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Client Case Study
Michelle Crowder-Soellner
After finally landing on and committing to doing the work she really wants to be doing, this coach has now built the business-building acumen and deeply embodied self-trust to not only be an effective coach, but to also be an effective business owner. Here’s the story ⬇️
Michelle is a coach for high-achieving humans who have realized that even though their life looks great on the outside, they also want to feel great on the inside. After four years in business and “following many proven processes and it not working out” the way she wanted it to, Michelle joined EXPAND because she wanted to get more coaching clients, and she felt like EXPAND “would make a great next step for [her] even though the investment was a leap of faith.”
Throughout her time in EXPAND, we built each of the six elements of her Sustainable Success System™, with a particular focus on Marketing, Lead Generation, and Sales. By the end of the program, she had strengthened her core offer and learned to communicate it so it makes sense to other people, begun consistently marketing her work, and implemented a lead generation strategy that she’s now refining to even more effectively attract Right Fit, ready-to-buy clients.
First, a bit of context…
Throughout Michelle’s four years in business, she had pivoted a few times to different types of work, including copywriting and being a “launch doula.” When she landed on coaching and got her first coaching client, she realized that this was FINALLY the work she wanted to be doing in her business, and so she began exploring how to get more coaching clients. This led to lots of rumination throughout her day-to-day on whether she needed to spend more time on “marketing, lead generation, or what.”
She was also carrying the belief that no one in her circle would be interested in her offer and she was confused about who she should be speaking to. Not only that, but a big part of her really believed that she “sucked” at marketing her own work, and having to do any amount of selling put her in “cold sweats. Referrals only, please.” Right before she chose to step into EXPAND, she took part in a lead generation challenge that was mostly focused on using a coffee chat strategy, and in her words, she was “soooooo burned out on that method.”
When we asked her what she was doing pre-EXPAND that wasn’t working, Michelle’s answer was, “Everything.”
How we supported Michelle to build Sustainable Success in her business
When Michelle initially heard about EXPAND, she wasn’t ready for it and chose to sign up for The Aligned Niche™ (formerly known as Niche, Unleashed) instead. After completing that course and also nabbing a pay-what-you-can 1:1 coaching session that we occasionally offer, she decided she was ready for the whole process and jumped in. The fact that she was able to take her buyer journey at her own pace actually played an important role in her decision to join EXPAND, because it showed her the type of spacious and human-honoring buyer journey she wanted to build for her audience, too.
As she shared in her onboarding,
“I've thought about how I initially said no to EXPAND before signing up to Niche, Unleashed. I was not a right-fit client at that time, but I became one so quickly. It really made me think about how spelling out so clearly what a program is about and who it's for can help people make empowered decisions, whether it's a no or a yes. And that it feels like a win to be the one who decides I'm ready after feeling like it wasn't time yet. It gives me hope for how people will interact with my content and messaging.”
Ultimately, Michelle chose EXPAND because it “felt more about the foundations than the strategies” (especially important since she had tried so many strategies before and none quite worked how she wanted them to). And also because through each of her experiences with Carly and Team WholeCo, she was left feeling like, “Oh my goodness, this is what I have been looking for my whole time in business. Everything you said made so much sense, it just gave me more clarity.”
Here’s a closer look at what she accomplished with the support of EXPAND and Team WholeCo:
Building belief in her core offer
Michelle had only been coaching for about six months prior to joining EXPAND, and while she was confident that she liked the offer and the work it included, she wasn’t confident about how appealing it would be to others. She also felt that she had to have a “really robust (and potentially perfect) offer” before she could really start selling it. And while the way she had structured her 1:1 coaching was working with her current client, it didn’t feel sustainable to deliver if she were to bring on multiple clients at the same time.
Through the Offers module in EXPAND, she learnt the four core offer foundations which empower you to build offers that reliably facilitate results. The one foundation that particularly was important for Michelle was the Proprietary Process, which, after creating it, left her feeling “much more confident” in presenting her offer and in the value of it.
“I feel like I’ve been fixated on creating the perfect offer for a good portion of running my business. But in doing this module, I feel like I’ve been overcomplicating it. Or trying to force feeling like my proprietary process is all figured out before I have consistent clients. My offer [now] feels great to me and I have received feedback that it makes sense to others.”
Figuring out WTF is messaging?!
Michelle came into the Messaging module in EXPAND thinking, “Ok, I’ve been in business for 4 years, I was a copywriter for part of that, I’ve taken multiple training, WTF is messaging?” Messaging was always her “biggest block” as it brought up the part of her who would immediately get confused and believe that she “can’t figure it out.” From her perspective, this sheer confusion around messaging came from having “consumed so many different versions of what messaging is supposed to be and none of it seems to correlate with the other versions.”
By getting to the foundations of messaging, Michelle finally saw it all “click” in her brain. “I learned how to break down messaging so it’s a step by step process and not some big scary idea. It definitely takes some of the ruminating and hand-wringing out…it feels like I have a blueprint and I can keep refining it with practice.” And though the process of crafting her messaging still did activate that part of herself who “believes things are too hard for” her, “being able to ask for feedback in the Facebook group, knowing I can talk to [the WholeCo team] during our check-in, helped me give myself grace for that and bring it to therapy.”
Gaining the confidence to experiment in her marketing
Prior to EXPAND, Michelle was doing “occasional content posting. Almost nonexistent.” and her main belief around marketing was, “I suck at it.” Even though she knew better, she also often found herself falling into the trap of convincing people, “pick me!” As she described it, “some voice somewhere in my head is saying things like, ‘You have to be cooler, and funnier, and consistent, and stand out from the crowd more’ (and all that feels too hard :P).” All of which meant that not only was she very rarely marketing, she was very rarely getting sales.
Through completing the Marketing modules in EXPAND alongside the 30 Days of Content Challenge, Michelle found herself feeling like “a badass bitch. Me, writing and pitching that much?! I feel sooo much better about [marketing] now and am excited to polish this [element of my Sustainable Success System].” Though she was already aware of the four foundational content types from previous work, discovering “what’s important to include in them and having an outline that made sense to me was so helpful.” She also learned how to tie messaging to content, including using your messaging to guide what you talk about in your content, which she credits as being the most important takeaway from this module because it “increases the probability that the content will reach the right-fit client, and as the message gets refined, the content will really click.”
Ultimately, her transformation in her approach to and beliefs around marketing were probably one of her most profound.
“As I became more experienced in the online business world, I realized how little I knew about marketing and that definitely froze me up, definitely gave me imposter vibes. Now, I just think of it as a necessary tool. I don’t need to be an expert or know all the trends. I just need to experiment and iterate in my own business. And that feels good. What’s made it unpleasant before is wanting it to be perfect or wanting some external validation. It has felt frustrating to spend time on something and see no tangible return. But now I feel more comfortable with putting good enough content out as I build my marketing muscle. And I can tell myself I might not get an immediate result from one post but if I persist over time, I’m bound to learn and grow and get better.”
The in-depth marketing content review by Carly was also a big highlight for Michelle, which empowered her to experiment even more as she had “more direction, making the elements of the experiment smaller.”
Implementing a lead generation strategy
While Michelle had taken a lot of trainings on lead generation over the years and had some groundwork already in place prior to joining EXPAND, she had “implemented so little.” And the strategies she had implemented prior just weren’t working. Either because it was something she burned herself out on to the point of resenting them (which in her case was coffee chats as a strategy for getting clients) or because it didn’t actually connect to her offer (a free PDF that “didn’t lead anywhere”). Earlier on in her business, Michelle had even run a launch, though it was “extremely triggering” for her.
She came into EXPAND feeling like she understood pitching and following-up, but still: “I feel like I learned so much [about lead generation] through EXPAND.” In fact, upon completing the lead generation module as well as Challenge #3: Generate Ready-to-Buy Leads, she feels like she has “a system that works for me now” that still allows her to experiment as she continues to grow and strengthen this area of her business.
Going into Challenge #3 was definitely “the most nervous” she had felt in the program, but she went ahead and implemented because she knew that she wanted to get clients and learn how to keep a pipeline going. The Hand-Raising Opportunity (HRO)—one of the three foundations of lead generation—she designed and implemented ended up being “better-suited for people who are not quite right-fit clients yet,” and so didn’t produce any paying clients in its first round. Even still, she “loved the experience so much” and felt “SO good facilitating the discussion, so it was really an opportunity to refine my skills.” After receiving video coach-sulting from Carly upon completion of the Challenge, Michelle now plans on refining her HRO so that it’ll attract true Right Fit, ready-to-buy clients and then doing it again soon!
“I still feel like I have all the tools, however long it takes, I will get there. One of the things [Carly] said to me in the last video [she] sent me, was to not do the HRO’s quarterly but to keep on it. I was like, ‘Oh yeah. Oh I can start thinking about that again. It doesn’t have to be a big overwhelming thing. I can keep trying to do a little bit better each time.’ I truly treated this one as an experiment and to show up unpolished and see what happens, and I feel like that was the right approach. Now I have a confidence boost to put a little more polish and system into the next one.”
Embracing sales and selling (for the first time ever!)
Sales and selling is something that Michelle had “struggled with the entire 4 years” of her business. She came into EXPAND relying mostly on referrals, not doing many sales calls and even “feeling all types of anxiety” about them.
This wasn’t for lack of trying, however, ”I had soooo many sales scripts and sales trainings. It just wasn’t clicking for me…[and] I have historically been so activated by sales calls.” Thankfully, seeing the foundations of sales and selling helped her to pinpoint exactly where things were off (and what she could do about it!). In what came as quite a surprise for her, she realized that one of the biggest sources of stress around sales and selling for her were the energetic foundations.
“In the past, I felt I had to show up as an expert and have it all together. I felt I was going to be exposed for a fraud. Even though I have always been a proponent of ethical sales, I can look back and see how I *energetically* pushed for a sale for clients who were not a right fit and then made it mean something about me when it didn’t work out.”
Nowadays, all of that has changed for the better. Not only did Michelle learn how to become a skilled facilitator of the sales conversation, picking up skills throughout the module such as being able to transition to the pitch or wrap up a call if the prospect hasn’t made a decision, but she also really strengthened her energetic foundations, too.
“I think I can let go of any desperate energy. I want to work with right-fit clients. And I think what’s been helpful is learning what a right fit client is and how to direct the conversation depending on whether it’s a right fit client or not and trusting they will make the right decision. And if I have more ‘nos’ than ‘yeses’ as I get into the sales call groove, I can adjust things leading up to the calls.”
She completed the sales module announcing to the Universe. “Hey Universe, I’m ready for sales calls.”
“I’m not just a coach. I’m someone who knows how to run a business.” — Michelle Crowder-Soellner
“I went into EXPAND because after 4 years in business, I finally believed wholeheartedly in the work I was doing. But because I had pushed myself to do work that I was pretty good at but didn’t feel like shouting from the rooftops about, I had built beliefs and habits that made it hard to show up and show off. I built so much muscle in EXPAND just experimenting with different things and being ok with the outcomes, never losing sight of the fact that I love what I do and that the more I build the muscle, the easier it will get. [Finishing EXPAND] feels like a really big turning point in my business, and I’m just so proud of myself for where I am compared to where I started with this program.
I loved [the format] of EXPAND. I don’t have the greatest history with self-led courses but the way it was organized made so much sense, I SO appreciated the transcripts, and the challenges really helped give it a sense of ‘let’s do this’ instead of just think about it. I loved seeing my progress throughout the course, that was really motivating. And the feedback that was given for the challenges - SO valuable!!!! Every time I got feedback, it was a really good mix of constructive, but also ‘you’re not a total bonehead.’ It was very reassuring, but you were clear to point out things where you saw opportunity. It made your feedback really trustworthy. Thank you also for being so thoughtful [in the module check-in video coaching] and helping us prepare ahead of time for resistance and helping me feel like I’m taking productive baby steps toward a new reality.
EXPAND feels like the biggest thing I’ve accomplished since I was in college. And it was all me. If you’re someone who’s got all the qualities and drive of an entrepreneur/small business owner but who hasn’t found the way to a sustainable business yet, I’d recommend EXPAND. There’s something that you probably missed at some point on your business journey. Something that you’re like, ‘Well if I would have had that knowledge or support, I would have been much further by now.’ Not only is the material in EXPAND illuminating, but it’s a very good mix of working things out on your own while feeling very supported and having feedback that you can trust.
I have evidence now that I can do things that some part of me has said is too hard or too confusing. I can move through hard things and I can figure things out that are confusing. I’m confident that I’m not just a coach, I’m someone who understands how to run a business. ”
Michelle Crowder-Soellner, Coach
Case Study: Michelle Crowder-Soellner, Life Coach in the US
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