Just a few weeks into declaring my specialty, I got my first client.
How did it happen? Being specific about who I wanted to work with.
For four years, I met every Tuesday at 7am with a group of local business people to network and pass business referrals.
And every week, each member of the group got 60 seconds to talk about what type of referral they were looking for.
The advice we were given was to be very specific about the person you wanted to be referred to. Describe them in detail. The more specific you were, the more likely another member would be to think of someone they could connect you with.
This all came back to me last week when I landed my first client for my specialized wedding SEO services (yay!!).
While I have a separate site launched, it’s not like it’s just magically pulling in tons of traffic. So I figured it would be much longer until I got a paying customer (thus why I’m doing some free work).
Then, I got a message from someone I know in the SEO industry. She asked “Hey, are you really looking for wedding-related SEO work?”
Well, YEAH!
“Great, I am totally booked right now, and I have a prospect that I think would be perfect for you.”
Cue the confetti.
After just a short conversation with the prospect, we’re already all set to go on an SEO Roadmap, my version of an SEO audit that starts every project we do.
So ta-da! I have my first paying wedding-related client. I am thrilled to work with her and can’t wait to do the work.
I really do think that the specificity that comes with specializing my services is what helped bring me this client. My contact knew I did SEO and website work before. But she didn’t think to refer to me until she heard specifically what type of work I was looking for.
Now, if she hears from another wedding-related prospect, I think she’ll know right where to send them.
So here is my question for you—Specifically what type of work are you looking for right now?
Could you describe the person who you would like to be connected to?
And how could you educate your contacts on what type of referral you’re looking for so they know who to send you?
It may be a tweet, a post in a relevant Slack channel, or a quick email to a few friends. See if you can plant that (very specific) seed with a few contacts and watch what happens.
Leave a Reply