From scared, to unique

Before

Fed up with the industry and no idea what to do next

Martina came to coaching almost desperate, she was so fed up with the industry she was working in that she’d decided to go freelance. She’d spent years as an editor inside Italian publishing, and the working environments had worn her down. The decision to leave was clear, but what it actually meant in practice wasn’t at all.

She had no offer, no idea how to structure one, no sense of who her clients would be or how to reach them. She knew she had to move, but not knowing how, or what the first step was.

What we worked on

Foundations first, marketing second

Before we touched anything marketing-related, we worked on what having a business actually means, and we made sure Martina was prepared for what was waiting for her: not just what was right in front of her, but all the challenges that can be around the corner once you decide to open one.

Then, through targeted exercises, we found Martina’s edge: the heroine’s journey, the counterpart to the hero’s journey for stories with a woman at the centre. Almost nobody in Italy was working on it specifically. That became the thing that set her clearly apart from the blended competition around her, and we shaped her whole offer around it: for women writing women, and for anyone whose main character is one.

Once the idea had shape, we ran it through real market research before committing to it fully. It turned out to be one of the most useful stretches of the year: the people she wanted to work with all followed more or less the same path before hiring someone, which meant we weren’t guessing at the funnel, we were following a route we could see.

When we validated the idea and knew it could work, we moved into communication: her voice, her positioning, her messaging, and eventually her launch. During the same period, Martina asked me to take care of her full brand identity and website, so that everything visual was built on the strategic clarity we had developed together, in order to look appealing to and speak the same language as her ideal clients.

We didn’t start there, though. First we put up a plain landing page, just enough to look credible, because there was no sense building something bigger before we knew the offer held. Once it did, we built the real thing, and it did more than look good: it gave her something solid to stand behind on sales calls.

The work was thorough, because we wanted to get it right, and the launch, when it came, felt like a natural step rather than a leap into uncertainty.

The change

Live with clear direction, ready to keep going

Martina launched Scrivere Grandi Eroine with her offer clear, her brand in place, and her positioning specific enough to stand out. In her first week live, she closed 2 clients and had several other calls booked.

One of her posts took off while we were still working together, which brought more calls in. Others came from people landing on the site and recognising what she was doing.

And she sold at the price we’d set together. That sounds small, but it wasn’t: before, she would have talked herself out of that number. Imposter syndrome was heavy at the start and it ended up being as much of the work as the strategy was.

More than those early results: she now feels strong in her offer. She’s confident posting and creating content. She also understands why people choose her, which means she knows how to keep attracting the same kind of person going forward.