Stop Chasing Leads: Use Instagram as Your Portfolio to Close Clients

What if the clients you’re chasing on Instagram are already one introduction away? This episode breaks down how referrals, case studies, and smart ad spend are quietly outperforming the content hamster wheel.

What You’ll Learn:
What you’ll learn about turning referrals into a predictable client acquisition channel
What you’ll learn about using client interviews as high-converting case study content
What you’ll learn about when to prioritize paid ads over organic posting in 2026

Chynna Benton is an Online Business Manager (OBM) and Integrator for creative CEOs who are ready to step out of the weeds and into their true CEO role. As the founder of Byte Bodega, she helps business owners streamline their operations, optimize their teams, and finally get their business running like a well-oiled machine (without being pinged by their team in slack all day).
The CEO's Guide to a Chaos-Proof Business (Freebie): https://www.bytebodega.com/chaosproof-your-business-ebook-download/
Website: https://www.bytebodega.com/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/byte_bodega/

Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction
01:45 – Integrator vs. Visionary (And Why It Matters for Marketing)
04:20 – The Referral System That Drives Most Revenue
08:05 – Using Social Media as Proof, Not Prospecting
11:30 – Rethinking the Traditional Funnel for Service Providers
15:10 – Case Studies That Sell for You
22:20 – Why Course Creators Are Shifting to Ads

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Transcript

Joanna Newton: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Click Tease podcast. Today we are featuring one of our subscribers, one of our listeners, and talking through how she's growing and creating her own brand. I'm excited to introduce you all to China Betten High China.

Chynna Benton: Hello. Thank you so much for having me.

Joanna Newton: Why don't you give our listeners a little background on who you are and what you do.

Chynna Benton: Yeah, so I am a online business manager slash integrator for creative online business owners. So I primarily work with digital product membership course creators and coaches, um, who have products that they create and sell online. And I basically take step in as the. Uh, day-to-day operations lead for their contractors, and I lead all of the strategy and implementation for their creative vision.

Um, on the backend of things

Joanna Newton: Yeah. Very cool. We talk a lot on this podcast about the difference between like the [00:01:00] visionary and the integrator role.

So if you're listening, you know, I'm an integrator, Michelle, my usual co-host who is not here today, she's on vacation in Rhode Island. Well, I think she's on a vacation. I think her husband is at a conference. And she is with him. Um, but she's like that visionary. I'm an integrator. So today you get two integrators, which might be a lot. Um, and one thing I recently found out China, I don't know if you know this, did you know that like according to EOS worldwide, the people who make up the, the integrator or visionary model, they said there's only one integrator for every four visionaries.

Chynna Benton: Interesting. No, I haven't heard that.

Joanna Newton: Isn't that fascinating?

Chynna Benton: Wow.

Joanna Newton: of us in the room. We're also both Enneagram eights, so like you've got two integrator eight, so this might be kind of intense for you. So if that's not for you, you might need to scroll along. But I'm excited to chat and kind of learn. Um, you know, we met through a. mutual connection who [00:02:00] thought we would hit it off and, and find things to talk about, which they were completely right. And I'm excited today to learn more about like your business and how you market it. Like I know what you do, I know about what it is that you offer your clients, um, but how you actually find your new customers.

Do you wanna talk me through a little bit about what's, like the main way that you find new people to support.

Chynna Benton: Yeah, so I would say that it. The vast majority of my clients come from one of three places, and two of them are kind of the same, but just. Position differently. So the main one is referrals, whether it is from a current client or past client, um, who is just like has a mastermind friend or an acquaintance or someone who they know through the being in the business, um, that they refer to me whenever someone is looking for an OBM or an integrator.

The other side of. The referrals is other oms, other O [00:03:00] integrators that I have just become friends with. And you know, as integrators we can only take on so many clients at a time because what we do is so in depth and high touch that you know, once one person is booked out, that it just becomes a referral conversation in our referral partnership.

So that's kind of two but wrapped into one that I think we're all pretty familiar with. Um, and that's probably the main one. The other core place that I find, uh, leads and clients and grow my own business and, um, share about what it is that I do is through workshops and presentations. Not for my own business necessarily, but guests presenting inside of other communities.

So this can look like, um. I recently just did one actually for a client who is in her a mastermind community, specifically for building and growing memberships, and I kind of went in and presented on to their members, exclusive to them how to hire an integrator, or how to hire an OBM because it's. [00:04:00] Uh, traditionally a very difficult role to hire for.

And basically, you know, the, I, I don't pitch. I'm just like, Hey, I'm here to help you all learn. I'm just here to help educate you and empower you. If operations is something that you need to learn about and. Organically. People learn to know me, like me, trust me, all of these things that we all know and love.

And sometimes they reach out to me if either right away or in the future because they know me from that experience, if that makes sense.

Joanna Newton: Yeah, it makes total sense and I love these two examples because I think. We can get so obsessed with like our online presence and virality and like click through rates and all of those things. And I know those things are important, but so often entrepreneurs focus the majority of their marketing energy on their content and on their social presence.

And, and then they, they're in this like [00:05:00] spinning wheel and it's not always. Turning into revenue, if you can get your customers to talk about you like that is. So key to growth and the majority of your revenue can come from there. We, one of the other things we talk a lot about on this podcast, so if you've been listening, you've heard us talk about this before, is the 80 20 rule, right?

Where like, you know, 80% of your business tends to come from like 20% of the work and it's so easy to focus on the wrong things. Um, something that I'm sure. I'd love to know, and like our listeners would likely love to know, is how do you make sure your clients give referrals? Like, what do you do that makes them want to refer you?

Chynna Benton: So honestly, I, I give them a referral, uh, promotion. So I always tell them like, anytime you send a friend to me who ends up booking my services, I give you a credit on your. Next invoice. And that's as simple as that. Um, [00:06:00] but honestly, I, I work long term with most of my clients. Um, so I tell them that whenever we start working together and then, you know, 6, 8, 10 months later, whenever they actually refer someone to me, they're like, oh, I didn't even remember that I did that.

I just sent them to you. Which is the biggest compliment of course. But, um, the, the main thing is just like reminding them, Hey, I have an opening. If you know of anybody you see of anybody that's hiring. Let me know. Um, but I do give them that referral discount as well.

Joanna Newton: Yeah, that's awesome. Like referral discounts are huge, and it also sounds like just providing really good long-term service.

Chynna Benton: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah.

Joanna Newton: yeah, like if you have that relationship with your people, they're going to share with you. Recently I just, I just booked a new, a new client for something I don't even do yet.

Chynna Benton: That's the best, that's the best.

Joanna Newton: they reached out to me and they were like, I need help with this thing. And like what they sent me made no sense. I was like, let's just talk because [00:07:00] I'm confused. And we were talking and I was like, oh, you need this? I was like, well I'm planning on doing that soon. Wanna do it together? And she was like, yeah, let's do it.

Right. Because sometimes there's that like relationship almost surpasses what your actual. Deliverables are because if someone trusts you, if someone's with you, they're like, okay, China can figure this out, which is probably why they then also refer them to your friends because they're like, you know, I dunno if this is exactly what China does, but she will probably either figure it out or find you someone that can help you.

They know you're that trusted resource.

Chynna Benton: Yeah. Yeah. And that's what I typically tell my clients. They're like, Hey, I have a friend who's kind of looking for like something that's adjacently related to what you do for me. I don't really know if they should hire you or hire somebody else. And I'm like, just send them over. Because even if. They're not a perfect fit for me.

I know people that probably will be, and I can just point at least point them in the [00:08:00] right direction, even if it's not me that's there to serve them, you know? And that's okay too. But my clients know that they can trust me enough that I'm not gonna sell their friend my services if it's not the right fit for them.

Right. So it just, it all boils down to trust.

Joanna Newton: Yeah. other thing that you mentioned being a big winner for you were that like in-person conferences, workshops, and engagements. That's another thing that I think we forget about in this day and age. Like I feel like COVID happened and people just really changed how they did marketing and in some ways for the worst, because we really wanna. Rely on that digital presence. Now, your digital presence is important. I actually think we talked about this when we first met, was that. You know, most of clients coming from referrals is great, but they do search you up, right? So having a podcast, having an Instagram like may not be your primary channel where you're getting people from, [00:09:00] but it is where people get to know you.

So they get that referral, they. Book a call to talk with you. They then search you. They find you, they see, okay, cool, like she's got this presence. So even if it's almost like your social brand persona is like an assist, right? It's like

Chynna Benton: Okay.

Joanna Newton: to your sales process but not the process. And I love that you bring up in-person events because we can go.

Speak somewhere and talk to people, let them get to know us, where then that sale becomes a no-brainer. And then if you have that digital presence to support what you're doing, if they don't talk to you that day at the event, they look you up. They follow you. They remember to reach out or book a call with you in six months.

Chynna Benton: Yeah, I always tell, so I still am active on Instagram. I'm still active on my blog, but I always tell I have a copywriter. She's wonderful. Um, and she leads the majority of my strategy there. [00:10:00] But I always tell her, I look at those platforms as my portfolio for whenever I bring someone in, right? It is my operational.

Uh, operational portfolio and operational, um, like examples of what it is that I can do, but I don't expect that to bring someone into my umbrella. I expect that to be the thing that they go look at. Like you were saying, after they already meet me, after they've been referred to me, that's the thing that they're gonna go and poke around in after they already know who I am from all of these other things that I'm doing.

So it's never the first thing that I'm focused on. It's always the, always the next thing. 

Joanna Newton: and I think that's such an interesting way to think about your funnel. 'cause in this digital world, a lot of times we have a very traditional idea of like what a marketing funnel looks like. And I think it comes from like big corporate companies when they look at. That they look at marketing metrics, they're so metrics focused.

And I get that because when you're doing [00:11:00] things at like the millions of scale, need the data to support the decisions you're making. So then all of a sudden we get these models that are like Instagram posts to lead magnet, to funnel, to follow up emails, and you need this open rate and this conversion. All of that when you're working at scale. But what happens when those models trickle down to people who are, have small teams or are a one-on-one consultant or something like that? models break down because you don't have the volume. So when you look at your funnel. It can look like meeting at an in-person event, following you on Instagram, booking a call like that is a funnel, and I think we forget that in, in, in the whole grand scheme of things.

I think it was a, on our last episode of the podcast, we talked a little bit about using your content as a funnel, right? So say you don't have this like. In-person interaction with people. You might have [00:12:00] some content that's intended as that first touch, that wide reaching stuff. That's, those are your trends.

Those are. Maybe you're more controversial. Click baby stuff, right? And then you have content that's meant to like engage. That's more your portfolio stuff, to let people get to know what you actually do. And then content, that's CTA driven book, a call with me, learn more and that kind of stuff. And your content can actually be a funnel for you. Your funnel can be an in-person event to an Instagram follow to a a meeting booking link. And that Instagram does not have to be that wide. Reach umbrella. Um, in that process. I think the key here for you is you know your strategy. Like, you know what each piece is, what its goal is and what it's trying to do, so it works for you.

Chynna Benton: Yeah, and I, it took me a long time admittedly, to figure that out, right. But once I did, and I, I really took the time to go back and this is. This is what I tell my clients to do. Right? [00:13:00] But I had to, I had to sit down a couple years ago and really do it for myself that I was like, really, truly, where have my best clients come from?

And I really asked myself that question, and I saw that the vast majority of them were coming from these presentations, whether they were in person or online, like through a Zoom call, or it was from it. It was from referrals or that. In-person experience. Um, and of course like they followed me and like you were saying, they followed that funnel, but it was very rare that the first experience they had with me was on Instagram or wherever.

And I, once I recognized that and I leaned into that, then you know, everything shifted for me. And it was, it was just the age old, like, focus on what works and make sure that like, that's where the 80% of your energy is going because the other 20 will do the work for you.

Joanna Newton: And that's the thing too with social, it works when you know who you're talking

Chynna Benton: Hmm.

Joanna Newton: And it doesn't work when you don't know who you're, who you're talking [00:14:00] to. And if you're so obsessed with the vanity metrics, the huge followers, you can not make any money from it because like I know people like I, I work with people on all ends of the spectrum of like who, how many followers they have and what they have. There are people. The thousand Instagram followers with 50 K months and there are people with a hundred thousand Instagram followers that are making nothing.

Chynna Benton: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I've seen, I've seen it behind the scenes. We both have by nature of what we do.

Joanna Newton: Yeah. I'd love to talk about for you, your, your messaging strategy of how you explain what you do, because I think there are people in this world. skillset is like maybe a little bit more intangible, right? Like, like someone who. Runs Instagram accounts for people. That's a very clear offer. That's, I'm gonna [00:15:00] help run your Instagram account. I'm gonna create your content, write the captions, post it, and help you grow. Right? Someone who builds websites, that's a very tangible offer for you. How do you make what you do clear to people so they buy it?

Chynna Benton: Yeah.

Joanna Newton: that.

Chynna Benton: Yeah. So. If I'm being totally honest, it took me a long time to figure out how to do this, and I would probably say that I still struggle with it to be totally transparent, but I have gotten, in my humble opinion a lot better at it, and I, I found that it's really letting my clients tell the story.

It's using case studies and I, I literally, after about the. I usually try to do it at between the four and six month mark of working with someone, uh, new. I sit down and I interview them. I ask them like, out of the kindness of your heart, will you sit down with me and [00:16:00] tell the people what it is that I do for you?

And I have those case studies as a header on my website, onion, and that has been one. Other people to understand what it is that I do and the depth of what it is that I do. And I, you know, you're, you're in the content space, you know, you know, I, you know, I repurpose that everywhere and I, I track all of the, or record all of the conversations that I have with my clients so that whenever there's tidbits of things that they say to me, I use the transcriptions.

And I pull from that too, because I found that if I try to. Describe it myself, I'm not the best at it, so I, I really lean into using their quotes, using their stories, and really using clear, tangible examples of individual projects that it is that we're working on. So that can look like, you know, a live launch, that we change X, y, and Z specific things and it had this x, y, [00:17:00] Z specific result.

Um, or, you know, a lot of what I do comes back to the feeling of. How business owners feel on the day to day in their business. 'cause they're like, I feel like this massive weight is off my shoulders because I, it's not all on me anymore, you know? And. I use those quotations in all of my messaging as well to allow other people to be like, oh, I don't have to carry everything all the time.

Weird or an idea. Um, so I try to let, I try to let them tell the story for me, and then I just like add in the context and the why behind why we did it that way, right? And saying like, yes, we did this. They told you about it, but this is why we did it. And that has worked really, really well to help people understand the, again, the depth and just like the looseness of what it is that I do, if that makes sense.

Joanna Newton: Yeah. No, that makes, that makes perfect sense. And what's really funny, as you just went [00:18:00] through what you do, um, like you're such an integrator, you're like, it's a four month mark. I do this and then I do this, and then it goes on my website, and then it goes here, and then it goes here, and then it goes everywhere. Right? Like that, that's like how like an integrator brain. Works,

Chynna Benton: Yeah.

Joanna Newton: Like they think of like all of the steps that go through. Even you just explaining what you do, I think could portray to someone what you could do for them. Because like a visionary might say, oh, I wanna have case studies on my website.

Chynna Benton: Yep.

Joanna Newton: They want, they know the value, they want the case studies, they want them to be there, but they cannot actually like see and organize the steps to actually create that. So I'm sure you probably have a project management board or a system that you use that reminds you to do those steps. You don't magically remember them.

You have some kind of process for that. One of the [00:19:00] things for me as a fellow integrator, that people just my whole career. Would be like, how did you, how do you always remember to follow up with people about the things that you're supposed to do? They'll be like, wow, you remembered follow up with, you said you were gonna follow up with me with in February, and then you did.

And they'll be like, so impressed with me and I'm like, I just put it. In, you know, if it's a sales task, it's in my sales tracker to follow up with you in February. That is how I knew I didn't, I just put it there. But like, that's a skill and like actually showing people that that is a thing. I recently, um, I launched a new YouTube channel like yesterday. Um, I'm really excited. Um, it's actually about a lot of the topics. That we share some common ground on is like how to think and operate like an integrator. So I'm having a lot of fun figuring out how to make content around to [00:20:00] do what we do for people,

Chynna Benton: Yeah.

Joanna Newton: how do we create systems? How do we do that to try to actually do it on scale, at scale instead of like a one-on-one.

It's, I feel like something clicked for me in that messaging and you hit the nail on the head China when you were talking about your messaging. It's actually not about. You

Chynna Benton: Mm-hmm.

Joanna Newton: it, it's about your customer, their results. And I realized that 'cause I've tried making content and always felt wrong. And I had this epiphany where I was like, my content doesn't need to be about me looking cool. I don't need my audience to want to be me or look up to me. I want them to go, oh, I need her.

Chynna Benton: Mm-hmm.

Joanna Newton: And, and that was a, a big wake up call for me of like how to portray myself on content. And I think there is a, there, because so much of our social media gurus and content we see is [00:21:00] people being a certain way where someone says, oh, I want the results they got. I wanna experience what they have, which is very different than this person can help me achieve. My results. And I think a lot of content creators could benefit from thinking about their messaging, their content. In that way, I can help you achieve, not look at me, I've achieved, come be like me. I actually can make you do it.

You know? And those case studies are a huge way to do that.

Chynna Benton: Yeah, absolutely. Especially because in the nature of what it is that we do, especially I think as one-on-one service providers, you, you are not the. The product like you are not paying to like just have me, you are paying to have the result that you'll have whenever you work with me. And that is what kind of the missing piece was in all, in everything that I was doing before.

And I, I think [00:22:00] that that. Is kind of the crux of what it is that you're saying, right? Of like, it's like, yes, I'm the one with the skills. Yes, I'm the one that will get you this result, but like the result is what you're after, right? It's, it's not about me, it's about you, and it's about getting you to where you want to be, and I can help you get there, but like ultimately this is about you and where you wanna take your business and how you are gonna get there.

Joanna Newton: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. of the things that we've noticed this year, coming into 2026 is it feels like a lot of things are different in the online space, in course creation and service providers. What's happening. I know you have a lot of clients, so you're in a lot of different accounts, seeing a lot of things.

I'd love to know from you what you see working for your clients in terms of like growth right now.

Chynna Benton: Yeah, the vast majority of my clients are the course creator and the membership [00:23:00] owners, so they're looking at how do I get new students and or members on a consistent basis. You know, if you're a membership, you're constantly replacing and or growing. If you're a course creator, you're just looking for consistent consistency in sales.

What I'm seeing more and more is that. People are really tired. And by people I mean clients and creators are really tired of creating content and throwing it at the wall and hoping it sticks right. And that is the age old, like post every day. And you know, you'll get seen kind of thought process.

Everyone that I work with is getting way more intentional about the effort of what, of what they're putting in and where, and what that's kind of leading people to is ads. And I, I believe in organic content, and this is not me being like spend $10,000 in ads or even a hundred thousand dollars into ads if you don't have a proven funnel because please go prove your funnel organically [00:24:00] before you go and put ad spend behind it.

But. If you have a proven concept and you have a proven offer, which most of my clients are fortunate enough to have, they're saying, I'm gonna do less of all of this organic stuff, where I'm gonna reach three people, you know, I'm, I'm being dramatic, but where I'm gonna reach three people and, you know, put money behind the thing that I know is giving me ROI.

So I'm seeing. All of my clients and a lot of their industry friends moving in the ads direction, less organic publishing, way more ad spend and bringing in leads that way.

Joanna Newton: I 100% agree that I, that I'm seeing that, and again, I've always been a huge proponent over of organic, and if you're listening to this podcast and you have like. A hundred followers and not a proven ad. This conversation is not for you just to be clear, like you're not ready for ads yet. But [00:25:00] I think that that barrier to when you start ads is lower than it used to be because of how hard it is to get seen with organic content and how much better ads have gotten right?

Like there's so many great ways to target and, and strategize and do all of that. So if you do have. A product or a funnel that is selling organically and you have an organic presence on that platform, it makes sense to focus more on that ad strategy. Right? Because if that person has, the history has, it doesn't, I'm not, this still does not have to be in the millions of followers, but if they have the history, if they have the followers and they cut down their number of social posts instead of twice a day, every day for all eternity, know. Four really solid, really juicy posts a week to like keep things moving. Those ads can really, really help, uh, throw gas on what is really working, and then that energy that you're spending for that [00:26:00] constant, you know, ad creation is, is really good.

Chynna Benton: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And all of this kind of ties back to what I do for acquiring my own clients, right? Is that I'm finding that my ideal client. Is not spending as much time just scrolling on social. Of course they are, because we all wanna see videos of really cute cats and dogs. Right. But they're not doing it to network or market the same way that they were before.

It's, that's not to say that they're not but to, but they're doing it less and they're, if they are doing it, they're, they're doing it and then they're leaving. So by me building that relationship, either in person or through a presentation or through a mutual connection, you know, that. That is why my Instagram, why my blog is all secondary to those things because they're not hanging out there because they're spending their money on ads and then they're leaving the app for the day and they're going and you know, living their life.

So you, that's also a part of how this [00:27:00] ties back to what I do too, because it shifts all of that.

Joanna Newton: and I think. you're focused, uh, like a blog is evergreen content. The way you build your, your, your Instagram, it's evergreen content, right? So you are there when someone is looking for a solution to the problem. You are not trying to show up in their algorithm and solve a problem for them that they don't even know they have.

And that's about knowing. Your audience. If you did something different, your strategy would maybe be different, Like if, it just depends on what that is because you know, right now the people who are making a lot of money with like big social accounts, a lot of times they're selling. Products, hair care products, clothing items, right?

We see that on like TikTok shop. Those are things you're gonna buy right there. And for us, you have these high level [00:28:00] services, or even if you have like a, a higher cost tiered like digital course or membership, those people might not be scrolling. One of the things I, I just see as being so important going into 2026 is more of that evergreen content.

So blogs or YouTube or things that like, have some stickiness that aren't like show to the algorithm and go are going to be really, really successful. My business partner, his, he has an online course and he has this one YouTube video he filmed, I don't know, seven years ago that makes him money.

Chynna Benton: Yeah.

Joanna Newton: Right. And so when you're focused on the evergreen, when you're focused on that, um, those pieces can make you money long-term and build you credibility long-term. Um, and that can be really hard to think of. 'cause we want that. We want that. Like, and like, I know we want that instant [00:29:00] gratification of like, oh my gosh, I got 10,000 views. But like, if it doesn't make you money, it doesn't make you money. So focus on what. Makes you money and brings you clients and helps your actual brand.

Chynna Benton: Yeah. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

Joanna Newton: Well it was so lovely having you the show, um, really, really great insights about how you are finding your clients, growing your brand, and really focusing on referrals and that like real relationship building with people. I'd love to know what is the best way, if our listeners want to stay connected to you or need your services of being an online business manager, how they could find you.

Chynna Benton: Yeah, you can find me@bybodega.com, so that's bite like a megabyte bodega.com and on. Instagram by bodega and uh, you will see me dancing around and saying lots of crazy things over there and I'd love to chat.

Joanna Newton: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. Um, for everyone who's listening, if you enjoyed this, [00:30:00] please subscribe and share this with a friend, and we will see you next week.