When I started my consultancy, I had no audience. No personal brand, no content calendar, not a single post that ever went viral. I'd just lost my corporate career in a fifteen-minute phone call, and by the end of that same day someone was at my door collecting my company laptop. I didn't have six months to "build an audience before you sell." I needed clients, and I needed them NOW.
But like every new VA, I followed the advice every new VA gets handed: post every day, DM random people, and hope you get some hits. A few weeks in, nothing was converting, and honestly, I was ready to give up. I was batching posts (back then it was more images and carousels), burning myself out, disappearing for a month, then coming back convinced I was just bad at marketing — so I'd jump on the next trend. And honestly? I did that for years.
But five years later, I now know I wasn't bad at marketing. I was just following a strategy that really wasn't the best strategy for my business. I was trying to be an influencer, hoping I'd get clients — and those two things are very different.
If you're reading this, you're not here to become an influencer. You're here to build a business. Those are different jobs, with different marketing.
What actually got me clients was much quieter
It wasn't a viral reel. It was referrals.
When I was rebuilding, I didn't spend fifteen hours a week trying to invent Instagram posts. I spent a couple of hours writing intentional messages to people I already knew and respected — telling them what I was doing now that I'd moved into tech and operations consulting, and asking a simple question: do you know anyone who might need this, and would you be open to introducing me?
I wasn't selling to my network. I want to be clear about that, because it's where most people get it wrong. I wasn't messaging old colleagues asking if they wanted to hire me. I was leveraging them for referrals — a warm introduction to someone who did. That distinction is everything. One feels like a pitch. The other feels like a favour between people who respect each other.
That's what got me my first round of clients. Not content. Conversations.
The second thing I did was get on LinkedIn — properly, every day — because the people I wanted to work with were professionals, and professionals live on LinkedIn. I wasn't hiding in Facebook groups or refreshing my grid. I was finding posts in my niche, finding the places my ideal clients were asking questions, and showing up in the comments like someone who knew what she was talking about. Because I did.
Instagram came later. And when it did, it was never the engine — it was the amplifier.
Here's the belief I want you to leave with, because it's the one that changes everything: you do not need to build a following on Instagram to build a business. You can get to £10k months on referrals, LinkedIn and good old-fashioned outreach alone. I've got reels that say exactly this, and I'll die on that hill. Instagram is wonderful for building a brand and staying visible — but if you're waiting until your following is "big enough" before you go and get clients, you've got it backwards.
So this routine isn't about posting more. It's about being useful, on purpose, in the rooms where your buyers actually are — in fifteen minutes a day.
Why fifteen minutes beats a daily posting schedule
Do the maths on what you actually need. A solo consultant at full capacity carries somewhere between three and six good clients. That's it. You don't need ten thousand people to know your name. You need a small pool of the right people to see you being useful, more than once, over a few weeks.
That changes the game. Daily posting is a reach strategy, and you don't have a reach problem — you have a trust problem. The people who could hire you don't yet have evidence you can do the work. And evidence doesn't come from a quote graphic. It comes from watching you solve a real problem, or from someone they trust saying "you should talk to her."
Here's the part nobody tells you: the people who buy rarely engage. They don't like, they don't comment, they don't reply "so true!" to your stories. They watch. Sometimes for months. Then a message arrives that starts with "I've been following you for a while..." — and it never comes from your loudest follower. It comes from the quiet one who saw you be useful, again and again, until hiring you felt obvious.
That's what fifteen focused minutes buys you. Not reach. Proof.
The routine, in the order that actually works
Most people start with the hardest, slowest thing — making content — and quit before the thing that actually works kicks in. So we're going to do it in the order that got me paid.
1. Referrals — the engine (5–10 minutes)
Every day, reach out to one or two people in your existing network. Not to sell. To reconnect and plant a seed.
A voice note works even better than a text, because it's warm and it's clearly you. Something like: "Hey [name], how are you? I've been meaning to catch up. I wanted to let you know I'm building my tech and operations consultancy now — I help [type of business] with [the problem you solve]. If you ever come across someone who needs that, I'd genuinely love an introduction."
That's it. No pressure, no pitch. Two messages a day is ten a week, forty a month — forty warm doors, from people who already trust you. This is the single highest-return thing in the whole routine, and it needs zero followers.
2. LinkedIn — every day (a few minutes)
Not "a few times a week." Every day. This is where your professional buyers are.
Two moves. First, find posts in your niche — especially the ones where your ideal client is asking a question or airing a frustration — and leave a genuinely useful comment. Not "great post!" Add the one thing they missed, or share what you've seen work instead. Two sharp lines will do. Second, expand your network on purpose: comment on, like and engage with the people you want to work with — founders, CEOs, the operators in your space. You're not DMing them. You're becoming a familiar, credible name in their feed, so that when they do need help, you're not a stranger.
(If you want the fuller client-getting play on LinkedIn — using LinkedIn jobs, job boards and direct outreach to actually land the work — that's a strategy on its own, and I cover it in another post. Today is about authority.)
3. Instagram — the amplifier (reply to everything + engage)
On Instagram, two things matter, and neither is posting.
Reply to everything. Every comment, every DM, same day where you can. This trains two audiences at once: the algorithm learns your account starts conversations, and the human learns you actually answer — which instantly sets you apart from every account treating followers like an audience instead of people.
Then go and engage. Comment on the posts your ideal clients are engaging with, and on your competitors' posts too. This puts your profile in front of exactly the right niche and tells the algorithm who your people are. It won't hand you a flood of clients overnight, but it makes you visible to the right room.
And stories are your quiet superpower. I was posting five to eight a day — behind the scenes, what I was working on, little polls and questions that pull people into a conversation. Stories are low-stakes: no grid anxiety, gone in twenty-four hours, and seen mostly by the people already warmest to you. That's exactly who's watching quietly, deciding whether to hire you.
A note on posting, because I won't lie to you: the algorithm has changed, and if you genuinely want to grow a brand on Instagram, you do need to post — consistently, not just when you feel like it. But building on Instagram and building a business are two different projects. You can run a profitable consultancy on referrals, LinkedIn and outreach and treat Instagram as a bonus. Don't let "I haven't posted in a week" convince you your business is failing. It isn't.
Stack it — don't do it all on day one
Please don't read that list and try to do all three tomorrow. That's how you burn out by Thursday.
Start with referrals only. Five to ten minutes a day, for a week, until it's a habit. Then layer LinkedIn on top. Once that feels automatic, add your Instagram engagement and stories. That's exactly how I built it — one layer at a time, stacked onto the last. A habit you keep beats a heroic week you abandon.
The daily fifteen minutes
Once it's all stacked, here's the fifteen-minute floor — the version you can hit even on a chaotic client day. Set a timer, because the routine works precisely because it ends.
- Minutes 1–5: send one or two referral or reconnection messages.
- Minutes 6–10: clear every comment and DM waiting for you.
- Minutes 11–15: leave one genuinely useful comment where your clients hang out — LinkedIn most days — plus a story or two through the day as you work.
Here's a real day under this system: coffee, phone. A voice note to an old colleague letting her know what I'm building. Three replies cleared, one from a woman who's watched my stories for a month and wants my rates. One sharp comment on a LinkedIn post about hiring a VA, gently pointing out that most founders need systems before they need staff. A story of the automation I'm untangling today, captioned "this is doing my head in." Timer's done. That's the whole marketing operation — and every minute of it happened in front of buyers.
Four story prompts so you never stare at the camera
The fastest way to kill this routine is standing in your kitchen wondering what on earth to post. So don't decide daily — rotate these four, and keep them coming through the day.
1. The client conversation. Name blurred, permission asked, one line on what you sorted: "she thought she needed a new website; it was a broken form." Proof you do the work, without the awkward testimonial graphic.
2. The tech tip. One thing in a tool most people miss — a thirty-second screen recording of the setting, the shortcut, the automation. These get saved and shared more than anything else you'll post, because they're immediately useful.
3. Behind the scenes. Whatever you're building today, mid-build. The half-finished dashboard, the workflow sketched on paper, the seventeen open tabs. The messy middle is more convincing than the polished result, because everyone posts the polished result.
4. The voice-memo take. Sixty seconds on something the industry gets wrong — hourly pricing, "just outsource it," buying a new tool instead of fixing the process. This is where your point of view lives, and your point of view is what gets you hired as a consultant instead of booked as a pair of hands.
Add a poll or a question box to a couple of them. That's what turns a story from a broadcast into a conversation — and conversations are the whole point.
How to track it so it actually happens
Three checkboxes, one row per day, kept wherever you already look — ClickUp, your Notes app, a sticky note on the laptop lid. The tool genuinely doesn't matter.
- ☐ One reconnection or referral message
- ☐ Replies cleared
- ☐ One useful comment (LinkedIn)
Then a five-minute review on Friday: which comment got a reply? Which story got a DM? That's your market telling you what it wants more of. Do more of that next week.
And if a day falls apart, let it. The weekly rhythm catches what a bad day drops. You're building a pattern, not a streak — and patterns forgive gaps far better than streaks do. A broken streak feels like failure and makes you quit. A pattern picked back up on Thursday is just Thursday.
What actually changes after thirty days
Not virality. Let's be honest, because false expectations are what kill quiet routines like this one.
What changes is smaller and worth far more. An old contact replies: "actually, I know exactly who you should talk to." Someone tags you under a question in a professional group — "she'll know." Your story views settle into a steady set of the same names, and some of them are business owners. A DM lands that starts with "this might be a weird question, but..." That's not a weird question. That's a discovery call knocking — so treat it like one. Move it to a proper conversation, ask about their business, and name your price without apologising for it.
One warning for when it works: the first "can I pick your brain?" will tempt you to give away an hour for free to be liked. Don't. Answer one question generously, then say: "this is exactly the kind of thing I sort out for clients — want me to send you the details?" Useful and paid can be the same person.
The real shift is who you're being
Every piece of this routine has one job, and it isn't visibility for its own sake. It's repositioning.
The woman sending intentional referral messages isn't job-hunting — she's a consultant with a business, letting her network know she's open. The woman answering systems questions on LinkedIn isn't "just a VA" to the people reading — she's the one who knows. The woman with a clear opinion in her voice memos isn't support staff — she's a strategist who happens to be easy to reach.
You don't need to post every day to become her. You need fifteen minutes, aimed at the right rooms — referrals first, LinkedIn every day, Instagram as the amplifier — repeated until the right people have seen you be useful enough times that hiring you feels like the obvious next step. That's the whole system. It built my consultancy, and I still barely post.
If you'd like the printable version of this routine — the daily checklist, the referral message template and the four story prompts I rotate — join the mailing list and I'll send it over, along with the tech tips I don't share publicly.
this is the free stuff — imagine what we'd build together
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