It All Adds Up: Content That Grows and Leads to More Clients Organically

Everything you do adds up.

That blog post you wrote. That website page you added. That Instagram Reel you made. That YouTube video you published. That client you made happy. It all adds up.

In an airport in Rome, Italy I ran into an ex-coworker from IBM that upon discovery I ran my own software business asked immediately: “How did you find your clients?”

Well… that was a complex question to answer in a short span of time as we awaited our baggage at the airport.

In my eyes a thousand paths led to me finding clients. For example,

• One client found me through a blog post I wrote.
• Another through a Google Search.
• Someone else watched an Instagram Reel I published.
• A previous client recommended us to another client through Facebook.

… The list goes on endlessly.

In other words, the more doors you open, the more pathways open for clients to discover you.

Patience, A Lost Virtue

In a world with an attention span of 60 second vertical videos, I meet many people with a lack of patience that focus on immediate results.

I want the client RIGHT NOW.

I want a successful ad campaign NOW.

I want that blog post to convert NOW.

I want that Instagram Reel to go viral NOW.

To use content creation as an example, I try not to focus on the now but instead I focus on the creation of excellent and helpful content with the thought that a potential client may find me through it tomorrow, not NOW. By tomorrow I intend either the next day, the next month, the next year or in 10 years.

Like a fine wine tastes better over time, the same effect occurs to high quality content. You might publish content and immediately receive enquires. Fantastic, pat on the back, you created a piece of content that resonated with your target audience. However, you might then publish more content and receive no enquires for weeks. This leads to disappointment, confusion, and lack of enthusiasm to publish more content.

I prefer to focus on a long term strategy that feeds me consistently for years rather than a short term strategy that starves me to death next week. I call this direct action vs cumulative effect as I explain below:

• Direct Action (Short Term): A client directly enquires about a service or product after the publication of content.
• Cumulative Effect (Long Term): A potential clients enjoys your content for days, weeks, months or years and contacts you when they require your services in the future. Your consistent posts led them to keep you at the top of their mind.

With a direct action strategy you focus on immediate success in the short term. You publish a piece of content with the expectation of an overwhelming reaction that leads to endless clients, 100,000’s of followers, and piles of money. If you fail it hurts you enough to give up and blame the algorithms for a lack of exposure.

Instead, with the cumulative effect you publish high quality, helpful, and relevant content over a long period to your target audience with the mentality it will pay off as time continues. You focus on small improvements, trial and error, and on content that you enjoy to create.

Avoid Cyclic Failure At All Costs

I know people that choose the cumulative effect approach but negate its positive affects through the publication of the same bad content over and over. They fail to critique their past content, ask others for feedback, and continuously improve their content. Instead they consistently publish poor quality, irrelevant, and awful content.

To stick with the wine analogy from earlier, a good wine accompanied with a well cooked meal leads to a beautiful dinning experience, like the cumulative effect accompanied with continuous improvements leads to an excellent content strategy.

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 … Infinity

A famous saying says, the rich get richer. The same applies to the cumulative effect accompanied with continuous improvements for content creation. The more high quality content published, the more the creator benefits over time. Whether the content you publish consists of a blog post, a new page on your website, a Reel on your Instagram or a tutorial on YouTube, it ages like fine wine.

Not only that, after years of content the people who find you through new content will possess an entire catalog to devour. It all adds up over time.

Now to answer my ex-coworker more accurately: I found clients organically through the long term cumulative effect of high quality work, satisfied client referrals, and content published on my website, blog, Instagram, YouTube, and much more.