How I Discovered How To Connect With Every Customer

I’m an impatient person. I know this about myself, others know this about me. I don’t wait for anything well. Just ask my husband about me trying to open the car consistently as he tries to unlock the doors! So I didn’t take it very well when I made the decision to join LuLaRoe as a consultant, submitted my paperwork and learned that they were so far behind in onboarding that it wasn’t the 6-8 weeks that my sponsor had mentioned- more like 8-12 weeks! I resolved to think positive and take my time planning- that just meant I had tons of time to bone up on training, hunt down deals and generally prepare myself for being a consultant.  

I’m going to do this part time, as I have a full time day job. I don’t have any human children, just furbabies, so I feel confident I can handle this. I keep telling myself the extra time in the queue is just a blessing in disguise. Well, I discovered that to be 100% true today!  

While in the queue I have been joining so many consultant groups, buy/sell pages and selling groups- I want ideas and to see how those ideas are being received by actual customers. I highly recommend this to anyone even considering the opportunity or already in the queue- so many good ideas! Anyways, I joined a group that has a permanent hostess. I thought this was an interesting concept: this person runs the group page, advertises and gets new members and signs consultants up for pop-up slots. This gives consultants an opportunity to expand their selling range and potentially get new group members. And get this: the permanent hostess gets the hostess rewards for EVERY POP-UP ON THE PAGE. Nice gig if you can get it, right? I joined a few weeks ago, turned off notifications and made a note of it as something to try once I’ve onboarded. Fast forward to today, I’ve set up my Facebook group and business page, done a few Instagram posts and started to save some photos to start building albums. The only one in my group is my husband, as I don't plan on opening it until I get my call. Then I get a message on my business page- from this permanent hostess. It’s a long message, explaining the rules of hosting in her group. I reply, saying I’m sorry for the confusion but I’m still in the queue so cannot host a sale with her page. She replies saying I had shown interest on the group page and she had me down for Oct 28th. Huh? I know I didn’t sign up to sell! Why is she not getting that? So I reply again saying “Sorry again for the confusion but like I said I am still in the queue and won’t even have inventory until November. I cannot sell on your page Oct 28th“. Her reply was that someone with the same name (yeah, Heather IS super common) had signed up and she’s so overwhelmed with the page that she messaged the wrong person. I tried to go to the group to see if we had the same last name too and discovered she had removed me from the group! Next thing I know I’m getting a ton of requests to join my Facebook group – she had posted that I would be selling and shared my group page without me knowing! I didn’t want to turn down potential customers, or leave them waiting, so I let them join. Then, to clear up any confusion I sent them each the following message:  

Thank you for joining my LuLaRoe VIP group! I’m still currently in the queue, and will likely have inventory in early November. In the meantime I hope you’ll be patient as I build up the group page and look forward to having you shop with me! 

I did this for two reasons- to clear up the confusion this woman had caused my potential customers and to warn them they were going to be getting a lot of 'empty' notifications as I built up albums and figured out the page layout and name.  

Some people responded, saying they loved the heads up and were looking forward to my launch. Several people accepted the message with no reply (as of yet at least) and a few never accepted the message. But I realized a few things- this gave me the opportunity to connect to complete strangers on my page (and they even started adding people!) and let me welcome new members personally. AND what I just realized: this opens the line of communication between us from now on. If they accept my initial welcome private message, they will be able to send me a message with any questions they have AND I WILL GET A NOTIFICATION. Private messages don’t give you notifications, which can be detrimental in a sale. People have to comment saying, “sent you a PM”, so that consultants know to check their 'other' folder. I’ve cleared that hurdle with my first influx of potential customers!  

I totally plan on keeping this up- once I’ve onboarded I’ll include things like my email so they can contact me there, some of the information from the pinned post, etc. And while yes, I want to be busy and selling a lot, I hope I don’t get so busy that I can’t be personal with all my customers. 

I’m adding “Check Facebook group for new members” to my list of things to do each day to move my business forward. Here’s how to check:

Just make a note each day of the last person you messaged for joining the group. Anybody in the list above them (when you sort by join date) hasn’t gotten a message from you yet. I also adjusted my group settings so that members can add other people, but an admin needs to approve them. This way I can send them the message before I hit "Approve" and I know that I've sent them a message.

We need to think like retailers to build our business, but we are still, in the end, a small business. Personalized customer service is a cornerstone of any small business- this is just one way I plan to incorporate it :)