How to Get Clients: A Psychology-Based System for Consistent Growth
Recently I was chatting with one of my new Chief Business Copilot members (we’ll call her M), a talented and experienced consultant who was struggling to find clients for her business.
M has impressive Fortune 500 experience, a strong track record, great testimonials, and a small but mighty social media following. But clearly something wasn’t working – her calendar was empty, and her income was unpredictable and it was starting to effect her mental health.
“I’m doing everything right,” M told me. “I’m posting every day, sending proposals, going to networking events. So why isn’t this turning into clients?”
As much as I hate to see someone as talented as M struggling, her situation is something I’ve seen over and over. These folks’ problem is rarely effort or expertise – it’s the psychology behind their client acquisition strategy (or lack thereof).
If you’re in the same boat as M, there’s some good news. It usually just takes a few tweaks to turn what you’re already doing into a reliable system that uses buyer psychology to turn strangers into followers, believer, and buyers.
In this post I’m sharing why traditional client acquisition advice fails most consultants, freelancers, and business owners, and how to install a buyer psychology-based approach that brings in consistent clients for agencies, consultants, freelancers, and service business owners.
The Hidden Psychology of Client Acquisition
Most advice about getting clients focuses on tactical execution – the things you need to do to get clients. If you do a Google or LLM search this is usually what you’ll see. Advice to:
Post more content
Send cold emails
Attend more events
Run ads
But there’s a fundamental problem with this approach: It ignores the psychology of how clients actually decide to buy.
One of the biggest issues the conventional client-getting approaches preach are based on this idea that if you can just bug people enough, or say some magic words, you’ll convince them to buy from you. But in reality, that’s not how people buy. Marketing effectiveness research says that timing is actually the biggest factor in if someone buyers from you.
It’s called the 95/5 Rule and it says that only about 5% of your potential clients are in the market to buy what you offer at any given time. The other 95% aren’t what’s called “in-market” – meaning, for whatever reason, they aren’t shopping for someone who does what you do. Maybe their budget just got cut or they just hired someone who does what you do – regardless they can’t be persuaded or annoyed into buying from you.
And that evidence-based psychological insight changes everything about how you should approach getting clients.
Instead of trying to force immediate sales (which creates pressure and resistance from your buyers), you need to build what I call a Trust Funnel – the proprietary Choice Hacking model that I use with all my one-on-one coaching and Chief Business Copilot clients.
Understanding the Trust Funnel
I’ve created this video walk though of the Trust Funnel on my YouTube channel, you can watch it below:
Unlike traditional sales funnels that push for conversion at all costs, a Trust Funnel moves people naturally through five stages:
Stranger → 2. Follower → 3. Believer → 4. Buyer → 5. Repeat Buyer
This progression aligns with how every type of business in every industry, buys:
Stage 1: Stranger to Follower
In this stage, you go from being a random voice in the crowd to someone your potential clients know, like and trust.
The key psychological drivers here are the Mere Exposure Effect and Familiarity Bias, which build trust recognition, and memories. Psychology says that people need to encounter your message multiple times before it sticks (I’ve created a framework called the Memory Loop that can help you do this).
There are three elements you need to include in your content and marketing to make your message much easier to remember and understand:
Concrete messaging (easy to understand)
Distinctive positioning (stands out in your market)
Consistent repetition (builds recognition and memories)
Stage 2: Follower to Believer
In this stage, your followers know, like, trust, and remember you enough to become what I call believers – these are folks who are willing to give up their personal data, in the form of their email address, to hear more from you.
This stage is where trust-building goes into overdrive, and you’ll usually need to provide an insightful free resource to create the urgency to that gets them to take action and join your list. The normal guru advice at this stage is to give away all your knowledge and value in a lead magnet that’s named something like “10,000 Scripts You Can Swipe” or “The Ultimate 100 Page Checklist of All My Secrets.”
The thing is, these types of value giveaways will attract followers – but they’re usually the wrong kind. The tire kickers. Your competition. And sure maybe a few buyers get caught up in the net.
But we don’t want freebie seekers. We want buyers who can afford our services. That’s why a psychology-based Free-But-Me lead magnet is catnip to buyers, not tire kickers.
My Free-But-Me Lead Magnet strategy let’s buyers get to know your face and your voice so they can start to know, like, and trust you on a deeper level. That’s what Free-But-Me is all about, creating a lead magnet that doesn’t just attract the right people, but starts to create a Parasocial connection that generates trust.
When these elements are present, followers begin to see you as a trusted authority and someone who they’ll consider buying from when the time is right.
Stage 3: Believer to Buyer
This transition happens when the right offer appears at the right time, and your potential buyers trust you. The key strategy here is to remember the 95/5 Rule we talked about earlier – people buy on timing, not force.
Unfortunately, a lot of guru advice out there benefits from selling the idea of big launches. Maybe 3-4 times a year you put all your eggs in one basket and devote all your energy to a launch. But actually, now knowing about the 95/5 Rule makes it obvious that the chances you’re going to capture as many clients as possible are very low with the launch method.
Instead you need a way to make daily offers so you up the odds you’ll make the right offer at the right time, and turn believers into buyers (my 365 Days of Offers workshop that I share inside of Chief Business Copilot gives you the exact strategy, scripts, templates, and calendars on how to do it).
Stage 4: Buyer to Repeat Buyer
Because this article is focused on getting clients (not selling more to our existing clients), I’m going to skip this one for now, but I’ll be sure to cover this in another blog post soon.
The Bottom Line
Getting clients consistently isn’t about working harder or being pushy or annoying. It’s about understanding the psychology of how people actually buy, then building systems that align with those natural patterns.
Want to dive deeper into this approach?
Click here to get The $1M Solo Brand Blueprint, my free course that gives you my 7 most powerful psychology-based growth insights, built from real world experience including $250M+ in sales and $10M in investment for my solo, SMB, and Fortune 500 clients, like Microsoft and McDonald’s.
Ready for hands-on help implementing these systems in your business? Chief Business Copilot gives you direct access to me as your strategic partner, plus proven frameworks and systems to attract clients consistently (starting at $195). Join my newsletter to get an invite.
Remember: When you understand what makes your buyers tick, getting clients becomes natural and predictable instead of stressful and sporadic.