The Client

Dick Hannasch
Owner/Working Relationship Coach, Aware and Willing LLC

The Challenge

What challenge did the client want Karen to address?

Dick explains that he founded his company in 2018, built a website, but then didn’t do anything to promote it. He knew retirement was just three years away so he knew he needed to learn the business side of coaching.

Why did the client have this challenge?

“I had zero background in building a business or marketing. So I thought I needed help from somewhere. And hey, if I’m going to be a coach, I’ve got to recognize if my clients are capable of asking for help, I need to be capable of asking for help,” Dick explains.

Why did this client engage Karen to help?

Dick said that Karen had come highly recommended by a colleague. He liked that she had credibility, and he wanted to work with someone who was an authority in the field. Karen fits that bill.

The Solution

What was the solution?

Dick joined QSI, and he says that learning how to design a package of things he could offer was key. Two important takeaways for Dick were how to build flexibility into a coaching package and how to build in things that are perceived as a value and that clients might like but which weren’t a great time increase for him. 

What was the timeline?

While first balking at the QSI price tag and wondering if he was even ready because a lot of the people in the program were already established, he was pleased with what he learned inside the three-month program. He started the program at zero revenue and mere weeks after completing the program, he sold his first package for three times the investment of QSI. 

The Results

How did Karen’s solution solve the client’s challenge?

Dick explains that QSI taught him how to flex a package based on the conversation in a call. “It’s kind of like Tinker Toys or Legos,” he explains, “You know, take it apart and rebuild it, and I add a new type of piece. You can redesign in so many ways and experiment. That flexibility was really a key thing from Karen.”

Another key tip Dick credits to Karen is realizing you can ask for the price that you want. You can ask for what your service is worth. As an example, Dick explains that compared to his first package, he recently charged three times that much and sealed the contract.

What benefits did this client immediately see because of his work with Karen?

Just a few weeks after the QSI ended, Dick was able to sell a 5-figure package to an entertainment organization and made three times more than what he’d spent to sign up for the course. “That was a tremendous boost of confidence to say, I can do this!” Dick says.

What benefits should this client see over time because of her work with Karen?

In the five years since first participating in QSI, Dick still applies what he learned and takes actions that make sense for him and his business. He continues to learn even more from Karen having recently participated in her 2-day Business Boost program, Conversational Catalyst. At the event, Karen emphasized the importance of the follow-up.

As a result, he started looking at a “No” from clients in a different way and contacts people again.  Using this approach, he recently landed a coaching engagement with a client who had previously used other services he offers but said she needed two months to decide whether to invest in coaching.  He doubted she would engage but followed up two months later and got the client. 

He also recently joined a cohort of other coaches to re-read Karen’s book Coach Momentum. They’ve set an intention to schedule and hold a couple of market research conversations with people. 

Dick shares that his revenue for just the last six months of last year was higher than his coaching revenue, doing it part-time for the two years before that. And this year, he’s on track to exceed what he earned last year. 

“It’s not crazy money for me, but it’s enough to say, man, I’m having fun. I can do things like say to my spouse, ‘Let’s use this income to  take this trip’ or ‘Let’s do that.’ It’s money to use for other things as Karen so often talks about.”