The Takeover with Tim and Cindy

Audit Your Client Acquisition Strategy in 5 Steps (And Win More Clients)

• Tim and Cindy Dodd

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What happens when the referrals dry up?

When inbound slows down?

Most businesses stall out, not because they lack opportunity, but because they never audited the core of their client acquisition strategy.

In this episode, we walk through a 5-step audit that reveals why some companies scale effortlessly while others stay stuck. You’ll discover the hidden mistakes that sabotage growth and the exact checkpoints we use to create predictable client acquisition systems.

This is the same framework we’ve used to help businesses escape the rollercoaster of inconsistent leads and finally scale on demand. 

Press play and run this audit with us.


Chapter Markers:

  • [00:00] Referrals vs. predictable growth: why relying on chance keeps you stuck
  • [02:20] The 5-step client acquisition audit: an overview
  • [04:40] Step 1 & 2: Lead source clarity + defining your ideal client
  • [10:52] Step 3: Offer positioning—creating a no-brainer offer
  • [15:34] Step 4 & 5: Pipeline health + follow-up strategies to win lost deals
  • [26:41] The one area every team should fix first

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About The Hosts:

  • Tim & Cindy Dodd are the Co-founders of PEMA.io, based out of Miami, FL. Connect with Tim and Cindy on LinkedIn and Instagram:

About PEMA.io:

PEMA.io is an Inc. 5000 Outbound Agency specializing in helping Marketing Agencie...

00:00

If you're based on referrals  and random inbounds that you don't have a business, you actually have a glorified job. No matter how big your glorified job is,  if you cannot create predictable,  scalable  growth  through having a clear  and predictable lead source or multiple lead sources,  then you're eventually going to be in a place where you cannot grow and you get set back. If you're still saying, we work with everyone, you're already lost.


00:29

I think about the best client acquisition systems  are the ones that are built on hard data  about who your ideal client is. You have to ask yourself,  is your offer so clear, so simple, so defined, and so obviously a great solution that you would purchase it  yourself  on one call? If you have a no-brainer offer, a brainer that is so simple and clear and delivers exactly what your ideal client needs,


00:56

You don't need to be an exceptional salesperson to be able to convert that prospect. Welcome to The Takeover with Tim and Cindy, where we show you how to dominate every area of life  and business. Let's get with you.  If you want more clients, more consistently, stop guessing at what's working and what's not. In this episode, we're going to go through five steps to be brutally honest about your client acquisition strategy. Now I've seen companies


01:23

double their book calls just by getting real about these five areas. So let's go ahead and dig in. Yes, today's episode, we're going to look at a five step audit. And this five step audit is going to allow you to ask very specific questions to audit where your client acquisition strategy is right now. Anything from lead flow to making sure you have the right client alignment to pipeline and follow up.


01:51

These are the exact five things that if we were looking at your business, we would ask you these five questions. So you can do this audit on your own or grab your team and run through each of these five things. Be brutally honest as you are responding because the more honesty you can have with these answers, the better the outcome for you. And of course the goal is always at the takeover to sell more and scale more, right? How do you actually dominate your market?


02:20

And part of dominating your market  is getting extremely clear  on your client acquisition strategy. So we're going to make this very simple. If you are super experienced with marketing and sales or whether you're just a beginner and starting out this process, this is going to be helpful at every step. So let's lock in. These are the five steps to auditing your client acquisition strategy.


02:46

Step number one is lead source clarity. Do you have a consistent intentional way to get in front of qualified prospects, qualified leads? Are you hoping for referrals and hoping that some kind of magical inbound will save the day? You know, do you have a proven reliable lead generation system as the backbone for your growth? Because I've seen so many companies are like, yeah, we get referrals and we have these inbounds and


03:14

But they don't have predictability. They don't have a way to replicate. They don't have a way to double, triple, five,  10x their growth. So they're kind of at the mercy of  other people, which means if you're based on referrals  and random inbounds, that you don't have a business, you actually have a glorified job. No matter how big your glorified job is, if you cannot create predictable, scalable growth,


03:42

through having a clear and predictable lead source or multiple lead sources,  then you're eventually going to be in a place where you cannot grow and you get set back. I've seen companies say,  literally, we're crashing right now because we had so much inbound, we had so much referrals, the market changed, we stopped getting referrals, and now we're down. We're losing money every month. And these are $10 million agencies that are, we're losing money every month because we were 15 million, now we're down in 10 million, and we didn't have the margin, so we're spending more money than we're making right now.


04:11

And this is why it's very important to have a predictable lead source. think the key here is repeatability, right? Because if you are reliant on somebody remembering to mention your name when they're in a room with your ideal client, like that's not a strategy. That's hope.  And hope is not a marketing strategy. So we want to think about here,  what  is a repeatable way to get leads?


04:40

And if you are doing this audit on behalf of your company, maybe you are the CMO or your sales leader, think about does our team have clarity on our lead sources? Can you pinpoint the two or three channels  or ways that you all can predictably get new quantified leads in the door without waiting for referrals or for inbound leads to magically pop up? So this could look like you have a specific outbound strategy.


05:09

You are running paid ads. Maybe you have an email list that's bringing you a certain number of qualified leads every single week. Make sure you have clarity on where your lead sources are, right? Where are the best channels for you to get qualified leads in? And as I mentioned, make sure that it is a repeatable system. You do not want something that's random or outside of your control, because if it's outside of your control, you cannot predict the scale. So that's the first question.


05:38

when auditing your client acquisition is, do I have  lead  source clarity? That takes us well into the second thing to audit, which is ideal client alignment. If you're still saying we work with everyone, you're already lost. I think about the best client acquisition systems  are the ones that are built on hard data about who your ideal client is.


06:08

And we've spoken about this on a previous episode, which is getting very clear on what your quote unquote niche is based on data and not based on guesswork. would also say on this, what's really important. see mistakes that companies make  all the time is they create an ideal client kind of based off of their own like world or their company. Meaning they start defining what an ideal client is not based off of the kind of targeting.


06:37

or the kind of marketing that they could do to get the clients, they based on these five points, but your five points on who your ideal client is have to match targeting parameters that you can do  on marketing channels. So if my ideal client is five data points that does not align with a LinkedIn outreach, an email outreach, an ad campaign, if my five criteria for my ideal client are not aligned,


07:06

with the platforms and the marketing channels that I can use to get clients, then you're going to be trying to fit the wrong criteria into the right platforms, or the wrong criteria into the wrong platforms, which means you're not gonna get great results. So as I'm trying to create clarity on perfect ideal client alignment, I want to understand first, where are my clients?  Where are they hanging out? Where can I get them? LinkedIn, email, outbound ads, like there's a lot of places to get clients.


07:36

But then I want to take that next step and say, what is my ability to target  on these channels? Then I reverse engineer based off of the channels that I can market on and say, oh, these channels allow me these kinds of targeting features.  Now I look at my ideal clients and I say, where does my ideal clients fit within  these target features? So that when I go out to find my ideal clients,


08:00

I'm not trying to magically make up and enforce my idea and my parameters into a platform, but I'm reverse engineering from what the platforms can deliver for me and then see how my ideal client matches within those platforms. Yeah, I definitely think when figuring out ideal client alignment or who that ideal client avatar is, why it's important is one, the targeting as Tim is mentioning, but also around messaging, right? The clearer you are  on who your ideal client is.


08:28

The better your messaging is going to land for that ideal client. Tim, you always talk about like the dog whistle, right? Like the dog whistle is where you blow this whistle, only dogs can hear it because it's such a high frequency and it only attracts their attention.  We can't hear a dog whistle, right? And it's the same thing when you're thinking about messaging  or marketing to your ideal client.  If you want your marketing materials and messaging to truly land with your prospects,


08:58

you have to get clear on who that IELT prospect is. Because the moment I can call that out in a message, it is going to automatically catch and grasp their attention and get them to read my message, pay attention to my ad, have a look at my graphic. But if I'm talking to everyone and I'm saying that this marketing or I help everybody, it's gonna land with nobody. So having a clear avatar means you have very clear messaging and that's gonna lead to clear a pipeline.


09:26

because you'll be able to really automate how people are coming into your pipeline because you have so much clarity.  love that. So, I mean, you're targeting in your messaging, the more defined that is properly around the proper platforms, the more it allows you to not only find the right people and reach out to the right people, but then speak a message that feels like, I mean, the best, the best ads, the best messages,  the best emails, they all feel like they're entering a conversation that's already happening in your prospect's head.


09:56

And the more you can identify the specific person you're talking to, you can use language that they're going to be more related to. And they're going to hear  words and language and ideas that are already kind of roaming around in their head. And you're able to connect your solution, your product's solution to problems that are specific problems that are roaming around in their heads. Right. So the question to ask yourself here is, who is my ideal client? And if I was to do this,


10:25

audit with a client of ours, if they can't tell me very clearly who it is that they help within a sentence, I know they don't have enough clarity on this and that means they need to do more work on this. So ask yourself who is my ideal client and can you label that very specifically and very clearly? If you cannot or members of your team cannot, whether it's on marketing or sales, it means you need to do a lot more work in this area.


10:52

Step number three is offer positioning. mean, your offer has to be so good that it dang near sells itself. You the better your offer, the less sales skills and techniques you're going to have to have. Now, one thing that I love to ask is if I didn't know me or my company now, would I buy my offer on one call? Now, I don't think this is just like quick, fast sales. Like I'm talking about if I was an enterprise marketing leader and I didn't know about the services that offer, would I hire Pima?


11:21

in one call, would I take that next step in one call? And if your answer to your services is like, no, I wouldn't, I wouldn't spend that much money with me, then you better step back and rethink yourself because I think about the cost that I charge my clients to get a meeting with the type of companies that I'm getting them a meeting with. And I'm like, holy cow, if I could infinitely buy an infinite amount of leads from myself at that price point, I absolutely would pay that exact.


11:48

price to get myself that many meetings infinitely.  Absolutely. So you have to ask yourself, is your offer so clear, so simple, so defined? And so obviously a great solution that you would purchase it  yourself on one call. And if you have difficulty explaining, articulating in a few short sentences, what that offer is and how it helps the person on the other side, right? The specific outcome that it delivers.


12:16

you need to do more work on your offer positioning. Anybody on your team should be able to instantly say what it is that you will do, how you help, what the outcome is, and to be able to pitch, because it needs to be that simple. And I love what you mentioned, The offer's so good that you don't need to be an excellent salesperson to convert somebody, right? Because if you are thinking about, have to have just the right technique and just the right persuasion or say the right words, yes, you're utilizing those sales techniques, but that's taken away from the offer.


12:45

If you have a no brainer offer, brainer that is so simple and clear and delivers exactly what your ideal client needs, you don't need to be an exceptional salesperson to be able to convert that prospect. So think about in this step, as you are auditing, do we have a no brainer, irresistible, perfect offer that if I was to pitch this to somebody who did not know me at all, did not know my company, would they convert on  one call? And if the answer to that is no, we have


13:15

too much sophistication, our services so high level, we  pitch this for multiple six figures. It means you need to come back and reposition. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to make your service cheaper by any means, but you can find a way to position that initial offer as an easy yes to get the prospect in the door, prove to them how well you deliver and then continue to upsell from there. And if you haven't yet, you all should go back and listen to


13:45

our welcome back episode, our first episode of the season where we spoke about the three philosophies.  One of them was a good offer beats excellent sales skills every time. And we walked through some of the philosophies around creating a really good offer and how that even leads into lifetime value. So we won't cover it too much on this episode, but we'll link that episode in the show notes so that you can go back and take a listen. just to be clear, I am a huge


14:12

Massive gargantuan fan of becoming great at sales, the best entrepreneurs of all time and all history. The most influential people were incredible salespeople. Above  so much else, they were incredible at selling to clients, selling to talent and to investors. So I am a huge believer in leveling up your sales skills as the number one skill you can have as an entrepreneur, as a leader even.  That said,


14:39

You shouldn't need to be some magic wizard, ninja, salesperson to consistently close your offer. And if it does that require the owner himself to close every deal or it requires all these complex things to close a deal or requires master sales skills to close a deal, there's more work that needs to be done in your offer because the more simple your offer is, the more straightforward, the more value it clearly delivers, the less sales skills needed  to make that happen.


15:07

Hey there, I've got to stop here for one quick second to ask you this question.  Have you been enjoying the podcast?  If so,  make sure that you are subscribed and take that one extra step  to please leave us a rating and a review wherever you are listening to the show.  Not only does it help us continue to grow and impact more people,  we'll make sure that we show up wherever you are listening as well.


15:34

Awesome. Let's go into step number four. Remember we are auditing our client acquisition in five easy steps. The fourth thing that you want to evaluate with your client acquisition, and this is critical, it's pipeline health.  So in step one, when we were auditing, we spoke about having clarity on your lead sources, right? Where are ideal leads coming from? Do we have consistency? Is it repeatable? Can we scale our leads?


16:00

But here specifically, we're talking about how healthy your pipeline is. Because the reality is if you're not  adding in new qualified leads into your pipeline every week or every month, your growth is going to be capped. If you do not have pipeline, it means that you don't have scalability, period. I always like to say you don't only want to be thinking about immediate pipeline, meaning my leads this week or next month or even this quarter. You want to be thinking about long term.


16:30

We've had some clients that we speak to, companies that we speak to say, hey, I'm fully booked. I'm all maxed out. have enough clients for this month or this quarter. We cannot afford to take on any more clients because we're fully booked. And that's okay for now. But I always ask, what are you going to do in six months or in 12 months? Are you going to be in that exact same position? And very often that answer is no. So when you're thinking about


16:56

pipeline health, think about this in terms of the long-term,  six months down the line, even next year. How can you consistently build pipelines so that you are never at a point where you have no leads or your leads have run out or dried out? You are always thinking about building your pipeline.


17:15

And what's so beautiful about this, like right now Pima is on a wait list. Like if you want to come be a client,  if you're fit for us,  there's a wait list. And people are more than willing to hop on that wait list because we offer so much value. But that doesn't mean that we stop marketing.  doesn't mean that we're going to stop building our pipeline. We're still building our pipeline. We're still building that. And the healthiest companies you see out there, they're obsessed, obsessed, obsessed about a healthy pipeline.


17:41

and really see it as like you're investing in your pipeline, not just for immediate growth, but like what I invest in my pipeline today, I know because the consistency a year from now, two years, three, four years from now, we're gonna see the fruit from,  yeah, and of course I want my pipeline to convert fast, but there's also just a point of consistently showing up in the marketplace  over and over, month after month, quarter after quarter, year after year, that also


18:08

builds an equity for your company in the marketplace as the dominant player. And we've seen it so often when we were speaking to somebody this month, they weren't ready to sign up for one or other reasons. And then six months or 12 months down the line, they come and reach back out to us because they're ready to sign up. Right. And that's the benefit of having pipeline health. You have pipeline both for immediate conversions, new revenue in the door today, this month, this quarter.


18:37

but for down the line as well. I always say, pay your future self, pay your future self for the that you might need for a few months or years down the line.  Absolutely. And one thing I want to mention too is that people get this wrong all the time. go like the honest sales call with Pima. People say, just so you know,  we're speaking with two or three other lead vendors  and we're going to choose which one we want. It's like, great. And are you only hiring just one? You're just going to hire one lead vendor?  I never thought about that.


19:07

You know, and so I actually, people are shocked that we encourage companies that are like talking to competitors that they're shocked that we're, actually encourage them. Yeah. Try a couple lead vendors at the same time. Why, why, like, why would you only try one? Why would you put all of your eggs in one basket? Now, of course you hire two or three lead generation companies and we're one of those.


19:29

Of course, by the end of the program, maybe one of the other one works out, chances are it doesn't, but with us, it is gonna work out and you're gonna see we have a lot of value. So I'm never scared if somebody tries on another company. For me, I wanna at least hire two companies at the same time. That way  I can compare over a period of time, not over like one or two months, like I'm not trying to get rich quick, but don't be afraid to try two or three lead generation companies at the same time so long as you have the bandwidth


19:58

capacity and resources to properly invest the time and energy to make sure you're getting the great results out of these sources because remember great leaders great companies they delegate they don't advocate right if you're hiring a vendor you're not hiring them to grow your business you're hiring them to fill a part of your pipeline need so that you as a company can grow your pipeline and ultimately continue to grow your company so the question you want to ask here with step four in pipeline health is


20:28

Do we have consistent leads filling our pipeline every week and every month? Where are those lead sources coming from? But always be thinking, even if we are at max capacity, are we still accepting new leads into the pipeline? That is critical. And then the last thing that you want to be evaluating, it takes us really nicely as we're talking about pipeline. Step number five is you want to evaluate your follow-up and re-engagement strategies. So sometimes we'll see that businesses have


20:57

plenty of leads in their pipeline. We'll take a look at their CRM and see their sales pipeline and see they have  multi millions of dollars inside of their pipeline that's just sitting there. Right. And you don't necessarily have to always chase a new lead. It's great to have new leads coming in to fill your pipeline, but there's also value  in  re-engaging or engaging in the current leads that are in your pipeline. So this is where great follow-up.


21:27

and re-engagement strategies come into play. Because if you're not re-engaging leads that are already in your world, you are leaving so much money on the table. Always think about out of sight, out of mind. Right? Your follow-up system, how you are following up with leads or prospects that are in your pipeline should be just as consistent as your lead generation system is. What I would think about is you want to look different than what other people are sending and you don't want to come across as


21:56

Desperate date right if I go out on a date for first time and then I text the girl Hey, just just checking in  really enjoyed her really enjoyed her date um May let me know if you have any questions  Let me know how what you're thinking about the next day like  any insert anyway that a regular person follows up and Imagine that a dating situation and ask yourself. Well, am I gonna get the second date? And the answer is absolutely not so start thinking about I want to lead with value


22:26

I want to lead with new information. I want to lead with next steps. So I can do things simple, whereas instead of saying, just checking in, just touching base, just seeing where you're at, I can say,  last time we spoke, you said blank. What I'm curious about is, and now you start moving the conversation forward. That's a little bit changing your authority in the language you use  and the value you deliver instead of  asking them for where they're at.


22:54

You can simply do a touch base with, hey, I saw this article, I watched this new tutorial, I saw this case study of my client, and I thought of you. The subject line in an email can be like, thought of you today, saw this and thought of you, ooh, you got some intrigue. Then the email can be like, hey, share a case study with a client that's similar. It can be, go to Perplexity, an AI tool, put in the person's company name and name and all the information about them, just simply.


23:22

and ask Perplexity for five great resources to share with them to give value so you can share value using AI, right? But you wanna make it more about you're the leader, you're the authority, you're moving things forward, and ideally you actually have the next step already scheduled. So when I think of my pipeline, I think of hot, which is meetings that are happening, I'm having a meeting with this person at least once a week. I think of warm, I'm having a meeting with this person at least twice a month.


23:50

I think of cold, I'm having a meeting with this person maybe once a month, once every couple months. And then I think of like frozen is like, this person is good pipeline, but there's nothing moving forward. I don't have a next meeting scheduled. So you always want to have that next meeting scheduled. When I'm in frozen meeting, I don't have the next meeting scheduled. I always want to lead with value, value, value, value in the emails. And I mean, it's pricey to get leads, right? So when you are thinking about how much, when you have millions of dollars,


24:21

in your pipeline, think about how much it costs you to get those leads that are just sitting there. So you have to get creative on how you follow up, how you engage and re-engage. So the question you can ask yourself for this step as you are auditing your client acquisition is do you have a system in place to stay top of mind with every lead that you've paid for or worked hard to get,  or are they just quietly disappearing somewhere in the pipeline or in the abyss?


24:46

or maybe even getting swooped up by another company that is proactive on the follow-ups. So take 15 minutes to ask yourself these questions when auditing your client acquisition. Number one, lead source clarity. Do you have a proven repeatable system to get in front of qualified leads,  or  are you kind of hoping and wishing and waiting and reliance on people to send you referrals? Number two is ideal client alignment.


25:16

Can you describe your ideal client specifically that is in a way that matches with the platforms you're going to do marketing and prospecting  on, backed by data, not just like theories and  ideas, it's backed by real data in your company. Number three is offer positioning. Does your offer such a no-brainer for your client's audience that it sells itself  and does it answer that question, would you buy this yourself  on a one call?


25:45

if you knew nothing about how your company delivers the product. Like if you didn't know you at all, would you buy your thing in one call? And if the answer is no, then you don't have a great offer. Number four is pipeline health. How many qualified leads are you consistently adding to your pipeline every single day, week, month? And is it enough or more than enough to hit your growth goals? Cause I would rather go on a waiting list than not have enough meetings coming in. And number five is


26:12

follow up and re-engagement. Do I have a system to stay top of mind with every lead that I'm paying for and working for? I see too many people that are constantly just looking for that new lead when there's so much pipeline, there's so much money in the pipeline. Yes, so good. So how did you do when you're going through those questions and as we're asking them to you, is there one area, one of those steps that stands out and like a sore thumb like, oh, that's one area we definitely need to fix?


26:41

Or maybe you went through this and like, we're doing really well on these four things. This was just the one that me and my team need to get better. Make sure that you are putting that as a strategy, as an action item. We always say take away at least one thing from every episode  that you are going to implement every time you listen to the show.  We do hope that this episode was valuable for you.  Make sure that you come back next week for another value packed episode on the takeover.  And if you found it helpful, make sure you give us a review.


27:11

Make sure you also subscribe to the podcast wherever you are listening.  New episodes drop every week.  And remember, domination is not a destination. It is a way of life.  Stay winning.