Catch up on some related episodes:

How to feel confident in knowing what to focus on to grow your business (Path to Predictable Income Series)
The #1 strategy to ensure you're getting paid each & every month
How To Take Guilt-Free Time Off As A Business Owner (Boss Your Q4 Series)

Today’s talking points:

I’m sharing the five part marketing strategy that will make it easier than ever to create consistent income in your business.

Download The 12 Month Boss Game Plan

Welcome to the fourth instalment of “The Path to Predictable Income” series!

Over the next 5 episodes, I am going to walk you through 5 steps to help you create steady, consistent income in your business, so you can get out of the feast or famine cycle for good.

Let’s do a little pop quiz…

Number 1: Have you ever found yourself just hustling, hustling, hustling in your business?

Number 2: Do you ever feel like you're doing all the things to bring in new paying clients and customers, but you're just not seeing the results? You're just not getting in those potential clients who are ready to work with you and happy to pay?

Well, if your experience as a business owner has been inconsistent clients and inconsistent cashflow, then I want you to tune into today's episode.

We are going to talk about the biggest leak that might be happening in your business that prevents those dreamy prospects from turning into sales.

This is going to be such an eyeopener if you have been really struggling to have clients and sales come in the doors of your business each and every month.

If you feel like you have been doing all the things and you're just not sure why it's not working, I want you to know therereal is actually a really simple thing to fix once you understand what's happening.

Let’s dive in.

do you have a leaky business?

Over the summer, I was doing some market research for my signature offer. I was looking into various things, especially where my clients were at when they first started with me. I always want to know three main things when I start working intimately with a new client: your business goals, what you're offering, and your current marketing strategy.

So, as I was diving deeper into all this feedback during my summer research, I had this realisation that everyone had a leaky business. Despite all the big plans and ideas they had jotted down, their marketing strategies just weren't doing the job. In fact, there was no real strategy behind it. It was just a smattering of tactics and without a clear strategy behind it, then all of these different things don't actually lead potential clients and customers to your paid offers.

The moment I introduce this different way of looking at their marketing strategy to my clients, it's like a lightbulb moment. Suddenly, they can see why all the work they put into marketing their business wasn't delivering real results. Sure, it might have boosted their visibility, got their name out there, but it wasn't translating into attracting paying clients and customers. It's a common issue.

When people sit down to write a marketing plan, they often end up with a list of marketing tasks, like having a newsletter, a blog, starting a podcast, and being active on social media. But this to-do list approach isn't a real strategy. Unless it all works together to guide potential clients into becoming paying clients, it's not serving you right. You've got to map out the entire customer journey and make sure your marketing aligns with every step along the way.

Fixing that leak in your marketing strategy is what helps you to design a more predictably profitable business. This is what helps you understand whether the marketing you're doing is likely to make a difference. This is what is going to help you feel more fulfilled and excited by your marketing efforts, instead of being inconsistent and like you're constantly on that content hamster wheel.

It all starts with a five-part marketing system.

five-part marketing system

The five-part marketing system is built on the customer journey and built on consumer psychology. This is the buyer readiness process that we all go through from the time that we first hear about a business or a brand, all the way through to purchase all the way through to becoming a paying client or customer.

The five parts of this system are attract, engage, nurture, invite, and delight. I will break each of these parts down below.

part one - attract

Part one is attract.

Forget the old "if I build it, they will come" mindset, boss. That's just not how it works anymore. We no longer live in the days when hanging an "open for business" sign would magically draw people in. The competition is fierce, and it's your responsibility to get in front of new audience and generate interest in your business. It's my responsibility to go out into the world and let people know who I am, what I do and how I help people. It’s yours to do the same.

So, how do we do this? Attract marketing activities revolve around one key principle: getting in front of new audiences, introducing them with to your brand and business, and encouraging them to engage with your business.

The big thing about attract marketing is that you're going to do things that take time and effort. So these are free, but they will take your time and effort. Things like getting in front of other people's audiences by writing guest posts or by being interviewed or being a guest speaker, being actively involved in networking or looking for referrals. All of those are free.

Alternatively, you can opt to pay to attract audiences to your business through paid advertising. So, attract marketing essentially comes down to three methods: paying for advertising, optimising your online presence through SEO, or engaging with other communities where people are already congregating. In this category, you can consider TikTok as an attraction marketing strategy, while Pinterest aligns more with SEO.

Now, given these options, what's your go-to attract strategy for your business? My recommendation is to start with just one strategy and become exceptionally proficient and consistent with it. I know you, boss, you might be thinking, "I'll do it all!" but I'd advise against it unless you have a team or are willing to invest in some helping hands. Focusing on one method allows you to become an expert in it and gain momentum.

My current favourite attract strategy, before heading into maternity leave, has been SEO. As mentioned in a previous episode, I've enlisted the help of one of my clients and her partner to manage this while I'm on leave. So it's already in motion, and when I return in 2024, I plan to add podcast interviews to the mix. I absolutely love podcast interviews because they're one of the best ways for me to reach new potential audiences, share my message and expertise, and invite people to learn more about me.

part two - engage

The Attract strategy you choose should seamlessly lead to the second stage, Engage.

This phase kicks in when new prospects first discover your business. They might have followed a link from a Google search, clicked on a Facebook ad, or even checked out your bio following an interview you did. But it's not enough for them to just click – we want them to stick around. Our goal is to warmly welcome them into our business and initiate a lasting relationship.

In my experience, no business has ever truly succeeded without a solid database of potential clients and customers. In my case, it's all about email addresses. This is how I prefer to communicate with everyone in my business. When visitors land on my website, they find multiple opportunities to access additional resources and free training – all in exchange for their email address. And yes, they can expect to hear from me every week with valuable free content once they've signed up. This contact information helps me build a database of potential clients.

The essence of Engage is about collecting someone's contact information to initiate a new relationship with a potential client. Getting the right information is key at this stage – it's not just about directing them to your email list; it's about getting them on your email list.

But why is this step so important? The reality is that 99% of people won't make a purchase the first time they land on your website, especially if you offer a service or a high-end product or program. Think about the last time you considered hiring a health coach, a website designer, or a wedding photographer. You landed on their website to gather information and were in the research stage. You weren't ready to make a buying decision right away. This is where many businesses stumble – they try to sell right away. Instead, we need to meet potential clients where they're at in the buyer readiness journey, recognising that they're in the research stage. Our role is to educate, provide information about our process, share client success stories, and assure them they're in the right place and that we're the right professionals to help them achieve their desired results.

The Engage part of the process builds on the foundation of Attract, which is all about driving traffic. Engage focuses on making meaningful connections with these individuals, collecting their contact information, and setting the stage for building a long-term relationship. To gauge your effectiveness in this phase, ask yourself how many new potential clients you need to engage with each week. Keeping tabs on these numbers is important to assess the performance of your Attract and Engage marketing strategies.

Skipping these initial steps can lead your business into a feast or famine cycle. It's easy to deplete your existing contact database, and when that happens, you won't have potential clients waiting to learn how they can work with you. So, if you're not attracting enough clients or people, look to these first two stages; they might be where your business needs attention.

Download the free 12-Month Profit Plan to help you chart your marketing and sales strategies over the year.

part three - nurture

So the third part of the process is nurture. This is the stage where most people typically think of marketing. When I asked my clients about their marketing strategy and what they do to promote their businesses, it became clear that many of them had extensive to-do lists that were mostly filled with nurturing tactics. These tactics included writing email newsletters, blog posts, recording podcasts, creating videos, going live on Instagram, and posting on social media. While these might appear to fall under attracting strategies, they don't entirely belong there.

The primary objective of nurture marketing is to build and strengthen the relationship with your community. Unfortunately, many business owners miss the mark by bombarding their audience with continuous sales pitches. It's essential to understand that nurturing is not about incessantly pitching your community. Instead, it's about providing valuable, useful, entertaining, and inspiring content that builds the relationship and assists potential clients in deciding if you are the right person to work with.

In my business, I heavily rely on teaching. This is my gift. It's one of my strengths, particularly in content and information synthesis. Each week, I educate my audience on something new to help them initiate and expand their businesses via this podcast and my content. For other business owners, their strengths may lie more in influencing – they excel at inspiring and motivating others or showcasing their expertise in a specific area. They're fantastic at sharing their end products and generating excitement. There are numerous ways to create nurture content that builds the know, like, and trust factor while meeting your audience where they are.

Nurture content must be consistent. You have to ensure you show up for your community every week in some way, shape, or form. This consistency is crucial because it's common to see people neglect this aspect until they realise it's time to acquire new clients. They sometimes vanish from the radar when they have a full calendar of clients. But when those client finish up and they seek new clients, it's like reaching out to someone after a date and not hearing from them for weeks. Building trust, like any other relationship, hinges on consistent, valuable, and real connections.

So, you should ask yourself, what is the nurturing strategy that you are committed to maintaining consistently over the next 90 days? In all aspects of attracting, engaging, and nurturing, select one core focus for the next 90 days. This emphasis on one thing is important because consistency and building upon your success is key.

To provide an example, let me share what my current attract, engage, and nurture strategies look like while I'm on maternity leave. I do this every 90 days, mapping out my core marketing strategies. Here's a snapshot:

On the attract side, I've been writing blog posts, which my team optimises. These blog posts feature various resources available on my website, such as the weekly prep meeting checklist, the 12-month profit plan, or the solopreneur's growth playbook. These resources are mentioned in the blog posts, and readers can access them for free by providing their name and email.
After opting in, they start hearing from me and receiving information about my blog and podcast. They get updates on new podcast episodes and are invited to tune into the Busy to Boss Podcast, where they receive high-quality, free content that provides a glimpse of what it's like to work with me.

This progression leads us to the next part of marketing plan.

part four - invite

Part four is invite. Once you've attracted potential clients into your business, and they've shown interest by sharing their contact information, you've continued to nurture the relationship by providing valuable content and showcasing your expertise. Now, it's time to take the next step from potential clients to paying clients. You do this by inviting them into your business. You invite them into your products, programmes and services.

Here's the question: Are you actively sending out these invitations to join your business, purchase your products, or engage your services? It's important because many business owners get caught up in marketing activities like blogging and podcasting, yet they wonder why they aren't seeing sign-ups from potential paying clients or customers.

I regularly follow these business owners online, as well as all of my own clients’, I subscribe to their emails, and I track their activities. I often notice that they are doing a lot of marketing but not necessarily inviting their audience to take the next step.

So, let's address this: It is not the job of potential clients to figure out how to work with you. They do not need to figure out exactly how you work or exactly what you offer. And in fact, if they're having to do that much work to figure it out it means that you are not making it easy for them to buy from you. We want to make it really easy for people to buy.

You need to inform them about your programs, products, or services and whether these align with their needs. Make it clear how your offerings function and what the next steps are. This could mean directing them to a well-detailed sales page on your website with all the essential information and benefits, or suggesting they schedule a free consultation to learn more. It might even involve an application process for your program. The key is to have a clear and straightforward invitation, leaving no room for confusion.

So, for step four, ask yourself: Do you have a real plan to invite potential clients to become paying clients? And how are you inviting them?

It could look like this… If your goal is to secure five new one-on-one coaching clients, you might plan to conduct 20 free strategy sessions and fill those slots by consistently emailing your list every week. Additionally, you're posting content on social media five times a week to drive engagement. This approach represents a practical plan for inviting potential clients to take the next step in your business.

What’s not a real plan is merely hoping that people who enjoy your podcast or social media content will take the initiative to reach out. We need to be proactive in our approach.

part five - delight

So now we're moving on to stage five: delight.

I feel like this is one of the least talked about parts of designing a predictably profitable business. But it's one of the most powerful areas to invest your time and energy in, so really make sure you have a plan for this stage.

How amazing would it be to have a solid client and customer base who continues to work with you, again and again and again, who continue to come back and buy things from you?

That is a game changer and it happens when you have a plan to delight your existing clients with an incredible experience. An incredible experience isn't just about sending a present in the post. Although, yes, that is super fun, we all love getting a surprise in the mail when we hire someone for a new service. I know I do. You know, that's a little surprise elements surprise and delight. But it goes deeper than that. It involves ensuring your clients feel genuinely cared for, supported by well-structured systems and processes that guide them through and help them stay on course, enabling them to execute their plan and achieve the tangible results they desire.

When you have a clear customer experience, your clients get better results and they get a better use out of your product. This isn't due to any haphazard approach in delivering your product, program, or service; it's a result of meticulous planning and going the extra mile to surpass their expectations. Such an intentionally designed experience translates into enhanced client retention, superior client outcomes, glowing reviews, referrals, superfans, and repeat business.

So you want to ask yourself, what is your plan for your customer experience? How are you delighting your clients.

A great example of this is one of my long term clients who is a website designer. She's incredible, she designed my website and whenever people are looking for a website designer, I point them in her direction. She gives them an incredible experience and my clients come back to me raving about her, because I rave about her, and then they will rave about her to other people. And it's this - it starts with one person and it gets broader and broader and broader.

let’s recap

So now that we've talked about all five parts of this 5 part marketing system, you should be able to identify if there is a leak, and where the leak is in your predictable income plan.

So for each stage, we want to ask ourselves:

Attract Stage:

Are you consistently implementing the right actions in the Attract stage to bring in new potential clients each month?
Are you effectively reaching new potential clients regularly?

Engage Stage:

Are you taking the appropriate actions in the Engage stage to grow your database of potential clients and customers every single week?

Nurture Stage:

Are you showing up consistently for these potential clients with useful helpful inspiring content that helps them see how you could be the right person to help them to get to where they want to go?

Invite Stage:

Are you actually extending the invitation very clearly, and not leaving potential clients to figure out how they can work with you? Are you making it crystal clear what that next step is?

Delight Stage:

Are you doing the right thing in the delight stage?
Are you getting rave reviews, referrals repeat business?
Are your clients getting incredible results?
Are your clients sticking around long term?

So that’s the five part marketing plan. This system is exactly what I teach in every single thing that I do. I build all of my strategies around this marketing system because I want you to have those consistent clients and cashflow each and every month. You will never want you to wonder where your next client is going to come from. I want you to be able to have this system in place and know where your next 10/20/100 clients are going to come from.

Make sure you download the 12-Month Profit Gameplan workbook to help you put this into practice.

Download the 12 month Boss Gameplan

In case you missed it, here is last weeks episode - Chapter 3 of ‘The Path to Predictable Income’ series: 5 questions to help you burnout proof your business