How To Go From Referral Only To Fully Booked In Your Business
Taking your spiritual business to the next level requires evolving and elevating different areas of your business – including the way you attract dream clients on repeat.
I often have clients who – when they first come to work with me inside the Spiritual Business Mistressmind – have built their business entirely on referrals.
Now of course this is amazing BUT when you want to expand and scale your business to that next level you need to move beyond referrals in order to get fully booked.
If you’re in this position and you’re ready for your next level, fully-booked spiritual business – today’s episode of the Feminine Fire podcast is for you!
I share why relying on referrals for your business isn’t a sustainable long term strategy and where to focus your energy to go from referral only to fully booked with dream clients.
Now first things first…
It is worth noting from the outset that if you’ve built your business on referrals only to this point, that is amazing! It shows that you are damn good at what you do when your peers trust you enough to refer their people to you and your past clients are so happy that they’re shouting your name from the rooftops.
We want to continue to nurture those relationships and encourage people to continue those referrals. Referrals are bloody fabulous and we want to keep them coming. So this is not an episode that is demonising referrals in any way. Referrals are great. More, please and thank you, universe!
The issue arises when you are relying on referrals for your business.
If this is you, you may have already realised that referrals are not particularly reliable or consistent. They are, for the most part, outside of your control and, if and when they dry up, you’re not left with many options.
It’s not a sustainable long term business strategy, and that’s because when referrals are the only way you’re bringing in new clients, you are being REACTIVE rather than PROACTIVE. You are literally giving your power away to something you have very little control over.
So while referrals are great and we want to keep them coming, we don’t want you to be relying on them for your business. As far as business strategies go – it’s unreliable and inconsistent. Not ideal.
What you need instead is to create a PROACTIVE sales and marketing strategy. So the referrals can keep coming BUT you are ALSO generating your own leads and bringing in clients through your own marketing channels.
So what do you need to create a really solid sales and marketing strategy?
There are 4 key things you need to be focusing on when it comes to your own marketing and sales if you want to fully book your business and stop relying on referrals.
1: Create Awareness
We already know you’ve got an epic offer that delivers incredible results – otherwise, you wouldn’t be getting those referrals. The issue is that not many people know about you and your work.
Right now, the only way people can find out about you is if they come through a referral. So first and foremost, we want to focus on creating awareness.
In other words, we want to get the word out. We want to get you, your message, your offers out in front of as many of your ideal clients as possible and create awareness amongst the people who can benefit from your offer the most.
So the first question to ask yourself here is – where are your ideal soulmate clients hanging out?
Once you know the answer to that question, then we can bring you and your message TO them, rather than waiting, wishing and hoping for them to find you. When you know where your ideal clients are, you can start showing up in those spaces, providing value and creating awareness about who you are, what you do and how you can help them.
2: Build Your Audience
Once you know where your ideal clients are, and you’re getting out in front of them and creating awareness – we want to give them somewhere to go.
So you need to decide, firstly, where you are building your audience. What marketing channels are you focusing on?
I’d base this on the channels you personally are most familiar with AND the channels that your ideal clients are using. For example, if you know your ideal clients are more likely to be on Facebook rather than Instagram. I’d recommend choosing Facebook over Instagram.
And please know that you don’t have to be everywhere, on every single channel, every single minute of every single day. I recommend choosing 1 or 2 social media channels as well as building your email list.
One of the biggest mistakes I see business owners make when they’re first starting to build out their marketing strategy is going wide rather than deep. They spread themselves too thin across multiple channels, trying to be everywhere all at once, rather than focusing on less channels but doing them really well.
Once you’ve nailed your strategy for those first channels, you can then start adding layers on from there if it makes sense for you to do so. Ultimately this is going to serve you better than trying to be everywhere all at once.
Don’t get distracted by the shiny shit or what everyone else is doing, pick your channels and focus on building an engaged audience filled with your ideal soulmate clients.
3: Nurture Your Community
This is about building relationships, creating trust and sharing epic value that brings the people in your audience closer to you and your offers.
You do this primarily through your content. But not just any old content – content that speaks directly to the heart of your ideal clients, to their needs and desires, and why you are the person to help solve their problem.
Now as someone who is already working with clients, you have an advantage here. Use your experience with current clients as inspiration. It doesn’t matter that they came through referrals, the fact that you’re already working with clients is one of your biggest assets when it comes to your marketing and your content.
You already know what it is your ideal clients are struggling with – because you help them with it everyday. You have the evidence that you’re incredible at what you do and that your offer is something your ideal clients want and need in their life.
Use that information to create content that speaks to their biggest challenges, their wildest desires and positions you as the person to help them. Showcase your process and expertise, your thought leadership. Share content that demonstrates how you help your clients create what it is they most desire.
This is how you nurture your community – by creating engaging, value-laden content.
4: Implement A Soulful Sales Strategy
If you want to get fully booked, without relying on referrals, you can’t shy away from sales. Sorry, not sorry.
If you’ve always relied on referrals for your business, you might not have had to think much about the selling side of things to this point. When people come through a referral, they’re often halfway, if not 100%, there already.
So implementing a sales strategy might feel like a foreign and daunting concept, especially when sales don’t have the best reputation in our society. And I get it, the collective fear of being seen as “sales-y” is very real.
But the fact is, you’re in business and if you want to move away from relying on referrals, you gotta get confident with sales – which is why I teach a soulful approach to sales. One where it doesn’t feel icky or sleazy, but instead is a soulful, mutually beneficial experience where everyone wins. Your clients get the help and support they want and need, and you make a sale and get to serve and support them and live out your mission and vision. There is literally nothing sleazy about that!
Implementing a soulful sales strategy is your next step. You’ve created the awareness, you’ve built your audience, you’ve been nurturing your community through your content – it’s all been building up to this point, making the sale.
So what is the action you’re inviting people to take with you?
Are you inviting them straight into purchasing your offer?
Are you inviting them onto a sales call?
What is the strategy by which you take a person from being interested to a paying client?
Once you’ve decided on the strategy, double down on it, go all in and make sure that it’s super clear. Don’t hide the buy now button all the way down the bottom of your sales page. Don’t make people jump through 70 hoops before they can take the next step with you. Make it easy, make it clear.
And make it often. You can’t just talk about your offer once and expect it to rain clients. A solid sales strategy is one that’s not only easy and clear, but also consistent. You need to be selling consistently. Following up leads consistently. Inviting people to work with you, consistently. Consistency is key if you want to make consistent sales.
These are the 4 foundations of a solid sales and marketing strategy that will see you go from referral only to fully booked in your business with dream clients that you love
This is how you create a PROACTIVE long term sustainable strategy that you have control over, rather than relying solely on unpredictable, unreliable referrals.
As I said at the beginning, there’s nothing wrong with referrals in and of themselves – we want to keep them coming – BUT relying on them is not ideal or sustainable.
If you’re ready to build these foundations and get fully booked in your business – I would love to support you to make it happen.
The next round of the Spiritual Business Mistressmind kicks off in October – this is my 6 month mastermind experience for spiritual women ready to scale their businesses.
Inside this container, I share with you the strategies, tools, resources and practices, everything you need, to build an abundant, sustainable and fully booked business that you love. It’s a combination of strategy, mindset, energetics and spirituality.
You get 1:1 coaching with me as well as the sisterhood support of being in a mastermind with other incredible spiritual business owners.
And the women who are already joining this next round are just so magic. I can’t wait for you to meet them.
To find out more, head to www.beccuzzillo.com/mistressmind
