How to get more referrals without posting on social media all the time
Create a room and invite people into it. That can mean hosting your own event, or acting like the host at someone else's.
When enough people know, like, and trust you, and clearly understand what you do, they refer you. A room does that work faster than a feed does, and you don't need an audience to start one.
Eleanor's Christmas party
Eleanor wasn't trying to grow her business. She was trying to throw a Christmas party.
She and her husband, Matt, had been running their branding studio in Lincoln, UK, for years. It was just the two of them, working from home, with three kids as their only coworkers.
Which means they never had a proper work Christmas party because they had no work friends to invite. So a few years ago, Eleanor decided to throw one and invited all the local creatives and small business owners who, like her, mostly worked alone.
People came, brought their friends, and asked when the next get-together was. So she hosted another event a month later, and the month after that. More people started asking to attend. Local venues started asking her to host events at their place. And without trying to, Eleanor became the person to know in her city.
Which matters, because Eleanor says she has never wanted to be the center of a scene. She's a self-described timid trailblazer, introverted, and when we started working together, she told me flat out she wasn't a natural networker. She was a designer who was good at her craft and mostly kept her head down.
When I wrote about her in July 2026, about 75% of her clients were coming straight out of those rooms. By the time someone asked about working with her, they already knew her, liked her, and trusted her.
She and Matt take all of August off, every year, on PURPOSE. The winter before, they took their family of five to New Zealand for a month. No client work, just family time and the beach.
What I did before I had a social media account
When Steve and I went from $40,000 in debt to $500,000 in sales in one year, I didn't even have a social media account. Instead, we hosted monthly poker games, marketing breakfasts, and dinners. Everyone I already knew, and every new person I met, was invited to one of those events.
For the poker nights, Steve and I would staple green felt to three long tables and host a tournament for about 24 people. This only appealed to a specific crowd, but it was the most fun, and by far the most effective, for building real relationships. There is nothing like just hanging out with someone around a poker table for 5 hours to really feel like you are best buds at the end!
Here's what hosting gave me:
A personal reason to reach out to people I wanted to stay in touch with
A way to give value without asking anything in return
The chance to be seen as a leader and host
An easy excuse to stay connected with new people by inviting them to the next event
The key was scheduling dates months in advance, so every time I met someone new, I could immediately invite them to the right gathering. Even when people couldn't attend, they often said they'd love to come to the next one, which gave me a natural reason to follow up and stay connected. Some never made it to an event at all, but the consistent invitations kept the relationship warm.
Why a room beats a feed
Whenever I'm in a room full of expert service providers and ask where their best clients come from, the answer is almost always the same: referrals and word of mouth. When people need to hire an expert, they don't usually start by searching Instagram. They ask someone they trust.
So if you're feeling guilty because you think you should be showing up on social media, I'm here to relieve you of that guilt.
That doesn't mean content doesn't work. It does. But it's a long game, and in the meantime, you need clients and cash flow. So build your referral engine first. Then layer content, social media, paid traffic, or outbound on top of it, not instead of it.
If hosting sounds intimidating
You're in good company. Most people immediately jump to the worst-case scenarios: what if no one shows up, or the whole thing feels awkward?
Hosting isn't required to start. Even when I was just a guest, I practiced acting like the host. Whenever I began talking to someone, I'd look for others standing alone and wave them in, introducing everyone to each other. Simply being willing to initiate conversations and make connections often led people to assume I was hosting the event.
What this is called
One repeatable way of staying connected to your network is what I call One Killer Outreach strategy, or 1KO. There are dozens of ways to build one, and the simplest take less than an hour to set up. How it fits with the rest of your marketing is on the Referral-First Marketing page.
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