There are four levels of referrals to get new clients:

1. Soft Referrals - This a mention of your brand on social media or a positive review posted on Google, Yelp, Facebook, etc. They are not directly telling any specific person to choose you, but many of these help online searchers to choose you over others.

2. Direct Referrals - This is an individual directly telling another to call you, show up to your store, or purchase from you. 

3. Influencer Referrals - This is an influencer who in some way works with you or partners with you to send their followers and connections in your direction as a preferred brand. 

4. Partnership (Joint Venture) Referrals - This is a formalized business-marketing agreement between two or more brands, often called “Co-Branding”. The purpose is to work together as non-competitors to serve and sell to similar audiences.

If you have clients, you have a business. If you are getting more clients this year than you did last year, you have a growing business.

We can talk about management and productivity and growth until we're blue in the face, but at the end of the day, everything comes down to your ability to land clients.

There are a lot of short-term ways to land a client or two here or there, but if you want long-term success, you need to prioritize a long-term strategy.

The following strategies are great ways to build a recurring leads channel that will bring in new leads month after month after month.

* Strategic Partnerships & Joint Ventures
* Email List Building
* Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
* Paid Advertising