When you go for a meal, you follow a sequence.
When you are part of a wedding ceremony, there’s also a sequence. Sequences allow us to follow a thread, but it also gives the client a clear pathway.
In this article, we look at the power of sequences, how to implement one and why you may want to change your sequence as technology moves forward. Let’s go!
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An airport is a confusing place, yet almost nobody gets lost.
As you get off the plane, you are usually jetlagged. Having endured queues of people, cramped seats and many hours of flying, you should be in no position to make good decisions. Often enough, you are likely to be landing at an airport where you are not familiar with the layout.
You know what comes next, don't you?
Somehow despite all of that tiredness, you are able to disembark, find your luggage, declare any of that volatile stuff that you've been carrying, and make your way to the taxi stand.
When getting onto a plane, the opposite sequence plays out.
You already know the sequence: check in, immigration, security check – and then you're on the plane. It's a sequence that allows people to go from one stage to another, and to do so very effectively.
Yet, this sequence is never very clear when we get to a website or trying to buy something from a business. We seem to randomly pick and choose some product or service. Having gone through the activity of buying something, we don't necessarily know what to do next.
Yet, this problem can quite easily be solved by understanding the concept of sequence and how to put it in place on your website or in your business.
Why Sequences are more important than we think?
In the early days of my consulting career, I worked with a law firm that had a peculiar problem. They had several services that they could offer their clients. It seemed logical that if clients used them for one kind of service, they would also use them for related services.
However, that was never the case.
The client would use the firm for property law but then go to another firm for trust law. This kind of client behaviour confused the law firm's partners.
To solve the problem, we decided to have a small event.
We called clients to the event and, amid cheese, crackers, and wine, asked them why they weren't using the firm's services.
The answer surprised everybody.
The clients weren't using the additional services because they weren't aware of them. They were pleased with the law firm's services but saw it as a speciality firm. It was why the clients were choosing to use the competition instead. It was a simple matter of the client being unaware of what was available.
Similarly, we lose a lot of our clientele because they have no idea that we offer a series of products or services. If the clients are aware, they aren't sure where to start—or what to do next.
In short, we haven't defined a sequence that they could follow. Yet, some organisations have existed for a long time, partly because they have a precise sequence.
Take religions, for example.
I grew up Catholic, and baptism is the first step in the sequence. Shortly after that, there is the first holy communion and then confirmation. As you go through life, other rites of passage must be followed as part of the religion. This kind of sequence is likely to be true for almost every religion.
In Hinduism, you start with the naming ceremony, the first feeding ceremony, the sacred thread ceremony, and so on. All religions tend to have some sort of pathway that enables the members of that religion to know what comes next.
Equally, the religious ritual – Sunday mass, for instance—will have a series of steps that allow the worshipper to know precisely where they are in the sequence.
You don't need to depend on religion to give you a sequence.
Every time you dine out, a sequence presents itself. You're aware of the sequence, aren't you? Once you've settled in for a meal, you're presented with the starter, some bread, and possibly some wine.
You then progress to the main meal and finish the evening with dessert and coffee. These sequences are part of our daily rituals, allowing us to move from one stage to another.
It's also one of the reasons for having a sequence in place.
When you have a sequence, you tell the client you are not randomly dumping products and services on them. Instead, it sends a strong signal that you have done your homework. Instead of a client figuring out what to do next, you're charting a course for them to move forward. A sequence dispels the problem of “what should I do next?”
There's also a hidden benefit to having a sequence in place.
Usually, when a client shows up, they have no idea of the extent of the journey. Since we have a pretty good understanding of where they need to end up, we might overburden them with a complete strategy. A sequence helps in the decision-making process and reduces the prospect of the client dealing with “everything” all at once.
Let's take, for example, a skill like Article Writing.
It takes several months to become a good writer. However, the prospect of spending months learning a new skill is daunting. When faced with such a formidable decision, it's much easier for a client to make no decision at all.
However, if you devise a sequence, they can follow through using tiny steps.
- They could start by learning how to outline an article.
- They could then learn how to craft stories, which would be a secondary step in the sequence.
- Finally, they could get to the three-month-long course, where they would be mentally and physically prepared to write articles.
By creating the sequence, you tell them what to do and in which order they need to follow through. You're breaking it up for them; it feels logical and doable for the client.
Ok, so far so good. The problem that pops up next is “how do you implement this sequence correctly?”
How to implement a sequence correctly?
If you were to pick up a how-to book or booklet, you're likely to find chapters.
Let's assume it's a booklet on “growing tomatoes”.
What would the chapters look like? It may look like this:
- Choosing the Right Variety
- Preparing the Soil
- Providing Adequate Sunlight
- Watering Techniques
- Fertilisation and Pruning
- Harvesting at Peak Ripeness
When you look at the above topics, they seem to follow a logical sequence.
If you feel there's just one way to get the sequence right, then there's unnecessary pressure. Let's move things around and see whether the sequence still makes sense.
- Providing Adequate Sunlight
- Preparing the Soil
- Choosing the Right Variety
- Watering Techniques
- Fertilisation and Pruning
- Harvesting at Peak Ripeness
Notice how we moved the first three elements around? They still seem logically sequenced, don't they? You could juggle all of these six elements, and they would still seem logical. Even the last element, “Harvesting at Peak Ripeness”, could be moved around earlier in the sequence. Let's move everything around a bit and see if the sequence still makes sense.
- Preparing the Soil
- Providing Adequate Sunlight
- Choosing the Right Variety
- Fertilisation and Pruning
- Harvesting at Peak Ripeness
- Watering Techniques
I think we'd all agree that “Harvesting at Peak Ripeness” still feels like a good final part of the sequence, just like “Coffee and Dessert”, but I think you're getting the point.
The point is that there's no “correct” sequence. You wouldn't put “coffee and dessert” at the top, and “harvesting” would also seem odd right at the start, but you can move things around reasonably quickly for the most part.
To try this technique, open the “table of contents” of almost any instructional book.
Then simply move the chapters around. To your surprise and delight, you'll find a decent amount of flexibility when creating a sequence.
Let's take one quick example from the syllabus of the Psychotactics cartooning course.
Week 1: Shapes.
Week 2: Bears, Octopuses, Seagulls, Hedgehogs.
Week 3: Cars, Buses, Spaceships
Week 4: Perspective
You can move any of these around, can't you? Okay, let's try the article writing course instead.
Week 1: Topics
Week 2: Outlining
Week 3: The first paragraph
Week 8: Headlines
Yes, we jumped from Week 3 to Week 8, but only to highlight a certain point. You could logically start the course with topics, but you could just as easily start with headlines, couldn't you? In fact, in an earlier version of the course, “the first paragraph” wasn't in Week 8.
That is to say that while we believe things need a reasonably rigid sequence, you can move things around. When you do this shuffle, all it needs to do is make sense to you and the client.
In your business, you will have a series of products or services
Those products or services can be arranged to form a sensible sequence. On a secondary level, the contents of those products or services can also be moved around to create a logical syllabus. Which is to say there's no “correct” way at all. If you can assemble a rough system-based sequence, your client will happily follow along.
This takes us to the third part of sequencing: the problem with too many products or services. When you have just a few products or services, putting a sequence together is relatively easy. However, once things get complicated, what should you do? Let's find out in the next section.
The reality of the changing sequence.
AirPods makes more money than Spotify, Twitter, Shopify and Snapchat combined.
With a staggering annual revenue of almost US$22 billion, could AirPods dictate the future sequence that Apple Inc. follows? If you were to go back a few decades, Apple was a computer company. You bought one computer, then another model, and probably some peripherals.
However, at some point, that sequence seemed to change.
The music software iTunes became the point of focus. The software was free and allowed you to manage an endless number of songs and audiobooks. Once hooked onto iTunes on the computer, it seemed logical to move to the iPod, which then gave way to the iPhone.
Even if you didn't own a Macbook (I certainly didn't) or iMac, you seemed destined to follow that newly formed sequence. Each sequence also had its own spinoffs, which included the Apple Watch or a backup device like the Time Capsule. And yet, about a decade later, it seems like the sequence has done a little hip-hop move again.
While iPhones still command all the attention in the room, sales have slowed down.
The Mac, on which Apple built its business isn't, isn't quite in the spotlight. However, AirPods continue to gallop ahead in a manner that no one could have easily predicted.
The change in business circumstances is what determines the sequence.
The AirPods could be the starting point that, in turn, leads to and increases the sales of other products within Apple's stable. Does it matter if a business follows a new or older sequence? It does matter because if the older sequence no longer holds weight, then it's imperative to follow the sequence that is being determined by the behaviour of the client.
Emerging technologies will also significantly affect how you create and recreate your sequence.
In 2005, RSS and blogs were the road to getting clients. Today, that's hardly the case. Someone can start up a TikTok or YouTube channel and, within a few years, have tens of thousands, if not millions, of viewers. The channel itself forms the entry point to the sequence.
The revenue from YouTube or sponsors may be all you need to keep going. However, if you wanted to create a sequence, you might still need to get clients to visit a website, sign up for a list, etc.
Which isn't to say that all sequences need to bow to an emerging future
When we started selling The Brain Audit in 2002, the sequence went like this: subscriber>The Brain Audit > 5ooobc etc. Has that sequence changed in over two decades? No, it hasn't because there's been no need to do so. We don't have Apple Inc.'s aspirations, and our sequence has generated substantial ongoing revenue for over 20 years.
Which isn't to say we'll never change. At times, a little tweak you make determines a whole new world. With Apple, that tweak just happened to be AirPods. To their surprise, and everyone else's, they've exceeded every expectation possible.
All of our businesses should have some sort of “you are here” signage for the client.
They need to know where they are and where they're going. If things change, we can't bury our heads in the sand. We need to change the sequence as well. Why? Because if there's a sequence, there's also a clear way for the client to move forward. That singular reason is why we need to have a sequence, implement it correctly, and then change that sequence if required.
Make your business like an airport. Make sure the client never gets lost 🙂
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