TRP 253: Maximizing Profit Per Client with Raul Hernandez Ochoa

[00:00:10] You're listening to The Rainmaking Podcast, hosted by high stakes headhunter, author, and professional speaker, Scott Love. Welcome to The Rainmaking Podcast, and my name is Scott Love, your host. Thank you for joining me on the show. Our podcast focuses on client development. It's not industry specific, but if you're in the business of getting business in terms of professional services, especially, then this is the show for you.

[00:00:39] Now, recently, I took many of my legal specific experts and we're producing those shows on Tuesdays. Not every Tuesday, but look for those from time to time. But every Thursday, we're bringing you content that benefits everybody in a business development role. Our guest today is Raul Hernandez Ochoa. Raul partners with founders and professionals to implement proven strategies that increase company performance, scale profitability, and serve more clients without sacrificing their lifestyles.

[00:01:08] Our topic title for today is Maximizing Profit Per Client. There's some really good nuggets in here, folks. Make sure you pay close attention to my conversation with Raul today. We're also going to put all his contact info on the show notes, as well as links to the books that he's written. I read one of those called Growth Plan, which I thought was fantastic. I'd recommend that one. And then also check out the other ones and we'll put all that info on the show notes.

[00:01:33] As always, our show is sponsored by Leopard Solutions' legal intelligence suite of products, Firmscape, and Leopard BI. Push ahead of the pack with the power of Leopard. And now here's my conversation with Raul. Thanks for listening. Hey, this is Scott Love with the Rainmaking Podcast. Our guest is Raul Hernandez Ochoa. And today we're talking about maximizing profit per client. Raul, thanks for joining me on the show. Scott, I'm energized and excited to be here.

[00:02:02] Me too. I really like your background and your expertise, but let's get right into the topic. Maximizing profit per client. That sounds like a dream, right? Who doesn't want more of that? How can we do this? What's the first thing on your mind when you work with people to maximize profit per client? What are some of the first things that you think about and talk about with people in that regard? The key thing to look at is every single client that comes through, we always think about sales being the four, like the entry door.

[00:02:30] But typically sales is your onboarding process. It's the beginning of the relationship. And when the beginning of how we're going to maximize not just the relationship with that client, lifetime value, upsells, cross-sells, opportunities, introductions, referrals, testimonies, etc. But also, are they the right fit? And typically when I'm working with firms or I'm supporting agencies and they're selling a plethora of services, they're selling the service, which they should not be doing.

[00:02:52] So we need to reframe the approach of how the client comes in the door, not focus on your service and identify what are the key things, the key transformations that your clients want. And then identify within your client roster, which ones are the ideal clients that you want to work with. And then match those services or outcomes towards those ideal clients in a sales process that is much more relaxed, with more optionality.

[00:03:17] But also giving them pathways for them to ascend to being a top tier client and onboard in a seamless handout from sales to onboarding. And I can talk more about that framework specifically because it's a three-part framework. But that's like the big picture. It all starts in the prospecting, qualification, sales conversation and framing of your offering instead of selling all of your services, which if we look on LinkedIn, we can tell you some stories.

[00:03:43] Well, there's literally about eight things that you mentioned here in the last 30 seconds that I think we could build an entire six-month course on. And so we've only got a few minutes. Let me start with the first thing you said because it kind of blew my mind when you said sales is not the end but the beginning. I've never heard it put like that. What does that mean exactly?

[00:04:08] When we look at any business right now, and if you're wanting to grow or add an extra line of revenue or an extra top line, a large sum or whatever, retention is your number one key focal point. We always think about adding more deals in the pipeline. But how do you have good retention if you don't have the right people in the actual organization? Yeah, right. That is a sales situation. That is a sales problem to solve.

[00:04:30] But on the sales front, the situation that I'm seeing across the board from different founders in different industries, advertising, marketing, selling, software, custom development, like anytime they're selling a service, they focus primarily on here's my ideal industry that I serve. Maybe it's five different industries. And these are all the services we do for them. We have nothing that's actually systemized. So the key thing to look at here is reframe how we approach the market. And the framework is a three-part approach.

[00:04:59] We identify if you're not a niched organization and you're not serving one particular client because the best companies are usually stamps. They repeat the same process over and over and over again. You can scale pretty profitably and healthily that way. But if you have three to five different niches or industries that you're serving, you need to identify who is the one that gets the most value from working with me and which problems are those that I'm actually solving.

[00:05:24] Because there's surface level problems that always come back to making more money or saving money. That's typically what every business case I'm seeing when it comes to making an argument for your services, for hiring you or getting you on retainer. It's one of those two things. But we really want to nail into what are the actual core root problems that you're solving. For example, I have a client. They do web development, content marketing, the whole nine. And you think, well, the clients they serve, they just want to earn more, do more.

[00:05:52] But they're actually in the nonprofit sector and they're serving clients that actually have donor dollars. And their main motivations and their main goals are to not waste those donor dollars. They're wanting to deploy those effectively and create impact and measure that impact. The sales conversation is completely different that way. Or if you're selling into higher ed and the higher ed, the whole thing there is that they want to be part of the list that are like the top 20 institutions to go for this particular degree. That's a different conversation than just make money or save money.

[00:06:22] So the key thing is to identify within your customer segments, which ones are the one that get the most value? Not just okay value, but the most value through perception. And this is the key thing. It's not just around dollars and cents. It's around where do they perceive to have the biggest pain point? And if you come in and solve that problem for them, tangibly, they'll get the outcome. But perception-wise, they'll have a higher likelihood of achieving the results, but also feel good through the process.

[00:06:49] Let me stop right here for a second because I think this is worth really kind of chewing on a little bit. Who's the one that gets the most value? And it's not just, I mean, I'm sure there is tangible value, but perceived value. And what you're telling me, that's an emotional context to it, isn't it? There is emotion attached to it. And there's also, there's so many stakeholders that can be involved, but there is an emotional standpoint to it.

[00:07:14] And I don't want to just say that every purchase is just an emotional purchase, but it's a mirror of who they are. For, I'll give you a one example, one of the deals I've done, if I did an hourly deal for this proposal that I did, the hourly would be, and this is not an exaggeration, it would be like around $2,000 an hour. Yeah. But I wasn't pitching it as hourly. And the founder said something super revealing when they chose the top tier option. He mentioned, I didn't even look at your options two or three because I buy the best.

[00:07:43] So people make decisions based on who they are, who they perceive, who they are in the world, how they perceive the world and the actions and behaviors that, that they take because of that perception. So when you are in these sales conversations, how are you mirroring who they are and or giving them the opportunity to express who they are by working with you? And obviously this is part of the, I don't want to get too delusional here because this is part of the framework. We do tie this to being grounded.

[00:08:12] And we start creating business cases and how we're going to solve your problem through the specific, either packaged offers that we have or packaged services that we have. But the key thing really is to dive into who sees the most value. And if you came in and solve this one problem for this one type of customer segment, that the value is 15, 20, maybe even 50X price that you put on it.

[00:08:36] What's an example of somebody you've worked with where you help them to identify who are the people that get the most value? What perceptions do they have about that value? And then what problems do they solve? What are some examples that you've worked with people to help identify? Yeah, absolutely. I smile because I sometimes joke that when clients work with me, their price is always raised, but it's not just willy nilly. There's a strategy behind it. I'll give you two examples. One is a lead gen company. One's a podcast production company.

[00:09:05] The lead gen company, when they started working with me, they were charging only $1,000 a month. It's okay. He was getting started, but that didn't support his growth. That wasn't able to support the team that he grew and flourished over the years. So we reframed the situation and identified which sales organizations, because he does like outsource SDRs, which sales organizations are the best for him to sell to or what type of businesses. And we identified through his work as well that the organizations that sell simple, boring, big products.

[00:09:33] For example, one of his clients, I won't reveal the name, but if you go to Costco, you look up, there's these huge fans, enormous fans. Those were one of his clients. They were selling like $45,000 fans. So for lead generation, depending on the services, that one product, it's about $45,000. Just one of those. Usually stores that buy them don't just buy one. And they also need maintenance for that.

[00:09:55] So that's a reframe there that we focused on B2B industries, a simple, like simple products, but their marketing or their outreach and growth is still stuck and maybe cold calling. And he was bringing a fresh new approach. Another one was in the podcasting space, similar situation. They were doing about $1,000 to $1,500, maybe $3,000 per client per month. And he was serving as many people as he could, which was great. I did an audit, reviewed and seen and saw like, who are the best customer segments that he's currently serving?

[00:10:24] And why are they being successful? And we find a niche down into the financial services. Because the interesting part in financial services, if you're an invest on behalf, a wealth manager of your clients, when you start a podcast, the clients actually listen to you more and then say, Hey, you have a product I didn't even know existed. Can you do that for me? Can I buy that thing? Can I buy it?

[00:10:46] So for him, he found out that the more that he had the podcast for his clients, the clients had more lifetime value and higher LTV value, which transferred that a podcast that he was producing went from anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000 a month because of the value that he was providing. And this isn't a way for us to only value price. That is one piece of the mechanism here. We can also do this through a productized service, which we can talk about in the other part of the strategy here. It's a three-part approach.

[00:11:15] But the key thing is to first identify who are you helping? Because what you're doing to solve a simple problem for one person, solving that same simple problem for a different kind of person, if the second person sees more value in that, it's the same energy. It's the same processes. It's the same team. It's the same back-end operations. It's just how you frame the solution that changes. So let me ask you, so you talked about the three-part framework. Is this part of that framework that we're talking about? Who are you helping? What value are they getting?

[00:11:45] Okay. Correct. So the three parts are the customer segments. How do they align with your culture and your business model? So there's more under the iceberg to that. But the first one is who is your ideal customer segment out of the plethora of the people that you serve? The second one is the grounded part of building business cases. Like what are the actual things you help them solve? Like what changes for the better in their life personally and through the business? And what is the cost of doing nothing? Very simple approach.

[00:12:14] But once you dial in who you're serving, you create arguments. I'll give you an example. Another client, they sell into the senior living industry. And their product is productized. Like their service, they're not selling the service. We've pushed, I pushed them to sell only the outcome. And they sell qualified appointments, like people showing up to their senior living facility guaranteed. That's a great offer. Like I cannot not sell. It's very easy to sell. Right.

[00:12:36] But the key thing is, the business cases, we need to identify what are the key angles to approach these senior living communities that they care about the most? And what are the key areas that they need help with? Like is it saving from referral commissions? Like they're tired of paying $10,000, $20,000, $30,000, $50,000 in duplicate commissions. Is that a key point that we want to address? Is it that they want to fill their roster, their list of people that are signing up?

[00:13:02] So we identify what are the key areas of transformation based on the ideal clients that we're serving. And then the third part of the approach is what is the unique methodology or mechanism that we're using to solve that? And this isn't just naming, like taking your services and creating a name for them. This is taking your services and not selling your services anymore. It's in bundling and packaging them in a way that solves the core problem in a way. And saying like, if you want this to be true, here's the things that need to happen.

[00:13:33] Versus here's all my services. Can you just buy these things like a phone call? Can you buy my outreach? Can you buy my... Like I've had, I fired agencies that were doing work with clients on our behalf that literally gave me a Chinese menu of all the things that were doing for me. And I would question like, why am I paying $500 per email? Like, I don't get it. Like, what am I getting from that? So you don't do that. Focus on packaging everything that you do in a way where you now start selling widgets.

[00:13:59] And these widgets get me the thing that I want and it transforms me. And you as the service provider are not the prize. You're not the prize. What I get as a consumer, as a buyer from your services, I am the prize. And it's what you enable me to do or become. But if that's the strategy that I work with, and that's the sales enablement piece. That's great. I like that mindset shift.

[00:14:22] As people have learned this from you, what do you think some of the common pitfalls are that keep them from really making this shift? What have you seen? There's three. The first is the belief of the value of their work. I've had clients tell me that they feel like they're going to be laughed out of the room from some of the offers that we've made and we've won them. Some of the biggest deals that they've done in their business. Because they're not used to it. They're not used to swinging for the fences and knowing that the work, the value of the output of the work that they're doing. Because for them, it's like riding a bike.

[00:14:52] You and me ride a bike or maybe you swing a golf swing and you hit the ball. For us, it's easy. It's like, I've done that before. Or for me, for surfing, I'm not the best, but I can get up on a board. But for someone, it's like, well, that's impressive. But sometimes we take that for granted. And then when we put a higher dollar amount to that, there's that gap of fear. It's like, oh, crap. That's the first one. The second one, and this one is the interesting one, is holding on to selling your services. When I worked with a client to do this for our first initial engagement, like 45 days or six weeks in.

[00:15:21] And then we were changing their sales page for them to reframe and how they're presenting themselves to the marketplace. When I had the founder rewrite the entire page, he still focused on selling the service, not selling the outcome. So it's holding on to like, here's what I can do for you. Here's the things that we can do. Change is hard, right? Yeah. Those two. And then the third is just adjusting your sales. This one's an easy one, but it's adjusting your sales process.

[00:15:47] Adjusting your sales process in the discovery and identifying if you're selling a productized widget, like the guaranteed phone calls, like that's a one call. You don't really have to have more than two or three calls for that, but typically through one call. You can have qualification and then, hey, do you want to move forward with this? Yes or no? So it's just changing that behavior around the sales process and providing what I like to do is optionality for clients when they work with you. It's not just, do you want this thing? Yes or no? It's great. Here's what you want. Here's what needs to be true to get what you want.

[00:16:16] Giving them options. Here are the paths we could take together. Which one would you like to take? So as people do this, I mean, is this a little bit of a change to how they communicate to clients or is this a fundamental shift in how they see themselves as an organization where now we've got to change our marketing materials? We've got to change the language that we use internally. What have you seen in that regard, Raul? It's a holistic change. And I don't like using that word, but that's the only word that actually makes sense.

[00:16:45] It's the change of the view of the founder. It's the change of how we communicate to the marketplace. Our content strategy changes, our inbound funnel changes, our outreach changes. The operations also have to change. On the unique mechanism, the iceberg under that is you have to have your operations dialed in to be selling almost a productized service. And I say productized, but it doesn't mean that you have to do videos or whatever. But it's having predictable delivery for every single line item of service that you deliver.

[00:17:12] At profit, timelines, automations, personnel, standard operating procedures. And you dial that in. So it does fundamentally change how you deliver to the marketplace. And the key thing that once you have this dialed in, it's less of, are we getting results? Are we not? It's monitoring results and ensuring that you're getting results for the clients and then growth. But it now becomes a higher level problem of leadership. How are you leading a group of humans and processes and machines to deliver to the marketplace?

[00:17:42] And depending on the level of growth that you want. So this applies, I can see this applying to all different types of services, organizations, companies that sell products, even professional services. Have you seen organizations, they want to adopt this, but the founder is not in favor of it. It's just too much change. Have you seen that happen before? I probably have, but I don't work with. I'm unable to do my work in that kind of setting. Yeah.

[00:18:10] I usually have to have the buy-in from the founder and the CEO that this is the direction they want to take. Because fundamentally, it's a journey. It's a partnership. But also, it's like you got to be all in. Yeah, right. I like the fact we have, who are we helping? Customer segments, how do they align? Now we look at, and what was the second part of the framework? It's building the business case. It's a business case. Yep. What changes for the better? What's the cost of doing nothing? And then the third, what's the third one?

[00:18:39] I'm looking at my notes. It's okay. My code. The unique mechanism. Yeah. And packaging your offerings, your services into an offer that's tangible. That's going to get me this thing versus selling the service. Those are the frameworks on the bottom level, like the iceberg. It's attaching that to your culture, to your leadership, and to your business model. Making sure we're looking at the finances, looking at the forecasting that this fits the model. Everything that we offer is going to be at profit.

[00:19:09] We're never going to go under. I mean, I'm saying we're never, but the design is to not sell something that'll make you negative 70% on that sale. Right, right. So it's all those things tied into one so that when you go to market, you know who you're talking to, you know what you're saying. You have the guided sales process, and that is the beginning of an onboarding process. Have higher retention, longer LTV, and ideally more profit and revenue per client. So I'm kind of curious, the organizations that you've worked with, Raul,

[00:19:37] was there some sort of life event that occurred in that organization where that led them to reevaluate their situation? Or are these well-managed, high-functioning organizations that just want to get better? What have you seen? It's always a mix of both. No one really takes action until there's pain. So there is a level of pain there. Some of them are either, one, rowing for the first time. It's like, this is the first agency. What do I do past 15 people or 20 people? Others are successful, 40, 50 people.

[00:20:06] But market changes, shifts in contracts. I was even talking to a prospect that they lost one of their biggest deals, and they're only doing tactics. They're not doing the strategy part of this, like, to grow. And they want more of the thinking. So if I would consolidate the key events are shifts in their deals and deal flow, like deals are taking longer to close now. Why is that? Lack of clarity in their marketing and sales. Like, they are trying to sell everything to everyone, but it doesn't make sense to nearly every offer that they make.

[00:20:34] And number three, there is some sort of dysfunction with leadership and or team, and that they need help solving that. And that's the surface-level issue, and a lot of it is a framework issue. So as people make these changes, are there any key performance indicators or leading indicators or lacking indicators that they need to be paying attention to when they start seeing certain changes? Well, it's the basics from across the board. I like that you mentioned leading indicators. That is one of my main focuses are how many deals did we add on the pipeline? How are they moving?

[00:21:03] What is the close, like, the deal velocity? How many show rates? What is the conversation like? So that's contextual. But then from there, it's identifying, it's a higher win rate at the end of the day. How many people did we get on? How many people signed on? For the LTV to play out, it takes a couple years for us to truly see the full length of the LTV. But the key thing really is during that initial engagement and conversation. To be realistic here, I mean, the biggest KPIs and biggest wins for clients in about,

[00:21:33] and this is not a guarantee, this is just what's happened. I can't say, like, I'm going to guarantee this to everyone that works at me. I would say three to six months deal flow, higher amount per deal flow, and more qualified conversations on the front end. Yeah, that's great. So tell us this then, if somebody wants to start taking these ideas and really implementing them, and you could summarize it in three action steps, Raul, what would those three action steps be?

[00:21:58] Identify who is the most important client that you want to be working with, not just the ones that you can serve. From there, identify the key things that you do for them. This will help hone in on your service that you do for them, but also what changes in their life and their business because of that service. And then package all those services to products. Instead of selling 15 services or three services or one service,

[00:22:28] create different products and tiers for them to work with you to get that core outcome. That's great, Raul. Well, tell us about your company. What is it that you do? What is it that you want our clients to know about you? And for everybody listening, we're going to put Raul's information on the show notes and just go there and you'll be able to connect with him right away. I consult and I help founders scale without overwhelm. I have a full length training if you want access to these frameworks and even more

[00:22:54] on my website at dogoodwork.io forward slash agency dash training. You'll get access to all the frameworks for free, some of my best materials, and even like a daily newsletter where I give away all the strategies. That's great. Raul, we're going to put that link on the show notes as well. So if you didn't get that and you're listening and if you're driving, don't worry about it. Just go to the show notes and you'll be able to click on that and get access to that training right away. Raul, thank you for being here.

[00:23:21] And I'm excited about trying some of these ideas out with my own business. And thanks again for the generosity of your wisdom today, Raul. Thank you, Scott. Thank you for listening to the Rainmaking Podcast. For more information about our recruiting services for international law firms, visit our website at attorneysearchgroup.com. To inquire about having Scott speak at your next convention, conference, sales meeting,

[00:23:49] or executive retreat, visit theraanmakingpodcast.com.