78. Baking it Down - Friction and Floooow

🚫 Friction and Flow ✅

Ever been to a gym? No no - this isn't a Q3 "News Years Resolution" check-in (thank goodness), but it is a look at how gyms use friction and flow to direct customers to actions they do and don't want ya to take. 

When you go to sign up for a gym membership, it's a red carpet experience. They assign you a team of people to whisk you away for the Tour de la Gym! Registration fees? Waived. First month? Free. Extra kidney? Included with a first-year contract.  (I kid...ney on that last one - but it's close). 

When you want to cancel? You need it in writing 30-days prior to your cancelation date with proof that you were required by the FBI to fly to Mars for the first manned space mission. Oh and that extra kidney? They want it back plus interest. 

🚫 Friction and Flow. ✅

🚫 Unintentional Friction Points.

Whether we like to or not (see: hate it), the gym's cancellation friction point is very intentional. They do not want you to cancel that membership, so help them. However, some businesses may be unintentionally implementing friction points - and it's driving their clients away. 

Unintentional friction points are essentially "choke points" in your user experience. Something you did that drives people away from your goal action. These are not good for business.

Unintentional Friction Points can look like this:

• 🚫 When you don’t have a website or Facebook and people have to order from your personal profile.  
• 🚫 Adding additional steps to be able to purchase like “comment down below, I’ll DM you with the order link.”  
• 🚫 Hosting a contest and requiring 5 steps to enter to win.  
• 🚫 Only taking payments through Paypal Friends and Family. 

On paper - they all look good! Taking orders on social media, DM clients a link to order quickly, get your engagement contest out there to more people and make sure more of your money ends up in your bank account. ✅ Sounds good to me! 

🚫 🚫 🚫  But - unintentional friction points, yo.

In reality, these could be driving your audience to take actions you don't want - like, er, not ordering from you. The friction points above could lead to these unintended actions:

• ✅ People who don't use Facebook won't order from you - simply because they can't get past Facebook's paywall. 
• ✅ People will lose interest or second guess their decision to buy while waiting for you to DM the link. 
• ✅ People won't tag friends or share the posts because it's annoying to said friends.
• ✅ Your clients will feel exposed since PayPal ensures them they won't have buyer protection. They abandon check-out with you.

When we don't "brake check" our friction points, we leave money on the table - and sadly, we often don't even see it. None of the above was intentional; however, it was a wallet-thinner. 

✅  Intentional Friction Points. 

Now let's flip the script. How can we intentionally use friction points to get Imore from our target audience? Glad you ask (even if you didn't). Here goes:

• 🚫  Double-opt-in email list requiring people to sign up for your emails and then confirm by accepting the subscription via email.
• 🚫 Using Jotform to disable your calendar for unavailable dates.
• 🚫  Putting end dates to your pre-sales.
• 🚫  Sending them to Eventbrite for class tickets and not accepting ticket purchases anywhere else.

These all provide friction in an intentional way - to produce desired results. Let's look at what these intentional friction points translate to - well, listen to the podast lol.