Alexis Larinda Carney
Apr 30, 202312 min
Updated: May 1, 2023
To sum it up, the Feast or Famine Cycle is a repeating pattern where service businesses can get stuck in a cycle of working hard to generate leads and deals, then having to stop their lead generation process to work on what they just generated. The Feast and/or Famine Cycle also includes expected peaks and valleys in revenue related to factors such as industry, seasonality, holidays, cultural moments, and local events.
The definition of streamlining is to create more efficient or easier systems that organize an effective work process.
Why is Streamlining Service Processes Crucial?
Sales systems for your company
Reduce headaches with reliable or predictable schedule
Improve guest experience
More referrals from happy buyers
Higher close rate for deals
Support system in place for team
Streamlined operations create a consistent workload and workflow through a consistent process.
Standard Operating Procedures
Training Manuals
Templates
Guides
Plans
Sometimes we may have busier or slower periods in between generating leads and lead generation as a service business, also known as the feast and famine cycle. This can be a workload obstacle as well as a barrier to entry into the marketplace.
Scheduling projects into calendar slots and sticking to it can reduce your time in famine periods. A way to do this is by booking projects in advance.
Rather than taking projects all in at once, and starting them all at once, book them for start dates with space in between to develop a cushion for delivering results and timer for staying more and more booked out.
There can be a valid concern that buyers will turn away if you are booked out, but it can actually increase demand because if you are booked out people will see the value that you can get them booked out or sold out too.
Results of Having a Streamlined Service Process
Improvable workflow from reliable routine
Regained sanity
More sales through impulse factors such as Fear (of Missing Out) and Urgency
Trust in yourself to grow
When you have a calendar booked up of leads and projects it can give you the confidence you need to develop, because you’re not spending all your time trying to generate leads. You can pay attention to serving the people who are engaging with you and initiatives that will grow your business.
Some people won’t book if they think that they can just book you anytime.
Increase value of supply, increase demand.
A workflow difficulty can be starting each process from scratch as relevant to you, such as:
Intake
Execution
After Care
… and everything in between.
You should have a consistent process for each guest that can be adapted to their needs so everyone knows what to do.
Gaining your buyer’s trust makes it possible to execute on riskier projects. With growth comes risk. The more your buyers trust you the more growth is possible, because of that trust in knowing you understand what is the best advice for them.
If you do not trust your process it will show to your buyer, and they may lose trust in you.
This is why you must develop a repeatable, easy to explain system for a workflow procedure that can be adapted as needed.
Perks of Streamlined Workflows:
Roadmap to successful project completion is predetermined
A regular system can be made better
Project management is easier if everyone knows what to do
Craft an exceptional buyer experience by showing them they can trust you to be successful.
What you do internally impacts your buyers.
Providing Better Buyer Results Because of Consistent Workload:
Time and consideration: they feel like you are dedicated to a successful project outcome
Trust: knowing you will be able to deliver on what you say
If you are not overworked, you can fully commit to a project, which is what buyers want.
Buyer Benefits of Consistent Workflow:
Expectations: if you under promise and over deliver, no one will be disappointed. Set plain expectations of what will happen, and people will be able to give more control to you if they feel you know what you are doing.
Comfort: makes it easy to understand by breaking your process down into steps. Being accountable for what everyone is doing can show the guest you are providing a luxury experience for their peace of mind in execution on this project.
When buyers feel like you don’t have control, they will micromanage you. You have to show them that you can be in control.
Tips to Help Buyers Have a Successful Project Outcome
Onboard them with everything they need to know, such as with a Welcome Guide.
Provide a market analysis of what they’re competitors are doing along with inspiration sources for the project
Strategy Sessions are a way to clearly understand a guests’ needs.
Deliverable breakdown guides for items relevant to their project so you can show them what to expect from the service they purchase
Some kind of deliverable or buyer success guide at the end of the project can help them continue enjoying the benefits of working with you after working with you
My leads essentially get my version of numbers 1 - 5 above as a result of my Strategy Session and additional material as relevant to the service they complete with me. You can really make this something that works for you. I provide a Total Addressable Market sheet, Opportunity Assessment, Risk Assessment, Roadmap, and Options in my Strategy Session.
A big issue many businesses have is being able to communicate what they do offline like what they are doing online, but processes can help explain it step by step.
Reducing frictions in the guest experience has increased referrals through happier reviews and word of mouth advertising about the procedures, which are able to be improved upon as needed.
The trickiest part of team building is knowing when and who to hire.
When should you hire:
Have you had steady work for at least 6 months?
Are you struggling to do it all yourself?
Have you saved enough to cover all salaries for the next 3 to 6 months?
And as always there is never any growth without risk. Even if you do everything there’s still that chance that something goes wrong.
Who should you hire:
Junior team member - Assign low priority tasks to new people in the field that need to be done, and then they can be trained on more advanced work as you go.
Project manager - Give higher priority tasks to someone who can be trusted to handle communication with buyers, answer relevant questions in the industry, and stay on top with what needs to be done for the project.
What should there be transparency on before, during, and after the hiring process?
Pay associated with the job
Hours expected from the job
Timeframes work will be expected
Where work will be taking place
Anticipated workload
Duties associated with role
Day to day expectations
Prepare in advance for times you may not generate many leads:
Think about your traffic during the year
When it is busy for your business, try to book some of those buyers during your slower times if you can
Guess when your slow times will be based on your history, industry standards, local events, and holidays relevant to your community
Reduce the booking timeframes you have open when it is slow
Use slower times to invest in your own business, career, education, self care
Advice to create streamlined processes: Use your past work to improve your current and future systems.
Think about your favorite buyer and consider all of the things you did, what about that project did you enjoy so much, what part of the workflow felt good for you.
Start outlining the workflows that work for you. If it is too hard to think back you use what evidence of the projects you have to fill in blanks from emails to databases.
With every new project you can add more information and update where beneficial.
Eventually you will create a very detailed procedure that you can continue adjusting.
Can you lose a buyer who doesn’t want to wait if you are booked out? Yes, it does happen and it can be sad. But the increased demand may, in that scenario, help you fill that slot anyway. If desperate to work with a specific buyer, it won’t hurt to squeeze them in, but squeezing everyone in will disrupt the workflows so it should not be routine to do so.
If a buyer isn’t getting material to me I need to complete the project on time, I let them know in email how it impacts the deadline and that by definition of scope of work defined this delay will not invalidate my end of upholding the contract if it gets to a problem.
Problems can be avoided through over communication, and usually they understand that if they are the reason we are late then we will be delayed however long they delay us.
Not all buyers are tech savvy enough to understand project management systems, so it can often be an easier conversation to simplify that internal information to a visual presentation for them.
The hardest part of a project is often not execution, but gathering all of the content needed to execute from all of the relevant parties involved.
The deadline is usually for the buyer, and impacts them more than us, so it’s on them if the deadline is not met if they are the reason there is a delay. If you can show in good faith you have done what you can on your end you are not liable for what they decide to do.
Expectations and timeframes should be shared in advance when the scope of the project is being agreed upon as well as who is responsible for what.
People don’t care about how many followers or likes you have. It’s about what you have in your heart and your mind. Your social presence can build you into a brand and a network.
Someone with a better story can outperform someone who is more professional, more organized, and more polished when it comes to touching people’s hearts.
Talking about your journey is a way to help people who are also going through what you have gone through. Keep it to things that matter to you. Let people know you. Those are the things that are going to draw your audience to you.
A streamlined process is a repeatable system that has been done over and over and is regularly improved.
How do you scale and maintain standards without losing quality? Delegate to people you can trust.
What people see as gold is an opportunity to: advance, move forward, move up, succeed, win, step up.
You need two things from people whom you delegate tasks to scale:
A steady, up front revenue stream
Ideally money flows in before the project fully begins
Greater capital for expansion which in turn fuels your revenue stream which in turn fuels further expansion and so on and so on.
The standard of business in oppression is to find where the money is, and use what people rely on to make money in order to control them if they fail to uphold quality standards. But why doesn’t that work out long term?
In order to scale a business you need to control the business as well as find what continues to bring in money while upholding quality standards.
If you cut off the people who make your business what it is or create your systems, your quality of business will suffer because you will lose the chain of thought process by cutting off the source instead of allowing a sustainable system to grow.
Time is the one commodity you can’t buy more of. Being punctual is crucial to scaling a streamlined business. Even billionaires have the same 24 hours in a day, everyone has the same need for managing how they spend their time.
You have to pick a finite number of things to tell your mind to work on. You have to decide what you should care about.
You do have to get into what is going to give you the most bang for your buck. The world has limited resources.
The goal of discussing limitations is not to be inspiring, it’s to optimize resources.
If amateurs talk tactics, and professionals talk logistics, why would you strategize?
There’s no certainties, only outcomes. It’s important to have as much information as possible at your disposal.
Tactics can refer to specific action items while logistics refers to organizing the people that execute a tactic. It doesn’t matter how good your tactics are if you don’t have the logistics in place.
The biggest take away of the expression “amateurs talk tactics and professionals talk logistics” is to remember that a rich life is lived outside of the planning.
Anyone can generate leads, but not everyone can turn their leads into customers or keep their customers.
Optimize how you achieve results for buyers
Maintain quality standards for each buyer
Show how your offer influences lifestyles
Allure people who are like your current buyers
Earn the trust of buyers with the ability to pay
You need to already be bringing in deals and delivering results with a proven system
There needs to be a procedure in place for delivering results
Because systems are how growth happens, you need to consistently monitor and adapt
Workflow needs to account for what is the most efficient use of your resources
I repeat, you cannot scale large sales unless you have the ability to consistently deliver
Match buyers to offers
Use former projects as templates
Be reliable on follow through
Track measurable results
Build case histories & reviews
When you build out a system for a specific offer and continue using it as a basis for ongoing projects, you initiate an ongoing process of editing to keep what works and leave what doesn’t.
Once you’ve built a proven system for one specific offer, you can then apply your learnings to your other offers.
By documenting as much of the process as possible, you can then integrate your template updates into SOPs, training videos, and other types of notes for your company.
If you have a different SOP for each offer, you can apply what works for one offer as relevant to the next. By focusing on one offer at a time you can get really good at getting results in that area.
Have an onboarding procedure for taking in buyers and setting them (as well as you) up for success
Work with people you trust to deliver exactly what is needed
Consider what templates or procedures could be needed for each guest interaction
Design an assembly line for your results from team members using procedures to put together a plan to their mentors approving their ideas.
Once consistency becomes procedure, reliability becomes the norm.
No single business is essential to another person’s life, only a means to an end.
Many people focus on short term profits as their idea of what brings long term sustainability, and as such they usually focus on the choices that will give them the highest return on investment.
Therefore, the moment it is easier, cheaper, or is more valuable to get results without something they pay for, it can be in their interest to stop buying that offer.
You may retain buyers by providing them the offers they need to grow or will grow into as they outgrow old offers.
The customer lifecycle outlines each step a person experiences from considering to buying to using to becoming loyal to an offer or brand. There are 5 stages the customer lifecycle is often broken down into (or some version of): reach, acquisition, conversion, retention, and loyalty.
Lifestage offers match the customer lifecycle in terms of providing what a person would want from you at each step of their journey. What lifestage offers are paired with each lifecycle stage?
Reach: When you reach someone they expect some sort of pitch, proposal, or conversation to understand how you can help them
Examples: consultation, trial, or sample
Acquisition: After someone purchases they want confirmation that results will be delivered
Examples: set up, rough draft, reception of a tangible product
Conversion: Once an offer is received, people want to know that there will be customer service and follow up available to ensure a successful result
Examples: troubleshooting, final draft after revisions, exchange policies
Retention: Once a result is achieved people want to know if it can be done again
Examples: providing more of the same offer, trying a different offer
Loyalty: When successful results are repeated, people continue going after similar results
Examples: providing someone either the same offer or multiple offers throughout their lifetime
The deeper into the customer lifecycle a person ventures, the more money they are willing to spend with a business.
Lifestage offers allow you to price higher via value alignment with what people need based on the market.
Organic marketing of case studies provides results, but they can be unreliable
Running ads based on a buyer persona to a specific case study relevant to them can provide consistent and trackable results.
You can ask for their contact information so that you can send them all the details of your case study
If they sign up for your email list you can do a nurture campaign for education, reviews, and overturns to objections.
People who are engaged with you for multiple touch points are more likely to book a call or show up to test you out than someone who hasn't interacted with you as much before
Since it takes up to 10 interactions on average with a business before a person buys, setting up automated touch points can improve the chances of conversion.
When you are able to retain your buyers by maintaining consistent results, you not only can charge more, but also may get to a point where you do not need new leads.
When scarcity is real, it builds more demand for supply.
Once you have more demand than you can supply, you are able to select who it is that you want to work with for value alignment
People who pay in full, on time, and with pleasure that you want to spend time with are value aligned buyers that are closed in 5 steps:
Prequalifying your buyer
Having a curated offer for each person
Earning their trust in knowing their opportunities and needs
Increasing conversion rates with prepared responses to their experience
Ensuring value alignment through mutually beneficial strategies
If you are struggling with buyer relationships, fix your buyer retention before you worry about generating more leads. Bringing more leads into a broken system won’t get you different results.
If you are a business owner or the relevant decision maker, you are in charge of who you sell to and at what price.
Develop a reliable revenue plan
Consider cash flow and return on investment
Consider where you are the reason growth is stuck
Get help from your team
Leave no room for guessing what needs to be done
Attract buyers you want to work with, not that you’re desperate for
Improve your business instead of continuing to do what’s not working