How to find customers on purpose, when most of yours have found you

For when word of mouth is working, and the next customer still feels hard to predict.

I had a conversation recently with a founder who does brilliant work.

Almost all of it has come through their network. People who know them, trust them and happily pass their name on. There are good conversations happening, proposals going out, and from the outside it all looks like it's ticking along nicely.

So we got on to the year ahead, and where the next customers might come from.

And that's where it all went a bit blurry.

There was so much good work under their belt, for so many different kinds of customer, that it was genuinely hard to say who it was really for, or what people kept coming to them for.

I hear this a lot from founders of B2B service businesses, the kind where the founder is at the heart of it. And if that sounds like you, I'd gently say you probably have far more to go on than it feels like. The answer is usually sitting in the work you've already done. It just needs looking at a little differently.

What's underneath this

Work that comes through your network is a wonderful thing. It means people trust you enough to put their own name next to yours. Customers come back, they send others your way, and over time that's real proof there's a need for what you do.

And yet it can still feel surprisingly uncertain. Because however good the last year was, you don't actually know where the next customer is coming from, or when. So when someone gets in touch, it's really hard to say no.

"What if this is the only one for a while?"

This is the bit that tends to come out once we get talking. Not everyone who gets sent your way is actually a good fit. You know the ones. The budget isn't quite there, but they came recommended by someone you like, so you find a way to make it work. Or it's work you could do in your sleep and it doesn't light you up at all. Or they need so much of your time and energy that by the end you're quietly wondering how you priced it.

Part of the reason is that the person recommending you is working from their own idea of what you do. They're thinking of someone they know who needs help, and you came to mind. Lovely. But their idea of who you're good for lives in their head, and it isn't always the same as yours.

Which is why getting clear on who you're for is worth the time. It means you can go and find more of the customers you'd love to work with, doing the work that lights you up, at a price that works for you. And you're a lot less pulled in every direction by whatever happens to land (if it lands at all).

What I’d look at first

I'd start by going back through the work you've already done, as if you were seeing it for the first time.

Who were those customers? How big were the companies, and how big were their teams? What did they come to you for, and what were they missing before they did? And maybe most importantly, which of them would you love to work with again?

It's often surprising how quickly things start to stand out once you look. More often than not, it's a narrower group of customers than it felt like while you were busy doing the work.

I learned this one when I was running the Good Business Club. As far as I was concerned, if a business was doing good in some way, the club was for them. So I'd meet people who felt completely relevant. They'd heard good things about us, or they'd tell me how much they loved the idea. And then they wouldn't join. I couldn't understand it, and honestly, it frustrated me more than I'd like to admit.

It was only when I sat down and properly looked at who had actually joined that it clicked. Our members were mostly first-time founders, often after a long career in one discipline, who'd gone out on their own with nobody around them who understood what running a business was like. No senior team, no mentor, no coach. What they had in common was having no community to lean on.

And suddenly it was obvious why the businesses I'd been chasing weren't joining. They mostly had a leadership team or an advisory board around them. They already had people to lean on. They liked what we were doing. They just didn't need it.

It changed where I put my energy, who I went looking for, and how selling felt. It's a lot easier to have a conversation when you know who you're talking to and you’re clear on the value you can add.

Once you can say who you're for in plain words, the way you'd tell a friend over a coffee, it gets much easier to see where to look. And it means you can go and test what you think you know. Talk to a handful of people who look like your best customers and see whether it holds up. Listen to how they describe what they need, because the words they use are the ones to put on your website.

Be open with them that you're learning, and keep the conversation all about them (no sneaking in a pitch!). If you can, leave them with something useful too. They'll remember how that felt, and that kind of goodwill tends to come back round in the long run.

And why bother doing all of that?

I know this might sound like a lot of work, but trust me, it saves time. More than that, it means your energy goes into the right people. You'll have fewer conversations that were never going anywhere, and fewer proposals for work you didn't really want.

And when there's a true match, you can start to grow with real confidence, because you know who you're for and where to find more of them. That feels very different from the business being carried forward by whatever happens to land.

If you take away one thing

If most of your customers have come through your network, and the next one still feels hard to predict, I wouldn't jump straight to reaching more people.

I'd start by asking:

Who have I done my best work for, and what problem did I solve for them?