Podcast Transcript:
Here are the five different types of people that are engaging with your business, who they are, what they’re about and why you need to know and differentiate between each and every one of them.
Hey, there, I’m Jillian Kendrick and welcome to the Momentum Marketing Podcast. I’m a mama, a wife and entrepreneur and a three time best selling co-author in each episode. You’ll get real world practical advice and strategies and maybe a parenting tip or two along the way. If you’re ready to create a business that supports your family and your lifestyle, then you’re in the right place.
Hey, there. I’m so excited that you’re here with me today. We are talking about the five different types of people who are engaging with your business, your brand, whatever it is. But before I get started, I want to bring up something real quick in a segment that I like to call parenting tips that you didn’t ask for. Or maybe in this case, we’ll just call it a parenting story that you didn’t ask for. Here is the last two weeks of my life. We had a nanny for about a year, a little more than a year, maybe like 15, 16 months. And it was great. And then ever since that first nanny left, we have gone through, you guys, five other nannies at this point. And it’s just really, really hard to find good quality people in our area at our price point. Who have the experience that we’re looking for, who gel with our family, who want the same hours, who want full time work, who get along with our son. Right. There’s like so many factors, it’s not just hire a person, and you have a warm body that can push a button over and over again. There’s so many other elements to hiring at home caretakers, especially for our child, even though I’m working from home, it’s been a really long journey. And in this particular case, the last couple of weeks of my life, we had a nanny that left for another job. Which we’re super happy for her, but we weren’t able to find anybody in time to replace her immediately.
So I, of course, being mama, being the primary caregiver in our household, I’ve stepped up to the plate to be with my son. Put my business on the back burner. Unfortunately, and let me just say, I love spending time with my son. I love running a business. I absolutely love both and I’m not willing to compromise or give up one for the other. At least not right now. At least not in this phase of my life, at least not with one child. Who knows if tomorrow that would change. But this is what I love doing. Work is fascinating. It’s challenging. It’s my creative outlet. I love doing it. I’m so good at it. I’ve been in this industry now for 12 years and my business is nine years old where most businesses don’t last for the first year or first three years or first five years. Mine is nearing a year and a half, rounding the bend towards a decade, which is unfathomable. I don’t think I could go back and tell my nine year old self or my eight, 18 year old self. You’re going to own a business someday. I think I would laugh, but I absolutely love it. It’s my creative outlet. I have the absolute privilege, and awesome responsibility, of providing jobs for really good people being the caretaker of our clients and their clients and I love what I do. So I’m not going to give that up. But I also really love my son really, really love being a mama. I really love when he turns around and says, “Mama Peekaboo, I see you.” out of nowhere and I didn’t even know that he knew the phrase, I see you. I love it when I ask him to say something on camera and he goes, “No.” I love it when we learn new things together. Like this past couple of weeks, we’ve taken the opportunity with this extra free time that we have together to do potty training. Oh, man, you’re gonna get a segment from me about parenting tips that you didn’t ask for. Let me tell you potty training. Oh, it’s a doozy.
But that’s what surrounded me and my mental space. The last couple of weeks, it’s not easy to run a business. It’s not easy being a working parent. It is especially not easy being a working parent, primary caregiver, and working in the evenings after he’s gone to bed and trying to maintain everything and keep everything going. And even if I just get a centimeter forward, I celebrate that win because this is our season in life and I’m just going to roll with it. But all of that is to say, the older I get, the more experience I have in the entrepreneurial journey in the parenting journey. I more understand the phrase when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. Sometimes our seasons of life puts us in positions that we are either not ready for. That we don’t want to be in. That we’ve seen before and have ignored that we’ve seen before and have been afraid of or that we didn’t think we deserved or shouldn’t have happened to us, whatever that situation is and looks like for you. But I realize and it struck me just before accepting the fact that we didn’t have any child care before our previous nanny was going to leave and that I would have to step up to the plate and that, that was ok. And again, give us an opportunity to potty train, which is great.
But I spent a little time being angry. Angry at myself that I couldn’t find somebody. Angry at the world that the perfect person didn’t exist yet in our lives. Honestly, that angry time, if I’m really, really honest with myself, was only maybe a couple hours and then I was over it and then I moved on and said, ok, we’re going to do potty training. We’re going to go to the parks, we’re going to hang out. We’re going to spend time with some friends that we barely ever get to see because they’re all lovely, wonderful, amazing, stay at home moms. And I only get that title partially because I’m also a working mom who also happens to stay at home. So that’s been the headspace. That’s been my life in the last couple of weeks and rather than being frustrated rather than being angry rather than, and being upset that we don’t have child care just yet. Or that life is hard right now because it definitely is. I’m sure you feel that one. I decided to make the best of our situation. That I knew I couldn’t fix or control in the moment. And it’s been really great. Our son is by no means fully potty trained, but we’re working on it and he’s had a lot of success. And he’s really enjoyed celebrating that success and eating a mountain of chocolate chips for bribery. But it’s been really good.
So I just want to say, to you listening, when life gives you a season, sometimes that season exists because there’s a lesson in it that you need to learn. Sometimes that season exists because you need to take a break. Sometimes that season exists because you need to move forward Or God or the universe knows that you need that extra push, but fighting it, beating against it, choosing not to embrace it, especially when it comes to doing things and learning lessons in life. I can say from experience that the lessons that life has brought me that I’ve chosen in the moment not to learn those lessons, always find a way back to me no matter how much I hide or put them off or want to be immature and irresponsible, they always find their way back.
And even though not dedicating as much of my time as I normally do to my business, not having that creative outlet, not moving couple of big big projects forward, as much as I would like to. Embracing the time with my son and knowing that I will never ever get this time back. He will never be as young as he is now. I will definitely never be as young as I am now. It’s been really rewarding and fulfilling to spend more time with him. Granted, I know he’s gonna be really angry when we hire somebody new and we have to go back to our normal lives. But for now we’ve had this kind of difficult but also magical couple of weeks together and whatever you’re going through in your season of life, you can choose to embrace it. You can choose to ignore it. You can choose to fight it. You can choose to accept it. But no matter what, keep moving forward, even if it is that centimeter. Even if it is just checking email, even if it is just answering a message or looking at your DMs on Instagram, whatever it is, just keep going.
Now to the topic at hand on deck. Today, we are talking about the five different types of people who are engaging with your business. Who they are. What they’re about. What they need. What stage of the buying process that they’re in, and what you can do to support them. Understand who they are, and really ultimately what their level of engagement is so that you know how to be supportive. How to embrace them and ultimately why we’re all in business, right? Turn them into buyers, turn them into clients, or turn them into customers.
So I’m gonna read the list of the five, and then we’re going to talk about each and every single one of them, the middle two, I’m going to explain at great length. So even if you don’t quite understand or disagree. Just hold on. Or email me at hello@jilliankendrick.comif you have any feedback. You can also leave comments below this episode or if you have any feedback for us, please please let us know.
So 1 to 5, 1 being the least engaged, 5 being the most engaged.
Number one, I believe, we have followers, two is subscribers, three is prospects, four is leads, and five is clients or customers or sales. So number one followers, this is when we’re talking about people who happen to see your content on social. People who see your billboard, watch your commercial, listen to your podcast, see your ads even if it’s organic or paid advertising. If they aren’t subscribed to you, if they haven’t given you their information yet or they haven’t bought from you, they’re considered just a follower. They’re just a person out there, an avatar with zero identity, who happens to glance at, listen to, or look at some level of content or something that you have out there. So those are what I believe are followers 50 to 80% or more of the traffic. You get the ad views that you get views, or listens to your content, your youtube podcasting, whatever it is, 50 to 80% of the stuff that you’re getting is going to be these types of people. And this is where that kind of top of funnel as they call it starts to happen. And as with the shape of a funnel, as you go down, it gets narrower and narrower and narrower, we’re narrowing in zeroing in on the people that we want to attract the people that we want to engage with and that want to engage with us.
So second from followers is subscribers. Now again, these are people who have raised their hand and not necessarily have subscribed to an email list because I really think there’s an intentionality there when it comes to handing over their personal data and saying yes, I want to stay connected with you. I want to hear from you. I want to know what you’re about. Please tell me more. Here’s my email address or here’s my phone number to send me text messages. The intentionality behind that action is much, much, much, much different than going to YouTube seeing content that you like, and hitting, subscribe. Or listening to an amazing marketing podcast, Hint Hint Wink Wink, and hitting the subscribe button because even if you are subscribed, even if you have subscribers, even if you have people who are following you on Instagram, which I know they’re called followers on Instagram. In my opinion, if somebody has clicked a button to stay connected with you, but they have not given you personal data, they haven’t given you their phone number, their email address, something like that, then they’re considered subscribers. In my opinion, other people will call it other things that’s totally fine. But for my purposes, followers are people out there that are just seeing and viewing the content that you have, whether it’s like ads and other things.
And then subscribers are people who have clicked the plus button in Spotify or people who have gone to YouTube and hit the subscribe button to follow your content. People who have gone on Instagram and hit the follow button to follow you on Instagram. People who have joined your private Facebook groups. Those people in my opinion are subscribers, they get notified when you’re producing content, but they haven’t necessarily given you personal data. They haven’t given you the absolute right to stay connected with them. They have chosen to stay connected with you as you produce content and put it out into the world, but they have not given you absolute permission to contact them. You see how there’s a difference there. The direction of the communication is different there personally. That’s how I view followers versus subscribers.
Number three is prospects. Look at number three and number four, number three is prospects. Number four is leads. And here’s the difference in my opinion. I know that people use this word interchangeably and I am very guilty of using this word interchangeably. But honestly, I want to be more intentional about not using this word interchangeably. And here’s why a prospect in my opinion is someone who has shown mild interest, someone who has taken the very first step of interest. Whereas a lead being the fourth category is someone with much stronger interest.
Let me give you an example. A prospect is someone who opts in to your opt in your freebie, your white paper, your webinar or whatever it is. Maybe they subscribe to your newsletter, but they’re on your email list. They’ve given you personal data, but they haven’t shown a specific interest in any one particular thing or product quite yet. They’re interested. They want to hear more. They’ve gone through the process of giving you permission to contact them, but you don’t quite know exactly what they’re interested in. Whereas a lead, somebody that I would consider define as, you know, the product or they’ve expressed interest in a specific product they’re interested in, right? Or a lack of a better term, they just have a much, much stronger interest, they are more likely to buy or they are further down the journey of the buying process. Somebody who gets on a sales call with you or a discovery call, that would be somebody who’s a lead in my opinion. Whereas a prospect is somebody who maybe has signed up for your newsletter. Has seen your email that says, hey, I’m doing free strategy calls or free discovery calls and they’re interested, but they haven’t quite pushed the button. They haven’t made that additional next step of showing a strong interest in what you have. So that in my opinion, is the big differentiator between a prospect and a lead. The prospect is somebody that has given you permission to contact them, but you really don’t quite know what they’re about. You don’t know what they want, you can serve them and you can provide them value. But there’s nothing like really, really specific that you know, of quite yet. And they haven’t given you a strong enough indication of interest to reach out to them at that next level. Whereas a lead, a lead is somebody who has signed up for a discovery call. A lead is somebody who is on your Facebook targeting campaign, who wants a specific product or wants to take a specific course, that is a lead.
And in my opinion, the differentiation really is the strength of interest that they have shown in either their actions, their activity or their engagement with you. So that’s number three and number four, prospects and leads.
And then number five is clients, customers, buyers. People who have made that purchase.
So the most important thing to take away from this, I think, is understanding when it comes to each of those five categories: followers, subscribers, prospects, leads and clients who are they, where are they at? In terms of that five step buying journey, if you will, at what level do they want to be notified at? What level do they want to be contacted? How much interest have they shown. To what level or what degree have they shown that interest? What actions have they taken to indicate that they’re interested in something, or in a product in a service with you. And to what level or what amount of permission have they given you to reach out to them? Because as we know, subscribing to a newsletter or an email list is a very kind of casual, passive way of saying, hey, I’m interested, please contact me but opening emails specific to a particular product launch that is a bit stronger, that’s like the prospect level, that’s a bit stronger level of interest and a lead would be ok. I’m really interested in this product or this service. I’ve signed up for a discovery call or a sales call. Please contact me immediately. Let’s go.
And then number five, being client, customer, or buyer. They have taken step, they have gone through the buying journey. They’ve decided that what you have to offer is worth their hard earned dollar. They’ve gone through the transition of being a lead to now being a client or customer. So I think as long as you understand each of those levels, as long as you can see them as kind of a funnel reverse pyramid. However, you want to look at it or whatever makes sense to you. And you can understand that each of those levels, follower subscriber prospect lead and client then is each step of the purchasing journey. It’s each step of the buying journey that then leads to a stronger commitment or a stronger level of interest in you, in your product, in your service or what you have to offer, then you can fully understand who they are, what they need and how to engage with them, asking a follower to buy from you. They’re not fully engaged, they’re not fully on board yet. Now, you could have a follower that’s been following you for years and years and you’ve built that know, like, and trust. But if they really know you like you and trust you, but they haven’t subscribed to you, they haven’t signed up for anything yet. They haven’t gone through a discovery call or they haven’t indicated a strong enough interest. I would be optimistically cautious to make too many offers to those people based on their level of interest. Now, I’m not saying don’t make offers. Please don’t hear that. Make offers, make lots of offers and provide lots of value all the time as much as possible. Please do that to everyone all in all five of those stages. But what I am saying is that when you understand each stage, you understand the level of commitment and again indicated interest from that person, then you can follow up with them appropriately. You can speak to who they are and where they’re at, you can understand them better, their psychology better. You can use language that connects with those people on a much deeper level and you can engage, provide value and make offers that are either stronger based on their indications or maybe a bit more casual based on their following of you or their level of interest, right? That’s where I think these five categories are really the most powerful thing that you can have. So don’t forget followers, subscribers, prospects leave needs and clients. I came up with this just a couple of days ago as I was thinking through the buying journey. And I will probably use prospects and leads interchangeably or even subscribers and prospects interchangeably. Just like a lot of people in my industry do.
But I am definitely setting this podcast episode as an intentionality to not use them interchangeably and to really have a clear definition. Not only for you the listener, but for me as a business owner, on my coaching side, and on my agency side as well. Just to better understand that buying journey and to be able to serve people where they’re at, at a much deeper level.
So thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the Momentum Marketing Podcast.
If listening to this has brought you value, improved your life, or giving you any insights to build momentum in your business, then please share it with a friend and I’ll see you on the next episode.
The Momentum Marketing Podcast
By Jillian Kendrick
Episode: # 16
Topic: 5 Types of Engagement
Contact: hello@jilliankendrick.com
Follow IG: instagram.com/automatedmama
