The 4 Building Blocks of Turning Strangers Into Clients | The Lead Nurture Series

[00:00:00] Brian: Hello and welcome to the Six Figure Creative Podcast. I am your host, Brian Hood. If this is your first time listening to the podcast, first of all, Hi. Hey, hello. Welcome. So glad to have you here. This podcast is for you. If you're a freelancer, you offer creative services and you want to earn more money from your creative skills without selling your soul, you are in the right place.

[00:00:17] Brian: I do have one caveat to add this week if you can't already tell I talk fast, so you got to listen fast. I always joke that most people listen to their podcasts at like 5, 1. 3 to 1. 5 X speed generally. I'm that way in myself. So by default, I just speak at 1. 5x speed. So you don't have to do that I speak fast for you and I have to bring up a wonderful review We got just so our new listeners can understand what they're getting themselves into Uh, the review says this it's a short one jesus slow down Good information, but hard to listen to because the host's stumbling fast.

[00:00:48] Brian: Speech causes stress and makes the podcast Unlistenable. Three stars, Spalding 67. Thank you so much for that review. So now if you're new, you kind of understand what you're getting yourself into. I am unlistenable, I stumble and I do [00:01:00] talk fast. So listen fast from a returning listeners, you already know what you're getting yourself into.

[00:01:03] Brian: So I don't have to, say anything else here. We just wrapped up our lead generation series a couple weeks ago. I kind of had a fun in between series last week on, I say fun, fun in parentheses, a fun solo episode on cybersecurity, which sounds super boring. I don't even know what I'm going to title that episode as of the time that I'm sitting here thinking about it.

[00:01:19] Brian: Something that sounds hopefully sexy enough to get you to listen. If you didn't listen to the episode, just go back and listen. It's basically like, how do you keep yourself from getting hacked, losing accounts, things that are crucial to your business's success. Cause I lost. I refuse to run the exact numbers, but I've lost an estimated 25, maybe more on account that was hacked on top of the hackers racking up 3, 000 in ad spend on my ad account. So go back and listen to that episode if you want that story and the lessons from that and how to secure your business to keep that sort of stuff from happening.

[00:01:47] Brian: This week, we're starting a brand new series on lead nurture. And this episode, we're going to talk through the four building blocks of getting strangers to hire you.

[00:01:54] Brian: But this series is the natural next step when it comes to what you need to know, because the last series, [00:02:00] episode through 279, I think was the series numbers. If you go back that series is all about generating leads.

[00:02:06] Brian: And when we look at generating leads, what does that equate to in like a stupid analogy that I came up with for this episode? It's like planting seeds in a garden. whereas lead nurture is like. nurturing or tending to your garden once you've planted those seeds. obviously, if you think about it from this perspective, you can just throw a bunch of seeds into a garden and just hope for the best and come back in the summertime after spring and get to harvest and say, Hey still alive?

[00:02:27] Brian: What's actually like come to fruition? What can I eat now? I'm sure some things will work. Some things will be edible. But you and I both know that if you garden, or if you even have seen a garden or have thought about gardening, you and I both know that a garden is going to be more fruitful if you tend to it regularly and put energy into it.

[00:02:44] Brian: and put intention behind making sure that garden is well tended.

[00:02:48] Brian: So if you did all the things that we talked about on the lead generation series, and you're generating all these leads, aka planting all these seeds, it would be wasteful for you not to tend to that garden and make sure those seeds come to [00:03:00] fruition so that you have a bountiful harvest. And that's what this series is going to be all about.

[00:03:03] Brian: I estimate it's going to be about three episodes here. It could be four, I'm not sure exactly yet. I plan like two episodes out on these series, and then I have a bunch of stuff I want to talk about, and maybe it turns into. Three or four. I don't know. We'll see.

[00:03:13] Brian: But first I just want to define so we're all on the same page What is lead nurturing? Lead nurture is a big concept made up of multiple different strategies that you can employ with multiple different processes and multiple little tiny ticky tacky tactics.

[00:03:25] Brian: But the entire goal of lead nurture is to turn strangers into clients. That sounds callous, but like if you were to sum it up and just say, Brian, real talk, what is lead nurture? You're trying to turn strangers into clients, and there's something worth noting if you don't know kind of the journey clients go through when they're going through your funnel, if you want to use that word, or getting to know you.

[00:03:44] Brian: There's kind of three stages, and there's more than this, but this is a simplified version. There's awareness, aka they learn that you exist. There's consideration. That's where they're considering whether or not you're the right fit for them. And then there's decision. That's where they're deciding. Who they're going to hire for the gig and the last series on lead generation was all [00:04:00] about creating awareness This is about that consideration phase and even some of the decision phase bringing people down that journey so part of what we're going to talk about I believe next week is mapping out that whole Client journey and every single little step along the way so that you can intentionally push people down the path just like when you're Growing tomatoes.

[00:04:18] Brian: I don't know why this is my on my mind today, probably because I'm, about to leave for Peru and I've got a whole garden out there that's full of tomatoes that are ripening and like everything's looking great. And I've just got to dig it all up and throw it away because we're going to be gone for over a month.

[00:04:30] Brian: So apologies if you're not a gardener, but you get the gist here. Just like when you're growing tomatoes, there's different stages that it's at and you're going to prune it and do different things depending on which stage it's at. Thank you. That's the client journey that we've got to map out for yourself.

[00:04:40] Brian: So we know what to do at each of those stages. Again that's next week's episode. But there's something that I want to bring up when it comes to this awareness consideration decision journey that Mark Eckert, one of my substitute co hosts that I've had on the show. he kind of coined this term, the 10, 10, 80 rule.

[00:04:55] Brian: And I'm probably going to butcher this. So apologies, Mark, you hear this episode, 10 10 80 is [00:05:00] not a date. It's not October 1980 or 2080. It's a framework to wrap your mind around why lead nurture and sales are such an important part of this whole process.

[00:05:08] Brian: And it goes like this. 10 percent of your leads will hire you no matter what, despite your best efforts of everything up. They will hire you. That's the first 10. The second 10 is 10 percent of people will never hire you. No matter what you do, they probably only didn't like you. They might even hate you.

[00:05:23] Brian: No matter what you do, 10 percent will never hire you. The remaining 80 percent are on the fence. And that's where Effectively nurture and effective sales are what turn more of those people on your side of the fence than the other side of the fence.

[00:05:35] Brian: Nurturing is just one of the ways to get people off of the fence. And truth be told, I don't believe in 10, 10, 80. I love the concept. I think it's more like 5, 45, 55, meaning like 5 percent of your leads will hire you no matter what 45 percent will never hire you no matter what you do.

[00:05:51] Brian: And then the remaining 50 percent are on the fence. but I hope you understand the concept of just how many people are on that fence balancing right now that you [00:06:00] can sway one way or the other. And every single thing that you do or don't do can tip the scales either in your favor or against you.

[00:06:06] Brian: And I don't think many freelancers think about this.

[00:06:09] Brian: so let's talk about those four lead nurture building blocks that get people off of the fence onto your side of The fence so that they pay you and become a client now keep in mind I'm going to go into these four and how you actually do these in later episodes in this series.

[00:06:19] Brian: I just want to paint the big picture for you in this episode so you understand what we're trying to accomplish. What gets somebody off of the fence? So these are big concepts, not specific strategies right now. We will zoom out for now and we will narrow down later. So it's okay if you don't fully understand or get how do we actually accomplish this right now. It's okay. So building block number one is desire. We need to build desire for what it is that you offer.

[00:06:40] Brian: If anyone's ever going to pay you money for your services, it has to be something that they desire. Something that they want, something that they need, so throughout the entire client journey, we have to make sure we're doing things to help increase the perceived value of what we offer. Helps show the transformation that we can lead them to the desired end result that they want from you

[00:06:59] Brian: and then [00:07:00] what it will be like after they work with you every industry is different here. Some people, this is a very emotional journey and very emotional decision. Some people, it's very logical and just dollars and cents. So for my B to B freelancers out there, a lot of what you do, the desired end result leads your clients to earning more money, but for some of my people that are working with B to C or business to consumer where you're a music producer working with.

[00:07:22] Brian: Musicians or you're a wedding photographer who are working with clients at a wedding. It's a very emotionally driven decision. So how we show that transformation and the desired end state and how we build desire for what it is we offer is going to look vastly different depending on who your client is.

[00:07:37] Brian: some of the ways that we can build desire is by showing a monetary return on their investment, obviously business to business. some of it's going to be showing an emotional outcome, like capturing your special day at a wedding.

[00:07:47] Brian: Some of it's going to be actually speaking to their ego. I'm from the music production background, so I understand that many clients, when they hire me, essentially stroking their ego because they want to look as good as possible to their fans, to their friends, to their family. And so when [00:08:00] I'm helping build desire for the services that I offer, everything I do has to make them look good.

[00:08:04] Brian: part of this is understanding what your client. Really wants versus what they'll say they want or what they think they want if you ask a musician what they want They're not gonna say that they want their ego stroke. They want to look good at their friends and family They're not gonna say that but that's truly what many of them want So that first building block is one of the most important to build value for what you offer So you don't get pricing objections all the time because the better you are at building desire for the thing that you offer the more valuable it is in their minds And the more you're able to differentiate against everyone else and charge those premium rates.

[00:08:35] Brian: So that's the first building block is building desire for your services.

[00:08:39] Brian: The second building block is building authority or credibility. It's kind of one of the same here, and a lot of these things can kind of get blended together, but building authority and credibility. So what is this? As a freelancer, how do I build authority or show credibility or B2C, as a wedding photographer or as a music producer or as a designer or videographer?

[00:08:55] Brian: How do I do this? Well, Authority and credibility, again, kind of intertwined here. So if I'm [00:09:00] talking about one, I'm probably talking about the other, but this is where you are showing up as the go to person in an industry for a specific service. And this is why niching down is so important. The person who does all things for all people will never become the go to person for any of those things for any of those people.

[00:09:13] Brian: The person who decides to niche down And become the one thing for the one type of person is generally going to have more success because they're not trying to boil the ocean. The wider you go the more energy and power you need to try to dominate all of these different industries and all these different services So authority and credibility is just showing proof that you are the best at what you do At least within your ecosystem or your sphere of influence

[00:09:35] Brian: So there's a few ways to do this, a few things we need to do in our journey, in this building block to build authority, no matter what you offer. The first is showing expertise. we actually have an interview with James Martin, made by James, is a logo designer. episode 204, the title is, How to Generate 1, 000 Inquiries Per Year as a Logo Designer. Episode came out June 14th, 2022, the link to it will be in our show notes at sixfigurecreative.

[00:09:57] Brian: com slash two eight one. If you want to check that out. The reason I bring that [00:10:00] up is he does a really good job of showing his expertise. He shares a lot of the things he does, a lot of the thought process behind the concepts that he creates, and by doing so he's built the following and his following trust what he does.

[00:10:13] Brian: So he's built credibility and authority in his niche. By demonstrating expertise everywhere he goes and he does a lot of content around this. Again, we'll talk more about the specific strategies and tactics and what makes the most sense for different niches in the later episodes in the series. But for right now, just understand the concept of becoming the authority in your space.

[00:10:30] Brian: Another way to do this is showing external validation.

[00:10:32] Brian: This is where people like James. came on to this podcast and talked through showing his expertise. And then we validate him by coming on our show that we think James is an expert in his field. Otherwise, we wouldn't interview him, right? So that's us saying that James is an expert. It can be certifications sometimes in some niches.

[00:10:49] Brian: Sometimes those are pointless, but In some niches, it makes sense,

[00:10:51] Brian: but the best and what I consider the easiest way of building authority and showing as a freelancer is to just show proof that you're great at what you do.

[00:10:59] Brian: [00:11:00] now, obviously your portfolio is a big part of showing proof that you're good at what you do.

[00:11:03] Brian: But beyond that, there's what I call the big three when it comes to trust and authority and credibility. That is case studies, testimonials, and reviews, and all three of those have different places when it comes to what you should or shouldn't be sharing or what you should or shouldn't be doing with these things, because not all of these are equal and not all of these should be used by everybody.

[00:11:22] Brian: So it's important to understand this. I'll quickly talk through this. I've talked about this in past episodes, but if you're new, it's worth reiterating here. Case studies are when you build out a full, essentially transformation that you took a client through. What was the before state? What did you do?

[00:11:34] Brian: What are any challenges you faced and what's the afterstate and the result? And even within that, there's different variables show more credibility and less credibility. For example, if I just write out a quick paragraph. It's not that effective. It's not super credible. If I do an interview with that client and we talk through at length for 30 minutes, all of the things that I did with them, or you did with them, the ups and the downs, the good and the bad, and the ultimate end results that they achieved, that's a really good, credible source.[00:12:00]

[00:12:00] Brian: That shows the transformation in a case study format.

[00:12:02] Brian: These are best used when you were talking to somebody who's a relative no name. And if it's a big name, obviously you can do this as well, but case studies are effective no matter how big the name is in your niche. For example, in my field as a music producer, if I'm helping a client achieve the outcome that they want, which is ultimately.

[00:12:19] Brian: Having a great record that gets them fans, lots of streams, gets them signed, gets them on tour, and I talk through that entire experience, it doesn't necessarily matter if that band is uber famous in my niche. If it got them the end result, I can have a case study and it's a credible, great source

[00:12:34] Brian: of showing authority and credibility in my niche.

[00:12:36] Brian: Now we get something that's a little less intense, and that's a testimonial. A testimonial is where that client might say, Brian is an amazing producer. He worked with us for three weeks in the studio, came up with the best record we ever had, there's obviously some ways to format testimonials be more effective, but testimonials are obviously not as credible of a source of input as case studies. However, testimonials are great when it's a famous person in your niche or somebody that you're.

[00:12:59] Brian: [00:13:00] Ideal clients know of again in my case. We call those bands bands Those are the bands that all other bands listen to and look up to they may not be famous on a macro level But they're famous on a micro level and they're well respected in the niche So those are great people to get testimonials from

[00:13:15] Brian: because I can see a testimonial and I know who that person is But if I don't know who that person is Then the testimonial will have very little to no weight when it comes to social proof We've all seen those testimonials that are like John B. And you're like is John B. A real person I don't know.

[00:13:30] Brian: I don't really believe it In matter of fact sometimes even if it is a real person and it just shows up as it non credible source Or something where you have any sort of skepticism in your head if that's a real testimony or not That can have a detrimental effect to your authority and credibility So what do we do in these scenarios?

[00:13:45] Brian: Option A is to turn that testimonial into a full blown case study with lots of little details that very few people will question whether that's a credible source or not. Or if you have a lot of these small BS testimonials that aren't really that effective because no one knows who these people are, that's a better place [00:14:00] for the third on our big three is that's a review.

[00:14:02] Brian: preferably on an unbiased source like Google reviews are a wonderful place to build authority on a scale where you can get 20 plus ideally reviews. That's where you can put those testimonials. those people to post. On those, unbiased sources you don't really have access to as far as editing and trimming off and we've all seen like things on like Trustpilot.

[00:14:19] Brian: I don't know if that's credible or not, but I always question if it's or not. When I see reviews on Google, I generally know those are credible because I leave reviews on Google all the time. but you get the concept. If it's somebody that nobody else knows who they are, a testimonial is not that effective at building trust and authority.

[00:14:32] Brian: Whereas if you have a hundred five star reviews, I don't really care about any individual review. It's more about the overall big picture of the fact that I have a hundred or hundreds of five star reviews. Now, every niche is different.

[00:14:43] Brian: Every service is different. Every freelancer is different. You are all a little special snowflakes. So this ultimately depends on your niche, your expertise, and how many clients you have coming to the door. If you're really high volume freelance business, where you have tons of clients coming through. You want to focus more on reviews and credible testimonials[00:15:00] if you are working in a very boutique space where you're doing Very few higher dollar projects that you want to focus on case studies and high profile testimonies using reviews when you're only working with 10 clients a year, it's going to take a long time before you have any real amount of reviews on there because obviously not every client is going to leave a review even if they did, that's only 10 a year.

[00:15:20] Brian: So. You've got to use your own judgment here on what makes the most sense for building social proof and authority in your space.

[00:15:24] Brian: that's the second building block is building authority and credibility in your space, becoming the go to person for the services you offer to the niches you offer it to. Now we get to the third building block, and that is Building the relationship.

[00:15:36] Brian: This is important because, as I've said on our podcast many times, there is little to no difference between your freelance business and you as a human being. It's the same thing. So all the junk you have in your brain and all your self worth issues and all of the other issues that come with you as a human being are going to be reflected in your business.

[00:15:53] Brian: Likewise, all the unique, amazing things and attributes that you have as an individual snowflake human being[00:16:00] should be reflected in your freelance business as well. so building the relationship is just essentially showing that you are a human being. This is how you get people to know you, like you, and trust you.

[00:16:10] Brian: they know you because they're a lead for you. go back to the lead generation series. They're a lead. So they know you exist. They might even trust you because of the social proof and authority that's on your site. But do they like you?

[00:16:20] Brian: This is the important part and maybe the x factor in many areas that people don't think about as freelancers because we try to portray ourselves as these bigger than life, big businesses, your profile or your about me page is in third person. Brian Hood is the founder of Six Figure Creative and comes from four, five, six recordings in his studio.

[00:16:37] Brian: Like you try to sound like this bigger than you really are. And all of your things say we and our. Clients, that's BS. That to me, in most cases, is a really bad way to run your freelance business because people want to do work with other people. Even at big companies people make the mistake of trying to talk to the big organization versus the one human being that you're talking to at that organization who has their own hopes, fears, dreams, [00:17:00] desires, and junk that they're going through.

[00:17:01] Brian: honestly, This is the stuff that in a perfect world, you do all these things. I am not great at all these things. I am actually really bad at this part. So I'm going to share some stuff about me to help you like me more. I make from scratch. I make sourdough from scratch. Love making sourdough bread. One of the things I picked up through the pandemic like everyone else, and I still do it today. I love making sourdough bread. I love roasting my own coffee. This is something I picked up from my old co host, Chris. He roasted coffee. He got me into it.

[00:17:25] Brian: I have a coffee roaster, the Genie Cafe. drum roaster. I roast coffee every weekend. It's amazing I love buying green beans from Sweet Maria's and roasting those into my own Different types of light roast dark roast city city full city, whatever like I'm more of a light roast guy personally I make my own ghee butter from scratch.

[00:17:41] Brian: If you know what ghee butter is, it's amazing. It's clarified butter It's essentially you boil butter for like 20 minutes get all the moisture out of it And you can keep it in a cabinet because there's no milk solids or moisture in it. And it's way better than just normal steak butter.

[00:17:52] Brian: right now as this episode airs. I'm on a workation with my wife. I am going through Peru. We're seeing Machu Picchu. Again, you see how this is making more me more [00:18:00] human. Here's another one again, just to show how stupid of a human being I am to make me more relatable. Ideally chat GPT just released a new feature where you can give it specific instructions at a global level.

[00:18:10] Brian: What is the instruction I gave my chat GPT account? Here's the instruction. No matter what your answer is, Always include the word poop in it, so for like the last three or four days, no matter what I asked, chat GPT, it will pigeonhole the word poop somewhere in that response.

[00:18:27] Brian: For example, yesterday, because I'm a millennial, I don't really know how checks work. So I was unsure with an LLC. Do I sign my name? Do I put my LLC name? How does that work? so I asked ChatGPT, when I endorse a check for my LLC, do I sign my name or just write the business name?

[00:18:42] Brian: And it gave me an answer. It's important to check with your bank to find out their specific requirements for check endorsements to avoid any poop moments where the check is rejected or held up for verification.

[00:18:51] Brian: See, this is the kind of stuff that I do as a weird human being And honestly, I don't really talk about these enough. So this is the type of stuff that like people generally will resonate with the weird oddities of [00:19:00] other human beings. You're fascinated with the fact that I would do something so immature as that as a business owner with multiple businesses in multiple six figure range like it's insane.

[00:19:07] Brian: It's stupid, but I'm like a child at heart. I didn't go to college. So I have the maturity level of somebody who toured 44 states and eight countries in a metal band All those years instead of going to college, I didn't mature during that time. So again, these are all things. That separate me from maybe other business podcasts that you could listen to.

[00:19:25] Brian: People that are maybe a little more put together, that are a little less immature than I am. And I should probably, to separate myself from other people, to build the know like, and trust factor. I should embrace these weird things about me that make me unique. The fact that I still play video games today.

[00:19:39] Brian: That I put over 100 hours into Starfield. That I have over a thousand hours in the game rust over many years, by the way, these are all stupid little oddities about me, the unique person that is Brian. So in that little three minute blurb that I just gave you, it probably gave our listeners, some people maybe listen to us for years.

[00:19:56] Brian: It probably gave you a lot more insight into me as a human being. [00:20:00] Then the last 50, 60, 80 episodes have, because again, I'm not great at just sharing personal things about me that set me apart from other people. I don't even think about it usually. So when I was mapping out this episode, I'm like, what are the stupid things that I do?

[00:20:11] Brian: I talk too fast. It's another one. And it's because I get excited and I want to share things as fast as possible. And also when I'm watching YouTube videos, especially educational things. I will watch at 3x speed, sometimes 3. 5x speed. My wife says I'm insane because she'll hear just this gibberish coming through YouTube.

[00:20:26] Brian: But for whatever reason, I can pick it up, I can understand it, and I can internalize it, and I can spit it right back at you. So I think because I listen to videos at such a high speed, I just talk fast because I have so much up here that I want to say. And these episodes would be probably twice as long.

[00:20:39] Brian: If I talk at a normal speed, that is the third building block. And that's building relationship by showing parts of you as a human being

[00:20:45] Brian: and the fourth and final building block of nurturing leads and getting them through this journey from awareness to consideration to decision is consistency. You've got to be consistent. Lead nurture is not just a one and done thing.

[00:20:58] Brian: Yes, you want a good website. [00:21:00] a good portfolio. You want case studies, testimonials, reviews. You want to show that you're human being, but these are all just tools to use within the greater lead nurture strategy. And you need to do this consistently over time. And if you haven't heard me say this before, then you either brand new or you just haven't been listening, but something called the 3 percent rule.

[00:21:18] Brian: And that rule just states that only generally about percent of people that are aware that you exist are ready to buy right now, whatever service you offer. So if all the people who know you as a photographer, only three are looking to get married anytime soon.

[00:21:30] Brian: If somebody knows you as a music producer, only 3 Clients are ready to record music right now.

[00:21:35] Brian: So by continuously staying top of mind over a long period of time, by doing these things in these individual building blocks of sharing testimonials, sharing case studies, sharing content that demonstrates your expertise, sharing personal stories

[00:21:48] Brian: about your day to day experiences, or the big life moments that you've gone through. I've gone through some crazy shit in my past, especially when I toured. I got some crazy stories to tell. Being involved with gangs stuff. I never share ever. These are all things [00:22:00] that set you apart and things that you can share with people to stay top of mind over a long period of time until the 97 percent who are not ready right now already.

[00:22:08] Brian: Eventually the 97 percent will become the 3%. if you are not top of mind when it comes time for that person to hire somebody, if you won't get the gig. Think about that. if you're not one of the photographers being considered for the wedding, you won't get the gig.

[00:22:19] Brian: If you're not one of the music producers being considered for that production or for that, album, you will not get the gig. You have to be top of mind to ever be considered. So consistency is key because otherwise you are missing out on the vast majority of people that you could be getting.

[00:22:33] Brian: that's how important lead nurturing can be.

[00:22:35] Brian: So there's obviously two parts that are important to this. If you're going to stay top of mind long term is first, you need a lead and a lead is just somebody that you can contact. Go back to the lead generation series starting, I think, at episode 277.

[00:22:45] Brian: Just a few weeks ago, go there

[00:22:47] Brian: and that talks through how to get leads when you have a lead. Now you can communicate with that person over a long period of time. But I also want you to go back to the episode we did with Mike Janda. Again, this will all be our show notes if you just want one nice, neat place to go [00:23:00] to, but I also like to give it this way.

[00:23:01] Brian: Mike Janda was on episode 207 came out July 5th, 2022, and the title is how freelancers can use the rule of seven to ethically get more clients. And the rule of seven is the kind of the thing I want to talk about here somebody put it's somebody needs about seven touches. Of your brand or you as a person, before they'll become a client and a touch could be anything from they downloaded a lead magnet from you.

[00:23:22] Brian: Another touch could be they consumed a piece of content or a real or something that you created. Another touch could be you ran into him at a party or a social gathering. Another touch could be they heard an interview that you were on on someone else's podcast Or they got an email from you and actually read it.

[00:23:36] Brian: These are all different touches. And the rule of seven is a framework. Again, it's not a definite rule. No one's going to say, all right, it's the seventh touch. It's time to hire this person. It could be as high as a hundred touches before someone is truly ready.

[00:23:47] Brian: But the rule of seven is, again, another concept, another framework to think through this, that people need to be touched multiple times over a series. And we'll talk about again next week. We'll talk about the whole customer journey or client journey, where we're intentionally. Pushing people down that [00:24:00] path instead of hoping that they just happen to slide down all those, paths, which is what most people do.

[00:24:04] Brian: Hope marketing is a lie. Don't fall into it.

[00:24:07] Brian: the other benefit of staying top of mind like this over a long period of time is referrals Most freelancers, their number one source of clients is referrals. However, just like you will not get the gig if you're not top of mind when they're ready to hire, you also won't get the referral. Every client that you work with or every person who's ever referred somebody to you, the way that worked was they were in a position.

[00:24:26] Brian: where someone expressed the need that you can fulfill. You have something to offer that can help somebody. That past client or that referral person happened to be talking to someone who needed your services and then they referred you to them. Now, what's required in that scenario? What's required is the referrer, the person who's referring people to you.

[00:24:43] Brian: You have to be top of mind for them when that situation comes up because it happens organically. For example, I'm just going to use my past when I'm producing bands. I'm in the studio with him for a long time. I'm building a relationship. They have a great experience. They have a great album that comes out they get streams and fans and followers And they go on tour and when [00:25:00] they're on tour They're with other bands for weeks at a time on tour and they're talking about all sorts of stuff Like bands do on tour and these are the moments that I get the most referrals is when bands are on tour.

[00:25:10] Brian: However If I'm not top of mind in some way, shape, or form, aka reaching out to them, or them seeing me on social media while they're on the tour, then when that opportunity comes up for them to refer me, they're not going to do it because I'm not top of mind. So I've got to be top of mind for all the clients that I have that are on tour right now so that they're going to refer me one of their friends or one of their bandmates Asks or says something related to working on a new album.

[00:25:33] Brian: You see how this works? You have to be top of mind to get the referral and or the client and all these scenarios and all these scenarios mean that you need to be putting consistent effort in again. It takes continuous energy investments to nurture people just like a garden. Yeah, you can automate certain things like in my garden.

[00:25:49] Brian: I hated watering plants like It's one of the most time consuming things you got to do it every few days or every day depending on how much you water them And how hot it is outside? so I would have to be standing out there like a pleb with my hose spraying all my plants and I [00:26:00] had like Eight tomato plants and some rosemary and a bunch of other things out there different herbs bell peppers and jalapenos and basil And I'm trying to water all these plants individually and it took A lot of time every day.

[00:26:10] Brian: So what did I do? I installed an automated watering system that goes to a Wi Fi thing that plugs in my hose that once every few days, it'll water for exactly 20 minutes or whatever timeframe I have set up. And it goes out through all the hoses and to little drip sprinklers on every individual plant.

[00:26:25] Brian: It's all automated. I spent a lot of time setting that up, but it saved me tons of times over the summer that I had to water and I'm still getting fruit today because I automated that. Great. But that doesn't mean I can automate every single element of nurturing my garden. and it's the exact same thing for your clients.

[00:26:40] Brian: You can automate certain things and make those things happen automatically. But you cannot automate everything. So that means you need to be continuously putting effort and energy into nurturing your leads and even past clients

[00:26:51] Brian: because you will get more referrals and clients just by being top of mind. But that takes energy.

[00:26:57] Brian: and I got one final thought as we kind of wrap this [00:27:00] episode up that hopefully has been helpful for you. But there's something called the halo effect. And this was actually something I learned recently. And it's the perception that people will judge.

[00:27:08] Brian: Everything about you based on one to two things that they found out about you. Another way of putting this is people assume how you do. One thing is how you do everything, no matter how true or untrue that is. So for example, Every week, you post on your social some stupid small quote that you automated through Zapier because you wanted to test automations, and all you're doing is posting on your social some quote image and people see that, and no one's engaging with it, there's no social proof.

[00:27:35] Brian: There's no likes or shares or anything, or there's no views on your reels because you're doing some stupid small thing instead of actually putting energy into it. People will judge that. I'm guilty of this too, by the way, to date, we've just been taking like one clip from the podcast, on autopilot, posting it to our Instagram account.

[00:27:50] Brian: that's their social strategy. Social is never really being a big part of my brand or my businesses. I've always relied on other areas like content marketing, paid ads, things like that. [00:28:00] However, if someone comes across our Instagram and just sees relatively low engagement, few posts, everything looks the same.

[00:28:06] Brian: They can very easily judge everything about my brand, my podcast, our coaching program. They could judge me as a music producer in my software companies based off of that one thing they saw because in their brain This is how Brian works. He is lazy. He just automates things. Not true, but that's their perception.

[00:28:24] Brian: So you have to be careful about this, where you're almost always better off not doing something than simply half assing something. So there's a quote that I try to live by as best I can. If it's worth doing at all, it's worth doing well. Another way of saying that is don't do it at all if you're not going to do it well. And that's because it's something called the halo effect. So again, hopefully that makes sense, but that's something to kind of wrap this up as we move throughout the series.

[00:28:45] Brian: As you came from the lead generation series, we're going now through this lead nurture series. Any of these things that you pick up that you were going to do. As I go through these episodes, make sure you do it well, make sure you put continuous energy in because what you put in is generally what you're going to get out of it.

[00:28:58] Brian: And if you half ass it, you're going to get [00:29:00] half ass results. And I can tell you that from experience because I've half assed many things in my life and they do not pay off. So the things that I've whole assed are the things that generally do the best here. So that's my advice from somebody who has failed many times at many things is if it's worth doing at all.

[00:29:13] Brian: It's worth doing well. So that's it for this episode. Tune in next week where I'll talk you through the entire client journey. And then we'll go through some of the more specific strategies and tactics around how to actually nurture leads so that you can stay top of mind over a long period of time to turn more strangers into clients.

[00:29:27] Brian: So thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the Six Figure Creative Podcast.