Good Marketing, Good Business

062: 3 Ways Businesses Get Stuck With Getting More Clients

July 28, 2024 • Shannon Stone • Episode 62

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If you want more clients, start here. I’ve made it really easy to give you a starting point, simplifying where your business could be going wrong.

By listening [and taking notes], you’ll learn:

  • How to pin-point your focus so you can generate more clients
  • The difference between lead generation, conversions and retention
  • Critical action steps that will practically help you to get more clients sooner

Enjoy!

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If you’d like to work together with me as your 1:1 business and marketing consultant, book a call here.

Shannon Stone:

H ey guys. Welcome to the podcast, super excited to jump in and share this episode with you today.

Shannon Stone:

Today I'm going to share a couple of ways that businesses can really get stuck when it comes to getting more clients. They have a goal that they want to grow their business, that they know they need to do that by getting more clients, but it's not as simple as it sounds. It's just not about getting more clients. So I want to break it down for us a little bit, because often people's mind goes straight to the fact that they just need more marketing. What is their marketing strategy or strategies? How can they just get in front of more of the people that they can be helping. But I want to bring some awareness to a couple of the other factors that might be happening in your business. Just I think, even to help you to see that it actually isn't as simple as it sounds. It's like, yeah, it's like if you were just so good at what you do, it would be easy to get clients. Or if you just do more marketing, it would be easy to get clients. Like, it's not as simple as it sounds sometimes. So hopefully, what I share with you is going to give you some insight into just some of the areas that you could easily focus on to really help you to get more of those clients that you're looking for. So, if a business wants to generate more clients I've broken it down into these three main areas. Probably the one that I haven't included is all about your offer and your package and how much of a difference that can really make to like not really getting clients but reaching your revenue goals, because it's same same but different in a way. So just keep that in mind. That's probably the one area I'm not including in this, but it can have a really big impact. So the three areas, if I were to break it down for you to help you to get more clients.

Shannon Stone:

There is your lead generation, so the leads that you're getting. This is often where your marketing should be doing a lot of the heavy lifting. The second step is your conversions. So when you are talking to those leads, you've got them booking discovery calls or strategy calls or whatever it is that you might call it. They're sending an inquiry or filling in a contact form. How are you converting those people?

Shannon Stone:

And then the third is your retention, so your ability to retain those clients. What does that look like? And that is where your offer and the way you've packaged up your services even just the package itself and how you've created it, what the inclusions are, to what extent you're helping people a lot of that can come into your retention as well. So if we start at the beginning, your lead generation is that is your marketing, that is how can I just get more leads, kind of in my database type of thing, or in my awareness, in my network, more people finding out about how I can help them and them raising their hands to see if I can help. That is the lead generation and what I want to say with these three the lead generation, your conversions and retention, and even just like we're talking about it, but we're not talking about it your offer and your packages. It's never just one thing that is stopping you or impacting you from getting the clients that you are looking for.

Shannon Stone:

But can we solve all of these problems at once? Can you have this perfectly built business where it's like there we go, I fixed my lead generation problem, or there we go, I fixed my conversion problem, or there we go, I retain 80% of my clients, and now it's like this perfectly well-oiled machine that is like dreamland, and as much as we would love that, that doesn't necessarily happen and it also is a continual process. So you're reviewing that lead generation piece, your conversion piece and your retention piece. This is going to be like welcome to business. It's like you thought you were going to do that favorite thing you know better than anyone else. You thought you were going to do that every single day. Now you're probably finding, when you run a business, that's actually a small part of what you do. There's, like all these other businessy things you've had to bring your attention to. So we can't solve these problems all at once. I'm going to give you a way that you can definitely make a really positive dent in it. But I want you to know that this is a continual process. You're always going to be reviewing your lead generation, your retention, your conversions, all these type of things.

Shannon Stone:

The best piece of advice that I have for you is to ask yourself what is going to make the biggest impact right now, or what is causing the biggest problem right now. If you're not speaking to potential clients on the phone, then you've definitely got a lead generation problem. If you are talking to people having those discovery and sales calls, but not as many of them are signing up as you would like, then you've probably got a conversion problem. If clients aren't sticking around with you very long or as long as you would like, then you've probably got a conversion problem. If clients aren't sticking around with you very long or as long as you know they could, pending the problem that you're solving and how you're working with them, you might have a retention problem. And if you're like any business out there, you've probably got all three. So my hat goes off to you and that's why I wanted to share this. So I'll share the action steps early on in this just to help you to do some things about this. So number one in the action step is to audit this process. So think about a client and this is always the best way I find to do it Like literally think of someone you've worked with, who's gone through this process with you.

Shannon Stone:

What was that lead generation process? It's like maybe they found you on or at a networking event, or maybe they found you on LinkedIn. Like then what happened? How did they actually become a lead? How did they like? How did they actually book a call? Did they email you? Did they fill in? Did they book in your Calendly? Did they get an email from you? And they click that? Like what is that lead generation process? I want you to walk yourself through that. And then the conversion process. So did they book a call? What happens on that call? Do you tell your prices on the call? Do you send them a proposal? Like it'd be an amazing exercise to spend 10 minutes to write all this down, this whole process.

Shannon Stone:

Then, being a client, the person that you're kind of assessing this process with they obviously said yes to you. So what was that process like? And then, what was it like to work with you as far as you know. How long are they working with you? What does the package look like If they're not working with you anymore? Like, where did things leave? Like, did you completely solve their problem or do they need more of your help? So, going through that process, it's going to help you to see some areas that you might need to bring some of your attention to, which is action.

Shannon Stone:

Step number two, like, list out any changes that you start to notice. It's like, okay, well, when they were booking a call with me, I didn't have Calendly and so we were going back and forth on the time trying to figure out when you know, when we can have a conversation to see if I can help them. So maybe that's an area that you just highlight and say, okay, I've got to fix that. Then, maybe on the sales call itself, and what the discovery call itself, maybe you didn't share your prices on the call or maybe you did and it felt really weird and it felt really salesy. Just write it down of these are some areas that you need to bring some attention to and to at some point, fix. So list out all the changes that you notice to the best of your ability and, trust me, you know your business better than anyone else. Even if you are not, you know someone like myself who does this day in, day out. I can tell you you probably if you just sit down and do the exercise, you'll probably notice some areas yourself that you could fix. So list out those changes.

Shannon Stone:

Then the third step in our action steps is to action anything that is really simple. So in this process where you're auditing your lead generation, your conversions, your retention, is there something or multiple, like a couple of things in there where you're like you know what that's actually really easy for me to fix. I can set up a Calendly or I can whatever things that you notice that are just really easy to start doing. Maybe you don't follow up with people in a timely manner. It's like, well, I know I should, I know I should. You know, if they want to think about it, I'm happy for them to think about it, but I should always schedule them in for a follow-up call. That's something you could probably start doing on all of your next sales conversations. So what are some small things that you notice that you can just start to action straight away?

Shannon Stone:

And then the fourth is to then prioritize one of these areas, meaning the lead generation, the conversion or the retention. Once you've made those small changes, that's awesome, because sometimes it's these small but mighty tweaks that make a massive difference. But the fourth step is to then prioritize just one of these areas at a time. So maybe it's your lead generation. You're like yep, hands down, not talking to enough people. I really want to focus our energy for our business into lead generation and that as the core focus. Or maybe it's more client retention.

Shannon Stone:

It's like if only we kept all the clients that come to us, or a vast majority of the clients that come to us, or even half of the clients that come to us, if we could keep people for twice as long, or if we keep 50% of our clients for at least 12 months, we've got an amazing business. Like, maybe that's an area that you look at on the retention side. So prioritize one area and with that, like laser target your focus. It's like, okay, this is all we're focusing on for the time being. We know we want to grow our business, we know we want to get more clients and as much as we want to solve all the problems in business, while knowing actually it's a continual cycle.

Shannon Stone:

So will you ever solve everything and have this beautiful, shiny, well-oiled machine a hundred percent of the time, like it's just we're not in a fantasy, unfortunately. So we're never going to completely solve everything. There's always going to be things that we can improve. So that's why it's important to prioritize one area at a time and just say to yourself you know what? Like tunnel vision, yeah, sure, there's other things I could improve and should improve and will improve, but right now we're just focusing on lead generation and just be happy with that.

Shannon Stone:

So there are three areas that people often get stuck when it comes to getting more clients. And even like above that, like if we kind of like bird's eye viewed all of this, it's to understand that it's never just one area stopping you from growing your business the way that you would like it to be. It's like, hands down, it's every area, it's multiple areas, and can any business make all these changes all at once? And like we haven't even covered every single area that it could be. It's like every single person on this planet is extremely busy Business owners definitely and so like we also need our systems, we also need to delegate, we also need to innovate. There's so many things that can help us to grow our business. But the reality is we can only do one thing at a time. We can only put our attention on one thing at a time.

Shannon Stone:

So, coming back to the best question, that, for me, has always been the direction of my consulting what's going to make the biggest impact right now? And that is where I always put the focus. And that's like a great question, even just on a day-to-day basis, it's like, of the 17 things I want to do and I want to do all at once, what is the one thing that's going to make the biggest impact right now? And working with businesses, that's really what I look for. It's what really is going to make the biggest difference, because my brain goes wild looking at all the things we can do and creatively and strategically and systems and ideas and improvement, like there's just so many things I would love to sink my teeth into with the businesses that I work with, but I'd rather us do one thing and do it really really well, rather than 10 things and not really make any progress, and I imagine it's the same for you as well. So I wanted to share that with you today.

Shannon Stone:

I hope you find this useful. I think, bring ourselves to the action steps. I kind of walk you through it, as we kind of learned about this idea today, and if you have any questions, always reach out. But I'm glad you are loving these podcast episodes. It's such an interesting format of content because it's quite one-sided, unlike, you know, social media or even presenting podcasting.

Shannon Stone:

You do get reviews, which I definitely appreciate and encourage, but also the main feedback comes from when people tell me they've listened to it, whether I see them in person or on a Zoom or a Teams, and like I get such a kick out of it. I will say it's so good to at least get that feedback every now and then because, honestly, recording a podcast, you're talking to yourself, which I do a lot of anyway, so it's not really that much different. But yeah, that's what I have for you today. I hope you find this useful and I will talk to you very, very soon.

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