Realized last month my onboarding process was scaring off half my clients before they even signed

A prospect in Denver told me after the third email she felt like she was applying for a mortgage instead of starting a service, and that's when I looked at my funnel and saw a 48% drop off rate right at the intake stage. Has anyone else had luck trimming down their onboarding to just three steps or less?

2 comments

2 Comments

hugos461d agoTop Commenter

Buddy of mine runs a small consulting firm and he had the exact same problem. He was sending like 8 emails and a whole welcome packet before anyone even paid him. He told me he finally just sat down and asked his best clients what they actually needed up front and it turned out like, two forms and a 10 minute call was plenty. Cut it down to three steps and his close rate jumped something crazy, like 30% in a month. People just want to start, not feel like theyre filling out a loan application.

sagecooper1d ago

Wait, did he track which forms they actually hated most or just trimmed everything general? I've seen people do the "ask your clients" thing and they either get vague answers or clients just say "everything was fine" because they don't want to sound rude. Curious if he had to push them for specifics or if they were brutally honest once he asked the right way. Also wondering if he kept those 8 emails as options for people who actually wanted them, or just ditched the whole thing entirely. That jump in close rate makes me think there's a sweet spot between too much info and not enough handholding, but finding it sounds tricky.