Erin Chartier Case Study: From Worker Bee to CEO

Erin Chartier is a power house marketing professional who left her corporate mindset of being the worker bee to establish herself as the CEO of her own company.

She provides comprehensive marketing strategy to small and medium size businesses. Her focus is to establish marketing plans for her clients that include all the important marketing elements instead of just some of those elements, most of the time. 

“I didn't know what to expect and wasn’t sure about what I was doing - becoming a business owner. I felt like I was pretending in a way, like dress up.” - Erin Chartier

Although she initially had more success than she anticipated, Erin was not making the progress she wanted. She was all over the place and desperately needed help creating a set plan, more strategy, and implementation for her business, and was referred to me.

I could see in our first meeting that Erin was unsure how things would go, but as we started talking, she relaxed. I try to ask my new clients a lot of open-ended questions that get their minds moving, to see the possibilities. I don’t have the answers, they do. But most of the time my clients haven’t thought about realistic goals or how to execute to achieve them.

"Kathleen was caring. She was real. She listened to me. She made it feel a lot more doable and it was more accessible than I had imagined. So, she really exceeded my expectations.” - Erin C.

It's been a whirlwind for Erin since she jumped off the corporate ship early this year. Erin gained the control over her client work that she wanted, but had less control of her own business and found herself in the entrepreneurial vortex of disorganization and overwhelm, which is something I see all the time. 

So we put some strategy in place as well as a client management system. These are like healthy boundaries for your business.

One of the very first things I get my clients to commit to is a weekly CEO Hour that I recommend you do on Friday. It helps you review the previous week, and set yourself up for success in the week to come. For Erin, it was an immediate game changer. She was able to focus and make the most of her time because she knew what she needed to do and when. It’s not just implementing this practice, it’s the CEO mindset, too.

“When I first started working with Kathleen, I had to adapt to the CEO mindset. These people are coming to me. They're my clients. I’m not working for them or their company. So that was a big mindset switch for me.” - Erin C.

After about a month, things started to fall into place when she had created habits and consistency with all of her systems. We developed offers and pricing along with intake questionnaires, agendas, etc. 

Along with CEO Hour, Erin learned to look at the structure of each day, and how to best accomplish what was needed. She has a few clients she does execution for daily, along with research and writing strategy for other clients. 

We assessed things like what do you really need to do and in what order? What can you leave until later? You don’t realize how crucial having clear priorities truly is to your business success.

Although I focus on tactical skills with my clients, like execution and implementation, I see many clients build what we now know are power skills, during our time together. One of those for Erin was confidence, which came from the realization of her value and why somebody would pay for that value. Another was clarity around what she wanted her business to look like.

“I was trying to move my business from that fly by the seat of your pants, ‘give me whatever you got, please’, to ‘this is the kind of client I want. This is what I want to do for that client. And that's the kind of work that I'm going to focus on.’ I was switching my mindset from chasing to choosing.” - Erin C.

Erin, a closet introvert, hesitated when it came to networking. But she found that she had more success and less energy drain when networking in-person with the right crowd. She’s a pro at scheduling follow up calls with prospects, and converting them into referrals and clients. So we made sure she had a certain number of networking dates on her weekly and monthly calendar.

She’s not a salesperson. But she also knew that if she had even just one more monthly client she could would reach her monthly revenue goal. 

We worked together for 16 weeks. On our last official call, Erin shared with me that she had just signed another monthly client, which allowed her to hit her monthly financial goal!! 

She is currently working full-time and has a growing waitlist for potential new clients. You can learn more about Erin on her website: www.erinchartier.com

Solo professionals need to know they are not alone, that they can bounce ideas off of someone who can support their purpose and mission. They are new to wearing and managing all the hats, and need reminders that they have support from others around them.

If you’re interested in how working together can give you the growth and support you’re looking for, schedule a call today.