Let’s get one thing straight - getting clients to come to you doesn't mean sitting in your pjs and waiting for clients to come knocking at you virtual door. 

Too often I see business owners create a website and FB Business page, start posting on social media about what they offer and wonder when the clients will come a-knocking. You might get a client or two this way, but you’re not going to have clients seeking you out.

If you don’t take proactive action to build a system where clients come to you you’ll get drowned out by the noise of everyone else offering the exact same thing, will struggle to make a consistent income, and will spend your time hustling for clients instead of serving them.

To attract a consistent stream of clients you need to create a spider web of threads which lead right back to you. When you get this right, you’ll have clients coming to you pre-sold on working with you and ready to invest. Let’s go through the 5 steps you need to take.

1. Write a powerful elevator pitch

If you want clients to come to you, people need to understand exactly what you do. If you’re vague about this, it’s impossible for people to recommend you and for you to become the go-to person in your field.

The first step is to get crystal clear on your niche and be able to powerfully articulate this to anyone you speak to.

Let’s run through an example. 

I have two friends who both help people through ’transitions’ (never use this term by the way, it’s meaningless jargon). 

• Sarah helps people struggling with a change or transition in their life 

• Jenny helps expat women who are struggling to fit into a new culture regain their confidence and make friends.

A third friend, Sally, calls me from Spain - she’s upset because she’s struggling to make friends since moving to a new country. She doesn’t feel she fits in and has lost her confidence. 

Who would I recommend her to?

Jenny.

Why? Because Jenny has her shit together and knows exactly who she helps and what she helps them with so I feel confident recommending her. Jenny, thanks to her clear messaging, gets a referral.

If you’re not clear on who you help and what you help them with, how can anyone else be?

Now to writing your elevator pitch…

Your elevator pitch needs to speak to the problem your ideal clients are facing. What is happening in their lives at the point you enter? What are they googling late at night? For poor Sally, she was struggling to fit in and had no friends, so this is the problem Jenny speaks to.

I work with service-based mums in business. What’s happening in their lives at the point that I enter is they’re struggling to find clients. So guess what my elevator pitch is? 

I help mums in service-based businesses find more clients.

If you’re not clear on your niche yet, take a moment and go read The Ultimate Guide To Picking A Niche. Get clarity here first and then head back and read on.

2. STOP ‘hunting’ for clients

In sales and marketing, we don’t want to be like the hawk.. The hawk is always on the look out for its prey - always hungry for more. It hunts for his prey, and when it finds it, goes in for the hard cold kill. 

In the online world, I equate this to the direct message you get on social media from a company offering to grow your following when you’ve never heard of them. Long gone are the days where people will give their money to anyone that offers a service we need.

The online world is masked, and people are suspicious.

When you hunt for clients, your focus is on the success of your business. You need clients to make money, and you need money to keep running your business. It’s a negative soul-sucking space to sit in.

The way we buy - and the way we need to market - has changed, and the world needs to catch on.

We now like to research, check out reviews, get a feel for a company before we’re willing to part with our cash. If you pitch your services to cold traffic, you’re unlikely to get much return.

In the words of Seth Godin from This is Marketing:

“The hardest thing we need to do today is grab the attention of potential buyers and keep their attention long enough to help them buy your product.”

We can do this by looking beyond the service that we offer and instead provide value to our audience - educate them, help them and then sell to them.

To do this, we need a mindset shift.

3. Move into the ‘I serve clients’ space

When you move into the ‘I serve clients’ space, you let go of the need to ‘find’ clients and begin to trust the process. Instead you focus on ways you can start serving your ideal clients now.

How? By providing free value which will build the likeability and trust which is so important to turn potential buyers into clients.

How to get people to know who the hell you are, and potentially like you:

• Show up consistently

• Share your story and your ‘why'

• Be authentic and helpful on social media and don’t be a dick

How to build trust:

• Create an irresistible opt-in which addresses the no. 1 challenge your ideal clients face

• Put out incredible actionable content every week that helps your ideal client move forward

• Offer a free session to help your clients solve one specific problem

Once you’ve shifted your mindset from one of hunting for clients, to one of serving clients, you’re ready to begin creating the threads for your ideal clients to come to you.

4. create a web of opportunities

Be like the spider. The spider creates a web - an intricate network of threads to attract (flies? This is where my analogy loses it a little) ‘clients’.  

Imagine your business as a spider web. In the middle is you, the spider, with your niche clearly articulated, written powerfully in an elevator pitch telling the world who you help and what you help with.

Each thread of your web leads to all the places your ideal clients might find you: events, referrals, search engines, your website, ads, social media channels etc.

From each place you want to gain clients, you need to create an easy journey for them to find their way back to you. As they travel down that thread, you want to build that likeability and trust, so when the time is right, you’re the person they want to work with.

Decide which threads you are going to strengthen first and devise a strategy. To do this, I’d recommend looking at where most of your clients have come from in the past.

If most of your clients come from referrals, look to strengthen this thread first and make sure you’re making the most of opportunities.

If most of your clients come from your email list, strengthen this thread by improving your copywriting, sending awesome emails and putting out offers when the time is right.

If you’re new to this gig and looking for your first clients. you’re unlikely to be found on your website or on search engines. Instead focus on networking, social media and other people’s audiences.

Here’s some examples of how you might strengthen those threads and then create systems for clients to come to you.

Referrals

• Develop referral partnerships with people who serve the same target market as you in different ways. Send them a copy of your lead magnet so they can show this to referral clients to build trust. Agree a process for how the client will be referred e.g. in an email introducing both sides.

• Over deliver to current clients and get results. On your feedback form, add in a question asking if they know anyone that would be a good fit.

• Reach out to your family and friends (read more about the exact strategy I used to get my first 5 clients here). Make it easy to refer you by offering a free call to anyone interested.

Social Media

• Be helpful and interact with your ideal clients on your preferred platform. Treat every platform as a lead generating tool and ensure there are clear links back to you e.g. link on personal FB to FB Business Page which has your opt-in and website clearly visible.

• Share engaging, actionable content. Include content upgrades on blog posts which allow your readers to get additional value and for you to collect their email address. You can then email them relevant, helpful content before sending out an offer.

• Put out a free session offer to your network. Help clients achieve a specific result, and then ask if they’d like to continue working with you.

See how each of these actions requires you to serve your ideal clients before they invest in your services?

For a full list of places to find clients with details on exactly what to do, download my free guide on 12 ways to find potential clients.

Let’s look at an example customer journey (that has actually happened):

Spider web funnel: blogpost - social media - website - email marketing - consult

• I share a helpful, actionable blog post in a FB group with my ideal audience

• Jennifer (my ideal client) clicks on said blog post, finds it super helpful and clicks to download my free checklist

• After downloading my freebie which provides outstanding value, Jennifer is redirected to a ’Thank You’ page which offers her a complimentary session with me

• Jennifer decides not to book this, but is now on my email list

• I email Jennifer every week for 4 weeks with my most helpful business building tips

• In week 5, I send out a free strategy session offer and Jennifer, who now likes and trusts me, decides to book one in

5. Devise a system to convert leads into clients

It is utterly pointless spending time nurturing your marketing channels if you do not have a system for actually turning leads into clients. 

Just like every other area of your business, you need a process in place. You don’t want to be winging it every time you jump on a call or have a meeting, hoping that they’ll want to work with you by the end of it.

To set yourself up with the best possible chance of converting potential clients, write a script that you can use every time. Test it, review it, improve it. This is something I do with every single one of my clients and it transforms their conversion rate.

I worked with one client who was getting leads in, but just wasn’t converting them. At the end of the call, she wasn’t asking if they actually wanted to work with her. Everyone left the call a bit confused as to next steps, and the sale rarely came in. Once she put a structure in place, she led the call from the get go, and was able to ask in a way which was comfortable to her, if they were interested in what she had to offer.

Your script should allow you to find out the information you need to decide whether you can help this person, demonstrate your understanding of their situation and position you as an expert who can help them achieve their goals.

Want more help on finding clients?

Download my free guide on 12 places to find new clients (number 1 is where my first 5 clients came from, and I guarantee you, you won’t have tried them all!).