A client story: Ruth Haslett, therapeutic coach
I want to be upfront about something before we get into this.
When Ruth and I sat down to talk about her experience working with me, she told me she chose me partly because she looked at my website and thought I seemed like I’d be fun. She also told me she hadn’t really considered anyone else.
I’m going to go ahead and use that as a marketing story anyway. You’re welcome.
What Ruth was dealing with before we met
Ruth had been in a business partnership with someone based in another country. That person had handled all the tech:
- Built the website
- Set up the systems
- Held all the passwords
Classic arrangement, right up until the point where it very much wasn’t. The partnership ended suddenly, and Ruth was left holding the bag.
The bag contained:
- A website she hadn’t been involved in building
- No access to it
- No idea how to change it
- A general fog of not knowing what she even needed, let alone how to get it
Her word for how she felt about tech at that point was fear. Not “oh I’m not very techy” fear. Actual fear.
She also needed to rethink the business itself after the partnership ended. So the tech problem and the bigger-picture problem were sitting on top of each other.
Fun combination. If by fun you mean deeply not fun.
Why didn’t she just sort it out herself?
Ruth is a therapeutic coach. She is professionally good at knowing herself. So when she says she looked at the tech situation and thought “I cannot do this,” I believe her completely.
She’d taught herself accounting for years before hiring an accountant. She could have done the same with tech in theory. She knew she wasn’t going to.
“I don’t understand it and I don’t have the interest to figure it out myself. Tech is a step beyond accounts for me. I didn’t even know where to start.”
Feels familiar?
The people who end up three months down a YouTube rabbit hole trying to fix a plugin conflict they’ve made worse are the ones who pushed through when they should have stopped and called someone.
Ruth did not do that. Good instincts.
How did she find me?
Another client of mine mentioned me. Ruth had a look at my website, decided I seemed like a reasonable option, and got in touch.
No shortlist. No research. Gut feeling plus a trusted recommendation, and that was enough.
I am autistic. My own process for selecting any service provider involves colour-coded spreadsheets and a minimum of four browser tabs.
Ruth and I are not the same. I respect her process because it worked.
What actually happened when we worked together?
Step one: I told her we could sort it.
Ruth said that landed as a massive relief. I find that slightly wild, because “yes we can fix this” is a pretty low bar. But that’s also the point. When you’ve been sitting in a fog of not knowing what the problem even is, someone calmly saying “here’s what we’re dealing with and here’s how we handle it” is not nothing.
Step two: we looked at the existing site together and made a call.
Scrap it. There was nothing worth saving. It had none of Ruth in it. Starting fresh was faster, cleaner, and would actually produce something she owned.
Ruth described that decision as me giving her the confidence to let go of something that had been imposed on her.
Which is a generous way of framing what was essentially me going “yeah, bin it.”
Step three: the content.
Ruth had to write copy for the new site, which is the stage most people quietly avoid for as long as humanly possible. I set some deadlines. She wrote the content.
“I’ve been trying to rewrite my website for a year and managed one paragraph. No deadlines. With you there was a deadline and that really helped.”
If that sentence describes your entire relationship with your to-do list, you are in good company.
External structure is a tool. Using it is not admitting defeat.
How did Ruth feel?
Safe.
Not “impressive.” Not “efficient.” Safe.
“It didn’t feel like you cared whether I knew what I was doing or not. The tech world doesn’t feel like a massively approachable or understanding place. Working with you didn’t feel like that.”
That one matters to me. A lot.
I’m not interested in anyone feeling stupid for not knowing things that aren’t their job to know. Ruth is excellent at her actual work. WordPress is not her actual work. That’s fine. That’s what I’m here for.
Where is Ruth now?
She has a website she was part of building. She knows what’s in it and why. She’s not locked out of anything. She owns it, in the real sense of the word.
More than that: her business works.
- Full client load
- Decent income
- Worked abroad a few times
A therapeutic coach running a business that travels with her, built on systems she actually understands and controls. That’s not a small thing.
She’s also still a client. Which, as endorsements go, I’ll take.
If you’ve got someone else’s tech mess to untangle, or you’re sitting in that fog of “I don’t even know where to start,” that’s a very good place to begin a conversation, hop on over to my contact page and get the ball rolling
