How to Keep Customers Without Lowering Your Prices: A 7-Step Retention System

Most businesses respond to churn by lowering prices. That reaction feels logical, but it is almost always wrong. Customers rarely cancel because something costs too much. They cancel because they do not experience value fast enough, they get confused, or they stop using what they paid for.

Over time, this creates a growth ceiling where new customers only replace the ones leaving. The fastest path to sustainable growth is not more acquisition. It is better retention.

This article outlines a clear seven-step system for keeping customers without cutting prices, built on real operational patterns that consistently improve long-term revenue.

Key Takeaways

Lowering prices does not reduce churn. Improving value delivery does.
Retention improves fastest when time to first value is shortened.
A structured cancellation capture process turns churn into insight.
Customers stay longer when the usage path is clear and simple.
Ongoing customer conversations prevent retention issues from compounding.

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Step 1: Identify Your Growth Ceiling

Every business has a hidden ceiling that limits growth. This ceiling appears when churn quietly offsets acquisition. Even strong marketing cannot overcome steady customer loss.

Retention problems scale with the business. When the customer base is small, churn feels manageable. As the business grows, the same churn rate compounds into significant revenue loss. Fixing retention produces more leverage than adding new customers.

This step focuses on understanding the math behind churn:

Every business has a churn-driven growth ceiling
Churn compounds as the customer base grows
Acquisition cannot outpace unchecked attrition

Early churn feels harmless because the numbers are small. Over time, the same churn rate creates a revenue leak that no marketing effort can overcome. Fixing retention removes this ceiling and creates leverage across every growth channel.

Lowering prices won't help you keep more customers because price has nothing to do with why customers are cancelled.

Dan Martell

Step 2: Capture the Cancel

This step turns cancellations into insight and recovery opportunities.

What to implement:

Ask customers to select why they are cancelling
Branch the experience based on that reason
Offer pauses, downgrades, or help instead of discounts
Clearly state what the customer loses by cancelling
Follow up after the cancellation to offer support

Why it matters:

Every cancellation contains data. Capturing that data reveals patterns that inform product, onboarding, and messaging. Recovery without discounting preserves pricing integrity.

Step 3: Speed Up Time to First Value

This step focuses on delivering a fast, meaningful win.

What to optimize:

Define the single value moment customers care about most
Remove unnecessary setup steps and integrations
Provide defaults, templates, or sample data
Design a simple click-to-value path
Trigger reminders for inactive users

Customers commit once they experience value. The faster that happens, the less likely they are to cancel. Time to first value is one of the strongest predictors of retention.

Step 4: Map the Golden Path

This step identifies what retained customers consistently do.

What to map:

Key milestones in the customer journey
Actions that lead to long-term usage
Drop-off points between milestones

What to fix:

Confusing interfaces or unclear next steps
Missing guidance at critical moments
Friction that slows progress

When customers know what to do next, they keep moving. Mapping and optimizing the golden path increases usage and reduces churn.

If you have a bunch of customers and you do not know what the best customers are doing that cause them to want to stay, then what we have to do is analyze the click stream.

Dan Martell

Step 5: Talk to Customers Weekly

This step replaces assumptions with direct feedback.

How to run it:

Set a weekly cadence for customer calls
Talk to both satisfied and frustrated customers
Ask about goals, outcomes, and obstacles
Document patterns and themes
Share insights with the team

Analytics show behavior. Conversations explain intent. Weekly feedback surfaces retention issues before they appear in churn data.

Talk to Customers Weekly

A confused mind never buys.

Dan Martell

Step 6: Make the Product Dummy-Proof

This step removes confusion from the experience.

What to simplify:

Rename features using customer language
Remove internal jargon from interfaces and documents
Write actions as outcomes, not abstractions
Reduce visible options to the essentials

Why it matters:

Confusion reduces usage. Reduced usage leads to churn. Clarity increases confidence and keeps customers engaged.

Step 7: Expand Consumption Through Adoption

This step increases retention by increasing involvement.

How to build adoption:

Create clear milestones that signal progress
Prompt customers to take the next relevant action
Publicly recognize meaningful customer achievements

Customers who feel involved stay longer. Adoption creates emotional investment and increases lifetime value without discounts.

Conclusion

Retention is not solved by discounts or promotions. It is solved by systems that deliver value quickly, guide customers clearly, and increase usage over time.

Businesses that design for retention remove growth ceilings, protect pricing, and build stronger customer relationships that compound over time.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the most effective way to reduce churn quickly?

Shortening time to first value and removing onboarding friction usually produces the fastest impact.

Why does lowering prices not improve retention?

Because customers leave due to confusion, lack of usage, or unclear value, not price alone.

How can I tell where customers are getting stuck?

Mapping journey milestones and analyzing drop-off points reveals friction areas.

How often should founders talk to customers?

Weekly conversations provide consistent insight without overwhelming the team.

What matters more for retention, features or clarity?

Clarity matters more. Customers stay when they know how to get results.

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More Resources

Full Transcript

How I Built a $100M Business that Never Loses Customers

https://www.youtube.com/watch/Tu4ZFSRg8Zo

00:00:00.160 Lowering prices won’t help you keep more

00:00:02.080 customers because price has nothing to

00:00:04.000 do with why customers are cancelled. I’m

00:00:05.920 Dan Martell, CEO of Martell Ventures, a

00:00:08.160 portfolio of companies that generates

00:00:09.760 over $und00 million in revenue. But we

00:00:12.080 wouldn’t be able to drive that amount of

00:00:13.759 revenue if we didn’t understand how to

00:00:15.920 keep more customers. So, I’m going to

00:00:18.240 share with you the simple sevenstep

00:00:20.160 process we use in all my companies to

00:00:22.320 keep more customers paying us month over

00:00:24.800 month over month and make more money in

00:00:26.960 the process. because losing a customer

00:00:28.880 that you spend a ton of money to get is

00:00:30.960 crazy expensive. And as business owners,

00:00:33.120 the number one thing you need to run

00:00:34.960 your business is money. So, let’s get

00:00:36.880 into it. Step number one, we need to

00:00:39.040 understand our growth ceiling. See,

00:00:40.960 every business has a point in the future

00:00:43.120 that no matter how many customers they

00:00:45.120 add, they won’t grow. Let’s say you have

00:00:47.360 10 customers today, but every month that

00:00:49.360 goes by, you add five customers per

00:00:51.440 month, but you’re currently losing 10%

00:00:53.920 per month. Well, if you have 10 today,

00:00:55.680 10% is just one. it’s not a big deal.

00:00:58.079 But if you keep adding five per month,

00:01:00.079 that’s another 45 over the next 9

00:01:02.239 months. 10% of that now is five. Think

00:01:05.519 about it. If you churn 10% of your

00:01:07.439 customers every month, then every 10

00:01:09.840 months, you’ve lost 100% of those

00:01:12.320 customers that you had. So, you got to

00:01:13.920 keep adding more just to replenish.

00:01:16.080 That’s your growth ceiling. It’s just

00:01:17.759 like a leaky bucket. When you have a lot

00:01:19.920 of water in the bucket and you have a

00:01:21.280 little hole, it’s not a big deal. But

00:01:22.960 the hole gets bigger because the bucket

00:01:24.640 gets bigger and there’s more pressure

00:01:25.840 pushing out of it. That is essentially

00:01:27.840 how much water you can keep in your

00:01:29.520 bucket. Plugging that hole is way more

00:01:32.159 valuable than pouring more water in the

00:01:34.079 top. So that’s why we have to ask the

00:01:36.159 question, how do we keep our customers

00:01:37.600 from leaving? Step two, we have to

00:01:39.680 capture the cancel. What’s crazy is that

00:01:42.240 when somebody leaves, it’s super

00:01:44.079 possible to stop them from cancelling if

00:01:46.399 we just create a cancellation capture

00:01:48.399 system. Like I’m not trying to stop

00:01:50.000 people from cancelling. I just want to

00:01:51.600 ask them why. Think about a restaurant.

00:01:53.920 You have a kitchen that’s putting out

00:01:55.520 food. 30% of it’s coming back to the

00:01:57.840 kitchen uneaten. And the chef never asks

00:02:00.640 himself, “Why are all these plates of

00:02:02.000 chicken coming back not eaten?” The

00:02:03.840 whole point is for the chef to get out

00:02:06.000 onto the floor, introduce themselves,

00:02:08.000 and just ask, “I’m curious, sir. Did you

00:02:09.758 not enjoy your chicken?” Or, “Ma’am, I’m

00:02:11.680 curious. Did you not enjoy the dessert?”

00:02:13.440 Fix it, then make it right. And then the

00:02:15.760 person might actually come back to that

00:02:17.599 same restaurant knowing that the chef

00:02:19.760 listened. Here’s four things that you

00:02:21.920 don’t want to miss when you create your

00:02:23.120 cancellation capture system. The first

00:02:24.959 is we need to figure out the reason. Is

00:02:26.959 the reason somebody’s cancelling because

00:02:28.800 of the cost? Is the service too

00:02:30.800 confusing? Are we missing a feature, a

00:02:32.800 benefit? You’re just not using it?

00:02:34.959 You’re switching to something else? If I

00:02:36.720 can at least understand why, then I have

00:02:38.480 an opportunity to do something with it.

00:02:40.080 Again, I’m not stopping them. I just

00:02:41.599 want to learn. Next, we want to branch

00:02:43.519 the offer. meaning that based on each

00:02:45.760 one of those options, we can produce a

00:02:48.720 different sub option to hopefully

00:02:50.959 capture the person from leaving. The key

00:02:52.879 is never discount your product cuz then

00:02:55.120 all of a sudden you’re downgrading the

00:02:56.720 value. I’ll always take things away to

00:02:59.280 something that I’ve publicly

00:03:00.480 communicated but I don’t like

00:03:01.760 discounting. It’s a bad habit to get

00:03:03.280 into. If it’s cost, we might ask them,

00:03:05.360 are you looking to pause for a few days

00:03:07.440 so that way you don’t have to pay for 2

00:03:09.120 or 3 months because you’re moving and

00:03:10.560 you won’t have a chance to consume this?

00:03:12.080 Whatever it is, you can offer them a

00:03:14.640 downgrade to a different plan. If they

00:03:16.400 say it’s confusing, well then I can

00:03:18.400 offer to get on a 15-minute setup call

00:03:20.480 or a guided tour with somebody on my

00:03:22.080 team. If they’re not using it, maybe I

00:03:24.159 can offer different ways that they can

00:03:25.680 consider using it. Maybe they just

00:03:26.959 didn’t know the product did something.

00:03:28.640 If it’s missing a feature, maybe I have

00:03:30.560 a workaround that I’ve document that

00:03:32.239 they don’t know about that I can send it

00:03:33.519 to them. Maybe I can capture the feature

00:03:35.599 request and say, “Hey, this is something

00:03:36.959 we’re going to build over the next 30

00:03:38.319 days and when we launch it, we’ll let

00:03:40.080 you know.” And then if they’re

00:03:41.280 switching, you can say you can switch,

00:03:42.799 but I just want you to know that once

00:03:44.239 you leave, your current data will be

00:03:45.920 deleted, right? Do you want to like keep

00:03:47.519 your account active on a lower plan so

00:03:49.440 that you can at least export your data

00:03:50.799 in the future if you want to? Which

00:03:52.560 takes me to the next step, which is

00:03:54.080 create some kind of notification that

00:03:56.239 reminds them what they’re losing. Maybe

00:03:58.159 they bought when your product was a lot

00:04:00.159 cheaper. Maybe that in the future when

00:04:02.560 they reactivate, you now have this new

00:04:04.319 fee. Whatever it is that you offer, just

00:04:06.799 let them know what they’re going to lose

00:04:08.080 and make them confirm that as a way to

00:04:10.640 get them to think twice before

00:04:12.000 canceling. And the last thing is you got

00:04:14.080 to follow up. Sometimes people leave not

00:04:16.478 cuz they don’t want to use the product,

00:04:17.600 but maybe they change jobs. What if you

00:04:19.680 follow up and you find an opportunity to

00:04:21.199 maybe sell your product or service in

00:04:23.120 the new place where they went to work?

00:04:24.800 Just following up to offer help after

00:04:27.120 they’ve canled just sets you on a

00:04:29.440 different level of customer experience

00:04:31.199 than they’re probably used to, which

00:04:32.560 will get positive word of mouth

00:04:34.000 marketing on your behalf. To make this

00:04:35.919 even easier, I link the exact

00:04:38.240 cancellation flow, the wireframes, the

00:04:40.560 copy, the button clicks, everything that

00:04:42.479 I use in all of my companies that you

00:04:44.400 can steal from me. I’ve paid tens of

00:04:46.240 thousands of dollars to develop this

00:04:47.759 with a UX designer, and I’m giving it to

00:04:49.759 you free. Just click the link below in

00:04:51.440 the descriptions and download your copy.

00:04:53.199 Now that you set that up, it’s time to

00:04:55.199 make sure customers don’t cancel in the

00:04:57.120 first place. Step number three, speed up

00:04:59.440 first value. Click, click, value. My

00:05:03.199 whole motto in life is as soon as

00:05:05.120 somebody pays, how fast can I get them a

00:05:07.759 win? If you shorten the time that

00:05:09.759 somebody becomes a customer and from

00:05:12.080 days to minutes that they get value,

00:05:15.120 they will stay. Like when you get a new

00:05:17.039 phone, the setup time takes like 3

00:05:19.360 minutes or less. That’s by design. One

00:05:22.080 of my portfolio companies at Martell

00:05:23.680 Ventures, it’s called Precision and

00:05:25.600 essentially they take an onboarding

00:05:27.759 process that’s done with voice and they

00:05:30.160 use AI to automatically create all their

00:05:33.039 business scorecards in minutes. That

00:05:35.039 way, nobody has to wait. The process is

00:05:37.039 done and the client’s getting results

00:05:38.800 immediately. So, how do you do this? You

00:05:41.280 go through what I call a time to first

00:05:43.360 value sprint. It’s a four-step process.

00:05:45.680 The first thing is we have to define the

00:05:47.840 value event. essentially what’s the

00:05:49.840 event that the customers if they

00:05:51.440 experienced they would brag about you

00:05:53.120 know so one of my portfolio companies

00:05:54.560 youratlas.com they have this rule your

00:05:56.960 first 10 calls performed if they can get

00:05:59.280 their product to do 10 calls on your

00:06:01.360 behalf as fast as possible then you’re

00:06:03.759 going to be like wow that’s amazing and

00:06:05.520 tell everybody about it the second step

00:06:07.120 is we have to remove all friction from

00:06:09.919 that process I’m talking defer

00:06:12.160 integrations give them auto defaults

00:06:15.199 like offer sample data or templates like

00:06:17.919 whatever Whatever you can do to make

00:06:19.759 that first experience, that time to

00:06:21.759 first value just frictionless and don’t

00:06:24.400 make them think. Like I was saying, your

00:06:26.160 atlas.com, they give the call scripts

00:06:28.400 and best practices and it’s built into

00:06:30.479 the software so you don’t have to think.

00:06:32.880 The third is you have to design that

00:06:35.280 path. Click click value. The two to

00:06:38.080 three clicks has to end in the customer

00:06:40.639 experiencing the value. when you

00:06:42.080 installed, let’s say, like Instagram,

00:06:43.680 when it launched, it was the easiest way

00:06:46.000 to take a picture, add a filter, and

00:06:48.000 post it on your social media profile.

00:06:49.919 That’s all it did. It did a bunch of

00:06:51.440 other stuff, but it didn’t even talk

00:06:53.120 about that cuz it wanted to get you to

00:06:55.840 take a picture, add a filter, post it on

00:06:58.479 Twitter, post it on Facebook, post it on

00:07:00.560 text message, share with a friend.

00:07:02.240 That’s it. They knew if they could get

00:07:03.919 every new sign up to do that, then the

00:07:06.400 person would then go, “Hey, how does

00:07:07.840 this feed work? How does the messaging

00:07:09.120 work?” Don’t confuse the experience by

00:07:11.120 adding other stuff. The fourth and last

00:07:13.039 is alerting. I think of it as like

00:07:15.360 nudging the person along. So, if

00:07:17.440 somebody signs up for your product or

00:07:19.039 service and they don’t get to step one

00:07:21.199 or two or three, you need to create

00:07:24.080 trigger notifications via email and SMS

00:07:27.039 to get them back into your world, maybe

00:07:29.599 back on a call or back in your app and

00:07:31.440 just nudge them to get started to get to

00:07:33.919 that core value. See, the key is is

00:07:36.479 don’t add more features or content

00:07:38.720 because sometimes your customers just

00:07:40.319 need to consume more. The more they use,

00:07:42.880 the more they’ll stay. So, now that they

00:07:45.360 got to fast value, it’s time to map the

00:07:48.319 path so nobody gets lost. Step four, map

00:07:51.840 the golden path. If you have a bunch of

00:07:54.560 customers and you don’t know what the

00:07:56.720 best customers are doing that cause them

00:07:58.960 to want to stay, then what we have to do

00:08:01.039 is analyze the click stream. So, it’s a

00:08:03.360 software term, but it applies to every

00:08:04.960 business. If somebody came into your

00:08:06.960 retail store and they spent $1,500, but

00:08:10.160 they’ve been there before, and you could

00:08:12.080 identify the 25 customers that spent

00:08:14.240 $1,500 or more, and then work back from

00:08:17.599 the first time they ever walked into

00:08:19.199 your store to figure out what that

00:08:21.360 interaction looked like that would cause

00:08:23.120 them to trust you, to want to spend

00:08:24.960 $1,500 in your retail store. You might

00:08:27.599 discover that 90% of them talked to

00:08:30.160 Jane. Oh, interesting. what did Jane say

00:08:33.200 to them? Because if I can figure out

00:08:34.958 what experience they all had in common,

00:08:37.919 then I can replicate and frontload that

00:08:40.559 experience. That’s why it’s called a

00:08:41.919 clickstream analysis. So to implement a

00:08:44.880 clickstream analysis to design your

00:08:46.640 golden path, these are the four things

00:08:48.399 you need. First, we have to design some

00:08:50.720 event maps. They’re essentially like

00:08:52.160 these milestones, right? Things like

00:08:54.399 signed up, started the setup, first

00:08:57.120 value. See, if you can create these

00:08:59.360 milestones in a process or what I call a

00:09:01.600 customer journey, then you can figure

00:09:03.279 out what parts people are getting stuck

00:09:05.279 at. If I sit down with you and I say,

00:09:07.120 “Okay, all your new customers, what’s

00:09:09.680 the flow from the moment they give you a

00:09:12.160 dollar to them becoming valuable or

00:09:15.200 retained?” And if you haven’t designed

00:09:17.040 that map, then you don’t know it. The

00:09:19.279 next step is to create a funnel

00:09:20.959 dashboard. essentially take that flow

00:09:23.839 and put it into a funnel so that you

00:09:25.920 know, okay, everybody that walked into

00:09:28.080 our store, that was 100%. How many

00:09:30.720 people went and tried something on? Oh,

00:09:32.640 that was only 50%. How many of those

00:09:34.800 people then went and bought anything?

00:09:36.399 Oh, that’s only 10%. What caused the

00:09:38.640 drop off? Well, maybe while they were in

00:09:40.720 the change room, somebody working there

00:09:42.880 could have came with different color

00:09:44.480 options or size options and recommended

00:09:46.800 that. Cuz when I go to Lululemon, let me

00:09:49.120 tell you, they do that. They have

00:09:50.800 blackboards in the changing rooms that

00:09:52.720 when I give feedback to the staff, they

00:09:55.279 write it down and at the end of the day,

00:09:56.720 they take a picture and send that back

00:09:58.480 to the product managers so they know

00:10:00.399 what the customer is saying. So in

00:10:02.240 software, we use the data, the analytics

00:10:04.640 to understand that cuz the customer

00:10:06.160 doesn’t have to tell us. We can just

00:10:07.600 look at it. But if you have a retail

00:10:09.519 store, collecting that feedback at the

00:10:11.920 point of the activity is where you’re

00:10:14.399 going to find the opportunities to

00:10:15.440 create innovation. The third step is we

00:10:17.680 have to fix the interface. So, we have

00:10:19.360 to fix the experience, right? So, it

00:10:21.440 might be that they got confused. Add

00:10:23.279 some copy so that it’s not confusing. I

00:10:25.680 don’t know what to do next. Put some

00:10:27.519 signs up. My son the other day bought a

00:10:29.600 course. Okay, he’s 13 years old. Bought

00:10:31.680 his first course. He spent 50 bucks. As

00:10:33.600 soon as he spent the 50 bucks, he was

00:10:35.600 like, “Okay, now what do I do?” Nowhere

00:10:37.600 on the thank you page after taking his

00:10:39.600 money did it say, “Go check your inbox.”

00:10:42.000 One simple fix would have saved him a

00:10:44.560 support email because that’s what my son

00:10:45.920 did instead. It sounds so simple, but

00:10:48.160 those little tweaks will change the

00:10:50.000 whole flow of your customer experience.

00:10:51.600 And the last one is we want to create

00:10:53.200 targets for each one of those

00:10:54.959 milestones. We want to sit down with the

00:10:56.560 team and say, “How do we increase the

00:10:58.560 throughput of that funnel?” One time I

00:11:00.720 was working with a client and I noticed

00:11:02.240 that all their top customers invited

00:11:04.480 other team members to join the software

00:11:07.279 to review and be involved in the tool.

00:11:09.519 It was a reporting tool. So part of the

00:11:12.160 onboarding for that software was asking

00:11:14.640 who are three or four other people on

00:11:16.399 your team that you would want to have

00:11:17.680 access to that report. Then all of a

00:11:19.200 sudden you have three or four other

00:11:20.399 people that get an email notification.

00:11:21.920 They come back into the tool. When

00:11:23.680 they’re doing stuff on the report in

00:11:25.519 your tool, you can email the original

00:11:27.040 person who signed up for the software to

00:11:28.640 let them know that Bobby just did

00:11:30.320 something. Brings them back in the tool

00:11:32.399 which means they’re using the tool and

00:11:34.240 that creates retention. Like I said, the

00:11:36.079 more consumption, the more retention.

00:11:38.160 So, you want to create targets for your

00:11:40.000 team to hit and then come up with

00:11:41.360 creative ideas like that based on the

00:11:43.440 data that might improve the golden path.

00:11:45.680 Now, data is great, but real words from

00:11:48.160 real customers is a lot better if you

00:11:50.160 want your customers to stick around.

00:11:51.519 Step number five, talk to customers

00:11:53.680 weekly. This is my biggest pet peeve,

00:11:55.920 especially for you software nerds out

00:11:57.600 there. Stop hiding behind your computer.

00:12:00.880 Like I said, if you owned a retail

00:12:02.880 store, if you were hiding in the back

00:12:04.720 office looking at cameras, and you watch

00:12:07.040 a hundred people come in, not buy

00:12:08.880 anything, and then leave your store, and

00:12:10.880 you’re like, “Why are they doing that?”

00:12:12.240 So, you think, “I need to collect their

00:12:14.240 cell number when they come in the

00:12:15.519 store.” And then you send them a text

00:12:17.360 message filling out a survey to ask them

00:12:19.440 why they didn’t buy anything. Or you get

00:12:22.480 out of the back office, you walk onto

00:12:24.639 the floor, and you talk to people in

00:12:26.240 person. This is the biggest opportunity

00:12:28.320 in business is to talk to the people.

00:12:31.920 Talk and find out why. So, how do we do

00:12:34.639 this in a way that’s systematized? I

00:12:37.040 call this the feedback flywheel. The

00:12:38.720 first thing is we have to build a

00:12:39.920 cadence. How often are we going to talk

00:12:42.480 to customers? You just figure out for

00:12:44.079 yourself. Maybe it’s one happy customer,

00:12:46.000 one angry customer every week. That’s a

00:12:48.079 good system. For me, I like to do smile

00:12:50.320 and dial on Thursdays. pick up the

00:12:52.079 phone, randomly call a customer, maybe

00:12:54.480 five or six, depending how many I can

00:12:55.760 get done in an hour, and just ask them

00:12:57.680 about their experience and what they’ve

00:12:59.279 learned and how they heard about us and

00:13:01.120 what we could do to improve. Those

00:13:02.720 conversations allow me to stay connected

00:13:04.959 to the front line, to the people that

00:13:07.040 are actually spending money. The second

00:13:08.480 thing is we have to figure out the

00:13:09.600 beats. Like when we’re talking to a

00:13:11.200 customer, ask them what their goal was,

00:13:13.519 find out if anybody’s had a successful

00:13:15.600 outcome around that. If they didn’t

00:13:17.279 achieve it, what’s the friction? and

00:13:19.040 then sit down with the team and just

00:13:20.240 like propose a solution. Sometimes

00:13:22.480 solving the customer’s problem is as

00:13:24.880 simple as like updating a process that

00:13:26.880 the support team could do and then

00:13:28.399 creating a feature request that they can

00:13:30.079 fix in the future. The third step is to

00:13:32.399 tag and score. See, I’m all about fixing

00:13:35.600 problems, but not if it only happens to

00:13:37.519 one out of a thousand of your customers.

00:13:39.360 First, you want to tag how frequent it’s

00:13:41.440 happening, cuz it’s happening a lot.

00:13:42.880 That’s one thing. Then, you want to tag

00:13:44.480 it like how hard is it to solve. Is it

00:13:46.399 simple, medium, or hard? Because if

00:13:48.639 something’s happening a lot and it’s

00:13:50.320 really easy to solve, I might want to

00:13:52.160 frontload and fix that so it impacts the

00:13:54.240 most customers. The last step, the

00:13:55.839 fourth step is to close the loop where

00:13:57.760 once you fix something, emailing the

00:14:00.079 customer and letting them know, hey, we

00:14:02.000 just shipped this for you. Now, it could

00:14:04.240 have been something you had on your road

00:14:05.920 map to build or add anyway, but keeping

00:14:08.399 a list of customers that have asked for

00:14:10.639 it and then when you launch it, just

00:14:12.240 emailing them letting them know goes so

00:14:14.639 far. All right, so now that you fixed

00:14:16.720 their words, them being upset, if you

00:14:18.880 really want to keep more of your

00:14:20.480 customers, it’s time to fix your words.

00:14:22.720 Step number six, make the product dummy

00:14:25.519 proof. A confused mind never buys. Often

00:14:28.720 times, you might have to rename,

00:14:30.560 rewrite, reorder something about your

00:14:33.199 document, your contract, your software.

00:14:35.920 And I know you might have a preference

00:14:37.360 and you’re an artist and you’re like,

00:14:38.720 “This is the way I like it.” My

00:14:40.639 customers decide, not me. If every one

00:14:43.199 of my customers is confused that they

00:14:44.639 got to go from here to here in my store

00:14:46.800 or they got to click this button to

00:14:48.399 download this information to upload it

00:14:50.079 over there, I need to make it simple.

00:14:52.639 Here’s an example. If the drop- down

00:14:54.959 menu for ordering in your online

00:14:57.040 software for food delivery says boine

00:14:59.360 patty unit and it really should say

00:15:01.600 cheeseburger, you might want to update

00:15:03.600 it. I mean, it’s so funny cuz like one

00:15:05.279 time I launched this product called

00:15:06.720 Creator and people are like, “What is

00:15:08.480 it?” And I go, “Well, it’s kind of like

00:15:10.079 a SAS Academy.” like it’s this program

00:15:12.480 for software founders and it’s like a

00:15:14.079 university so it’s like software as a

00:15:15.760 service academy and they’re like why

00:15:17.440 don’t you just call it that. So let’s go

00:15:19.440 through three tips that you can use to

00:15:21.360 make your product or service extremely

00:15:23.360 easy for anyone to understand. The first

00:15:25.600 is just rename with the customer’s words

00:15:28.399 what’s called self-identifying language.

00:15:31.680 My favorite way to do this is to harvest

00:15:34.240 from calls either support calls or sales

00:15:36.720 calls and then I want you to ban

00:15:39.279 internal jargon. See, often times the

00:15:41.920 way your team explains things ends up in

00:15:44.480 support documents or sales calls or

00:15:47.199 whatever and it makes no sense to a

00:15:49.360 buyer. Let them change the words. The

00:15:53.120 best in the world at this is Apple. Look

00:15:55.600 at the way they name their features.

00:15:57.440 Things like AirDrop, AirPlay, Touch ID,

00:16:01.680 Retina display. You can go through the

00:16:03.839 list. go on Chad GBT and ask it and you

00:16:06.000 will see this is language that they use

00:16:08.880 that the customer remembers and

00:16:10.720 continues to build what makes their

00:16:12.800 product different. The second thing is

00:16:14.399 we want to rewrite the documents any

00:16:16.320 kind of specific outcome language. So

00:16:18.880 it’s better to say create invoice versus

00:16:21.759 get paid. Get paid doesn’t make sense

00:16:23.839 but if I want to create an invoice

00:16:25.040 that’s where I click to do that. The

00:16:26.639 third is reduce the amount of choices. A

00:16:29.040 confused mind never buys. A confused

00:16:31.440 mind never clicks. They don’t decide.

00:16:33.920 Why? Cuz you have too many things on the

00:16:35.839 screen, too many options. Hide anything

00:16:38.240 that’s more advanced behind the simple,

00:16:40.720 right? Keep the golden path visible to

00:16:43.279 accomplish an outcome without adding any

00:16:45.680 extra distractions. So, when we look at

00:16:47.600 the clickstream analysis and the time to

00:16:49.759 first value and really tweak the

00:16:51.600 language, that’s how we ensure that the

00:16:53.920 customers stick around. That’s how we

00:16:56.000 can keep more customers without reducing

00:16:58.320 our prices. Bonus tip is to go look at

00:17:01.120 your marketing website, your homepage,

00:17:03.199 take that first line in the description

00:17:04.959 below it, and make that the heading. And

00:17:07.280 you’d be surprised how almost every

00:17:08.799 website becomes clearer and more

00:17:10.880 valuable. Every company I work with, I

00:17:12.880 ask them to swap that, and they increase

00:17:15.119 conversions by 30%. Because it becomes

00:17:17.760 clearer. So now, even with the language

00:17:20.319 fix, if you want to keep customers

00:17:21.919 without lowering your prices, you need

00:17:23.679 to create a strong future for your

00:17:25.439 existing customers. Step number seven,

00:17:27.760 expand consumption. The best way to get

00:17:31.200 people to buy more is to become

00:17:32.799 evangelists of your product or service

00:17:34.799 by making them part of it. How do I

00:17:36.960 enroll my existing customers to

00:17:39.440 participate in things within my

00:17:41.120 business? Think about it like this. If I

00:17:43.440 own a gym, the key is to like get the

00:17:45.840 person to come back first- time visit.

00:17:47.760 Think, how do I get them twice a week?

00:17:49.440 Then maybe I can get them to hire a

00:17:51.280 personal trainer. But the whole point is

00:17:53.039 to increase consumption by getting them

00:17:54.880 involved in the thing which is just

00:17:57.039 going to the gym feeling comfortable

00:17:58.320 with that. It’s like my buddy Matt who

00:18:00.000 runs precision.co. First he became a

00:18:02.720 coaching client by buying SAS Academy.

00:18:05.440 Then within that company I asked him to

00:18:07.360 work on a key project. Then I asked him

00:18:09.600 to speak at an event. Then I asked him

00:18:11.440 if I could highlight him as a client and

00:18:13.840 did like a micro dock on him. Then he

00:18:15.760 exited and I asked him to partner with

00:18:17.440 me at Highspeed Venture. So like

00:18:19.280 essentially I think of it this way. How

00:18:21.120 do you create a relationship with a

00:18:22.480 customer that isn’t even just your

00:18:23.919 current business, but could be future

00:18:25.600 businesses? To do this and really get

00:18:27.520 people bought in, I call this the

00:18:29.520 adoption ladder process. The first thing

00:18:31.600 is we got to create milestones. So,

00:18:33.600 think about like CrossFit. The first 10

00:18:35.440 classes, that’s a milestone. Maybe they

00:18:37.280 become an affiliate member, that’s

00:18:38.640 another milestone. Your first class that

00:18:40.480 you coach now that you’re a coach,

00:18:42.240 that’s a milestone. Think about like

00:18:44.400 what are the progression ladders of

00:18:46.960 adoption you want your current customers

00:18:49.039 to go through? Because when you give

00:18:51.039 people a ladder, they want to climb the

00:18:52.960 ladder. The next thing, the second step

00:18:54.799 is to create the prompts. Essentially,

00:18:56.720 after each milestone, you want to ask

00:18:59.440 them to do something that is integrated

00:19:01.760 and related to the prompt. Maybe if they

00:19:04.000 get to the 100th class, you could say,

00:19:05.679 “Hey, we’ve got a podcast and I’d love

00:19:07.360 to interview you for our podcast. Would

00:19:08.799 you be open to it?” You want to map the

00:19:10.960 milestone to the request. The last and

00:19:13.679 final step is you want to spotlight your

00:19:15.840 customers. They’re called bright spots.

00:19:17.760 If somebody accomplishes something

00:19:19.520 meaningful, have them share it with

00:19:21.440 everybody else or acknowledge them for

00:19:23.039 it so that other people can aspire to be

00:19:25.520 like them. It’s like my buddy Taki Moore

00:19:27.600 when he does his events, he gives out

00:19:29.679 belts just like in martial arts. That

00:19:32.160 way at different revenue levels, he

00:19:34.320 gives you a different color belt, but

00:19:35.919 there’s a belt ceremony at the end of

00:19:37.760 his 2-day event, which is like a

00:19:40.080 celebration to the members to say, “Oh,

00:19:42.559 someday I’m going to be a black belt.”

00:19:44.400 So that’s how we get more people to

00:19:46.160 adopt and build the ladder for them to

00:19:48.480 contribute and feel committed to the

00:19:50.400 company. Ultimately, that leads them to

00:19:52.640 staying around longer and you not having

00:19:54.559 to discount your prices to keep them

00:19:56.320 around. And it also gets them to buy

00:19:58.160 more. And the more they buy, the more

00:19:59.760 money you make, which is how we increase

00:20:01.360 what’s called the share of wallet. And

00:20:03.039 remember, through all of this, you

00:20:05.039 should be using a cancellation capture

00:20:06.640 flow, like a documented process. If you

00:20:09.039 want to get the exact PDF version of how

00:20:11.200 I design it with the copy, just click

00:20:12.799 the link in the description below and

00:20:14.000 I’ll send it right over. Keeping

00:20:15.600 customers isn’t really magic. It’s just

00:20:18.640 caring about them that makes the moments

00:20:21.360 that matter to them magical. You build

00:20:23.760 the system. You document it. You make it

00:20:25.919 a checklist. And it’s not about lowering

00:20:28.080 your prices or giving discounts. That’s

00:20:30.240 the easy way to do it that just churns

00:20:32.960 through goodwill you build your

00:20:34.480 customers. You want to be the premium

00:20:36.480 provider. Means you want to elevate the

00:20:38.240 experience, get people results, and make

00:20:40.320 sure you show up caring about them and

00:20:42.720 their needs and their reality, not

00:20:44.799 making it just about the dollar and you.

00:20:47.039 And if you want to learn how to build a

00:20:48.640 business that runs itself, click the

00:20:50.480 video and I’ll see you on the other

The post How to Keep Customers Without Lowering Your Prices: A 7-Step Retention System appeared first on Dan Martell.

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