Relationships And Referrals

Promoting isn't connecting.  That's not a complicated notion. 

But then I don't have the usual clients... my clients are mavericks. They don't want to create a business like everyone else is doing, always promoting themselves, shouting from the rooftops that they are open for business and hoping the business will come. Setting traps and clever tag lines that ultimately look like everyone else's tag lines. 

People try too hard.

I spoke with 3 clients this week with similar issues... one who has friends who are building their business on bigger and louder is better principles and & she was scared to put the word out. The second kept avoiding marketing at all because she just didn't know what to say and the third was over-marketing, creating new content every single day to little or no impact on her bottom line. 

These sound like separate issues but here's where the commonality is: they all have clients and NONE of them have come from the traditional methods. 

Their business was already growing based on relationships and referrals.
NOT marketing. 

So we released the expectations to keep up with the first client's friends... she's going to build her already successful practice in the same way that has been working and let go of the things she 'should' be doing because so-and-so is doing it successfully. She now is free to connect with people like she's already been doing but without the pressure to do more - because there's a right way, a wrong way and the way that works for her. Guess which is the fastest path to massive success?

And for the second client, the second she let go of the need to market (which she was spending energy trying to avoid by the way), she got 3 referrals in 2 days for the very program she most wanted to promote. Talk about fast action from the Universe! Let go of what isn't serving you and there's suddenly more room for what you want.

And the third client? Her entire world has been opened up. Instead of spending most of her days creating new content just to keep up with her crazy self-imposed schedule, she now has the opportunity to truly connect with people and build up her client base one conversation at a time. Snapshot showed that she has created over 70 podcasts and hundreds of blog posts. She'll be repurposing those in stead of making more and the coolest thing is that now she has material to send her clients that will directly help them achieve their dreams and deepen their relationship with her because she's got added value to share.

Relationships and referrals are a beautiful way to build your business. It doesn't involve posting on your fan page every day. It doesn't involve building up massive lists or starting a radio show. 

It means to connect with other in a real way. It means to serve them so deeply and so well that they are excited to refer others to you. It's natural and it feels good.  This is the core of the most successful marketing you will ever do... go out. Serve people. Be there for them. The money will follow...