How to get customers for your business: what works, and in what order

1. First, a bucket without holes

Getting customers is two different problems: being found, and being chosen once found. Almost everyone works on the first and neglects the second, which is cheaper to fix.

Try this with someone who does not know your business. Give them your name and ask them to book with you from their phone, without help. Time it. If it takes more than two minutes, if they have to message you to ask the price, or if they end up at a form nobody answers until tomorrow, that is where customers you had already won are leaking away.

• It is clear what you do and where within five seconds.
• The price is visible, or at least a "from".
• People can book or buy without waiting for a reply.
• There is proof you are good: reviews, real photos, experience.
• It works on a phone, with one hand.

Everything that follows multiplies what you have here. If it is zero, it multiplies zero. How to set it up is in how to create a website for your business.

2. The channels at a glance

The order of the table is the order to work on them. The first five are cheap and build something that is yours. The last three work, but cost money or time every month and stop bringing customers as soon as you stop.

3. Your Google profile: your shop window on the map

When someone searches for a service "near me" or with their town's name, the first thing they see is the map with three businesses. Being there depends on your Google Business Profile, not your website. It is free, and most businesses leave it half done.

1. Claim and verify it. If Google has already created a profile for your business, request ownership.
2. Choose the primary category carefully. It has the biggest influence on which searches you appear in. Pick the most specific one available.
3. Fill in everything: real hours and holidays, phone, website, service area, services with descriptions.
4. Upload real photos of your space, team and work. And add a new one every month.
5. Add your booking link. People should be able to go straight from the profile to an appointment.
6. Answer questions left on your profile before a stranger does.

A detail that is easy to miss: your name, address and phone must be written exactly the same on your profile, your website and every directory. Differences cost you trust in Google's eyes.

4. Reviews: asking is a process, not a favor

Reviews decide twice: they help you show up, and they convince people torn between you and the business next door. What counts is not just the rating but how many there are and how recent the last one is. Twenty reviews from three years ago say less than eight from this quarter.

• Ask the same day, while the client is happy, with the direct link. Every extra step cuts responses.
• Ask everyone, not just those you expect to give five stars. A profile with a few fours is more believable.
• Do it every time. An automatic message after each service gets more than remembering now and then.
• Reply to all of them. To good ones with specific thanks. To bad ones calmly, without arguing, offering to put it right.

5. Referrals and partnerships

Word of mouth is the best channel for almost any service business, and the most wasted, because it is left to chance. You can make it happen.

• Ask with a reason. "If you know anyone training for a half marathon, tell them to message me" works far better than "recommend me".
• Give them something to share. A link to your site or a gift card gets forwarded; "they're really good" gets forgotten.
• Reward both sides. A discount for the person referred and one for the person who referred them.
• Find businesses that already have your client and do not compete with you: the gym and the physical therapist, the florist and the wedding planner, the pet shop and the dog trainer.

A partnership does not need a contract. It is enough for each of you to keep the other's cards or link handy, and a reason to hand them out.

6. The clients you already had

The cheapest client to win is the one who has already been. They know you, trust you and just need a reminder. Even so, most businesses never write to people who stopped coming.

1. Pull the list of people who have not booked for longer than is normal in your trade: six weeks at a salon, three months in physical therapy.
2. Write to them with a reason, not a generic offer: "It has been three months since we checked that back."
3. Make it easy: the direct booking link.
4. Repeat every month. Ten minutes.

To do this you need clients in a record with the date of their last visit, and their permission to send marketing messages. We explain it in how to run a small business.

7. Social media: what it is for and what it is not

Posting on social media rarely brings new customers to a local business on its own. What it does very well is convince people who found you another way and drop by to look before deciding.

• Show your real work, with the result and, if you can, the process.
• One well-run network beats four abandoned ones. Pick the one where your clients are.
• Your booking link always visible, in your bio and in what you post.
• Modest consistency: one or two posts a week, sustained, beat a frantic month followed by silence.
• Answer messages, but move the booking to your website: that is where it gets recorded and paid.

8. Paid ads: when, and how much

Ads are the only channel you can switch on today and see results tomorrow. They are also the only one where you can lose money very fast. They make sense when three conditions are met:

1. Your website converts. You already get bookings from visitors who arrive on their own.
2. You know what a client is worth. Not the first visit, but what they spend in a year. That sets how much you can pay to win one.
3. You can measure. You know how many bookings come from the ad and what they cost.

For local services, most people start with search ads: you show up when someone searches for exactly what you offer in your area. Begin with a small budget you can keep for a whole month, a few very specific keywords and a location limited to where you actually work.

If after four weeks the cost per client is higher than what that client brings in, stop and fix the landing page before raising the budget.

9. A plan for the next thirty days

Note where every new client comes from: just ask. After three months you will know which channel works for you, and that is the only number that matters.