The real reason you don't have repeat clients

The real reason your clients don't stick around has to do with decisions and decisiveness.

Oh, no! I'm Amara Andrew.

I'm Jeff Sarris.

This is Useful Not Famous, the show for people who care more about making money than likes and subscribers. Amara's the exact opposite.

The opposite! This is starting perfectly.

I thought you were going to say starting now. I was like, "That's a different show!"

So, yeah. So, this is a show that is in five parts. Wow!

We are We're very decisive today. This is perfect. This is perfect.

This show is in three five-minute segments. The first one, we talk about why decisiveness, why decisions matter. The second part is the what we're up to, and the third is how to be decisive.

And I'll put five minutes on the timer. I covered my face this time instead of yours.

You can cover my face anytime you'd like.

Okay, so decisions, decisiveness.

Tell me about decisions and decisiveness.

Yeah, so this is something This is something that the more people you get to meet who are hyper performers and things, you realize what everyone is in the business of is decisions. And being decisive is the differentiator between the successful and the not or the unsuccessful, because there's so many decisions to make for every single thing we do.

So, like the strategy that we're putting into place, the strategy for this podcast is a whole litany of decisions that we had to make to get here. So, now how does this apply? Like why are we even talking about decisions?

Like, of course, you have to make decisions. Like, you may have heard about the paradox of choice. Having too many decisions to make will instantly make us sort of tighten up and not make any decision whatsoever.

Also known as analysis paralysis.

And so, that's the big thing is, as service providers, as content creators, as whatever it is, we need to be decisive for the people who are paying us.

So, I have a question for you.

Okay.

How many decisions You have so many businesses and companies that you are running, like You just have a lot of things on your plate, to put it mildly. How many decisions on average each day do you think you make?

So, that I couldn't even say. But just for context for people, so we have Haven together. I have SPYR, my brand agency.

I have Kidney Stone Diet, which is all about kidney stone prevention, and then The Minimalists are a really close partner in everything that we do as well, so helping them with things.

A few a few other things down the road.

And then our clients. Like those aren't our clients, those are our direct business arrangements and business partnerships. So, there are a lot of decisions to make all the time.

I don't have an answer for how many, but

Would you estimate tens?

So, I don't even I don't even want to estimate because it is it's hard, because when you make a lot of decisions, you don't consider your decisions.

Last question: do you ever hit a decision wall?

Oh, yeah.

You do?

How about you tell me? Where is my Where do I run out? And we're going to get into more of the why in a second, but where do I hit my wall for decisions?

Because I think you know better than anyone else.

Oh, yeah. It's ancillary things, because it's the same things where I'm just like, "Well, I don't fucking know. I don't care." So, like dinner.

Like, we literally were just talking to somebody that we just saw yesterday about this, where it's like I have a million different decisions. The last thing I want to have to think about is something kind of stupid like that. Like to us, dinner doesn't matter.

Maybe it matters to you because you love dinner. It's your family time. You get to cook.

And our food quality matters. That's the decision.

That is what I make the decisions on.

Yeah, that's where our decision starts and ends. But exactly what we're eating right now at what time, that's a decision we don't need to make, and we don't want to make.

Yes, so if you're a private chef and you'd love to work with us, let me know.

Is Chris Is he out there?

Oh, yeah.

We need to talk to him. But anyway, so this is the thing is we confuse We, just as people, not just the two of us, but everyone, anyone listening, we confuse decisiveness with rudeness, and kindness, I'm sorry, and optionality with kindness. But being decisive is the opposite of rude.

It's actually being kind to someone. Giving a bunch of options for someone else to choose from, that, I would say, is rude because you're giving them an assignment. So, like if I reach out and I say, "Oh, would you like to get coffee?" And then you say What would you say?

Fuck, no.

Oh!

I'd say, "Sure."

Yeah.

Well, I For me, I'd be like, "Sure. Does this time and this day work?" But other people

Well, so, yeah. But let's say like it's Yeah, just for me, if I'm the one saying, "Would you be up for getting coffee?" And you just give me a yes or no.

Yeah, that sounds great.

Okay, awesome. "When do you want to go and where should we go?"

I don't know. That sounds like your problem.

Yeah, because it is! Like because I'm the one asking for your time. And this sounds so silly to have to talk about, but that I know to a lot of people feels kind.

Like, "I would love to have coffee with you. I will go anywhere whenever you want." But that's not kindness when we have hundreds of decisions to make probably every single day.

And I get the thought of it as well because we're very busy. People know we're very, very rarely home. So

Time!

So, they think, "Oh, this is a huge service to you. Like you tell me where we meet. You tell me what time." That is the biggest ask because now I'm trying to do so many so many things at one time, which maybe is to a fault, but I don't think so because I really enjoy it.

The last thing I want to have to do is do research on a place. Like even with dietary things, like then people are like, "Oh, well, where do you want to go?" And it's like we can always figure whatever out. Like, I'll eat an asparagus plant.

Don't know where I was going with that, spear. But I was just like, "But that It's just one more thing for us to have to think about." So, if you want to see someone, just be like, "Da, da. Does that work?" And your corollary, if that doesn't work, then what do you do?

Yeah, so, I mean, you We want to give Now, this, we're saying this in like a friendship context of like reaching out to a friend, but really what we're applying this to is projecting onto your business and your relationship with customers and clients and potential clients. So, you'd think about it, and we'll get into the like "how" later, but just real quickly, start with the smallest decision tree possible.

So, like a tree of options, a decision tree with, if it has one branch, what?

One, two, three.

But if you have one branch on your decision tree, like, "Would you like to grab coffee together on Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. At XYZ Coffee Shop on Main Street?"

"Sorry, I can't at 10:00, but how about noon?"

And that works. Or like, "Oh, that day doesn't work for me, but we should definitely find another time." Then expand your decision tree a little bit. Don't say, "Oh, great, just tell me what works for you." Say, "Oh, that's no worries, but how about Thursday at noon or I could even do next Wednesday at 3:00 p.m.?" Like give a couple options, maybe three, but don't just suddenly lose sight of the fact that it's rude to put it on the other person to do it.

And this is This applies to your business, too. So, we're going to get into the next segment, which is just the what we're up to, and then we will swing back around and talk about how to apply this to your bidness.

Bidness. Witness to bidness. This week, we filmed with our plumbing company, which is always very fun.

Our plumbing company. We don't own it, but it's because we don't film with just real estate agents.

Yes. Yeah, we actually

I never say real estate agents. I say Realtors.

Realtors. You always say real estate professionals. Well, now I'm saying real estate agents.

But we filmed with them, which was very fun. I don't know, I always like watching the progression of people as we film with them more, like camera shyness is a very real thing. Like I have it, and I've had it, but now because I've done so much instructing on the back end of the camera, like on the other side, I feel like I'm so much more proficient, too, on being like at being on camera now, so that's just been a learning thing.

And you have a lot of experience. Before we started this, you sort of worked your way through the camera shyness, but you get better and better.

Yeah, and like that's what I like watching with people that we work with is giving them that confidence to be even better each time on camera. So, then it's like, "Okay, now you're doing this." Like figuring out different systems that work for certain people. So, some people, they can't move from their spot because they'll lose their train of thought.

So, like that's how I am. I can't be doing things while I'm talking on camera because

What do you lose?

Choo-choo! My train of thought. Thank you.

Where'd it go? And I'll lose my train of thought. So, I need to be stationary and look straight down the barrel of the camera and then because I'm trying to, for better or worse, remember what I'm saying, because I do a lot of art history content, so it's fact-based and things like that.

So many other people, though, are so much better when they move through space, and that's totally fine. It's just different skill sets. So, anyway, long story short, even though this is 10 hours of talking, watching everybody that we film with find their groove and us helping them find that is just it's like crack to me.

Like I love it. I'm addicted to it.

Oh, yeah. And like when someone'll be like, "I was dripping in sweat and so nervous the first time." Usually, what always happens is they're like, "Once I saw the videos, I was like, 'Wow, they actually turned that into something.'" And then the next time, they're less nervous. They're not nervous.

They're still nervous to a degree, but each time it's lesser and lesser where we find by like, especially like if someone's very nervous, because it's natural to be very nervous, but by that third session, they're just like Yeah, like they're like old pros. They're just like, "Oh, wow, yeah, I know exactly what we're doing.

I know what I'm talking about, but I know my topic so well, whether it's real estate, whether it's plumbing or Wooee! Jeez." plumbing or gardening, or whatever it is. Like, "I know my topic.

Yeah.

I can talk about it, and I know that I don't have to worry that there's no gotchas. We're not We're trying to make it easy." So, actually, decisions along these lines is that you come up with all the content ideas. They don't have to decide

Don't spoil my how.

Okay, well, I will wait then.

I'm teasing.

But one more for the what: You can't see this in frame yet, but you will see it now. We just came from an art fair. Let's cover my face so it focuses on this instead of me.

There we go. So, we just got this new piece, which is really fun.

Isn't it so cool?

It is a blacklight paint UFO. UFO. So I don't think I'm talking into the mic, but once we get we'll get a little blacklight to put at the base of it, but this glows, and we found an artist at an art fair who makes these and carves, not just this, he is very impressive in his sculptures, and they're all wood-based, and he has really fun characters, and yeah, so we just spent this morning

Well, you should pull over my little raven over. I also bought a cute little print of a little "Nevermore" raven.

Yeah, we love art. And something that we discovered, too, is just sort of in talking, I love the art that is truly handmade, and you that you can see it, like very imperfect, the paintings. Like there's a painting on the wall, you can't see it in frame, but there's a painting on the wall that like has all the touches.

It is ripped out of a newspaper, someone painted on that, so it has the date, it has all these things that make it real and touchable. But then, what did we discover about your taste?

So, I still love that, because I love seeing the humanness of it. But because I've made art for a very, very, very long time, seeing somebody have the technical skill to paint a perfect, crisp line, that'll just do something to me, I think, until the end of time. Like I love color blocking.

I love seeing bold, graphic stuff. And when it's done so well, that like turning the human into a machine, I think I always love, because it's like, "Wow, that's like a very mechanical way that they did that." But I do still love the handmade quality of something. But because you come from a very like literally just computer, technical

Like a design world, and that's a digital design world, is if it's too perfect by hand, it actually doesn't appeal to me, which was something we came to the realization just walking around.

Weird. Like, "Woah, that's weird."

Yeah, it's because like this shirt I mean, this shirt is like perfect with some imperfections deliberate

Yeah.

That I designed in Photoshop.

Yeah.

And Deep B! And if there was a physical Sorry, that was probably loud. If there was a physical version of this on the wall, I would want it to look way more imperfect than this.

And see, yeah, that doesn't appeal to me in the same I think it's purely just painting and like graphics, so like a lino cut or something. Like that if you can get that like perfectly, cuz I know the amount of control you need to have for that, I think that's what it is, where it's like, "Oh, they've mastered this shit.

They've put in 400 hours to get that perfect line."

I think I just realized a deeper thing.

Control?

I can make anything that looks crisp and perfect digitally. I am not good at making anything look imperfect. I am That is a struggle of mine.

So, that's what I respect so much more.

Typical Virgo. But, you know what I mean, though?

So, not even the digital aspect, but the way that I create is creating for pixel perfection.

Oh, I know.

No, but isn't So, I think that's interesting because you can have the creative vision to create something that is imperfect in perfect ways. But I lack Like I feel You.

Oh, me? Oh!

I feel like I lack the ability to create something that has that extra life to it. And I think that's really where it where that line falls.

That's interesting, because I do like doing that on purpose, where it's it doesn't make any sense. So, like The Dourers, that was an NFT project that I did 800 years ago. It doesn't make sense, a lot of it, because it's playing with things that don't make sense.

So, like a the one that we have that we had on the wall, which I said is like me. She's missing an arm, and like it's Oh, yeah, if you go to Don't ask questions. If you go to AmaraAndrew.com, you can see The Dourers, and it's actually the cover art for your other podcast, By Amara.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, that one. Duh!

But the way that she's holding the bandana. Bandana? She's holding a bandana?

Oh, no. Not a bandana. Yeah, please, get the fuck out of here.

Oh, it has a stamp on the bottom. That's cute. Oh, nice.

I didn't even look. So, she Jason Ray. Okay, talk about the bandana.

I like choked on my tongue or something. Whoa. That episode's going great.

Yeah, so this is a little fun behind the scenes. Yeah, I'm filming the filming the filming, so here we go.

This isn't like the chocolate episode that we had for our old podcast.

No. But we're talking about bandanas.

Bandanas. Okay, so on to the "how" section. So, now it is how do we apply decisiveness and decision-making and reduce decisions for our clients and to make our business a better business?

Well, yeah. So, first, I guess I could talk about our personal business, what we do. So, with Haven, we film video content with real estate agents, but also other small businesses.

I realized

What?

I just wanted to say organic video marketing.

Yes.

That's what we do. So, our niche is real estate, but we realized we need to start sort of articulating that: organic video marketing. This is marketing.

It's what we do. It doesn't matter what the industry is, we just happen to choose real estate, so that's that's why we talk about real estate a lot.

Yes. Thank you, sir. Calm down, banana.

Anyway, so with our business, the whole point is that people have us make the decisions for them. So, what we do is we literally decide every single thing, and I didn't realize it until we were talking about this concept, this idea, this decision. I only have two questions that I ask people: "Does this date work for you to film?" or "Do these dates work for you to film?" and "Are the videos good to post?" That is literally it.

You will not hear from me otherwise.

Well, and what we do

On purpose.

Is we fly to people in their market every third month and film for

That's what I was going to break down. Oh, okay. Sorry.

Then you go on.

No, you go ahead.

Yeah, we film to them We fly to them in the market, film every third month for two days, and they're done. All the content is decided ahead of time by Amara. Everything is directed by her.

Everything is edited. Everything is published. It's a 100% turnkey, zero decisions.

Yes. So, there are so many different questions I could ask throughout the process, like "Do these questions work for you? Does this sound good?

How are these thumbnails? Does this color work for you? What do you think of these captions?

What do you think of this? Like does this Airbnb work for you? Does this neighborhood work?"

"What if I post this on Tuesday, and then this on Thursday, and then this on May 17th?" Like

There are hundreds and hundreds of questions I can ask people, but I only have two, because why do you need to hear from me all the time? Like that doesn't make any sense, and that's not what people are paying us for. They're paying for our expertise.

And at the end of the day, Haven means literally expert. So, why would I be bothering somebody who already has a million different decisions? Like as a service provider, I have to mitigate all decisions for them and not give them anything else to think about.

Just be like I literally had somebody text me this week, and they're just like, "I didn't even look through the videos yet, but I trust you." Like and I was like, "I'm so flattered," cuz like you forget, yeah, it is a trust thing where it's like, "Well, yeah, I'm never going to let you down." Like that's not even remotely an option.

Like I will die before I let somebody down, or try to.

Well, yeah. And how do we convey Whoa! Strike that!

How do we convey that you can always trust us? If you didn't listen to last week's episode, you can look that one, the secret of branding or the number one secret to brand or something like that, but we talk all about how we convey that you can always trust us and always rely on us.

Yes, through subliminal messaging. So, then that's just a little sample of how we do it. So, how can you do that, you, dear listener, viewer?

How can you do that for your clients? So, even just starting before you even meet your client, something obviously that we're very keen on is your content. How do you communicate, "You can trust me.

I'll take all the decisions off your plate, and you can relax. Like I'm very reliable"? How do you communicate all of that and that you are an expert?

Can I just say real quick, if I started this episode with, "I'm not really sure what we're going to talk about today, but let me figure it out," why would you stick around?

Yeah, you'd be like, "No, you figure that out ahead of time. Why are you taking my time?"

Yeah, I'm here tuning in, I'm I'm paying you with my time. You being like us, you're paying us with your time to be decisive. We're You're here so we teach you something.

That's decisiveness.

Exactly. So, the more you can do that and show that to a potential client, the better. So, how do you do that in your content?

One of the things that we're very keen on, obviously, is education-based content. Showing people that you even know an iota of anything you're talking about is huge.

What?

Just "iota." Banana! Ray iota.

But being able to show people that you actually know what you're talking about is honestly huge. The more I'm writing a bunch of different things right now that are related to this, like blog posts that are coming up, yeah, email newsletter, which you can subscribe below.

Yeah, if you're not on that, go to UsefulNotFamous.com or any of our websites, you can sign up and get an email every Monday. Yeah, you're you're pointing down if you want.

Tink, tink!

And if this is on a Short, then you're pointing to me.

Yes. Or But something that you can I totally lost my train of thought again. But showing people that you are the expert in your field This episode is off the rails!

This is perfect.

So, showing people that you are the expert and that you already know what you're talking about, so, for example, you can do that through storytelling, showing, "Okay, I saved" Like something I've been very big on lately is getting more of the storytelling in people's content, because that's huge. Like we learn through stories as a species.

That's what we've loved for thousands and thousands and hundreds of thousands of years, and that's what we're going to love into the future. It's just It's what you feel. So, sharing with people examples of success stories that you've had with clients, that's hugely valuable.

And then it shows, "Oh, cool, this person saved their client $20,000, $5,000, 100 bucks," whatever it is, like money is money. They showed them that, therefore I trust them already, because I know they already have a use case like that they've already done this. They've proven that this works.

So, showcasing that expertise, or even if it's just even if you haven't done any transactions, and I keep using real estate just because we primarily work with agents, even if you don't haven't had transactions, say what you would do. Provide something like that, because then you're showing, "Oh, okay. I am an expert in this." so, okay.

So, moving along, then, if you have a client, how do you eliminate the decisions for them? And I know we're a little over on time, but I'm going to keep going. So, I don't know what that look was.

I'm going to keep going. But try In real estate, legally, you have to if you're like on the listing side, like you have to show the listing the seller all of the offers. You have to, legally, I believe.

Yes. Carrying on. So, you're like, "I don't know." But there's certain legal obligations you have as a real estate professional.

So, you can't necessarily take away all decisions for the person, because you need them to have autonomy, and also, legally speaking, you have to. So, what you can do, though, is eliminate any ancillary decisions. So, like if someone if it's even just coordinating a date and time, never ask "Does this date or" Choose a date and time.

Never be like, "Oh, when works best for you?" No, you tell them, "Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. We're going to do this. Does that work for you?" And if they say, "No, I have work," or "No, I hate you," then you work it out, and then you figure it out from there.

Well, and let's even just look at showing houses.

Yes.

Like here's half a dozen homes. If it's, "What do you like?"

Oh, my god.

Or if it's, "I think this is good for you because, I think this is not right for you because," that's being decisive. That's being definitive. That's give making a decision that furthers their knowledge of, "Oh, I didn't think to look at it that way." So, there's there's that line between kindness and rudeness that we're not saying, "You don't want this house," but we're saying, "I don't think that one will be right for you because." And you're not saying we won't go look at it, but you're being decisive to say, essentially, "That might be a waste of your and my time because of these reasons that I've experienced in the past."

Exactly, and you get to that point, too, by asking questions, like so many questions ahead of time, which I don't think enough people ask enough questions.

Directed questions, decisive questions.

Yes, cuz if you go into a house, and someone's like I just thought of a song that you made. Which one?

"If you want to buy a house, if you're looking for a house"

Thank you. You have to roll your R on "for." This fucking episode, burn it to the ground! But if you are Looking for a house.

I don't blame you if you unsubscribe. If you are looking at houses, and you look at like two of them, let's say, ask sort of an obnoxious amount of questions, not to be annoying for the person, maybe cap it at like 10 or something. But ask the right questions where you can actually get to the heart of what it is, where it's like, "Okay, did you like" Not even just, "Did you like this house?" but it's like "What did you think of X?" Like being very specific.

"Did you like the entryway in this house?"

Yeah, "Did you like the basement?"

That's decisive.

"How did you feel about the carpeting in the bathroom?" Like "How did you feel about the carpeting on the toilet seat?"

"How did you feel about the carpeting in the bed?" But directed, thoughtful questions. We're not just saying, "What do you think?"

Very specific.

"Well, how do you feel?" Like, and you can, you can ask about feelings and things, but

Yeah.

We want decisiveness. We want we want results. That's what we pay for, and that's what people pay us for.

And no small sum, like people pay us, they invest in what we do because it's worth it. And why is it worth it? Because we are decisive.

We make decisions that are going to help them if they are willing and ready to improve and build their business.

Yeah, like decisive enough to "You repeat what I say. I will tell you exactly what to say," because I've taken the time to study all the tape and all the things and everything.

Yeah, you did 4,000 videos just last year alone.

Yeah. That's a lot of editing.

Yeah, it's a lot it's a lot. So, there's a lot of experience there.

Yeah.

And the experience is in organic video marketing to help you get more leads. It's not to get likes, it's not to get subscribers, it's it's to get leads. It's the only thing we care about.

And a final point that I want to make, too, back to the content before you even get your clients, something I wanted to mention, too, a lot of times people feel very overwhelmed with let's say it's, "What's the first thing a seller should do before they list their home?" home? Why am I having trouble? What's the first thing a seller should do before they list their home?

A lot of people kind of crash out and just be like, "Well, I don't" Sorry, that's a TikTok term. Don't mind me. Us cool kids.

But a lot of people be like, "Oh, I don't know. Where should they start?" and get really lost in the sauce, but it's like, "No, no, no, where do you think they should start?" because you could go all the way back to 10 years old, and it's like, "Well, save everything from your lemonade stand, then invest it in VTSAX." and it's like

So, but if you do that, that's actually So, this is what's hard. We're decisive. So, you actually said that in a decisive way.

If you were just say If you were to say, "How do you buy a house at 10 years old? Start a lemonade stand. By 12 years old, you'll have $2,347.

Invest it." Like, that's decisive, but what happens See, I do too much of this.

Well, yeah. So, like but what happens is it's like how What should What's the first thing someone should do when they sell a house? Now, this isn't for our top nanas, this is for just broadly for people who are like, "It's so hard.

I don't even know what to say."

Yeah.

It's because you're like, "Well, maybe if you, well, I guess if you blah, blah, blah, you can blah, blah, blah." But, instead, just decide. Make the decision for them. The first thing you want to do: get pre-approved.

Done. You know, like and I don't care if that's right for like maybe you don't want that, maybe you want something else, but like if that's my decision, I made the decision and the person watching and consuming doesn't have to decide. They're like, "First thing: pre-approval letter, got it." Like, that's what we want, and that's what we pay for.

Yes. So, that's what you should do for your client, be as decisive as possible. Just something as simple as date and time, like that's my biggest thing, I think, and just make the decision for them and tell them, "We're going to meet this day and this time.

If that doesn't work, let me know the next best availability for you." Don't even say "Send me other dates and times," cuz I've run into that, too, and it's like, "No, no, no. Just say what's the next best availability for you. They will have to give you one answer.

Done. Simple. Because everybody's busy.

Nobody has time to be dicking around with all these dates and times, and then you just get confused also cuz it's like, "What did I say? What did they say?" Just make the least amount of decisions on your client as possible, and they will love you for ever because you made it so incredibly simple on them. Like nobody knows how many fucking decisions we make for people, and that's fine, that doesn't matter, but don't do that to your client.

Don't make your client think about anything else that they need to think about, because you will stress them out to hell and back.

Yeah, and to be decisive, I'm ending the episode right now. Bye!

Bye!