decision if we
if they if it falls outside the range
like it goes above it usually they don't
push back because they were shoulder to
shoulder with you when you discovered
these new requirements that weren't
considered in the first pre-proposal
part but that tends to make newbies who
maybe aren't that confident a little
more
confident that the client's not going to
take their proposal or their solution
and go get somebody on Fiverr to do it
um especially if okay so my question is
this when you're talking about you're
going to offer this that you're focusing
primarily on increasing their business
increasing their leads and but what if
that's not why they called you
what if the reason they need your help
doesn't really have to do with that part
of the website right maybe it's more of
a technical thing or maybe it's more of
a but that's not the benefit that you
can offer what if you are so new or
you're so not confident that you just
don't feel right saying I guarantee
blank whatever it is I just don't feel
comfortable giving a guarantee what
would what advice would you give those
folks
yeah I give them advice to go get
training on how to do that in the next
year or they're not going to have a job
and should leave this industry and that
might sound like really harsh but just a
heads up for any of you that are like in
the tech space tracking on where
artificial intelligence is like rest
assured the billion dollar companies or
the 100 million dollar companies have
dozens if not hundreds of people working
on effective intake questions like the
ones we talked about and Building
Together designs and all of that and
it's coming one of the reasons and that
sounded harsh Beth I've been there I
would just say that's the future tell me
what the answer was going to be I just
thought I'd give you an opportunity yeah
yeah I I think I think for the I think
charging also as a business owner who
cares about results both for my own
business as well as others it's going to
be important to be able to quantify what
results you can give a business and five
years ago building being a handcrafted
or beautiful or whatever you wanted to
label it design worked well for a small
business owner but that's not going to
work it's the messaging and the com ads
everywhere are going to be bombarding
them with you can get beautiful easy to
build designs in like an hour not even
in a day anymore and that's actually why
I think questions like what we covered
today are more important than ever and
we can distinguish you and separate you
from not only just the competition but
these automated tools that are being
built out there that can only be that
are just leveraging machine learning but
no engagement and or at least now for
now that you can do and I'll tell them
start learning about that now you don't
have to offer all those Services right
like at the end of the day if someone
comes to me and says look I just want a
nice looking website that effectively
markets my business I'll go through and
ask them questions I'll ask them
questions about the website site
customer pages and enough to get the
content and put that together but those
are the people that are not going to be
spending five figures for a website
because they only see this as a basic
brochure marketing tool and that's why I
have that basic Discovery for them which
is going to be one or two calls and they
fill out some information and we take it
from there and there's no Assurance of
any leads or any online presence other
than we just do best practices with what
we build out
cool all right next question
I know I didn't do that great a job of
sharing my Discovery process someone who
has to have questions
Paul good to see you mate hope you're
doing well
who here has maybe who here has maybe
ideas on what they do and what they do
differently and better maybe yeah hey
Chris
I just I've got another question for you
yeah and maybe you cover the site a step
away for a minute when you're doing
multiple Discovery sessions I know you
said on the on that page that you showed
us there was like four options I think
are you breaking that down in hey each
session is x amount of dollars and then
if you do all of them it's a discount or
you just know this is what you're
getting okay yeah I figure out what I
need so that so let's say you reach out
to me Chris and you say I need a website
or whatever you go through my intake
form you get on a call with me on that
call I'm asking you what do you
what your primary challenges are at that
time you're going to say things like I
need a better website or I need more
traffic you're telling me something
that's going on in your business that
you need rectified I then identify the
services I offer that can help provide
that solution so when I go into
Discovery or proposed Discovery I know
what quite what sections I need and
usually that's going to be I need to
know more about your business which is
meeting one I need to know more about
your customer and competitive advantages
which is meeting two three is going to
be usually a little bit about your
competitive landscape and scope of work
and four is that presentation where I
cover everything recap it and then
present it to you I can't take one or
two of them out the only time I shorten
the discovery cycle is if I know they're
looking for a lower priced solution and
at that point I'm not going to try to be
like hey you know pay for something
that's going to that that ultimately
you're going to need to double your
investment to get that solution in place
so I'm determining that and providing
that answer
and no no segmenting of discovery
meetings and that one of the things I
learned and I love is I'm more than
happy to have someone pay me a couple of
grand to give them some insights and
strategy and then have them take that
and run with it I'm making sure that's
very profitable for me so if someone
ever wanted to do that like it really in
reality if I could do five Discovery or
ten Discovery sessions like companies a
month like I'd love that not have to do
much of that work because
yeah the part I didn't say is that if
the if it falls with if it exceeds that
range the client and has a re has the
right to cancel but I've been paid for
that phase one so because I got the
deposit that covered all of phase one so
either it's hey you know what Cliff it's
the same only different
exactly and that's the thing that I'm
sharing here was Cliff's process not the
process everyone has different customers
and experience models and services and
so you should take what everyone shares
or what you've learned and then apply to
what works best for you there's no
one-size-fits all that's for sure
back in the software development days we
used to call that tailoring you take the
framework and then you tailor it to the
way that you do business or your clients
or whatever yeah you need to tailor the
process yep Chris yes we will we will be
providing a recording here
cool any other questions any questions
about like maybe paid ad Discovery and
how we go through that or technical web
app Discovery we discovered websites or
like even local SEO I'm happy to answer
them there's a lot of people on here I
want to make sure that we value
everyone's time here so obviously if
anyone has any questions I want to make
sure I answer them and if not then for
another 10 more minutes we'll be on and
we'll wrap up
is there still going to be the meeting
later today
yes Jason will have a regular AMA call
at for PSD 7 Eastern this evening okay
or six yeah whatever the time is done
but it's four o'clock Arizona time cool
and okay and I don't know does the chat
have a bunch of questions here let me
see
recording no most people were just
asking if there would be a recording yes
yes I was watching the chat for you to
see if there were any relevant questions
you needed to answer but I didn't see
any cool thank you that just means you
did do that good of a job so let me ask
you all maybe one or two you may want to
jump on and share what you do do any of
y'all do and it can be called project
Road mapping Discovery as some sort of
Consulting assessment but do any of you
want to maybe jump on and share with the
group what you do different or how you
do discovery just so that again because
I there's a bunch of great successful
agency owners on here I'd love to learn
something from you if you do anything
differently or if you thought of
something different that you can maybe
share with us
Cliff this is David Owen we do some high
level
discovery on the sales process okay and
then we have a program called the total
system audit
where we just look at what they're doing
from marketing perspective and try and
map that out against best practices
and then move from there but we have the
same guarantee where if you don't like
what we've done we'll give your money
back or you can take the output it's
yours and use it and hire someone else
awesome thanks very similar but not the
same yeah yeah
okay does it look like anyone else has
any questions so I'm going to leave you
all with one other one last Gem and I
mentioned to you all on this call and I
said
hey look when you're going through
Discovery maybe talk to them about
customer re-engagement okay now most
agencies aren't going to speak to
a business owner about like
re-engagement of their customer base
they oftentimes focused on a new website
so that they can get new customers right
but this is a great service and you can
Google it and find out or reach out to
me I'm working on a Blog about it but
it's so easy especially now with chat
GPT right like I'm working with the home
remodel company right now
it's so easy they have thousands they've
been in business for over 20 years they
have thousands of customers that are in
their CRM
for
services like drywall and Home Painting
and kitchen remodeling but they've never
re-engaged them right they've never told
them like hey like we worked with you in
the last two years on this service do
you know we offered this and we're doing
a discount and those and obviously a
kitchen remodel is a huge investment
right so even if they get three or four
deals out of that re-engagement campaign
that's tens of thousands of dollars and
I want you to think about
potentially whether it's an add-on
as a service that you build to help see
how you can reactivate your prospect or
your customers
past customers or you talk about it in
your Discovery I want to let you know
that doing things like that we're going
to definitely make you stand out and
even stating some of those things in the
strategy call to say something like hey
look we're building you this website to
deliver this but one of the other things
that we can help do for you is also
re-engage your past customers with the
campaign that we can build it for you
once we take you through Discovery and
build out your website and get them to
your new website and that becomes like a
great value ad versus okay we could just
build your website and that doesn't take
you much more time and writing out three
activation campaigns with now with like
tools like chat GPT will take you like
30 minutes or less
who
so again think about how you can use
these strategic sessions to better
understand your customers no matter how
long or how many of those you do to
better understand them and their needs
and the desired outcomes so that you can
present A solution that solves that and
so that you can charge on that solution
and there's a huge difference in telling
a business owner will build you a
beautiful looking website
than saying something like hey look we
can build your website that's a sales
and marketing resource that can drive 20
to 30 percent more leads
to your business over the next 12 months
like that changes the proposition the
value prop of your service and if you
don't understand how to do that then
there's other people in our community
that you can speak to for things like
GBP optimization on page SEO paid ads
email marketing all those other services
so that you can add more value to your
business
customers to your customers as well as
generate more revenue for your business
so thank you all so much for your time I
hope this was of tremendous value and
have a wonderful rest of your day and
I'll catch up with you all later cheers