Every successful freelancer eventually hits this crossroads: you’ve found a client acquisition method that works, but you want to grow faster. Do you squeeze every drop out of your proven channel, or do you branch out into uncharted territory?
This exact question came up recently from Lana at Homeware Designs, who specializes in home staging in New York and the Hamptons. She’s built strong relationships with real estate agents and agencies—her best source of leads—but she’s eager to accelerate her growth.
Key Takeaways from this Episode:
- Exhaust your proven channels before exploring new ones—there’s often more opportunity hiding in what’s already working
- Look for who else already has your target audience, not just similar service providers but media creators, event hosts, and industry groups
- Visual businesses have unique advantages on social media—document your process and point of view, not just finished results
The Case for Doubling Down First
When you have a proven client acquisition channel, the temptation is often to diversify immediately. But there’s tremendous value in maximizing what’s already working before you venture into unknown territory.
Consider Lana’s situation: she knows that when real estate agents need staging services, they call her. That’s a direct, warm referral with high conversion rates. Rather than immediately jumping into content marketing or paid ads, she could set an ambitious goal—like connecting with 5,000 real estate agents in her area.
This approach has several advantages. First, you’re building on proven demand rather than testing theoretical markets. Second, you’re leveraging relationships and referral patterns you already understand. Third, you’re avoiding the learning curve and time investment required to master entirely new channels.
There will eventually be a point of diminishing returns where you’ve saturated your market. But most freelancers underestimate how much runway they have in their existing successful channels.
Scaling Through Audience Overlap
When you are ready to expand beyond your core channel, the smartest approach isn’t to target completely different audiences. Instead, look for other groups who already serve your ideal clients.
In Lana’s case, real estate agents aren’t the only professionals working with her target market. Custom home builders, architects, and interior designers all serve the same high-end clientele. Newsletter writers and podcast hosts focused on luxury real estate or the Hamptons area have already assembled her ideal audience.
The key is identifying non-competitive service providers or media creators who share your target market. Then find ways to deliver genuine value to their audiences. This might mean appearing on podcasts to share your “nine favorite places to source staging materials in the Hamptons” or teaching a workshop for a real estate brokerage on how their clients should think about staging decisions.
Instead of speaking to one real estate agent at a time, you’re suddenly addressing 50 or 100 at once. You’re leveraging someone else’s established audience and credibility to scale your reach.
The Visual Content Advantage
For businesses with inherently visual work—like Lana’s home staging—social media offers unique scaling opportunities. The before-and-after nature of staging work is naturally compelling content that has viral potential across TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels.
But here’s the crucial distinction: don’t just document your finished work. Document your decision-making process and point of view. Anyone can post a beautiful room, but explaining why you chose this rug over that one, or how you made a space feel more peaceful by removing specific items—that’s where you build authority and differentiate yourself.
Consider creating content series like “365 Days of Staging This Room Differently” or becoming known as the expert who always explains the why behind design decisions. Social media users don’t just want to see results; they want to understand the thinking that creates those results.
For high-ticket service providers like Lana, hiring a talented social media content creator or agency might be worth the investment. Someone who understands current social media formats and trends can help capitalize on the visual nature of your work while you focus on serving clients.
The Power of Physical Presence
Since Lana works in physical spaces, she has opportunities that purely digital service providers don’t. Consider incorporating social elements into your project completion process.
What if every finished staging project included an option for the homeowner to host a small gathering? When people walk through a beautifully staged space, they’re naturally impressed and curious about the process. If you’re there to be introduced and explain your work, you’re likely to generate leads from attendees.
Even without formal parties, think about who else visits your completed work. At open houses, realtors bring other realtors. Could you arrange to have your business cards available, or even offer the listing agent a small discount in exchange for introducing you to visiting agents?
The principle is leveraging physical presence to create networking opportunities that digital marketing can’t replicate.
Making the Growth Decision
So how do you decide whether to double down or diversify? Start by honestly assessing whether you’ve truly maximized your existing channels. Most freelancers think they’ve saturated their market when they’ve only scratched the surface.
If you decide to expand, prioritize strategies that leverage what you already know works rather than requiring completely new skill sets. Look for audience overlap, not audience replacement.
And remember: the fastest path to more clients is usually through people who already have relationships with your ideal customers. Whether that’s more real estate agents, related service providers, or media creators serving your market, focus on established audiences rather than building from scratch.
The goal isn’t to be everywhere at once—it’s to be strategic about where you invest your growth efforts for maximum return.
Episode Transcript
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.
Preston (00:02.338)
Hello and welcome to another episode of Freelance To Founder, where we help you start freelancing, grow your agency and live the work life you’ve always wanted. You can send in your questions at freelancetofounder.com slash ask. I’m Preston Lee and I started freelancing in college. From there, I’ve built a few successful businesses and together with my guest co-hosts, I’m ready to help you do just that. If you’re ready to grow your service-based business into something bigger, if you’re ready to become a founder,
This show is for you. We’re here answering your questions every single weekday. And today, and actually all this week, I’m joined by my friend Austin Church. He’s the founder of the freelance cake community for advanced freelancers and the author of the book, Free Money. Hey Austin, welcome.
Austin L. Church (00:46.016)
Thanks so much for having me, Preston. I’m delighted to be here.
Preston (00:49.238)
Yeah, for sure. should say welcome back listeners if they’re catching up every day with us. heard you yesterday. So glad that you can be here again. Again, Austin’s gonna be here all week, so be sure to tune in to each of his episodes. But Austin, quickly remind us about the freelance kit community and your book, Free Money, and then we’ll make sure we link to them also for the listeners to check out.
Austin L. Church (01:08.174)
Yeah. So the community is for more advanced freelancers who just have a different set of needs and goals and challenges, frankly, than those folks at the beginner level. And so I connect advanced freelancers with each other, with resources and with advice. And then the book free money is a pricing and money mindset guide that compresses my 15, 16 years worth of
mistakes and also wins with freelance pricing, compresses that into a process that people can follow to set prices they’re really confident in.
Preston (01:48.876)
I love it. And I can highly recommend anything that Austin’s working on in terms of helping freelancers. That’s why I wanted him to join me as a guest. He just does some really great work. So be sure to check that out. Again, like I said, we’ll link to those for you in the description of this episode. We’re gonna move to our question here. Again, if you want to submit your question, visit freelance2founder.com slash ask. Today we’re fielding a question from, I hope I say it right, Lana or Lana.
Lana from Homeware Designs, Lana, this sounds pretty cool Austin. She says, the newest arm of my business is home staging, home staging in New York and in the Hamptons. So she’s living a little bit different lifestyle than I am, which is great. She says, I’ve been building relationships with real estate agents or real estate agencies and that’s been the best route for leads so far. But she says, I’d love to grow faster.
Austin L. Church (02:29.823)
Alright, alright.
Preston (02:44.364)
and she’s asking any recommendations on how to do that most efficiently. So I think I’ll start off here if that’s okay and then we’ll pass it to you, Austin. The real question here is I have this avenue that’s working. I have this sort of incoming client intake process that’s working, but I wanna grow faster. And so I think there’s a couple different ways, Lana, that you could approach this. For me, I really love doubling down on what’s working.
and making sure you’ve exhausted everything in that avenue before you try other things that you’re not sure are gonna work. So for example, you’re already working with real estate agents or real estate agencies, you know that it works, right? You know that if a real estate agent needs to stage their property, they’re gonna call you as opposed to maybe going out and finding new real estate agents, new agencies.
You just already know that if they have a seller that needs something staged, they’re going to call you. They’re the connection. And so why go out and try, you know, pay-per-click ads or content marketing or other networking? Why not just double down and do your best to meet, I mean, maybe set a crazy audacious goal to meet like 5,000 real estate agents in your area or something, some crazy number to where you just build the biggest possible network.
of people who you know will bring you business. that’s the approach I would take actually is just like doubling down, squeezing every drop you can. obviously there’s gonna be a point of diminishing returns where it’s like, you I’ve literally squeezed everything I can out of this and then you might wanna explore other things. But for me, I love to double down on what works. Austin, what’s your take, man?
Austin L. Church (04:27.51)
I mean, you, that’s the best idea right there. You just shared it. I do think beyond continuing to do what’s already working, if she’s got a specific geographic area that she’s targeting, then you take a step back from real estate agents and you ask, okay, who already has the audience I want to get in front of?
So clearly real estate agents do, but are they the only category? I would say no. I would say maybe there are custom home builders who are working with these clientele. Maybe there are architects or interior designers who are working with these clientele. So who already has that audience? It could be other service providers like real estate agents.
You could also think about, okay, are there like, is there a newsletter writer who has a newsletter about the Hamptons? Is there a podcast host who has a podcast about the Hamptons? And presumably it’s
Preston (05:44.365)
Now you’re talking geographically as opposed to interest-based. Yeah.
Austin L. Church (05:47.724)
That’s right. So when you, when you pull the lens out just a little bit, okay, why is talking to real estate agents work? Well, because you share a target audience, but you’re non-competitive. So who else has the audience that you want? How can you show up and create value for them? Well, if you’re on a podcast,
Maybe you show up on the podcast and you say, okay, here are my nine favorite places to find stuff for styling and staging when I’m working with homeowners in New York City and the Hamptons. So that’s valuable. Like if you’ve got some really great places to go get stuff, maybe, you know, sharing a few of your trade secrets, not all of them, but a few might actually cause people to get in touch with you. So
That’s one idea is how can I show up to established audiences, newsletters and podcasts to name a few? How can I show up and just deliver so much value that the listeners are like, wow, she really knows her stuff. Maybe I ought to reach out to her. So that’s where I typically go. I think if I’m trying to accelerate my growth,
it’s normally faster, like the faster path to getting what I want is asking who already has this audience. And yeah, that I can plug into and maybe that’s where she gets a little bit more scale, not by changing her strategy. It’s still, I want to find people who already have this audience, real estate agents, sure. But are there
Preston (07:22.507)
Hmm. That I can plug into.
Austin L. Church (07:42.37)
people who already have this audience, but like bigger. And another way she could think bigger is, okay, is there a specific real estate brokerage or group like Keller Williams, for example, or Coldwell banker? Could she show up and teach a 20 minute workshop to say, here’s how your clients, you know, she’s speaking to realtors.
Preston (07:47.317)
Yeah.
Austin L. Church (08:10.39)
Here’s how your clients should be thinking about staging and styling an interior design. If they never plan to put their property in the Hamptons on Airbnb and rent it out. And here’s how they should be thinking about those choices. If they do plan to do the short-term rental thing, can she can Lana show up, teach a workshop. There’s actionable advice. There’s
two or three aha moments. And, now instead of just talking to one real estate agent, maybe she’s talking to 50 or a hundred. So
Preston (08:49.195)
Yeah, and you’re scaling your reach that way. And I actually have, I have a quick thought on how she might scale her reach as well. think, you know, like we’ve said so far, you can kind of go deeper in the channel that you’ve already proven is successful, or you can start to go broader and experiment with other channels. I had a quick thought on that, but before we do that, I have to take a quick break. We’re gonna hear a couple messages from our sponsors. Thank you so much to our sponsors for supporting this show. If you like this show, we give it to you for free.
Austin L. Church (08:52.034)
Yeah.
Preston (09:18.551)
Go ahead and click through support our sponsors. can find them at freelancetofounder.com slash sponsors. And we just really appreciate it. We’ll be right back after this quick break.
Preston (09:30.357)
Okay, so we’re talking about Lana’s question from Homeware Designs, Homeware Designs. Let me, let me sure I get this right. Homewaredesigns.com. Lana, we want to plug your business, but I was thinking about like sort of the broader, how do we reach a broader audience or a new audience? And sometimes the risk with that comes as you, as you attract just all these people who maybe aren’t interested or geographically aren’t available to you. But one, one way I was thinking that I think could really pay off is it’s such a visual
job, right? Like she’s staging homes. Before and after is like such a natural thing or process videos, time lapse, sped up videos, things like that. And when you talk about the current climate in social media and you consider the power of TikTok and YouTube shorts and Instagram reels that anyone can go viral, right? They don’t have to have 2 million followers. Anyone can go viral. So if you’re posting
Austin L. Church (10:01.838)
Mm-hmm.
Preston (10:29.419)
very frequently on those platforms of the work that you’re doing anyway. So Lana’s staging properties anyway, you might as well set up a camera in the corner and get a time lapse or get a before and after shot and then share those on social. And then you have the chance of potentially going viral and if nothing else, you don’t have to go viral. If nothing else, you at least have a portfolio of work to send people to and show people. And you have content for paid ads if you decide to go that way. So for me, creating some of the video content.
highly visual content, think could spread itself more broadly into lots of different channels, paid channels, organic, hopefully viral channels, just having a portfolio. I just think there’s so many options. If you start to just document the work that you’re doing, Lana, I think it could go a really long way.
Austin L. Church (11:18.626)
Great point. Another potential idea for posts is this, not that. So if she is making decisions while styling, while staging, and she picks this rug, not that rug, or she decides that she’s going to put fake plants, not real plants, or real plants instead of fake plants, what is the decision-making process? Does she follow any design principles? How does she think about clutter?
Preston (11:26.061)
Hmm.
Preston (11:34.701)
Mm-hmm.
Austin L. Church (11:48.456)
or composition, when do you pack a bunch of stuff into a space? Like, I’m sure that she has her own taste or aesthetic that she’s pulling from. I’m sure her clients do too. And so for Lana to just talk about why she makes the decisions that she does, to not only document her work, but document her point of view, I think that is what
people really latch onto these days on social. Like anybody can say, hey, look at this beautiful room, right? But to point out three specific things that you did to make a room feel cozy, three specific things that you did to make a room feel soothing, or if she does the before and after and she’s like, hey, notice how much I removed and notice how much more peaceful the room feels now.
Preston (12:30.029)
Mm-hmm.
Preston (12:42.932)
Yeah, yeah.
Austin L. Church (12:43.904)
We’ve just been through this. bought a couple of Airbnb’s and most of what my wife did was just remove things. My wife’s does a whole bunch of styling and staging too. So I’ve, get sort of the, you know, sideline education on this stuff, but a lot of what people want to buy when they hire someone to do styling and staging is your taste, your decisions, your point of view. And it’s not like
Preston (13:00.19)
Yeah.
Preston (13:08.439)
Mm-hmm.
Austin L. Church (13:12.782)
people have to watch so many shorts or look at so many posts before they’re like, yep, Lana’s the one for me. So just make sure that Preston is great with consistency himself. would say consistency is gonna be key if you decide to really go hard after any social media channel. But then beyond that, make sure that your point of view is coming through and when at all possible, tell stories.
Preston (13:31.596)
Mm-hmm.
Preston (13:42.953)
Yeah, yep.
Austin L. Church (13:42.996)
Stories are the way into people’s minds and hearts and honestly people buy stories not services
Preston (13:50.018)
You know what’s so interesting is, you know, I’m assuming if you’re doing New York City, the Hamptons, you know, I’m assuming these are pretty high ticket clients. For me, like if I was doing this, if I was in this business, I would probably hire a talented social media content creator. Not like someone out of college, not a VA, like someone or maybe even an agency that knows how to capitalize on
Austin L. Church (14:11.342)
Mmm.
Austin L. Church (14:16.11)
Hmm.
Preston (14:19.713)
the trends of social media. I’m not saying the trends like topically, I’m saying format wise, all the different formats that are working on social right now. I’m looking at her Instagram, which I think is fine and good and it shows some of the things even that we’ve talked about. But I’d love to see like 365 days of staging this room differently or staging a bedroom or staging a living room or so, right?
Austin L. Church (14:46.06)
Love it, yeah like a series.
Preston (14:48.263)
Yeah, something that you start to get to be known for. There’s this guy on YouTube that does YouTube shorts. And I know he’s all over TikTok and stuff as well. I can’t remember his name, but he does Feng Shui. And so anytime anyone sees like a Feng Shui problem video, they send it to him, right? He’s just gotten to be known as that. And what if you got to be known as like the staging expert because you just published so many videos and it’s interesting. You almost on social these days, you almost have to step back from your target audience and say like, what is just getting
views and then you capitalize on those views as opposed to you know, like she she shares like some news stories about Her work and stuff, which is fine, but that’s never gonna take off, right? And so you have to find I think someone who is super savvy when it comes to social if you’re gonna go that direction I think she has the visual Content for it, but obviously she’s doing her job She doesn’t have time also to be a full-time social media content creator and that’s what’s required these days and so I would almost say
Austin L. Church (15:17.518)
Mm-hmm.
Preston (15:46.434)
hire someone who’s talented, hire an agency who’s talented, they follow you around, they take all sorts of videos and they’re publishing constantly and try that for six months and see if something doesn’t come out of it. If it doesn’t, then you go to the next avenue, right? But I think it would definitely be worth a shot in this particular, just highly visual and high ticket item situation.
Austin L. Church (15:55.15)
Hmm.
Austin L. Church (16:09.036)
I have one last idea if we have time for it. Do we have time? So I had this client’s consulting client that is the dream backyard company. And so what they do is they come in, they do outdoor construction and hard scapes. And sometimes they put in pools and they transform people’s backyards. And the thing is, in both the case of this company that I worked with in Lana’s case,
Preston (16:12.127)
Yeah, let’s go for it. Yep.
Austin L. Church (16:39.052)
My hunch is that a lot of her clients know her other clients, meaning people who could become her clients. And we all know to ask for referrals, but if you are in a physical space, styling and staging, maybe this could work, Lana can decide, but what if part of her sort of off-boarding process was doing a party
at the place. So if she has just finished styling and staging somebody’s home in the Hamptons, what if she just encouraged the homeowner to throw a party so that people could ooh and over all the choices and changes they just made? And what’s going to happen if Lana is there and the homeowner is there? Well, the homeowner is going to introduce Lana to all the friends. would I struggle to believe that that wouldn’t
create one or two leads for her every single time.
Preston (17:41.549)
Hmm. Yeah. And if, and if you couldn’t go so far as to throw a party, like if you, take that same principle of finding people who know people and you think, well, every time someone walks through, so Lana stages a home, there’s an open house, people walk through, who do they bring with them? They’re a realtor. Who is she trying to attract? More realtors, right? So, so maybe she’s even there or maybe just her card or something, or maybe she has a deal with the realtor. Like I’ll give you a
Austin L. Church (18:00.632)
Releters, yes.
Preston (18:09.547)
an extra perk or a discount on the staging or something if you hand out my business card to every other realtor that walks through here. Like I think the principle is sound and you could approach that from a lot of different ways. Yeah. Well, Austin, this has been a lot of fun. Lana, hope we have helped you. If you want to check out Lana’s work, go to homewaredesigns.com. And of course, I’ve been Preston with Miller.co and Austin Church. Thank you for joining us. Check out Austin’s
Austin L. Church (18:20.302)
Great point.
Preston (18:35.275)
freelance cake community for advanced freelancers and his book free money will be surely to all of that. But thanks again for joining us and we will see you tomorrow.
Austin L. Church (18:43.288)
Thanks again.
