Where My Clients Come From
“All things being equal, people will do business with — and refer business to — those people they know, like and trust.”
~ Bob Burg
I want to share with you where my coaching clients come from in the hope that it gives you some insight on where to focus your attention to get more clients into your business.
It goes without saying that the number one question I get asked by my clients is how can I get more clients? Much of what I teach and the strategies I share are designed precisely to help conscious business to answer just that.
Lately, as I’ve been pondering this age old question, I’ve been thinking a lot about my business and the steady flow of new clients I enjoy and asking myself where do my clients come from? When I consider the various ways in which people come to me, I’m able to see the fruits of my earlier business building efforts.
My hope is that in sharing these details with you, you’ll get a sense of the work you need to do now, so that you too can have a steady source of new clients coming into your business, down the road.
How I know where my clients come from
It’s important to note that I’m able to make this analysis because I ask anyone who enquires about my coaching services how they found me. If you don’t currently do this, I highly recommend you find a way to do that. I ask the question in my 1:1 coaching application form but you could just as easily ask it in your client intake form.
My referral source categories
Before we dive into the numbers I want to share with you some details about the categories of my referral sources. My recording of this data goes back to late 2021 when I switched from using gift sessions to an application form as the CTA on my coaching sales page. My analysis covers 74 applications where a referral source was indicated. These roughly break down into the following categories.
Social media — this is pretty self-explanatory. For the record I’m on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter although I’m most active on Facebook.
Google — this is where someone either googled a term like “Conscious Business Coach” and found my website or searched a topic like “Discovery calls alternative” and found one of my blog posts.
Client referral — this is where a current or former client has directly recommended me to someone.
Word of mouth — this is where someone has shared a piece of my content or talked about me in a group or shared a post about me — often I don’t know who this was or had no sight of the recommendation because I’m not in that group or I don’t know the person in question.
Colleague referral — this is where one of my colleagues has personally recommended me to someone.
Hubs — these are places that I share my teaching, knowledge or content where my ideal clients already hang out (like Tad Hargrave’s Marketing for Hippies Membership or The Focalizing Institute). There is some crossover between hubs and colleagues because for example a colleague like Tad Hargrave might personally recommend me to someone (which I count as a colleague referral) and then other people might discover me from the classes I’ve taught inside his membership program (which I would count as a hub). In essence both leads have come via Tad but for slightly different reasons, which I felt it was important to parse out.
Personal connection — This is when someone I know personally decided to hire me.
Before we dive into the numbers, I’d love you to consider which of these you think sends me the most leads and which send me the fewest. I’ll admit, I was surprised by the results the first time I did this analysis.
See below for an pie chart overview of the breakdown.
What the numbers tell me
So to present the information another way, let me list out my referral sources from top to bottom:
Colleagues send me 32.8% of all my coaching client applications.
Hubs account for 17.2% of my 1:1 applications.
Client referrals and word of mouth both account for 15.6% percent of referrals each. 31.2% in total.
Google searches accounts for 14.1% of applications.
Social Media accounts for 3.1%
And personal connections account for 1.6% (this was actually only 1 person overall).
What these numbers tell me.
People matter more than content
If I add up colleagues, client and other word of mouth referrals, this accounts for 64% of the applications I’ve had in over the few years. That means that the majority of people who decided to apply to work with me, did so because someone they trusted recommended me.
Given how much time I spend on content, that surprised me. I also wouldn’t have guessed that the majority of my client applications actually come from colleagues, some of whom do very similar work but no longer do 1:1 the way I do.
I don’t employ any particular strategies to bring this about but there are some things I do and have done, which might explain this number.
One thing that I’ve always done is to share generously about my colleague’s offers, even when they might compete with my own offerings. I do this because I want people to get access to the right resources for them, even if that means they spend their money elsewhere. I also only share products and services I truly believe in and many of my colleagues are doing amazing things in the world.
I also don’t subscribe to a scarcity mindset, I truly believe that there is enough clients for everyone and that my right-fit people will choose me because what I offer is the best fit for their needs, not because I was the only coach they knew about!
Something else I try to do is thank those colleagues and clients personally when they send people my way. If it’s a colleague who sends people regularly, I might send the occasional note to let them know that the person they recommended me to did in fact start working with me and that things are going great. If it’s a former client, I’ll reach out to say thanks and maybe even offer them a gift session as a way to say thank you and to be of support to them.
Another thing that I have done for as long as I can remember is create relationships through outreach and just simply being out in the world building and nurturing relationships. Several of the colleagues who send people my way, came as a result of a connection we made online or inside a program we were in together.
The big takeaway here is that I have invested heavily in BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS, not to gain anything, more often to be of service to others.
Content does matter
Even though personal recommendations are by far the most important source of clients for me, content does still matter, with Google searches, social media and teaching in hubs accounting for 34% of the applications that come in, my content still plays a huge part.
If we take google searches, I can tell you that around 3 or 4 articles are bringing in the majority of google leads. One in particular, has me ranking on the 1st page for the search term “discovery call alternative”, which is a piece I wrote about gift sessions way back when I had no idea about SEO or the fact that many, many coaches are looking for a more ethical approach to sales calls.
I also invested in an SEO program last year to make the most of all the content I have written but haven’t yet had the time to implement much of what I learned, so the success I’m having on Google is not coming from lots of SEO work but just my general commitment to creating content that serves my target audience and answers their most pressing questions.
Teaching in hubs has definitely been a great way for me to find new clients and a way that I really enjoy. Not only do I get to present my “content” to someone else’s audience, but they get also get to experience me in real time, which I’m sure has an impact.
Social media is having the least impact. Who knew!?! Well I did. I’ve known for sometime that people rarely say that they found me on social but I must admit, I do still find it a bit surprising that so FEW people do. Whilst I will continue to be active on social media, it does give me some comfort that my livelihood is not at the mercy of the algorithm and means that I can prioritise more enjoyable marketing activities than posting on social!
I should also note here that several people who gave a name of someone they heard about me from, also stated that they then joined my list and read my content for some time before reaching out to work with me.
So even though those personal referrals are so important, I’m confident that my content does a great job of helping people to get to know me better. I also believe that my content is one of the ways I’ve built trust with colleagues, who see what content I’m creating and come to understand my point of view and therefore feel better able to refer me.
The key takeaway here is to CREATE CONTENT THAT SERVES. Stop trying to create content that sells and instead create content that expresses your point of view and really answers the questions your potential clients are already googling.
Another takeaway here is the importance of DEMONSTRATING EXPERTISE. I think my content does a good job of this but when I teach in someone else’s group program or mastermind, I inevitably get more subscribers, sales and client applications.
I think this is because I’m giving people a really good insight into how I work, what I stand for and the approach I take when it comes to business growth. Lots of people also give me the feedback that they like my down to earth nature, which I love hearing too!
A note on personal connections
You might be wondering why so few clients are coming from personal connections — well that’s because I live in a small town in Catalunya, Spain, where I barely speak the language and where a large proportion of the population are over 70.
That’s why all of my relationship building activities are happening online but if you live in a place where your ideal clients also live, don’t forget that building relationships via hubs and colleagues could work really well in your locality.
I’m curious to know what you make of these figures. Is there anything in here that surprises you? Is there anything you might do differently in your business as a result of reading about where my clients come from? Or do you have any questions for me? If you said yes to any of these questions, please let me know in the comments.
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