How Do You Acquire Clients?

There’s a Twitter thread I got pulled into that suggested most solo consultants have two kinds of lead generation: client referrals and networking.

There were all sorts of responses—from suggesting that’s lazy client acquisition to why not if they can make it work?

Here’s the thing.

There isn’t just one magic bullet. Take “Malcolm” who became a freelancer after consulting for a boutique firm where he built his reputation.

Due to his insanely in demand specialty, he keeps consistently busy, is disciplined enough to take time off, invests in building his expertise and happily earns in the low six figures.

He has no desire to spend time building his market authority beyond the occasional speech to his very tightly networked community. Is that wrong?

Definitely not—for him.

But if you have a different model in mind—and you don’t want to rely exclusively on referrals and networking to bring you business—the authority track will probably be a better solution.

And that means content aimed at your strategically chosen niche, building an email subscriber base with that content and using social media wisely.

Invest in the client acquisition model that works best for where you want to take your business.