Want to start landing more of your ideal clients? Here are 5 ways to increase your booking rate and fill up your calendar!

Imagine this: you get your dream inquiry landed in your inbox, you respond with your appropriate information, and then… crickets.. Nothin. And then you think to yourself: WHAT WENT WRONG? Why did this happen? Is there something I did wrong? How can I improve this for next time?

Whether you struggle with getting inquiries, communicating with people, or booking them, these tips will help with all of these problems. By the end of this post you will hopefully be able to streamline your process better to increase your booking rate and fill your calendar with ideal work!

Your Brand Positioning

How you position yourself and your brand on social media makes a big difference in increasing your booking rate. This goes for both your business and your personal brand! People want to feel connected to you not only as a business owner, but as a human too. I don’t know about you, but I always love seeing people post personal content, because I feel like they’re more “human” and I can connect with them! After all, at the end of the day we are more than just our businesses. 

So what this could look like is you showcasing both your business brand and your personal brand on your social media platforms. This means it’s okay to post personal content or talk about things that you love that aren’t directly related to your business. So these are called your brand pillars!

Pick maybe 3-5 brand pillars that are very much you and your brand whether it be business related or not. Some examples of these mixed in business and non-business are travel, Starbucks, sunshine, nut butter, and motherhood. 

See how some of these things are business related and some are not? Basically, you want to have brand pillars where if someone were to see something they would directly think of you. Some other random examples would be red lipstick, books, Ireland or other specific place, enchiladas or brim hats. These are VERY random, but that is the whole point. 

Think of what your quirky interests are that make you unique. You want to have brand pillars that people see or hear these things and immediately think of you! This will immediately set your brand apart from others and give you instant identity.

Your Website

Now that you have more of your branding identity down, it’s time to take a look at your website! Your website plays a huge role in your booking rate with how clients experience and go through your website. There are a few things that you really want to make sure you have on your site: 

Clear tagline

Your tagline should clearly state who you are, what you do, and how you can serve people so they can immediately know if you are what they need or not. You want to attract people who are made for you and what you have to offer. By having this clear tagline on your home page, in your instagram bio, and basically anywhere you would put an elevator pitch, it will either repel or attract your ideal client. 

Quality top fold

The top fold of your website is the top area where when you land on someone’s page you don’t have to scroll anywhere. So you want to pack as much info or at least the most important info in your top fold of each page because you never know what page someone will land on if it’s not your direct home page. Putting your tagline in your top fold part of your website is the most ideal place to have it.

Clear contact form

It’s important to make sure that each page has a clear button to get in contact with you so you’re not sending them on a scavenger hunt to find out how to even get in touch with you. That might instantly repel them if they can’t even find how to get in contact with you! They might automatically think your communication skills aren’t the greatest, even if that isn’t true. It sets a tone and gives off a vibe you don’t want to give off! 

Optimized contact form

What I mean by an optimized contact form is asking the right questions. I see a lot of contact forms that are either not asking enough, or asking too much, or asking questions that just don’t need to be asked at that time in the process. If you are asking too little of questions, people might think you’re not as invested in getting to know them or as serious about the process. If you are asking too many questions, it might overwhelm them and prevent them from even filling out your contact form because they may not know the answers to what you’re asking. You want to find a sweet spot and figure out what questions work well with your workflow in what you’re needing. I’m all about simplifying the entire process, all while giving the exact information they need.

Your Response Time

Now I know we have all heard this one before – the quicker you respond, the better. Well I used to not care about this one AT ALL, and I would just respond whenever I could. But I’ve streamlined my process so much since then and I do like to respond as quickly as possible now. The quicker you can respond to initial inquiries, the sooner you can get in touch with the people inquiring, and the sooner you are able to connect with them. But I was able to do this by improving my workflow and inquiry response so I could respond promptly and accordingly even when I’m on the go. Since I have all of this already plugged into my Honeybook workflow, all I have to do is click a few buttons and send it off ASAP and I’ve started our experience together confidently because I’ve already done all of the work upfront.

How You Respond to Initial Inquiries

Not only how quick you respond to an email, but HOW you respond to an initial email can make or break them booking with you or not. Now if you haven’t already, I have a free “initial inquiry email response” templates for you ready to download, so make sure to grab those here. These are done-for you, plug + play email templates where you just need to infuse your own branding copyright and you’re good to go to plug them into your own honeybook workflow. It’s that simple!

And just by having these templates set and ready to go, I’ve been able to respond to people much quicker and more accurately even on the go because of my workflow I’ve made in honeybook. If you don’t have honeybook, you can try it here.

Your Communication After The Initial Inquiry

Your email communication workflow after your initial inquiry is just as important! So after you look at HOW you’ve responded to them, you need to look at the information you are providing them, how you’re talking to them, how you’re educating them, and what your email communication process as a whole looks like.

They are getting bombarded with so much information right up front, so look at how you can spread information out and give it to them at the right time when they will need it. You want to be able to educate them on the right things and the right time throughout their entire process. 

This took a long time for me to nail down and was trial and error for me for a while. Again because I believe in simplifying everything in my business, but still giving the information needed. So I finally found a workflow process that I think is the perfect amount for that. 

If you’re interested in streamlining your workflow to nurture for your clients, I’ve put together the Client Experience Blueprint Bundle. This includes done for you plug + play email templates for your entire workflow and client questionnaires I send to my clients to help craft my clients into my ideal clients and receive all of the information I will need. As well as client guides that educates on exactly what I need and forms them into my ideal clients.

Here’s what people are saying about the Bundle:

“I just purchased your bundle for guides, questionnaires, and email templates! HOLY MOLY I am SHOCKED at how many awesome nuggets there are, like SO MUCH GOOD STUFF!!!!!!”

So if this sounds like something you need to implement into your workflow and business, make sure to check it out here!

Final Thoughts

Let’s quickly recap on the 5 ways to increase your booking rate: 

1. Brand positioning
2. Your website
3. Response time
4. How you are responding
5. How you are communicating

I hope these quick 5 tips were helpful for you or took away at least one golden nugget from this post.

Also again, make sure to head here to grab the Client Experience Blueprint to help you improve your workflow, make your life easier, educate and wow your clients, book more clients, and make more money!