Welcome to Let Them Feel It: How to Attract Clients Without a Pitch - a series of weekly modules to help you get paid to do the work you love.
This course covers mindset, strategy and tactics to explore the ways that you can create an ecosystem of paid work to support your heart-led vision.
It’s based on my experience of running a social enterprise for over twelve years and attracting funding of over £750K.
Previous modules:
Quick Note: If you’d like to buy the full course and gain access to weekly Q&A you can get it here👇🏼
The previous lesson got you excited about what you can do to start sharing your work and getting paid for making a difference in the world!
I know you are ready to dive in and start figuring out how to take the next step but let's just first take a moment to think about the mindset that will set you up for success.
Long-term Thinking
Building a business is a marathon not a sprint. Yes, even when what you are doing is creating transformation in the world.
It takes time. It takes patience. It takes resilience.
And you already have all of those! So buckle up and prepare yourself for the long game. It will help you ride the storms of the journey.
You are the ONE
You are the one! Say it again and again. No one can do what you do. You may not think this right now, but if you look at all your skills, all your life experience, all your ideas. You will see that they combine to make the unique you!
And the world needs you.
So stop hiding. Stop doubting. Stop second-guessing. And be the change the world needs you to be.
Baby Steps
Take each step at a time. Overwhelm comes from trying to do too much too soon. Just take each step and follow it through. We often don't even know what the next step will be until we take the step in front of us.
Connection vs Preaching
You know that moment when something just lands for you? When it hits with such power, that you can’t not talk about it?
It’s happened to you. It’s happened to me. It’s happened to the hundreds of people I’ve worked with.
We have a shift, an insight, and the world looks different even though nothing has changed. We feel clearer, lighter, more alive. And we want to tell everyone. We want them to feel it, too. Because it’s so good.
The thing is … they don’t always hear it. Not at first.
They don’t hear it until they hear it. And once they do, that’s it. They don’t need to hear it again because it’s part of them.
Story Time
One of my favourite examples of this is my son, Dazzle.
Now, he’s been listening to me rabbit on about how transformation works for years. Years.
He’s edited my videos. Sat through conversations. Nodded along. But he thought most of it was rubbish.
One spring night, he’d come to visit, and we were sitting around the fire pit Papa (my husband) had made.
Dazzle’s a real heady thinker, loves to get into the weeds and work stuff out. He’d been suffering from a severe bout of depression; he’d even entertained suicidal thoughts, so he was desperate for an answer.
“But I can’t just change my thoughts!” he said. The fire crackled and spat. Sparks lit up the surrounding garden. He sat with his head in his hands. Fingers in his blond hair. I could feel the warmth of my shawl on my shoulders and the chill of pain in my heart. I wanted to help him, so I knew the best thing was to keep listening.
“I’m not saying you should change your thinking, sweetheart,” I said. “I’m saying we experience life through thought.”
He sat bolt upright and stared at me with his big blue eyes.
For whatever reason, in that moment—it hit him.
You know that feeling. That wow. That Oh my God, I get it now.
His face lit up. His eyes widened. I could sense the tingle of his skin. The racing of his heart.
“Wow! Wow!” he said. That’s unbelievable! Wow!”
Over and over, he repeated “Wow!” and stared at me, with hope lighting up his sweet face. Mind. Blown.
He sat up straight and said, “Mum! We have to tell people!”
I laughed, filled with love and awe at witnessing an insight before my eyes.
“What do you think I’ve been trying to do for the past 15 years?” I said.
And the best part? Dazzle’s depression disappeared. Yep, it just disappeared. Several weeks later, we were in a masterclass together and he told the fire pit story to the group. And it was only then he realised, “Oh, and I haven’t felt depressed ever since!”
Another Example
And here’s the point. You can’t rush it. You can’t shove it down someone’s throat and expect them to go, “Oh yes, brilliant, thank you for that.” It doesn’t work that way.
Connection comes from feeling, not force. And I had to learn that the hard way.
When I first started doing this work, especially in the prison system, I thought the results would speak for themselves. I was working with people who’d been through addiction, through trauma, through the system—and they were changing.
They were calmer. Kinder. More hopeful.
And yet, the staff and prison governors—the people in charge of the prison and responsible for management and operation-—I worked with would say, “Oh, it’s because we changed the time they get their meds,” or “It must be the new security lights we installed.”
They couldn’t even consider that the change might be coming from within the people themselves. From the conversations we were having. From something deeper.
I used to come in like a wrecking ball. Zealous. Overexcited. Trying to convert everyone.
I like to say I wore out shoes walking door to door, pitching to addiction centres, charities, anyone who’d listen.
Or not listen, as it turned out.
I was passionate. And that passion was real. But it came out like a sales pitch. Like a crusade.
I used all the words that made sense to me—words I’d heard, words I’d picked up. But they didn’t land for anyone else. They just heard “blah blah blah.” Or worse—“Oh, here comes another one of those people with the magic fix.”
Truth is: I was pushing.
I wanted them to understand. I wanted them to get it. Because I’d seen something, and I knew it could help.
But I was going about it all wrong.
What changed everything was connection.
Story Time
The day that all changed was during a Recovery Walk—an annual public parade and celebration that highlights and supports addiction recovery—in Birmingham, England. A stunning September day. Sun shining. Sky blue. Joy in the air. I walked into this park where people were gathered in all different stages of
recovery. Some still deep in addiction. Some thriving. All kinds of people.
A sudden feeling of intense love just poured through me. Drenched me. Filled me up.
I loved the people in the park. All of them. Didn’t matter what they looked like or what they’d done. I just loved them.
And I remember thinking, I don’t know how I’m going to do this, but I have to work with these people. I love them.
It turns out, that was an insight. I didn’t know that at the time—I didn’t have that language. But I felt it. And that feeling changed everything.
A random man standing by the corner of one of the stalls selling burgers caught my eye. The poor guy didn’t know what hit him—and I just poured. All my excitement, all my fire, all my “inside out” and whatever else I was on about. Total gobbledygook. But he heard something.
Why? Because of the feeling I was coming from. Because I wasn’t trying to impress or convince or pitch. I was just full of something real. And he felt it.
That man was a psychologist. Very smart. Very trained. Very experienced. He grilled me for hours. Threw every model and theory at me.
And I just kept saying, “I don’t know about that. But let me tell you what I’m seeing.”
I wasn’t trying to win. I wasn’t trying to prove anything. I didn’t even know who he was. I was just being real.
And because I didn’t resist him, because I wasn’t arguing or trying to be clever, we connected.
After a while, he said, “You need to come speak to my group.”
That was the beginning of a whole new journey for me. A whole new way of sharing and helping people. But more on that later.
For now, if there’s one thing you take from this chapter, let it be this:
People don’t need your pitch. They need your presence.
They need your stories. Your heart. Your realness.
You don’t have to be clever. You don’t have to explain everything. You don’t need all the answers.
Start with feeling. Start with connection. Start with being human.
That’s the bit that lands. That opens doors.
That’s the bit they remember.
Action Step
Think of one person you’d love to share your work with. Instead of trying to explain it, write down a single moment or story that moved you. One paragraph, max. That’s your starting point.
Share this post