Doug Brown reveals the client acquisition mindset that takes coaches and consultants from stuck to scaling, fast.
GROWTH PILLAR: Sales & Revenue
WHO THIS IS FOR: SMB owners / Solopreneurs / Coaches and consultants / Leaders building systems
WHAT THEY'LL GAIN: Six lead generation methods that actually work, a 10% annual growth framework, and a referral strategy that compounds revenue without adding chaos.
Most coaches and consultants think they're in the service business. Doug Brown says that's the problem.
Doug is the CEO of CEO Sales Strategies and has helped companies ranging from solopreneurs to 9-figure businesses build sales systems that drive real, repeatable results. In this East Trade Winds session, he breaks down the mindset shift that changes everything: you are in the client acquisition business first. Everything else is the delivery mechanism.
Doug walks through six lead generation methods every consultant needs, why most people are wasting time on the wrong two or three, and how to measure activity versus actual results. He covers the 10% annual growth rule — a simple framework that creates compound momentum and builds the hockey stick curve most business owners dream about.
He also unpacks referral extension: how to turn one happy client into multiple clients, and how to increase transactional value with the same people you already serve. One client story in this session goes from $3,500 a month to a $180,000 engagement — and then to a stream of referrals. That's what client acquisition thinking looks like in practice.
Wayne Pratt of Motive8U raises the question of premium pricing — and Doug answers with a personal story that reframes how you think about who your ideal client actually is.
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Doug (00:06)
So here's the number one thing that I've found with consultants and coaches. And, you know, some of you I've actually met on the line, some of you have built businesses, traditional businesses. And I think the number one challenge that I find with coaches and consultants is they think they're a coach or a consultant and they don't realize the real business they're in.
and that's preventing them from scaling. And so the real business that coaches our consultants are in is actually the sales business. It's the client acquisition business. And so we want to deliver our products and services, but we get stuck in thinking that that's the actual business. That's not, it's actually the delivery mechanism of what we actually do.
So if you think about it as a painter, for example, if they painted houses, if they can't sell that job to go paint the houses, they would be sitting in their van or truck trying to figure out how am I going to paint some houses? So it's all about lead generation and about conversion. And what I would recommend for most people is to focus about 80 % of their time on focused efforts on generating a lead and converting a lead.
If you do this, your business will start to grow. How do you do this? I break it down and say, look, we need six different methodologies in order to create incoming leads into our business in some capacity.
what we do here is we have a minimum of six different ways that we generate business. Okay. So we built up to over seven figure, you know, business doing this. And so, you know, you've got to kind of find the six ways that work for you. For example, you know, we will do small hosted events. We'll get
People together in a room will do a breakfast, will do a virtual event or whatever, just like we're doing here. And people are exchanging information, we're teaching something, we're invoking discussions. That's one of our ways that we do that. Speaking is another way, getting out in front of people and talking. Podcasting, I believe Carl, you mentioned podcasting and someone else on the line, I apologize. Naomi, I think also mentioned podcasting.
So podcasting is another way of doing that. personally, even though we have our own podcast, I personally do two things. I go on other people's podcasts and that gives me exposure to other people, to audiences. But on my own podcast, I only now invite people who I want to be my ideal client. So we're very...
very particular about who we bring on the podcast. I'm not looking for my podcast, for example, to be this world renowned podcast. The world that I want is can they become my client? And if you bring those on that can become your client, then you can have that engagement conversation with them. So how many of you on the line, have at least six or more ways of driving business in?
so a bunch of you. And then the next question is, are they actually the things that you should be having, right? So this was the other thing we had to learn. We started six things and we were like, okay, yeah, we got all these six things going. And then when we started measuring them, we're like, ⁓ four out of the six really are just a time waste for us. We're spending a lot of time doing this, doing that.
⁓ my podcast, for example, was a complete time waste for me until I actually started shifting it over into going after ideal clients. So most people in a podcast are not making money off their podcast. try to make money off their podcast, but they're not making money off their podcast. And that was the game we were trying to go, let's get sponsorship. Let's get this, let's get our ratings up. We were spending a lot of money out. We weren't bringing a lot of money in the moment. I started shifting it over to, Hey,
here's my ideal client, all of a sudden I'm picking up jobs from that particular podcast. So when you're looking at your six plus different ways, there's two things to look at. Number one, are they actually giving you a return on your investment? Because we want to distinguish between activity and results in our lead generation component.
So that's the first thing to look at. The second thing to look at too, and this one might kind of sound weird, but do you actually like doing it? Because a lot of you teach on this line, you know, how to manifest your ideal life, right? But if we're constantly stuck in something we don't like, even though it is producing, trust me, you can find something that you like that actually will produce, that you'll want to do more of it. And that's where a lot of people kind of drop the ball on this thing.
So it's all about generating the lead. could call it, a lead, close the lead, and then you deliver. That's the coaching business. And the other thing that I find that people don't do in scaling is they don't extend through their own relationships. So most coaches and most consultants, believe it or not, are not asking for referrals. They're not extending the relationship through the relationship they already have. So somebody's super happy with what they do, but then they don't
ask who else. And so when it ends up happening, because referrals are another methodology, it's another one of your six ways, if you will. So you can do two different things. You can extend through the current relationship to the new relationship, number one. You can also increase transactional value through what you do. So none of us, I suspect, most of us are not a one trick.
In other words, we could do other things in our business that could have more monetary value coming in from that same client, but we tend not to offer it. It's a very strange thing amongst coaches or consultants. Like if we had a ⁓ restaurant, for example, we would say, hey, do you want this beverage? Would you like this dessert? Would you like to come to our next opening that we're doing here? We'd invite people in. It's just a natural thing.
But as a coach or a consultant, we don't do that. We don't offer them to even to buy our book, right? We don't offer them to, mean, anything that's small or large that you can increase the transactional value on, because it's not just about increasing the transactional value, it's about creating a stickier client. The more services that somebody engaged with you, then the stickier they are. So,
For example, I could use Carl or Naomi's services and extend the relationship I have with my clients through somebody who's looking to do or be booked on a podcast. Now I could probably make a relationship with Naomi or Carl on this line and ask if I bring you a client, could I get a little piece of that? That's all. And so they may be agreeable, they may not be, I've never asked, but if they're agreeable, now I can extend the client through someone else's relationship.
my relationship, bringing them forth and picking up a little bit of money. Now this might sound a little weird or you might think, well, that's not really what I do. I'm a coach, I'm a consultant. But you know, we add six figures a year through relationships. We don't do the work, we just refer them to other businesses and the other businesses usually pay us about between 10 and 20%. That's kind of the average going. So going back to
you are in the client acquisition business. If you want to grow a coaching practice to a half million dollars a year, you've got to, we have, must be in the client acquisition business. No business on the planet gets, unless it gets lucky, gets to a half million to a million dollars without a focus on client acquisition. And it has to, must be consistent through the process. Now.
Here's a little trick that I've learned every single year. It's a little mind trick, but it does work. You want to raise your income by 10 % a year. So every year you think about raising your income by 10 % a year. And I'll tell you why this works. I had to figure it out because it definitely, when I first started in the consulting, in the coaching business, I was a coach.
And within four months, I was doing $65,000 a month in coaching sales, doing exactly what I'm telling you now. So this is not, you know, theory. And every year I had to ask myself, how do I increase this by 10 %? And here's the reason I did it, because I don't believe our governments, not because I'm ⁓ an anti-government person, but I don't believe that inflation is only four to four and a half percent a year.
I think all of us agree right now that inflation hasn't been four or four and a half percent for the last couple of years. Right. And back in 1987, I think this was, I started calculating it and I'm like, geez, inflation is probably more like seven or 8%. And I'm like, so here I am. I got to make 10 % more. I keep losing my money every single year. Like if you want to create wealth generation.
You got to make more than the inflation is eating away. That was my thought process back there. And I said, well, what if I apply this to my business? If I'm a half million, I got to be 550,000 next year. And if I want to be, you know, uh, the following year, I got to be in the six hundreds in the following year. got to be like high six hundreds. And here's what happens when you do this. If you focus on client acquisition and you're consistently trying to grow your business in this capacity, 10 % a year, it forces us.
to figure out how to do it if we're committed to it. And once we are committed to doing it, what we end up doing is building skill sets that make us grow way faster than 10 % a year. Because you start to develop these business growth skill sets and you're applying these business growth skill sets. And what will happen is maybe in the first year, you'll make your 10 % or maybe it's 12 % or whatever. And then the second year, you'll make that and it'll go a little higher.
But by year two, year three, what I found is you get that hockey stick curve that people talk about in business where it just goes like this. And so when I first started out, you know, I was selling in that 65,000 a month. It's really hard to go from that mindset to, I got to nail another 10 % next year because I didn't know where it was coming from. This is where that six ways came from. So I started realizing the more I could.
create incoming inbound leads and put them on an automated basis, the more I could focus on the conversion side of the business. And so what ends up happening is when you keep driving these numbers up and you keep expanding your mindset to go at 10 % a year, your business will naturally grow to where you want it to go and probably go beyond that. Any questions?
speaker-3 (10:13)
So when you say focus on growing 10 % a year, are you primarily focused on new clients or are you primarily focused on growing your existing clients or some combination?
Doug (10:24)
Yeah, it's a great question, Mitchell, because, you know, the answer is both. You want to focus on both. Sorry, Mitchell, it's not an A or B coin flip. You want to focus on both. And here's the reason why. Your existing clients already know you. They trust you. The decision will be quicker, number one. They'll generally, you know, if you've done a great job and
and they want something new, they'll generally pay you more money the next round. Okay, so I had, for example, I had one client and it started, they were doing three and a half million dollars a year. I work with business to business now, usually. They were doing three and a half million a year. They grew to $6 million and they were paying me $3,500 a month, if I remember correctly, for when I was coaching them through that process. When they got to $6 million,
⁓ we took a little bit of a break. We stayed in touch. by the way, write that one down. You got to stay in touch with the people. Follow-up is so critical in this thing. Right. And so nine months later, literally I called them, said, Hey, I'm going to be in your area. was traveling. You guys want to have lunch and just want to see you again. And they said, sure. We sat down and they were talking to me about, they wanted to grow. And I said, you guys should develop a partner program. A partner program is just an independent agent program.
that goes out and sells their products and services. it's the agent gets paid a percentage. They get the, they get the client. And they said to me, cool. Thanks. And we left and they called me the next day and they said, we've been thinking about this partner program. And I said, well ask away. I'll answer any questions. I love you guys. I wasn't even thinking about trying to sell them anything at this moment. And they said to me, why don't you help me? And I said, in my head, I was going,
She's dummy. You should have probably planted this seed before, right? This is long before I knew what to do on a consistent basis. And so I said, sure, I'd be happy to help you. And I said, well, what do you think that, you you could, you know, pay out? I mean, we're kind of friendly now. I just asked the question. They said, how about $180,000 in your first year to help us? And I said, I can make that work. And so,
They paid me $180,000 to help them build that company. Now here's the thing I want you to get out of the story. They grew from 6 million to 10 million, but now they started throwing me referrals because I was smart enough to start to ask. All right, so one client can become multiple clients and then lead you to other clients. You work easier.
And by the way, when somebody refers you, the conversation is very different than if you don't know the other individual and they don't know you because that trust that is being transferred, like if Wayne said, hey, you you should talk to, you know, Bernie. And I didn't know Bernie at that time. And I knew Wayne, I would immediately talk to Bernie and Wayne's trust goes with, with me in that conversation to Bernie. So Bernie's already at that place where I
you know, we'll trust him far more, right? But if you don't know somebody, to Mitchell's question, you know, new clients, right? New clients, they don't know you, so you've got to be able to establish that credibility in that place, right? So you work on both.
speaker-3 (13:35)
So I'm listening to you. One of the things that's like hitting me is if somebody had, say, one meeting a month with you and let's say it's an hour and a half an hour is devoted to here's my existing clients. How am I doing increasing revenue from those existing clients by 10 percent? And the other half hour was here's the number of clients I have. How do I increase that by 10 percent?
Doug (13:46)
Yes.
speaker-3 (14:04)
over the course of the next year, then in essence, you're actually growing it by 20%. But what you're doing is you're focusing on that 10 % and you're focusing both on increasing your number of clients and increasing the business from your existing clients.
Doug (14:18)
And the quality of the client too, Mitchell. That's the other one, right? So you're always wanting to increase the quality because you can get more money from that quality of client. So yes, I mean, it's geometric growth when it comes down to it, so, but it's, it's really amazed me. Like I tell everybody, like, I'm not that smart, but I'll outwork you. Right. And, and, ⁓ but it amazed me when I first started looking at the numbers.
Wayne (14:40)
at in your head.
Doug (14:46)
And I've applied this to different businesses. I started a whole new business in this space and I was all on my own and I didn't, know, in the business went to six figures the first year. And then the next year, if I remember the numbers correctly, please forgive me. I focused on 10%, but it went to 223,000 if I remember. And then the third year it jumped from 223 to I think it was
304 or something like that. the following year, remember I said the hockey stick. So the following year it jumped from 300,000 to 425 and then it jumped to 494. It jumped to the following year, right? So like that's kind of the thing, but it was always focusing on just what you were asking Mitchell and the things that I'm talking about.
How do I get 10 % more out of each and every one of these things? you know, because you can extend a relationship through the relationship you have to another relationship, or you can extend your current relationship through, in other ways of getting money. Like if you go to do a speech, for example, you could, you could, in theory, you could just say to the person, Hey, how would you like to
⁓ do some pre employee surveys, let's say, within a company, right? And so that you get to know them, they get to know you, I'll be able to tailor the presentation better to your audience, et cetera, et cetera. They'll pay for you to do those pre surveys. So instead of maybe getting a, you know, whatever, a few thousand dollars or $10,000 or whatever you would to get to speak.
speaker-8 (16:15)
Hey!
Doug (16:24)
You're now, let's say for those pre-surveys, you get an extra $1,500 and then you could interview the executive leadership or whatever. And you can, you can extend these things. How about I do a couple of sessions, you know, uh, after or whatever with the audience, right? You can ex you can add on these things to a talk and make a, you know, a $5,000 talk into a $10,000 talk.
And so when you're doing the same thing, you're with the same client, but what you're doing is you're growing exponentially everything that you're doing. And that's one of the things we, as coaches and consultants don't look at it. Cause we don't think we're client acquisition people. We think now in client acquisition, if you were a salesperson and you went out to sell something, you want to sell everything you can sell to that client for their benefit. You just don't want to sell them stuff like they don't need it.
Right? You know, if they have ⁓ a boat, you don't want to sell them tires, right? They're not going to use it. but anything that you could sell around the boat, you would want to, you know, maybe fuel, you know, polishing stuff for the boat. I'm making all this up, right? Maybe you want to sell them an anchor. You want to, you know,
sell them an extra gas can because they go out on long voyages and they weren't thinking about that. All of these things you could sell that would increase your sale. That's what a client acquisition person does.
Any other questions?
Wayne (17:51)
I would like to know if you make a distinction between your client acquisition and what level that they're capable of spending, because I'm looking for clients on a higher level, a bigger price tag. Are we doing the same exact thing? You might be calling that a quality client, but I want to market or acquire a client that's going to pay me more rather than have a bunch of clients.
that are paying me less and I have to do more work.
Doug (18:17)
Sure, that's an intelligent form of leverage, Sharon. since we're from the same state, I'll give you extra special answers. No, here's what I found. when I first...
I'm gonna use a different example than a coach, because it still applies. This is from my own personal life. So I was a professional DJ for many, many, many, many years. And I played all throughout Boston and New England. And when I first started doing DJ work, I started doing work for about $100 to $150. I would go to a wedding, I would go to a party, whatever.
I started out part-time and I thought, man, this is awesome, right? Like I'm making 150 bucks cash, you know, it's like, and then I went to this place called the Marconi Club. It's in Stoneham, Massachusetts. And I was playing a wedding and they were paying me $175. And the bride and groom were complaining to the hall about
⁓ they had plastic ware on the dish for the champagne toast for the bride and groom. And I walked over to the function hall facility manager there at the Marconi club. And I said, geez, I'm curious, what did they pay for this room? And he said $75.
And I was like, and they're complaining about having plastic dishware for a toast with 75. What did they think they were going to get? You know, crystal. mean, what were they, you know, he goes, I don't know. It was 75 bucks. And he walked away. And I started thinking, why am I playing these places for $175? And then a friend of mine, Chris Wimmer said to me, Doug, you're way under priced.
as a DJ. Now he was a DJ getting more money. And I said to him, he goes, double your price. You'll get better quality clients and you'll work half the time. And I said to him, I can't do that Chris. I'm like 150, I'm $175, man, you know? And he's like, he's like, you are way too good for 175 bucks. Anyways, 200 jobs later, I decided I'm going to raise my prices.
And so I did, and I went to like 250 and work kept coming. So I went up to 350, work kept coming. I went up to 400, work kept coming. 450, 550, 650, 750, 850 kept coming.
I said, the heck with this, I'm gonna raise my price to $1,400 for the DJ work. Kept coming. But Sharon, what kept coming at that point, McDonald's Christmas party, Fisher Scientific. I was playing in country clubs that were spending $250 a plate for a wedding. I was playing at the top of the hub in Boston. I was playing.
like at Berkeley College of Music. was playing like all these events and all these high level weddings and you know, places were paying me. I was making as much money doing one third the jobs that I was doing before. But more importantly, the quality of the individual that was referring me was to another quality of individual.
So what I learned from that, and I apply that into the coaching business is you got to determine who will be able to pay you that kind of money. And then your marketing, your client acquisition efforts go into that client only.
and the other clients that would have been at the Marconi club, so to speak, you can take them if you want to, but I recommend you don't. You find other people who want them, pass them to that person, take a percentage and you focus on the higher level client that can actually pay you the higher level money.
If you don't, you'll be in a. What was that?
Wayne (22:00)
higher level clients.
So I have to find higher level clients.
Doug (22:06)
find people who actually have the money, right? Like, you know, I like on my website, if you go to CEO sales strategy, you'll see on my website is the $7,500 diagnostic, and it's 150 to $250,000 plus 15 % of the EBITDA growth in a company for me to work with them.
I can, right. So I put it right on the website. So when people are coming in there, if they look at it they go, I would never pay $150,000 or whatever, that's okay. I don't, I'm not gonna spend my time going after people who are gonna pay me $25,000 anymore. So that doesn't mean I'm better than anybody else. I have friends who charge a half million dollars to a million dollars, right?
So it just depends on what you want. So you go after that level and you don't compromise. You still pay the bills though. So don't be at the place like, if I can't get these people, I won't take some of this work. You still gotta pay the bills while you're transitioning through that
Wayne (22:54)
Okay.