Katie’s only reservation about the program before starting was that she has never spent that much money on a coaching program. She wanted to make sure that this was the kind of investment she would make back and that has been the case. With no business knowledge, Katie knew she needed to listen to an expert and that she was happy to pay for Sian’s expertise.

Since the program, Katie has been getting three referrals a week, as opposed to one, and she knows what her plan is – sending out newsletters, touching base with her network, and connecting with doctors. Katie no longer feels the panicky feelings she used to experience all the time when somebody’s caseload was a little low. She’s seen consistent growth and feels like she’s reached the point where she can scale.

If you are considering joining the program, Katie would recommend considering what your practice needs the most and identifying what’s standing in your way. If the answer is learning how to get the word out about what you do in a way that feels authentic, then working with Sian would be a really good investment.

Overall, the program really encouraged Katie to dream bigger and provided valuable tools. It was not only marketing help that Katie received; it was more of a paradigm shift, looking at how to transition into the leadership role within her organisation and how to inhabit it fully. Katie felt like she had executive coaching which is really helpful for business owners.

During the coaching calls, Katie identified a list of people who she hadn’t been touching base with, and decided she was going to try to connect with two contacts a week. In doing so, Katie reached out to a researcher that she had previously connected with at a local university. She messaged him to ask if he would be interested in meeting to talk about bridging the gap between clinical research and clinical practice, or research in clinical practice. He was about to graduate so he connected Katie to his boss, who was the head of an amazing early intervention research program. They instantly hit it off and explored how their teams could work together.

They’ve since set up a journal club and meet up quarterly to build relationships. The university team are going to train Katie’s team on the evidence-based interventions they’ve been doing with parents of young kids. When they have parents come through the study whose children need extra support, the university can refer them to Katie’s practice as the local team using these research-based methods. It’s a win for everybody and Katie is so excited to have pursued this connection after Sian encouraging her to do so.

Jessica has noticed an improvement in her work-life balance since completing the program. She is being more productive, bringing a lot more money into her business, and excited to hire her first full-time employee and another ready to join in the coming weeks. Once her new hire is working full time, it means that Jessica can release some of her own workload to another person, then have a normal work schedule for herself. The program also taught Jessica how to reframe her thoughts about money and income and she has since adopted a different perspective that has seen her income increase with ease.

Two of the biggest changes this program brought to Jessica’s business is that she has doubled her revenue and now spends considerably less time preparing for clients. Only working with her ideal clients throughout the week means her preparation time simply requires a couple of minutes getting ready before each session. Jessica is confident in her specialty and knows exactly what she will be doing in each session and what her clients’ goals are. Jessica has also increased her rates without guilt. Past attempts to increase them had left Jessica feeling bad and fearful that nobody could afford her.

Key learning for Jessica was realizing that many business owners have not specialized in learning business and there is so much knowledge and understanding required. For Jessica, no matter how much learning she did on her own, it helped to have somebody else’s perspective and guidance, especially in marketing. Working with Sian enabled Jessica to look at things objectively, make those hard decisions about employees, and head in the right direction regarding how to attract new ideal clients. The program didn’t just help Jessica with marketing; there were so many other things Jessica wasn’t expecting to be covered, including guidance on how to make difficult decisions, retain clients, write treatment plans and deliver better service in her business.

One of the biggest benefits Jessica gained from this program was the community element of being in a small, select group with other business owners, who were all working through the same things and supporting one another by troubleshooting together. Jessica compared this community with other Facebook groups local to her, where she didn’t feel free to post questions, in case somebody she knew or her competitors saw it. Sian’s community is one of the only Facebook groups Jessica kept her notifications turned on for, keen to interact with the other program members.

Hannah had looked into several marketing courses that had a business aspect and while she found some of them to be relevant to speech pathologists, she didn’t connect with any of them.

What made Sian’s program different and drew Hannah to it was that it focuses on feminine energy, and it instantly felt right. The program gave Hannah practical tools to implement immediately, in addition to many other tools that she isn’t at the stage in her business to use yet but she will do in the future. Before joining, Hannah wasn’t sure if the cost was going to be worth it but soon learnt that it definitely was, and she would give it a score of 20 out of 10. Hannah has developed the confidence to be able to share her new pricing structure, which is higher than she was originally going make it at the beginning of the program. She happily tells people what she specialises in,  confidently sharing her brand story, her passion for what she does, and her new hourly rate, without fear or hesitation.

The group of women that were also in the program included such a range of people with varying levels of experience. Hannah felt she was somewhere in the middle in terms of the business progress she had made so far. Given how important it is to Hannah to continue to value her work-life balance, it helped greatly to be able to see what that looks like for other businesswomen in the group who were a few steps further along than Hannah was in her journey.

In working with Sian, Hannah was hoping to: have a website; create a separate legal entity for her business; make connections; and see what other private practice owners were doing in different locations. She got all of this and far more from the program, which also provided valuable insights into how people with employees handle common issues, how to know the right person to hire, and seeing what that looks like for others in real life scenarios. Client-wise, Hannah transitioned from having a school contract, to building inroads for a new client base. She has also hired a bookkeeper to track her revenue, which has increased by at least $3,000 a month. Hannah has been able to increase her hourly rate and work less hours, while making far more money.

Hannah has mastered the planning process of how much admin she actually has to do, when she’s going to do it, and writing it into her schedule to keep her focus. She’s changed her working hours so she can take care of household and family responsibilities first thing in the morning before seeing clients. That way, once Hannah returns home from work, she doesn’t have to worry about any chores and can simply enjoy time with her family.

Hannah recommends that anyone who wants to be ready to launch their business, be successful, and have the confidence to tell their clients why they are the best in their field to sign up to Sian’s program yesterday. Her biggest takeaways were her own self-reflection on being a business owner and being able to distinguish between things she has been told to want, versus what she genuinely does want for herself. Understanding why she’s the expert and how to tell people that in a way that’s humble but also strong and believable has been a powerful change for Hannah. She now knows and believes in her worth and what she deserves to be paid.

Learning how to best leverage Facebook and following Sian’s recommendations for free marketing solutions led to Fran securing new client sign ups and significantly increasing her revenue. Fran is well on her way to fully replacing her day job income and has set her sights on this as a future goal. Her confidence has increased, together with her clarity and vision. Her business has grown significantly and rapidly as a result.

Fran has successfully transitioned from having a hobby type of venture on the side of a day job, to now making this business her main focus. She recommends anyone considering joining the program to sign up without hesitation. Even for business owners who are proficient and pretty established, Fran explains that there is so much value in the content offered, equating it to being like a buffet of ideas that you can use and just implement, when and where you deem appropriate. It also exposed Fran to useful information, resources and techniques that she will be able to implement in the future as her business grows, and she has tools to support her at every stage of her business.

Completing the program has left Fran feeling really excited about the direction her business is going in. Learning about ways to structure her business in terms of packages and how to scale for future expansion has given the program contents longevity well beyond the duration of the program itself.

Fran has so much gratitude for what Sian has taught her and she valued Sian’s coaching approach too, which she found to be the perfect fit to get the best out of Fran’s ability.

Esau’s Story…

Esau is a licensed drug and alcohol therapist, with a master’s degree in Business. While the MBA did cover some generic aspects of marketing, this training had limited relevance for real-world daily business challenges.  

Esau joined Sian’s program to gain clarity on how to effectively market himself. There is a common misconception that drug and alcohol counsellors are former drug addicts themselves. It is not widely known this work requires the same level of rigor and training that it does to be a social worker or to work in support roles for mental health. Esau’s clients include lawyers, businessmen and general contractors who are in recovery and need a counselling service to help them deal with life challenges, without returning to drug use.

Esau wanted help creating marketing that would clearly explain to people how his therapy is on an equal level to other kinds of therapy. The aim was to avoid sounding salesy and instead get common ground to build a referral base with fellow professionals to be referrers, and to create meaningful marketing to help the right kind of clients find Esau’s service. Prior to the program, Esau was unfamiliar with the concept of an ‘ideal client’ and had instead taken any and every client, which felt exhausting.

Since working with Sian, Esau only works with those who meet the ideal client criteria. Esau has gone from 60 to 800 referrals on LinkedIn and has had a 20% increase in revenue, making it possible to quite an overnight second job. The work-life balance has also significantly improved for Esau since joining the program.

Hearing Sian’s first-hand experience regarding honest sharing about the road blocks she used to face in her business and how she has successfully overcome them, taught Esau that it is possible to build a business that operates effectively and does not lead to burn out. One of the biggest takeaways was Sian sharing that it is possible to take imperfect action towards the life of our dreams and we don’t need to hold back trying to get everything perfect before we move forwards.

 Esau would stress to anyone considering joining the program that learning about marketing in this way is just as important as any practical professional skills training to be a therapist and it brings an added dimension that is greatly needed.

 Another key takeaway was how Sian encouraged each program member to embrace different ways to market themselves that felt right for them, including organising get-togethers with fellow professionals as a way of networking. Esau appreciated being given so many different approaches to not being locked into just one way of doing it. There was enough variety that Esau could choose which parts resonated most and would work best.

 On a personal note, Esau was deeply grateful for Sian’s understanding and kindness when he was admitted to hospital at the start of the program. Esau admired how Sian puts her trust in the people she believes in, knowing that they are serious about committing to their business progression offers support through it.