My 5 Step Client Attraction Method (That Doesn't Rely On Doing More!)

Ten years in business. Hundreds of thousands of dollars invested. Multiple burnout roundabouts. Therapy sessions. Lessons learned the hard way.

And from all of that — the Client Attraction Method.

In this episode I'm doing a deep dive into my signature framework — not just what it is, but where it came from, why I built it the way I did, and how to actually use it in a way that works for your season of life.

This isn't theory. It's a lived experience. And it's built for the business owner who is tired of following someone else's step by step blueprint and wondering why it doesn't quite fit.

The Client Attraction Method isn't a checklist. It isn't linear. It's a way of operating — a way of building a business that fits your life, not the other way around.

In this episode I cover:

• Why I left corporate with no idea what I was doing and what happened next
• The light bulb moment that changed how I thought about building a business
• Why I built the method around relationships, content and connection — not paid ads
• The burnout roundabouts that kept bringing me back to the same questions
• Walking through each pillar of the Client Attraction Method — Clarity, Connection, Conversion, Consistency Your Way and Leverage
• Why this isn't a step by step system and why that's the whole point
• How to use the method as a diagnostic tool when something feels off in your business

Free resource mentioned in this episode:
Download the Client Attraction Method — a simple visual framework for visibility, connection and growth.
https://www.socialrenegades.co/the-client-attraction-method

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:41

I like this I've got it. That's a big idea. I'll lose and balance a long way. That's what I've got to find. It's a simple control of what I call the client extraction method. A way of approaching visibility and growth that actually works long term. You can download it via the link in the show notes. Now, let's get into today's episode. Hi everyone, and welcome to uh this episode of the Part-Time CEO. I'm your host, of course, I'm Louise, and I'm incredibly grateful to have you here with me today. So today's episode is all about the client attraction method. So I talk about um or I have spoken about this method in previous episodes, and I will reference it no doubt in future episodes. So I thought instead of referencing something that nobody is likely to know what it is, uh I'd do an episode uh specifically on this method. Um, I guess talking about its inception, um, what it means, what it is, uh, and of course, if anybody has got any questions, uh then please reach out. So the client attraction method, I guess ultimately, uh the way that I say it, it's a way of building a business that fits your life and not the other way around. So I started my business 10 years ago, well, coming up 10 years ago, and I'm I'm a very literal person. So if you say jump one meter, I'll measure one meter and I'll work out how to jump that, right? Um, someone may then say it doesn't have to be exact, but to my brain and my high perfectionism, etc., yes, it does. So when I started my business, um I was I had just left corporate. I knew that I liked helping people, uh, and I knew how to help people. Uh, a big part of what I didn't know was how to market. Uh so MLM businesses were on the rise um 10 years ago and the whole laptop lifestyle started coming to fruition. Uh Facebook was all, well, I think Facebook now uh is 26 years old, but it was really in its prime. I don't know when paid ads came about, but it was really in its prime where a lot of people were starting to um, well, Facebook business pages were still a thing, uh, and you know, very regularly seen, but uh paid ads were were on the rise. Um and I could see lots of people starting businesses on their laptops and having uh freedom and flexibility. Now, in my role, I had a lot of freedom and flexibility, uh, but I really wanted to do it for myself. I thought, you know what, I really love this. I love what I do, I love helping people, um, seeing all these other people be able to build a business and a lifestyle that is aligning to what they want their life to look like. So maybe I could go and do that. Um, I was 32, uh, no mortgage, no partner, no kids. So I had no big life commitments, and it really just came down to if not now, then when? Like to me, there never they just didn't really feel like uh a better time to do it. So, in my naivety, that's what I resigned and I went on to do. So there's a really great story that comes with taking that big bold leap of faith, different episode. Um, but I guess it was the start of my business journey, and I needed to and I need to get a wriggle on. I didn't have a lot of finances backing me, uh, and I needed to start getting myself out there pretty quickly, otherwise I was going to um scrape back into a job a couple weeks later. So, what did I do? Well, I used my credit card, right or wrong, and I invested in a high-end marketing program to teach me essentially Facebook ads. Uh, now again, there's a great story that comes with that. If you know anything about uh that journey, you'll know I invested 20,000 into a program, 9,000 into paid ads before I started really seeing any leads come in. Um, again, another great story. We won't go into that one. Um but one of the big key lessons I had once the leads started coming in was most people aren't going to use a large amount, they're not going to get their credit card and invest in a big program like that. They're not going to live homeless uh like I was. I was couch surfing, living in friends and family spare rooms, traveling around, house sitting. The money that I would normally pay for my living expenses or use for my living expenses, I was using to invest into Facebook. And I didn't have, I was literally dedicating everything. Horse blinkers were on, and off I went to make my dream a reality. So when the lead started coming in, I guess that was when I stopped and I thought who in their right mind would do this? Not many people would do that, right? A lot of people have got more common sense and more brains and um maybe weren't as insane as what I was, um, you know, when I started 10 years ago. Uh, you know, a lot of people would would not do that. So I thought, right, I've missed a step here. What do I know about building a business? Because even though I had not run my own business, working in the company that I did, we were encouraged to treat our seat that we sat in like it was our own business, uh, and think about um, you know, and we were all given a cost of seat because it was a base plus commission role in every role within that company. Uh, and it was about, okay, so what did I know from being a successful employee in corporate, progressing within the company, reaping rewards and benefits, what do I know about that that I could translate into the business world, my business world? And for me, that came down to building relationships with people. So I at that point in time was living quite um out of town. I was staying with friends in Australia on the surf coast in Victoria, so in a place called Ocean Grove. Uh, there wasn't a huge amount of opportunity for networking. Um, I didn't really want to travel in and out of the city to go networking. Um, and I actually just didn't want to go networking full stop. I did go into a couple of networking events, but that wasn't the style of business I wanted to grow. And to me, it was like start with the style of business that you want and then continue it. So for me, I wanted to have an online business that did not require me to put myself in front of people in order to attract paying customers and clients. And because of that, I had to think about how I was going to utilize the platforms and the access to people that I had to build relationships. So again, at that point in time, Facebook, right? There were Facebook groups. I was in a few of these business groups, and um, something else, I guess, a bit of a back step from that. When I was 15, 16, I was heavily involved in meeting people from chat rooms. That was before it was weird to meet people off the internet and saying that online dating sites have since come along, so maybe not so weird. Um how, but you know, so IRC, uh, ICQ, maybe you were an online chatter as well. So I made friends through online chat rooms, and then I would um take the relationship or the friendship one step further, and I would start going to parties and hanging out with these people. So I started just really thinking about all of that, right? Building relationships, how have I done that online in the past and what have I got access to? And that was when I guess I started utilising Facebook groups. Again, I built relationships with people. Um, I then moved on and became friends, like you know, met people in real life, became friends with them. This is very common now in this world for this to be happening. Um, some of my best friends I've met this way, and some of the guests that I have on this podcast, uh both season two, which is this one, and season one, which was strategized to monetize, have been people that I've met online that I've never met or I have met based on relationships that we've built in the online space. So that was a big light bulb moment for me. So whilst investing all of that money didn't build what I wanted at the time, it did bring a lot of lessons and a lot, I guess, of uh things to think about uh and processes for me to think differently about the way that I was building my business and how I felt um many others would want to build also. So I also then went on to look at content marketing, which I'm now a content marketing specialist. So that is through connecting with people through news feeds on social media like Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn, blogging, email writing, copywriting, podcasts, right? These are all forms of content. So I thought about okay, how can people get to know me and what are the ways that I can do that? And again, I looked at how other people were doing things, and I then recognised that content was the way that would be able to tick the boxes that I was looking for in terms of building relationships, getting to know people, showcasing who I was, my values, what I was all about, how I helped people, uh, and then attract you know, people to talk to me, to be curious about how I did and how I could help them, and ultimately turn into paying clients, which um I don't know how many there have been over the years, but between one-on-one coaching, programs that I have run, um done for you marketing, you know, all of the different ways that I help people, um, you know, there has been uh a lot of them, which have all come from thinking about how can I build a business the way that I want to. Uh, how do I do that through my skill set, which is building relationships, and how do I utilize the tools in front of me to be able to do it, uh, which is not necessarily a traditional business model in the way that you would traditionally build a business. So this was all great, right? This is kind of the inception of how I started my business and some of the thought processes behind that. Now, a lot of people who know me will also know that I don't hold back and talk about mental mental health uh journey and uh some of the challenges that I have faced along the way. Now, I faced challenges like from the day that I started my business. Uh, you know, um, I'm not going to go too much into it, but basically I worked long hours and the company that I worked for, I loved what I did and I was incredibly passionate about it. And I worked long hours. It required a lot of travel, and then I had two businesses, maybe three businesses outside of my full-time job that I was trying to get off the ground, let alone focusing on my health, trying to have friends, um, you know, and just to have a life. So there were not enough hours in the day for me to operate. So I started working every hour of every day, uh, which was not sustainable, and I rapidly burnt out. So that brought some mental health challenges with it. Uh, I'm also a self-confessed recovering people pleaser, and I would say yes to everything, even if I didn't have the time, even if I didn't want to, yes, constantly came out of my mouth. Um, and that got me into some tricky situations and having to reprogram uh some of my beliefs, my thought processes, the way that I was living my life, um, the friendships that I had, um, you know, a whole plethora of different things that then brought out anxiety and depression. Now, I thought along my life journey, again, I'm not going to go too much into this aspect because this is be a different episode, but I do think it's relatable because a lot of the guests that I have spoken to so far uh in this season of the podcast have spoken about their own mental health uh and their clients' mental health. So there's a very big theme coming through here of women in business and mental health or high-achieving type A personalities, women who want to have it all and potentially are learning boundaries and how to say no and prioritizing. Uh, and that comes at a cost of our mental health. Not to mention the challenges of life, right? When you throw all of the things in that life continues to throw at us, you know, it can be all really overwhelming. Now, along my journey of my mental health challenges, I have taken many a step back. Uh, I talk about last year, 2020, 2025, uh, my dad, uh, his final year of his health journey, and that forcing me to take a step back uh and pop pause on growing my business because I knew I wasn't growing it in the way that I wanted to be growing it. I wasn't necessarily helping people in the way I wanted to be helping people. Uh, I was doing things because I thought I had to, because I was trying to look successful, and I had other people um, you know, encouraging me, but um I didn't know well enough in myself at that point in time that the encouragement was not encouraging me to go in the direction that I wanted to. So again, I found myself really burnt out. I was working with people I didn't want to be working with or who were no longer aligned. I didn't have a growth strategy and I was miserable, right? I didn't want to do it anymore. I spent many hours talking to my therapist or my psychologist about how I wanted a whole new career. Uh, and then um, once I had been through that journey of 2025 and I had um a couple of months to stop, I realized it wasn't that I didn't like what I was doing anymore. It was that I was really burnt out and I had to rethink the way I was doing things again. So that led me to asking again some and I really encourage everyone, always ask questions. Um, even like I sat in the question of what am I doing? Where am I going? How do I help people? How do I want to help people? Why do I keep getting on the burnout roundabout? Why do I continue to trigger mass anxiety and fall into a place of depression? Like, you know, I ask these questions over and over and over again for a whole year. I spent hundreds of dollars, maybe thousands, talking to a therapist about the same questions. But unless you ask these questions, you will never get the answer and you'll continue to stay on a path that is not satisfying you, which ironically was then for me, um, you know, contributing to my to my mental health state at that point in time. So that guy's given me like a whole lot of opportunity, right? So 10 years of thinking, opportunity, um, pivoting, tweaking, redirecting myself, uh, as you kind of continue to do uh when you run a business aligned with values and lifestyle and passion. That is the long-winded way of how this came about. So AI and I, Chat or Claude, sat down and I got all of my information right from my clients, from doing my own marketing, and I asked it some questions like what do I do? Like, how do I help people? I need some help in identifying all of this because right now I feel like I help people in a lot of ways, but I'm unclear myself of how I actually do it, right? Because when you're in it, you can't always see it. Um, and we and I can and I asked A AI a lot of these questions, um, and which ultimately um was great, you know. Uh, and instead of investing money in somebody, which I don't necessarily I don't rec I do recommend to, you know, work with a mentor or a coach or therapist or whoever to help you ask these questions. But I felt like if I just had some time to ask myself questions and reflect, um, get some feedback, being very literal, I would be able to come up with answers, then I would be able to invest uh in like growth strategies when I needed it. But I didn't want them in that self-discovery phase because I wanted to self-discover and go on a path that was aligned with me. I also know when I work with other people, sometimes I can do things for bright and shiny reasons. Someone might say to me, Oh, you could do this or you could do that, or you'd be great at doing that. And I'm like, Yeah, yeah. And I jump on that bandwagon and I end up in places that I don't necessarily want to be in, or I should have got off the bandwagon earlier. But again, the horse blinkers are on, and I don't recognize that until I'm too far down the path. So I wanted to sit in that self-discovery space, especially after the passing of my dad, and um and just ask myself a lot of serious things about who I was, where my business was going. Do I still want to run a business? What does that want to, what does it look like? And if I do, or even if I don't, how do I want to be helping people uh for the next 10 years and beyond? So AI gave me a lot of what I already knew. Marketing, helping, you know, it fed back a lot of information. Uh, and I guess it helped me put uh things in the right boxes uh and put pretty little bows around them, and in this instance, some lovely little circles. So what I came to realize along my business journey is I would often see other people talking about, you know, I've been in business for this long and I've come up with this. And I almost thought, I wonder if I'm ever gonna get to that point. So if you're new in business right now, follow people that are doing what you believe uh is the right way in which you want to build your business. Okay, I wholeheartedly believe that. Whilst I went down paths I probably shouldn't have, I got great lessons um on what I wanted to do and what I didn't want to do. Always check in with yourself and your integrity button. And you know, I have been told um along the way things that I can't think of off the top of my head as an example, but things that I would not do, right? Cold pitching. I just won't do it. Uh, I was told by a mentor, do this, send X amount per week, where if you do that, the percentage of people will reply and one will turn into that. Start with your friends. I did that when I was an MLM. It feels icky. Some people, it's totally in alignment with them, and that's amazing, but it wasn't in alignment with me, and I listened to that and I said, I'm not going to do that, so let's look at other ways in which I can get to the outcomes that I'm looking for. I've been told to hide money, you know. I've been told lots of different things along the way, but at the end of the day, it's your life and you're responsible for it. So you may be paying for somebody for their expertise and their skills and their knowledge, but you Also, have to check in with you because if you do something that is not like let's say legal or correct, then you're going to be the one who's going to have to answer to that. So always check in. But for the most part, you know, look for people who are building what you want to build and follow what they do free, like or paid, entirely up to you. I've worked with people for free, I've downloaded so many things for free, and then I've invested a lot of money as well to be able to learn bits at the same time. So 100% do that. But I promise you, at some point in time, you will also take a step back, like I have, and gone, where am I heading and where do I want to go? And now what do I want? What does this look like? What have I learned along the way? What won't I do? What will I do? How do I do this? How do I not want to do this? What has worked for me, what hasn't worked for me? You know, and you get to create your own model of how you've gone ahead and built the business that's worked for you. And that is ultimately what the client attraction method is. This is based on my 10 years of experience, what has worked and what hasn't, my moral compass. Uh, I teach this to my clients, it works for some, it doesn't work for others, and that's totally okay, right? We've all got, there are so many ways that you can build a business and build a life, and that's great. We all get to learn and we get to create and we get to take things from some people and we get to drop things from others. But this for me, after many years in business, many questions, many failures or learnings, uh, many burnout roundabouts, therapy sessions. This is ultimately what I came up with in order to grow a healthy business that aligned with my life, which is around my own health, which is around my family, which is around my dogs, which was around uh freedom and flexibility, which was around financial goals. Um could have missed something, but they're the main things which are really important to me. I wanted to have a business that worked with my house, with my family, with my uh finances, with my dogs, with where it was I was traveling to or living at the time. I didn't want a business that was a priority over all of the other areas. Yes, sometimes different balls go up and down and different things prioritize, but I wanted it to be sustainable, and this is ultimately um how I got there. So, how does this work? I think the first thing to recognize is that this is not a step-by-step system. You know, there are a lot of step-by-step checklists and methods and um, you know, ways in which to do something. Uh, for me, this is really fluid because life changes. Yes, in the past, being very literal, goal-oriented, A plus B equals C. And that's how I operated. Only I came to realize, particularly over the last three years of my dad's house, that life is unpredictable and unpredictable things happen, and I can't control everything. Maybe I thought I could. Maybe that's why I thought A plus B plus C equals something, but I have learned that nothing is controllable. You can definitely control how you are and your own um your own being. But growing a business in a landscape where not everything is in our control means that A plus B doesn't always equal C. And sometimes you need to do C before you can do A and B. And you know, and everything is a little bit of a mixture as opposed to being very um, I guess, you know, like very linear. So first and foremost, we've got clarity. So I'm gonna read through these and I'll, you know, and I'll explain kind of how they all work. But for me, you need to know who you are and who you can help. So that is when you first start a business, that is the first place that you probably start at. Now, every season in business and every tweak in business and every realignment will have you asking that question. Sometimes you change it because you want to try something else. That's okay, right? You may have paying clients for one thing. That doesn't mean that you can't step back to clarity and ask yourself again, who are you and who do you help? Because you learn different things. Your perception of life changes, the way that you do things change, your beliefs change, your creativity changes. Maybe you want to do something else on the side of what you're doing now. That's totally okay, you know. But there comes a time when you do have A off the ground that maybe you want uh to check back in and look for more clarity uh on where you're headed or what you want to build alongside where you've already kind of got to. Then, of course, you know, there is connection. So connection is share your thinking and build trust. So we do that in many ways. That's through building relationships. So that can be through social media, posting, it could be in groups, uh, it can be through email marketing, blog writing, podcasting, networking in person, keynote speaking, right? There's so many ways in order to build connection with people, and you have the opportunity to hear, listen, speak, understand, process, and build trust with people, right? So whether they're your paying clients or they're not, they're all part of that sphere as well. Now, growing a business, if you've been doing this for a little while, you'll know that there are many ways to build connection, and there's just not one way that will be the king or the queen to rule them all. Uh, a lot of clients I have worked with in the done for you marketing space, you know, they invest in myself and my team to do their marketing for them. Now, that's great to have social media posts going out and um, you know, consistently and regularly, etc. But it's not the only thing that's going to grow your business. And if you're relying on one thing to rule them all, it's not going to work for you. So, you know, you have to look for many ways. I call it a matrix to be able to build connections with lots of different people, not only in paying customers, but also like-minded people to work with. Because at some point, which will lead us into leverage, you'll have the opportunity to work together and do great things together. You know, if you're like me and you love building relationships and working with other people, which you probably are, then you know, leveraging is going to be a key part of your growth strategy as well. So let's talk about that part because even though we've gone this way, it doesn't matter if we cross over because there's no one best way. So leverage, which is growing through relationship and reach. So this comes through networking, this comes through podcasting, for example. So when I have a guest on this show, uh, they're like-minded people. We're talking about similar things. We have a like-minded audience. Some of the times the audiences may not be the people that we would work with, right? But we're still able to get in front of people, to have really honest, integral, and cool conversations, to create um a different way of thinking, to create um, I guess, um, connection, for people to know that they're not alone, for people to know that there are other people out there with like-minded thoughts, or to know that there are people out there that you don't disagree with their thoughts at all, right? So you get the opportunity to work together with different people to get in front of different audiences that you may not necessarily have access to yourself, or you would have to pay to um through different paid streams of marketing. So uh another thing for this is when you are a guest speaker. Um, you know, if you're on a panel, uh your friend might be running an event and they say, Hey, can you come along? It's my first one, and I'd really appreciate your support. And can you talk on this topic? No problem, right? That person's utilizing you. So you're gonna let your network know that you're at this event, and then when you're at that event, you're getting access to other people's networks as well. So that is a smart way to build business. So we're no longer going for one-to-one, we're now going on a one-to-many and we're leveraging the relationships that we have built along the way. So now let's talk about consistency in your way, right? So if you don't want to post five times a week on social media, despite my former self saying you must post five times a week on social media, don't do it. If you only want to do three times, then that's entirely up to you. If the wheels fall off for a week, who cares? The wheel doesn't stop spinning, right? Will it impact your growth strategy? Probably. Like if you didn't do it for a whole year like I did, then yeah, it is going to impact things, right? But there is more than one way to consistently show up. You might say to yourself, I'm gonna send do three posts this week. I'm gonna send one email letter, right? And then you get consistent at that. Then you go, okay, that's working really well. So I'm gonna stay with three posts, I'm gonna do one email. And now I want to go to one networking event, right? And I'm gonna do that once a month. You get to build your own consistent plan, matrix, or marketing plan in order for people to get to know who you are, understand what it is that you're all about, and how you can help people, right? You don't have to listen to the gurus of the world like I did or what you might be doing right now, and follow their steps by step every time. That does lead to burnout. I've been there, I've ticked that box, I'm letting you know right now, okay? Now you can also disagree with me and think, well, no, I do need to follow them because they've got multi-million dollar businesses and that's what I want, which is totally fine. But you need to ask yourself, in order to follow what the big gurus or what the big guns are doing, you need to ask yourself how many people have they got working for them? Um, because they'll be paying people to help them be everywhere all the time, all at once. You've got to think about how you can do as one person in your business. Uh, what one person, maybe um, if you can outsource, you need to think about how it's going to be sustainable for you for you to be able to stay consistent in the way in which you choose on the budget that you choose. Got it? Good. Now, the next step is conversion, and this is turn attention into clients, which is ultimately what the client attraction method is all about, right? We're wanting to do this because we've got bills and we need to get paid for our time and our expertise. Is when we do all of this, it gives us the opportunity to convert people into paying customers. So, um, and again, each step of this can be different. You could be converting people into paying customers right now, right? But you might not have even thought about leveraging it, leveraging your audience. That could be the next step. You could be doing all of it, and then you go, you know what, I want to do a side, a side hustle, and you want to get clarity on that. Now you could have dropped the ball, you could have clarity, you could have the connection part. Maybe you're leveraging and maybe you know you've got a fairly good conversion, but you might be going, you know what, I've been so busy, but I've stopped my consistency. I'm doing little bits and pieces, but I'm not doing this in a consistent way, which is working for me right now. But in the long term, again, I can promise you this because I've been there and I've ticked this box. In the long term, that's not going to last for you. If you take a whole year off, like I did, which did serve, you know, I talk about it, it served its purpose, it gave me what I needed it to, but you're gonna have to restoke the fire, and there'll be a break in this method, and you'll have to start picking things up again as you become more consistent. So everything works together. Again, it isn't a step-by-step system, it's a way of operating, it's a way of building a business that fits your life, not the other way around. So ultimately, uh the client attraction method, as I said at the start, this has been about how I have gone about building the business that I have got today, which by no means is perfect. I feel like it could be a million times further forward than where it currently is. Um, but through the challenges that have come, which I needed to learn how to be more human in the business world, from that came the lessons which have implemented uh, you know, moving forward. And hopefully, my lessons and learnings have the opportunity to be able to help others who can be a little bit like me, very literal, horse blinkers on, and often burn out, or often get on cycles questioning what they're doing, what they're up to, and how to protect their mental health and their energy and build something which is more sustainable. So, um, yeah, so I guess it it's not a theory, right? This is a lived experience, and that's what I'm really trying to stress. Uh, you will have your own lived experiences where some of this might resonate with you, and and that's great. And that's really what I hope um you get from hearing about my client attraction method uh moving forward. So ultimately, to wrap up today's episode, the client attraction method is not about doing more, but it's about knowing where to look. So it's about having knowledge of where you are, where you want to be, what you're not doing, what you could be doing, and how do you do it all in a consistent and sustainable way to be growing a business and a life at the same time? Or maybe it should be the life and the business at the same time. Thank you so much for joining me today. I really enjoyed uh recording this episode. I won't lie, I meant to have done this weeks ago, and I thought to myself, what am I going to talk about when I talk about this method? Well, it turns out I can talk about a lot when I talk about uh the method and how it came about and how it works. Uh so thank you for joining me. If you've got any questions, then please let me know. Otherwise, I of course look forward to talking with you and seeing you in the next episode. Thanks so much for being here. If this episode resonated with you, feel free to share it with a friend, colleague, or fellow business owner who might need to share it as well. And if you'd like a copy of the five, you can download it via the link in the show notes. I'll see you in the next episode.