It’s been 6 years since I started freelancing, and I think I’ve found the hack to converting ideal clients.
And it’s more simple than you think.
A few weeks ago, I was checking some data from last year.
I found that 77% of my clients were warm or hot enough to buy from me.
They came from:
- A paid community I’m in
- My personal network
- Repeat Clients
- Referrals
- Outreach supported by my content
It might seem like they have nothing in common, but my strategy for them was the same.
I applied the concept of BONDING.
Now, you might think that Bonding = Relationship Building
Partly true, but also false.
You see, the average person can only maintain up to 150 relationships.
So it’s impossible to build a relationship with every prospect (and for an introvert like me? That’s exhausting).
What if I tell you that there’s a way to bond with people without heavy involvement?
Well, that’s exactly what I did with these leads.
For most of them, I didn’t even know they existed.
I simply built our relationship through building familiarity with my brand by making them interact with it as often as possible.
Think about it…
In most cases, before you buy from a specific brand, you might’ve engaged with them multiple times.
Whether that’s through a post, story, or a couple of ads popping out…
Or maybe through conversations with a friend, signages, or displays of their products.
Interactions build familiarity…
and familiarity builds trust,
which reduces resistance to buying.
Simply put, I built familiarity by regularly showing up (but there’s a catch to this that I’ll explain later).
I showed up by regularly…
- Posting and volunteering in the paid community I’m in
- Posting about what I did in my Facebook account
- Keeping in touch with past clients
- Communicating with prospects on LinkedIn
Now here’s the catch.
If showing up were enough, then why do so many struggle to close ideal clients?
That’s because they’re not building POSITIVE familiarity or…
Their bond still isn’t strong enough.
And here are the 3 things most agencies and professionals are missing:
Trust — They’re unable to define or properly communicate a clear promise to their audience, or they might not look like you walk the talk.
This is also why many can easily close referrals, but struggle to close inbound leads or get outbound leads.
Only their past clients have earned their trust.
Clarity — They have no clear message.
In their marketing and ads, they might still fail to make a connection between what they do and what their ideal clients want.
And this causes them to attract unqualified leads.
Story — What most do is post generic tips and tricks.
The problem with this is that it’s impersonal and anyone can do this.
Think about it. Don’t you feel much closer to creators like Alex Hormozi, Gary Vee, and Chris Do because they include their story and perspective into their content?
And that’s it really!
TL;DR
- Get more clients through the concept of bonding
- Bonding = Building Familiarity
- Familiarity creates trust and trust reduces friction to buying
- Bond by showing up
- But make sure to show up the right way by building your trust factor, approaching your messaging with clarity, and including stories.