The Six Methods To Attract Consulting Clients: You Need To Pick One (for now)
Every successful consultant has solved the problem of how to attract new clients sustainably. Here are the six methods they use to do it.
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The One Problem Every Successful Consultant Has Solved
Every single successful consultant has overcome the same problem; attracting an eternal spring of new clients.
I’ve seen a few consultants launch their practice, immediately attract a couple of clients—often their former employer and close friends—and then hit a stumbling block when trying to expand beyond this.
Launching your business and making a few posts on social media isn’t going to get the job done. You need to work a lot harder than that.
A lesson I learned from my Seth Godin internship was never to leave anything to chance.
Your current relationships will only take you so far.
Where Is The Interruption Point?
At some point, you have to figure out where and how your message will appear in the lives of the people you’ve never met before. This is the single, most significant challenge of being a consultant.
The interruption point is when your message will appear in the lives of the people you’ve never met.
Two years ago, I wrote about the six client acquisition methods. However, speaking to some coaching students recently, it’s clear that my article didn’t go deep enough.
Not being able to market yourself is like someone wanting to start a tech company without technical skills. It’s a problem you simply have to solve.
The key challenges are simple:
How will people become aware of you? At what point will you interrupt their lives with messages about you?
Why will they trust you? There are hundreds of other people clamouring for attention - why will someone trust you? What makes you more trustworthy?
Why will they hire you? What will trigger them to reach out to you and hire you?
Let’s go through the six options.
Six Ways To Attract Consulting Clients
You can use many methods to grow your audience and attract consulting clients.
However, most of these today boil down to a core six approaches. Each zeroes in on the specific interruption point at which someone becomes aware of your service. The method you choose will determine almost everything you do from a marketing perspective.
1) Content Marketing (viral marketing)
Content marketing is essentially viral marketing.
Publishing content into the void doesn’t achieve anything. You’re betting on it being shared by others and recommended by algorithms. You aim to create something unique that packs a strong emotional punch. You might have a small network to help boost your content when you publish.
The interruption point here is when someone sees your content in their feed or is sent it by someone they know.
This approach requires you to be patient, build an audience over time, and understand how to write emotionally engaging content.
My entire consulting practice was built on a blog I launched in 2008.
This decision involves two steps: choosing content marketing as your approach and deciding which medium best suits your skills and capabilities and offers space to carve out a unique niche.
You can choose between blogs, a newsletter/mailing list, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and more. The key thing is you’re sharing expertise to attract people to follow you and eventually hire you.
The upside is that this is the most enjoyable type of marketing. When it works, you will naturally see the flywheel begin to turn, and an eternal spring of new clients will emerge.
The downside is that it’s highly competitive, takes a lot of time, and might require you to do things you find challenging (like clickbait techniques). Another downside is that it’s also the least direct compared to other approaches. Don’t underestimate just how competitive the battle for attention is. Remember, you can be tremendously successful without joining the thought leadership race.
2) Search Engine Optimisation
In this approach, you aim to rank highly for terms prospects might search for on their buying journey.
This involves two specific things. The first is to ensure your website is highly optimised for search without technical issues. This isn’t too hard when you’re launching from scratch. You can hire a firm to do this for you for a few thousand dollars.
The second is to create resources and content that meets members' intent. This approach overlaps with content marketing, but there’s a big difference between writing content for search engines and humans.
For search engines, you aim to create a resource that will stand the test of time—even if it’s dull. This is more akin to writing a textbook. You try to develop definitive guides and resources for topics that satisfy the intent of the people you’re trying to reach.
The upside of this approach is that it can deliver highly targeted, interested prospects directly to your door. It also benefits from a flywheel effect. Over time, you will begin to rank higher as more content appears on your site and more people find their solutions there.
And we’re not just talking about blog posts and articles here. Don’t forget that YouTube is also a search engine. So is Amazon, TikTok and plenty of other sites. You need to figure out what people search for, where they search for it, and how you can create a better resource.
The downside of this approach is that it’s become increasingly difficult to rank highly in search engines that favour results from larger organisations. I’m honestly not sure how feasible it is for someone starting from scratch to rank highly for any of the significant terms in any sector.
And yet, search traffic still grows to sites - including this newsletter:
Perhaps the biggest problem is being too reliant on search engines puts you at the mercy of ever-changing search algorithms. Overnight, your traffic (and business) may decline by 50% or more. The traffic to FeverBee has probably declined by 50% over the past few years.
3) Advertising and Sponsorships
The above two approaches have a significant upside: They’re inexpensive, so anyone can begin creating content. This is why most consultants choose these routes.
The major downside is that they’re highly competitive and can take months or even years to show results. This increases the risk that you might overshoot your financial runway.
The opposite approach is to pay for advertising
Advertising, whether social ads, search ads, or another variation, can yield great results in the short term. You can pay to reach the people you want to reach.
The key thing to remember here is that you’re not a plumber. No one will see an ad to hire you immediately.
However, if the ad is effective, potential customers might download a resource and subscribe to your newsletter for future information. This would begin the consultancy sales process, which then became a numbers game.
The upside is that it can save you a lot of time building an audience. For example, it took me four months to reach 400 subscribers to this newsletter. Recently, I used social ads to achieve the same result in five days (at a cost of about $650). Is it worth spending $650 to achieve results 20x faster? I think so.
However, it is uncommon for new consultants to invest in adverts, although doing so can be remarkably effective and significantly speed up your results.
The obvious downside is that you pay for this, and there’s no guarantee it will work. Your ads might prove ineffective or fail to attract an audience, wasting your money. It is also costlier than other channels. It’s also clear not all ads are equal, click fraud is rampant, and you might not attract the audience you want.
Sponsorships: reach people where they already gather
A related approach is to sponsor a channel that already has an audience.
You might sponsor a small event, blog, or other gathering. If you’re going to sponsor an event, you ideally want three things:
The ability to communicate to the audience. A sponsorship with a speaking slot or the ability to send a message is a big win.
Email addresses of attendees. If people opt in to receive messages from partners, you want to be able to access this list.
Being visible at the event itself. How will you be visible and mentioned at the event itself, matters for you? Could you let me know what you'll do that stands out?
A good rule of thumb is to compare it to the costs of acquiring people through social ads. If attracting a subscriber through social ads costs $2 to $5, what are 500 event attendees worth?
Well, probably $3k to $7k (event attendees are a more targeted group of people who have resources to invest in attending events). This might seem like a lot of money. - but it can also get you squarely on the radar of people who might have never heard of you. You can just look at sponsoring webinars and online events for solo consultants first.
It’s always best to combine sponsorship with other activities. What can you offer people in exchange for them to submit their contact details?
Again, the upside of this is speed and the downside is cost.
4) Referral Programs
Every marketing book will tell you to solicit referrals from your current customers and audience.
There are several ways to do this.
Option 1: Ask for referrals
The most common is to simply ask for them.
Who else do your first clients recommend you contact who might be looking for work?
The upside of this approach is that you get inexpensive, warm introductions to people you can work with.
In my experience, however, the results aren’t always great, you can make clients and audiences feel uncomfortable, and you are often referred to people who aren’t willing to buy. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it, but it’s just one of several approaches you might explore.
Fortunately, there are two related approaches which can be more effective.
Option 2: You can start a referral program.
The first is to launch your referral program. Offer a 10% to 20% bounty for people who refer clients your way. This sets an incentive for people to refer clients to you. We’ve briefly dabbled with this and liked the results.
To begin with, keep this private and offer it to existing clients or people you know well. If it works, you might expand it over time.
The significant upside of this is it can achieve good, quick results. You can get direct introductions to the people you want to work with.
But this also has some clear downsides. What happens when two or more people refer someone to us? What happens if we’re referred to someone with whom we’re about to sign a contract? Are we comfortable sharing our fees with people not involved in the sales process? What if the contract is extended, increased, or decreased? Do you change the fee you were going to pay the referrer?
Option 3: Join the partner program of vendors.
A simple approach is to register as a technology partner for platform vendors. This can give you a steady stream of new clients - but you will usually pay for the program and face competition from people with more experience than you.
However, always beware situations where you need a benevolent king to give you work. Your growth will always depend on someone who has complete power over you.
5) Networking
The fifth option is to build trusting relationships with people likely to hire you in the future.
You can skip networking events here. The people you want to network with almost certainly won’t be seen at networking events.
There are plenty of approaches to doing this.
You might build strategic partnerships with top vendors in your niche (or partners) and secure introductions to clients over time. This is less official and can work incredibly well, but the downside is that the power is often far more vested in the vendor unless you can offer them something they need. You will usually need strategic partnerships at the highest levels to thrive in the long term.
You might interview all the top influencers in your industry for a resource. I’ve found people who wouldn’t give me the time of day would happily give me an hour of their time or more if it were for a book or major resource.
Attend events where key decision-makers will be. To connect with key people at these events, you might follow the principles of event equity. Don’t try to close or sell, just make the connections.
Host your own events or private groups. A great (but costly) way to make connections is to host your own event. Hosting events and publishing resources or case studies are also great ways to build relationships with key people. You have a genuine means of making the connection and staying in touch. Likewise, you can build private online working groups for your ideal clients to attend.
You might also exploit existing advantages. I know one consultant who attracts all her clients through an incredible alumni network.
The upside of networking is that it’s less competitive and relationships are critical to long-term success. No new consultant can develop the relationships you will have. The downside is that you need to be great at building relationships and willing to invest a lot in relationships which might not pay off for some time.
But when it does, the results can be incredible.
6) Prospecting / Account-Based Marketing
In practice, there are two related, but very different approaches. However, there are similarities between them, which is why we will group them here.
Prospecting puts you in the land of sales professionals. In this approach, you research and compile (or occasionally purchase) a list of leads. You might do this via LinkedIn and data enrichment tools. Then you contact them by phone, email, or other channels to convert leads into prospects. You hope to schedule meetings, present your services, and let them hire you to solve their problems.
This approach is often reduced to a numbers game where [x] number of leads converts into [y] number of sales. The primary benefit of this approach is that it is the most direct. You go directly from you to the prospect. It can also yield the best short-term results if you do it well.
The downside is that I’m not sure anyone wants to receive a cold email from strangers pitching anything anymore. You will have to suffer a lot of rejection, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to sell to people without a warm introduction. Worse yet, you can annoy the very people you want to work with in the future.
Few consultants achieve great success with this approach in practice. Fortunately, there’s a better approach: Account-Based Marketing (ABM).
In this approach, you identify a relatively small number of organisations you want to work with and personalise your content and messaging specifically for them. You gradually build relationships within each organisation, get to know them, understand their unique problems, and wait for the right opportunities to arise. Every contact is tailored specifically to the organisation.
In 2008, I was so keen to intern with Seth Godin I created a blog called IWantToWorkWithSethGodin.com.
This is also similar to how we’ve signed Microsoft and many other firms as clients. We have built a lot of trust over a long period of time.
The upside of this approach is that it is more enjoyable, focused, and can yield results in the intermediate term. The downside is that it is higher risk. You’re putting your approach into fewer categories, and there is no guarantee of success. Instead of targeting people looking for consultants, you’re targeting your ideal clients and hoping they need your services in the future.
Pick One Method And Commit To It
This isn’t a comprehensive list of methods to attract clients - but it covers the most likely options.
If you’re starting out, pick the one method that works for you and fully commit to excelling. Be mindful and prepared for both the upsides and downsides. Don’t dabble with multiple channels at once; it’s hard to be great at multiple channels at once.
Too many consultants dabble with different methods, trying to find one that works. They soon discover that nothing works because they have not fully committed the time and energy to do any of them exceptionally well. Many of these approaches won’t show results for months. Be prepared for that, and don’t give up too soon.
Ultimately, you should have a single method to capture the interest of clients, and you should be 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 for technical search engine optimisation, including attracting links, getting featured snippets, etc…
If it’s referrals, you should constantly seek them, reward those who do, and invest in a referral network. You should also invest time and money into doing it incredibly well.
If it’s networking, you should invest 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 reaching out and keeping everyone updated. You might also want to invest in charisma courses and practice opening up discussions at every networking event you attend.
You get the idea. You must commit to being terrific at whatever medium and method you use. Nothing else works.
Good luck!
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