Scaling Up Without Sacrificing Customer Experience

In this episode, Peter Mohr and Alejandra Slatapolsky discuss scaling the elements of your business as it grows in size. As corporations grow larger and more impersonal, they often lose the charm, customer service, and attention to detail that made people love their smaller operations. But it doesn’t have to be this way: Alejandra says there is a way to get the best of both worlds. 

Here are a few things we cover:

• Improving the scalability of your client experience 
• Getting recommendations by delivering consistent communication and follow-up
• Marrying technology automation and the human touch 
• Cheaper lead generation through referrals 
• Boosting company culture by sharing the passion of the leader 

Notable passages:

Why client experience is the biggest factor for brand growth and how to maximize yours as you scale

Keeping your business, marketing, and messaging strategies consistent to give a cohesive consumer experience

The most common mistakes the business owners make when scaling 

Reference links to Alejandra:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandraslatapolsky/

https://www.scalto.com

For more entrepreneurial wisdom on a wide variety of topics, follow Pete on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/petemohr_coach/ or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/petermohr/

Are you looking to make some changes in your business and your life in 2024?  Head over to speaktopete.com and book a chat with me to see if we're the right fit!

Transcript

Alejandra Slatapolsky: 0:32

I asked them, What do you want to fix? What do you love? What really makes you angry? And the anger one really works? Because it's like, oh, yeah, I hate it when they're charging those fees to the clients that don't deserve it. I'm like, there we go. That's. And then the main challenge that I also encountered is you may have passion, you know, with the leader, the leader may be passionate, and they are great at that. But they lacked the communication,

Pete Mohr: 1:02

how to share the passion, right? Right.

Alejandra Slatapolsky: 1:05

And they they forget to actually remind it to a team and work with them about it. Once you like the map, it's gonna go that much faster for you. But they have to share that passion with you. And you have to show them why you chose it.

Pete Mohr: 1:24

Are you making every decision in your business may be feeling a little overworked and overwhelmed? Do you ever wish you had someone to go over the big decisions and entrepreneurial choices you had to make? Well, maybe this sounds familiar. Your partner at home doesn't want to hear about business anymore. And your friends don't know what the heck you're talking about. And maybe your team at work well, even though you have an open door policy, they're not always as open as you'd like them to be. Well, there's good news. I have room for two more one on one coaching clients next quarter. And, you know, here's how it works. We'll get together on Zoom either every week or every second week to discuss the strategies and frameworks that will clarify your thinking and advance your business and entrepreneurial life. It's all about the five P's, your promise your product, your process, your people and your profit. Once they're better aligned, you'll enjoy a better life and business. Remember, you own your business and it shouldn't own you. It's time to reduce the frustrations and increase the freedoms. So if this sounds interesting, go to simplifying entrepreneurship.com forward slash Call to book a freedom call with me and we'll see if we're right fit. Hey, it's Pete and welcome to another edition of the simplifying entrepreneurship podcast. We're here to help you cut through the chaos of running a business and transforming your frustrations in the freedoms. Today, I had the opportunity to speak with Alexandra Slagter Polsky, and she owns a business called scelto. She works all around marketing and scaling up and helping entrepreneurs with their strategy, entrepreneurial journeys, all sorts of different things around growing their business through marketing. She works in FinTech, law, technology, all sorts of different things, she's going to share with us some cool stories about a few of the clients that she's worked with helping them scale some of their business and helping them with their customer journey along the way. So let's dig into it with Alexandra. Hi, Alexandra, welcome to the simplifying entrepreneurship podcast. Hi, Peter. Great to see you again. Yes, absolutely. And as we're recording this, I know we did one together on your podcast, the business of wealth. And that one is going live here too. And I I'm excited to have a follow up conversation and introduce you to my audience as well. Yeah, he

Alejandra Slatapolsky: 3:58

actually went live today. Yeah.

Pete Mohr: 4:02

That's great. I'm excited today to talk to you around scaling. I mean, scaling is such an important piece of growth for your business. And our audience consists of entrepreneurs who are always looking to grow their business, too. So I think this will be a cool conversation around scaling today. And, you know, one of the things that we were chatting just before we hopped on was this idea how you've kind of flipped around some of the ways that you are working with people and looking at things around the top of the funnel marketing to the whole customer as far as that journey goes. And why don't we get into that, because that sort of gets us into why you want to start with that before you look at the things that you need to scale up to.

Alejandra Slatapolsky: 4:47

Exactly. So my background, I used to be a journalist and then I dealt into marketing. And whenever you think of marketing, most organizations think of lead generation, right? So marketing is associated with anything that happens in terms of social media, advertising, generating new leads, etc. Throughout my history as a marketer. What I found was that the organizations that had the best client experience, were actually the ones that had the most growth. So how do you do client experience when I am specialized in service based companies? How do you make clients experience, it's scalable. And how do you make sure that your marketing doesn't end in your lead generation. And that's the customer journey. Personally, I had this great experience with a mortgage company I was in, I was looking for a mortgage for my home. And I was emailing people asking for referrals, you know, and they would send me some people that I knew, they would send me like, okay, just, you know, contact this guy or that guy, and then those guys would tell me, yeah, just email me all your information. And now, you know, I do a pre approval, whatever. And I am pretty conscious about data management and about, you know, processes, etc. And I would have to actually follow up on those guys asking, Hey, what's going on with my pre approval. One day, I got tired of it and actually Googled, and these guys showed up. It's called Rocket Mortgage. Now, I think it was many years ago, and they have this platform. And on the platform, they pre approved you. And then the platform was amazing. They had like, every single step of the way. What was going to happen then dissipated the moves, I was able to upload my documents, and they would approve or not approvals and you feedback. And they weren't the best part was that every step of the way, every time I uploaded a document, they would call me say, No, did you understand what you're doing? You needed help? Everything's okay. This is what's going to happen next, those guys got I lost count of how many recommendations from me clients, right,

Pete Mohr: 7:05

because of their great communication in their follow up, and all the stuff that takes you down that journey. Right?

Alejandra Slatapolsky: 7:11

Exactly. And integration between the tools of technology in the human touch, and the hand holding, they were able to establish a system that was scalable, using technology, but using humans to like that. So that's the key, right, you have to be able to identify your process. So it is scalable, but it also has a human touch. Because really like technology platforms go only this far, you know, there is a need for human connection, we learned that through the pandemic, too, you know, we learn to use the platforms, but we still want to be able to ask people questions. That's the key to customer experience as a key to client services. So that made me think a lot and I said, No, it's not just about getting leads, I actually had another client that we did, you know, an amazing Google AdWords campaign, they got you know, they were an investment fund, and they got last at least 600 leads, which was more like more than they had ever had in the whole history of the van. They could not handle them. So that's why my approach is okay. Yes, you need some leads to feed into the system. But there are a ton of leads that are throughout your journey that are actually cheaper for you. And that's why I always tell CEOs, these leads are cheaper, they like that is cheaper to get a lead that is farther down your customer journey, or getting a referral than getting a new lead. So that the money that you put into buying that many Google ads, see how much money you can put into improving the customer experience?

Pete Mohr: 8:54

Yeah, I love that. And the way, the way you look at things is that there are different levers that enable scalability and stuff like that. And I'm assuming that you know, these automations and these integrations with human connection, and what's triggering what, you know, when do we pull this lever and push that one in order to make those happen? Are you working through that with your clients? And what what are some of the other examples that you have that enable scalability on those frameworks?

Alejandra Slatapolsky: 9:24

So we view scalability from a marketing, communications and branding standpoint, as having three levers. One is the business strategy, you have to have a very clear value proposition that your whole team stands behind it. So the early days, suppose one of was one of the first ones to really focus on that. And they grew because of that, right? They were like, Okay, this is our culture. This is what we believe in, and what we believe in comes before our product. So we really focus on that business, you know, core and the business strategy and the go to market strategy and what space you're going to occupy in your market. And then just then we go into your marketing, communications messaging, is your brand communicating, speaking, and visually, what do you want to communicate? Yeah. So if you know, you look like a kid and talk like a little old man is not going to be consistent is to distract your consumer And he's not gonna work. So make sure that what do you do? What do you say and how you look are the same. So important.

Pete Mohr: 10:40

And I've got my own framework around this sort of stuff, too. And we call it the promise, having that promise in alignment and living and aligning everything to that promise, what you're promising your clients in order to deliver that. The language, the communication, all of your frameworks, all of those experiences that you were just chatting about, you know, it's such an important piece of the puzzle. And how often do you find that there are misalignments when you're when you're starting to work with a client where, you know, that kind of stuff isn't quite aligned, because I find that a lot where, and they're like, Oh, we've always done it that way. And it's like, well, maybe we need to change a few things, just because you've always done it that way. Because it's when you don't have that full alignment. It just doesn't seem to happen. And they're, they're sort of caught with the blinders on. And feeling as though they should continue to do it the way they've done it. And how do you get people through that this episode of the simplifying entrepreneurship podcast is brought to you by shoe topia.ca We're always helping our clients look great and feel fantastic with the heat you can free your feet with some of the awesome sandals from names you know and love. Like Birkenstock keen and Mephisto Of course, we have you covered for the casual and athletic needs to guests like you are at the very heart of shoe topia stop in for a visit or drop in on shoe topia.ca We're currently only shipping to Canadian addresses.

Alejandra Slatapolsky: 12:15

I have a you know, a friend that works professional. But you know, we've worked together for many years in different capacities. And I was helping him with his organization and working with his partner to the other day, you know, a couple of weeks ago, and I was sad to see him why. And sometimes like his partner was like, come on, you want me to say, I love nature. And I want to make the world like he was like, we have that kind of relationship. And I'm like, well, but I need to get to why you started these. I asked them, What do you want to fix? What do you love? What really makes you angry? And the anger one really works? Because it's like, oh, yeah, I hate it when they're charging those fees to the clients that don't deserve it. I'm like, here we go. That's and then the main challenge that I also in countries, you may have passion, you know, with the leader, the leader may be passionate, and they are great at that. But they lacked the communication.

Pete Mohr: 13:18

Yeah, how to share the passion. Right.

Alejandra Slatapolsky: 13:21

Right. And they they forget to actually remind it to a team and work with them about it. Yeah. And once you like the map is gonna go that much faster for you to but they have to share that passion with you. And you have to show them why you chose it.

Pete Mohr: 13:39

I couldn't agree more. I mean, we certainly work with similar clients in that state. I mean, it's one of those things it's communicating. I think like the biggest job of the leader today is really just to continuously communicate that promise, right? So that everybody around them knows their clients, their team, their wholesalers and suppliers, all the other people that are helping them deliver that mean such a big piece, because without that communication, nobody knows how to scale. Nobody knows what they're working towards. Right. And I think that's the big thing is having this thing so that everybody knows, and it's so communicated that we can align all these scaling levers so that it's going to accomplish it

Alejandra Slatapolsky: 14:20

completely agree and also accepting that you will not you will have to accept that not everybody will buy that. Yeah, that they will not grab your vision and go with it. Because they may not see it. Yeah. So there are that unicorn leaders that inspire everybody. Yeah, you know, 99.9% of leaders are not that, you know, oh, inspire some and some others are going to be, yeah, that's fine. I just want to make my payroll, I just want to check at the end of the month. And then you your work would be to try to differentiate those. And we're in scelto, we always say is aces in their places. And for that we actually use the Wii I think we spoke about the CEO, the US will also be right. You want to make sure that they get the role they wanted and they understand it right. And they understand the vision behind it. So yes, it is about inspiring everybody, but I think it's also accepting that you're not everybody's cup of tea and you're never going to be Yeah, like

Pete Mohr: 15:25

that too. What are the main issues that you've encountered around scaling or Over the years when when you're working with these people like what one or two or three of the main things that you've encountered in almost every time, it's like, we just got to get through this

Alejandra Slatapolsky: 15:41

guy's experience, definitely how to undelete. And how to follow up with needs a lot of my organization's lack the patience, accepting that, for example, most products require many touch points before you convert. That's one thing that I think they find it hard. Mostly, if you're a startup, or if you're, you know, meet growth, seeing those numbers and accepting that some services have low, longer sales cycles, and a lot more touch points. That's one thing and putting the processes and in people in place for that. That's one very important thing. And then the other one is not making a better not doing a better job of getting more business from existing clients. Yeah, that's 90% of companies crazy. Yeah. Yeah,

Pete Mohr: 16:36

we already have them yet. We're not giving them what they want from us.

Alejandra Slatapolsky: 16:40

And that's part of what we were talking about, before we hit the productization services. When you approach your services with a clear structure that internal, and for clients, there is a path for growth for them, that you can establish and show them. And that will make make it easier to grow with them. A lot of consultants just open the doors and say I'll do whatever you need. And there is no like, clear path, and they let the client drive the direction of the consulting process. Yeah. And if you switch that around, both for services, I've been doing it for a cybersecurity company, too. Yeah. Awesome. switch that around and tell them, hey, this is a process we follow, then you can grow the relationship with them driving that relationship.

Pete Mohr: 17:27

Yeah, I love that. And that brings us sort of to the end of our conversation time goes quick here on simplifying entrepreneurship podcast. And I appreciate the time you spent with us here today. I want to get everybody a chance to find out how to learn more about you. And you know, I'll certainly put links for everything in in our notes as well, too, as well as your podcast, the biz of wealth.com that we chatted about a little bit earlier. But if if they want to learn more about your business, and you how do they get a hold of you, Alexandra.

Alejandra Slatapolsky: 17:55

So our website is scelto.com. But I'm the only Alejandra sulla Topolski in the world. So it's really easy to just google me and find me on LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.

Pete Mohr: 18:07

Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for spending some time with me today. And I'm sure our listeners are gonna love this one.

Alejandra Slatapolsky: 18:12

Thank you, Peter.

Pete Mohr: 18:17

Well, thanks for spending some time with Alexandra and I today on the simplifying entrepreneurship podcast and think about how you can look at your customer journey. Do you have all those things in line? Have you followed all the process from when somebody reaches out to you, who doesn't know anything about you? And first interacts with your business? All the way down to making the sale? And then through the sale? And after the sale? Have you outline that process? Have you got it all figured out? Like she was talking about with that one mortgage company that kind of each step of the way, when you did this, it triggers that when you do this, it triggers that? Have you worked through all those things? And if you haven't, think about a few of the areas that you can increase this and think about, you know what, we don't always have to be driving for that new client. There's so much left on the table from our existing client base. What more do they want from us? And what other journeys are they wanting us to fulfill for them? What can we do within our capabilities, you know, all of that sort of stuff. So, as I mentioned, I'll put all of Alexandra's links and content into the show notes as well. And remember, you own your business it shouldn't own you always remember that clarity creates confidence and confidence ignites momentum. And some of these things really will give you confidence if you map out that journey if you work through these things that we're talking about on the podcast each week. If you'd like the podcast, please share it with your friends and subscribe to our simplifying entrepreneurship YouTube channel as well. I'd love your feedback. In the comments. I'm interested to hear about future topics that you'd like me to cover or even future guests you'd like to hear from. You can help me out by subscribing to the podcast on Spotify or Apple and rating and reviewing this episode within up to a five star review. Contact me on LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook. The links are in the show notes as well. And lastly, you can check out my website at more dot coach that's mo HR dot c o ACH. And until next time, make it a great day.

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