The Art of the Strategic Pause: Refining Your Client Journey in 2024

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Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back.

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It has been a long time

since I put out an episode.

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Life has been lifin And although we're in

: 2024

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2023 was interesting to say the least.

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And I know Most business owners were

feeling it because the trends and the

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economy was so up, down, left, right.

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That there were a lot of pivots

and a lot of fast actions.

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And a lot of what I really, one thing that

I really dislike having to do is react.

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So as much as you plan and try to be

proactive, the economy and the way that

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trends are going, were going in 2023.

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You had to be more reactive

than you are proactive.

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And that was just a trend that we've seen.

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So, I took a hiatus for a couple reasons.

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One, I know my last few episodes,

as you know, I have a toddler.

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Had just started preschool in September.

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She was a COVID kid, so she stayed in the

house the first two years of her life.

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But now she's mixing and

mingling with other kids.

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So, needless to say.

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We've probably had every

virus known to man.

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In this house between the months

of September and December.

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And I'm just now getting to the

point where I don't sound horrible.

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So I was like, let me wrap up season two.

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Sorry.

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I don't even know what season I'm in.

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Let me wrap up season

three of more than a brand.

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That way I can come in fresh for season

four and bring you some hot new stuff.

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Now today.

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With that being said, with um, my child

being sick and having to take a hiatus

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and having to take a break, I wanted

to talk about the power in the pause.

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There is power when you take a pause

from your business and from your brand.

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Take a break and step away from it.

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Take a hiatus and then come back to it.

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Because as that, as cliche as it sounds,

you cannot pour from an empty cup.

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So I took a couple pauses between

the months of November and

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December and then after I took

those pauses, I took a CEO day.

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So during my CEO day, I put myself in

a hotel room by myself, and I allowed

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my fresh thoughts to wonder and to

become clearer on exactly what it is

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I'm doing within my own business and

to finally put together all the pieces

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and down on paper all the things that

I've been trying out in: 2023

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it easy for people to understand.

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And what I came up with were

three definitive ways that we help

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clients create customer journeys.

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And those three definitive ways were

envisioning, developing, and refining.

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So the last part, refining, is something

that I have been struggling with.

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What word should I use?

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I call it a maintenance,

I call it a retainer.

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I called it all sorts of things

over the past year, but as I was

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working with a client who's actually

on a refining package, she said,

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this feels like refining and not

overhauling or not redesigning.

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And I was like, that is so aligned

because I literally just wrote

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refining on this piece of paper.

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So when I, when I was also

during my, um, CEO day.

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I decided that developing has so

many pieces And I've been sharing

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what those pieces look like.

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How it all comes together.

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Because what people see is a well

thought out, seamless client journey.

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From acquiring the clients,

to the transactional piece, to

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what happens on the back end.

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But what they do not see is all

the hours of data and analytics and

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mapping it out and thinking about it.

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That's not what they don't see that.

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So as a entrepreneur, especially

as a high level, small business

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owner, when you're looking for

someone to do certain tasks for you.

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You need to see all the pieces.

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You need to see that this person,

and for my case, isn't just going to

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create you a beautiful website, but

they're going to put thought behind

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it that's going to make you money.

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Because ultimately, that's

what it's about, right?

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Creating generational wealth and

breaking generational curses.

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Have you seen those?

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Um Have you seen those posts on social

media about I'm a millennial mom.

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Of course, I'm breaking generational

curses Those things resonate with me

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so much because I'm a living I am a

millennial mom and I feel like I'm doing

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all the things that they talk about in

these videos but the good thing about

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being A person with a business in 2023,

a person that's growing a business, a

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person that's a millennial mom is that

you have gotten to the point where you

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understand your power and you understand

that it is okay to take a break.

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It's okay to pause because

there is power in the pause.

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So as we move into 2024, And I know

everyone's doing all the planning.

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There's yearly planning,

quarterly planning.

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My marketing coach is like, it's time

for your quarterly marketing call.

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I have an annual, strategy

planning session with a client.

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Everybody's doing a whole lot of planning,

but as you are planning what your client

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experience looks like, what are your

next hurdles you're going to jump, what

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does that client journey look like for

your business, remember to plan in a

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pause, because without it, you're going

to burn out, you're going to be tired.

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And you're not going to be able to

deliver to your clients like you want to.

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The beauty of having a well thought out

customer journey, a client experience,

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is that when you take that pause, they

can continue on that journey without you.

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You have the systems and the things

in place to give them the tools

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that they need while you're pausing.

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That's why we shifted into more

client experiences and client

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journey mapping to fall alongside

with our web design services.

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It's more than a beautiful website.

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It's more than something

pretty to look at.

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It's more than a brand shameless plug.

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It is what's going to help you.

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Break those barriers and to help you get

to that next level in your business that

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you're hoping to find All right, y'all

that's all I have for this episode and I

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will see you in the last and final episode

of Season three more than a brand we've

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been talking big girl and big boy business

all Season long and I'm gonna wrap it

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up with something good next next episode