Is it possible to get clients without using social media? In this  episode, Lauren talks about the three strategies that led to her best month in business and how you can implement them, too.

Connect me on LinkedIn: Lauren Loreto & follow with me on Instagram: @shesbusyaf @brandgoodtime

 

Hey guys, this is Lauren Loreto, founder Brand Good Time and host of the She’s Busy AF podcast. It’s been a minute since I’ve done a solo episode. So I’m super excited to get into this one with you today. If you’ve been posting relentlessly to social media, wondering when your next client will reach out, listen up and grab a dang notebook. It’s that kind of episode.

My best month in business is a 100% increase of all the previous months I had prior, which is mind blowing to me, but so awesome. For very large reasons, a little disclaimer, I am not going to share dollar amounts with you on this episode, other than maybe like one or two necessary places, because comparison is a thief of joy, and I want you to focus on the growth that you want to achieve, the dollar amount that you are excited about.

So, getting into this my best month in business is going to be the month I’m recording this podcast, which is April 2022. I’m extremely proud of this because I’ve managed to scale whilst keeping the same amount of hours worked in a week and with very similar overhead. So I’m not really having to outsource on top of this. Like if anything, the things I outsource have shifted – dollar amounts have like swapped, but I haven’t had to increase that amount. I’m going to share three of those reasons I’m able to pull it off this month!

 

Consistently Produce Long Form Content

So let’s go, okay. The first reason I spent one full year consistently producing content off of social media. If I’m being truthful, I spent longer than that – building an SEO presence on my website, which we’re gonna get into. But the gist of this is that I spent one year intentionally building my business off of social media. I honestly didn’t talk about it much. The first way I did that was with long form content.

A huge part of my marketing strategy is weekly podcast, weekly email promoting the podcast, and a weekly blog that is a transcription of the podcast. And towards the end of last year, before I had a baby and got derailed in the way that I look – it’s like total sidebar tangent, oh my gosh, I look in the mirror and I’m like, I look tired. So setting up a camera to do a YouTube video, which was a huge part of my strategy next year. Like I’m sitting on the floor in my bedroom, there’s nothing cute about the fact the bed behind me is disheveled. No one wants to see that in a YouTube video. Truthfully, my daughter’s bedroom was my YouTube recording studio. Like now it’s a nursery.

So anyways, getting back to this, I have put through weekly efforts for the last year, and these have been long form content with that. They are SEO optimized long form content – all right, SEO school real quick. What does SEO mean? SEO means search engine optimized. So that means I do a little bit of research before I title anything, before I post anything long form to make sure that it’s something that is searchable. What this does is it puts your content in front of problem, aware people.

Problem aware people are easier to convert into solution aware, meaning they know that you are the person who can help them, as opposed to people who are just in the awareness stage or in the discovery stage of the marketing funnel. They’re further down the marketing funnel is what I’m trying to say when you are SEO optimizing content. So I wanted to place a huge emphasis on that for my business. And honestly, this is something I do with a lot of my clients, because I knew it would pay off. So if we want to talk about data – if I just confused the crap out of you – by SEO optimizing my content on my website alone, I’ve had a 44% increase in web traffic year over year attributed to SEO related content. And my income has increased 43% year over year already, which is like insane. So I’m talking about projections, on the income side of things year over year. So there you have it. So SEO optimizing my content, really having a good form content strategy in place has paid off for my business tenfold.

The last part of spending that full year consistently producing content has to do with my nurture sequence for my emails. So one of my lead magnets is highly converting into brand strategy sessions and 90 day strategy sessions because I’ve done such a good job with educating people in that sequence. I’ve gotten a ton of downloads through my podcast. So I’ve captured a ton of emails through my podcast, downloading my freebie, and then opening up conversations for converting them into my clients. So I really have a layered marketing strategy.

I also know what you might be thinking – you might be thinking, oh, this is unattainable for me, I don’t have time. It took me a very long time to get to a place where I was creating content consistently like this. But what I will say is, it is hundred percent worth sitting down and doing it sooner rather than later, and sticking to a plan consistently sooner rather than later, because it will pay off tenfold so much faster.

 

Lean Into Referral and Affiliate Partnerships

So the second thing I did was I leaned into referral and affiliate partnerships hard. Optimizing my website to include like any and all affiliate links for software I’m associated with. My highest income month this year includes over a thousand dollars from affiliate dollars. That’s insane. So I can’t say that it’s all from that, but I would say it’s mostly from just random people using the links that are on my blog.

So on my blog sidebar, I have like all my favorite freebies and people have actually signed up that way. Some of my YouTube videos, I have the same. Then with some of my clients, I refer them to specific platforms, when we’re doing a strategy together – I don’t do it intentionally. I do it because if they go with the platform that I’m recommending, I’m able to kind of help them get set up. It has done wonders for my business, it’s done wonders for other clients’ businesses.

So I’m always one to, for software. So it’s been like a little bit of through my website and a little bit of through clients referring to clients, but these affiliate partnerships have done so much for me. On the other side of it, I’ve partnered with software, for referrals, for services. So the example I have for that is show it. So I became a Showit design partner, is what they’re called. I did this prior to actually deciding that I didn’t want to build websites anymore until I got approved, and my inbox started blowing up with leads.

So what this does for me is allows me to charge the price I want to charge, because I know what I’m worth because I really love doing these websites. I put a lot of thought and detail and attention into them. I only take on a few per year, so I’m able to pretty much hand select who I want to work with because I get referrals from that website. That has been huge for my business, like probably 30% of my income, and that’s just because I went through a course and got approved with that certain provider.

So I would say if you are inclined to use a certain software to execute a service for your clients, see if they have a certification program or a way to become a partner with them, because that does incredible things besides just backlinking to your site. You can, you know, open a lot of doors to opportunity there. So one them that I’m affiliated with is HoneyBook. Because I’m an educator with them, I have opportunities to write articles for them be featured on their website. It’s amazing.

 

Revamp Your Service Suite

So the third thing I did was revamp my service suite to be in full alignment with my capacity as not only a business owner, but as new mom and an operator of a second business. 20 to 25 hour work weeks are still a thing for me. This is probably the biggest thing I did. What it did was put me back in my zone of genius. What I did with my service suite revamp was increase my prices a hundred percent. I’m confident in that. I feel good with that, the values there. I have proven and provided results for my clients – but for my business, with the services I offer, which total sidebar, but this is a reminder that you’re your own biggest case study as a service provider.

If someone’s asking what results have you gotten, and it’s a totally new service you’re offering, use yourself, pull out the numbers. Data is everything. People want to know that you’re able to do things – that’s one way to do it. What this did when I revamped my service suite, and started talking about it, is it brought clients out of the woodworks who had worked with me years prior and needed to revisit those wheels that I’d put in motion for them. I literally had a client the other day tell me that her best year in business was the year that I was involved the most. She was really glad that I stepped back from coaching and mentoring, and went back to focusing on strategy and implementation, which is what I thought I wanted to get away from, but really, truly loved and enjoyed.

That was just like the best thing ever to hear. What this did too, by revamping my service suite was equate it to almost an 89% conversion rate from one piece of my value ladder to the next. With every client I ran my new service with, and I started this in January, Those the services I had started in January had a very different price tag than what they are as of the last month and a half.

Since launching the new service, and at the new price tag, I’ve had clients say to me, after completing that particular service, you know, how can we continue to work together? I want back up and say something real quick – a good service suite should push your ideal client onto the next thing. It’s not to say, or to create a space where they need you forever, but it’s a way to have an entry level point to help someone achieve results, but then want to have you help them continue, not a need to have. This is a want to have, if they past the vibe check, right – if a service provider in my eyes passes the vibe check, and does good work for me and helps me grow my business, of course I want to keep working with them. But if they haven’t helped me grow my business, and they’re just maybe either maintaining or just doing like, you know – an example of this is podcast management.

If someone’s just managing my podcast, but not helping me grow it, they’re the first place I’m gonna trim the fat. Because I’m gonna find someone else, you know, whether it’s in house, within my own business or I’m gonna do it myself, to help me do those things. Because the focus I really want to place is on growth anyways, that was such a side tangent. But the best thing a client can say truly is how can we continue to work together? And a good service ladder will do that. Those next steps after my service offering just made sense and allowed me to continue to help those clients grow with marketing strategies.

 

Wrapping It All Up

So that being said, wrapping this up. The three things I did to have my best income month was spend one full year, consistently producing content off of social media, lean into referral and affiliate partnerships like really, really hard. Then I revamped my service suite to be more full. I met with my capacity not only a business owner, but as a new mom and an operator of a second business. That said, marketing strategies are my thing, if you can’t tell, if you don’t know, but it’s where I thrive. It really is my zone of genius. It’s what keeps me up at night. Like those “butterflies in the sky,” you know, like that TikTok that’s viral right now.

Let’s like, be in bed, floating out in space, trying to figure out a marketing strategy for someone that I talked to earlier that day. I’m always trying to figure sh*t out, and not toot my own horn, but I’m like really good at it. So if you’re ready to line yourself up for a best month yet, whatever that means for you a 90 day strategy is probably the perfect place to start. It’s really good – if you want to take a more intentional approach to growth and actually have fun while doing it.

So how it works is the first thing we do is we talk about what you really want out of your business. And then we define those tangible goals and create a step by step strategy to help you reach and surpass them with your capacity in mind. This is something that plays a huge emphasis on because the last thing I wanted to do is hand you a plan that you don’t have the bandwidth to execute.

So what we do is we prioritize marketing efforts that serve the business you have now while laying the foundation for the long term client attraction, and visibility for the business you want in the future. So here’s why you should be excited. If you follow through, you will get results and even better, you’ll understand exactly how you got them because data and understanding the data is a massive part of this. And I make a huge point to teach all my clients this, as you implement your strategy, you’ll create a framework for repeatable action within your business.

So once you’ve done it, you can keep going, keep innovating and keep attracting your ideal clients. So you can learn more about the 90 day strategy intensive and book yours by visiting the link in my show notes. And that’s that. So you just listened to another episode of She’s Busy AF, if you enjoyed it and found it helpful, please share it to your stories. Tag me at Brand Good Time so I can reshare and spread the love. So with that said, I will see you on the next episode of She’s Busy AF.