Your Retention Sucks! Fix It With Custom Experiences That Skyrocket Your Revenue

Summary

Podcast Summary: Special Ops – "Your Retention Sucks! Fix It With Custom Experiences That Skyrocket Your Revenue"

Release Date: March 11, 2025 | Host: Emma Rainville | Guest: Mark Stern, Founder of Custom Box Agency

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Introduction

In this episode of Special Ops, host Emma Rainville welcomes Mark Stern, the founder of Custom Box Agency, to discuss innovative strategies for enhancing customer retention through strategic onboarding and custom experience design. Emma sets the stage by posing a critical question: "Is your onboarding process helping you retain customers or driving them away?" (00:02).

The Crucial Role of Onboarding in Customer Retention

Emma dives straight into the heart of the topic by asking Mark why onboarding is pivotal for retaining customers, especially in the direct response and e-commerce sectors where the sales-to-delivery process often halts post-purchase (01:31).

Mark Stern emphasizes, "If you don't have a clear, here's the journey that you're about to go on and let me set you up for success from the get-go," highlighting how a well-structured onboarding process can prevent customer overwhelm and reduce churn (01:53). He explains that without a defined onboarding strategy, customers might either disappear or request refunds due to feeling lost or unsuccessful from the outset.

Mark further elaborates on the benefits: "By doing that, you reduce the overwhelm and get people into momentum and start really incentivizing the behavior," (02:55) illustrating how effective onboarding fosters customer loyalty and continuous engagement.

Mark's Journey: From Corporate America to Custom Box Agency

Emma prompts Mark to share his personal journey, curious about what inspired him to develop Custom Box Agency (03:18).

Mark recounts his transition from a corporate environment to entrepreneurship:

"I was a corporate junkie... I thought I was doing everything right, except in 2012 I was $165,000 in student loan debt... I just wish these people would send me the tools and resources I need and stop making it so hard for me to just get started with your products and services." (03:39)

Frustrated with cumbersome virtual summits and overwhelming content dumps, Mark launched his first summit with a tangible element—a physical publication. This innovative approach not only enhanced user engagement but also organically promoted his program as participants shared their unboxing experiences online (05:06).

He continued refining his model, creating High Ticket Online, where he bundled insights from expert interviews into a physical box, receiving a "60% take rate on the bump," which transformed attendees into brand ambassadors through memorable, shareable experiences (06:55).

Blending Physical and Digital Experiences for Enhanced Onboarding

Emma steers the conversation towards the integration of physical and digital elements in onboarding, seeking Mark's expertise on creating more engaging customer journeys (11:17).

Mark shares his philosophy on anchoring digital experiences with physical touchpoints:

"Think about it like playing a board game. If you just jumped into playing a board game and not knowing the rules, it's going to be chaos that pursues. But if I can guide you and set the rules to say, here's how to navigate this experience, at least we're minimizing that chaos and giving people a path to follow." (10:29)

He cites P90X as an inspiration, where the physical box contained essential tools like a welcome note, journey map, and DVDs, all designed to guide users through a structured program. This blend of physical and digital elements not only enhances retention but also fosters a sense of community and achievement among participants (12:01).

Practical Application: Designing Custom Boxes for Various Businesses

In a creative segment, Emma and Mark engage in a game where Emma presents hypothetical businesses, and Mark devises tailored box experiences to boost retention and decrease churn.

1. Supplement Company in the Health Space:

   • Challenge: Monthly shipments with minimal engagement materials.
   • Mark’s Solution: "I would gamify the first 30 days, create a journey map with a visual for day one through 30, and include interactive elements like scratch-offs with QR codes leading to educational videos." (18:20)
   • Outcome: Encourages daily usage, fosters habit-building, and incentivizes continued engagement through rewards and digital interactions.

2. Travel Blogger with a Membership Program:

   • Challenge: Low engagement and high churn despite valuable content.
   • Mark’s Solution: "Create a physical passport for members to collect and store memories from their adventures, supplemented by monthly additions that encourage ongoing participation." (21:00)
   • Outcome: Provides tangible milestones for members, fostering a deeper connection and reducing the likelihood of churn by making the experience collectible and interactive.

3. Association Newsletter:

   • Challenge: Monetizing and increasing engagement without overcomplicating the onboarding process.
   • Mark’s Solution: "Develop a general onboarding pack that outlines the 12-month journey, including sponsor-branded materials to offset costs and provide value without being intrusive." (23:59)
   • Outcome: Enhances the value proposition for members, leverages sponsorships for cost efficiency, and clearly communicates the ongoing benefits of membership.

Evaluating Onboarding Success: Key Metrics

As the episode nears its conclusion, Emma asks Mark about the essential metrics businesses should monitor to assess the effectiveness of their onboarding processes (28:16).

Mark outlines several critical metrics:

1. Conversion Rate on the Front End:

   • Measures how effectively leads are converted into customers during the initial sales process.

2. Attrition Rate Within the Trial Period:

   • Tracks the percentage of customers who drop off within the first 30 days or during the trial phase.

3. Marks of Engagement:

   • Evaluates active participation, such as feedback submissions, progress tracking, and meeting attendance relative to total membership.

4. Progress and Results Indicators:

   • Assesses how many customers are visibly progressing towards their goals versus those who fade away.

By focusing on these metrics, businesses can pinpoint areas where their onboarding processes may be faltering and implement targeted improvements to enhance overall retention (28:52).

Conclusion and Call to Action

Emma wraps up the episode by highlighting Mark’s offer of a free consultation and directing listeners to customboxagency.com to book a call. She expresses appreciation for the insightful discussion, reinforcing the value of strategic onboarding in driving business growth and customer loyalty (29:29).

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Key Takeaways

• Strategic Onboarding: A clear and structured onboarding process is essential for minimizing customer overwhelm and reducing churn.

• Blending Physical and Digital: Combining tangible elements with digital interactions enhances engagement and fosters a deeper connection with customers.

• Gamification and Incentives: Incorporating gamified elements and rewards into the onboarding journey can significantly boost retention rates.

• Customization Across Industries: Tailoring the onboarding experience to fit the unique needs of different businesses ensures relevance and effectiveness.

• Measurable Metrics: Monitoring conversion rates, attrition rates, and engagement levels is crucial for evaluating and refining onboarding strategies.

Notable Quotes

• Mark Stern (01:53):

  "By doing that, you reduce the overwhelm and get people into momentum and start really incentivizing the behavior."

• Mark Stern (10:29):

  "If I can guide you and set the rules to say, here's how to navigate this experience, at least we're minimizing that chaos and giving people a path to follow."

• Mark Stern (18:20):

  "I would gamify the first 30 days, create a journey map with a visual for day one through 30, and include interactive elements like scratch-offs with QR codes leading to educational videos."

• Mark Stern (28:52):

  "I would want to know, what is your conversion rate on the front end? How are you converting?... How many people are showing progress and results versus those that kind of fade away."

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For more insights and to implement these strategies in your business, visit customboxagency.com and take advantage of Mark Stern’s expertise in creating custom onboarding experiences that drive retention and revenue.

Transcript

[A]

Hello and welcome to another episode of Special Ops. I'm Emma Rainville, your host and I am so excited to be introducing to you today a good friend of mine and fellow Driven member Mark Stern. I am excited for this conversation in a big way. Is your onboarding process helping you retain customers or driving them away? In this episode, Mark Stern, founder of Custom Block Agency, explains how strategic experience design can transform your onboarding strategies leading to higher customer retention and reducing churn. Learn how to create engaging onboarding processes that boost customer loyalty and keep your customers coming back. Explore Mark Stern's custom experience design services@custom boxagency.com don't forget to subscribe and like hey Mark, so glad to have you here today. I'm super excited.

[B]

Thrilled to be here, Emma. Thank you for having me.

[A]

Absolutely. I would just love to dive right in because I have a lot, I have a lot of questions and so you know, queen of profits. Absolutely love profits. With profits, top of mind is always retention and you have come up with a very strategic, interesting way to help people with their customer retention. We first met, I had a lot of questions on how it could fit into any business because I didn't think it could. You had a lot of great answers. So I want to share that with my listeners.

[B]

Great.

[A]

I'm going to start with just the basics. Why is onboarding so important for retaining customers? Can you explain that? Most of the people that we know in the direct response and e commerce space stop everything at the point that they get their money, right? The sales to delivery process stops at paid invoice. So tell me.

[B]

Yeah, it's a good point because what we are seeing more and more is that I think acquisitions, getting commoditized, people know the language, people know how to leverage NLP and then they forget after they make the sell. Oh, now I have to deliver the product and service. Onboarding in particular. It's amazing how people haven't really thought through a clear onboarding strategy. But why I think it's critical is people. If you don't have a clear, here's the journey that you're about to go on and let me set you up for success from the get go. What tends to happen if people jump into your products and services? It's easy to get overwhelmed. And if people get overwhelmed, typically what they'll do is one or two things. They'll disappear or they'll ask for their money back because they don't want to feel like a failure having a really buttoned up onboarding process to say, hey, here's the journey you're about to go on. Let me reinforce why you started this journey and here are the tools and resources we're going to give you to take you every step along the way. By doing that, you reduce the overwhelm and get people into momentum and start really incentivizing the behavior. So that's why when I look at an onboarding process, when you have a big, like a well defined one, you do see reduced attrition, you do see people starting to get momentum. And what you want to do from a retention standpoint is that the get go. If you can show me how to get a quick win in your business, the question I'm going to be asking is how else can you service me? And so that's kind of what the mindset I want people to have is. This is working for me. You are my trusted mentor. I can see myself starting to get results or actually starting to get on board with this process. What's next? And that's what we want to create with people.

[A]

I love that. I'd love to hear for a moment just to go back. I want to talk about retention, I want to talk about numbers for sure. But I'd like to go back. You just like light bulbed one day and thought of this. Can you tell me what happened? Like, did you have a bad experience? Did you see a hole in the market? Was it random? Like, I'd love to hear the story because I actually don't even know this one.

[B]

Yeah, it's funny. So I was a corporate junkie. I was told that there was only one pathway to success in life and that was you go to high school, then go to college, then you get the job and then you go to grad school. And after grad school, it's like the white picket fence and life is great and that's it. And for me, I got my MBA at Duke, graduated in 2012. I thought I was doing everything right, except in 2012 I was $165,000 in student loan debt, right. And I just signed a two year commitment with Deloitte Consulting, so big consulting firm. And you instantly have this moment to say this isn't. This can't be what life is made of to be this far in debt. And when I was exposed to the digital marketing space, it took me six years to leave corporate America. But when I finally made that transition in 2018, my biggest frustration when I started like purchasing other products and services. And in the online space, it's common to sell courses at $2,000 and coaching programs at five figures. I was making these investments in my future, but it felt like people were making it way too hard for me to get a result. And where custom box agency came out of, it came out of necessity. It was this idea of, I just wish these people would send me the tools and resources I need and stop making it so hard for me to just get started with your products and services. And so that's what I did. It was I launched a virtual summit. If you know the virtual summit model, especially pre Covid, it's like you interview 40 people and you dump 40 interviews on someone and you say if you don't consume it in five days, you.

[A]

Lose all of it. That's it.

[B]

I hate that model. And I hated it so much. And I did it myself.

[A]

I've never been able to sit through all of the videos that I've purchased. And usually I would watch like two or three and mean to get back to it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then lose it.

[B]

And that's the thing is that when you dump 40 hours of content on me, if I'm not able to get through it, and you now pitch me an offer, you know, for me, and it's 40 different points of view, Right. I would go through these things and say, I just wish people would send me like some resources to help me understand how to navigate this or like to help me get that first breakthrough. And so when I did my first summit, that's what I did. I sent a publication out. And what I didn't expect is when people receive this physical publication, when they bought a ticket to this virtual summit, they started doing these reveal videos online. They started showing off the publication, they started taking pictures, they started selling my program for me. And I thought it was interesting that I was getting all this organic traffic as a result of having a physical product. So the next time I did it, I was like, I'm not doing 40 interviews. I launched a summit called High Ticket Online. This is where box zero was. It was 10 interviews, 10 experts in high ticket sales, 10 different models. So it was really intentional with the 10 different people I interviewed. And I basically took the insights from the interview and created a whole box around it to help people think through what structure of high ticket selling is right for you. And again, when I did this box of, um, it was like a $97 ticket to get lifetime access. And I sent you this box experience, people started showing off the box and I was getting these videos that were three to seven minutes long, organic traffic of people showing off the box. And all the speakers started showing off their feature in the box. And so the audience became these ambassadors for my product and it became a no brainer. If you have a digital product, you need something physical.

[A]

So this is a $97. I just. My ops brain. Can I. For a moment. It's a $97 product. You're clearly pitching an upsell at the end. What was the ticket on the upsell?

[B]

I'll break down the whole thing for you.

[A]

I. I'd love to. I'd love to.

[B]

Sure. So the 97 ticket, what that broke down to was the actual box experience only cost me about 30 bucks.

[A]

Okay. So $30 per person.

[B]

Correct. And I also knew that it was about a 60 take rate on the bump, which was a digital product. So even selling the ticket itself, I was already in the clear with traffic costs and everything. With everything.

[A]

And then people showed up really excited and happy to learn from you.

[B]

People showed up and then we flipped it into evergreen because it was a product. And now that I have a physical box around it, it doesn't need to live at a certain point in time. And that was another thing I hate about summits is that, you know, you have a specific date and timeframe. Now I have an evergreen product that's just designed to help you get a result. And that was it. I want to position myself as your trusted mentor. But now having a physical box around it, now it's a product and it's a product I can keep selling.

[A]

That's good. That's good. What was your take rate on the.

[B]

Upsell for the upsell?

[A]

For the. For the final. The high ticket, the upsell.

[B]

I think you.

[A]

Not the upsell of the ticket, but the final that you pitch, which was.

[B]

It was a coaching program. It was about a 20% take rate too, on that.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And it was not a super high ticket. I think it was about a thousand bucks. Okay.

[A]

But still nine. Nine, seven. Yeah.

[B]

That's.

[A]

Yeah. This is 20%. Yeah.

[B]

And it's amazing because this is back 2018, 2019, when I'm still figuring out the online game too.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So you don't know what to price any. Anything. But. Yeah.

[A]

But you came in with a new innovative idea, crushed it, and then built a whole business around it.

[B]

It's crazy. And it was not built initially. It was the complement to the business.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And what was crazy is that this is. We kind of talked about this earlier and it was just this idea that people were asking me, how are you doing these boxes? And I Kept on saying, here's how you do it. But this business over here, like directing people away from it. And people just kept on asking me. And it got to the point that people were reaching out weekly.

[A]

I need to make money off these phone calls.

[B]

And so then it was, I need my time back. This is not my business. Launched a challenge, custom box challenge. The challenge took off and then people went through the challenge to learn how to do it. And they came back to me and said, we love your boxes. We want you to do it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And this is right at the brink of COVID into 2019, beginning of 2020. And I took a step back saying, I have this business that I built in virtual events for the last three years. I killed the business, went all in on these boxes because there was something that I could see that was brewing that just felt like this incredible opportunity. And the rest is history.

[A]

Thank you for telling me the story. It's great. I'd like to hear from you how poor onboarding impacts for the average person, customer retention and churn rates.

[B]

Yeah, it's a great question. So for me, first impressions are really powerful in this game. The question that a lot of people are asking is, will this help me get the result of what you promise? When you sell a product, there's a promise you make with that product or service. There's this outcome. If you buy my product, you want to create the belief and show the pathway from the get go that they can achieve it and that there is a recipe to getting that result. And so when we look at the onboarding process, part of the question you have to answer is, is this going to deliver that result? And are you my trusted mentor? And I say that just because I don't know if you've ever had someone say something to you and it went in one area and out the other ear and someone else told you the exact same thing, but it hits you a very different way.

[A]

And you're just like, absolutely.

[B]

Why is that?

[A]

Why?

[B]

And it's because you and I can teach the same thing. But for some people, the way you teach it will resonate with them. And other people may be me. And this is kind of why you and I could sell the same thing and we can both be successful in the marketplace. And so a lot of what I was looking at is like, I'm hearing these messages from different mentors and it's just not resonating. But then someone else says it that how do we make it as easy as possible for people to see the pathway? Because they want to see the journey and truly set them up for success. Think about it like playing a board game. You know, if you just jumped into playing a board game and not knowing the rules, it's going to be chaos that pursues. But if I can guide you and set the rules to say, here's how to navigate this experience, at least we're minimizing that chaos and giving people a path to follow. That's what I want to do in onboarding.

[A]

I love that. I really love that I'm very customer eccentric because I know that that means profits.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I love that. Can you explain to us how blending physical and digital experience actually create a more engaging onboarding process? We've been talking about it a little bit, but I'd like you just to kind of walk me through how that, how that works.

[B]

Yeah, There's a couple different angles to take. And beyond just onboarding and throughout the whole journey, like the way that you can blend physical and digital, like, there's just so much you can do. What I like to do is there are certain things in life that we naturally save, and I want to anchor that because I think it's really important. I know when you read a book, you put it on a bookshelf. Things that you reference, you keep. I know that things that have replayability, things like a board game, you don't play Monopoly once and throw it out. You don't take the golf clubs that you just bought, play golf once and throw it out.

[A]

Things with replayability, unless you're me, you.

[B]

Get the new set every time and.

[A]

You can't hit the ball one time, then you leave them in a dumpster.

[B]

It's amazing, right? Same thing with things that you collect. If you're collecting something, the inherent nature of collection. Beanie Babies, pogs, baseball cards, Lego sets. If you're collecting it, you're not going to throw it out. And finally, things that recognize you, awards, certificates, that graduation certificate you got from college, it's a piece of paper. It probably costs the university $3, but we save it for life. So when we think about physical and the experiences that we're building, I want you to think through what are we actually saving and how do we engineer intentionality. So now we blend that with digital. You know, I can say, hey, listen, when you join my program, I'm going to send you box 1 of 4. Here's the journey for the year, working with me. So let's take Driven. Here's what you can expect. Year one of Driven. But I'm only going to send you what you need for the first quarter. And this is box one of four. We just created an open loop that if you want to collect all the pieces, you. You gotta stay engaged. You have to keep.

[A]

I like that we send little gifts, but it's not. It's intentional, but it's not intentional in that way. So that's really good. I like that.

[B]

And you can do it many different ways. One of my favorite examples is I know you're familiar with P90X and Beachbody, that model. One of the things I love that, like, for me, has inspired a lot of my business is when the whole P90X craze happened in the 2000s. Tony Horton.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

They sent you a whole box to.

[A]

Say, hey, I was in. I was an insanity person. Just so. Just so you know, I was an insanity person. I'm team Insanity. I Sean, man.

[B]

And it was funny because when I was working with Kohl's, Sean came and did a workout with us. And it was really cool because I'm more insanity than.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did. I get to do a workout with him in West Palm beach. And I actually flew there to do it like a weirdo.

[B]

That's amazing. Yeah.

[A]

Like, they were inviting locals and I found out and I was just like, I'm absolutely going anyway, so.

[B]

Yeah. So something that P90X has taught us was when you get the box, you get the box. You get a welcome note. It's a getting started guide. So here's the guide of the program you're about to go through. There's a journey map. There's a one pager, day one through 90, and then all the tools and resources you need. So the DVDs, they don't give you swag. They don't give you stuff. We say that swag means stuff without a goal. The way that you get the T shirt is if you complete P90X and take your before picture on day one and your after picture on day 90. It's a 90 day workout program. And you send them, they say, we want to celebrate. You send us your before and after picture. They engineered a feedback loop testimonial to collect a testimonial. That's it. You got it.

[A]

And what the shirt say?

[B]

The shirt just said, you're part of the team Beachbody.

[A]

Yeah. And insanities, I think was like, I did it or something like that.

[B]

But the T shirt is not a T shirt. The teacher is now now a mark of recognition and celebration.

[A]

No, the T shirt is like I'm going to go out in public and wear this thing because everybody knows what it is. Back at the. You know, back in the. You know what I mean? Like, I know you do the warrior races, right?

[B]

Oh, yeah. Spartan races are huge for me. A huge market.

[A]

I've done two out of the three.

[B]

You've done two out of the three?

[A]

Two out of three. I gotta get the last one. So I eventually gotta get in shape before I turn 50 to do it. Because I have to have the third one. Not because I want to do it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I don't want to be in the mud. You're into that right now. I'm seven years older. I'm not into that right now, but I'm going to go do it. I'm going to die just so I can have the third one.

[B]

Just let me know. We'll do it with you. Austin's is my favorite too.

[A]

Is it.

[B]

It's the best. It's balanced, not too crazy.

[A]

I did. I did Austin in Hawaii.

[B]

I did. I've done. That's exactly what I did in Hawaii in August. That's where I got my beast.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

It was awesome. Loved it. But anyway. Yeah.

[A]

So.

[B]

So back to the mark here or the story here is just this idea of they are trading a T shirt for a testimonial and that's something that you can engineer. I can say, here's the journey that you're about to go on through with me, I can have a visual to say, here's phase one, two, and three. And there's a box that has a gift or something happens when you get a little bit further in the process. That could be for some people to say, hey, if I just keep advancing in this program, something's going to happen. I don't know what's going to happen. I could trigger something like a T shirt or anything. So it doesn't necessarily have to be something physical. On onboarding, I can incentivize behavior to incentivize all throughout the process.

[A]

I'd like to play a game. Play a game.

[B]

Let's play again.

[A]

You really like games? I know.

[B]

Love games.

[A]

Yeah. I like these kind of games. I would like to give you different business because I. I know the businesses of people who actually listen. For the most part, not every, but for the most part, I know what type business people have and I love to connect broad ideas to business niches on how it could work for people listening in their car at home or whatever. Right. Because if they don't want a Mastermind or a coaching program or a guru type offer. They're thinking, oh, this doesn't work for me. So I want to play a game.

[B]

Let's do it.

[A]

All right, I'm going to tell you the company and what they sell and you're going to tell me the box and what would go in it for what you would create and the journey you'd create for them. Supplement company in the health space doing joint health. And they have, they have a continuity program for one bottle every month. Their bump is something to help them sleep because if they're, they have joint pain, they probably don't sleep well. And so every month they have this bottle and the price point is 69 on the front end for the front purchase, 49 for the sleep aid, and then they get a 10% discount for a subscription service monthly. What would you do?

[B]

So is there any education associated with it? Do they educate their people or is it just the supplement?

[A]

They would tell you yes, but they do not. Okay, they educate them through the vsl, which tells them about all the things that they've forgotten by the time they've gotten the bottles. So every owner is going to say, yes, I educate them. But beyond the vsl, most do not.

[B]

Power of educating people is you're kind of giving them the vernacular to then educate others about it as well. And so part of what I would want to look at is how do I build habit building? And if it's like I want you to for the first 30 days do this, I would do a 30 day test or a 15 day test or something that I can create a visual that gets them to take certain action every day. If it's just taking the pills and listening to an audio recording just to educate them on the power of it.

[A]

Or if it's, how would you deliver that? Tell me how you deliver that.

[B]

So I would do it as a box.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

It could be a box or flat mail.

[A]

You're already sending them supplements. So here's, here's the box. It's got the supplements in it, two supplements in it. Now what else?

[B]

So it could be, and there's two different angles you could take. It could be a sample pack and there's a whole experience you can build around a sample pack. If it's like I just want to give you a 15 day trial and I want you to take the 15.

[A]

Days they already purchased.

[B]

They already purchased if they're now doing it. So what is usually supplement supplies at 60 days, 30 days, 90 days, it's usually 30 days.

[A]

And then every 30 days they get new bottles. So every 30 days they're sending a shipment of two bottles. And generally they're in shitty poly bags.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

With nothing but a packing slip and nothing else. So tell me what you do.

[B]

Yeah. There's so many different ways you could do packaging. But for me, just listening to what you have said, I would want to at least for the first 30 days, I want them to be utilizing it every day. And so how do I incentivize? I would probably gamify this first 30 days, create a journey map of something, a visual that shows day one through 30, something they can check off. And I would want them to have different nuggets that they could use. For me, this could be a fun thing to leverage. A scratch off that every day they can scratch something off.

[A]

Oh, that's good.

[B]

Visual that they can hang up on the wall. But give them something where they can EAS do the tracking. And I would probably. And it could be you scratch, scratch, scratch of your progress. And when they scratch day five, there's a QR code underneath that brings them to an online experience. That's just a video educating them on the product. Later on, it could be a power of how do I get them to share it with a friend?

[A]

So good.

[B]

So if they share it with a friend now, like, how do they pull other people along the journey with them? Those are things that we could look at. But I want real estate. I want to take a place on your refrigerator or on your countertop. And so things like that are really easy to engineer. But I would like, for me, I think it would be really powerful to say, not only am I getting you in the habit and celebrating this, and you may incentivize the behavior to say, if they do it all 30 days, something unlocks. It could be digital. It doesn't have to cost you more money. Send them something else. In their month two box, there could be an emblem that just celebrates the fact that they're on month two. And if they stay active, then we may give them a dashboard that has 12 months. And each month they stay active in that month's box, there's another piece that they can add to their dashboard. And if they collect all, there could be something else that you send them or unlocks. They can become an ambassador for the company. All it is is a label. It doesn't cost you any more.

[A]

Nothing. Okay, so, all right, let's move on to the next company travel blogger who has a. I'm sort of making this up. As I go. But I'm thinking through people who comment. I love the comments by the way.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Thank God for LJ who answers them all. So travel blogger who has a $12 membership, not too expensive for the membership. Right. But the bump is 97 bucks and it's a monthly.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And that teaches people how to get first class flights for main cabin, how to, you know, be a remote worker and travel as a nomad. What would you do to decrease churn and increase the retention there?

[B]

Yeah. And with this travel blogger is their avatar someone that like lives life on a budget.

[A]

I don't know that they live on a budget. They, they. Okay, so I don't, I wouldn't say that they present it as living on a budget, but they certainly do present it as champagne service for beer budget. They definitely do present it. Like they pay main cabin, they fly first class, they stay in five star hotels, they get 50% off and sometimes free. So they're teaching you how to utilize like Amex points and your consistent travel and your blogs to get free or cheap things things while they travel.

[B]

Something that's just triggering just listening to this is it would be really cool to kind of bring to life some type of visual like a physical passport that almost turns into a, a place for them to store their memories as they go on these adventures. So something physical can easily be something that you send them. And every month they have something that they can add to it. And there's another story here that can be how can I vicariously live through you? I want to travel more. I can't travel as much as you do as a travel blogger. How can I vicariously live through in you and the adventures that you have? And that's something that you could easily send them. If it's something that is like we want to keep it low on the front end. You don't need to send them something physical every month. You can send them something physical that just self liquidates in the first month.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And then everything else could just be.

[A]

And then when you see your fall off, so four months because that's your fall off, you send them something like.

[B]

That anytime you know when fall off is. So if you know the average person falls off, let's just say month five, I would reactivate at month four. And this is true for anyone, travel blogger, any membership program. Because sometimes people fall off and they escape because they feel bad. And this is kind of why with a lot of membership programs you can, especially if it's a progress like a membership program that we worked with was someone who helps business owners generate their first six figures online. That's what the goal is. It was a $97 per month membership. A lot of the reason that people fell out was one, they got overwhelmed. Two, it was because they fell out of sequence. And so we have to create a moment to forgive them for falling out of sequence and giving them permission to get back on board the next month. And so in that model, if you know when people live on, they leave at month five. I would reactivate at month four. Like how do I send them something to just re excite them and re engage them and say, hey, it's okay if you haven't been involved, but let's get you involved. And like let me show you what's coming down the pipeline in the next three months or six months and you can retell that story well as well.

[A]

I love that. That's really, really good. All right, we'll do one more.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Okay. Because there are so many people coming out with new association newsletters.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Got an association newsletter. I've monetized it by selling other people's crap on it. And it could be literally any type of newsletter. From facility managers to nurses to, you know, there's tons and tons of different niches gun toting people like, whatever. What, what would you do for an association?

[B]

Yeah, I mean again, newsletter. So again, whether and not everything needs to be a box. It could be a pack and you may just go a little bit higher quality with the initial one and have a lot of supporting tools and resources in there. The cool thing about a box is if you have sponsors, you can get the sponsors to pay for the box. You can know what they are. They can just the ability to say I'll put your, your logo on there or I'll let you put a piece in. There is a really powerful thing that could easily offset your cost for the hard cost of goods. It doesn't have to self liquidate. And so if it's a, if it's a newsletter, I wouldn't overcomplicate a newsletter. You know, I would just keep it simple. If it's a newsletter, if it's an association, there's something different about just a general association onboarding pack that I'd want it to be a little bit more to say here's what to expect over the next 12 months. So again, anytime you send anything, I like to anchor. Here's what to expect in the months ahead. But here's where we are right now. And only give them where they are right now. The power of showing them where they are in the journey and that there is a journey is just seeding. And so anytime you could see things that are coming down the pipeline, especially when there's continuity involved, I would see it every day of the week. Just so they know what they're going to be missing out on if they were to leave.

[A]

I love that. That's so good. So already in my mind, I'm thinking about 9,000 things that I could do, which is keeping me from wanting to call you.

[B]

Oh, no. Yeah.

[A]

So tell me, how do I get started without over complicating it? What do I do? Do I call you? Do you walk me through it? How does it work?

[B]

Yeah. This is why, when anytime we work with a client, phase one, we do a two hour virtual strategy session.

[A]

Beautiful.

[B]

We're going to break down your business. Because what I don't want to do is jump in. A lot of people may say, I want to build out a box here. We pull them back and say, I need to know the business story. Because any good box experience doesn't just spotlight the product or service you're trying to sell. It tells the story of your universe. I need to see the universe of you. And I can't tell you how many times that we've been engaged with clients that they thought they wanted to build out an experience in one part of their business. And then I saw these other pieces and I'm like, perfect example. We had a client that had a mastermind of a hundred people, but they had a membership that had 2000 people. Mastermind paid 25k per year. Membership paid 97 per month. I told them the bigger opportunity, the goal was to get the people in the membership into the mastermind. So if that's the case, self liquidate part of that $97. The box experience was killer. It was under 20 bucks and just self liquidated part of it.

[A]

What was in it? Like what was in the box?

[B]

Typical. What we love to do. It's going to be the box. A getting started guide, a welcome note, a journey map. This is the journey you're about to go on in the first year working with us and then all the tools and resources they need. We broke down their process to getting to your first 100k for this client down into 4 different phases. Each phase had its own envelope that had the tools and resources. So phase one was focused on identifying your avatar all the way to launching your first funnel. And it made it really easy for their coaches because the question Became, have you launched your funnel? Yes or no? If the answer is no, you're still in phase one. If the answer is yes, in that model, you're ready to move on to phase two. What's really powerful about that is even how they did the coaching calls. If you were in phase one or two, and phase two was traffic, you were in one group coaching call. If you are ready to put systems and scale into your business, you were in a different call. And those who were in phase three, meaning that they were just at a different place in their business and on their journey to $100,000, those are the people that they wanted to start to educate and seed and introduce the mastermind to, because they knew where they were in the process simply by just structuring it a different way in terms of where they are. And all that was manifested in the box experience. But I think that, like, when I think of phases and understanding how people are progressing through my product, I want to have a binary yes or no. Have you achieved this? If so, you're ready to advance. If not, you need to stay where you are because that's the best way I can serve you. And I see a lot of people watch a lot of content and videos, but don't take action. If you're not taking action, then you're never going to ascend because you're not going to be ready to ascend or at least be. And I don't want to ascend people because you want to protect the community as well, that has ascended to that level. So that's just why knowing where they are in the process and structuring your journey the right way, that all can be how you deliver the box experience and then how you have people provide feedback back to you about where they are in the process. So that's a lot of what we like to look at with a solid experience.

[A]

That's phenomenal. As we wrap up, I have a couple of questions again. Op Spring. Yeah, I want every dollar I spend to have a name. And that name should be more dollars coming back. Right. I would love for you to tell me what metrics should businesses focus on when evaluating the success of their onboarding process? And so if I'm sitting at home listening to this, and I think my onboarding process is great, and by the way, everybody always does. No one thinks it's garbage. No one ever says, oh, it's garbage, but I don't care. How would I evaluate it to even know where I'm at? To start with, what would you do.

[B]

I would want to know, what is your conversion rate on the front end? How are you converting? I would want to know what is the attrition rate within the first. Whether it's the trial period, if it's a SaaS program, first 30 days. I would want to know, do you have any marks of engagement where people are actively reporting back? Even if it's something small, very small feedback loop? How many people are showing progress and results versus those that kind of fade away? If you have meetings, how many people are actually showing up to the meetings relative to how many people are joining each month? So those are all things on the front end that I'd want to look at and just see what do the numbers say in those models. So those are some metrics that I would look at.

[A]

I love that. Thank you so much. Mark has offered a free consultation to you. You can check out custom boxagency.com and book a call to meet with one of his team members. Thank you so much. It was so much fun. It's always fun.

[B]

Yeah, it's always great seeing you, Emma. So thank you.

[A]

Cool. Thank you.