22. The 4 Seasons of the Customer Journey: Autumn

EPISODE 22 OF WHAT WOULD THEY DO? THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE PODCAST FOR SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS

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In part three of the Four Seasons of the Customer Journey mini-series, we dive into Autumn: the season of decision. 

That’s when your dream customer is asking themselves: “Can I trust this person with my money, and will this actually work for me?”

This episode is packed with practical ways to support the decision-making process without pressure, fake urgency, or pushy sales tactics. Whether you’re a service provider, course creator, or membership owner, you’ll learn how to turn almost ready into absolutely yes with confidence and integrity.

What we cover:

What Autumn Looks Like in the Customer Journey – When potential customers weigh up their options and need clarity, not pressure.

How to Support a Decision Without Selling Hard – Clarifying your offer and reducing risk so customers feel confident saying yes (or no).

Smart Touch Points for Different Business Models – What to include in your service pages, sales emails, and offers to nudge hesitant buyers.

How to Use Testimonials, Case Studies, and Personal Touches – From sample deliverables to private podcasts and personal video messages.

Why the Goal Isn’t More Sales, but the Right Sales – Helping the right people decide, not convincing everyone.

Soundbites:

“I used my email analytics to identify people who had shown awesome interest in my launch. Who have engaged with my emails, who have clicked the sales page several times and I sent them personal video messages. The conversion rate from people who clearly were on the fence because it was 24 hours before the end of that founding member offer was incredible. People responded, people had questions that clearly I need to incorporate into my sales page and into the FAQs. But it’s just such a personal touch point at this point in the customer journey.”

“Autumn is your opportunity to address any objections they might have head on before they become roadblocks for that sale. It’s all about clarifying your offer. Now is the time to talk about your features, your membership inclusions, where, in spring we said, now’s not the time to do that. Autumn is where you focus on what they get, what it means for them, what that looks like.”

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Your next steps:

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Catch up with other episodes in this mini series:

Episode Transcript:

Nadine Nethery (00:00)

Hey, hey, and welcome back to What Would They Do? Today is part three in my mini-series all about the four seasons of the customer journey. So far, if you’ve missed it, we’ve covered Spring, which is the season of discovery. We have explored Summer, the season of engagement, which covers those early relationship

building moments that matter before the sale. Today our dream customer has finally come to the realization that it’s time to make a decision. We have come to the moment where your dream customer is considering their options. They are looking at all the details, they’re running their numbers and they are asking themselves is

this offer and this person really right for me. Today we’re hopefully giving you all the tools and some ideas to turn this question into a resounding yes. In autumn, your job is to make it super simple for your dream customer to make a decision. Either way, whether it’s a yes or a no, your job is not to pressure them into feeling

they have to work with you. You want your dream customer, the person who’s perfectly positioned to get results from working with you, to feel 100 % confident in investing in your offers without fake urgency or pushy sales tactics. In autumn it’s all about choices, considerations, weighing up your options and your customer is likely jumping between

various course options. There might be some offers that are similar. So they’re stacking them up against each other. They are checking out payment plans. They are looking at guarantees and refund policies. They are reading your emails, your sales pages in great detail. They’re paying attention to everything you have to say.

They’re also potentially talking to their partner or family members to get an opinion if it’s a bigger investment. And they’re really 97 % sure, but they just need that gentle nudge to feel 100 % confident.

The ultimate question they’re trying to answer is can I trust this person with my hard earned money and can I trust them to help me fix the problem that we identified in episode one of this mini series, or can they help me achieve the goal that they’re working towards? Autumn is where they move from the nurturing phase where, we’re building

affinity, we’re growing trust, we’re delivering personal snippets so they actually like us as a person, where that’s moving to driving a decision without pressure and without fake scarcity and urgency. But eventually we need to invite them to make a decision either way, whether it’s a yes or a no. And autumn is the season to do that.

Autumn is your opportunity to address any objections they might have before they become roadblocks for that sale. It’s all about clarifying your offer. So now is the time to talk about your offer features, your membership inclusions, In spring we said, now’s not the time to do that. Autumn is where you focus on what they get, what it means for them, what that looks like.

It’s also about reinforcing their beliefs or busting those false beliefs because in this phase, they’re talking to a lot of people and a lot of people have a lot of opinions that aren’t necessarily based on facts. So if you know that there are misconceptions around your offer, your industry, your niche, now’s the time to address those and put them to bed. It’s about making that next.

step crystal clear. What do you want them to do? What do they need to do? And which action step do they need to take to progress from here? Whether that’s, booking a call with you, paying an invoice, hitting that buy now button. It needs to be crystal clear. But autumn is not about pushing harder and selling, selling, selling. It’s about creating a pathway for them to decide and give you that thumbs up.

So quick tips for service providers for autumn. Here, it’s all about showing people what working with you is like. Giving them a taste of what to expect. How I do that in my business is I have a sample of my magic guide and it’s a collection of

some of my copy pieces that I’ve written, a collection of testimonials and people can scroll through it and get a real vibe for, what I’ve created and what people have had to say about the process and the results. Another great way to do that, if you know your processes particularly are somewhat complex, speak to the timeline. If we were to work together, this is how our project together would unfold and then have

break up off the timeline, what everyone needs to do at various steps of that process. It can also include a private case study podcast. Again, I know I keep banging on about it, but it’s just so, so efficient. For my one-on-one clients, I have a private case study podcast called Can Do Tales. You can still find it on my website. And that’s where I invited past clients to share.

the decision-making process that took place before they started working with me, how they approached the project, what considerations there were, and then obviously also the results they got from working with me. And there’s different angles, different industries, different types of projects. And it just helps people have complete confidence in my processes, but also in the deliverables. And…

If you want to check it out, hop across to my website, sign up to it. It is a really great mix of clients and stories, and it might even spark some of those considerations and decisions that need to be made in your business. If you are a course creator, story-driven emails can work a treat. Coming at it from an angle, will this work for me?

That can again include highlighting past students who felt somewhat unsure, who had doubts when it came to joining your high ticket group program, for example, but then saw results. Normalizing some of those thought processes that are happening during the autumn season, the decision making season. It can also be an invite, like hit me up on Voxer, for example, and we can chat things through.

No sales pitch on the other end here. I just want to help you make a decision either way. What I love as well, and which has worked really, really well in my founding member launch of Retention Lab is Bonjoro video messages. Basically I used my email analytics to identify people who had shown

awesome interest in my launch. So who have engaged with my emails, who have clicked the sales page several times and I sent them personal video messages. The conversion rate from people who clearly were on the fence because it was 24 hours before the end of that founding member offer. the conversion rate was,

incredible. people responded, people had questions that clearly I need to incorporate into my sales page and into the FAQs. But it’s just such a personal touch point at this point in the customer journey. I didn’t make it creepy along the lines of I know you clicked my sales page three times. It was all about normalizing that I know they’re curious and I know that

Decisions can be hard. I know that a membership is a lot to, you know, consider because it takes a long term commitment. So I’m here to help them decide either way. That was the angle and it worked a treat. Coming to membership site owners. So if you have a membership, I would totally at this point in time consider presenting them with real member pathways. So what your first 30 days inside the membership could look like.

You could give them even curated pathways. So giving them a taste of how you’re going to support them in those early days to make sure they’re set up for success. It could also be a low cost trial to help them overcome those objections. Test the membership, all the features for a week for X dollars before going into the normal.

normal fee structure. So really having a look at how you can demonstrate that you have them covered, you have a plan for them and removing that element of risk. Autumn, as we said, it’s all about decisions, but it’s not your job to just push people into it. You want to give them all the information they need to make an educated decision, whether that’s a yes or a no. So today I would love you to pick

one customer facing brand touch point. one key touch point in this autumn season, whether that’s your service page, your sales emails or your sales page and ask yourself, is this touch point actually helping someone feel totally confident in their decision? Is it answering all their doubts or is it leaving them to figure things out on their own? So have a look at your touch points. Have a look how you can

support them even more to make that decision and how you can fill them with confidence that you are the one. In next week’s episode, which is the wrap up episode, we are going to move into winter. Winter sounds somewhat dull, but it’s actually a super, super important season because it’s the season of loyalty. And as we all know,

customer journey doesn’t end with the sale, it’s the starting point. So winter is super important and I have some awesome tips for you how you can maximize winter so you can then convert your customers again and again and keep them in your orbit. If you enjoyed today’s episode make sure you hit that subscribe and follow button so you don’t miss next week’s episode. Also make sure you share the podcast with anyone who might

benefit from all these snippets and I will chat to you then.