How To Get Consistent Leads, Customers & Referrals Without Burning Out

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Happy to be here, Omar. I love the questions that we get. They take me back to different stages in our business journey. And I remember actually having a lot of these questions myself.

Not only is Nicole here to serve up the question, she's here to keep me honest throughout the conversation. So Nicole, take it away.

Yes. That's why I'm here to ask Omar the questions that you would be asking if you were sitting right next to him. Today's question comes from Joseph. Joseph asks, I feel like I'm always chasing leads but never getting anywhere. I try different things, but nothing sticks and I'm exhausted. Is there a system that actually works consistently?

Yeah, that question really floods my inbox and it's for good reason. It's because underneath every business problem that I see, there is this concept of like, I don't have enough customers. I don't know where they are. I don't know how to get them. So if we solve this problem, your business becomes a whole lot easier. Now, the problem is, is that most people think the solution is a tactic, right? They think it's some sort of hack that they have to do in order for them to get more customers. And it's not a tactic, it's not a hack. What you need to do is build a framework, a consistent system that allows customers to learn about you, understand what the value that you offer, be convinced this value is good enough for them to, so they can part with their money, become customers and be happy enough customers to refer new customers to you. So the framework that I'm going to give you today consists of 4 buckets and every single customer acquisition activity falls into one of these buckets. When all 4 of these work together, it's like magic. But the problem is, is that if one of them doesn't work, then the whole system doesn't work. So if your business is stalling out and you feel like you can't get consistent leads or customers or referrals, it feels exhausting. You feel like you're spinning your wheels, you're chasing a ghost. So the framework I'm about to give you stops all that in its tracks. The framework is called CASH. C-A-S-H. Create attention, attract interest, sell and serve, and harness referrals. So let's go through each one. The first one is C, the letter C, create attention. Now, a lot of people understand the principle of this.

They—

pretty simple. Like, people need to know about you in order for them to find you, in order for them to buy from you. But it's a little bit broader than that, and I want to give you some specifics to help you along the way. When I say create attention, I really should be saying creating attention, because this is something you have to consistently do. You can't just do it once and then just hope people saw your post, okay? This is something that has to happen over and over and over on a daily basis. You can't just create something great and wait for people to find it just because you said, hey, I launched this product. And go ahead and buy, here's the link. You know, this is something that you have to communicate over and over, not only in social media, not only on email, but it has to become your identity, right? It has become who you are. And I'll share some stories today about what this means. But the whole point of creating attention is understanding that people are busy, okay? People don't have a lot of time. They're worried about their own problems, their own worries. They gotta go to work, they gotta pay the bills, they got the kids, they got the dog barking in the background. There's a lot going on, right? So you need to remind them of you every single day. Creating attention means deliberately putting yourself in front of the right people through one of 7 channels. Now, before I go into the 7 channels, I wanna like highlight with a highlighter that's neon, that's burning your eyes, this part of that sentence, okay? Deliberately putting yourself in front of the right people. Not everybody. Okay. You know, a lot of people when they have a new business, a new product, a new service, they like to present it to maybe their mom, maybe their sister, maybe their friends. Are they your ideal customer? Are they looking for your solution? If not, what they think is not really important and you really don't need to show them what you have or try to get their attention. Because they're not your ideal customer. So the point here is, is that a lot of people feel like this is a lot of work because I got to tell the world about my products and services. No, you only need to tell the people that need what you have. And this applies to all 7 of those channels. Like I talked about content, paid ads, partnerships, direct outreach, events, communities, and referrals.

Okay, Omar, I totally hear you on all that, but someone listening might think, okay, 7 channels, that sounds like a lot. So maybe where does someone actually start?

Great question. And this is where most people make a critical mistake. They try all 7 at once. And the thing is that when you spread yourself thin, you don't really do well anywhere. Okay? You basically achieve 20% of the results you should have because you're spreading yourself across maybe 5 or 6 different platforms. You're posting content, you're running ads, you're doing events. You're doing outreach all at the same time. Now, what I believe works is that you have to go all in on one channel, get some wins, master that channel, have some traction before you move on to another channel.

I remember we made that conscious decision very early on because you do feel like you have to be across every single channel. And when we decided to focus on one channel, I remember you saying, we have to really put our efforts into one channel and give it a go for a good consistent amount of time. How much time would you say?

I would say a minimum 90 days, and it depends on how fast you can get traction. Some platforms you can get traction pretty quickly and some not so much. You know, like for example, YouTube takes quite some time. You know, it took us about 400 videos on YouTube to start seeing what's working. So you have to really understand that you need to commit to this. You need to commit to the channel. You need to go all in, minimum 90 days. And this is if you're doing it full-time. If you're doing it part-time, you may want to stretch that out to maybe, you know, more of 4, 5, 6 months. The point here is, is that you really want to make sure that you are seeing value, you're getting a return on your investment, and something's actually happening. You're getting some wins with that channel.

Yeah, because in some ways that fear of like, oh, I'm not across every single channel makes you a little bit anxious. But at the same time, it's also a relief because once we focused That made all the difference. It was just noise for that. But as soon as we started to focus, we really saw different results.

Yeah. And here's an exercise I would give anyone that's just starting out. Okay. 3 questions you need to ask. Where does my ideal customer already spend their time? Where are they? What websites are they visiting? What platforms are they on? What are they consuming? What kind of information are they consuming? The next question is, which channel plays to my strengths? Okay, so for example, I love to teach. I've been teaching all my life. So what channels really work for me as a teacher? Well, channels that really are about video. So I am going all in on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. I'm not so big at X because I can't really flex my teaching muscles on X as much because it's not really video first. And the third question you ask yourself when you're getting started is, which channel can I commit to? For 90 days without abandoning it. So for example, one channel could be content, like posting on TikTok is one of the channels, which is content. Maybe you want to use ads as a channel. Maybe you want to run an event. That's a channel. So choose one channel for 90 days without abandoning it, without being inconsistent. You know, one of the things that we talked about back in the day when we were teachers, I used to teach classroom management. And one of the things I used to ask teachers, you know, as I was training them, are you consistent in the classroom? And they would say, I'm consistent sometimes. There's no such thing. You're inconsistent then. You're either consistent or you're not. So don't break promises to yourself. Be consistent for 90 days, at least when you're getting started in that channel.

Give it a red-hot go. That's another way.

Yeah.

We often describe it.

But keep it hot for 90 days.

Okay. So that was C. What's the next letter?

Well, we're spelling C.A.S.H., so the next letter is A, attract interest. Okay? Attract interest is an interesting one because most people just forget about this. They just get attention, right? And they don't understand that you gotta keep people's attention. You gotta keep them interested. So for example, they get someone to look at their content, to look at their ad or their website, for example, and then they immediately start talking about themselves. Okay. Look at all the accolades I have. Look at all the things I've done. This is my backstory. This is a snooze fest. Okay. Why? Because people in general, whether we want to admit it or not, are selfish. Okay. We care about what's in it for me. If I go to a website, if I don't immediately understand what this product does, I'm out there. I'm out. Forget it. This is wasting my time. I'm going to go and do something else. So you have to talk to the customer. You have to talk to your audience. In a way they understand, hey, I got your back. This is what I can do for you. These are the problems I can solve for you through my products, through my services, and give examples, give context, show them a case study, show them what happens. What's the after picture of working with you?

I agree with you. And, and it's true. People do care about themselves more than they care about the person. But how does that fit into the idea that people are told to lead with their personal brand? To lead with their story.

I strongly disagree with that. And the reason why is that I don't think you should lead with it. You should have a story, you should have a brand, but the first question you have to answer is what I can do for you, right? What is in it for the person that's on my website, that's watching my Instagram Reels, that are consuming my content, is consuming the ads, whatever it might be. They really wanna understand it. Like, is this something I need to pay attention to? Do I need to be interested in this? Once you have their interest, when they understand like, okay, this person's valuable, Oh, actually, I really like what they're putting out there. I want to learn more about this person. This is where your brand comes in. This is where your story really matters, where you can start talking about your credibility and the awards you won and the mentions and all that kind of stuff. But in the beginning, they don't really know who you are. They really want to understand, like, what you can do for me.

Do you have any examples, though, in terms of messaging that works in that regard where it is more about the customer?

Yeah, this podcast.

Yeah. Give some examples.

Yeah.

So it would be helpful if you want to do a little deep research.

Which you can just go back to any of my episodes that I've taught on this podcast, over 2,800 episodes, and you can look at the beginning of the episode. And I often try to give as much value as possible in the beginning. I show you what you're going to get in this episode. At the end of this episode, you will learn this. This is the outcome. And then once you understand that, in the stories I share and give the examples, I give you a bit of authority. I share, you know, the stories of building the businesses that we built. You know, the fact that we, you know, grew our software company, got acquired, you know, how much revenue we've made over the years. This then tells them, okay, this person's worth listening to. I got some value in the beginning. I trust them now. Well, I want some more. So I can't really talk about myself without first giving first. It's just like any relationship. Like if you meet somebody for the first time, you want to learn more about them. You want to help them out. You want to make sure that they feel like they're being heard. Once they get that, then they're like, okay, tell me about you.

Sometimes it's as simple as a few language and words, a few shifts in language. Like I think we talk about often, so you can, putting you in the language in the copy versus I in the copy. It could be as simple as that, right? Yeah. And when it comes to messaging.

100%.

Cool.

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Okay.

This formula of cash and the 4-part formula is problem, promise, proof, path. Okay. Problem. What pain does your customer have? What are they suffering from? What's keeping them up at night? Promise. What? Is possible if they work with you, if they listen to this video, if they sign up for your program. Proof. Why should they believe you can deliver on what you're saying? This is where you now talk about your personal brand. You talk about what you've done before, a little bit about your story. And finally, path. What is the next step they should take right now? This is probably one of the most neglected parts of this formula because a lot of people are just like, give value and they don't tell them what to do next. Like, you got to give them a call to action. You got to tell them, All right, next, what I want you to do is go to this link or comment below keyword so that you, they're engaging with you, or ask me a question on this topic. This is the first step towards many steps to get them to become a customer.

I love that you reminded everyone about that call to action because it's not just about the messaging being vague and not landing anywhere. Once you've got like a good message and you've got their attention, tell them what to do next. That specificity of like, what's the next step that you should take? Uh, it's so often overlooked and so important.

Exactly. If your messaging could apply to anyone, it will resonate with no one. So you have to be very, very specific about who you're speaking to. This is something that is very, very important. I think a lot of people forget, they wanna reach so many people. They think, I wanna widen the net as much as possible. But when you try to speak to everyone, you speak to no one. It's like you're speaking to a void. You sound very vanilla, but when you know exactly who you're speaking to, it's much easier. To be able to communicate and resonate with them because you're speaking their language. The more specific you can get about helping out and understanding their pains and their needs, they're going to be like, this person understands me. This person must have the solution because they understand my pain so much.

So it might be at a risk of being disliked. I think sometimes that messaging can maybe seem polarizing or people are afraid to alienate one side of the audience.

You got to be okay with the fact that not everyone's going to love you. I mean, if you don't get any kind of hate on social media, if you don't get any kind of disapproval, then you're probably doing something wrong. Like you're not really making a stand. You don't have a line in the sand. You're not really standing for anything. So it's good that you have some pushback. And we got a lot of strange comments on our content, but I like to reply with politeness and say, hey, maybe you're right. Maybe you're right about that. But this is my perspective. This is what I think. And at the end of the day, this is my show.

Absolutely. I mean, it's— yeah, at the beginning it might be hard, but I think eventually it gets easier.

We got a lot more to cover in today's episode, but if you're getting value so far, you already got value, then hit that subscribe button on whatever platform you're on. It's the best way for you to say thank you to us. Now, I also want you to subscribe because we have an upcoming episode I don't want you to miss. It's called How to Create a Business You Won't Regret. Sometimes we create businesses, we create worlds that we're trapped in, gardens that we can't get out of. Okay, so I want you to make sure that you are consciously building a business that you will love. And that's what that episode's all about. We're working on it right now. Hit subscribe so you don't miss it when it comes out. All right. We covered C, we covered A, now S. Okay. Sell and serve. This is the one where most people cringe. This is the one when people start, you know, I don't want to sell. I don't want to talk about products. I don't want to be sleazy.

This is where you and I had a few differences in the beginning. I felt like you were much more harder on the sell and I had the more Australian perspective, like, go easy, go easy.

Yeah. And I think my perspective was informed by the fact that my dad was in sales for decades and he sold cars for a living. He was one of the best-selling, best salesmen at the dealership for over 10 years straight. He was like, I think the best salesman in the East Coast of the US. What he taught me is a perspective that most people don't have when it comes to sales. And you gotta start thinking about sales as you being a consultant. And the goal of sales is not for you to convince people or to force people to buy anything. Your job is to help people make a decision. That's it. Your job is to make sure that they know what to do next. So if that decision is not to buy, you're still doing your job because they're not meant for your product or service. Better for you to do that than them, for them to buy it and they regret it and there's chargebacks and people are disgruntled and Google reviews all negative. You don't want that. Okay. What your job is to make a decision, decision that serves your customer. I wanna reiterate that your audience, the people that you are putting this content out in the world, this is not a business. Followers are not customers. You have to make sure that you understand that there are people out there and there's people that you transact with, and there's different levels to the people that you work with in your business. There's the people that are the top of the funnel, meaning the people that first time they ever heard of you, they've seen a reel of yours, they saw an ad. They saw you speak on stage at an event. That's one level, but there's another level. Somebody who's been spending money with you for years. That's a solid customer. So you need to treat these levels differently. I've seen too many entrepreneurs spend years building an audience and making almost no money because they've stopped at attention. They're like, okay, I got people's attention. They're interested in what I have, but they never make an offer. They never have anything to sell to them. They just hope that they can do something with this audience one day. Revenue solves all your business problems, right? If you feel overworked, guess what? Revenue allows you to hire people. Okay. Allows you to relieve yourself of some of the duties that you shouldn't be doing. And revenue comes along with the fact that you need to sell.

Okay.

Revenue doesn't come magically. You have to just get comfortable with selling.

Do you think people get stuck on, I have to build an audience to a certain size before it's appropriate to start selling? Or is that really just a fear of like, they're actually uncomfortable with making those offers, getting to that point where, okay, now I actually have to sell. And so maybe the idea of, oh, I need to get a bigger audience, I need to get a bigger audience, is really just that fear playing out.

My answer to that question is what happened 15 years ago? Did every business go outta business cuz they didn't have an audience? No, they had customers. Right? An audience is something that has been created through social media, through the internet. And now there's no, you know, gatekeepers with media, which is great. And it's a great way for you to get exposure. And it's a great way for you to have free ads, basically free awareness. But what you have to understand is that you still need a system to attract your ideal customer. And you need a system for them to understand if the decision of buying with you or consuming your product or service is right for them so that they can become a customer. This is called a sales transaction. You need to have that part of the equation. And a lot of people just neglect it. They're just like, they're gonna go on my website and buy it. No, there's gotta be some part where you actually sell it to them.

Is that the sales conversation, like a, a, a DM, an email? Like what, what does that look like? Can it look different for any, for different businesses?

1000%. So some businesses like to, uh, do like a regular webinar where they run a webinar once a month and add value in that webinar, help answer questions, coach a little bit, and then present their product and service. We did this with our software company, Webinar Ninja. We had a webinar software that sold our software using our software and selling that software on that webinar. So it was very, very meta.

Yeah.

But the point here is, is that we didn't just— the fact that, you know, people are just going to buy on the website. No, there's a lot of people that are thinking about it. They're on the fence. They're not sure. They have questions in their head. They have, they have a lot of rebuttals like, oh, maybe this is not right for me. Will this work for my type of business? And you need to answer these questions. Now, the reason why I think that sales is one of the best things for your business is not only because it makes you money, it's because you get the chance to understand who your customers are, understand their pain points, understand why they buy, understand why they don't buy. I just got an email from one of our listeners. He's really struggling with sales and he says, I keep getting nos and I get deflated. And I say, nos are gold.

Okay.

You can't just say no and walk away. You have to ask why, why did you say no? Why is this not a good fit? Why is this a bad time? Why is it too expensive? Figure out why that information allows you to reshape your offer, maybe improve your product, maybe understand what person that I'm trying to sell to is not right for my offer. They don't understand. The solution entirely, or maybe they don't recognize the problem that they have.

Yeah. And you just get clear on that through those pro— I remember with those webinars, we would record every piece of feedback, every question, because there was so much information from every single person that showed up as to who was the ideal customer, who were we really helping and serving versus someone who was maybe just, you know, maybe interested kicking tires, as you often say. But you need to have that back and forth and not run away from maybe even someone who said no flat out. Figure out why.

Yeah. So you could do this via webinar. You can do this via DMs on social media. You can do this on your website with even just a video, like a sales video that answers questions. You can have one of those like chatbots, or I should say like chat channels where you get a message right into WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, I should say, where you can answer questions right there on your website. There's so many ways you could do one-on-one calls to close deals. You can do it in person. You know, maybe you're gonna sell a pizzeria your, you know, automated software that's gonna help 'em get more customers. There's so many ways to do this, but the point here is do this. Don't just—

have a system, have a system for it, right?

Or, or choose, choose a method of sales that is comfortable for you. I liked webinars because I was leaning on my strengths cuz I taught for 10 years as a classroom teacher and webinars is basically teaching and allowed me to scale, uh, my efforts, meaning that I can do one webinar and there could be hundreds of people on that webinar and I don't have to do hundreds of calls. I can just do one call and it allowed me to be able to scale my efforts and just be one hour every week to do this webinar gets me sales.

And so then you've chosen the method, whatever it's gonna be, we'll stay on webinars. You've get to the point where you're comfortable enough to make the offer because that's the natural part of the process. That's where the revenue comes. So what actually helps people convert? Right.

Every offer has 3 questions in mind for the buyer. Okay. Why this, right? What is the offer and why does it solve my specific problem? Okay. So in our example with Webinar Ninja, people wanted to sell more of their products and services via webinars, but a lot of software out there was complicated. You needed other pieces of software to make it work. You need marketing software and email software and all this other stuff that make it all happen. And ours was simple and easy and Even if you are a solo founder, you can do this by yourself. So why this? Well, it's a lot easier than you think to run a webinar and make money. And one of the big things we did in our offer is like, hey, you know, we have a money-back guarantee. If you don't make your money back through sales, through webinars, using Webinar Ninja, you can just cancel and get your money back. You're not going to be charged. So it's like a no-brainer. Like, why would I not try this? Because it's guaranteed to make me money. The other thing is why now, right? Why do I take action now? One of the things I always say is that, you know, Macy's, which is a department store in the US, they have a one-day sale every Wednesday. Why do they have a one-day sale every Wednesday? Because they want you to go through the door, right? They want a reason for you to come to Macy's, right? And they don't want you to come anytime, just come now. Now, why Wednesday? Well, they chose an arbitrary day. Yeah. Just a reason to do it now. So why should they act instead of thinking about it? So this could be bonuses. Or some sort of special offer that they get when they buy your product or service, you know? And if you're listening to this, you're like, you're gonna start thinking of examples of when you were sold a product or service and you realize, oh, they're gonna include a free water bottle. Yeah, that's a why now. You buy today and you'll get a free water bottle with your luggage. That, for example, if you're buying a suitcase, right? And then lastly, why you? Why should they buy from you instead of someone else, the competitor? Why should they trust you? There's so many choices. They can solve this problem in so many ways. By the way, they can also ignore this problem and not solve it, right? So why you? And this is where you have to come in and bring in the fact that they can trust you, that you have their back, that you have their best interest in mind. So for example, when we did our webinars, we would tell people, hey, when you sign up, we're going to give you all the templates, we're going to give you everything you got, we're going to give you all the copy for the email follow-up sequences that have worked for our business. So they're like, oh wow, I can't get that anywhere else. I'm gonna go with you guys because you're gonna give me everything I need to succeed. We would also say, hey, you're gonna have somebody who's gonna call you and they're gonna set up your first webinar for you. And they're like, and if you are really nervous, one of our customer support agents can jump on your webinar, your first webinar, and support you right there. No one in the game was doing that. So they're like, oh, this is kind of a no-brainer. And this is the whole point of an offer. You wanna make sure that They feel foolish not taking the offer. There's one more element that makes an offer a massive success, and that is risk reversal. And this is a term in business that means that you take on the risk. Most people, they don't want to buy because they don't want to regret this purchase. They feel like, what if this is a mistake? What if it's not right for me? What if I realize, you know, there's another product that's better later on? Well, risk reversal says, hey, don't take that risk. I'm going to take that risk. People buy when the risk is lowered and they feel no pressure. The fear of making a bad decision is often stronger than the desire to solve the problem, the desire to get the outcome. So if you can remove that fear of making a bad decision by saying, hey, we have a money-back guarantee, we have a free trial. I know people that do what's called a 200% money-back guarantee, which means that if I don't get you a result, I will give you the price of the product plus credit of another 100% of the price of the product. So it's like overwhelming, like this guy's throwing money at me. Like, why would I not do this? And the reason why somebody would do this is because they believe in their product. They understand that they will get results and they have systems to make sure that the results are made through that, through that transaction, through that coaching, through that installation of some sort of software, whatever it might be. They're going to make sure that the customer wins.

It's like samples. I get samples all the time, right? Different products. That's an easy way. I was just thinking, what are some examples maybe for— we've given the example of Webinar Ninja and the free trial, but what about a consultancy service coaching business? What are some examples of risk reversal there?

Yeah. So Kawish, who is the person that runs all our thumbnails, who designs all our thumbnails on our YouTube channel, he is a good example. So Kawish didn't approach me and say, hey, I'm a great thumbnail designer. Check out my work, hire me. No, what he did is he went to my YouTube channel and he created like 7 different thumbnails based on previous videos. And he told me, here, have these thumbnails, use them, A/B test them on YouTube, see how they do. We gave them to Shané. Shané said, these are actually working really well. I really love them. And he gave us a win before we even paid. So I was already convinced I don't need to be sold. Like this works. So then I just say, Koish, you're hired. That's it. I don't need anything else. There's no sales transaction at that point.

That's it. Thank you, Koish. We love it.

Let's get to H, the final letter in the word CASH, and that's Harness Referrals. And this is the most underused growth lever in almost all businesses. People work so hard to get their ideal customer to buy. They finally buy, they get a win. They love what you have. They're raving fans. And then they just don't do anything with that. That is like a travesty. You should not let that go. You should— that's like a crime in my book. Why? Because the best customer that you could find are the best customers you have. What does that mean? When you have a great customer, you need to find who is exactly like them. You wanna learn as much as possible from them. You wanna learn where they work, how they make their money, what websites they go to, all that information. And on top of that, they're gonna know great people like them. They're gonna have other winners like them, people that are in the same industry, people that are gonna need your products and services. So this is a goldmine of information, and frankly, it's free money. Why? Because when somebody refers somebody else, they're vouching for you. It's like them saying, hey, I know a guy that's great at something. You should work with this person. And if you think about it, Nicole, how many times have we paid money for services, for products, because somebody else referred them.

Yeah, it's easy. You don't even think about it.

Exactly.

I think people just think, oh, the product's gonna speak for itself, but, and just good word, it's gonna happen naturally. But you are saying like you actually have to instigate that process.

100%. So instead of talking about how to get more leads or complaining, I don't have enough leads, you need to ask a better question. How do I turn my current customers into marketers? How do I turn them into my best salespeople?

Right. That reframe is super important. And does this apply to all businesses? Like, does it apply to a podcast? Does it apply to a coaching business?

It does.

Physical products.

Yeah. Does any business. Uh, and the thing is, is that if your product is good and it's noteworthy, people are gonna talk about it anyway, but you need to formalize this process. Mm-hmm. So it makes it easy for people to come into your door, your metaphorical door, even if it's online, uh, so that you can show them how you can solve their problems as well. And it starts with understanding that referrals do not happen automatically. It just doesn't just happen magically. Okay. What you need to do is once you have a happy customer and they have the intent to refer, you gotta give them a plan. You gotta give them a framework that they need to follow. So it's easy for them, right? A lot of people, they just say, hey, if you know anybody, could you please refer them to us? And like, yeah, definitely, I'm going to do that. It never happens. So instead of doing that, you want to give them clear instructions, a clear plan to deliver these customers to you.

I think people are happy to just be told the next step, right? It was what you said at the very beginning. It's got to be very clear, like what the next step is. And even that applies with referrals. I think people are maybe afraid to not want to bother their customers, but rather than being afraid of not bothering them, they'd be just much happier if you just simply told them, if you could just do this and be very explicit, like do this next thing, that's easy. They don't have to think. They can just action that.

100%. The first step is understanding what are the moments that referrals are most likely going to happen? Okay. The first moment is achievement. Okay. When a customer gets a result from working with you, as soon as they get a win, that is a moment to ask for a referral. Because you are like a hero to them at that moment. The next moment is a milestone. When a customer hits a goal that they've set, like they lost that 10 pounds that they were looking to lose in the first, you know, 2 months, and it's at the beginning of their journey and they just got some momentum. You can ask then. You can also ask when there's gratitude, okay? When the customer thanks you, says, hey, thank you so much. You've been great. I love working with you. You've really helped me in so many ways. This is an open door for you. Walk through that door, ask them for a referral then. Okay. So when you're asking for a referral, how do you ask?

Makes me think about when you're at a restaurant and you've paid, you've eaten, you're happy, you've paid the bill. And then the servers come round with like, hey, can you leave us a review on, on Google? That's the perfect moment, right?

Yeah. In a way that is a referral. You're referring this restaurant to the public.

Right.

So you want to make it easy for them. You want to give them the exact words, and I'm gonna give them to you right now. When you are asking somebody to refer their friends, their colleagues to you, don't just say, do you know anybody? Do you know anybody that would want my service? Do you know anybody that would help me? Do you know is an open-ended question that just makes people just give up. They're kind of like, uh, I don't know right now, I'll have to think about it. Does this sound familiar? So instead of saying, do you know, you ask who you know. Who do you know that would want my service that has the same problem that you had and would like a solution? Now we're going to even more specific. You could say, who are the 3 people you know? Who are the 2 people you know that you know top of mind right now that who comes to mind that would really benefit from this product or service, just like you just have and just had a win right now. And who makes you think of particular people? Well, actually, John's been complaining about this for years. And Susan was saying to me the other day that she's really suffering with the same problem. So this is a different wording, is very slight, but it makes a huge difference. You can also incentivize them. This is something that we've tried many times and it works where you could just say, hey, you know, the next consultation's free or your next month is 50% off for every referral that you have. Why? Because even if you take a dent, you take a bump where it's like, okay, I'm gonna lose 50% of the deal or my monthly recurring revenue from this customer once, you're gonna get a customer that's gonna come and pay you month after month and that's gonna be worth it. Okay. The lifetime value of that new customer is much more than 50% off that one month.

So it has to be very clear that, that reframe of like, it doesn't just benefit the business, but it's also benefiting the person in some ways.

Yeah. If the incentive is enough, it can't just be something like, hey, We're going to give you like a bag of gummy bears or we're going to give you like, you know, an Amazon gift card of $10. That's not enough. You know, like it has to be something that actually makes a lot of sense and they can see the value because they're paying, let's say, $500 a month for your service and they're going to get $250 back in their pocket. That makes a lot of sense.

True.

Now, before we bring this home, I want to share something that changed how I think about growth entirely. Most entrepreneurs think The path to more revenue is more leads. It's not.

I hear that all the time. If I just had enough leads, if I just had more leads. Oh, as soon as I get all the leads, it's like turning on a tap. But it's not, right?

No, it's not. Growth is multiplicative. And here's the math. If you get 100 leads at 2% conversion, that means if you get 100 people interested in what you have and only 2% of them buy, that gives you 2 customers. So for every 100 leads, you get 2 customers at 2% conversions. Now, if you improve your conversion to 4%, 100 leads equals 4 customers, correct? You doubled your revenue without generating a single additional lead. Has nothing to do with your leads. It has a lot to do with your conversion. So a lot of people think they have a lead problem, but in fact they have a conversion problem. They have a leaky bucket. Every time somebody comes to their website, They're not convinced that you can help them, so they leave. So if you can get more people to be convinced and convert to a customer, then you're going to have a lot more customers because of your higher conversions. Nothing to do with your traffic or your leads.

Wow.

That's, that's crazy. Cause I think that obsession over traffic is a real thing and there is value to it, but the most expensive mistake there is that you're not focusing on the most important thing, the actual conversion.

Exactly. I remember we tested headlines on our website for Webinar Ninja, like every single month we changed the headline on the homepage, and one headline doubled our conversions. Like, we doubled our customers off a headline. Yes. And we had no difference in traffic.

Right.

But the point is, is that you're utilizing the traffic you have better.

All right.

Before we wrap up, let me give you the framework one more time in the simplest possible version. Get seen, get attention, pick one channel, master it, and show up consistently. That's pretty much it. You have to get trusted, attract that interest, speak to their problem, make a specific promise to them, deliver on that promise, show proof, and give a clear next step. This is what you do next. Then you get paid. You sell and you serve your customers. You have that conversion happen. They become happy customers after you make an offer and they understand why you are great for them, that you solve their problem. Then you need to get a recommendation from them. Get recommended, right? You want to harness these referrals. You want to deliver remarkable results so that you have that moment where you can say, hey, I know you're really grateful for everything I've done for you. So how about you tell me who you think would benefit from this service, this product as well? That is the system. It's not a tactic, it's a system. And the difference between those two things, a tactic and a system, is that a system is allowing you to build something that works for you rather than you chasing leads. A lot of people's like, I can't get enough leads, uh, not enough leads coming in my pipeline. Well, that's you chasing. If you build a system like I just mentioned, then the system generates those leads and only gets you the leads., but you have a system for converting those leads into customers. Those customers are happy, you get a win for them, and when they're happy, they refer other people. They refer other people to you so that you can get more customers, and the flywheel continues. It continues to get more customers, more leads into the funnel.

I think one time, I don't know who said it, but I think hopefully you'll remember someone said like, marketing tactics have a shelf life. Like they all have a shelf life. And hopefully, Joseph, we've addressed this question. I know we've gone quite long. We've covered a lot of ground. You've gotten this question so many times. So hopefully there's, there's enough here to answer this question that it's not about chasing those tactics. It's not about those hacks that have a shelf life. It's about that system. That's, that's long, long-term really.

Yeah. 100%. And I would say that I know there's gonna be people that watch this video right now or will listen to this podcast and they're gonna say, Omar, I tried all that and it didn't work. Well, I wanna talk directly to you. If you've tried everything I talked about, and you are still struggling, then I have to be very honest with you. I gotta just be honest, Uncle Omar, and here it is. Maybe your product's not good enough. Maybe you need to improve your product. Maybe what you have is not a real need. You're not solving a real problem, and therefore people are not interested. So maybe you gotta go back to the drawing board and change a few things, improve your offer, improve what you're presenting to your customers, and you'll have a better chance of converting customers. A lot of us, we forget the fact that at the end of the day, a superior product is easy to sell. Now, with that said, if you wanna implement this formula, the C.A.S.H. Formula, here is what I want you to do this week. I want you to audit your business against those 4 letters I talked about. See where you're creating your attention right now. What's happening? Are you doing this on social? Are you doing this on email? What is it? Are you committing to that one channel? Are you scattered across all 7 and you haven't had any wins anywhere? Right? If you have a win somewhere, keep doing it. But if you're going to choose a new one, commit to it. Maybe it's the letter A. Does your messaging speak to your customers' problems or issues that they have? Or does it just talk about you and it's just you beating on your chest? You need to serve your customers. Every business owner is in the service business. You are serving people. This is how you make money. Maybe it's the S part of CASH. Are you making offers? Are you having the conversations with your customers and learning about why they're buying and why they're not buying? Are you lowering the risk for them so that they feel like this is a no-brainer offer? Maybe it's letter H. Are you asking for referrals? Are you making sure that you capitalize on those right moments and asking for them to recommend somebody to you? Are you making it easy for them? One of the things I see people do in person is that they ask, who do you know? And they're like, oh, I know so-and-so. Oh, do you have their number, their phone right now? Get the referral, get their phone number, and then you can call them and say, hey, So-and-so told me that you'd be interested in this. Uh, do you have 5 minutes to, to, to talk about it? Or I can, you know, send you a deck or whatever it might be. Capitalize on the moment. The letter where you feel like you're weak at, where you're not getting the best results, where you feel like you could do better. This is where you start. This is what you do this week, right? You don't have to do all 4 at once simultaneously. You could do one, master it, get better at it, and then move on to the next.

All right. Wow. I love it, Omar. I feel like this was a mini masterclass.

It's almost like I've been teaching for 20 years. All right. Thanks so much, Nicole, and thanks for being here. And, and thanks, Joseph, for asking this question and making sure that we cover it because, uh, it's an important one and it's really frustrating. I, I know I've been there, but, uh, you need to trust the system, build the system, and follow through. This takes a bit of work and it takes a bit of time, but you could do it. Now, if this framework has given you clarity on where your growth is breaking down and how to fix it, awesome. The best way you can say thank you is to subscribe on whatever platform you're on. But if you want to continue learning, we have a recent episode that I want you to check out. It's called "If Your Marketing Is Not Working, This Will Fix It." 99% of businesses— business owners are getting this wrong, and I want you to make sure that you don't get it wrong. So check out that episode if you want to keep the learning going, because the A part, the attention part of CASH, is attract interest and lives or dies with your marketing. So you got to make sure that you are doing your marketing properly.

Amazing. And of course, if you want your question answered here on Q&A Wednesdays, don't forget, just go to 100mba.net/q, write your question, and Omar Zenhom and I will unpack it for you.

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