Clients pick an agency, consultancy, or service-based business based on trust.

To trust that business, they look at minimising the supposed risk of choosing you.

That’s why a great method of winning business tends to be through referrals or word of mouth.

Someone knowing someone means the risk is lower (people trust people).

Referrals are a byproduct of doing good work and having a strong network.

Unfortunately, they are very unpredictable.

I see it all the time: when the referrals dry up, panic sets in, and they resort to “pitch slapping” - they propose on the first date, expecting a yes.

I’m sure we all get the painful cold LinkedIn messages and emails.

If it’s not working on you, it’s highly unlikely to work on your prospects.

So, how do you get out of that trap and build a more consistent pipeline?

Building relationships

Before I go any further, it’s important to note this is predicated on a business having a strong value proposition and a clear idea of who they are and their audience.

If that is in place, then you’re in a much stronger position.

Now, for most Founders, driving revenue is their number one priority - building relationships, however, on an ongoing basis is the first thing to disappear when things get busy.

A few months in, the pipeline looks thin, and people ask why the marketing is not building any momentum. That’s when the pitch slapping gets into full steam (like Sofia/Haziq over here).

That’s what I call a mindset problem.

There is no real strategy, prioritisation, process or accountability.

Relationship building and marketing keep getting treated as activities for when there is spare time, and in a business that is running well, there is rarely spare time. So they do not happen.

Showing up consistently is not optional (even in the Summer).

It requires moving cold contacts into warmer territory and doing the patient, unglamorous work.

It is slow, and slow things tend to get deprioritised.

Given that around 95% of potential buyers are not in the market at any given point, rushing in only turns people away.

The goal should be to be first on the list when someone moves from not ready to ready.

The progression looks something like this:

1. Build a strategy and process to show up consistently, online and offline, with a point of view that is genuinely useful.
2. Identify where your key prospects are.
3. What events, communities, or platforms are the right potential clients actually spending their time in?
4. Tap into your existing network.
5. Reconnect properly, not transactionally. Understand what these people are dealing with right now, not what they might need from you.
6. Build consistency into your approach.
7. Keep up the touch points and take the time to log interactions, set meetings or set aside time to go over the ‘little black book’.
8. Convert familiarity when it’s right for THEM.
9. Not when the business needs a win. When the relationship has reached the point where a direct conversation makes sense.

None of this happens if it keeps getting squeezed. It requires time, a plan, and someone accountable for making it happen.

How we make it happen

This is our CEN model that has proven results and can be applied in your own business:

1. Content:
2. Produce audience-first content on a schedule and process that works for us all. One piece of useful, human and considered content a week is worth more than five pieces produced in a burst. You can also repurpose it in a bunch of ways.
3. Engagement:
4. Review the pipeline properly, on a schedule. Put fixed time in the diary, protected, treated with the same seriousness as a client commitment. We review the pipeline together, regularly, so there is always a clear answer to where new business is actually coming from, and how outbound is linked to what we do, all based on real triggers.
5. Network:
6. Identify the partners who can broaden our reach - the people and organisations already trusted by the audience we are trying to reach. Feature them in content or invite them to events.

Building a pipeline that does not depend entirely on referrals is genuinely achievable.

Just be aware of that next time you go right in for the pitch slap.