Pick Your Client Acquisition Method (6 Ways To Attract Clients)

Select a method that works for you and then commit everything to doing it well.

You need to decide pretty early on how you’re going to attract clients.

This is the mechanism of how will you go from you (‘Point A’), to a new prospective client (‘Point B’).

I’ve seen a few consultants launch their practice, work through their existing relationships and audiences quickly, and then assume word will spread to attract new clients.

Only it doesn’t. They soon find themselves struggling to grow their audience and attract new business.

This reflects one of two problems. Either they haven’t found the right method to attract clients or they’re not executing on that method well.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to nurture an eternal spring of new people you can reach. Your current relationships will only take you so far. At some point, you have to figure out where and how your message will appear in the lives of the people you’re trying to reach.

At what point will you reach them or will they stumble across you?

Think Of Your Method As A Service

It’s perhaps best to think of the method you’re taking as a service you offer. It needs to be unique and differentiated from anything else that’s out there today. If you’re trying to copy what other consultants in your industry are already doing, you’re reducing your odds of success.

At this stage, people aren’t paying you with their money, they’re paying you with their time and attention. Unfortunately, there are countless other places where people can spend that time and attention. So if you’re not doing enough to justify people spending their time and attention on you, you’re not going to get it.

You have to earn it - and that’s not easy!

It’s important to figure out early what is and isn’t working. If you have a blog and the number of views isn’t growing, you’re not doing enough to earn the time and attention of the audience. If you’re publishing YouTube videos and the viewing figures aren’t climbing, you’re not offering something which is unique and valuable enough to the audience.

If anything you’re attempting today isn’t clearly succeeding, then it’s not working. This means you can either invest much more time and resources into it, take a completely different approach to it, or stop doing it and try something else.

Just don’t continue pursuing a strategy which doesn’t work.

Six Ways To Attract Consulting Clients

There are plenty of methods you can use to grow your audience and attract consulting clients. Here are six which have worked well for many consultants over the years. I’ll refer to each of these approaches as bets you’re making. But you can think of them as arenas you’re entering, battlefields, or sandpits if you like.

What matters is you’re well aware of which game you’re going to play and you’re committing to winning it.

• Search. This is where you bet on people searching for relevant information and landing on your website. This strategy is all about finding what prospective clients search for and then creating the best possible resources to resolve their queries. You create content and resources specifically for the most searched-for topics by your ideal clients.

• Algorithms and Viral Marketing. This is where you bet on your content being shared by others and being recommended by algorithms. This is very different from content designed for search. You aim to create something unique which packs a high emotional punch. You might have a small network to help boost it when you publish. You need to have a very good idea of what content algorithms promote and optimise everything you do to go viral on these channels.

• Referrals. This is where you bet on your current clients and existing audience (regardless of their size) telling others about you. You might initiate your own referral program or build close relationships with the top vendors in your niche so they might refer clients to you. You might find the test and develop the best methods to ask for referrals.

• Networking. This is where you bet you can reach key decision-makers and leverage this to attract clients. There are plenty of ways of doing this. You might interview all the top influencers in your industry for a resource, attend events where key decision-makers are going to be, or even host your own events. I know some people have built private groups for their ideal clients and host invite-only events. You can likewise travel to meet people around the world and do mini ‘world tours’.

• Cold outreach. This is where you bet on your persuasive abilities and relationship-building skills to find new people and convert them into clients. Here you master the art of cold outreach. You continually develop and refine your methodology. You might build a list of contacts on LinkedIn or elsewhere and individually connect with each one of them, asses their interest and progress through a traditional sales process.

• Advertising. This is where you bet on targeted ads to attract clients. Few consultants do this, which is a shame because it can be remarkably effective. You might pay for ads or sponsorships to reach your target audience. You might bid on a number of terms you know your audience will be most interested in and use this to build a mailing list you can market your services too.

This is far from a comprehensive list, but you get the idea. You have to be clear about what your approach is to attract clients.

Pick One Method And Commit To It

I can’t stress this enough, but pick one method and fully commit to being the best at it.

Don’t dabble with multiple channels at once. You can’t be great at everything. Too many consultants dabble with different methods trying to find one that works. They soon discover nothing works because they’ve not fully committed the time and energy to do any of them especially well.

You should have a single method to capture the interest of clients and you should be totally committed to doing it better than anyone else in your industry. You can learn the art of it and become an expert at it. You should learn every trick in the book about it.

If it’s search, you should be an expert in optimising for search. You should know every single technique about technical search engine optimisation, attracting, links, getting featured snippets etc…

If it’s referrals, you should constantly seek referrals, reward those who do provide referrals, and invest in a referral network. You should invest time and money into doing it incredibly well.

If it’s networking, you should be investing 50% of your time doing precisely that. I used to fly to the USA to meet dozens of people for lunch, drinks, or coffee. The connections always paid off in unexpected ways. You should be spending your time reaching out and keeping up to date with everyone. You might also want to invest in charisma courses and practice the art of opening up discussions at every networking event you attend.

You get the idea. You have to commit to being terrific at whatever medium and method you use. Nothing else works.

The worst mistake you can make is to dabble. If you try a little bit of LinkedIn, a few blog posts, and host a couple of events you will probably wind up exactly back where you started.

You Can Change Strategies Over Time

It’s ok to begin with one strategy and change over time.

You might begin by individually reaching out to people to build your initial audience up to 100 people. Then you might switch to a word-of-mouth strategy. And finally a referral strategy.

Just make sure you’re making a clear and conscious decision about what you will or won’t do. Then make sure you’re investing the time and resources to doing these extremely well.

If you’re just getting started, I’d recommend investing 70% of your time in one of these channels. If you grow and have more resources (staff, virtual assistants, freelancers), you can tackle multiple channels simultaneously.

But for now, select your client acquisition strategy and stick to it.