Hello, my friends in this episode, I'm going to walk you through an
analysis of where my clients come from.
Both for my generalist consulting practice.
As well as from my niche consulting practice in the
flexible office coworking industry.
And so what I've done is I actually took the last say 20 or, or so
clients maybe a little more.
Uh, pure advisory clients.
These don't include any of the coaching work that I do with you.
Um, they only include the consulting work that I do with businesses.
And what I did was I separated it out based on the ones that came in through
my generalist website, through kevin.me, which is kind of where I point people
to, if they don't fall in my niche.
And that usually comes from relationships as well as the.
The, uh, the niche business that I run ever spaces, a coworking
consultancy for, um, Oh, yeah, the coworking spaces and flexible offices.
And so I would just want to compare the two and where the, where the results have
come from in terms of actual clients.
Now, what I did was I broke open my consulting revenue template.
And for those of you who have joined Mindshare pro or are in the Mindshare.
Group coaching program.
I trust.
Um, the, you have this template already, but just in case you don't really what
it is, is it breaks down all the months across the top access and all the clients
that are across the, the left access.
And, and then you just kind of like a cashflow statement or profit and loss.
Um, much like my KPI document as well.
It just breaks out how much who are all my clients and how
much revenue came from them.
So I took, I took a look at that.
I actually went back as far as 2017, so about five years, a
little less than, than five years.
And I picked the last 20 or so clients, um,
I've worked with just over 20 advisory clients in that period of time.
Many of them have stuck around since, since like, you know, three or four,
sometimes even since the beginning, uh, One in one case since the beginning of
when I started doing advisor work, it's a really interesting stuff there, but
what I want to focus on is where they came from, because, you know, we do all
this marketing and we, we, you know, people ask me the number one thing people
ask me is how do I get more clients?
So the first thing I'll recommend doing is.
Looking at where you've gotten your clients from in the past.
Analyzing how they found you analyzing what process led to them,
finding you as best you can, and then figuring out, okay, how does
that impact my marketing strategy?
Where, how does that change or affect how I do my marketing?
So I did this for myself and so I broke out my.
My cohort, my consulting.
Revenue template that I share.
And, uh, and I just looked at it and I put down beside it, you know, whether
there were referrals, whether it's from a speaking gig or a webinar or from.
You know, a word of mouth or, or organic search, all those things.
And what I found is pretty interesting.
So.
Keep in mind that I'm mostly at least for the last, maybe four years.
Uh, I've mostly focused on marketing myself in one of two niches,
one being the coworking niche.
And so I have a deliberate marketing strategy over there.
And then at one with this community, And what I've left open.
What I haven't really been actively marketing is my kevin.me
and my general consulting work.
My advisory work for.
Other businesses and they've included things like SAS companies
and e-commerce businesses.
A lot of B2B stuff.
Um, And they're kind of online.
Education is another big component of what I do.
But that only, that kind of falls in my lap through ultimately relationships.
So, what I discovered was of those clients of which there were, uh, eight.
The they all came except for one from referrals from two of them came from
colleagues specifically from design agencies, graphic design agencies.
So they referred work to me by, for clients that needed more broad marketing
help beyond just the, uh, just like the design stuff that they could deliver.
So that was interesting to me that.
Of all the colleagues, it was the designers that send me work.
So that tells me that maybe I need to be focusing a little bit more on designers.
Three of them came from a platform that that match makes advisors with clients.
And I managed to get three clients through that platform over the years,
and I would never rely on that platform.
It's just kind of there, and it's not the worst thing.
To be on if it does bring good leads.
And there are lots of platforms like that for both freelancers and consultants.
Um, So I got three from there.
Uh, one came from a client referral.
One came from a friend and one I've actually met in the community
with other consultants and he was growing a consulting firms.
In the beginning, we just kind of chatted as peers.
And then eventually I started, uh, consulting with his,
with his firms at group.
But what I've noticed is that yes, seven out of eight of these
clients came from referrals and that's just interesting to me.
So none of it came from sort of direct marketing.
Now I was doing more blogging for that for just a more general marketing
and they never really got traction.
When you're, when you're generalist.
It can be very difficult to get traction with your content,
especially blog content.
When you don't have kind of a niche or a particular angle, and maybe I could
have focused on marketing strategy more.
And I just didn't.
I ended up.
You know, After a couple of years transitioning into
focusing on coworking spaces.
In the advisory capacity and then accepting leads as they came in.
So it makes sense.
That they were largely referrals.
But, uh, I would also say that when I was a generalist agency, I got a
couple leads from organic search, but a lot of them were referrals too,
even though I did content marketing.
However, and this is the caveat here.
Is that a lot, even though a lot of those were referrals.
And I think I don't want to over speculate that when you are a more
generalist provider, you get more.
Referral-based business.
However, um, but that's kind of what, I'm what I'm seeing in my data.
And w when we did a, a group coaching call yesterday,
In the mind trust.
We, you know, we talked about where all of our leads were coming from and
there was, there was a very recurring trend of a lot of referral business.
Now, what I'm noticing though, is that even my referrals, many of them came
as a result of publishing content.
So that gave me the surface area to take, to stay in front of people, to
remain top of mind, tip of tongue so that when opportunities came along,
people thought of me and referred me.
So I think there is a component where your marketing efforts still does matter.
And they do drum up more referrals, even if not direct business.
Cause sometimes your clients, their CEOs, depending on the size of
the business you're working with.
Aren't on social media actively, especially depending on what
age they are on their background and that sort of thing.
So where are they coming from?
And yeah, so it was just interesting to me that yes, content, I think impacts
referrals that when I'm in a generalist business, it does seem to have high
amounts of referral based business.
And, and so when I'm, if I were to reverse engineer, how to market
myself as a generalist, I would probably be looking at making part
loud at establishing relationships.
With peers in the industry.
So in this case, I had to design referrals, come to me.
Could I make relationships with more design firms just
by connecting on LinkedIn and asking for intros reaching out.
Just having conversations, just, you know, who do I already know and how
can I just have a chat with them?
See how things are going and maybe exchange.
You know, give, visit flow business to them and maybe they flow business to me.
So I might even be thinking about, well, do I market to my peers?
Do I direct outreach to my peers?
And so I think just having conversations with your peers, even if there
are, even if there are other, say marketing, let's say your marketing
advisor, even if the other marketing advisors, or if you're a web designer.
Even with other web designers, you never know where your
opportunity is going to come from.
People get busy or work is too big or too small, and sometimes they need your help.
So, especially the bigger folks who want to pass along work,
that's not quite right for you.
Or for them, maybe they don't have the bandwidth or it's too small.
And you're, let's say you're newer.
That can be a great place to pick up business.
Uh, even sub contracting.
When I went, going back to my agency days.
I did in the beginning, I did a lot of subcontracting until
I got my own client base.
And then I eventually weaned myself off that and would only take referrals
and not sub contracting stuff.
So that's a whole separate conversation.
Like I could and probably should go further back and see where I got all
my other past business, but suffice it to say a lot of it was referrals
and subcontracting work as well.
So if you're in a generalist business and we'll get into the coworking side of
things in just a minute, It might make sense for you to focus on creating those
relationships that generate referrals.
And creating content that stays in front of your peers, maybe connect with people
on LinkedIn that are in your broader.
Local community or some other way that you feel relevant to them.
So they think of you when they're ready for your services.
And one of the other things is when you are more generalist, let's say
you just do web design for anyone.
Uh, your friends and colleagues and just people around you, your
friends, your network often can refer you to people because they
know that you do graphic design.
They like you, and they become somewhat of your advocate and recommend work to you.
That can happen in a niche as well.
But what I've noticed is that frankly, the more people, you know, the more luck
you have, as long as you're connected with them and places like LinkedIn.
Where they don't need to be subscribed to your mailing list, but they
still get your content because they log into LinkedIn every so often.
So I've gotten content, I've gotten leads by publishing content on LinkedIn.
Having someone I knew through a friend or just in my network.
Reach out and say, my boss needs this, or I know someone
who needs this kind of work.
Can you help them?
So that's a really valuable way.
So condom does create referrals and I think referrals while you
don't want to depend on them with your hands out, by doing nothing.
You can spur them.
You can generate more referrals.
I think it's a, it's a vital part of a consulting project of a consulting
business to get clients through referrals, as well as freelancing and
agency work, a lot of referrals come and there, they tend to be better.
Clients, better warmed up.
More trusting and, um, more willing to work quicker with
you with a shorter sales cycles.
So referrals can be a great thing.
You just don't want to wait with your hand out and hope
that someone lands in your hand.
Cause it just won't happen.
You want to be proactive with developing your relationships, just talking to
people, you know, with no agenda.
Uh, being generous, referring out work wherever you can, and, uh,
contributing to conversations.
Interact with people on social and creating your own content to prove that
you're credible, because people don't want to refer you if you don't, if they don't
trust that you're going to deliver on that job, because it would look bad on them.
So it's.
It's a real thing and you have to yep.
You know, by publishing consistently.
It does.
Um, make you look more reliable and.
Uh, trustworthy for both direct clients potentially, but also the
people that are going to refer you.
So something to think about there.
I don't know if I'd go so far as to write content for my peers.
I don't think that's practical.
I might write content about my industry.
To educate my end client.
Like here's the benefits of an advisor versus an agency.
Or versus an employee.
That being said, I don't, I don't advocate just for kind of creating
content for your own peers.
Cause they're really not your clients.
So.
Uh, it's okay.
If your peers see your content and then they refer you to two clients.
But he doesn't want to, you don't want to make your target
for your content, your peers.
Cause it, it doesn't, it won't resonate with your clients
and then it'll be confusing.
So, so that's the first part.
So when you're in a generalist business referrals, Are a really big part of it.
And, uh, honestly, I, when I was a more generous person, I
couldn't, I had a hard time building traction, building an audience.
Building traction with an audience because frankly my content was too generic.
So no one wanted to like pay attention to five social media
tips for your B to B company.
Cause it's that stuff's everywhere.
When on east.
I then built an audience and we'll get into how that impacts that the
niche marketing strategy versus the generalist marketing strategy.
And I'll do that by walking you through the last 14 or so.
Uh, 15 clients in the Everspace is kind of world.
And, um, So I'll walk you through those right now and we'll could
just kind of compare the difference.
One is that.
There is a broader range of.
Of of leads of opera of actual clients.
And.
So just to give you a breakdown of the, let me just make sure it's 15.
Of the 15, yeah.
Of the 15, six were referrals.
Seven was from either guests presenting.
Public speaking.
Or webinars.
And then within that, some of them were via industry contacts.
Some of them were via software companies that serve that industry.
And some of them were via the industry associations.
And so.
There are different places.
So that's what I call the golden goose strategy.
So six came from referrals, many of whom were from, uh, past clients.
So I got a lot more client referrals because they knew peers in their industry
and said, Hey, you have to talk to Kevin.
He's the guy.
And he does a great job for us.
Uh, as a marketer in this industry.
And it makes them look good because now they're bringing someone who's
qualified and highly specialized in their industry to the table.
And it makes all that.
Uh, it makes them look good and allows and makes for a more,
more, uh, less risky introduction.
And I think that's an important factor.
So a lot more clients I had of the six referrals.
The clients were one, one client, two, three.
Four four came from.
Uh, from a.
Clients.
And then I'm looking at one, came from an industry contacts with someone who.
Uh, an industry consultant, rather someone who consults for the industry.
And then another one came from actually another, he was a friend and a colleague.
So, um,
Uh, someone I knew and he was a marketing consultant in general,
and then he was transitioning out.
So made an intro and a, that was a good client to get as well.
So largely speaking though, my way more client referrals, the other, in
the other case, I, I think maybe one client referral and, uh, the rest of
them came from friends or designers.
Or the platform.
So colleagues.
Uh, platform or.
You know, one case, a friend, I think.
Yeah, one, one case was a friend anyway.
So what I start to do is I analyze, okay.
Yes.
I'm getting six referrals.
Seven from presenting, from being a guest presenter.
And I call that the golden goose strategies.
That's, you know, anytime you can get in front of an existing audience where
you don't need to create it yourself.
Well, that's a podcast.
That's a webinar.
That's a public speaking.
That's a.
Uh, seminar in person seminars.
I've done those as well.
That's an opportunity too, to educate.
And then some percent of people often will convert in my case.
You know, seven out of 15, uh, almost half came, came that way,
which is pretty interesting.
Uh, and then the referrals, you start to think, okay, well,
a bunch of came from clients.
So how do I just, how do I, first of all, do a great job for clients.
Number two is, you know, if you're in a niche, it's a lot easier to say, Hey,
do you know anyone else in this industry that would benefit from my services?
I have two slots available.
Indicating that you've got bandwidth.
And I never overbooked myself.
So you don't have to worry about me being too busy for you and
all those prioritize our work.
Uh, but if you know anyone, here's, here's the kind of person I'm looking for.
And I would love maybe an intro or to put out the feelers, if anyone
comes to mind and if not, no worries.
And if you're doing a good job for your clients, they're more than happy
to do that for you, especially when you're in a niche, it's a lot harder to
do that when you're not, because then you're kind of saying, well, do you
know any business owners who need help?
And that's.
You're then become, you become a little more risky because yes, you
could help me, but can you help them?
I don't know.
And it kind of creates an awkwardness.
So.
Having the niche allows you to get more client referrals.
At least this is observational.
This is my instinct, as well as what the data is telling me.
So I think doing this analysis for yourself.
Looking at these areas and saying, well, where are my clients coming from?
And then yes, if they were referrals, who specifically is referring me
and how do I generate more of those?
How do I optimize for more of those as well?
So six came from referrals seven from the golden goose strategy
in terms of guest presenting on a podcast speaking gig or a webinar.
And then I broke down the various places like software companies
that serve the niche industry.
Associations are great.
Uh, influencers who have platforms, podcasts, et cetera, already.
Great places to go.
Uh, and then one came from my audience at large.
That person may have come from, who knows where they may have come from.
Uh, webinar originally then got on my email list.
I used to write a lot of content, but one person raised their hand.
Well, a couple of people did actually raise their hand when
I would reach out and say, Hey, I've got this service available.
They'd email and say, yeah, I'm interested in that.
Tell me about it.
But one that I've designated, but the reasons not to is because I know that
one of the other folks came from word of mouth elsewhere or from something else.
I can't remember exactly where they came from and a.
So, you know, we'll call it one, but it's probably more than that.
Um, so the audience factor came into play one time, at least
directly, like never spoke to them.
Don't know how they got on my list.
And then they reached out one day when I put out the
feelers, if anyone's interested.
And then the last one was word of mouth and there was one client where I connected
to the CEO on LinkedIn, but didn't really have any conversations, but he
kept, he reached out to me one day and said, Hey, I keep seeing you everywhere.
All I'm talking to all these people.
And they're all saying that they've worked with you in.
Uh, your grade.
We'd love to have a chat with you, maybe about how you can help me and
ended up working with that client.
They ended up getting acquired.
It was a really good, good project.
And really profitable one for all parties.
So, uh, of the 15 six referrals.
And then we talked about that.
Seven from the golden goose one from just a general audience and one from word of
mouth where it wasn't a referral directly, but a bunch of people were talking about
me or they saw me around so much that.
They just, they reached out and, uh, we had a good, good chat.
And a good relationship.
So I just wanted to point this out.
Is that when you're marketing in the niche, your strategy becomes a lot
more about the golden goose strategy.
Yes.
You can do this in a general business.
It's just harder to get in front of audiences when you don't have.
Uh, specialization in a vertical, so you become less rare and therefore it's
more difficult to make a compelling ask to get in front of, to get on
a podcast or to get in front of an industry association or to get.
Do a webinar for a software company.
Unless you sort of specialize.
That being said, it's not impossible.
So these things really, really work.
I think the reason I was able to drum up the business I did from
those webinars is because I.
Because I.
Focused on that industry.
I think if I was just a general market, I'm not sure people would
come out of the woodworks after listening to my presentation.
If I was just a social media strategist, and I just did a presentation.
I'd only people would be coming after me asking me for, for, to work with me.
Uh, the same way they do.
When I basically say here I have a methodology, I have a system.
Uh, here's my here's some resources you can take and run with, and
they're already high value and it's very, it's a much more effortless.
To get in front of an audience and to add value and to be
specific and to be compelling.
When you're in a niche, but again, you can succeed either way.
It's just different marketing strategies.
One you're really optimizing for referrals.
The other is your content and getting the golden goose strategy of
getting in front of other audiences.
Um, really matters.
So I'll leave it there for now.
This is obviously my experience.
So what I did in our group coaching call in the mind trust as I call
it comes with private slack and we meet every other week and we go
through a different topic of mindset, model, methodology, and marketing.
And, uh, we, we talk about those, uh, every other week.
And, uh, so anyway, we were all talking about this stuff and
everyone had really interesting.
Perspectives in terms of where they got their clients from and how the, how, how
they generated, say client referrals.
Um, how many of them came from content?
All these things and we compared niche businesses versus.
General businesses and how those things have come to fruition.
So it's really enlightening and I think it's worth doing
this for your own business.
Uh, one member actually broke out his CRM and looked at it well.
Of all these clients that I've had the last 10 or 15, how many of them
were, you know, high value and how many of them are low effort and kind
of did a mini analysis of what the best clients were based on those two
metrics and where then they came from.
And then that kind of helped him see things that.
The otherwise.
Otherwise, might've been a little bit invisible.
So I think analyzing the data of your clients, this concept kind of
comes from this book, the pumpkin plan by Mike he doesn't use this in
any way, shape or form, but he does basically talk in the similar concept.
The greater concept is.
When you analyze your clients and look for commonalities.
And trends and then ideally comparing it.
I've had cases where we've worked with when I've worked with clients and we've
taken all the clients, put them in a spreadsheet on the left hand column
and then ranked along the very top and said, what's the easiest to work with.
Refers the most complaints, the least has stayed the longest,
spends the most, you know,
All these, all these things that mattered.
Uh, and we kind of scored them up on a score of one to five and all
of those, and then looked at who were the highest scoring overall.
Uh, clients.
And then where did they come from?
What was the, what services were they buying?
What was the, you know, w what industries are they in?
What, you know, what was going on that made them great.
What's the commonality.
What, maybe it's a personality thing with the, with the owner or.
Or team size or company size, and then you can do sort of an 80, 20 analysis.
So, all that is to say is it's really important to do some sort of.
Analysis of your clients and your leads, but your leads don't really tell you
as much as your actual paying clients.
So analyze your clients, see where they came from.
If you don't know.
Uh, ask and try to get in, try to dig into that.
Make that part of your process.
I've actually, for those that are, have, have previously signed up.
For 'em.
The Mindshare pro or now my insured, uh, Group coaching the
mind trust as I now call it.
Um, For those of us signed up for that, you still have
access to all the resources.
The consulting revenue template now has a column beside each,
each of your client name.
And you can actually input where they came from just to sort
of start keeping track of it.
And, uh, People that use the spreadsheet really love it.
It's a great way to look at your revenue.
See where your MRR is.
And, uh, and see, we were avid contract value is see where
you're headed financially.
What is your, what is the annualized MRR look like?
So what are you looking like?
What's, if you, if all things remained constant, how much would
you earn at the end of the year?
Um, how much has the project versus, you know, consulting and recurring revenue?
Um, all this stuff.
So that's all in there.
There's that?
Now a new column.
Uh, right beside the client name that tells you where they
came from, it's called source.
And, uh, that's just wanted to share that with you.
It's a, it's an updated resource.
Go take a look at that and update your sheet if you want.
So I hope this helps.
Uh, are you analyzing your clients?
Are you.
Figuring out what's working best for you.
Are you.
Uh, seeing the trends.
Let me know, I'd love to hear what's worked for you and whether you're
in a niche or a general kind of consulting freelance agency business.
And what the differences are.
If you've noticed any trends would love to hear it, share it in the comments below.
If you're in the community.
Otherwise, I look forward to hearing from it.
Uh, From you whenever and wherever I do.
And as always, if anyone, you know, is in the marketing world, this community, this
podcast, my efforts only grow through.
Word of mouth.
Uh, the content nice.
I do hopefully support that.
So if you know anyone who's in the marketing world, an independent marketer,
specifically, a freelancer consultant or a solo agency owner who doesn't have
employees just has contractors, send them to Mindshare doc community and
have them sign up for the community.
Or just email me@kevinatkevin.me.
And we'd love to.
Um, be introed to them and maybe we can have them.
Uh join the community or whatever else or just listen to the podcast
whatever's easiest and practical that's all for now my friends i
wish you the very best and talk soon