This is a sampling of the clients I’ve helped. My goal is to give you a sense of the breadth of my experience and the ways different types of businesses have found my services useful.
Want your business to be the next on this list? Contact me here and let’s discuss how we can work together to help you achieve your goals.
Please note that for the sake of client privacy, I am not providing specific identifying details. (I take privacy very seriously.)
A Woman-Owned Career Consulting LLC
.WHO:. A woman with decades of experience providing career advice to lawyers who was looking to start a sole proprietorship.
.WHAT:. At the beginning of the Great Resignation, my client decided that she wanted to change her career consulting services from a casual, word-of-mouth operation to a formal business. However, she didn’t know anything about starting a business or creating or maintaining a web presence. She needed a complete operational, digital, marketing, and financial strategy built for a non-tech-savvy layperson.
.HOW:. I started with the big picture — working with my client to create long-term and short-term goals for her new business to understand what tools she’d need to achieve them. Next, I researched to identify specific tools that would work best for her and her clients, as well as market research on her competitors so that we could build a brand identity for her that would stand out from the crowd. I took that information and used it to build her website and social media plan.
Once the ideas and infrastructure were in place, I gave her suggestions on what she could use for client billing and banking and helped her navigate the necessary paperwork to establish her business legally and financially. I’ve helped make digital worksheets, braved the IRS’s business e-filing system with her, and explored potential passive income streams at our quarterly strategy meetings. Her business will be celebrating its 4th birthday soon, and she insists that she wouldn’t have made it this far without me. (She’s also agreed to speak with potential clients upon request; let me know if you’d like me to put the two of you in touch.)
A Nonprofit Theater Company
.WHO:. A small 501(c)(3) nonprofit theater whose executive director is also the stage director of its plays.
.WHAT:. This small nonprofit had recently outgrown the clunky interface it had been using for its web presence and ticket sales, and the director was struggling to find and implement something that would meet their needs more effectively. In order to keep things running and prepare for their five-year anniversary, he needed help identifying and switching to better options for web hosting, ticket sales, communications/marketing, donor management, and event streaming.
.HOW:. My client needed someone who could sift through the software options to identify the best ones for his theater, so that’s what I did. I condensed my research into brief, 1-2 page bullet-point summaries of the pros and cons of the most common tools used by his competitors and concluded with which ones I recommended and why. After he talked to his board of directors, he had me help him switch to the new selections, migrating their hosting and exporting existing databases. I decreased hosting costs by 48% and increased sales capacity by 300% as well as streamlining sales, event management, and donor management into one centralized tool.
And… my client was so pleased with my work that when he needed a stage manager (project manager/team lead) for an upcoming production, he asked me! My lack of theater experience was, apparently, less important than my organizational skills and ability to get people to cooperate. So I flew up and spent seven weeks on-site working to get our production ready to launch in just 25 days and then running the show. I had to coordinate communication across 6 departments, make sure each department hit their benchmark goals, create and implement processes that the previous managers had let slide, mediate conflicts, address performance issues, and get a Red Cross First Aid certification. It was a lot of rolling with the punches and staying calm when everyone else wasn’t. My client had already asked if I would come back for next year’s big production before my flight home, so I’d call it a success!
AV Technician by Day, Classically Trained Cellist by Night
.WHO:. An early-career musician with degrees in both music performance and music technology.
.WHAT:. This client, referred to me by the career counselor client mentioned above, was trying to find a way to blend his two areas of experience into one freelancing business. He felt comfortable with the web aspect of things but needed advice on business strategy, marketing, and keeping track of finances.
.HOW:. We sat down together to discuss his goals, current sources of revenue (and what percent of total revenue each source comprises), and how he finds new clients as well as what a typical client is for each type of work that he does. Then I asked about the future — what are other income streams he might be interested in as he advances in his career? Have any of his friends found things that worked for them? Once I had that information, I suggested web tools that would allow flexibility and room for future growth since he may someday want to, for example, sell merchandise for his music or tickets to a livestreamed concert.
We then talked about business. Like many creatives, words like “marketing” and “accounting” aren’t exactly his favorite, but the reality is that he is a businessman whether he thinks of himself that way or not, and in order for his business to be successful he needs to do some basic business tasks. So, I shared strategies that can make bookkeeping easier and helped him make a plan for self-promotion and social media marketing that felt achievable and not too onerous. We also talked about building a centralized portfolio, how to use a website strategically for advertising and promotion, and techniques for negotiating and advocating for yourself as a freelancer. He says that now, instead of feeling “kind of overwhelmed by all the business stuff”, he feels much more confident in himself as a businessman (and also, “why don’t they teach us this in school?”)!
And… You?
These clients’ stories should give you a decent overview of what it’s like to work with me. If you want to experience it for yourself, or find out more about how I can help you, contact me here.