How I help my clients end referral dependency

I'm going to walk you through how I help clients solve the problem of new client acquisition when they're heavily reliant on referrals.

The first thing to understand is that moving from a referral-driven business to a lead-generating business is not an easy transition.

If you've relied on referrals for years, you've become accustomed to a particular way of acquiring clients. Referrals feel familiar, predictable and comfortable. What we're going to do instead will feel different. It will require adjustment, commitment and patience because you're replacing a process you've relied on for years with one that is likely to feel unfamiliar.

The good news is that it gets easier. It gets simpler. It gets more straightforward. But you have to commit to the process.

When I work with clients, there are three core areas we focus on:

• Proposition

• Pre-Selling

• Pipeline

These three elements work together to replace referral dependency with a predictable system for generating opportunities and winning clients.

Proposition

The first thing we have to do is sort out positioning.

Most referral-dependent businesses are positioned for referrals, which means they spend most of their time talking about what they do rather than what it does. That works when referrals are driving growth because the referrals are doing much of the heavy lifting. Your clients are showing people what life was like before working with you and what life was like afterwards. They're explaining the journey they went on and the value they received.

In other words, somebody else is communicating your value for you.

When you're trying to generate leads directly, you have to do that yourself. That means moving away from marketing coaching, IT support, consultancy or whatever service you happen to provide and talking more about the problem you solve and the outcome you help people achieve.

People rarely buy the thing you do. They buy the result of the thing you do.

Your positioning needs to reflect that.

Once that positioning is clear, it should flow into everything:

• Your website

• Your LinkedIn profile

• Your content

• Your case studies

• Your messaging

Everywhere somebody encounters your business, they should quickly understand the value you create and why it matters.

If you don't get this right, you'll simply end up telling people what you do and they'll struggle to understand why they should care.

Pre-Selling

The second part is pre-selling.

If you've grown through referrals, a lot of the trust you've benefited from has been lent to you by somebody else. A client, partner or contact has already vouched for you before the conversation starts.

When you move away from referral dependency, you need to build that trust with complete strangers and you need to do it at scale.

This is where LinkedIn comes into its own.

When I'm working with a client, we'll get their profile sorted out, we'll get case studies out into the market, we'll create content and we'll deliberately grow their network.

The objective is straightforward.

More people need to know they exist. More people need to understand what they're good at. More people need to become aware of the value they offer.

Trust is built over time.

The more people see something, the more familiar it becomes. The more familiar it becomes, the more likely people are to trust it. That's why consistency matters so much. We need a consistent message being seen by more people over a longer period of time.

The goal of pre-selling is to make sure that by the time somebody reaches out or takes a sales call, they already have confidence in who you are and what you do.

Pipeline

The third part is pipeline.

Once you've got the proposition right and you're building trust at scale, you need a system that turns attention into clients.

The framework I use is LAPD:

• Leads

• Appointments

• Proposals

• Deals

Each stage has to work if the system is going to produce predictable results.

Leads

The first stage is acquiring leads.

You need a system that consistently brings people into your world. Those people might be engaging with your content, downloading resources, making enquiries or consuming something you've created.

Some leads are ready to buy immediately.

Others are interested in the problems you're talking about but aren't ready to buy yet. Those people need nurturing.

The important thing is having a reliable system for acquiring leads rather than waiting for referrals to appear.

Appointments

The next stage is generating appointments.

If you need one or two new clients a month, there is a number of calls you need to have every month in order to achieve that. Not every lead will be ready for a conversation, but some of them will.

One mistake people make is assuming they can simply invite prospects onto a call.

Prospects only agree to calls when they can see a direct benefit from having that conversation. The value of the conversation needs to be obvious to them.

That's why we need a process for moving the right people from lead to appointment.

Proposals

Once somebody is on a call, you can't simply tell them what you do and expect them to see the value.

Instead, you need to understand the problem they're trying to solve and the outcome they're trying to achieve. You need to uncover where they are today and where they want to get to.

Only then can you show them how you could help bridge that gap.

Once that's clear, you propose your solution. The proposal is simply your explanation of how you'll help somebody move from their current situation to the outcome they're looking for.

Deals

The final stage is converting opportunities into clients.

This requires a reliable follow-up process.

Follow-up doesn't need to feel awkward or pushy, but it does need to happen. Too many people follow up once and stop.

The reality is that most deals are won through multiple follow-ups. Buyers expect follow-up and often need time to make decisions. That's why having a watertight process is so important.

Without it, opportunities that should have become clients simply disappear.

Bringing It All Together

When you look at the whole system, ending referral dependency comes down to three things.

First, you need a proposition that clearly communicates the value of what you do and the outcomes you create.

Second, you need a pre-selling system that builds trust at scale so you're no longer relying on trust being transferred through referrals.

Third, you need a pipeline that reliably moves people from lead to appointment, appointment to proposal and proposal to deal.

Those three elements work together.

Without proposition, people don't understand why you matter.

Without pre-selling, people don't trust you.

Without pipeline, opportunities don't become clients.

That's how I help clients move away from referral dependency. We build the proposition, the pre-selling and the pipeline so that new business isn't dependent on somebody else making an introduction. Instead, they have a system for generating opportunities and winning clients predictably.

How I help you

The solution isn't to stop asking for referrals. It's to build a second source of demand that you control. LinkedIn is one of those places... where else can you access 1.3 billion people?

• You can find exactly the right audience quickly.
• You can build trust, credibility and visibility easily
• You can leverage it in 30-mins per day and get 2-3 clients per month.

This is how I help my clients...

• Step 1: Map out your goals / what success looks like.
• Step 2: Audit your existing services and positioning.
• Step 3: Rebuild / tighten your positioning and message.
• Step 4: Build a simple lead to client system.
• Step 5: Launch and get new leads.

Typically it takes 30-90 days to launch depending on your bandwidth and 90 days to start seeing ROI.

If you'd like my coaching and support to launch this, schedule a call here.