From random acts of marketing to reliable results (Models + Marketing Part 4)
Welcome to Part 4 in the Models & Marketing series—a deep-dive into the distinctions between service provider and content creator businesses, the math that runs them, and the marketing strategies that will work best.
If you’ve done outreach and follow-up and haven’t gotten great results, you’ve found yourself doing the Hurchy-lurchy with your marketing, or gotten stuck in the When-I-Then-I Trap, you need a way out.
You need to understand why what you’ve done hasn’t worked and how to approach it differently.
The framework I have detailed below is built on 20+ years of trial and error with my own businesses and working with hundreds clients.
But first, we’ve covered a heck of lot so far and if you’ve missed the earlier installments in the series, I encourage you to read them first:
Read Part 1: Marketing lies, omissions, and misunderstandings
Read Part 2: When the math of scale doesn't pencil out
Read Part 3: The marketing strategy everyone hates the most
Many service business owners engage in what I call random acts of marketing—an email here, a DM there, a couple of hours on a Thursday afternoon researching prospects.
There’s no real system, rhythm, or consistent tracking.
In this scenario marketing is an afterthought; something squeezed into an already busy day, often reluctantly so because it feels overwhelming, confusing, and pointless.
This disconnected, one-off, hope-for-the-best version of Layer 1 marketing really doesn’t work.
And when marketing isn’t getting you reliable results, who wants to do it?
But intentional, systematic, and steady outreach and follow-up can be some of the most effective and most enjoyable marketing you’ll ever do.
It’s also the simplest.
What you need is a framework so that your Layer 1 marketing is:
consistent – not just when you remember or when you’re desperate for clients
strategic – built on a clear understanding of who you’re talking to and what they need
systematic – part of a larger flow that keeps momentum going instead of starting from zero every time
client-centered – focused on their problems and priorities, not your services
connected – each step builds on the last, creating compounding results instead of isolated efforts
That’s what I’m laying out for you here.
A Business Built on Clients vs. Content
When you approach direct outreach and follow-up as a series of steps that naturally lead from connection to conversation to conversion and back to connection again, you can leverage your assets and resources.
Everything you do builds on your previous efforts so your momentum compounds.
As your Layer 1 marketing activities become more consistent, results are more predictable.
This is Revenue on Repeat, a systematic approach to your Layer 1 marketing.
Revenue on Repeat is not a funnel and it’s not a one-off campaign.
It requires no specialized knowledge or subscription software.
It’s a series of 4 connected steps that when done in order become the flywheel for every other bit of marketing you’ll ever do in your business.
The Four Steps of Revenue on Repeat
Step 1: Warm Your Pipeline
Step 2: Make an Easy Yes
Step 3: Sell Without the Stumble
Step 4: Proof the Results
The Revenue on Repeat framework for your Layer 1 marketing
As I walk you through each step, you’ll see how they work together, each one setting the stage for the next to generate steady clients and revenue without the hustle and Hurchy-lurchy.
I’ll also point out what to watch out for—things you might be doing right now or have done previously that derailed your efforts—so you can avoid those pitfalls as you take a fresh approach to your Layer 1 marketing.
Step 1: Warm Your Pipeline
For many service businesses, the first couple of clients are people you know like a former boss or co-worker. While word-of-mouth business will always be welcome, you’ll get to a point where referrals alone are not enough to sustain your revenue, or you’re not getting the type of referrals you really want.
This is when it’s time to get folks into your pipeline, both people you already know (warm) and people you don’t (cold).
If outreach to either group already feels awkward, “practice” with your warm contacts first—past clients, referral partners, colleagues, and people you’ve met at events. Include friends and family members in this list because while they may not be your ideal client type, they might know someone who is.
But warming your pipeline isn’t just about starting with warm contacts.
This is about getting conversations started and keeping those connections lit through regular contact.
The primary goal is to build relationships, not pitch your services.
You do this three ways:
Keeping your focus on them—their problems, challenges, and goals—more “you” sentences than “I”
Asking questions
Pacing the conversation
With every message, whether a personal email, a DM, a phone call, you’re leading with their world, not yours.
❌ “I help companies with brand messaging. Want to chat?”
✅ “I saw your post about struggling to explain what makes your firm different. That’s such a common challenge. How are you thinking about tackling it?"
❌ “Just checking in to see if you need any help with [your service].”
✅ “I was thinking about the [project name] we did together and how much the market has shifted since then. I’d love to catch up—even just 15 minutes. Curious what you’re navigating now. Does next Tuesday or Thursday work?”
When your outreach is client-centered, when it speaks to their problems and priorities, it doesn’t feel like a pitch. It feels like a conversation. Conversations are what lead to clients.
Listen, don’t make outreach this big laborious process that involves researching a prospect for hours, spending even more hours crafting a message to them, then another hour after that fretting over how they’ll receive your message and whether or not they’ll respond—before you even hit ‘send.’ Now you’re all up in your head and overthinking everything.
Warming your pipeline like that sucks.
There’s a time a place for heavy research. Most of Step 1 is light touches—a quick email, DMing a contact with a question after seeing a their comment or post, hitting reply to their email newsletter with a personal message.
This kind of activity is easily integrated into your day, as it takes just a few minutes here and there. Before you know it, by the end of the week you’ve made 15-20 touches.
Got ten minutes before your next meeting? Who haven’t you checked in with lately?
⚠️ What to Watch Out For at Step 1
The When-I-Then-I Trap: Waiting to do outreach until your website is perfect, your offer is finalized, your LinkedIn profile is polished. While you're preparing, your would-be clients are hiring someone else.
Self-centeredness: Not knowing your ideal client well enough, so you default to talking about yourself and your services instead of their problems.
Timidity: Being afraid of bothering people or seeming pushy, so you don’t reach out at all.
“Prospecting” as procrastination: All that deep research you’re doing with Perplexity? Yeah, it’s cool, but don’t kid yourself if you’re hiding out in a chat log instead of getting chats with actual humans going.
Step 2: Make an Easy Yes
Once you’re in conversation with a prospect, at some point you’ll be talking about working together—either they’ll ask first OR you’ll have to take the initiative and make an offer.
The mistake many service providers make when talking about services is to say things like:
“Let me know what you need and I’ll put together a proposal!”
“Here’s my menu of services. We can do any of these things for you.”
“Here’s my rate sheet/day rate.”
Now your prospect has to do all the work to figure out what they need, articulate scope, identify budget. They’re already short on time. Decision fatigue sets in and momentum stalls.
It’s like leading them to a buffet and saying “You can have anything here! Look at these hundreds of delicious options! What do you want to eat?”
Your prospect prefers the bento box.
They are looking to you to as the expert to curate your offers and present a recommended starting point. They want a clear path to solve their challenge. They don’t want to—and often can’t—find that path for themselves.
An Easy Yes is a small, specific offer that’s:
big enough to create real results (not just a freebie or a “pick your brain” call)
small enough to feel low-risk (not a $20K engagement right out of the gate)
designed to lead naturally into deeper work (it’s a first step, not a one-off)
It could be:
a paid consultation or diagnostic
an audit or assessment
phase 1 of a larger project (research, discovery, scoping)
a starter package that solves one specific problem
This is your Entry-point Offer which is designed to remove the friction in the decision to move forward and lower the risk.
When you have something that’s already packaged and priced, you're not custom-building a proposal every single time.
Entry-point Offers also serve as a point of reference and a pricing anchor when talking about other services or support beyond this initial engagement.
⚠️ What to Watch Out For at Step 2
People-pleasing: Tailoring everything to each prospect’s stated desires, trying to be all things to all people. This leads to endless custom proposals and pricing angst.
Selling deliverables instead of transformation: Talking about what you’ll do instead of what will change for them.
Confusion: If you don’t know exactly what you’re selling, they won't know what they’re buying. Confused prospects don’t buy.
Step 3: Sell Without the Stumble
Pop quiz: Is it better to sell off a sale page, a proposal, or a sales call?
Answer: All of the above—BUT these moments should never be where you start selling.
When you rely on a single sales call or a proposal to do all the heavy lifting, it puts enormous pressure on that one moment. If you’re feeling the pressure, you get stiff and awkward and attached to the outcome all of which put your conversion at risk.
What if, instead, you were building belief and handling objections all along the way?
This is about making clear next-step invitations everywhere—in your emails and posts, on your website, and in your real-time conversations.
You use pre-call assets, like the Super Signature, a one-pager, a case study, a pre-call FAQs email, to soft pitch and address objections.
By the time you get to the sales call, the conversation is about confirming alignment and clarifying scope, timeline, and next steps vs. pitching.
⚠️ What to Watch Out For at Step 3
Missing buying signals: Out of politeness or ignorance, you avoid making direct, clear invitations when someone expresses interest.
Wobbles with pricing: If you’re not confident in your value, your prospects will sense it which causes them to hesitate. Their hesitation confirms your fears that your price was too high even though it was really more about your lack of confidence.
Not being sold yourself: If you don’t believe in the value of what you’re selling, they won’t either.
Step 4: Proof the Results
Your current and past clients are your highest-value audience for marketing. They already know you and trust you. Out of anyone in your audience or network, they’re the most likely to:
hire you again
refer you to others
give you testimonials and case studies
Yet many service providers finish a project, send an invoice, and move on to the next thing.
There’s no plan for continuation or re-engagement and no system for capturing the wins and results.
Step 4 calls for building in conversations about wins and results as a formal part of the engagement instead of an afterthought, not only for the benefit of your existing client but for the ease of attracting your future ones.
Proofing the results means:
1) capturing the value you’ve created with your client and turning it into testimonials, case studies, and client stories—some of the most powerful marketing assets you can have
2) using those assets as segues to new projects or deeper engagements with existing clients
3) sharing proof points as trust-building content for your Layer 2 marketing
Direct your visibility toward warm and current clients first. They’re already in your world. Make it easy for them to stay there and bring others in.
Visibility that doesn’t connect to your pipeline isn’t marketing—it’s performance.
⚠️ What to Watch Out For at Step 4
Delivery tunnel vision: Being too busy serving clients to nurture them or think about what’s next.
Assumptions: Thinking “they already know me, why would I need to market to them?” Your past clients need to be reminded of your value and what else you can do.
Lack of tracking: You can point to deliverables but not to the full value you created. Without documented results, your marketing lacks substance.
A Flywheel of Fantastic
A service business is built on clients, not content, and it runs on relationship math.
The Revenue on Repeat framework works because it’s a relationship-based system and behind every solid business is a set of solid systems.
Warming your pipeline leads to conversations.
Conversations lead to easy yeses.
Easy yeses lead to smoother sales.
Smoother sales lead to clients.
Clients lead to results.
Results lead to testimonials, referrals, and renewal opportunities.
With the Revenue on Repeat approach, each step builds on the last.
The entire flywheel keeps your pipeline steady AND feeds your Layer 2 marketing. You will never be without compelling content for your email newsletters, social media posts, and speaking gigs.
Revenue on Repeat is a flywheel that compounds momentum and creates the content you need for your Layer 2 marketing.
By now I hope you can see how this refined approach to Layer 1 marketing is logical and simple.
But I never said simple was easy!
It’s one thing to understand a system.
It’s another to actually work it.
You have to have capacity—the time, energy, clarity, and mindset—to sustain your efforts.
Plus, you need words—language that communicates who you serve, what problems you solve, and why someone should hire you.
So that’s what we need to talk about next. That will be in Part 5, coming soon.
Need to catch up with the series?
Read Part 1: Marketing lies, omissions, and misunderstandings
Read Part 2: When the math of scale doesn’t pencil out
Read Part 3: The marketing strategy everyone hates the most