Why Your Client Attraction Strategy Isn't Working (You're Fixing the Wrong Thing)

How many discovery calls have you had in the last 90 days? If that number is low, your problem isn't your sales call. It's your leads.

In this episode, Brandi shares the exact diagnostic framework she uses with her consulting clients (from $3K months to $40K months) to pinpoint where their pipeline is broken. You'll learn about the three problems every service provider has (leads, conversion, retention), plus the 4C Client Attraction System that maps out your entire client pipeline.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• The three elements of every service business and how to diagnose which one is broken
• The 4C Client Attraction System: Connect, Conversation, Call, Close
• Signs that each stage of your pipeline is broken
• Why most service providers are fixing step four when step one is broken
• The benchmarks you need to know (how many calls, what conversion rate)
• Your three action steps to implement this week

Resources mentioned:

• Predictable Clients Workshop: brandimowles.com/predictable
• DM "PREDICTABLE" on Instagram @brandimowles
• Standards of Excellence Episode: https://brandimowles.com/276
• Referral Engine Episode: https://brandimowles.com/280
• Trust Ladder Episode: https://brandimowles.com/244

If you're tired of the feast or famine rollercoaster, this episode will show you exactly where to focus your energy to build a predictable client pipeline.

Follow the Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/serve-scale-soar/id1477998650

Follow Brandi on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brandimowles

Follow Brandi on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Brandiandcompany

Transcript

282: Why Your Client Attraction Strategy Isn't Working (You're Fixing the Wrong Thing)

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Brandi: [00:00:00] How many of you ever thought I just need to get better at sales call? Then I'll have more clients. But you've only had two discovery calls in the last 90 days. Y'all. This is not a sales call problem.

This is a leads problem, and here's what's wild. Most service providers are out here trying to fix the wrong thing at the wrong time, wondering why they're not landing clients and why nothing's working. Today, I'm showing you exactly how to diagnose what's broken in your client pipeline so you can stop spinning your wheels and start signing clients.

So let's jump on in to this week's episode. Hello my friends and welcome back to the Serve Scale SOAR podcast. My name is Brandy, and if this is your first time here. Hello. Hello, hello my friend. I am so glad you found my podcast. You picked a good one to start with because I'm all about landing clients.

That is like what I am known for is helping one-on-one service providers land really good. Champagne clients. So here's what we're gonna do [00:01:00] today. I'm gonna walk you through my exact framework I use when I'm consulting with service providers and we're trying to figure out why they're not hitting their revenue goals.

This is service providers, specifically ad managers, doing 3000. All the way up to one's doing 30, $40,000 month. So no matter where you're at, this can work for you because nine outta 10 times, when someone comes to me and says, Brandy, I need more clients. They're focused on the wrong part of their pipeline.

They're trying to improve their sales calls or even what happens after that, their proposals. But what they're not realizing is they don't even have enough people that they're getting on calls with to know what's broken, or they're creating more content when the real issue is that they're not converting the leads they already have.

By the end of this episode, you're gonna know exactly where your pipeline is broken. Not a guess, not a feeling, not emotions. You're going to have a [00:02:00] diagnostic framework to pinpoint the problem and know exactly where you should focus your energy when it comes to filling your pipeline and landing clients.

So grab a pen 'cause this one's gonna be good, my friends.

Okay. Every single strategist Society member in my one-on-one mentorship program, when they come in, we do a one-on-one call with me where we map out their 90 day plan. Every single one is different. No cookie cutter, because every single business is different. So we have to look at it with their numbers and mine.

So whenever they come in and we do their 90 day, we're mapping out. Where they need to go. And I always am looking at these three elements of their business, and these are actually the exact three elements I look at my consulting clients when I'm working one-on-one with clients who are paying me $10,000 a month. I'm also looking to see where their area is broken as well. So no matter what type of business you are working with, and if you are working with clients, you can also look at these in their business [00:03:00] and in your business.

So when I'm working with my one-on-one consultant clients, I talk about traffic, conversions, retention. When I'm working with my strategist, site members and service providers, I just switch out traffic for leads. So then when we're talking about your business, I say leads, conversions, retention.

So let me break down what each of those actually means.

Leads is your pipeline. It's your touch points. How many people are you actually talking to? How many conversations are happening? This is the front end of your business. This is where a lot of you, one, you don't track. Two, you're not consistent, and three, you're all over the place. This is usually where a lot of your business is actually broken conversion.

This is how you're closing. When someone gets on a discovery call with you, are you signing? If you're converting it less than 40% of your calls, you have a conversion problem. If you're converting at over 65% of your cause, your pricing is too [00:04:00] low, then we have retention. This is how long your clients stay with you.

Are they sticking with you six months a year, or are they bouncing after two or three months? That's an issue. So here's what most people do. They go in and fix mode and add mode without ever diagnosing which of these is actually the problem. They're like, I need to take another course on sales, or I need to create a new lead magnet, or I need to be on another platform.

But I'm not an ad mode person, y'all. I wanna fix the lowest hanging fruit that's gonna move the needle the highest.

I wanna be making small changes that have big impact. So let me ask you some real questions, and I need you to be honest with yourself because this is how you're going to really know and diagnose where you're at. How many discovery calls have you had in the last 90 days? If you don't know that number off the top of your head, that's a tracking problem.

That number should be one that you are looking at every single week. You should know how many discovery calls you've had in the last [00:05:00] 90 days unless you're just like balling out and you have so many that you can't remember that big a number. But I'm guessing for the majority of you, that's not the case, and we need to fix that first because you should be able to tell me how many discovery calls you've had in the last 30, 60, 90 days.

Here's the benchmarks. If you're at capacity and you're just maintaining a wait list, you should be having one sales call every month just to keep your pipeline warm. If you need two or more clients to hit your goals, you should be having two to four discovery calls minimum. Every single month, if not more.

And for those calls, you should be converting between 40 and 65%. If you're converting more than 65%, you need to raise your prices. If you're converting less than 40%, we need to work on your sales call process, and that could be either a qualifying issue. Or it could be you actually on the sales call. So right now, I want you to think about your business.

Are you getting enough [00:06:00] leads and are you converting them? And are they saying, where's the biggest hole leads? If you haven't had enough discovery calls in the last 90 days with those benchmarks, it's a leads problem. If you're not hitting that 40 to 65, it's a conversion problem. If they're not staying on average six months, you have

a retention problem. Which hole is your biggest right now? Okay, so now that you're thinking about where your hole might be, let me introduce you to the system I teach called the four C Client Attraction System. It's exactly what it sounds like. Four steps all starting with C. Y'all know I love a good alliteration, so connect.

Conversation, call close. This is our pipeline. Let me walk you through each one real quick so you can see how the pipeline actually flows. Connect. This is your touch points. This is a dm you send a LinkedIn message, a handshake at a networking event, a cold email. It's how you're connecting with business owners.

The [00:07:00] goal for the connection phase is simple. Get them to talk back. We want them to talk back to us, and in my upcoming training that I have on predictable clients, we're actually giving you a calculator that you can use and it tells you how many touch points, how many connections you need personally in your business to hit your goals.

It's fine to run off other people's touch points like we have a daily habits standard of excellence. We'll link up that episode as well. Where it's like touch points and I talk about you needed to define what that means for you. And so each of you, based on your goals are gonna be different. And we've created a custom calculator that's gonna help you establish that.

And it's gonna be in our workshop, predictable clients, which will also link above. So that connection is that. First touchpoint with a potential business. Now our goal is to get them to talk back. And when they do that, that starts a conversation. And that's the second C. This is where the magic happens.

This is where you take someone from a connect to actually having [00:08:00] a conversation and we're skipping the just chatting. This isn't about small talk. This is about what I call getting them in the green light zone. The green light zone is the mental and emotional space where they see the gap between where they are.

And where they want to be. They feel the pain of being stuck and they're actually committed to fixing it. When someone's in the green light zone, inviting them to a call feels natural, not salesy. And then from that conversation, we wanna turn that into a call. As service providers, yes, you can sell them in the d.

But until you really know your audience's pain point and you've mastered sales calls, don't try to sell them in the dm. Go to the calls. Once you feel confident with calls, and maybe you're on wait list, then start selling people in the dms because there's no loss. You know you're already full. You're trying to get people on the wait list.

That's a great time. To then use the selling skills that I teach and predictable clients to sell. Assign them in the dms. You don't [00:09:00] need a call for everyone, but if you haven't mastered your calls, then you need to get on calls. Your call is the discovery call, your strategy session, whatever you wanna call it, but where we're gonna find if you can actually help them and support them and move forward.

This is where you diagnose their problem and see if you can help. If you've done the conversation phase right, this call becomes so much easier because you've already uncovered their pain. You already know where their goals are and you've already tested their commitment, which means you'll get on less calls, but , your call conversion will be so much higher 'cause you're qualifying and that's what's most important.

And then the C is close. . This is where they become the client. When you've positioned yourself as an expert through the whole process, closing, feels natural and almost prescriptive. Not like selling, because we're showing them how we're gonna help them and solve their problems, and then they trust you, and that's a win.

When, and so that's where we send the [00:10:00] contract. We send the invoice, and they both get signed and paid. Now, here's what your pipeline actually looks like. In real life, a touchpoint leads to a conversation. A conversation leads to a call. A call leads to a proposal or a contract, and a contract leads to a client.

And here's the thing, y'all, you can't close what you don't have. If you only have four people getting on discovery calls in a quarter, it doesn't matter how good you are at your sales call, the math doesn't work. So before you try to optimize your sales call, you need to ask yourself, do I even have enough people in my pipeline to close and hit my revenue goals?

For most of you, that's probably a no.

All right, so let's get this specific. I'm gonna walk you through each of these Cs and tell you the signs that the stage is broken in your business if connection is broken. You're not making enough touchpoints. And here's what I see a lot of people doing. [00:11:00] They're posting and praying. They think if they post online, if they send one email, that they're gonna get people to start having conversations.

They're putting out content there, hoping someone reaches out. Maybe you started posting on threads. Maybe you're popping over on Upwork. You're doing all the things except for the thing you actually need to be doing, which is being consistent. Y'all. That is not a strategy, that's a hope and a prayer. So, or you're waiting for referrals.

And listen, referrals are great when they come. We have a whole episode on a referral engine that will link up, but you cannot control when someone decides to refer you. Referrals are the cherry on top, not the whole dang sundae. If your connections are broken and inconsistent, you probably don't know your daily connection number.

You don't know how many touch points you need to make each day to hit your revenue goals. It feels random because it is random. We just had someone in conversions for clients [00:12:00] post and say, Hey, I've sent out so many emails. And I'm like, great. We don't work in so many, that's not a number. How many emails have you sent out and not follow ups, but initial contacts?

50. Okay. So we have to have way more than 50. And I said, how many responses have you had? Three. That's stinking fantastic. You're actually above the industry norm for cold email. So what happened with those three? Then she told me and I said, okay, here's where the problem is. It's in the conversation. It's not that leads, you're actually doing really well with your connections.

What you're not doing, one is enough of 'em to get the numbers you want, but two, your funnel's broken in the conversation and so that's what we fix. We have to work in real numbers and we'll also link up an episode on the trust ladder. A lot of people, you are not connecting with enough people because you don't know where your.

Like where you're follow your [00:13:00] marketing method is falling on the trust ladder. Okay, so if the conversation is broken, here is some of the things that I see. People respond to your first message, but then they ghost the conversation, fizzles out, or they stay in the friend zone forever and act never actually become a lead.

Y'all are like small talking. You're either pitching too fast, like someone mentions one pain point and you mentally jump to, here's my calendar, I can help with that. And they disappear, or you're friend zoning them, you're becoming too nice and chatty that you never actually move the conversation towards business.

You're talking about kids their weekend, the weather, and eventually the conversation just dies. The goal of a conversation stage is to move someone from the friend zone to the green light zone, and there's a specific sequence of questions to do that which I teach inside my workshop, predictable clients.

We'll make sure to link that up, but I go through the sequence of questions to ask to move someone into the green light zone before [00:14:00] you ever offer to jump on a call. It's a very specific science that works, works, works. Okay. So we've talked about if your connections are broken. We talked about if your conversations are broken.

If the call is broken, you're getting people in discovery calls, but they're not signing your conversion rates below 40%. A few things could be happening here. Maybe you haven't quite qualified them before the call, so you're getting on calls with people who never were serious about

signing anyway. Maybe your pre-call process is weak, so they show up cold and skeptical instead of warmed up and ready to buy, or maybe your actual sales call framework needs work. Maybe you're not diagnosing deeply enough, maybe you're presenting your solution before they fill it. Fully understand what their pain is.

Maybe you're botching the pitch at the end, and it could be that after your application process, you didn't pre-qualify them with a post application [00:15:00] pre-qualification page. That's something we teach in Strategist Society, so there are lots of areas of the call that can be broken. This is exactly why in Strateg Society, we have our members submit their discovery call recordings, and I can usually tell.

After listening to that exactly where they're losing people, small tweaks make big differences. Okay? If your close is broken, people say, let me think about it. Then they disappear. They seem excited on a call, but then you send a proposal and it's cricket. The pricing conversation feels awkward, and then you find yourself dis discounting, justifying questioning yourself.

With a lot of service providers, the close is actually where if they're getting on enough calls, they're losing people. But honestly, the problem is that I see the most is the call isn't the problem in the first place is you're not doing enough calls to have the numbers in order to know. If your call is broken or not.

So before you go by a [00:16:00] sales training or read another book or rewrite your proposal, I want you to look at your numbers. How many discovery calls are you actually having? Because if the number is low, your problem is connect or conversation full stop. It's not the call, it's not the close. Now, if you've done several calls in the last 90 days, so at least six to eight and you're not closing at least 40%, then we probably have a call problem that we need to work on.

Okay? But a lot of you don't have enough data in order to know if your call's broken. If you don't have at least six to 10 calls in the last 90 days, you don't have enough data to know if your call's broken.

Okay, so we've talked about if you are what the four C's are, connect conversations, call and close, and then we talked about how to identify which step is broken for you. So, let me get real for a second with you. I was on a call recently with one of my [00:17:00] students from Strategist Society and we were diagnosing their business and one of them said their biggest struggle was call conversion.

She felt like people were getting on the calls but not signing. So I asked her, how many discovery calls have you had in the last 90 days? The answer four. Y'all. If you've had four discovery calls in three months, we are not talking about improving your sales call script. That is a leads problem. This is a touchpoint and conversations problem.

You could have the most perfect sales call in the world, but if only four people experience it a quarter, you're not gonna hit your goals. The math does not. So here's what I see happening so often is service providers go into ad mode. I need a course, I need another certification. I need to learn this one thing, and then I'll be ready.

But the, they're adding to the wrong parts of their business. If you don't have enough leads, nothing else matters. Fix that first. You have leads, but they're not converting to calls. Fix your conversation process. If you're getting on calls but not [00:18:00] closing them, then work on your sales call and your close.

There's a hierarchy here when you try to fix step four. When step one is broken, you spin your wheels. Nothing is gonna work. No matter how good you are at sales, not enough people are gonna experience it to know that you're actually really good at sales. One thing I always tell my strategist, society students and conversions for clients work the numbers, not emotions.

Get comfortable knowing your numbers. How many connections are you making? How many conversations are you having? How many calls are you having? What's your conversion rate? If you don't know those numbers, then you can't make business decisions. Start running your business like a big girl, and you'll get big girl numbers.

When you know your numbers, you can make decisions based on reality instead. Of feelings, and you should be tracking these and you should be looking at them daily. That's why in Predictable Clients Workshop, we're giving you the calculator to know your numbers. We're giving you the [00:19:00] spreadsheet so you can track these because if you don't know these numbers and your conversions, you're not running a.

You're like hoping and praying that this thing just works, and even if it's working now, it won't continue to work this way. You have to know your numbers. That's part of being a business owner and that's why I make it as easy as possible for our students and in predictable Clients workshops. To know these, I want you to have the easiest tracking process and know exactly what numbers to look at every single day, week and month.

Alright, so let me bring this home. Here's what I want you to do this week. Number one, know your numbers. How many discovery calls have you had in the last 90 days? How many connections are you making per week, per day? If you, how many conversations those? How many connections turn into conversations.

If you don't know, start tracking today. You can improve what you don't measure. Number two, diagnose your problem. Based on what we've talked about today. Where is your biggest hole? Is it leads, conversions, [00:20:00] retention. Be honest with yourself. And number three, focus on one stage. Don't try to fix all four C's at once.

That's how you overwhelm yourself and end up fixing nothing. Identify the broken link in your chain and put your energy there. If it's connect, focus on making intentional touch points every single day. If it's conversations, learn the diagnostic question sequences so you can move people into the green light zone.

If it's the call, work on your pre-call process and your discovery call framework. Fix the leak, then move to the next one. Alright, my friends, if you're sitting here thinking, okay, Brandy, I see my pipeline has holes, but I need help actually implementing the system.

I wanna invite you to my Predictable Clients Workshop. This is where I teach the four C client Attraction System. From start to finish, we go deep into the connect and conversation. You're gonna walk away knowing your exact numbers, your daily connection, target goals, and the diagnostic question sequence to move people from just chatting to ready to buy.

You'll know [00:21:00] exactly where your pipeline is broken, and we'll have a framework for you to fix it. No more guessing, no more throwing spaghetti at the wall. No more wondering why it worked one month, but it's not working the next. Just a clear, predictable system for attracting clients. Head to brandimowles.com/predictable. We'll link these up in the show notes or DM me the word predictable on Instagram @brandimowles and I'll send you all the details. Listen, you do not need to keep. Riding the feast or famine rollercoaster. You do not need to keep hoping and praying. A client will show up.

When you know your numbers, you have a system. Client attraction becomes predictable. It becomes math, and honestly, it feels like a game. Stop guessing, start diagnosing. And if you want help mapping out your entire client acquisition system, I'll see you inside the Predictable Client's workshop. So go out, do the dang thing,

and until next week, go serve your clients, scale your business, and soar into the success you deserve.