Until you become large enough to hire a business development professional, one of the biggest challenges that service providers face is keeping a consistent flow of new business. The reason is obvious. When you are busy doing work for clients, you do not spend much time looking for new business. And when you don’t have any business or you know it is ending soon, you are out desperately looking for new business. You start all kinds of new marketing activities only to stop them when you become busy with client work.
This is definitely the wrong approach to marketing. What works over the long term is to find regular activities that generate new leads on a consistent basis. For example, if you find that meeting with referral partners regularly leads to new prospects, then you need to set aside time every week to meet with referral partners. Even when you are busy with client work, it is important to keep up your marketing activities. That is why it can make sense to only allocate 80-90% of your time to client work, even when you are busy, so you can reserve 10-20% of your time to marketing initiatives. If you dedicate at least 10% of your time every month to regular, effective marketing activities, you will ensure a consistent flow of new business that keeps your business from experiencing the feast and famine so many service businesses do. What can you do on a consistent basis to bring in more business?