This summer, the roles got reversed. I worked with a positioning and branding expert.
I’m normally the one asking the right questions, reframing, and writing ideas down for clients. To have it done for myself was a huge reminder of why I do this work: it is SO hard to do this solo. It’s also so hard to do this work with AI.
I knew I was in safe hands with this expert. They immediately spotted exactly where I needed to make some much-needed changes.
Nobody can see their own patterns from inside them. Not my clients, and as it turns out… not me either. You need an outside eye to call out the unique work that you do best, and not succumb to the most generic or beige, or worse, confusing, explanations of it.
In these conversations with Hillary I told her that I have a particular type of favourite client.
They are often older than me. Have a big career behind them. Have a lot of knowledge, professionally and personally. They want their next, and perhaps final, career chapter to be one of fulfilment, more freedom and financially lucrative. They are not done.
They want their work be the type of work that gets referenced, recommended, and repeatedly paid top rates.
I told her exactly how I help my clients to own an idea in their industry and how that was what led to their success.
I told her my message was feeling confused, as I had spent a lot of airtime talking about the future of work being the decline of the 9-5 but that now, my message felt too broad. Too well-trodden. Too far removed from the work I was doing in my client sessions.
I told her that what people actually paid me for, was to be a successful Authority.
Hillary said “they want to be Authority Brands.”
That was it.
At first, I worried that ‘brand’ might sound too wish washy. Too soft. My ideal client has a depth of craft, and a track record that can speak for them in Board rooms. They aren’t just trying to be famous for famous sake.
But then I remembered: a strong brand is a competitive moat. When everyone looks and sounds the same, and AI turns everyone into an expert… buyers will choose the most trusted professionals. The ones who's brands are the clearest.
Experts get hired. Authority brands get referenced, recommended, and repeatedly paid top rates.
If you’re nodding along, thinking, “yes but how?!”
I spent the summer thinking more deeply about this, too. Nearly seven years coaching business owners. Thousands of data points later… I was able to distill the stages my clients go through — and me too, on my own journey — into these three. Each of which maps to an offer in my business.
1. First, you begin… with The Ask
Before a single word goes on your website, you need to know exactly what you want from your business. Your vision, your values, your goals, and the financial targets that go with them.
You might have a business, but like Rosa (name changed) who worked with me on this stage, you might be craving a new direction. After fifteen-plus years running an independent practice, Rosa had lost almost all interest in the work that paid her bills.
"Is this the only thing I want to have done in my life? The answer is definitely no.”
Many people like Rosa reach out for coaching when something has shifted. Or something happens that makes them rethink: becoming a parent, a new location, a death in the family. So often we need to revisit our true Ask, and make sure it’s aligned to who we are now, and the work we want to be doing next.
In our conversations, we identified another, very viable path for Rosa. It had been hiding in plain sight all along. I asked her point blank: “Does this excite you more?”. She was clear that it did. That instead, would be what she wanted to build her business around.
Until you know what you want, and the details of it, any tactical decisions will be built on a shaky foundation.
If you think you would value from this type of coaching, it’s not a big commitment. Many people work with me in a single session and get exactly what they came for. Others come in here, test the results and our relationship, and continue onward. Start here.
Learn more about working with Ellen on Begin with The Ask
2. Then you become … The Answer
Not everyone I work with finds their way into stage two.
Some people figured out from Begin with The Ask that they don’t want to own an idea in their industry and become an Authority Brand. Or they’re not ready to do the work do become one.
That’s okay.
But assuming if you’re still reading that you do, then becoming The Answer means you are referrable.
Your beliefs become a position people can repeat, refer, and buy, and you tie this up into three written artefects:
One Big Idea that everything you build revolves around — something bigger than your services. Closer to a movement.
An Authority Positioning Statement. This is the clear cut description of your work as a coach, consultant or advisor, and how you deliver your best work to clients
A Hero Piece. This is a 2,000+ word essay that brings your One Big Idea to life. Something that makes your perspective tangible which is inherently shareable. People who have been through this process with me said their Hero Pieces gained exponentially higher views, engagement and attention than anything else they’d written. My extensive feedback and edits in the writing process certainly helped! The Hero Piece becomes your pillar content that also informs what else you would write as a follow up, or to go deeper.
The type of person most ready to become The Answer already has clients. They already are known, but not in a predictable way. Revenue might have stalled or fallen, as more new entrants came into do the training, advisory or coaching work they do. Or as AI or budget cuts made it harder.
Their next step is a brand moat. Something to reengage with referral partners, past clients and the like but also to make a new stamp.
Sam worked with me on this two years ago. His One Big Idea landed so well that his whole field caught up with it. "It just sounds a bit obvious now" they told me last week. We’ll be working together again on The Answer for Sam’s next chapter.
See the pattern? None of these practitioners are facing skills problems, or need to jump into a website rewrite. They need to package what they know and how they think in a way that makes ideal clients find and choose them before you even enter the room. Imagine a Hero Piece so compelling that prospective clients arrive ALREADY sold on the idea of working with you.
Make your message buyable and budgets will create themselves for it. Your ideas will take on a life force of their own, and lead to all manner of interested parties, as they did for Selena.
Learn more about working with Ellen on Become The Answer
3. Then finally, you build The Practice
Finding language to describe your work is only powerful if you put that language out into the world. If you have conversations with ideal clients, that lead to powerful engagements. If you then turn what you learn from those powerful engagements into codified assets, that allow you to leverage your time better.
Then you arrive at a full practice of high paying clients, who found their way to you. Wanting you for only the unique work that only you can do.
The Practice is both the result of having an Authority Brand, as well as the ongoing effort needed to sustain it.
You keep practising your craft: the coaching enquiry. The consulting method. The advisory depth. You keep practising putting words around it e.g. more long form essays that lead to other aligned clients. That is: a Body of Work.
You keep raising your prices or scaling how you work with people until your business model is set up as you wish it to be. For some that’ll be enough to pay their bills and save, others will be on the 7 figure track.
You can’t build The Practice without knowing exactly what you want, and what you want to be known for, and building a reputation around it.
But when you do, and you begin to codify what you've delivered more than once then the work becomes repetition. You then allow your content, testimonials and offers start feeding each other.
This stage doesn’t technically finish, so long as you want to earn a living consulting, advising, and coaching, this is the work.
I support a dozen clients at this stage right now inside The Practice, a membership for expert coaches and consultants. Members are busy sharing their Hero Pieces, having more conversations, creating IP around their offers, scaling what they do best or putting together signature talks or book proposals. It’s deep work, and it’s somewhat about repetition.
Someone recently ruled themselves out of this by telling me, “Ellen I don’t want to be an Authority Brand and keep repeating myself. I don’t want to my work to feel boring.”
I understand the resistance, and it might not be for everyone.
But I’ll speak for myself: since I stayed in a focused lane, developed deeper insights, worked with more of my ideal client, the business has felt so much more easeful. The fees feel easier to justify as my Body of Work does the selling for me. It’s the compound effect of building a brand around a similar idea.
And for Sharath, choosing a clear defined lane is what led to his business feeling less effortful, and a six figure contract.
I’m not bored. My love of ideation gets tested in finding new angles from which to talk about this stuff. And working with clients on theirs. I have found the unique flavour of work I want to do, and I want to help more people find theirs. Fulfilled professionals make for happier humans which makes the world a better place for us all — don’t you think?
Looking for help with your direction, answer and offers and unsure where to begin? Drop an enquiry in and we'll go from there.
