Fast vs slow ways to bring in new clients

Did you know there's faster ways and slower ways to bring in new clients? Not all lead gen strategies are created equal. Some will pay off now, some will pay off later, and some may never pay off. That's why you want to learn how to determine the speed of return when it comes to your sales and marketing activities. In today's episode, I'm going to walk you through my study framework. Study is six questions you can use to determine if a strategy will bring in clients now or later. We'll put a few different marketing and sales plays through the ringer to see how they score. Use the study framework a few times and you'll get even better at separating quick wins from longer plays. Before you run your next lead gen test, you're going to want to watch this episode. I'm Lex Roman and this is the low energy leads show.

Let's meet our contenders. I've laid out 10 different tactics I've seen people use to try to bring in new clients. I want to encourage you today to think about these through a critical lens. I'm going to run you through a study framework, S-T-E-A-D-Y. I'm going to show you what that means and how we can score each of these lead gen strategies so that we can make sure that we're investing our time in activities that will pay us back. The 10 contenders we have for our fast versus slow ways to bring in new clients are:

1. Optimizing a page for Google search
2. Emailing three peers about an offer
3. Hosting a free webinar
4. Guest podcast appearance
5. Posting three videos to TikTok
6. Asking for a referral from a partner
7. Writing a guest blog post
8. Cross promoting in someone's newsletter
9. Running a Facebook ad
10. Speaking at a targeted event

Now, I'm hand-waving here a little bit exactly what these strategies are, and I tried to make them equal in terms of what the effort is. Emailing three peers about an offer, I'm saying that would be the same amount of time and effort as optimizing a page for Google search. Some of these things, depending on where you are in your business, are not going to be even activities for you. Today is really about how you can assess whether or not your marketing activities are going to pay off and how quickly they will pay off in actual sales.

How will we figure out whether these are fast ways or slow ways to bring in new clients? We are going to run them through a '90s Nickelodeon-style gaming competition. If you remember GUTS, Double Dare, and Legends of the Hidden Temple, we are going to run them through a series of trials to figure out which of these is a fast way or a slow way to bring in new clients. Bring yourself back to the '90s, picture these lead gen strategies going through this competition and getting slimed and eliminated. We really want to make sure we're not just doing things for the sake of doing them, that we actually are thinking critically about whether or not this thing is going to pay off and how quickly that strategy will pay off in terms of new clients and projects.

Okay, let the games begin. We have our first contender on deck.

Our first contender is gonna be Google optimizing a page for Google search. This is a really common activity I hear people are doing when it comes to optimizing a page for Google search. How does it stack up against our steady score? So the steady score stands for speed, trust, ease, arbitrary distance and yield.

Speed. How fast from doing this activity until it reaches your buyer, what is the distance from doing that activity until it actually could even impact your sales trust? How much trust have you built with this audience in this arena, right, in this channel? Some channels you have built more trust, there's more relationship capital there versus others.

Ease. How many factors are involved in getting this tactic right? So the more factors that are involved in a lead gen strategy, the harder it is to get right, less factors, easier to do, arbitrary. How predictable is this tactic? Is it random? Are you leaving it up to an algorithm, for example? Are there a lot of things that are out of your control or is it pretty in your control how well this tactic will work?

Distance. How far is this activity from the money? Distance is distinct from speed in that distance is really about the levels of hoops people have to go through from this activity to the purchase. Speed is really about speed to market, right? How quickly is this thing reaching the market That'll come into play and more specifically, as we look at each of these contenders.

And then lastly, yield. How much revenue potential does this tactic have on its own? So we're gonna score each of these on a scale from one to three with a max potential score of 18. 18 being the fastest way to get leads. Zero being the slowest. Let's look at our first contender, optimizing a page for Google search.

So when we're optimizing a page for Google search, we are changing keywords. We are doing back links. We are optimizing technical seo. We are trying to get seen in a Google search with the hope that that leads to a sale. How fast is that? Right? Number one in our steady score is speed. How fast from doing that until it reaches your buyers?

According to Backlinko, it takes about two months to rank a new page highly on Google. So you're looking at two months from doing this activity until, until it even reaches the search results page. And that doesn't account for getting clicks, and those clicks actually converting to a lead. But we'll go with two months just as our baseline.

So I'm gonna say that that's a fairly slow activity. We're gonna give it a one trust. How much trust have you built with the Google audience? Zero. I'm gonna go with zero. I'm actually gonna score most of these around a one and up, but in this case, you have zero trust built with the Google audience. These are fresh faces.

They do not know you. When it comes to ease, how many factors are involved in getting Google search? Right? A lot of factors. You have everything on your page. There's over 200 factors at play with even getting ranked on Google. You have their changing algorithm, which is a little bit of a black box. You have your competition in that space.

I'm gonna give this a zero. I think Google is one of the hardest strategies to get right. Arbitrary. How predictable is this tactic? Now, while it's really hard to get Google right, it's not that arbitrary. There are a lot of plays that are really clear that will win Google search rankings. So I'm gonna give this a two.

I think that there is enough clarity in this space that if you want to learn SEO, you can and it can become fairly predictable distance. How far is this activity from the money? It's a little far right. People have to go to the search result, then they have to make it to your website. They have to find your lead form, and then they have to submit that in order to become a lead.

It's not the farthest though. We have other activities that are farther from the money, so I'm gonna put this at A two as well. As far as yield. How much revenue potential does this tactic have on its own? This one is a little bit harder to calculate when it comes to Google because it is so far from the actual transaction that you're having.

But it can become a main driver of leads. I have seen that over and over again with clients. So again, I'm gonna give it a two. If Google is working for you, I'm gonna say for the sake of argument that you're optimizing a page for Google search. Well, right. So we're gonna say that in this case, you've done it well.

Then we'll say that it has a pretty strong yield as far as revenue potential. Let's tally up the score. We are looking at a seven, so seven out of 18. So that is, that's sort of in on the slower side, right? We're not looking at something that is a quick win here. We're looking at something that is predictable and closer to the money than some of our other strategies.

But it's not as quick as some of the things we have in our back pocket. All right. Our second contender is emailing three peers about an offer. Peers can include referral partners, they can include past colleagues, they can include people that you've been networking with. In this case, I'm really intending for you to email people that are really closely tied to your space who know your buyers.

So I'm using peers loosely, but it's people who know your buyers about an offer, right? Emailing three people who know your buyers about an offer. Asking for a referral or asking for amplification around that offer. Let's run it through the steady score speed. How fast from doing this until it reaches your buyers pretty fast, people can forward that email right away.

They can get you in touch with a buyer within that same day. So we're giving that a three. Trust. How much trust have you built with this audience when it comes to emailing peers? That is a maximum level of trust. These are people that you already know who trust you, and they pass that trust onto the people they introduce you to.

Ease how many factors are involved in getting it right? Not that many factors. You can identify those three people probably pretty easily, and then all you need to get right is the message to them that motivates them to pass along your offer. So very few factors at play. We're gonna give that a three.

Arbitrary, how predictable is this tactic? We're gonna give that a two. It is fairly predictable, especially if you have been doing plays like this, if you have been keeping in contact with these people. But there is a little bit of randomness in how people respond in the way that their life is moving and things that are going on.

So, We'll give it a two distance. How far is this activity from the money? It's very close to the money. Emailing three peers about an offer and asking for an introduction or a referral is a high value place to be operating. Those people are high intent. The buyers that you're meeting there are high intent, so we're close to the money here.

We're close to the sale. I'm gonna give it a two though, because you haven't yet met your buyers in this context. When it comes to yield, this is a high revenue potential space because again, you're operating closer to the money. And the trust that they are passing on indicates that these buyers would be faster to close.

Now this, there's devils in the details here, but just on a general basis, if you get better and better at this strategy, you'll have faster and higher close rates as you go. So let's tally up the scores here. We're looking at a 16 for emailing three peers about an offer, 16 out of 18. So that is a fast play strategy.

We love that. Congrats to emailing three peers for the win. Let's look at our third contender. Our third contender is a guest podcast appearance. So what this means is that you would pitch yourself to a podcast host, or maybe you already know one, and you're gonna appear on their podcast in front of their audience about a really targeted topic in your space.

So you always wanna focus on your biready audience, and you wanna speak to something that's top of mind for them. That's what's baked into this strategy. When it comes to our steady score on a guest podcast appearance, we're looking at speed first. How fast from doing this until it reaches your buyers.

Now, this can vary based on your podcast host's schedule, and so I'm gonna put it somewhere in the middle. I'm gonna give it a two because I found that most podcast hosts will release within the month, but some will take months to release the episode. So from the time you record it till it actually even gets heard, can be a month or two.

We'll give it a two. When it comes to trust, how much trust have you built with this audience? In the case of a podcast, it's a pretty high trust space. The podcast host is passing their trust onto you. It's really similar to a referral in that way. So this is a high trust activity. We're gonna give this a three.

You also have a lot of opportunities during this interview to build trust with the audience. It's a long form conversation that you're having with them, so you have opportunities to build trust in addition to the host just having you on. When we're looking at ease, how many factors are involved in getting this right?

There are a few factors here. One is the podcast that you choose to go on. Two is how the conversation plays out, which is both on your side and on the podcast host. Side three is the call to action that you give at the end of the podcast, and then how that actually navigates people through into your growth loop.

When it comes to ease for a podcast, I'm gonna give this a, A one. Meaning that it's a little bit trickier to get right. I think that it can take some experimentation to figure out what podcasts to go on, what kinds of conversations to have, and what calls to action are appropriate for that context that will get people in your orbit so that they convert into a sale.

Next is arbitrary. How predictable is podcast guesting? It's fairly predictable in terms of who the host is reaching, what their listener stats are, so you can get a sense of what their reach is and who exactly they're reaching. Those things are pretty known in terms of each individual podcast. The big random factor there is really how that audience will respond to your conversation, and then the call to action.

So I'm gonna give that a two. I would call it fairly predictable with a little bit of chance. Distance. How far is this activity from the money? Now, this activity is pretty far from the money. If people do not know you already, which I'm assuming in this case, then they have to listen to the podcast episode, find their way to one of your online channels, learn about you and what you offer there, and then become a lead.

So we're actually even farther here than we were in the Google search context, and it's not always clear whether or not you're gonna reach your buyers. You should always intend to reach your buyers, but you're gonna hit everybody in this podcast host audience. So we're gonna give this a pretty low distance score.

We're gonna give it a one. And then lastly, how much revenue potential does this tactic have on its own? When I'm looking at this, I'm thinking just about one podcast appearance. And the nice thing about podcasts is that they're really long lasting. You'll find that people will find them years after you do them.

So they can have a long lasting hit on your revenue. My experience in the small business space of podcasts is that they don't have a lot of revenue potential on their own, and the more targeted you get, the better off you are. I think there's still a little bit of challenge in hitting a biready crowd versus people that are really just interested in the space.

So we're gonna give it a two on revenue potential, and that tally is up to a score of 11. So guessing on a podcast is a score of 11, so it falls somewhere in the middle. It's slightly faster than something like Google search optimization, but it's slower than something like emailing a set of trusted peers or partners.

So as you look through your lead gen strategies, I really want you to think critically about their steady score. Use the steady framework to analyze whether or not a certain strategy is going to pay off quickly or slowly. Some of these things are gonna take longer to pay off, and that can be okay depending on where you are with your business.

But it's good to go in eyes open about how long that strategy is gonna take, what its potential upside is, and how easy it is to get right. Use the study framework anytime you're trying to choose where to focus your time and money. Considering running an ad or writing an email campaign, put your play through the ringer to see how it scores.

Know your quickest payoffs before you invest your time in future returns. I'd love to hear what you're trying when it comes to finding and bringing in new clients. Leave me a voicemail at Low Energy Leads. You can also take charge of your lead generation every week with the Low Energy Leads Newsletter, where I share tips on staying booked with less energy.

If you're experimenting with where to find your best clients, you should consider becoming a growth Tracker. Growth Trackers is my membership for small businesses that are finding their stay booked formula. Learn more supereasydigital.com/growthtrackers.

Until next time, remember to put your energy where you'll know it's gonna pay off.