Dan Martell - How To Increase Activation & Adoption Of Your SaaS Product

00:00:00.120 Hi there, I'm Dan Martell,

00:00:01.120 serial entrepreneur, investor, and creator of SaaS Academy.

00:00:03.600 In this video, I'm gonna teach you the five steps

00:00:05.600 to increasing your activation and adoption

00:00:08.040 of your SaaS product without changing your product.

00:00:10.760 And be sure to stay to the end

00:00:11.720 where I'm gonna share with you an exclusive guide.

00:00:14.680 It's called the Churn Buster Checklist 1.00

00:00:16.160 to help you reduce churn.

00:00:17.160 It's my nine box model.

00:00:18.480 I'll tell you how to get access to that in a bit.

00:00:30.000 So reducing your churn is the ultimate outcome

00:00:36.440 of improving activation and adoption of your product.

00:00:39.320 And without that, you end up continuously

00:00:41.520 having to find new customers

00:00:43.020 to make up for the ones you lost.

00:00:44.700 You know, recently I was working

00:00:45.520 with one of my coaching clients

00:00:46.580 and we started working together.

00:00:48.120 They had an 18% month-over-month churn

00:00:50.840 which made it absolutely impossible

00:00:52.660 to really scale the business.

00:00:54.100 Your lifetime value's too short.

00:00:56.020 The cost to acquire a customer,

00:00:57.480 the payback period didn't really work out.

00:01:00.000 And what we did is we went through my churn buster

00:01:02.560 checklist and implemented these five steps to allow them to

00:01:05.960 get that number down to 4%.

00:01:07.640 And what the coolest part of that whole story is,

00:01:10.100 is that 4% with their expansion revenue,

00:01:12.300 they were able to achieve net negative churn for the first

00:01:15.860 time ever and they've kept that up.

00:01:17.600 That means that on a monthly basis without growing new

00:01:20.100 customer accounts they were able to grow their monthly

00:01:22.600 reoccurring revenue because the expansion outpaced their

00:01:25.760 contraction churn either through cancellation or downgrade.

00:01:29.960 So, in this video, I'm gonna teach you the five steps

00:01:32.900 to activate and adopt your customers as fast as possible.

00:01:36.060 Step number one, build an on-ramp.

00:01:38.600 If you follow me on social media, Instagram stories,

00:01:41.140 or know about me in general, you probably have learned

00:01:44.380 that I'm a bit into CrossFit, and one of the principles

00:01:48.440 of CrossFit is when somebody joins,

00:01:49.980 they have an on-ramp period, and what that is

00:01:52.240 is really your opportunity to teach them movements,

00:01:54.920 to explain them the language, the structure,

00:01:57.620 the best practices, what they can expect in an upcoming class

00:02:00.960 and you do all of that before you drop them

00:02:03.460 into their first group class.

00:02:05.420 The reason you do that is because you don't want them

00:02:07.300 to feel out of place.

00:02:08.260 Now I will say most software products don't have an on-ramp.

00:02:12.500 They don't have an activation step or first time user

00:02:15.000 experience.

00:02:15.840 That is the first step in really making sure that your product

00:02:20.140 gets a customer situated so they know how to get in there

00:02:23.020 and then instead of just dropping them on the dashboard

00:02:26.780 where they might not know what's the next action.

00:02:28.380 You actually walk them through step by step

00:02:30.380 what you expect them to do next.

00:02:31.880 Step number two, create a support network.

00:02:35.280 Now, as much as you want to have your customer self-serve

00:02:39.820 and get activated and adopt the product on their own,

00:02:41.960 the truth is is maybe they're gonna need somebody

00:02:44.600 to handhold them and the cool part is

00:02:46.260 it doesn't always have to be you.

00:02:48.240 Yes, you have customer support people

00:02:49.840 that are responding to issues and challenges

00:02:51.840 and essentially tickets, they're in a responsive mode,

00:02:54.440 What I want you to consider is creating a support network

00:02:58.080 for them, reaching out proactively from your customer

00:03:01.020 success team to ask them if they need some support

00:03:04.040 or creating an online group, maybe a Facebook group

00:03:07.420 or a Slack channel that you invite them to so that they

00:03:10.020 can ask questions to other customers that can explain to

00:03:12.860 them how they've overcome those challenges themselves.

00:03:15.620 And by doing that, you start to build relationships

00:03:18.260 and connections and amongst your customer base,

00:03:20.100 that's how you're gonna get people not only to help you

00:03:23.400 to support your customers but also create connections

00:03:25.460 so that they continue staying with the product,

00:03:28.140 adopt it and feel like they're part of a movement

00:03:30.540 and not just using a tool.

00:03:32.000 Step number three, you need to project a future.

00:03:35.580 If a customer doesn't know what their life could look like,

00:03:38.980 they might have a problem that they expected your solution

00:03:41.220 to solve but maybe they don't really understand how

00:03:44.580 that solution's gonna look once it's finally solved

00:03:46.820 out into the future and the best way to do that

00:03:48.960 is to do case studies.

00:03:50.500 You have a video on creating a customer case study

00:03:52.800 And in that video I talk about how to extract those wins

00:03:55.600 from customers so that you can tell those stories

00:03:59.080 to tell new customers what the potential future

00:04:02.140 could look like.

00:04:02.980 So creating a future for your customer

00:04:04.640 so that they have a strong understanding of not only

00:04:07.020 can I get this problem solved but their nirvana

00:04:09.660 in my industry, a company that looks kinda like me,

00:04:12.480 here's what they achieve with this solution,

00:04:14.280 really allows them to go on the search inside your product

00:04:18.160 how to configure and tweak and add those extra features

00:04:21.160 to get an even enhanced outcome

00:04:23.160 that they may not have realized is possible with your tool.

00:04:27.200 Step number four, monitor for lows.

00:04:30.040 One of the things I teach my coaching clients

00:04:31.940 is a framework called the Member at Risk Monitor

00:04:35.500 and the concept is very simple.

00:04:37.240 There's certain levels of activities for your product

00:04:39.820 and it's different per company

00:04:41.420 where you expect a customer or their team

00:04:43.540 to engage in the product.

00:04:44.620 That might be responding, logging in,

00:04:46.680 creating, configuring certain things

00:04:48.980 And what you want to do is set up that monitor

00:04:51.320 so that there's a dashboard that shows all of your

00:04:53.460 active accounts and starts using a simple traffic light

00:04:56.460 system, you know, red, green, yellow, to let you know,

00:04:59.020 are those accounts good?

00:05:00.300 Are they proportionally active based on what you've seen

00:05:03.860 in the past for a customer that's retained and stayed

00:05:05.860 with you and adopted the product?

00:05:07.340 If somebody turns from green to yellow,

00:05:09.840 that's your opportunity to proactively reach out.

00:05:12.100 And that's the difference between customer success

00:05:13.940 and customer support is one is about reacting

00:05:16.880 to customers' challenges.

00:05:17.800 The other one is actually, we live in a cool world

00:05:19.760 where we can do this, we monitor.

00:05:21.680 So you need to move to a point where you're monitoring

00:05:23.940 for lows in activities, in usage, in feature adoption

00:05:28.320 and make sure that you proactively reach out

00:05:30.440 and ask the customers anything to help them with.

00:05:33.320 If they get to red, you know there's a high probability

00:05:35.520 to churn and you wanna make sure you're picking up the phone,

00:05:37.880 you're leaving voicemails, you're doing whatever you can.

00:05:40.460 Imagine you have a good friend,

00:05:41.620 they're going through a hard time

00:05:42.820 and you know you can be helpful to them,

00:05:44.660 you've gotta treat it the exact same way

00:05:46.300 and get your team rallied around that outcome.

00:05:48.800 Step number five, flip the cancellation.

00:05:51.640 Now here's how that concept works is first off

00:05:54.300 in your early days, I actually think it's better for you

00:05:56.780 not to allow customers to cancel from your website

00:05:59.120 and I know from a user experience point of view

00:06:01.040 you might say well that seems a little aggressive

00:06:03.220 but the truth is is your only mission in the early days

00:06:06.880 is to figure out what's missing in the product.

00:06:08.820 What did the customer assume they were gonna get

00:06:10.900 versus what they received or they used

00:06:13.260 and what's the gap between that

00:06:14.960 because that's your opportunity to fix the product,

00:06:17.200 enhance it to get customers, in the future at least,

00:06:19.800 to stick around.

00:06:20.640 So if you're not getting that feedback

00:06:21.940 and people are just canceling,

00:06:23.300 then you're doing yourself and future customers a disservice.

00:06:26.380 The way you flip the cancellation

00:06:28.140 is you talk to the customer about that challenge

00:06:31.680 and then just ask them, hey, if we were able to overcome that,

00:06:34.580 if we were able to get you this outcome

00:06:36.140 that you thought that we could when you've registered

00:06:39.780 and you know that you can do that

00:06:41.460 and I'll even assign an account manager

00:06:43.320 to make sure that we not only set it up, configure it,

00:06:45.620 that we monitor every month for the next three months

00:06:48.200 to ensure that your team's adopting it,

00:06:50.400 that you're getting the value.

00:06:51.400 If we could do that, would you stay with our product?

00:06:53.960 And you'd be surprised how many people will say yes.

00:06:56.960 If you've worked really hard to get a customer,

00:06:59.400 then just because they're in this moment of frustration

00:07:02.680 and they're ready to cancel, don't give up on them so easily

00:07:06.100 and that's flip the cancellation.

00:07:07.620 So quick recap, number one, build an on-ramp

00:07:11.040 to help your customers get situated.

00:07:12.920 Number two, create a support network to ensure your customers

00:07:16.420 feel like they're part of a community and a movement.

00:07:18.520 Three, project a future of possibilities.

00:07:22.320 Four, monitor for lows so you can proactively engage.

00:07:26.020 Number five, flip the cancellation.

00:07:28.620 Don't let them leave without supporting them

00:07:30.620 in the best way you know how.

00:07:32.020 As I mentioned at the start of the video,

00:07:33.320 I want to share with you an exclusive download called

00:07:35.520 the Churn Buster Checklist. 0.99

00:07:37.020 It's a nine box model that's going to walk you through

00:07:40.020 the nine specific areas that you need to be considering

00:07:42.920 in your product, in your approach to avoiding cancellations

00:07:46.420 for your customers to resolve.

00:07:48.420 If you want that checklist, click the link below

00:07:50.820 in the description box.

00:07:51.920 It is there for you.

00:07:53.720 If you like this video, be sure to click the like button,

00:07:56.520 subscribe to the channel, and share this video with a friend.

00:07:59.620 Thanks for watchin', and I'll see you in the next video.

00:08:02.320 Little story.

00:08:04.320 Little story.

00:08:05.620 Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta little story.

00:08:08.220 Story.

00:08:09.620 I got a good story.

Dan Martell - April 16, 2018

How To Increase Activation & Adoption Of Your SaaS Product

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript