What they don't tell you about booking clients

With support from featured sponsor Space Cookie Designs

The year is 2019.

I’m working at an e-commerce company called The Black Tux as a growth design lead.

I liked it there at first but after…

🏀 a slam dunk conversion project that boosted purchases 10+%
📖 an ask from a publisher to write a book on growth design
🎤 a fresh round of conference speaking requests

…my interest in having a job was waning.

As I made the windy way down to our beachside office in Santa Monica one morning, I hatched a plan to book an exit client.

I scoped out a job posting for the kind of contract I wanted to do.

Gusto, a growth stage tech company based in San Francisco, was hiring someone with my expertise. Through one of my kind contacts on LinkedIn, I got an intro to the hiring manager and we started talking.

We flipped the full time role into a six month contract and “Lex Roman, Inc” was born.

I was off to the races, but I had no idea how much I would have to learn to keep the clients coming in.

That’s why I started The Low Energy Leads Show.

I found you fun, creative types were super hand wavy about how you were getting and closing leads. Tips like “it’s all just word of mouth” and “do more networking” aren’t that helpful. I wanted to know the details so I started asking more questions.

In the last year, we’ve heard from over 20 creative entrepreneurs on how they’re ACTUALLY getting leads.

Today, I’m releasing this wisdom with a bow on it as the Best of Low Energy Leads. Below you’ll find the cheat sheet of what we’ve learned together from our guests.

👀 The most common visibility channels

Where prospects first hear about a business

• Introductions from people they’ve worked with (jobs or clients)

• Introductions from adjacent service providers

• Targeted industry communities (Slacks, Circles, forums)

• Vetted events where people are invited or pay to be there

• LinkedIn through comments or reposts

❤️ Where the trustbuilding happens

Get to know you places where browsers are warming into buyers

• Targeted industry communities

• Their own newsletter (occasionally a blog instead)

• Their own podcast

• Their LinkedIn or Instagram (Instagram does not generally double as a visibility channel but LinkedIn does)

• Live events like webinars, regular networking calls or workshops they host and promote

📣 What word of mouth actually means

Not just from clients! Guests on the show shared…

• Past contacts from jobs popping up from years dormant

• Clients from previous businesses

• Connector types singing their praises (people who love making intros)

• Agencies and other bigger service providers recommending them

• People who love their content (podcast, newsletter, social) sharing it

🍯 Secret sauce no one else tells you

• Doing good work is table stakes but it’s not enough. You have to keep in touch with your network year round.

• Thoughtful client offboarding sets you up to make more money by offering a window for upselling and teeing up repeats/referrals

• You’ll get more referrals if you make yourself easy to refer (with copy/paste language or entry points people can link to)

• Content is not doing as much visibility as you think and it’s more typically a trustbuilder or a referral greaser (unless you’re a pro content creator)

And that’s not all! We’ve heard all kinds of rad tricks like the “conversation a day” tracker Devin Lee uses to the nuanced LinkedIn profile set up Jeff White shared. Hear the highlights from our last year together in the latest episode—out now.

P.S. The podcast is going on hiatus which is likely just fine with you because 10x more of you are reading this newsletter than listening to the show. That’s a pretty clear sign of where to focus my energy for now. A lot more cool stuff coming right here every week just for you—stay tuned for a LinkedIn Quest, a guide to getting better reviews and a live session on pricing 😉