How To Generate Leads Today

You’re building your personal brand, building your business. Now you just need someone to pay you for it. So how do you find clients?  

This is something I get asked all the time on social media, by friends, and by our own clients of Brand Builders Group. And here's the thing: There’s no secret to this, but that doesn't mean it's easy or it's simple. It takes work, it takes strategy.  

I'm going to give you just a couple of quick tips of how you can find clients really quickly.  

1) Referrals  

Having your own network is so important. It is amazing how often we go through life forgetting to tell the people who love us and like us and respect us the most about what we do. 

It's absurd. It happens to me all the time. You launch this new business, you launch a new product or a new service, and you completely forget to tell the people who want to help you, who want to support you, about what you do. So please start there.  

That doesn't mean they need to buy from you. Who can they refer you to? Who can they promote you to? Who can have you on their podcast, who can actually refer you to an individual with a phone number and an email, so that you can get business? 

I know that seems so simple, but it is. That doesn't mean it's easy.  

You've got to come up with some language. Are you going to call them? Are you going to email them? Are you going to send them a LinkedIn message? In fact, you should do all of them. Do all three.  

Do whatever's most comfortable: text, email, make a call, send a LinkedIn message. Do all of them, cover all your bases, just in case you miss somebody.  

The first place to start is just ask for referrals. Once you've got the marketing material ready, or your website or a one-pager or whatever you’ll be using, you’ve got send it out to people. 

It is amazing how once you get one client and you get referrals from them, and one turns to three, three turns to seven, seven to 10, and all of a sudden you've got this thriving business, just because you started asking for referrals from the people who want to help you in the first place.  

So, start with referrals - direct referrals from past clients, colleagues, businesses, friends, family.  

2) LinkedIn 

The second part is a little bit more strategy involved. I use LinkedIn to find clients like it’s my job, because, it kind of is.  

If you are a personal brand, a solopreneur or an entrepreneur, in a way finding clients is your job. And LinkedIn is one of the most amazing tools to find the people that you're looking for and get connected. 

I do it in two really proactive ways.  

I'm searching my second connections, which are the people who are connected to my first connections. Then I'm also filtering through all of my first connections. I'm going through all of this after I've decided: who is my ideal client? 

For example, if it's me and my business right now, I'm looking for: speakers, authors, consultants, coaches, executives, and entrepreneurs.  

It's also people who have recently launched a podcast, written a book, just put out a new website, launched a new product, launched a new service, or they're trying to.  

Those are the people I’m looking for. 

Now I know my demographics, and I know the psychographics. Then I do a little research and search for who fits this type of profile.  

Who's engaging with my posts? Who's connected to me, who has sent me messages, who has worked for the types of companies that I want to be working with? Who is a part of the groups who are certified?  

Now I have a list of this criteria so I can run a very simple checklist. Coming up with it is the hard part, but then you just run that checklist. 

I get, and have always gotten, a massive number of clients from just being very strategic on LinkedIn. So many times in the personal branding world, no one talks about LinkedIn. But it is a sales recruiting machine for anyone who is trying to self-generate business, cold call and get referrals, or just plain do the deal.  

You’ve got all the information you need; you know what your ideal referral partner looks like, you've got their contact information, what people say about them, what they say about people who they've worked with and for how long, etc. You’ve got the information, now use it to your advantage. 

3) Speak for Free 

Thirdly, we’ll discuss how to get clients. This has been one of our key lead generators for a decade, and I’m sharing it now: speak for free. 

We have found that for us and a variety of businesses, we have been consultants, we've been coaches, we've been trainers, we have been speakers. We are entrepreneurs and have always been.  

But for us, we fundamentally believe there is no better way for someone to get to know you and what you do other than spending an hour listening to you, talking about what you believe in, what you do, and how you do it.  

Maybe that's only 45 minutes or 30 minutes, but you get the point, right? People get to know your personality, the culture of your company, and the value you bring. They get to know all these things when you speak for free. 

My tips are: Offer to do webinars, host your own webinars, go live on social media, reach out to your local associations, reach out to the chamber of commerce. Reach out to the business journal, reach out to whatever associations are trying to find speakers, because they all are. 

Many of them don't have budgets anyway, so if you're willing to do it for free, it's a win for everybody. It's amazing how many people in the audience will come up to you and say, “Hey, I'd love to connect with you.” Or “I'd love to learn more about what you do.” 

Now you're learning about their connections and who they can connect you with. It is this amazing circular process. While you may not be paid to speak right now, you’re getting yourself out there to get paid to speak eventually.  

Offer your services for free to get business. There is no better way, in the 10 years that we've been doing this, to generate business quickly and efficiently than to go out and speak for free. Speak to associations and corporations, go live on social media, do a webinar, do it in person, whatever you can do, but speak for free. 

Remember: to be a speaker you don't have to be a professional. If you have something to talk about, you are a speaker.  

Your friends, family, clients, past clients, colleagues, and past client’s colleagues, are a part of organizations that bring in speakers. They're a part of associations. They're a part of different clubs, networks, all the things.  

LinkedIn is another great way to figure out those arenas as well. LinkedIn could be a huge source of generating customers and generating leads in general.  

Don't forget to ask for the good old-fashioned referral and get your butt out there and start speaking for free and generate some business for yourself. 

What are you doing to get leads? Let me know in the comments!