EP # 226 - From Feast or Famine to Predictable Revenue: The Client Acquisition Engine

Stop the feast or famine cycle! Learn how to build a Client Acquisition Engine that delivers consistent, predictable leads and revenue. Maggie breaks down the exact system for strategic partnerships (80%+ conversion!), optimized marketing, and a sales process that converts 50-60%+ of leads into paying clients.

You'll Learn:

• How to get consistent, warm referrals every month
• When to use organic marketing vs. paid advertising
• How to optimize your sales process to stop losing leads
• Why you need to become a "scientist CEO" for predictable growth

Part 2 of 3 in the Business Scaling Series.

Connect: https://stairwaytoleadership.com

TIMESTAMPS (Optional - if you want to add chapters)

00:00 - Welcome & Series Overview 

01:00 - What is a Client Acquisition Engine? 

02:00 - Why Predictable Leads Matter 

03:00 - The Two Pillars: Marketing & Sales 

04:00 - Organic Marketing vs. Paid Advertising 

06:00 - When to Start Paid Advertising 

07:00 - Strategic Partnerships: The Game Changer 

09:00 - Jennifer's Success Story (80%+ Conversions) 

11:00 - Optimizing Your Marketing Channels 

12:00 - Building a Strong Sales Process 

14:00 - How to Improve Your Conversion Rates 

16:00 - Benefits of a Client Acquisition Engine 

18:00 - Stop Feast or Famine Forever 

20:00 - Assessment: Where Are Your Opportunities? 

21:00 - Next Steps & Free Consultation

KEYWORDS/TAGS

Client acquisition, predictable revenue, business scaling, strategic partnerships, sales process, conversion rates, organic marketing, paid advertising, lead generation, feast or famine, business growth, service-based business, marketing system, sales funnel, referral partners, business coaching, entrepreneurship, small business, revenue growth, marketing strategy

Transcript

Welcome Dear Diamond Effect podcast listeners to episode 226. This episode is the second part of three part series when I'm talking about three pillars to business scaling and three pillars to my Top Seal formula. Just to help you understand what you need to scale your business from. Wherever you are to multiple six, seven plus figures, and also for you to understand how I work and what are the core foundations of my coaching.

Last week we talked about pillar one, which is really foundations to scaling. Really getting clear on your business model, your niche, your brand, and through that have what I call it Profitable Positioning Framework where your client work with you because they love you, they become [00:01:00] loyal, they refer to you, and they know exactly how you help them, and they want you, for you, not just because you happen to be the cheapest or because they know you personally as you grow and scale your business and you have employees who deliver their service, you need to work on connecting your clients emotionally to your brand and being loyal to your brand. So that's pillar number one.

Today we'll talk about pillar number two, waitress. Client acquisition engine, no business can scale without consistent leads that then the business can convert into paying and loyal clients.

By consistent leads, what I mean, not only consistent influx of potential clients who are your ideal clients and already have a desire to purchase services that you offer, but [00:02:00] also, the number of leads that you get is predictable, where you can project your monthly income with accuracy based on the marketing and advertising activities that are happening in your business, whether you do them personally, whether you are hiring people, whether some of this is happening somewhat automatically because you're investing in paid advertising.

And without such an engine, it's hard to scale, right? When we are just relying on word of mouth, of hoping that somebody will refer us, and every time we get a client, you think, oh, I'm lucky, because I don't know where they're coming from. That is very hard to scale In our business. We do need to become CEOs that are almost like scientists that understand their business inside out. They've put numbers and quantified [00:03:00] as much as possible, meaning with the client acquisition engine.

That means that you know how many leads you can expect each month based on the marketing and advertising activities and strategies you're using. You also dialed in into your conversion knowing that if you have high quality leads, you can predict how many of them will become your paying clients right away.

And then how many of those that maybe. Are not, are no for now. You can still nurture and they will convert in the future. And when you create that sort of system, that sort of engine, that's when you can really scale. So the engine consists of. Two important pillars, and that's marketing, and we'll talk about it in a second. And then sales process, that all of it, you optimize for [00:04:00] conversions. Okay? In marketing, I always tell my clients, you do need, as you scale a combination of organic marketing and paid advertising. And here is why.

Organic marketing is a low cost way to acquire clients, right? There is cost, and I'm not saying free, there is still cost to organic marketing, whether it is because you're networking and there's some membership fees you're paying. Or if you are present on social media, there are software that you're using or maybe marketing strategist or an assistant that is helping you, that still requires certain investments, right?

But what organic marketing allows you to do, it allows you to lower the cost of client acquisition and build trust in authority. Because paid advertising is not really something that will. Build trust in your ideal [00:05:00] clients and where you can, become a thought leader in the industry and authority.

That usually happens through organic marketing. Now also, what's great about organic marketing that especially in, if you're beginning, if you're early in your business, you want to figure out your messaging. And they convert the conversion rates through organic marketing, right? Once you know how to communicate with your ideal clients in a way that they become your paid clients, when you convert them and that messaging is working for you.

Only then you should start investing in paid advertising. Otherwise, if you invest in paid advertising before, it's a very expensive way to figure out your messaging, to figure out your positioning. So I always recommend to my clients start with organic marketing. Gain clarity in your niche, how to communicate with them.

Make sure that what you're putting out there [00:06:00] converts and only then invest in paid advertising, and why paid advertising should be part of your. Overall client acquisition engine, when you start scaling is because even though of course it's more costly, it buys you time, right? Once you have certain ads running on social media or YouTube or other avenues, then you don't spend as much time on that as, let's say, networking.

And getting out there. Doing speaking engagements or whatever the case might be. Also, what paid advertising allows you to do, especially through social media, that it's very measurable. You can distill it down to knowing exactly that. If I put X amount of money. Into my ads, I will get X amount of business out of it.

And then it's very easy to plan for the income and [00:07:00] growth when you have that detailed information. It's possible to estimate certain things, but not as in detail as it is with organic marketing. So one of the things that I teach my clients to elevate their organic marketing and make it more predictable and really maximize their efforts through it, is by creating, developing, strategic partnership.

And I have a process and system that I teach my clients to do it, and we build it together based on their business, their goals, and so on.

Okay.

So how we do it is with each client identify their key referral partners. So those are people who are working with your ideal clients that are not in direct competition with you, with whom you can develop really great relationships and become a source of referral for each other. Which [00:08:00] then ultimately helps your ideal clients when they have in you not only a service provider, but a strategic partner that cares about their success.

And if they have a need of something else that you cannot deliver, you still care about them and the same happens with the strategic partner referring their clients to you. So for example, the simplest example is if you're a professional organizer, some of those partners could be real estate agents, they could be, lawyers, whether it's real estate lawyers or estate lawyers.

So there is multiple avenues here that you can explore, right? And when I work with my clients, it's not just about making a list, but strategically selecting the type of partners you do and finding and working towards finding the people that click with you where you can have a deep. Relationship based on mutual win-win, right?

Based [00:09:00] on mutually supporting each other and each other's clients and help them succeed.

So if you've explored that avenue and maybe it hasn't worked for you, I wanna encourage you not to get discouraged and continue because I remember. When one of my clients, Jennifer, who is a professional organizer, came and we started working together. She was telling me how strategic partnerships don't work for her.

But when we started being strategic about it, using a process and consistent, within few months, she created key. Partnerships that Then what happened within those few months, she started getting more and more referrals every month to the point where it became consistent and predictable, and now a big portion of her business comes through those type of referrals.

Now, the amazing part about it is that when you get referral from your strategic [00:10:00] partner. The trust that their client has in them transfers to you. Therefore, if you have a sales process that optimized and it's really good, your conversion rates with these type of referrals are very high. For my client, Jennifer, is I think above.

80% conversions. And often, the clients who say no are not even going to somebody else. But either they decide to, do their project on their own or they're just delaying them and they come back to Jennifer when they're ready. Another part of having an organic marketing system that has

cog wheels that work together is making sure that your marketing strategy is optimized, that you're not spreading yourself too thin, that you're. Selecting key channels that reach your ideal clients without overwhelming you or without spreading even your team resources to [00:11:00] thin where you know that these are the best channels where you can attract people and convert and just getting really good at it.

Another part of it is your way to nurture. All the people that come into your sphere of influence on a regular basis so that people who might not be ready to buy from you yet still hear from you, so then when they are ready, the only person that they will think to work with is you.

And that's whether it's. Email marketing, whether it's your social media presence, whether it's, creating value in another way where your clients can hear from you without you having to spend hours and hours doing coffee chats and phone calls. It's a very important part of optimized marketing system.

And then the last part of it is having a sales process. [00:12:00] That is really allowing you not only to learn about your ideal clients and understand their decision making process, their needs, their goals, but it's also allowing you to show them how your solutions are the best for them and how your solutions are uniquely suited for them.

So then. Your conversion rates are as high as possible, right? And it does differ between, let's say so-called cold leads and warm leads. And the difference between that is a cold lead or a cold potential client could be finding you through paid advertising. And let's say you're running an ad and it's the first time they're meaning you, right?

So if they go from that ad straight into your sales process. When your con, when your sales process is tight, you'll, you can convert a majority of them, but it's usually will be a lower rate to when you get a referral from your strategic partners or when your past client or current client refers somebody, right?

Those conversion rates can be as high as 80%, [00:13:00] but on average, if you put that together, you want sales process to be converting 50 60. Percent plus. Off leads or potential clients into paying clients. So it's very important. And how you do it is really you set up a some prequalification part of the process.

So when you actually talk to an ideal client. They're not somebody who are just thinking about it or who are not sure what they need and what they want, but they're already thinking about hiring a service provider like yourself to help them right then through the main sales conversation.

You wanna make sure that. You make it about your client. You have an opportunity to really understand them and then customize the way you speak to them and the way you show them your solution to the point where. You are an easy yes. And also having ability to [00:14:00] discover what maybe client's objections, what might be the questions that they have that haven't been answered so you can answer them and not let them leave without certain questions and answered.

One of the best ways you can optimize your sales process is really being a student of each potential client that comes through that process and let's say, doesn't convert. Going back and understanding. Okay, how did they find me? What was the conversation and what did I say and ask them during the process?

What did they say that maybe in the hindsight I didn't notice or I didn't pick up on that I can do better next time? Every time I work with my clients, when we go into in-depth analysis of their sales conversations, we always find things that they can improve on next time. So they make sure they convert the next clients, and that's how their conversion rate keeps going up.

[00:15:00] Another thing is really making your sales process easy for yourself. So let's say if you have, if in your type of business maybe you're a contractor, even a professional organizer, interior designers usually send proposals to the clients, have some templates that make this process faster and easier for you, right?

Having certain outlines of how do you wanna. Lead the sales conversations or the presentation of the projects and not reinventing the wheel every single time. Not only saves you a lot of time, but as your business scales, you will be able to hire people to help you with it and train them on the process to ensure that what they do is as effective as you do right now.

So you might be thinking, okay great make like strategic partnerships and optimize marketing and sales process. But what does it really do for me? What are the [00:16:00] benefits? So here are the benefits. When you identify some and not only identify by build some key strategic partnerships, what happens is you get consistent stream of very warm, qualified referrals that come every month, and they're.

Easy to convert into paying clients, right? You don't have to be dependent on social media algorithms that much because even though you might have great social media presence and right now they are maybe bringing you a lot of clients, that's never given because you don't have control over algorithms, but you do have control over Bill over.

Building win-win relationships with your strategic partners, right? You also have that organic marketing becomes more predictable for you and consistent

[00:17:00] your conversion rate. On average, you grow your conversion rates, right? It becomes higher because through strategic partnerships, if you get to where my client is to 80 plus percent, your average from all the avenues you get, your leads grows as well, right? And then when you have predictable revenue between strategic partnerships, between paid advertising and optimized marketing, then it's so much easier to plan your hiring, to plan your expenses, to plan investments in your business, right?

You're more confident in making more longer term strategic decisions. And then finally, of course, you stop the feast and farm and cycle in your business that maybe you're struggling with right now.

Then when you optimize your other roots of organic marketing, and you are not stretching yourself too thin, but you really identify key channels and then [00:18:00] just get really good at them, and that's where you spend your intention and focus, then you. Don't have to get overwhelmed, right? Because you're not trying to be everywhere at the same time, and you can show up in those channels consistently.

Without overworking. You get really good at converting the leads, right? Not just necessarily getting, some meeting random people or if you're social media just getting likes and comments, but no conversions. You test your messaging, right? So you can really hone in your messaging and see how.

It converts or what converts what doesn't. So then when you do go into paid advertising, you know it is going to work, right? You just amplify your messaging then through paid advertising, and then as you do that, you end up with having multiple lead sources [00:19:00] working together, right? That's how you build an engine.

That's how you build a system. It's not just one thing, it's. Multiple parts strategically chosen, strategically optimized. That didn't work together, and that's why you also need really good sales process. So then. All those curated leads that you have coming from marketing are not wasted and lost because you don't have a sales process or because your sales process is leaky and weak.

So when you have strong sales process, the discovery calls, the proposals, you know how to handle objections, you. Follow-up system to make sure that you don't lose clients who might not be ready now, but they will be ready later. You are really then spending time on talking to people who are serious and they have a budget to buy your services, right?

Your sales calls. Really uncover [00:20:00] clients' pains, division, and you can present them with your perfect solution and you can show them how really your unique solution is ideal for them. And they don't even need to go anywhere else to look for alternatives.

Right? Grade, then another thing, you handle objections confidently, right? You don't freeze, you don't discount, for example, because you're scared to lose a potential client, right? And then you have a system to follow up. That nurtures your clients, that gives them value and ultimately allows you to still sign those clients just at a later date, right?

So that makes sure that you are not leaving thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on the table every month from lost leads. Because imagine if your conversion rate is, let's say, if your conversion rate is. 25% instead of 50. That's a lot of leads that you worked hard to acquire lost. So you need to work so much harder to bring more and more leads because your conversion is low.

When you convert more people, you can make way more money [00:21:00] with the same amount of leads and the same amount of effort. That's why it's important and that's why I call it a client acquisition engine because all those parts are working together to ensure that the time and money and resources you invest are really worth it for you.

Before we finish, I would like you to look at your current marketing, at your current sales and assess, is it really where you want it to be? Is it effective? Is it bringing you your potential ideal clients is it consistent? Is it predictable? And then looking at your sales process, am I converting to my highest potential or am I losing people assess that and decide where are your opportunities for improvement and then work on it and improve it.

It's really worth your time and effort. And if you want to go strategically and much faster about it and use my expertise, I'm always happy to help. You can [00:22:00] go to my website, story to leadership.com and book a free consultation and then we can chat there on how I can potentially help you.

All right, have a fantastic week and talk to you next week about pillar number three. Bye.