Onboard customers to the activation point

1. What onboarding means here

People use onboarding to mean many things. Here it means teaching customers how to hit the activation points you have just worked hard to find. Finding them is SOP 129 — Derive the activation point, and section 4 there covers changing your onboarding so it drives new customers to that point. You can onboard with a booklet, a video, a call, an event, or whatever fits.

2. The guidelines

These are general guidelines:

• Custom does better than generic.
• Personal does better than group.
• Live does better than recorded.
• Carrots do better than sticks.
• Last, and most important: some onboarding does better than none.

3. What to cover

The pattern: lay out how to get value, and drive the customer to the activation point. The moves, as listed:

• Lay out how to get value, and drive them to the activation point. What the best online communities do:
  • Tell new members to make a post in a set structure and to comment on 1 or 2 other posts.
  • Tell them where to start.
  • After the onboarding, connect the 4 to 6 people together, so each of them already knows someone.
  • Tell them what they unlock when their homework is done; their homework is what gets them to the level where it unlocks.
  • Show them what to cancel, or what to do, to save the money this membership costs. Then set that as homework, and have them show they did it.
• Resell the value of the purchase. This part matters. Frame it inside their own goals.
• Tell them how they can unlock more value the longer they stay. Timing those unlocks is SOP 140 — Incentivize activation and time unlocks past churn points.
• Tell them the best ways to communicate with you, your team and other customers, especially if they see each other in person or online. For example: how the categories of posts work, the group's rules, and what you deliver to them.
• Follow up. Use the onboarding to set up long-term communication with the customer. Customers should always know when they will next hear from you.

4. Do it for prospects too

Onboard sales prospects as well. It is said to raise your close rate.

5. Optional: charge for the onboarding

You can sell onboarding. For example, a gym gives a new member six personal-training sessions before letting them into the general group classes. This is said to work extremely well: you let the customer know that they have to earn the right to join the general customer base.

6. The action step: match it to your price

Put your customers through onboarding. If you sell something expensive, do it one to one. If you sell cheap things, do what makes the most sense for the cost. Just do something. It is said that every time this checklist has been followed, churn has gone down, and that it has never failed to work.

7. What a more personal onboarding did

One business first went from no onboarding to group onboarding. After a year and a bit it tried to get to one-to-one, which was not easy in a business of very high volume. It managed it, and the move to one-to-one is said to have worked extremely well: ascensions rose, and the higher lifetime value let the business spend more on ads. It is named as one of the largest reasons the business grew. The more personal the onboarding, the better.

8. What to do on onboarding calls

Add onboarding calls. On them:

• Resell the value.
• Say their names several times.
• Tell them how to get value.
• Tell them about the unlockables.
• Tell them about community linking (SOP 141 — Connect members to each other).
• Give them homework with a 7-day deadline.
• Schedule the next call.

A short video before the call. Where a one-to-one call is part of onboarding, one practice here is to send a short video ahead of it. It thanks them for buying, says what happens next, resells them on the decision with a little more proof, and settles some of the questions people have at that point. Two reasons are given. People in one-to-one conversation tend to spend time poorly, so a video probably halves an hour-long onboarding call, or better. People also back out early, in the first week or even the first 24 hours, when cold feet set in; your video is where the decision is reinforced, the last step of a sale on SOP 235, section 5. For a physical product, your video can lead on to other products, or show how to use the product and resell the purchase. A video before every repeated conversation is SOP 247 — Put a video sales letter before every conversation.

9. What this page does not decide for you

• Which format to use — booklet, video, call or event. The guidelines rank custom, personal and live above their opposites; which to pick when they pull different ways is not established on this page.
• What counts as expensive enough for one-to-one onboarding. This page gives no figure for it.
• How many people to onboard at once. Connecting 4 to 6 people after the onboarding is given; a size for the onboarding itself is not established on this page.
• How many onboarding calls to hold. Scheduling the next call is given; a number is not established on this page.

10. The checklist

Step	What you do
Know the target	The activation point (SOP 129)
Pick a format	Booklet, video, call, event, or whatever fits
Guidelines	Custom over generic; personal over group; live over recorded; carrots over sticks; some over none
Get value	Lay out how to get value; drive them to the activation point
First moves	A post in a set structure; comment on 1 or 2 others; where to start; connect the 4 to 6 people afterward
Homework	Tell them what it unlocks; have them save the membership's cost and show they did
Resell	The value of the purchase, framed in their goals
Longer stays	Tell them how staying unlocks more value (SOP 140)
Communication	Best ways to reach you, your team and each other; post categories, group rules, what you deliver
Follow up	They always know when they will next hear from you
On the call	A short video before it; say their names several times; homework with a 7-day deadline; schedule the next call
Prospects	Run it for sales prospects too
Optional	Charge for it, as with six personal-training sessions before group classes
Match the price	Expensive: one to one; cheap: what makes sense for the cost; always something

11. What this page does not cover

Finding the activation point is SOP 129. Incentives and time unlocks are SOP 140. Connecting members is SOP 141. Setting, at onboarding, the expectation of a cancellation call is section 1 of SOP 132 — Run the cancellation call. The customer journey is SOP 143 — Build the four-milestone customer journey. Delivering early results in small, frequent pieces, so that customers refer, is section 4.4 of SOP 284 — Earn more referrals by giving more value.