INSIDE LETTING-GO MENTORING
Make Frontline Staff Your Advocates
You are the only person in the business who can explain what you sell with any conviction, and your customer-facing staff answer questions without ever seeing themselves as part of the sale. Ivanka Menken uses the Frontline Advocate Map inside Letting-Go Mentoring, a 6-month programme at AUD $1,500 per month ex GST, to list everyone customers actually meet, rate their influence today and plan one conversation and one released task for each.
The Frontline Advocate Map is a tool inside the programme, not a separate product. Ivanka does not run staff training.
AN EXAMPLE GIFT RETAILER
Customers met the frontline far more often than the founder.
- THE FOUNDERcustomer conversations, example30 a week
- THE FRONTLINEcounter, gift wrap, chat and delivery1,050 a week
- THE PLANone conversation and one task per person1 + 1
THE RULE
“Ask the people customers meet what customers say, before you tell them what to say.”
Your team and numbers will be your own.
SOUND FAMILIAR?
You are the only one who sells the story
- 01You are the only person who explains the offer with conviction.
- 02Customer-facing staff answer questions but do not see themselves in sales.
- 03You have never asked the front counter what customers say when you are not there.
THE FRONTLINE, AS IT STANDS
- Customer-facing staff: 7, across two shops and online
- Customer conversations a week: about 1,050
- The founder’s share of them: about 30
- Staff who can tell the story of the bestseller: none
- Times the founder asked what customers say: never
Customers meet the team. The story stays with the founder.
THE EXAMPLE CASE
The founder who trained the team once and never asked them
01
THE MOMENT
An answer that sent the customer to the owner
A customer asks the gift-wrap counter why the bestseller costs more than the one down the road. The answer is polite and short: you would have to ask the owner. You are not there. The customer buys the cheaper card and leaves. You hear about it a week later, by accident, from the person who wrapped the parcel.
02
WHAT THEY HAD TRIED
A one-off team training day
In this case, the founder ran a gift and stationery retailer with two shops and an online store, at about $1.4m revenue, with seven customer-facing staff. The obvious fix was a team training day with product notes and a script. Everyone enjoyed it. Within a month the notes were in a drawer, the script was gone, and customers were again being sent to ask the owner.
03
WHAT IVANKA NOTICED
Nobody had asked the frontline
Ivanka noticed the founder had never asked the gift-wrap and front-counter staff what customers said when the founder was not there. The people who met most customers had never been given the story or a part in the sale. The training had told them what to say, without asking what they already heard.
THE DIAGNOSIS
An unmapped frontline, not unmotivated staff
The issue was not staff motivation. It was a frontline nobody had mapped: the people who met most customers had never been asked what they heard, never been given the story and never had a role in the sale.
The reframe: the founder is not the main voice of the business, the frontline is. Map who customers meet and how often, ask each person what customers say, give them the story in their own words and release one follow-up task to each of them.
Your customers meet your frontline far more often than they meet you.
THE COST OF STAYING STUCK
Every customer sent to ask the owner is a sale that waits for you, and every week the founder stays the only voice, the business sells only as much as one person can say.
THE TOOL
The Frontline Advocate Map, for one gift retailer
The Frontline Advocate Map is how Letting-Go Mentoring takes the story of the business out of the founder’s head. It lists every customer-facing role, counts how many customers each meets, rates their influence today, and plans one conversation and one released follow-up task for each person.
Tap a column. The counts and ratings are an example; your frontline will be your own.
Frontline Advocate Map · a framework by Ivanka Menken
What it is
It is one page, one row per role. Customer conversations a week, as a bar. Influence today, as dots out of five. A tick for the conversation that asks what customers say. And the follow-up task released to them, written in a line. At the bottom, the founder, with the shortest bar.
What it replaces
It replaces a one-off training day, a script nobody uses and a founder who is the only person allowed to explain why the product is worth the price.
It sits inside Letting-Go Mentoring, next to the Commitments-Kept Scorecard, because each released task is one handover the founder stops doing. It is mentoring, not staff training, and there is no separate checkout.
THE MAP, AS WRITTEN (EXAMPLE)
- 01Front counter, three staff: about 600 customer conversations a week
- 02Gift wrap, two staff: about 250 a week
- 03Online chat, one person: about 120 a week
- 04Delivery, one driver: about 80 a week
- 05The founder: about 30 a week
- 06One conversation and one released task for each person, reviewed in 14 days
HOW IVANKA WORKED WITH THEM
From one voice to seven
In the session, Ivanka asked the founder to list every person a customer meets, and to estimate how many customers each one talks to in a week. Then she asked what each of them hears that the founder never does. The founder could not answer for anyone. Together they wrote one question to ask each person, a plain story of the bestseller and one follow-up task to release.
THE MAP, AS WRITTEN
- Who customers meet
- Every customer-facing role, with conversations a week.
- Influence today
- A rating out of five for how they answer about the offer.
- The conversation
- One question for each: what do customers say when I am not here?
- The released task
- One follow-up each person now owns, reviewed in 14 days.
- Review
- 14 days after the conversations
Your team and roles will be your own.
THE FOUR-STEP LOOP
- 1The one thingA founder who is the only voice of the offer.
- 2The numbers1,050 frontline conversations a week against the founder’s 30.
- 3The storyWhy a training day faded within a month.
- 4The commitmentOne conversation with each person, one task released to each.
THE QUESTIONS
- Who does a customer actually meet in your business?
- How many customers does each of them talk to in a week?
- What do customers ask them when you are not there?
- What would they need to tell the story without you?
- Which follow-up task could each of them own from next week?
Before the next session, the founder sat down with each customer-facing person, asked what customers say, shared the story of the bestseller and released one follow-up task to each.
WHAT CHANGED
A frontline that tells the story
By month 6, every customer-facing person has been asked what customers say, can tell the story of the main products in their own words and owns one follow-up task. The Commitments-Kept Scorecard shows each task released and kept.
BEFORE
- The founder as the only voice of the offer.
- Customers sent to ask the owner.
- A training day nobody remembers.
- Customer questions never reaching the founder.
BY MONTH 6
- Seven people who can tell the story.
- Customer questions answered on the spot.
- One follow-up task owned by each person.
- A weekly log of what customers ask.
THE 12 FORTNIGHTS
- 1Call
- 2Call
- 3Call
- 4Call
- 5Call
- 6Month 3
- 7Call
- 8Call
- 9Call
- 10Call
- 11Call
- 12Month 6
The programme is the container: 12 fortnightly 60-minute sessions, one handover each fortnight, and reviews at month 3 and month 6.
ILLUSTRATIVE RESULT
In this case, the founder booked one conversation with each customer-facing person, wrote a plain story of the offer for them and released one follow-up task to each. Staff began raising customer questions before the founder heard them.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU
Ask the frontline first
Ivanka Menken built Letting-Go Mentoring for founders of $500K to $3M businesses who became the bottleneck. When only the founder can explain the offer, every sale that matters waits for one person.
This fits if you have customer-facing staff and you are still the only one who sells the story. It does not fit if you want a sales training course or a script written for your team. The decision in front of you is one conversation with each person. Start with the one who meets the most customers.
“During our sessions Ivanka isn’t just talking theory. She is sharing her own lived experiences.”
Business owner
WHO IT IS FOR
It fits
- You have staff who meet customers every day.
- You are the only one who explains the offer with conviction.
- You have never asked them what customers say.
- You will release one follow-up task to each of them.
It does not fit
- You want a sales training course run for your team.
- You want a script written for staff.
- You have no customer-facing staff yet.
- You want to keep every customer conversation yourself.
THE INVESTMENT
AUD $1,500
per month ex GST
6 months · 12 fortnightly sessions
The Frontline Advocate Map is part of Letting-Go Mentoring, a 6-month 1:1 programme at AUD $1,500 per month ex GST. It is not sold separately.
- 12 fortnightly 60-minute sessions
- One handover each fortnight
- The Commitments-Kept Scorecard
- Reviews at month 3 and month 6
Three founding places in total, shared across all 1:1 mentoring, are available at AUD $1,000/month ex GST, in return for honest monthly feedback and a testimonial, which can be anonymous. Claim a founding place.
The Frontline Advocate Map is part of the programme. It is not sold separately.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
Questions about frontline staff and selling
How do I get my frontline staff to sell?
Start by asking them, not telling them. Ask each customer-facing person what customers say when you are not there, give them the story of the offer in plain words and release one follow-up task to each. Ivanka Menken builds that map with you inside Letting-Go Mentoring, 6 months at AUD $1,500 per month ex GST, one conversation at a time.
Why did our sales training day not stick?
A training day tells people what to say once. Without a map of who meets customers, a question about what they hear and a task they own afterwards, the notes end up in a drawer within a month. Ivanka Menken replaces the one-off day with a conversation and a released task for each person inside Letting-Go Mentoring, 6 months at AUD $1,500 per month ex GST.
Which staff should I talk to first?
The ones customers meet most often, which is rarely the founder. Count customer conversations a week for each role: the front counter and the gift-wrap desk often outnumber you many times over. Ivanka Menken helps you rank the frontline and plan each conversation inside Letting-Go Mentoring, 6 months at AUD $1,500 per month ex GST.
Is this staff training?
No. Ivanka Menken does not train your staff. She works with you, the founder, inside Letting-Go Mentoring, 6 months at AUD $1,500 per month ex GST, on the map, the conversation you have with each person and the follow-up task you release to them. The conversations are yours, and so is the story.
Ask the people customers meet
If you are the only person who can explain what you sell, start with Letting-Go Mentoring. The Frontline Advocate Map is inside it, and the 20-minute intro call is where you can see whether the programme fits.
Not staff training or a sales script.