Every consulting firm wants to get more clients.
The multi-million dollar question is: “How?”
We could answer this with many abstract ideas and tactics.
But I realized there is an easier way.
To think about a single buyer.
A recent discovery call I had with a consulting firm founder inspired me for this.
He joined the call.
And the first thing he said was:
“Ozan, I don’t know how I found out about Frontera, but I love your content!”
After thanking him, I told him how he found us from our CRM, which was open on my second screen:
“Well, you actually clicked a link on an ad five months ago and subscribed to our newsletter. Then you opened 14 emails, downloaded one resource, and shared two newsletter editions. You also connected with me on LinkedIn. And finally, you filled out our contact form after reading the latest email, and here we are.”
So a chain of interactions happened for us to end up in that call.
And all the abstract words we use like ‘client acquisition’ or ‘go-to-market’ come down to designing that chain of interactions for a single buyer.
So to answer the “how to get more clients” question, let’s think about what should happen for a single buyer to buy your firm’s services.
We’ll call that buyer Joe.
Joe has never heard of your firm.
And he doesn’t even have a friend who can refer you.
How can you turn Joe from a total stranger to a client?
If we do that right, the rest is easy.
Because getting more clients means getting more Joes to buy from you.
But there are some criteria for the chain of interactions to happen:
1. The first touch
First, Joe has to hear about your firm.
Somewhere, somehow.
This can happen in old-school business development methods like going to conferences.
But you already know that part, so let’s focus on the digital side.
Joe can:
- See a piece of content from you on a social media channel
- See an ad from your firm
- Find your firm’s articles/website on a search engine or an AI tool
- Get an email or message from somebody in your firm
- Get a newsletter forwarded by his friend
One of these lucky events has to happen.
So Joe can find out about your firm.
If not, there is no way for Joe to find you.
This is the step that enables the rest.
What it means for your firm:
- Define who your firm’s Joe is first. Choose a clear ideal client profile with a certain size.
- Increase the possibility of “first touch” events that can introduce your firm to Joe. Use content, advertise, and combine pull and push marketing.
- Use the sales intelligence platform of your choice and filter 500-1000 companies that Joe might be working at. Get the list of emails that might belong to Joe. Feed that list into your advertising platforms to make the first touch with Joe more likely.
2. Relevance
Joe might hear about your firm.
But that’s not enough.
Joe also has to find whatever he sees relevant to him.
And this relevance has to be obvious.
Joe has to see clear signs that it’s specifically for him.
Because if it’s not immediately clear, Joe hesitates.
He might not see a reason to read one more article, click one more page, and eventually contact your firm.
Relevance keeps Joe around after the first touch.
What it means for your firm:
- Audit your website, social profiles, content, and ads to see if everything is explained from Joe’s perspective, using his language. His problems, his goals, and his context.
- Use the power of specificity. If Michaels, Marys, or Janes visit your firm’s website, they should feel like it wasn’t built for them.
- Test your messaging against the leads you are getting. Do they match the Joe you designed for? If you keep getting bad-fit leads from segments you didn’t target, something is off with your messaging.
3. Importance
Joe might hear about your firm and find everything relevant.
But for him to even consider hiring your firm, the subject matter has to be important to him.
He needs to feel a high emotional necessity to do something about it.
If his CEO isn’t asking about it, or if it’s not presenting him with an opportunity for his career, it stays at the bottom of his to-do list.
Yes, Joe might still consume your content.
He might even agree with it.
But he wouldn’t consider buying.
What it means for your firm:
- Position your core service around a problem with high emotional intensity. Sell solutions to what Joe is feeling and wants to fix first. Don’t try selling sleep supplements while Joe is ‘starving.’
- Make that problem feel urgent using your content. Keep it top of mind. Help Joe see the cost of inaction.
4. Trust
Joe might hear about your firm and find everything both relevant and important.
Great.
But Joe also has to trust you.
Because if he decides to hire your firm, he will put his career on the line.
He’ll try to convince other decision makers and key people in the company.
He’ll commit his budget.
So he has a lot to lose.
And he’s already been burned by other firms before.
That’s why Joe has a trust-meter in his mind.
He judges your firm based on every signal.
Positive interactions with your firm (e.g., reading a perspective-changing article, getting a genuinely useful resource, topic consistency and depth, etc.) increase his trust.
Negative interactions decrease it.
What it means for your firm:
- Do thought leadership to influence Joe and build trust. Become an authority in your field through specialization.
- If you already do thought leadership, audit it honestly. Would Joe learn something he couldn’t find elsewhere? Does the content do justice to your firm’s expertise?
- Avoid shortcuts that create a negative perception and erode Joe’s trust. Never insult Joe’s intelligence with annoying cold emails, AI-written posts, or generic articles with basic ideas.
5. Clear next steps
Joe is busy.
He sees thousands of emails and pieces of content every day.
He doesn’t have time to decipher complicated stuff.
So he needs clear steps to proceed in the chain of interactions.
Visited your website for the first time?
Clear explanation of what your firm does, for whom, and how Joe can stay in touch.
Read an article fully?
A clear invitation to download a relevant resource.
Already followed your firm for months and ready to buy?
Clear offers he can choose from and clear explanations of what he’ll get.
The moment he sees something that requires too much mental work, you risk losing Joe.
Joe doesn’t want to go through a list of 20 capabilities and 15 industries to understand what exactly your firm does.
Joe needs clarity. And he needs it quick.
What it means for your firm:
- Structure your capabilities under clear offers based on Joe’s journey. Don’t let him figure out how to work with you. Focus your marketing on the core offer that generates the most profit and the entry offer that leads to it.
- Fix the leaks in your funnel. Have one clear next step at every point in the chain. Fix weak copy, missing CTAs, or too many different CTAs.
Once you have all these criteria met, the rest is tracking.
Have a system to track Joe’s chain of interactions with your firm and its profitability.
Optimize the performance on an ongoing basis.
That’s it.
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The moral of the story?
That founder on my discovery call had no idea how he found us.
It felt random to him.
But none of it was random.
He went through a chain of interactions, designed specifically for him.
“Getting more clients” is all about designing that chain of interactions.
So instead of abstract terms like ‘go-to-market,’ think about a single buyer.
Makes it easier to do marketing right.
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