I’ve been promising regular Client Case Studies for, well, a loooooong time now… and this month I finally did the thing. Honestly I have a full page of ideas for different success stories I could share in detail, and more dropping in with every client win. Expect this as regular monthly programming from now on.
Full transparency – in a world of Instagram screenshots sharing carefully selected snippets of client conversations, I never feel super aligned with posting client wins (there, I said it). Does it build credibility for me? Technically, yes. Does it show and inspire others what can be possible for them? Potentially. But it also feels like a reductionist, ‘highlight reel’ version of what REALLY happens behind the scenes to create such amazing outcomes.
Most of my clients enthusiastically support me sharing their wins and actually encourage it by adding ‘and share this with your audience!’ to their Slack messages. They understand that social proof will give people the confidence to invest in me. And when I’ve done polls and market research, my audience overwhelmingly votes to see more client results and success stories.
But I’ve tried, and failed, to add it to my weekly content (I usually forget). I sometimes share bits in the moment but then I’m wracked with ‘ugh I wish this had more context and nuance’ type thoughts. It feels like surface level small talk in what could be an extremely deep, informative and expansive piece of content.
Which made me think…
“Why don’t I just create that deep, informative and expansive piece of content instead?”
More transparency – there was definitely some hesitation on my part as I was writing this. We all have different perceptions and mentals models, and in a coach/client relationship I obviously view things from a more neutral, detached point of view than the coachee. I was concerned the client may have a wildly different perception of what actually contributed to this result than I do, that my take on it may not land with them at all. Luckily it did, and you can see their comments at the end of the case study.
So get comfy, grab yourself a drink and settle in to read the full, uncensored details of what went into creating this client’s first $25k cash month.
Background:
This client started working with me in The Quiet Power Mastermind over 2 years ago, then transitioned to become a private client. They’d been an entrepreneur for about a year, but had recently pivoted their entire business to a done-for-you model, and had no revenue coming in at that point.There was no launch during this month, the entire revenue came from existing MRR ($10.4k ish) plus new sales. However this client does not have passive income streams, so it’s important to note that more revenue means more client work to deliver. While this isn’t a bad thing, it IS an important consideration when looking at your capacity and scalability of your business model.This client does not run ads, all marketing is fully organic, and to a relatively small audience.This was the clients largest ever cash month in business, and took 3 years to reach. While results can seem instant to the observer, so much more went into reaching this milestone than you could ever see on social media.As of May 8th this client is at $20k cash for May, showing this result was NOT a fluke and can be achieved consistently. They’re now booking out 2-3 months in advance with a waitlist.
I truly believe that for introverts to create sustainable success we need to focus on 3 vital parts of our business – so I’ll be dissecting this case study through the lens of each.
Number 1 – People:
Support network – This client has a lean but mighty team in their business of a 1:1 coach (me) and a VA who is now being upgraded to Business Manager. Outside of business they’re VERY intentional about creating a friendship network that supports them and doesn’t drain their energy. They also have a long term therapist and work with a shaman for their spiritual development.
Now there was a LOT of conditioning for this client on how they shouldn’t ‘need’ support, and how it meant something about them if they couldn’t do everything in their business themselves. In fact, in getting familiar with their Human Design and energy patterns they’re now not only accepted that support is essential for their energy, but also for staying in their ZoG as a creative (meaning more capacity to serve more higher paying clients).
Ideal Client – After 2 years in this business model, the client is at a place where they’re super clear on their ideal client. This has helped a lot with pre-qualifying potential leads, and means that their marketing over the last few months has been particularly focussed and potent. It’s also allowed them to let go of non-ideal clients when that felt like the right thing to do.
Business Network – This aspect has been leaned into this in a big way by this client in 2023 with in person events – they live in a city with a high concentration of entrepreneurs, and are very much a person that’s easy to connect with, making people feel comfortable in their presence from the get go. Two years in business also means referrals come through regularly from former and current clients. I’ve said it a thousand times, but referrals and recommendations are the backbone of a long term, sustainable business!
Number 2 – Processes:
Marketing – This client got super consistent with the basics a few months ago, and now they literally rinse and repeat, because it works. While Instagram and email have been their primary marketing channels, this year we added in LinkedIn and in person events. The aforementioned clarity on their ideal client helped further. This client does not waste time and energy reinventing the wheel with their marketing, which is 100% organic, to a small audience and email list, but absolutely works perfectly.
Overall their content is super simple – a mix of grid posts, carousels, talking on stories, sharing their available spots and a weekly newsletter. No fancy funnels, no videos to create. While they have in the past rebelled against consistency (more on this later) they now see how sticking to this plan has not only created consistent clients, but also saved them heaps of time, energy and decision fatigue.
Client onboarding – now this was a pretty messy process and caused some scheduling issues and energy drains during this month. However, these problems highlighted that the business needed a proper SOP creating for it, and that to keep the client in their ZoG, it needed outsourcing to VA. When things like this happen it’s so important not to judge them as a mistake or failure, but rather an opportunity to amend them, and create even more efficiency in our businesses.
Time management – Some external circumstances outside of their control affected this client (for example 2 clients didn’t adhere to the timelines of the contract, so work that should’ve been done the month before rolled into this one, increasing their workload). Also important- a client didn’t pay their invoice, and a lot of time and energy was spent on dealing with and resolving that particular situation. However, this is a good reminder that things DO still go wrong in high revenue months, as is the duality of business!
Rituals, routines and habits – This client knows the importance of daily practices such as meditation and mindset work. Which isn’t to say they don’t fall off the wagon at times, as we all do… however, prioritising these over the last few years has given them a strong level of resilience, and means they can very quickly pick them back up again when they recognise they’ve slipped.
Number 3 – Personal Power:
This has been THE work for this client for the last 2 years. I have rarely supported someone so committed to their own growth and willing to take complete responsibility for it. The key thing here is that so many of the actions this client takes are focussed on their future vision, their values and living an aligned, intentional life – the ‘tangible’ outcomes like $25k are simply a natural byproduct of their dedication. Over 2 years of consistent self-mastery work is really bearing fruit now for them.
Zone of Genius – Owning this, and learning to be unapologetic about outsourcing without guilt has been key for this client’s growth. Rather than view someone doing things on their behalf making them a failure, they’ve switched that narrative to be grateful of the support and use it VERY wisely to preserve their creative energy and stay in their ZoG.
They also began clearly articulating their unique skill set in their marketing, which has made attracting ideal clients looking for their specific talent far easier – they get messages numerous times per week from strangers enquiring about their services.
Human Design – This client learnt about their design just before I started supporting them, so I have seen their entire deconditioning journey so far. As a rare type (<2% of the population) a lot of advice out there about business (and life) just does not work for their energy. During our time together they have learnt about and optimised their sleep schedule, their exercise, how and when they relax, amongst other things. This means they’re further able to protect their energy and create that much sought after ‘ease and flow’ (in fact ‘how is this my life’ and ‘it feels wrong that it can be this easy’ are messages I’ve received in Slack more than once!)
Speaking of Slack, this client is a verbal processor and that’s a huge part of their chart. Because of this they utilise my support very differently to most clients, and send voice notes on Slack most days. However this is mainly for their own processing (oftentimes they’ll be deleted before I even get to listen) but having the space to use for this purpose has been huge for them. In fact some months this client doesn’t use their full call allocation, because they view coaching in a very healthy way. It’s less about ‘I paid for this many minutes’ and more about ‘I get the support I need when I need it’. This asynchronous but high touch approach also enables me to reflect things back to them far faster than waiting for the next call, and as someone who likes to take fast action this serves them really well.
Their profile numbers – This client has LOTS of 3 line energy in their profile, which means they have to experience everything to know and learn it. Though they trust my business advice, they don’t always act on it right away (for instance I suggested in person networking and LinkedIn as strategies last August, 6 months before they started applying them). The important thing here is neither of us make them wrong for this, but we both understand that their own experience and timeline are key. Coaching should never be about forcing someone to act in a way that doesn’t feel good or they aren’t ready for. However once this client IS ready and takes action, things move VERY quickly for them – their first week of in person events led to 19 new enquiries from potential clients.
Mindset/Energy – This client clearly values my support as they’ve been working with me for over 2 years, however they never come to coaching looking to be told what to do or given a plan to execute. THEY are the CEO of their business, not me, and they are the one who makes the executive decisions. This is huge, because at the onboarding stage this client shared they’d lost trust in their decision making and judgement after a rough few months in business. They use the container to aid their own critical thinking vs to get the answers handed on a plate, which is exactly what I want to see clients do as a coach.
Like every business owner, they aren’t amazing at every single part of business – it can be easy for them to feel ‘stupid’ or ‘a failure’ when they make a mistake or don’t have something sorted perfectly. In all honesty there will always be things we struggle with – having a skillset that makes you excellent at every aspect of business is just not feasible. Accepting this, and instead choosing a team who ARE great at those things has been a work in progress for them, but is now supporting the business growth perfectly.
Consistency – This client had a lot of resistance to consistency, and many of our conversations have been around this. We dived deep into the connotations of the word that may be negative to them, the association of it with ‘boring’, the belief that entrepreneurship had to always be new and exciting. For an introvert, finding the baseline consistency that works to bring revenue into your business has to be your number one priority, from an energy management point of view. This client had to change their thought patterns around this and choose more empowering beliefs about what consistency means and what it provides (as I often say boring process = exciting results, and in this case that truly did happen with this big cash month!)
Wealth – Making this much money was never about vanity metrics, and opened up a new conversation around this client’s capacity to hold wealth. How comfortable could they be with this as a new normal? How did they feel with that much cash sitting in their bank account? They also got very intentional about apportioning the money, and while a chunk did get reinvested in the business for support on a future project, this client prioritised finances outside of the business in line with her core values.
Openness – Back in February this client ended their highest paying retainer contract as it was misaligned and draining their energy, leading to a very low income month by their standards. Our work since then has been about being ‘outrageously open’ to all the ways new clients and business can come about. Like so many online business owners, they were stuck in the thinking of how it ‘should’ be (I see this a lot with reliance on funnels or a particular social platform, people then narrow their focus because they see that’s how business ‘should’ come to them). This client absolutely embraced being open, even when their rational brain resisted it! Once they got comfortable doing so, the most amazing opportunities from unexpected places started dropping in – it was incredible to see. Many of these contributed directly to the $25k.
Summary:
Do you see how there wasn’t one ‘thing’ – one strategy, one mindset practice, or one piece of content – that allowed this client to blow up?! Our brains LOVE to look for the shortcut or the ‘secret’ to success (because we’re human), but in reality if you’re focussing on the right things in your business you’re getting a step closer to more and more success every single day.
Let’s take the in person events that led to 19 leads – would they have been so successful if this client wasn’t super clear on their ideal client? Or if they weren’t intentional about how they manage their social energy? Very likely, no. Could this client have embraced being ‘outrageously open’ if they had a dysregulated nervous system or didn’t have a solid mindset from 2 years of growth? Again, it would’ve been tough for them. That’s also the beauty of bespoke coaching – taking into account where a client is in the journey and their own personal baseline they’re working from, vs ‘hey, everyone in every situation just follow this formula’.
This income level is now a new normal for this client, but rather than an overnight success attributable to that one thing, it was a beautiful culmination of many moving pieces over a period of time. I hope you can see from this case study how the strategy we created was based on their values and their energy. I truly believe this is where the phenomenal results happen, and why cookie cutter formulas may have initial impact but rarely create long term success.
The work for this client going forwards is holding this level of success, both energetically and mindset wise, while looking to the future – ensuring the business can continue to grow and their revenue can increase sustainably, while they love their life. Which is the whole point, right?!
Client Comments
“Working with Emma-Louise has been by far the best investment I’ve made in my self as a human—not just in business. Her ability to talk me out of business ideas that were (probably) not a good idea for me and redirecting me to places that are more aligned has saved me probably literal years of time at this point. She also has a knack for helping you gently see the areas where you could grow, while also recognizing how far you’ve come so far, and I’m so grateful to have her on my support team. So much of my ability to create and now hold this level of wealth consistently comes from the two years we’ve spent working together. I don’t say this lightly, but she has been the X factor in my business, and I think that everyone needs an ELP”
