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As your online business grows, it’s easy to drift away from the high-touch approach that you take in the beginning when each client is precious. But treating your customers like humans with heartbeats—not just numbers (or Stripe notifications)—can be transformative. Think better client results, more referrals, and glowing testimonials. In today's episode launch copywriter & strategist Sara Vartanian shares some of her favorite ways to build human connection touchpoints with clients.

Sara Vartanian (she/her) is a launch copywriter and strategist who helps business owners use data and research to create connection and conversion-focused copy and funnels, so the people they love serving most feel deeply seen and heard.

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The episode:

Katrina Widener: Hi everyone it is me Katrina Widener. I am back with another episode of the Badass Business Squad podcast. I am so excited because today I have Sara Vartanian on and we're going to be talking all about your customer experience, how to really scale your offers with a human first human connection approach, which I absolutely love.

So before we really dive into the topic Sara, would you mind explaining to everyone what you do and giving them a little bit of insight into who you are? 

Sara Vartanian: For sure. Well, thanks for having me on today Katrina I'm so excited. I'm Sara Vartanian. I'm a launch copywriter and I'm a strategist. And I work with business owners to use data and research to create this connection-and-conversion-focused copy and funnels, so the people they love to work with most feel deeply seen and heard. So really that means that I have a lot of heart to heart conversations with people's customers through interviews, we send out surveys, we read through tons of onboarding forms, and all those goodies and little nuggets that customers are always sharing with us, and I pull out the key messages from there and use that to write copy that connects and sells. 

Katrina Widener: That's perfect, that's amazing. I also personally want to say, I really love that your approach is both from like, "Let's give the customer what they want, but how about we ask the customer what they want as well, instead of just guessing." So I absolutely am obsessed with that approach myself too. 

Before we really dive into the topic I kind of wanted to set the stage a little bit for everyone and just ask you, why do you think that this is so important that we are approaching our offers from this human first approach? I talk about being really proactive instead of reactive with our clients, and this is a beautiful example of that. But just, if you want to share a little bit about the reasoning behind the approach that you take. 

Sara Vartanian: Yeah for sure. I think that when I think about human first copy and connection, I'm thinking about the fact that buying something is really never just buying something, right? We're all bringing our stories and our past buying experiences, and whatever's happened to us in our life really to purchase. And that kind of seems kind of heavy when I say that. 

But as an example, I ended up buying myself a Dyson Air Wrap. And I don't know if you know about those if you're listening, but they're like $800 I think around somewhere in there. At least in Canada, I'm in Canada. So that's what the rate is here. And I'm also 43, so I spent probably 42 years of my life struggling with my hair. It used to be curly, you know, it was fuzzy. I could never control it. So if you basically saw me, if I hadn't been at a hairdresser or convince my husband to help me straighten it, it was back in a bun, right? And so when COVID hit I could no longer go and get blowouts and things like that, and I hated showing up online. So I finally decided, "Okay I need to do something about this."

So I saw the air wrap and I saw that it had these amazing reviews and these amazing videos showing like all different hair types actually working. Plus they had this beautiful guarantee that you had like 30 days to try it. They had a payment plan, they had all these great things that made me say like, "Hmm could this work for me?" And the truth is I wasn't really sure, right? Because I had gone through like products, straighteners, curling things, all sorts of stuff over my 42 years on earth and nothing could make me actually do my own hair nicely. But I decided that all those things at the air wrap sales page had, again the reviews the guarantees, made me feel safe to take that leap, to do this investment.

And so spoiler I got it. I can do my own hair. I love it. And I tell you all this because the fact is, that's just an example of the stories that we're bringing or the experiences we're bringing to the buying experience.

And sometimes they are deeper, sometimes they are traumatic, sometimes they're stressful. There's all different things that are going on. So when we can find out what's going on with our customers and really hear what they need from us, we can actually address that. That's when we can really connect with them and make the buying experience beautiful and something empowering and something actually helpful for them.

Katrina Widener: I really appreciate that you also told that story, right? Because I was talking to someone recently about this. Oftentimes when we're selling we're only thinking about like, "How can I convince someone to sell? How can I get somebody to invest in me?" and we think about it from a place that's really about ourselves as opposed to the place that's really about the clients. I tell people I'm like, "Everything that you're doing in your business is about who you are, and who your clients are, and the industry that you operate in. It's all three of those hand in hand." It's not necessarily saying, "I'm gonna give into my client instead of honoring myself," or "I'm going to do something just because the industry is doing something." It's really just looking at the full picture and using that to inform how you approach what you're doing. 

If we're only looking at ourselves and not also looking at our ideal clients, we're not able to provide them the experience that they really are going to get great results from at the end, too. It's not even just in the selling process, right? It's not even just doing our best to signal to them that we understand what they're going through. It's also actually thinking about it every step of the way. Which is why I was really excited that today you wanted to talk about the way you described it was treating your customers like humans with heartbeats, not just numbers and that's absolutely amazing.

So for anyone who's like, "Okay you sold me on why I'm doing this now let's get into the, how do we do this?" Where would you tell them to start? 

Sara Vartanian: Yeah so I have a few main places. So one, I would say if you are doing a program with your clients or you have a membership or something, or even if you know you're doing one-on-one work, you can set up milestone events.

So I think of these as certain events or touch points where you reach out to people to maybe give them a deeper experience. So for example, perhaps in a group program when people hit a certain milestone, they get a one-to-one call. In my group program for example, it's around launching. I'm a launch copywriter, of course. So when people launch, they actually get a one-on-one debrief with me. So that's the milestone, we do a 30 minute call to talk about it. Or you could have folks submit their work for feedback at certain points via a form. Or maybe you give them a loom video back with feedback suggestions, and you don't have to do this for all the things. Because of course as we're growing and we're scaling we can't give one-to-one as often let's say, or in these group experiences. But we can set up times where they get that access to us. 

Or perhaps you have another coach instead you assigned to people again, that they can access during certain times. So I think there's a beautiful accountability in that, but they also get a bit of an incentive to do that work and reach those milestones. And then they get the chance to, you know, have that one-to-one conversation cause you know how important that is. So that's one. 

The other one would be a post-purchase email sequence. So I think so often we spend so much energy getting people into our offer and then often times it's like, "Okay that's it, like it's kind of quiet," right? Maybe except for a link to a zoom call or something like that you're having. But in fact, that post-purchase email sequence is such a beautiful time to further build relationships because you want to keep people going on that momentum of like, "Yes I invested and I'm here and I'm excited," and we want to keep helping see them through a success.

So I suggest a rollout over maybe the first month, and in this time you do just a few things. There's definitely an excited welcome and telling them how to navigate whatever you're doing with them. Where's the first place they should go? I like to then do another email where you maybe identify and call out any roadblocks that might be happening. Cause you know how it is, you get into something you're excited and then life happens, right? So how do you tell them, "This is what I often see and here is the way I have built something to help you manage that." Right? So they can really see how they can get access.

I like maybe to have another opportunity for them to give you feedback, and I often do that and say to do that in the first month, because many times guarantees are often 30 days long. So in that first month if you build in some kind of touch point, I like to use video ask. Where you do a video email, or you could do a loom or something where you just say, "Hey, what's going on? I'm wondering how you're getting along in the program or how things are going. Just hit reply and let me know." It doesn't have to be even personalized to their name, but just a video gives that nice connection piece again. And it's such a beautiful way for you to touch base and find out if anything's happening or problems are happening before you get to the end of that 30 days. 

Because oftentimes you actually can solve the issue if you can get in front of it, right? If you hear what's going on. Then if you don't hear people giving you feedback that's a good thing to say, "Okay, like this person didn't reply. Maybe I will send them a personal email because maybe they have gone silent. And oh, are they getting the most out of this program? I really want to help them get going." So that's the post-purchase email sequence over the month.

Definitely another one I love to do is like a personal welcome. So when people join, maybe you have an onboarding form or something like that so when that onboarding form happens, maybe it triggers you a notification and you can send them a really quick video. Again, you hear me talking about video a lot, and there's a reason because it's so great for people to see you, right? So loom or BombBomb, or even sliding into their DMS and sending a voice note is such a beautiful way just for people to say like, "Hey I'm totally seen," and those are things that can be done as you scale. It doesn't always have to be you either. If you have a coach or someone else who supports you, it can be them on your team, right? But again, it's that acknowledgement. 

And then the other thing that I really like to think about is, and I'm going to pull back I talked a lot about once they're in your program, but when you're trying to get people into your program, into your service, one of my favorite ways to do this is to actually invite them to participate in your launch event. 

Katrina Widener: Yep.

Sara Vartanian: And so what I mean by that is, one of the things you could do is a hot seat session or just run a hot seat session. It's such an amazing way for people to actually experience what it's like to work with you, cause that's usually the question, right? Like, "What's it going to be like." 

Katrina Widener: Right.

Sara Vartanian: "When we're out of this like sales experience, right? Like how's it actually going to be?" So one, letting them experience that. Or maybe in a webinar you have them submit samples and you weave it into their webinar. So just for an example, I once did a webinar called Five Copy Hacks, and I had people who registered submit some copy and I basically applied each hack to their copy so I did a before and after. And of course I had their permission and they knew that was happening. But again, it was such a good way for me to show how I do things, and then they get to be part of the event too. So those are like my favorite ways to really think about scaling and connecting with the people that you want to work with. 

Katrina Widener: There are so many things that I really want to touch on based off of what you said, because I think that these are all pieces of advice that are so helpful and super implementable for someone, right? I'm going to go back to what you were saying about having check-ins, having the ability for people to give feedback and go back and forth. When I started implementing that in all of my six-month contracts, where it's like, "Okay first month let's touch base. How are you doing? How are you feeling? What do you need more of? What do you need less of? What feels good to you? What maybe is feeling a little bit more uncomfortable to you?"

Not only is that giving them some autonomy and some ability to have a say in this thing they've invested in, right? It also is allowing me to be sure that I am able to get them the experience that they need, the results that they need. And in the end that only benefits me, right? Because I'm getting the testimonials, they're having good experiences and referring people to me.

It's really something where I know some people might be afraid to ask for feedback or ask for critiques about what they are doing, but. It's really something that like when you approach it from a, "This is allowing me to give them better results in the end, this is something that's going to benefit my business. This is something I'm doing for me in addition to for them." It can kind of reframe that a little bit for you. That's why I do check-ins at the beginning.

I do check-ins at like the three month mark. I do check-ins with my business manager and my podcast editor. And it's like, "What are the things that like are working for you? What are the things that aren't working for you?" Then when we go into it, you're talking about the email sequence and really being able to work with people in that sphere or in the pre-launch events sphere, right? 

What we're really doing is we're talking about strategically providing value for your audience and you're doing it in a way where you're allowing them to have a say and you're allowing them autonomy and you're taking care of them. But you're doing it with strategy in mind so that it is also really benefiting you. It's benefiting your bottom line. It's bringing in ideal clients, and those are all things that we all want as business owners. So it makes so much sense that this is the way that we're approaching that. So thank you so much for sharing all that information.

Sara Vartanian: I love that, and I love hearing how you're doing those check-ins through your... is it the one-to-one work is while you're doing that one?

Katrina Widener: Yeah, the one-to-one work and in the mastermind. Both areas. 

Sara Vartanian: Yeah.

Katrina Widener: It's basically just... why wouldn't you?

Sara Vartanian: For sure. You know, one of my favorite things I'm going to add onto that is something I do when I work with people both one-to-one and in my program. In the onboarding, I actually say, "Are there any roadblocks or things that could get in the way of your success in that?" and I have found that it has been so helpful for me to see because one, I know some people have said like, "No one ever asked me that. It's actually really good to hear that." It sounds like you're asking the same type of things. And I love that though, because when we know what's going on we can say, "Okay how can I maybe adjust my offering to support people?"

Cause there ends up being a pattern that tends to come up, right? We tend to see like, "Oh a lot of folks are saying this." Okay. So that means maybe we need to do X. Like for example, maybe in your Facebook group every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you're going to have a little check-in post. Ones like, "What are you working on?" Wednesday is like, "How are you going?" Friday is like celebrating. And just even that little change, it can be automated but still personal, right? Which it's nice to have both there. It's such a way that we can help them still find that success. But by asking those questions only allows us, as you said, to provide a better experience and to actually help people get to the end of our offer, which is what we want right?

Katrina Widener: Right. I think too, like when I was speaking beforehand about proactive versus reactive, right? Oftentimes what happens in our businesses is that something happens and then we react to it. We have a bad experience with a client or a client gives us feedback at the end of the six months, and then we incorporate it in the next mastermind or the next client. Whereas when we're being proactive or we're asking these questions right in the intake form, or we're asking these questions in the first month or in the three month or regularly in the Facebook group or whatever it is, all that is doing is giving you more information so you can plan ahead. That means that then we are less likely to have a negative experience with a client. We're less likely to get that feedback at the end of us working with them because we've already solved the problem in month one. 

Those are things that I feel like are so very important because if we're having a reactive business instead of a proactive business, it's something that really is not serving us either because we're constantly on edge. That's what leads to a lot of overwhelming burnout. We're constantly like, What's coming at me next? What's coming at me next? What's what's going on?" That doesn't allow us to approach really providing the best experience as possible for our clients and for ourselves in the same way, because we're doing it in real time, as opposed to trying to make it happen beforehand.

To give everyone listening an example, this podcast episode will be coming out after the Badass Business Squad mastermind launch for this next upcoming launch. But when I sat down and planned out this launch I started two, three months ago, writing the emails that people are going to receive when they sign up. Redoing the member guide so that everything is as clear and as concise as possible when they sign up. So I also have the space and I also have the mental energy and the emotional energy to go through that launch period. Not trying to do everything all at one point in time. Being proactive also just provides you as the business owner that brain space, that relaxation, that ability to just take a breath and say, "I'm going to have this feel good to me in addition to feeling good to my clients." And that's super important. 

Sara Vartanian: Oh my gosh. Nodding my head. Like absolutely. I can so I agree to that. It's so, so important. And something you said there about like the brain space, I know for myself before I implemented strategies like this in my own business? You know when things weren't going right, you can feel it, right? You feel overwhelmed things aren't feeling good, and there's this energy there that really starts taking away from everything else in our business. And then I don't know about you, but I would make up stories like, "Why this is happening or what they're thinking about me. Or why this is going like this, and what does this mean about me? Maybe I'm not so good at this." right? Now being proactive and finding things out as I go, no one has ever said anything really mean. 

Katrina Widener: Right.

Sara Vartanian: It's just more of a fact like, "Oh actually I think this isn't working so well for me, or this would be really helpful if..." And like, "Okay great I can do that." 

If I can't do exactly that and I'm like, "Okay well how can I do something else that would, you know, get to the same result?" And so no longer do I have to make up stories, right? Like I know exactly what's happening. So a lot of that mind mental piece is just so much more relaxed because we can solve when we have information, right? And then we can deal with the information. The stories we make up in our head are way worse than anything that's ever actually shared with us.

Katrina Widener: Right! Well, and I think that it's also... when you think about something you're able to be given feedback and have a moment where you're able to say, "Okay now I can process this. Now I can implement it." It's even the difference between saying like, "Okay someone at the end told me they weren't able to have this situation." But now I'm able to really sit down and say, "This is why. This is how this affects me." And you don't have to always switch or cater what you're doing to your clients, and so it's not like you're getting this feedback so you can just change your business to accommodate them every single time. 

But it allows you to sit down and say, "This is why I don't do that." You can now use that in your copy the next time that you launch. You can now make shifts in your marketing strategy and scheduling. You can have those conversations now and really approach those client... I don't know what the word I'm looking for is. The reasons why someone might not work with you, you can approach those reasons before they even come across them. So it doesn't feel like it's like, "Oh my gosh I asked her for this and she said no." It's a, "From upfront I had this expectation and now is followed through in the sales page and the marketing, in my consult call and the questionnaire." Everything is making it very clear why this is happening this way, so I don't even have to think about why I might be annoyed by that. Because it's already been cleared. It's already been laid out. Really addressing those beforehand gives you that ability to make it feel like you're taking care of them by giving them those expectations in advance, as opposed to saying no to them when you're in the moment.

Sara Vartanian: Absolutely. And it gives them full consent and autonomy to say like, "This is right for me, and I totally understand what's on offer here and what it's going to be about and I'm okay with that. I'm into that." Or I'm not, and that's okay too. 

Katrina Widener: Exactly, exactly. 

Sara Vartanian: We want to call in the people that I know this is the right fit for. And I love how you mentioned talking about it all before the program and on the sales pages in your prelaunch. Having those conversations. Yeah the more information we can have from the folks you want to work with, the more that we can talk about it, address all of that information. And then as you said, like not necessarily change what we're doing in our whole business model for them. 

Katrina Widener: Right.

Sara Vartanian: But we can clarify some of these things and we can also know, maybe actually these people aren't a good fit and that's okay, right? Or maybe if we address it ahead of time, then that's okay again, because they fully know what's coming and they have signed on for that.

Katrina Widener: I really liked the part that you were saying about it gives them the autonomy. It gives them the ability to fully co-sign onto exactly what you're offering, because then there are no surprises. They're able to say, I know that this is a thing, and I'm choosing. I'm making the like capital C choice that I want to do this.

Sara Vartanian: Definitely. 

Katrina Widener: I don't ever want to trick someone or coerce someone or force someone or whatever into working with me, because I want it to be a good relationship and a good experience for both of us. That's really all I'm doing by making all of this clear in advance, and like I said, being proactive. 

So unfortunately I feel like we could be that kind of people who are talking to each other, who could be like, "Oh my gosh it's been two and a half hours. How did that happen?" 

Sara Vartanian: Absolutely. 

Katrina Widener: No, sadly we're going to have to wrap things up a little bit, even though we're both over here, just like nodding our heads off. Like bobble head style when the other one's talking. But Sara, thank you so much for coming on. This has been amazing and so valuable. I think that people are going to get a lot great, great insights and implementable actions to take from this podcast episode. But before we sign off, I wanted to quick mention that Sara does have a freebie I'd love for her to talk about and share so that you guys can get even more information from her, and then also where they can connect with you after the call.

Sara Vartanian: For sure. Well, thank you first for having me on here. I definitely could talk to you for hours and hours, you are so right. So I have something called the launch copy map. It is a step-by-step map of all your launch assets. So you know like all those 35 emails that you think you have to write for a launch, I've listed them all out for you and I've given you the messaging notes for each of them. So you can know how to connect with people again with a human connection piece. So I have that all there for you. You can get that at www.saravartanian.com/launch-map and you can find me at www.saravartanian.com or on Instagram at @saravartanian.

And I know those will all be in the show notes, as Katrina said, so I'd love you to come and say hi and check it out.

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