What To Do When All Your Leads Come From Referrals
Do most or all of your leads for your branding agency come from word of mouth or referrals?
Do you feel lucky that you've never had to market before, because they always come to you?
Well, that's great. Until one day you realise you have no clients and you don't know what to do about it.
The truth about relying on referrals
Today, I want to talk about the most prevalent way that most small one to two person branding agencies get their clients right now and at any point, which is from word of mouth, from people sending you clients.
Now I talk to a lot of small agency owners. And when I ask how they get leads, the majority of people, more than 90%, say only word of mouth and referrals.
The other 10% say word of mouth and referrals, and maybe something else like LinkedIn prospecting or from public speaking or something.
And whenever I ask them, ‘Well, how many leads have you gotten from that other thing?’ They usually say, ‘Well, not many, almost all of them come from word of mouth.’
So you can see why this is a hot topic.
Now I was talking to a woman recently who said something that I've heard a lot, which is, ‘Well, I've been so lucky that I haven't had to market because all of my clients come from word of mouth and referrals.’
I hear this a lot.
When I asked that person, ‘Well, how often do you close those clients?’ she said, ‘Oh, I close almost 100% of them.’
So that sounds really great, right?
‘I don't have to market. All my clients come to me, and I close all of them.’
Sounds good.
But here's what else I hear.
When I ask a few more questions, the story I inevitably always get is,
‘It’s stressful, because I have no control over my pipeline, I have no idea when the leads are coming in and I have no control over it.’
‘And this means that every time a client comes to me or every time my prospect is referred to me, I need to do everything I can to close it because I have no control over my pipeline, so Beggars can't be choosers, right?’
‘I am reliant on people sending me business. And so whenever it comes, I need to take that opportunity and I'm going to do whatever I can to close the lead, which means doing whatever that lead is asking for, at whatever price they're asking.’
So when somebody says to me, ‘I haven't had to market’ all I hear is
‘I don't know how to market.’
‘I'm not doing anything to get leads.’
‘I am at the mercy of my network.’
I am reliant on other people to think of me and go out of their way to send me business in order to feed myself and my family.’
That's what I hear.
Real talk - that is a stressful place to be, even if it's worked out.
A lot of times I speak to people where it's been working like that for a year and a half.
So why are we talking? Well, it dried up recently.
So even if it's been working for you, it doesn't mean it's going to keep working for you.
And all it takes is a couple of months to start to get really scared, because now you're realising, ‘Oh my gosh, I've been relying on other people, and I have no control over this.’
You don't want to get to that point.
If you're somebody who relies on word of mouth and referrals, thank your lucky stars that you have had enough business up until now to sustain yourself.
Take the gift and start figuring out how to generate your own leads.
What really happens when you’re closing all those referrals
So when this woman said, ‘Well, I close all of them’ what I hear is ‘I need to close all of them.’
Now the beautiful thing about referrals and word of mouth (and by the way, I do love referrals and word of mouth) is that they're the easiest people to close, because they are coming to you with trust built in.
You might not know them, but the person that sent them to you has some sort of relationship with them, has built trust with them and they are gifting you that trust.
So that's why referrals and word of mouth prospects are so amazing because they are much more likely to close.
I know when someone I trust sends me a referral and says that this person is really good at this - that's all I need, I'm in.
So referrals and word of mouth prospects are amazing. But you're only going to close them 100% of the time if you're basically selling piecemeal services.
And that's usually what I uncover.
And what I uncovered with this woman recently was when I said, ‘Well, you're closing 100% of the sales. So what are these projects looking like?’
And she said, ‘Oh, well, anything from ‘I need a business card’ to ‘I need a logo and a brand’ to ‘I need a website’ to ‘I just need this web page fixed.’
And I said, ‘Okay, how do you charge?’
And she said, ‘Well, I charge hourly.’
And it was this whole messy process that I know a lot of you are very familiar with.
You're quoting people, maybe doing hourly work, and now you're juggling tons of clients, because you've got to do this business card here, and you're going back and forth with them over days, while you're trying to do this full branding project over there, while you're trying to build this website for a third person.
And these are the projects that drag on and on.
And even when you charge them hourly, you're not charging them for the project management, for the emails that go back and forth, for the time you spent pitching them - all that stuff.
So of course, my next question was, ‘Okay, well, it sounds like you're closing all of these clients, but you're very busy. And you have a lot of different kinds of projects - what do you want this business to look like?’
And she said, ‘Oh, I wish I wasn't doing all these projects. I wish I just had bigger clients. I want fewer larger clients, I want to do more of the full branding projects. I don't want to do one off business cards, I don't want to design this social media banner for you know, $150.’
And I said, ‘Okay, well, you know, one way to switch the kinds of clients that you work with, is to just not take those projects. Just because somebody comes to you and asks you for a social media banner doesn't mean you have to offer them that service. You can say I'm sorry, I don't do that. I don't do small projects like that.’
And she said, ‘Yeah, but I have to take it because I have no control over who's coming down the pipeline next, and I don't know when my next referral’s coming. So I need to close every client that comes to me.’
And that is the story I hear over and over again.
‘I don't have to market and I close 100% of the clients’ is actually ‘I don't know how to market and I will close every one I possibly can by doing whatever I need to do to make the sale’ which leaves you overworked, underpaid, and totally stressed out.
Even if you're super busy with work, it’s the recipe for being an overworked, underpaid, constantly hustling, small business.
How to get out of the referral trap
So what's the solution?
Start doing Tik Tok dances?
No, that's not the answer. Or at least it's not the short term answer.
Maybe Tik Tok dances will be in your future - you might be a very nice dancer, and we might want to see it. But that is not the short term answer.
The short term answer is to take an active role in generating word of mouth and referrals.
Take action, so that you are staying in front of and growing the network of people that can send you leads.
Do you have a plan that you follow every month, every week, every day to make sure that you are staying top of mind of the very people that are interacting with your ideal clients?
Do you have a way to expand the network of people that can possibly send you ideal clients?
If you are taking an active role in building that network, you can build a very healthy business just from word of mouth and referrals.
But it is a drastically different business when, instead of sitting back, hoping and praying and waiting for people to send you clients, you are actively stoking the fire, generating the buzz and staying top of mind for the people that already know, like trust you and you are going out and finding more people to add to that network.
Say you are relying on referrals and word of mouth from a warm network of 50 people, and you probably only get referrals from, say 10, and it sustained you up until now.
It’s maybe not exactly how you want but it’s enough, right? You're getting by?
How would your business change if, instead of 10 people like that, you had 100 people like that?
How would your business change if you knew that for every five hours you spent working on keeping your network warm, adding people to your network staying top of mind you generated another $10,000 to $20,000 client lead.
Would that be worth your time?
That's the difference between sitting back and taking an active role.
And I think a lot of people don't think that that's marketing, but that's some of the best marketing, when it comes to high touch, high value, service businesses.
It's about who you know.
And it's about who knows you.
It's about other people out there singing your praises.
It's about other people who already have trust within their network, telling them, ‘Hey, if you need to rebrand your business, go to my friend here, they're the best.’
That is gold.
That is one of the best marketing tools you could ever create.
When referrals are working the right way
This doesn't happen overnight.
And it doesn't happen by just being passive.
You might have a couple of people in your network who are like that, because they love and adore you.
But that's probably because you have nurtured that relationship. And you just did it naturally. You didn't do it on purpose or with any sort of intention.
You just clicked with this person, maybe you did a project with them or something, and you built that relationship with them.
So they're out there singing your praises.
That's amazing. I hope you have that.
Imagine, if you had 10 times as much.
Not only would you be in control of your pipeline, and not only would you have a reliable way to get clients, but you would also have something you could take action on that would generate leads for you.
Once you have that active role, that's when you get to start saying no to clients that are not a good fit.
That's when you start to weed out the unprofitable projects and the pain in the ass clients that you don't want to work with on the piecemeal stuff, the hourly stuff.
That's when you get to start saying no to that stuff, and start focusing only on the high value, high profit projects that you really want - the projects that light you up, the ones that allow you to really bring all of your knowledge and your skills and your creative juices to the table.
For us - that is a complete rebrand.
That is us leading the strategy, telling the client how they can up their game in terms of their messaging, their positioning, who they are, how they're gonna get clients, how they're going to charge, all that stuff and then bringing it to fruition in a complete visual, and the website.
That's the fun stuff for us.
Steve doesn't want to design a business card and definitely doesn't want to design a business card that somebody else designed the brand for, right?
He wants to create it, he wants to build it, he wants to have a big impact.
I want to have an impact on my clients’ businesses by helping them stand out more, by helping them position themselves in their industry, so that they are a star, so that people are attracted to them.
I want to help my clients by encouraging them to take a stand and say something that maybe not everyone is going to say, because that's going to create that push-pull that brands need in order to thrive.
But you don't get those clients if you're busy making business cards for $60 an hour.
Because you're busy, you don't have the time to develop these relationships, to build those skills up, to get better and better at them.
You need that time, so you've got to start somewhere.
If what I'm laying out for you, this idea of working with fewer, higher paying clients where you have more impact on the business and the project, if that's something you want to do, you're gonna have to get yourself into a position where you're saying no to certain projects that come to you.
And you're saying no, because you don't feel that scarcity, because you do have an active role to play in your lead gen.
And before you go into authority building and social media, which I am a huge fan of.
Obviously, before you go into doing all of that, which does take time, you can do it right now by taking an active role in developing those relationships and being top of mind for your network.
So that you stimulate more word of mouth and referrals.
I bet you, there are people out there that know, like and trust, who you just haven't thought of you in a while.
And I bet you they're sending leads to other people they don't like as much as you because those people are top of mind, because they had coffee with that person yesterday.
And so when their friend asked them about a website, they just said the person that was on their mind, and that's the person they had coffee with yesterday, not you.
But they would gladly send them to you, if they remembered you, if they thought of you.
It's not because you're not awesome.
It might be because you're not putting out a memorable brand. (That's another conversation.)
But you’ve got to stay top of mind for people, short of having an entire authority machine that makes sure you stay top of mind for hundreds of people because you show up in their feed or in their email inbox, right?
Even if it’s a one to one interaction, or maybe a one to many, if you go to an event or a networking group and you talk to lots of people in person, and even though it feels like you're not connecting with as many people as you could on social media, the value of that connection is so much greater and so much deeper that it can get you to the finish line of the prospect and the referral on the client much faster and you have a lot more control over it too.
And you can be more clear and specific to that person about who you work with, generating a really hot pipeline of word of mouth referrals, which is the easiest, lowest hanging fruit.
This is the first thing that we do inside the No BS Agency Mastery Program.
Now we don't just say ‘go talk to people’, we say ‘go talk to people, follow this general script, ask these kinds of questions, connect with them in this way, and then say this at the end, this is how you're going to get them to remember you.’
And this is how you're going to get them to actually send you referrals sooner.
And then once you get those referrals, this is how you're going to close them, so that you aren't selling one off business cards, but you are preparing them to do much bigger, higher value, more profitable projects, and there is a very clear, step-by-step system inside the No BS agency Model.
And it was built and designed exactly for one to two person branding agencies.
Why? Because that's what I have.
And that's what I built it for.
And I didn't want to do the one off projects either.
And I didn't want to charge hourly, I wanted to make more money in less time.
And I wanted to always be making more money in less time.
And the only way that was going to happen was if my projects were more profitable, and they were more holistic.
And the step by step process that I teach inside mastery is exactly how I did it.
And now I have literally taught hundreds of people this process with so much success.
Sometimes people resist the process.
In the beginning, sometimes people say they don't want to talk to people, they don't want to put themselves out there.
We have lots of these posts inside our community where someone says
‘I resisted, I resisted and then I finally did it…’
‘...and you wouldn't believe it, people actually want to talk to me, and they actually have business for me…’
‘...I can't believe how many people are actually willing to go through this process with me, who actually want to connect, who are excited to send me these leads…’
‘...and then I can't believe how easily those leads close when they're a fit, they close on a 15 minute phone call and they pay on a 15 minute phone call.’
Because we don't write them free proposals, we sell them something called a Lead Product (which I’ve also got a blog post about).
It's really not that complicated, but it does require you to take action.
And you can totally do it right now.
If you need help, or you need a little kick in the butt, or you want a step by step process, or you want the scripts so you know exactly what to say and when to say it so that you actually close business from these efforts, go to nobsagencies.com/apply.
Tell us about yourself and your business and hop on a call with my team, and let's see if you're ready to make moves and build your branding agency.
This Program is specifically for one to two person branding agencies who want to scale up to $30k to $50k months without hiring employees.
We're about being more efficient, more profitable and working on those high value projects that we love, and not necessarily growing a whole big agency with employees and teams.
That's a different kind of business, and it's not for everybody.
Our community is full of a lot of people who really love doing the work and they want to do more of the high value work.
They want to work with great clients they love.
They want to deliver bespoke, custom projects to those clients. And they just want to do it in a way that doesn't completely take over their life and stress them out.
They want more ease in their business. They want it to be simpler, and they want to be able to focus on the stuff that matters the most.
So if that's you go to nobsagencies.com/apply and we look forward to hearing from you.
Here’s what you need to get…
Referrals and word-of-mouth marketing are one of the best, most effective ways to grow your branding agency.
But you have to take an active role.
Sitting back and hoping for someone to think of you to send you business only leads to being stressed and overwhelmed. Get active, get seen, build relationships that will have you create a profitable business you love.
P.S. You can always jump on a call with my team if you want to learn all my tools and strategies to scale up your agency - just go here to get started!