My story: how I learned to generate referrals for my business.

In January of 2014, I left a stable, decade-long career as a mental health therapist to start a marketing company. I’d been managing the marketing for my wife’s business for five years, watching small and mid-sized businesses sprint from tactic to tactic, wasting time and money. It was clear that understanding their customers, specifically what they want and how they buy, would have helped them grow faster and more cost-effectively. (In fact, that’s one thing that my company does now.)

But I didn’t know how to generate leads. Every morning, my alarm would wake me up at 5 a.m. I’d get a coffee or five and head out the door to a local networking event. Podcasts about lead generation became the soundtrack to my life. My calendar was full of coffees and business lunches, but it took six months to generate my first real lead. I just wasn’t meeting the right people.

Thirteen years and a lot of difficult lessons later, I have a steady flow of conversations with people who are a good fit for my business. During challenging times, I have to work at it harder, and during easier times, I can let it coast. The system I’ve developed isn’t enough to scale a business, but it’s more than enough to fill a coaching practice or fractional consultant’s calendar.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to build a system that helps you get more of the right clients:

Generating leads can be fun (or not) and includes activities like:

• Attending networking events
• Working lunches or coffees with people
• Joining a networking group
• Hosting business events
• Cold calling
• LinkedIn engagement and outreach campaigns

I’ve generated great leads through each of these. I enjoy the lunches and coffee. Who likes cold calling? Someone must, but it isn’t me.

But before you get started, you need the right mindset, a target market, ideal client profile, and buyer personas.