Why Your Pipeline Resets Monthly (And the Progression System That Fixes It)

Simone Henry: Welcome to the Growth Ceiling Podcast. You closed a strong quarter. Pipeline looked healthy. Then the next month starts, and you are staring at an empty calendar, wondering what where all the momentum where all the momentum went. You posted, you networked, you had conversations. People said they were interested. And then nothing. Not because they lost interest, but because you gave them no reason to stay. ⁓ They're they're not staying connected, there's no path to come back when the timing is right. ⁓ that is the cycle that most service-based founders live inside. And it has nothing to do with how many leads you are generating. It has everything to do with what happens to those leads after the first interaction. Today, Nate and I are gonna break down why your pipeline resets to zero every month and what it takes to build a nurture system that actually keeps revenue predictable. So Nate? Let's talk about it.

Nathan Grossman: All right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, so starting starting from zero feeling, I know I've been there, you know, beginning a beginning a new business. ⁓ I'm wondering how in the world do people go about this, you know? and trying out different things and failing a lot, you know. ⁓ And I know that even now in this day and age, it's it's incredible to me that email continues to be so important and relevant, you know. it's

Simone Henry: True. A lot of people discount it, but it really is relevant. I think that's why like you go to some websites and before you even get to look at the page real good, there's a pop-up that says, Hey, give us your email and we'll send you a coupon or something. You know, that's that email is so important and so valuable.

Nathan Grossman: Yeah. According to Yeah, yeah. Yep. And I think Rand Rand Fishkin, he is the g he ⁓ runs SparkToro. He he created SparkToro, used to work for Moz back in the day. According to him, ⁓ he says that ⁓ email continues to be one of the strongest channels and perhaps the only one still standing after all of the the upheaval ⁓ that we're experiencing right now. So It's ⁓ it's it's it's really interesting. So basically ⁓ what we're talking about here today is business owners who are in that one million to five million dollar range, they've gotten real market traction, they are visible, people know who they are, ⁓ they they get inbound interest, but the revenue still feels like a corn ⁓ excuse me, a coin flip quarter to quarter because there's no system between when someone showed an interest And someone booked a call. And that basically their pipeline has a front door and a closing table, but no hallway, if you will. So ⁓ usually Yeah. Yeah, y exactly. Usually what happens is ⁓ the the the the business owner or the founder d diagnoses the situation as being I need more leads or I just need to post more or I need a better funnel and so they they Yeah. Yep.

Simone Henry: No, come on into my parlor. Or I need a new offer. You know, that's what I see a lot too. ⁓ people aren't buying this one, so let me let me create this one. Well, that yeah, or let's let's add something more. Let's let's do let's do all all create a whole new system, a whole new thing. And it's like, well, maybe people in first of all enough people aren't seeing your offer and maybe the people who have seen it haven't seen it enough.

Nathan Grossman: Yeah. Or let me add something more to it, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And Right. And so what ends up happening is they're they're they're pouring their energy into that the top of the visible pillar, right? Visible, viable, valuable, where they're attracting they're trying to attract more and capture more. And that is that is the solution there. And completely ignoring the the nurture ⁓ factor in there. So they're they're filling a bucket with no bottom, if you will. And

Simone Henry: Takes a lot more than one time.

Nathan Grossman: What the thing that's at stake here in this case is that without having a functioning nurture system, the the founder just becomes the nurture system, they are the nurture system, right? Which you know can be unwieldy and ⁓ sort of ⁓ limiting, you know, to to say the least. And yeah.

Simone Henry: So like we talked about today, like ⁓ yeah, I I I tell people about this. Really? All the time? Every single time? Do you do you always remember to say, you know, to say, yeah, ⁓ give me a referral? Do you always remember to follow up? Do you always remember?

Nathan Grossman: Right, right. Yeah. I feel like I do. Select. Yeah, exactly. So what ends up happening is every relationship runs through their memory. It depends entirely on what they are able to remember, their follow-ups, their personal outreach, and a f and r the reality of it is that is not really a growth strategy, you know. That's that is dependency. And it's the single biggest reason why service service businesses stall between one million to three million.

Simone Henry: Last weekend, or the weekend before last Mother's Day. My mom and I we go to church that morning and then ⁓ and then we decided to stop by our old church to see if they were having, you know, having the traditional Mother's Day brunch, but they weren't. And so we but there was a flea market outside and so we're just kinda wandering around the flea market and see w seeing what's on offer. And we came to this one this one lady's vendor table. She was selling spices. And I asked her, I said, so how's how's business? How's it going? She's like, well it's kind of a slow day today. And I looked down at her table. ⁓ she had lovely spices, beautiful, b beautifully laid out table. And I asked her, I said, are you collecting people's email addresses? And she said, ⁓ no, I keep ⁓ I keep forgetting to to do that, to set that up. Well, you know, if you're not if you don't make that a regular thing, then yeah, first of all you're gonna forget. And second of all, it's hot. ⁓ it takes a lot to set up these tables and and bring and set them up and then ⁓ take them down at the end of every end of every event that she does. You wanna make that worthwhile, you know? Every person that's that wanders by your table, you don't want that to be the only time you ever see them. You know? ⁓ if they were they may be very interested, but maybe they just don't have the money right now or th you know, they're not carrying cash, they're they're already overloaded because they bought stuff at all these other tables, but they're very interested, you know. ⁓ Wouldn't it be good if you you had a tablet or phone or they scanned a QR code or even just a piece of paper and wrote down their name and email address and you put it into your system later. ⁓

Nathan Grossman: The the pace piece of paper is last ditch effort, you know, the the very least that could be done. Yeah. It's it's not not not great for organization, but you know, it'll it'll do ⁓ in a pinch. But ⁓

Simone Henry: That's the last ditch effort 'cause now you gotta look at their handwriting. But at the very least you've collected it, right? You know, so Yeah. ⁓ I I see this like with founders will have they'll have ⁓ they'll be collecting ⁓ they'll be collecting maybe names and they'll meet people they maybe collect their names or their phone numbers in their phone or they'll have it in their email system. Even if they had a CRM, they have it, ⁓ they may have it in there. But then they don't actually have automation that automatically follows up. So when you when you're collecting in these different systems on a spreadsheet or wherever, but you don't remember to actually Send the email to follow up, then that's not you're still not really helping yourself. You're still relying on on your imperfect memory because we get distracted. We have all the good intentions in the world, but we get distracted, other things come up, we get overloaded and overwhelmed, and or we get tongue-tied and ⁓ what's what what do I even say? What did we talk about? I can't remember what. this person even is, you know. so so having having a system, ⁓ an automated system that that does that for you, ⁓ it's it's golden. It is golden.

Nathan Grossman: Mm, right. And literally, quite literally golden. I mean, it could mean the difference between ⁓ more revenue and and not. So yeah, that's an apt ⁓ term there. ⁓ okay. So what what ends up happening is that ⁓ business owners think to themselves, I need to build my email list. And so they they they look at other businesses with

Simone Henry: Absolutely.

Nathan Grossman: large lists and they see all the advice out there to grow your list and then they figure they figure that the problem is my subscriber count, right? They start to focus on lead magnets, ⁓ opt-in pages, and lists list sizes as the metrics that actually matter. and ⁓ the ⁓ you know if if I had a bigger list I would have more pipeline. That's the idea. So they start to invest in building tactics. ⁓ like like we just said, ⁓ free downloads like your ⁓ your lead magnets, what when they start building creating webinars, social media funnels, ⁓ and then all that energy goes into acquisition, like getting getting more people into their pipeline, right? ⁓ unfortunately, just having that large list without a nurture system in place. is ends up just being a collection of names and addresses and emails. You know, it's just a database. That's all it is. It's not really producing or any revenue more than ⁓ a Rolodex sitting in a desk drawer. And so the problem is not really the size of the list. The problem is that nothing is really happening after someone joins it. ⁓ and so min many service founders either send nothing and that the list goes coal cold within weeks or they send generic broadcast content that sounds like every other newsletter in their inbox and gives nobody any reason to actually read it. both of those paths lead to the same place is basically a a list full of people who have forgotten why they signed up or ⁓ will spam you thinking that they never did sign up. I've had that happen to me. But ⁓

Simone Henry: Yeah. Yeah. That's why you have to message them right away because i if I mean you even go a day sometimes without messaging people. They'll forget within a day. Who are you and why are you emailing me? And I didn't give you my email address.

Nathan Grossman: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. So much happens in people's lives you just can't account for, you know. ⁓ so anyway, the list building and list nurturing get treated as the same activity, unfortunately, which when in reality they're completely different functions. And you know, going back to we talk a lot about visibility here. ⁓ building is ends up being a a visible problem. A problem with the visibility. Which is a which is great and everything, you know. You wanna be seen, you want the right people to see you, and you want the right people that have seen you to get on your list. Okay, great. But then what, right? Having that nurture in there is that bridge between being visible and then building a actual viable business. ⁓ it's turning that captured attention into active pipeline. And ⁓ there's mu many people, ⁓ most actual businesses out there have that first piece and then nothing for the second. You know. ⁓ some people don't even have the first piece though, as we as we ⁓ discuss, but ⁓

Simone Henry: Right. Right. Not even capturing them. So okay. Then after you capture them, now you you've gotta put that nurture in place. there is ⁓ one of the questions that ⁓ to ask a founder sometimes is that when they say, ⁓ I need more leads or I need ⁓ people aren't buying and I need to or you know people aren't interested in this particular offer and so I need to create a new one. if I ask them what are the last f five emails that they sent to their list they either Most of the time they'll say, ⁓ well, you know, I sent them something, you know, two, three weeks ago. I sent them something about this event that I was doing a couple of months ago. Okay, anything since then? No. Guess what? They're not buying because they haven't heard from you. They've forgotten about you. They're living their lives. They're busy. You're not top of mind. Out of sight, out of mind. That is that is ⁓ the the problem with not nurturing not having a nurture system ⁓ with a nurture system in place they're hearing from you on a consistent basis they never forget so even though when you first meet them they may not be ready to buy but Hearing from you on a on a regular basis. The fact that they gave you their email address in the first place means they have they have a problem that you can solve. And so, or at least they think that you can solve it, which is a good place to be. And then as you continue to nurture them, then you become more and more of the solution that they need to that problem.

Nathan Grossman: least they think that you can solve, perhaps, you know. Maybe they're hoping you can solve it. Yeah.

Simone Henry: And so when they finally get fed up and they say, you know what, I've had it, I'm sick of this problem, I'm really ready to do something about it, boom, your email pops into their email box with an offer.

Nathan Grossman: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And so again, the the problem here is not the size of the list, it's whether or not you've actually been sending something to them and what is the intent of what you are actually sending. And Simone, we you ⁓ we had talked a little bit about ⁓ someone that you had talked to not too long ago who had b been in business for twenty eight years, right? And she had a list of people, but she just stopped contacting them and w was wondering well what

Simone Henry: Stop contact it.

Nathan Grossman: Was wondering why she didn't have revenue coming in, you know.

Simone Henry: Yeah. Just you know, yeah, no contact whatsoever. you know, she was she used to be doing all these wonderful things. But I think what happened is she got overwhelmed. you know, other other things and other ideas and you know, life happens, right? And so ⁓ life is crowding out all these things and they s so they kind of fall to the bottom of the of the to do list. and ultimately fall off of the to-do list. ⁓ and that problem happened because she she was leaving it to her memory to do. There was no there was no automated system in place. Well ⁓ when you have that automated system in place well now you don't have to remember. The system remembers for you. And your your list always gets the little goodies, the little nuggets, the nurturing that that you intend for them to have when you first said that.

Nathan Grossman: And and there's a there's a precise reason why you're sending each of the things that you're sending. You're not just you know, duplicating each email and sending the same thing over and over again with a slightly different intro. You know, there's there's a reason why you're sending everything, like every word in those emails has a a a a reason and a place. And that is the strategy behind it, right? We are sending this email for this specific reason. Because we want them to take this specific action. You know, ⁓ it's not just, you know, just send a bunch of emails and hope for the best kind of situation. That's not what we're talking about here. ⁓ yeah. So basically the way the way that I see this is that the the ⁓ misdiagnosis on the part of the business owner falls in that visible pillar. So They end up over investing in attracting and capturing people's information and leaving the nurturers ⁓ component totally, you know, to the wayside. And that means that the the visible pillar never completes its job of feeding the viable pillar, right? And so the whole system falls apart, in other words. So, you know. ⁓ yeah. All right.

Simone Henry: Yeah, it's like y you have to have connective tissue in order for the rest of your process and your system to work. Without the connective tissue it's like ⁓ you're trying to cross a bridge that it's broken in the middle. Yeah, you're gonna end up in the water and not where you wanna be on the other side.

Nathan Grossman: Yeah. Exactly. All right. So the real constraint here again is not the list size, it's the absence of that progression system inside the nurture layer. And most business owners don't have a design path that takes a subscriber from just opted in to ready to have a conversation. Without that progression, the list is just static. So ⁓ every subscriber just sits there at the level of ⁓ the top level of engagement ⁓ forever, right? There's no way to know who's warming up, who's ready to talk, and who is who checked out months ago, right? ⁓ so let's get into some of the mechanics of why this can this constraint operates the way it does. So basically there's no segmentation, right? Everyone on the list gets the same content regardless of where they are in in the awareness of the problem. and ⁓ their familiarity with the founder or their readiness to act for that matter. So a scrap a subscriber who joined yesterday and a subscriber who's been reading for six months receive identical emails. That ends up flattening the entire relationship. ⁓

Simone Henry: interesting I was building working on building out a ⁓ a nurture sequence yesterday and ⁓ was thinking about this we have we have three tiers of our of our plan we have some people on our free tier and we also have some people on our on our paid tier ⁓ And as I was thinking about it, I want to send out a three month messaging sequence. And you know, ⁓ on the free tier, one of the things that I wanna ask them to do is to upgrade into the paid tier. You know, first of all, I want to I wanna make sure that they're logging in, they're using the system, they're getting the value of of the the system. But then I also want them to say to to look at look at the other tiers, get more to get more value ⁓ out of out of it. And then on the pay tiers, their sequence says, Hey, you're you're already in it, you're already using it, making sure you're logging in, you're getting the value out of the tier that you got. But ⁓ guess what? You can save more money if you get an annual plan. So both tiers are not getting that same that's the same messaging because they're they're in different processes. They're in different they're in different buckets on our list.

Nathan Grossman: Yeah. And that goes right into the next ⁓ issue that there's no escalation path, right? There's no there's no sequence of interactions that are designed to move ⁓ them from a subsc being a subscriber, a passive reader to an active prospect. So if if it's a well birt well built nurture system, then the content does does the work. It identifies the pain point, it deepens the reader's understanding of the Constraint, positions the founder's perspective as the relevant frame, and then offers a low friction next step. It's all about taking that next step. What do you want that what is the next step you need them to take or want them to take, right? Which is all part going back into, you know, I have you thoroughly thought through what your actual offer is. and what most service founders skip all of that and jump straight from Here's my newsletter to Book A Call, which you know, you you don't you don't propose on the first date, right? So it's it's kind of the same thing. ⁓ Yes, yes.

Simone Henry: That would be very creepy if you did. I hope none of y'all are doing that.

Nathan Grossman: Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. ⁓ okay, and then lastly, there's no there's no behavior signals. You haven't there's no system for tracking what actions your list subscribers have actually taken. And you don't know if what they have are actually interested in, what they've engaged with, what they've clicked on, what they responded to. there's no real idea of who's actually progressing, right? And so the list looks ends up looking the same whether it's full of warm prospects or cold contacts, which, you know, w what what good is that? And so that's this is where that the problem with the the the founder being the bottleneck and everything depending on them gets really reinforced. Because since the system is not producing signals founder ends up relying on their gut feel, right? I feel like, you know, people really like this. You know, I I hear that a lot. I I feel I feel like ⁓ you know people just aren't ⁓ just aren't ready yet for this or you know there's a lot of that too. ⁓ and then of course going in that with is like the the personal memory, right? And I don't know about you, but my memory ⁓ seems to be fading a lot. It's in and out. ⁓ I don't trust it.

Simone Henry: Yeah, it it really is ⁓ not to be trusted. I heard somebody say a long time ago that, you know, your brain is a terrible place to to store great information. Store great.

Nathan Grossman: Right. Especially if you yeah, for a for a long time, long period of time, you know, like there there's something to be said for long term memory and whatnot, but ⁓ from what I understand, a lot of a lot of memory scientists are looking into this and brain scientists and there's they're I think the latest ⁓ theory is that ⁓ every time you remember something, you're remembering the last time you remembered it. And so if it's changed in that time Yeah, yeah.

Simone Henry: Waiting. Interesting. You're remembering the last time you remembered it. You're not remembering the thing itself. That's interesting.

Nathan Grossman: Right. Yeah. Yeah. That original memory that was created is actually not there anymore, right? It's been distorted through the various

Simone Henry: Well actually I do un I think that like everything is stored in there. Our problem is we don't recall it. We don't recall it properly. I think that's probably what's what's really happening. Like we have a bad system of recall. Like our file the file drawers and the file cabinet is very disorganized. And like where is it?

Nathan Grossman: Well you got you gotta you gotta think like, you know, if if everybody had perfect recall, what a horrible life that would be.

Simone Henry: Wow. Yeah, I was like, please don't remember every bad thing I've ever done. Yeah. In right, in excruciating detail.

Nathan Grossman: Right. Exactly. W in in excruciating detail. Yeah, no, that would be terrible. Yeah. Yeah. That would be horrible. Yeah. So I think it's a good thing that we forget. So anyways.

Simone Henry: Exactly. But the things that we want to remember that we want to keep that we want to keep as they are in in the first place, we need to keep those things separate. So in in some sort of other in sort some sort of other platform. So this is where our our databases come in, this is where our CRMs come in. ⁓ That we can and all we need to remember really is how to access that information, how to filter, how to search, you know.

Nathan Grossman: Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I st I've tested this out with a with a client of mine who was sitting on so they had they k they kept they kept hiring lead generation experts, you know. And from the first batch, the first round of leads that he had gotten, he was already sitting on like 500 contacts. And He just had no system for, you know, following up with them. The the lead generation specialist, whatever, was sending him the they were they're their purpose was to book the calls, right? But the problem is not everybody's ready to to buy right then and there, you know. And I've said it before, ⁓ you know, from what I've I've heard, only three to five percent in any given market are ready to buy at any given time. So that means ninety-five to ninety-seven percent of the market is not ready yet. That they're not some of them are never gonna buy, but but that's still a significant chunk of the total addressable market just sitting out there ⁓ who are just aren't ready yet. But so y it's up to you to get their information and nurture them until they're ready, right? And so that's what ended up happening with with this client. We put the we put the ⁓ Put them through a sequence and we started getting s we started s ⁓ actually stirring up some action. I believe he got a couple jobs out of that. Just people just sitting there that he was already sitting on, right? Like it's it's pretty wild. Didn't need to go pay somebody for that, right?

Simone Henry: It's true. Like I get I get opportunities from my mailing list, you know, I'll send out I'll send out messages and you know, just kinda randomly somebody will will respond will reply to a message or reply to a check in, Hey Simone, I'm doing okay. but, you know, ⁓ I've been thinking about this in my business and can we get on a call and let's talk about it? Well, absolutely, you know. ⁓ But if I hadn't sent them that message, would they have said that? They may have they may have forgotten all about me.

Nathan Grossman: Yep. Right.

Simone Henry: Do well you know what's interesting is that some people think that if they send something once a week, they're bothering people.

Nathan Grossman: Yeah.

Simone Henry: going to say that the people who are on your list who want to hear from you, you're not bothering them. So I give you permission right now. And you don't care about the ones who you are bothering, right? They're not your people. Let them go. It's okay if they hit the unsubscribe and they leave. ⁓ but everybody else, yeah. Keep messaging them. Sometimes ⁓ I was thinking I was ⁓ on my nurture list I was sending out ⁓

Nathan Grossman: Yeah, yeah. And those who the those who are, you don't want you don't care about them anyway. Yeah. Yeah.

Simone Henry: sending out something every two weeks to my list. And then I had this coach who said, ⁓ yeah, no, that needs to go out every two days. Not every two weeks. ⁓ and I thought, wow, every two days, that's a lot. ⁓ but I started doing it and yeah, some people did unsubscribe, but most of my list they stuck around.

Nathan Grossman: Yep. This is I mean, this has happened to me too. ⁓ somebody that ⁓ got on my list two years ago was, you know, ⁓ came it contacted me out of the blue last year and was like, Hey, is that things is still available? Like, ⁓ yeah, yeah, sure. Like you you just never know. ⁓ and so I've actually speaking of like progression and whatnot, I started to ⁓

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nathan Grossman: ⁓ well, relatively recently in my own, you know, business, ⁓ really getting bared down on this and fig trying to figure out what's going on with with the people that are on my list, what actions they're taking, how much how interested they are, right, based on the actions they've taken, right? Their their behaviors. And so I started like a scoring program inside of my emails. You know, so if if they open an email, they get one point. If they click on a a certain link, they get so many other points. If the and so I have I have varying point systems set up, you know, based on you know ⁓ the segmentation, how I who I want to reach, who in my my audience fits my ideal profile. So those that tend to fit my ideal profile better get weighted more in terms of the of the scoring, right? And One of the one of the key scores I'm t keeping track of is, you know, the actions that they're taking on the emails that I'm sending. And so right now I have a bunch who are hitting my my ⁓ my warm list because of the actions that they've been taking recently. So those are like the group that I, you know, can use. I can hone down on them and and give them a special offer of some kind to get them to maybe that's the thing they're waiting for, to get them to take action, you know. ⁓ there's all kinds of things that you can do when you have that kind of knowledge, right?

Simone Henry: That's true. I was thinking about for for those who are who are ⁓ generating leads through ads. If you're generating leads through ads, having that data about like who is who's actually clicking, who's opening, who's clicking, ⁓ who's you know coming to your website, all that kind of stuff, you can take that information and feed it into the ad platform.

Nathan Grossman: Yes. Yeah.

Simone Henry: Facebook I know for sure will will take your list of people and say you can you can have it say, Okay, find me more people like this, right? These are my warm leads, find me more people like this. That drives your acquisition costs down because now you're targeting people who are more likely to actually want what you're offering.

Nathan Grossman: These are my warm leads. Yeah. Yeah, you can you set up a a custom audience around those warm leads and you're you're telling the algorithm I want you to show the ads to this list and you know there's options in there where you can say and other people like them, right? So that so ⁓ it kinda it can expand from there. Or you can just tell it I only want you know, you can be very restrictive around that too. And it kind of depends on the size of your list, but That can be very, very effective to get them. So you're appearing, you there's more than one touch point. They get the email, but then they're also seeing you in the ads that you're sending and that kind of thing, right? ⁓ that can get very, very effective. And the the important thing here is that ⁓ you the the call to action in the emails that you're that you're sending out is not necessarily you know, buy my thing. You know, it's ⁓ maybe it's like if this if you're liking what you're reading here, and like just like what ⁓ Simone talked about earlier, you know, if you if you like if you like what what you're seeing here, then you're probably gonna love this, you know, like here here's a way to to ⁓ to go deeper on this particular subject, you know. Maybe maybe you have a ⁓ a downloadable, you know guide on a certain topic that they seem to be very interested in. And then that would be something that you could set up so that they get an email that says, Hey, I noticed that you like like this. Maybe you'd like, you know, to download this. And then of course you could score their actions based on based on that and how they take that. So

Simone Henry: Sometimes you can turn your list into a two-way conversation. sometimes people a lot of people they get they get a little bit anxious about ⁓ about their emails being delivered, right? You know, ⁓ it's everything is ending up in spam. Well, a couple of ways to help that is to ⁓ give people a reason to reply to your email. So like I said, like ⁓ with those check in messages. If if you're just checking in and you're asking them a question and and there's no pressure at all, you're not selling anything at all, you're just checking in. And of course this depends on what kind of business you have. If you're especially like if you're a coach and you do one on one or group coaching and it's a very it's a very person to person business. So having them reply back to you makes a lot of sense. ⁓ Or you can have them ⁓ click a link and and you know follow up with asking them a question or or having them like ⁓ respond to your email with with ⁓ an answer to a poll or something like that. so the more the more people are opening your email, the more they're clicking on on the In your emails, and the more that they are replying to your emails, then Google and Microsoft and Yahoo they see, ⁓ well, you know, these ⁓ she's or he is sending important emails, like I should make sure that these land in the inbox because like people actually want to get this, so that's very, very helpful. and then the more the more you get people clicking and you know, and following up and replying and stuff to your emails, then more other people are gonna see them in in their inbox. So that's gonna help that deliverability a lot.

Nathan Grossman: Yeah. And again, going back to the the progression, the idea of progressing and the automations that you can set up inside the business associated with the actions that they're taking, you know, if they click on this certain thing three times, then this happens, right? There's all kinds of ⁓ interesting stuff that you can get going in there. So not only are it is like that. That interaction on a personal level, very important. That's true. But they're even if they're not ready, willing, able at the time to respond personally to a message that you're sending out, you can still keep track of the behaviors that they're the actions that they're taking, right? And have actions that the automations take when these certain when they meet certain criteria, you know, that's the idea. And so it just moves them along farther and farther until they're at a point where they're they're ready to per purchase from you, right? They've the the emails that you have sent out have educated them t so much about what it is that you do and what you have to offer that it just becomes more like, Okay, w where do I sign? you know, by the time they're ready, you know. ⁓ that's the ideal s scenario. ⁓ okay. So if we look at ⁓ a way to reframe this, basically the I the the main message here would be to stop building your list and start building your progression. I think that's the that's the key. ⁓ it's not the the the the key ⁓ metric here is not the number of subscribers, it's having a system that moves those subscribers through their different stages of engagement until they're ready and ha to have a real conversation with you. So having a list of 300 people with a functioning progression system is going to outpour outperform a list of 3,000 with no system every time.

Simone Henry: So in in this case we're we're talking about how your your list of email subscribers if you are not if you don't have in place a nurturer system for them and a a system to progress them to the next level with you then having a big list of subscribers just becomes ⁓ what we would call a a vanity metrics on on social media, right? ⁓ I have all these followers. Yeah, but are any of them buying from you? If not None of them are buying from you. Then that's just that's just bragging rights, really, when you're out in the street, right? That gives you some street cred. But but none of that none of that matters if ⁓ if they're not buying from you. So so yeah, being able to progress them to the next the next stage is is more than than having it's it's much more important than having a l a large list of subscribers right so how many ⁓ these are things to ask yourself how many subscribers move from stage one to stage two this month how many reach the point where a conversation makes sense that's that's the number that predicts your pipeline not that the total number of subscribers right so So yeah, let's talk about like and other things that you can like what goes into this nurture sequence, right? Welcome, a welcome series that does real work for you. There it's not just a hey, thank you for buying, and then that's it, or thank you for downloading my free thing, and that's it. But ⁓ what we want is that. Message, a thank you message, and then what comes next? Here's what you do next. Maybe send them something a little bit more about you. ⁓ send them a get-to-know you, send them links to your social media, send them an invitation to get on your calendar, ⁓ tell them a little bit more about your offer and what and the problems that you can solve for them. So there's Sending one message is not enough. and then of course, when somebody goes cold, they haven't opened your email in a while, there's been no clicks, 30 to 45 days, right? ⁓ my goodness, what do we do? Well, send them an email that says, come back. You want them to come back. This is called that re-engagement message. And You don't want to just say, ⁓ we miss you. Well, I've seen that with a lot of with a lot of companies. They'll send me a message that says, ⁓ we miss you. And I'm thinking, yes, but you're a big corporation. You don't really miss me. I'm just on your database, right? but you can send them a nice, a sharp value driven message like, Hey,

Nathan Grossman: Yeah.

Simone Henry: seen you know you haven't been opening the messages in a while here's something valuable to get you get you bring you back into the fold I actually sent a message and what goes in that subject line matters a lot because people ⁓ people will open based on what's in the subject line and there's a a marketer that I I've been following that is really good at this his name is what's his name gene gene something and I'm forgetting his name, his his last name. But anyway, I took a page out of his book ⁓ to do my my reengagement sequence. So I've got I'm in the city and there there's a firehouse right down the street. And so if you're hearing fire trucks, that's what that is. there is ⁓ so I sent out this ⁓ sent out this email to my list that just said Are you okay? Comma name. So my friend Kevin gets it. A message that said, Are you okay, Kevin? And he was like, wait, what? He opened the email. Yeah, I'm I'm okay. I'm good.

Nathan Grossman: Yeah.

Simone Henry: You know, so I you know, it's kinda shook people up a little bit. So that's the kind of message you wanna wanna send.

Nathan Grossman: I I think I think that that phrase, are you okay, ki is kinda loaded to a certain degree. That's that's very social media meme if meme meme ish.

Simone Henry: It is. And yeah. And if it's controversial, it'll get people to to pay attention.

Nathan Grossman: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. But that exactly, I a hundred percent. So basically that what we're talking about here, again, just to reiterate, when you are thinking of this differently, right? You're changing from I need to build a huge list to I I yeah, I need to build a list, but I more important, perhaps more important, is I need to have a progression for the people that are in my list, okay? This is what we're talking about here. And what Simone is is saying here, you know, you s you if you if you when you do this, when you make this mind shift, you're you're gonna stop measuring your your list size and you're start measuring your progress your progression rate. You are you're building a welcome sequence that does real work and you are creating a re-engagement. Trigger. So those are three key points there. What doesn't change is you still need to attract and capture those leads to begin with. And ⁓ we're not saying that list building doesn't matter because it does, but ⁓ it's just the front door, not the engine, right? And so you keep doing the things that are bringing people in and keep creating that visibility. But the sh the real shift is that you're stopping treating that front door as the finish line. And it's and starting looking at it as the starting line instead. so your content strategy is not necessarily changing. If it's working, if you're getting ⁓ you know, don't break it. If if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? But you still are creating the content that demonstrates your expertise. What changes is that the content has a job inside the system and not just a job in social media. And when the nurturing system actually works, there's three things ⁓ start to compound. First, your your pipeline becomes more predictable because you can see who is progressing and roughly when they'll be ready to talk. Second, your sales conversations get better because the people who book calls have already been educated by your content. Then they show up with context. You're not starting from scratch and you know having to do all that heavy lifting ⁓ to begin with, there. And then third, ⁓ and maybe this is the most unexpected, your referral rate goes up because people on a well-run nurture list share your content and they forward your emails, they mention you in conversations, your subscribers become a distribution channel, in effect, and not just a prospecting channel. And so that's the visible pillar doing its full job and feeding the ⁓ viable and then eventually obviously a valuable business, especially if it's leading to pr more predictable revenue, right? ⁓ yeah. Okay, so looking at what how how can we put this into action here? What's our what's our application? ⁓ so number one, this week, audit your your post opt-in experience. So ⁓ if you have to go sign up for your own lead magnet or email list and see exactly what a new subscriber sees. If it's been a while, maybe you need to go and you know. Touch that up and figure out and r and remind yourself what it is that you have actually set up. Count the touch points they receive in the first ⁓ two weeks. If the answer is one or zero, then that's your starting point there.

Simone Henry: Yeah, it amazes me sometimes like how many people don't actually subscribe to their own list. Well, you don't really know what's happening with your subscribers unless you are subscribed to your list yourself and you can see what they see. So, ⁓ This means opening up your email platform, finding that welcome automation, looking at it honestly, adding your email address to the list. Pretend that you are a subscriber just like they are. You know, are you getting a welcome automation? Are you getting an email after that and then an email after that and then an email after that? Right?

Nathan Grossman: And do all the links and everything work in ev every email that is getting sent out. Check everything. Yeah.

Simone Henry: Right. Test all those links. Make sure, make sure it's it's correct. Cause sometimes you may have a a nurture automation going out, but the link doesn't work. And so people get frustrated and they stop opening your emails. Right? So you want to make sure that we're good. Yeah.

Nathan Grossman: Yeah. I've I've had this happen so many times where I've I've changed the URL of something, you know, it's in my email and I forgot that I had that in there and I had to go back. ⁓ my gosh, what what a mess, right?

Simone Henry: Testing testing is so important. Test, test, test. You gotta do the testing. Otherwise, I've had ⁓ I've seen situations where the the founder didn't test the email sequence on themselves and they set it up and they think it they thought it was fine, but it wasn't fine, and what ended up happening was because they didn't have like the timing set up properly, they got like ten emails all at once.

Nathan Grossman: Yeah. Yeah.

Simone Henry: And ⁓ well not them, but their subscribers got ten emails all at once and then no more emails again for, you know, the next three months. ⁓ so

Nathan Grossman: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Nightmare. Nightmare. Nightmare. Your your your li your list of two thousand just went down to two because people unsubscribe at that point. Yeah.

Simone Henry: Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ and like like Nate said and we talked about earlier, there's no there's no tagging, no splitting, no segmentation. Everybody's getting the same email no matter what they do. So ⁓ So those are those are some things to look at, especially, you know, when you subscribe to your own list and and when you're testing out different things, test out all the forms in your funnels and on your websites, you know. Does does somebody when even even if they're just trying to contact you from their from your website and they're not downloading a lead magnet or anything, do they get a response back? Do they get I mean they may see a message, a nice message on the website that says, Hey, we'll contact you within twenty four hours, you know. Thank you for contacting us and then nothing? Did they hear nothing? What happened?

Nathan Grossman: Yep. Yep, yep.

Simone Henry: These are things to test out.

Nathan Grossman: Yeah, and some some email platforms will say that that first email should be a subscription verification email. ⁓ I've heard both sides of that argument. ⁓ I would I would leave that up to the discretion of you know you viewers out there or listeners out there, how you want to handle that. ⁓ you know, going back to what ⁓ Simone had said earlier about that response receiving that first you know, responding responses to an a mass automated email is key because it sends a signal to the email platforms that you know you're not just sending spam. And so another way of doing that obviously is having a ⁓ an actual action that they take in the first email that confirms that they actually did want to sign up and subscribe. ⁓ st statistics have shown that that actually redu like the likelihood that people are actually going to respond to that is pretty low. And so you gotta kind of weigh what you want to do. If they've already taken the action of signing up to get the thing that they came for, you know, there's something to be said for that counts. They're already telling you that they're okay with it. Yeah. Yeah.

Simone Henry: Right. I would think is is good confirmation. They signed it.

Nathan Grossman: Yeah, and what what I actually do on my forums is I actually have a checkbox that says what exactly they're agreeing to, right? And I I leave it at that. And don't worry about that first email adding more friction to the situation. They've already agreed to it, they've already checked the box. Good to go. All right. And so yeah. And so then the question c what is that first email? So if you don't have a welcome automation set up. ⁓ let's let's talk a little bit about what that might look like. Let's say this week if you don't have a ⁓ a a welcome automation build a three email sequence. So the first email, ⁓ obviously you're gonna deliver whatever they signed up for and you're gonna set those expectations for ⁓ you know maybe maybe that's where you talk about the cadence, right? You're ⁓ I send out emails every week, right? You can expect to get an email from me every week, something along those lines. Just to let ⁓ know, ⁓ give ⁓ a heads up. People really, you know, find that encouraging and ⁓ you know, they real really respect that, right? That way they know they're not gonna get bombarded, you know. This is this is everyone's like big ⁓ big hesitancy, right? Like I'm afraid I'm gonna get overwhelmed with the like a a a huge glut of emails and so You're putting their minds at ease, you know, making making ⁓ re reinf reinforcing their decision to get to ⁓ give you their information, right? And so the email two, which can come in like a couple days later, you're gonna you're gonna share your point of view on whatever problem it is that they're dealing with. That's a good idea, right? And then email three. Which comes four days after that. So you're extending, you're right. The the first one is immediate, right? You wait a couple days, send the second one, then the the third one, you're gonna wait four more days after that one. ⁓ and so I believe that's ⁓ what's ⁓ six seven days, so that's a week, right? ⁓ from the first one. ⁓ so the email three then you're gonna give them a way to go deeper. So going back to the idea of progression, right? This is that this is how you start progressing them along the path that you want them to to take. And that is kind of like MVP, you know, minimum viable product for your virtue excuse me, your ⁓ your ⁓ nurture system here.

Simone Henry: things too the well two pieces of advice when it comes to to making sure people can get your emails and you know and they land in their inboxes and their their They're make they're opening it right. So one thing is I've seen people do this where they have a lead magnet, the person signs up for the lead magnet, and then on that thank you page, there's a a nice pretty box with a button that says, download it here. Like if you're giving away a PDF, a cheat sheet, an ebook, something like that, click here to download it. Or if it's a video, here's the video. Boom. especially downloads. I always tell I always tell my clients don't put that download on that thank you page. Because now

Nathan Grossman: Yeah, it it's just one less reason for them to open your email then.

Simone Henry: Reason for them to open your email. Exactly. And if that email goes into spam, guess what happens? Every email after that that you send will go into spam because they didn't open that first one, they didn't move it into their inbox, they didn't mark it as not spam or anything. So every email you send after that will land in spam. So what you want to do is tell them. On this thank you page, congratulations. You've gotten such and such. You've got the thing. we've sent it to your email. Check spam, check promotions, check all the the update inbox with all the different inboxes that that you have now, right? Check for this email. You can tell them it's coming from this address. It's gonna look l a little bit like this, you know? Sometimes like ⁓ I remember I haven't done this lately, but like you can even put a a little screenshot image of of an inbox and with your email highlighted so that they know what they're looking for. They go in there, get that email and then get the delivery of the thing that they that they wanted. ⁓

Nathan Grossman: Yeah. I've done that. Yeah. And there's so mu there's so many like variables when it comes to email. ⁓ Not even gonna ⁓ not gonna joke you it it it can get really ⁓ really frustrating and and ⁓ very tricky very quickly especially if you're doing mass emails you know ⁓ there's there's other technical s ⁓ things to take in consideration like your DMARC you know your DCAM and that kind of stuff right which is gonna be important as well especially especially for Google but

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nathan Grossman: Google has this thing also, Google specifically has this thing where it classifies certain emails, you know, as, you know, this is a promotion versus this is actually going to land in the inbox and that kind of stuff. And there's different things that you can do to help ⁓ to help with that. One of which is telling your receiver on the other side to put them into the inbox instead of, you know, wherever else they're they're appearing. So, but it's like, how do you account for all Yeah, it it's it yeah, it can get very Yeah.

Simone Henry: A lot to account for. It's a lot to account for. Which is why it's it's important to keep sending the emails because your audience is gonna miss some. Some of them are gonna end up in promotions folder. And they're gonna get pushed down if your your Your subscriber is subscribed to lots of other different people's emails, right? So your email is gonna get pushed down. If you send something one time to them and you never send it again, you expect them to remember to to everybody to read that email and take some sort of action or something, and never send them another email.

Nathan Grossman: Yeah. Yeah.

Simone Henry: Guess what? That that's just that's wishful thinking. That's not gonna happen. There's lots of other marketers and founders and business owners out there who are sending email. And so yeah, people's inbound boxes will get flooded, so

Nathan Grossman: Never Never doubt how valuable it is that someone is willing to give you their email, but but never never assume that you're the only one there. So I think that's important.

Simone Henry: Exactly. Exactly. Your email ⁓ your email is going to get pushed down, so if you don't send another one, yeah, your your people won't see it. So

Nathan Grossman: Yeah. So that's that's move one. This week, audit your post opt-in experience. Go sign up for your own lead magnet, see what happens. ⁓ okay, two. ⁓ go get your list, sort it by engagement. Most most of these email platforms, email marketing platforms out there, have the ability to see who has taken action on the the emails that you have sent out, right? And so Maybe that would involve ⁓ opening or clicking whatever sort of action that they have taken with with the emails ⁓ over the last 30 days specifically. I actually have a group that I've created, ⁓ a separate segment ⁓ for people who have not taken an action within 30 days. And so I s you know, that I know that those are t colder, you know, but there's things that you can do there to help warm them up.

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nathan Grossman: But having having this split is going to tell you how much of your list is actually alive, you know, and doing taking action and ⁓ interested in what you have to offer. And the truth is for most business owners out there, that number is gonna end up being uncomfortable, but that could be useful nonetheless. Yeah.

Simone Henry: But it's still useful and valuable to know. ⁓ and then also in this process as you're as you're segmenting and you're deciding, okay, well, who is alive and who's gone dark, you know, ⁓ You may want to for the dark ones send a reengagement series of messages to get them moving again. ⁓ and you may need to send some like shocking messages with some shocking headlines. You may need to send some messages with some some ⁓ some perks in it to get them to click. ⁓ and if they're still not moving. Well then those may be people you might want to purge from your list. You don't necessarily need them on your list if they're not if they're not active, they're not clicking, they're not opening, nothing. and that's actually gonna bring you it'll it'll make your list smaller, sure, but we're t we're talking about active subscribers here, not not wanting just ⁓ vanity metrics. So so Purging that list. ⁓ and then sometimes if you are on a system where they they're charging you for every subscriber or for every tier number of subscribers, purging all of these unactive people off your list means that you are not paying for s people who don't want to be there. So,

Nathan Grossman: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that could get ⁓ very ⁓ you know impactful revenue wise, ⁓ depending on their your platform, your chosen platform. so okay, for just this week, just segment those, figure out who's active, who's not, right? Just get an just get an idea of who that is and what that what that looks like, how many are in each of the segments, okay?

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nathan Grossman: So for a move for the third move this week, you're going to pick one piece of content you've already created. That could be a podcast episode, a LinkedIn post that performed well, maybe a framework that you teach on the on your calls, and you're going to turn it into an email that does some diagnostic work for you. It's not necessarily a recap, it's more like an email that helps the reader see their own situation more clearly. And you would end it with a link to maybe maybe you have an assessment, something like that. ⁓ that single email sent to your engage segment will tell you more about your list readiness than any ⁓ open rate metric you may have.

Simone Henry: And of course, you want to schedule it. You want to automate it. Not just, not just write it all up and then let it sit there. Put it in a queue and actually let it go out. And you want to close that gap between I should send them something, and I actually sent out a message to And that is It's taking action, right? That's where you don't want your your nurture system to die, right? It dies in that gap between, ⁓ I should send something and ⁓ yeah, I actually sent something. Right? So that's what that's what we want to have. Activate it. Take some action.

Nathan Grossman: Yep. Exactly. So here's what it comes down to. Most service founders are are not short on attention necessarily, right? They've been working on building that attention. They have people who are taking interest. They're what ends up happening is they they're short on progression once they've captured that that attention. And You know, even though you have people, they have people that know their name, they've seen their content, ⁓ maybe even raise their hand and said, Hey, I'm interested. But without that system in there to to keep those relationships moving, ⁓ every month ends up resetting, right? You're you're you're out there paying ⁓ lead generation experts ⁓ because you're convinced that you just need new leads, right? ⁓ and but the the good the good news here is that it's a solvable problem. Right, and it's right there at the center of the our V the V three growth excuse me, the V three network, excuse me, framework. The visibility is getting your leads, viability gets you out of the weeds, and the value sets you free. Key key to remember here.

Simone Henry: So if this mess episode made you suspect that your real constraint is not what you're thinking it is, then take the Growth Ceiling Assessment at ghdunlimited.com. The link will be in the show notes. It only takes five minutes to show you where your actual constraint lives. And also, if you want to talk it through with us directly, book a growth clarity call. It's 45 minutes, no pitch, and we will map your specific situation. Against the V3 framework, and you'll leave with a clearer view of where to focus your efforts next. Before we go, we want to invite you to subscribe to the Growth Sealing Podcast and share this with others. ⁓ subscribe wherever you listen and on YouTube if you're on YouTube, and You know, if this has if you've learned something today, put it in the comments. Let us know. What's your biggest aha? What's your biggest takeaway? Are you gonna do the action this week? Let us know. And you know, share this with somebody, a founder, an entrepreneur who needs to hear it. And thank you so much. We will see you next time.

Nathan Grossman: I want