I never want to go back

One thing I’ve found interesting the last 3 years we’ve done our annual WordPress Professionals Survey is the huge percentage of people that list referrals as their number one lead source. Looking at the preliminary results from this year, it looks like it will end up around 75% — just like it has in the past.

I get it… Referrals come with some built-in trust, they’re easier to convert, and let’s be honest — they’re lower effort on our part. Why go out and hunt for you next meal when Door Dash is just a click away, amiright?!

Thanks to creating a sizable amount of content over the years, my agency operates in the 25% minority — and has for a few years now. So today, I thought I’d share why I never want to go back.

Easier to scale, or, in my case, be pickier — Thanks to the volume of leads that come in, which peaked at an average of 9 inquiry form submissions per week when I was pushing it, I’ve had two really good options to choose from. I could scale my agency up or be pickier about what projects I take on. Both options lead to more money — but I went the lower-headache route with fewer, but better projects. Increasing your number of leads affords you to be a lot pickier about what work you say yes to. We’ve never asked in the survey how many referrals people get, but I can’t imagine it’s anywhere close to 30+ a month.

Less feast and famine — It always seems like referrals come in waves. I might get a few in one week, and then none for a month or two. Perhaps that’s just my experience, but I’ve heard a lot of people complain about the feast and famine cycle and with 75% of us relying on referrals, I’m just making an assumption. With content marketing and organic leads, the flow of inquiries is a lot more consistent. Even though I’ve never been reliant on a large number of projects, it lowers my blood pressure to know another opportunity will be in my inbox shortly.

More control over the type of work — When your clients refer you, they likely refer you to people like them. Now, if you have a well-established business in your perfect niche, that can be great. But as you’re starting out, this can feel like a ball and chain strapped to your ankle making it impossible to find bigger, better clients. Because I can control what I make content about, I can control the kinds of people (and projects) that find me. Having created tons of content on GenerateBlocks and being focused on performance, 90%+ of my leads come to me for those specific things.

It’s true that 75% of all agencies surveyed list referrals as their number one lead source — but if you dig in deeper, you’ll find that percentage drops down into the 40s for agencies making $750K+ in annual revenue.

I’m not here to tell you that relying on referrals is a bad thing — many businesses go their entire existence living off referrals. But, I do think there are major benefits other — more proactive — approaches to filling your pipeline.

If you’re getting tired of the feast and famine of it all, I’m going to be running a live cohort version of the Prospect Pipeline Challenge in April. The goal with this challenge is to take a more proactive approach to nurturing your pipeline with the gamified system I use in my agency. 

While that has been around for a while, now we’re doing it together with a group of people for built-in accountability. You can find out more in this post (spots are limited).