How to Get Consistent Clients Without Chasing More Traffic

You finish a program with a group of clients you love. They send lovely thank-you emails. A couple of them tell you it changed everything.

Then they're gone.

And you're back to square one, hunting for the next batch of clients and wondering why it never gets easier.

To get consistent clients, stop treating every sale as the end of the relationship. Plan what comes next for each client before you sell the first thing, so the people who already trust you can stay with you, buy again and send their friends. More traffic can come later. A clear path for the clients you already have works now.

More traffic isn't the fix you've been told it is

You've probably heard that the best way to grow your revenue is more leads and more traffic. Fill the top of the funnel and the sales take care of themselves.

Here's the problem with that.

The classic funnel starts with a low-priced product, usually under $100, and hopes a small slice of buyers moves up to the next thing. If one in ten moves up at each step, you need an enormous number of people at the top.

Let's do the math. To bring in $100,000 a year with a $97 product, you need more than 1,000 sales. That's not easy for anyone, especially when you're starting out.

Compare that with a $2,500 coaching package. You need 40 clients a year to reach the same number. That's fewer than four a month.

That's why I usually recommend starting at a higher price point. You need far fewer people, and you get to talk to every one of them.

Paid traffic before you know your message is expensive feedback

If you've spent money on ads and got very little back, this may be why.

Paid traffic works when you already know exactly who you serve, what they want and the words that make them lean in. Until then, ads mostly buy you expensive feedback.

You learn those things faster and cheaper by talking to people directly. Every sales call, every client session and every follow-up conversation tells you something an ad dashboard can't.

One-off offers keep you on the marketing treadmill

When every offer is a one-off, you have to find a whole fresh set of buyers for each one. Build the list, run the traffic, launch, deliver, repeat.

I see so many business owners exhaust themselves on that treadmill and burn out long before they see real progress.

It's also far less fulfilling. It's the marketing equivalent of a string of one-night stands, when you could be building long-term relationships with people you can help for years.

Think of the businesses you're loyal to. I'm guessing they deliver on their promises and treat you like a real human being, not a number. So you keep going back.

That's what back-end sales are: the second, third or fourth thing someone buys from you after their first engagement. They're far easier than first sales, because the client already trusts you and has seen what you can do.

My first program had nowhere to go next

When I was first getting started, before I had any real confidence in my business, I created a group coaching and training program called Build Your Site, Launch Your Business.

Eight people paid to join. That's not bad for a first offer. But I was disappointed.

I poured everything I had into delivering that eight-week program. And I made a big mistake, one I still see coaches, consultants and course creators make all the time.

I was so focused on delivering the program that I never asked, "What's next?"

There was nowhere for my students to go when it ended. No way to stay involved with me. No way to keep them in the game.

Seven of the eight finished the program. Then they lost momentum, because I had nothing to help them keep going. Their businesses didn't become what I know they could have been.

Those seven students haunt me to this day. I feel like I let them down.

There's only so much anyone can do in four, eight or twelve weeks. Building a business that works takes more support and a longer commitment. I understood my own perspective -- I needed a course to grow -- but I didn't fully understand theirs.

When your clients don't stay in the game with you, they rarely get the full result that's possible for them.

Design both sides of your offer

Every offer has two sides.

The front-facing side is what your clients receive: the experience they have from the moment they meet you.

The back-facing side is what you sell: the exact sequence of offers you want to make.

Most people start with the back-facing side. What do I want to sell? What can I build? That's how you end up creating something nobody wants, or something that sells a little but never becomes the hit you imagined.

I call the alternative a customer-first approach. You start by understanding your clients as deeply as you can, then design each offer around where they are and where they want to go.

I've watched people decide to build a course because they heard a course can bring in six figures, create it without talking to anyone and wait for the buyers to arrive. They end up with boxes of books in a storage unit or a membership site with nobody in it, wondering what went wrong.

The fix is simple. Talk to people first.

Ask your clients what they need next

Your current and past clients will tell you what your next offer should be, if you ask.

Near the end of every engagement, ask:

• "What's changed for you since we started?"
• "What's the next thing you want to work on?"
• "What would you want more of if we kept going?"
• "What's the hardest part of doing this on your own from here?"

Write down their exact words. When three or four clients describe the same next problem, you've found your next offer. And you've found the words to sell it with.

Map the path from first offer to Ultimate Result

Every client has an Ultimate Result: the big thing they want, beyond what any single offer delivers. Your job is to build a clear path toward it, where each offer moves them one step closer.

Here's how to sketch yours:

1. Write down your clients' Ultimate Result in their words, not yours.
2. List the stages someone goes through on the way there.
3. Match an offer to each stage, starting with the one most people need first.
4. Decide when you'll invite them to the next step, before the current one ends.

Say you're a career coach. Your first offer is a six-week program to land interviews in a different field. The next stage is getting the job offer and negotiating it, so that's a short package. After that comes doing well in the role, which could be six months of coaching through their first two quarters on the job.

Same client. Three offers. Each one builds on the last, and each one is easier to sell than the first, because the client has already seen progress.

If they see results with your first offer, they'll imagine what's possible with the next one. And the next. Onwards and upwards.

Make the invitation before they finish

Timing matters. Invite clients to the next step while they're still with you and their momentum is high, about three-quarters of the way through.

Something like:

"When we started, you were [where they were]. Now you're [where they are]. The next thing I'd focus on is [the next stage]. I'd love to keep going with you. Want me to tell you how that would work?"

Some will say yes on the spot. Some will say "not yet." Both are fine. You've shown them there's a path, and you've kept the door open.

That conversation is a sales call, just with someone who already knows you. The structure in sales calls that don't feel like selling works here too, and so do the rules about what not to say in a sales conversation.

Keep first conversations coming too

Back-end sales take a lot of the swing out of your income. But you still need a steady stream of first conversations with people who don't know you yet.

The simplest place to start is a consultation page that brings in the right people. Here's how to write a free consultation page that pre-qualifies your prospects.

Then keep a small amount of marketing going every week, even when you're busy. I go into that in why your income goes up and down, and how to make it steady.

Your first offers don't have to be hits

If you've already built something that didn't sell the way you hoped, please hear this: there's no failure, only feedback. Nothing you've tried is wasted. It's all learning that got you exactly where you are today.

I often ask my students: if your third or fourth offer is the one that puts you on the map, would you be willing to create the first two, even if they're kind of duds?

I'm guessing that's a yes.

So don't judge yourself on your first effort. How can you judge a puzzle without seeing the picture on the box? And life definitely doesn't come with a picture on the box.

Before you create your first or next offer, ask yourself one question: what's next for the people who buy it?

Where coaching fits

That path is hard to see from inside your own business. You know your offers too well and your clients' journey not well enough.

That's what Momentum Accelerate is for. It's the level of our 12-month business coaching program for business owners earning $30K to $99K a year who are ready to stop trading hours for dollars, and it's built around creating your Message to Money Pathway to $100K and beyond. Your own Momentum Coach helps you map it, and four Quarterly Accelerators a year turn it into a 90-day action plan.

If you keep feeling like you're always chasing the next client, read the "one client away" myth. Or see how we help you grow your business.