If nobody picks the apples, they sit there, and then they drop, and rot on the ground. All that growing, for nothing.

This is the last part of the garden. Harvesting. And it’s the one people flinch at, because harvesting means asking. It means saying, out loud, “would you like to work with me?”

So let me ask you plainly.

Are you making it easy for people to become clients? Now that the trust is there, are you actually inviting them to take the next step?

Because most of the time, people don’t. Or they do the thing that’s somehow worse, they offer five next steps at once.

You’ve probably seen this. Someone finishes a talk and says, thank you so much, connect with me on LinkedIn, and my website’s here, oh and feel free to email me. Three doors and the person, faced with all of them, walks through none.

Let me tell you about Jess and how we helped her define a clear call to action in our weekly Promo Session (a shortcut for Promotion Money Mondays, each week we tend to our gardens together in IMMA).

Jess was about to speak in front of 120 leaders of impact organisations. Before she went up, I asked her one question. What’s your one call to action? Not five. One.

So she made a single QR code. One place to go, one thing to download. That’s it.
She came away with 34 leads and follow-up conversations booked in.

And then there’s the part we often forget, me too 🙂

When you pick an apple, that apple already holds the seeds for the next tree. The quickest work is often sitting with the people you’ve already worked with. We go looking for strangers, and walk straight past the people who already know us.

I’ve been working on this with Josephine, who runs a communications collective called the horae. Organisations come to them for the moments that matter, COP, Climate Week, the times the world is watching. So, the work is often short and intense. They do it beautifully, everyone’s happy, and then it ends.

And here’s what we noticed. When a project wrapped, that was it. A thank you, maybe an email, and the relationship went quiet, until the next time they happened to need something.

So we’ve been building a proper closing into how they work. A real conversation at the end of a project. Gathering what went well, asking for the testimonial while the impact is still fresh, and opening up how the horae could keep supporting them beyond the one moment.

Because the trust is never higher than the day you’ve just delivered something brilliant. That’s when the next apple is ripe. And most of us just walk away and let it fall.

So that’s the garden. Designing it, sowing it, tending it, harvesting it. Four parts, and somewhere in them, the one that’s been costing you.

If you’ve been reading along and nodding, now you get to find out which part is actually yours. You can do it here by taking this free quiz.

It takes just three minutes, and you’ll see where your sales chain breaks.

Take care,
Lilli

P.S. Here’s what I’ve been building up to. In a few weeks, we’re opening the doors to IMMA again. Everything in these six essays, designing, sowing, tending, harvesting, is what we work through together, week by week, with other people doing the same.
If any of this has resonated, keep an eye on your inbox. I’ll tell you exactly how to join, and when.

Now it has to grow, and things only grow when you tend to them. This is the third part of the garden. Tending. And it’s the one most of us neglect, because it’s slow, and quiet, and nobody’s watching to keep us accountable.

Here’s what tending actually is.

People buy from people they know, like, and trust. And trust isn’t something you can rush. It’s built the way you’d build it with anyone. Showing up honestly, again and again, over time.

Daniel Priestley talks about people needing something like seven hours with you before they’re ready to work with you. You don’t get that in one good meeting. You get it the way a plant gets water. A bit, regularly, over a long stretch.

And this is where most of us fall down, myself included. We only reach out when we need something. A project dries up, and suddenly we’re messaging people we haven’t spoken to in a year. And that’s not how you tend to a garden. That’s turning up with a bucket in a drought.

That reminds me of Mel. A digital consultant and founder of her own consultancy practice, MDE Digital.

Mel joined IMMA in the spring, and she made a decision. Instead of the keeping-in-touch messages that ask for something and give nothing, she started reaching out with something to offer. She ran little Claude training sessions. She put time into people before there was any work in it for her.

One of the people she reconnected with was someone she’d known a while. Nothing was on the table. She just got back in touch, offered something useful, and stayed in her world.

Then, months later, that same person came to her with a big piece of work. The kind of project Mel loves.

She didn’t chase it. She planted a seed, watered it and build a relationship months earlier, without knowing it would be the one to sprout. And then it did. The work came looking for her.

The trouble is, most of us try to do all this in our heads. Remember to message so-and-so. Must catch up with whatsername. It becomes one more thing to hold, and so it doesn’t happen. Tending works so much better when it has a rhythm and a system carrying it, instead of relying on you remembering.

Because a garden nobody tends dries up. And so do the relationships.

If you’re unsure where exactly are you stuck, take this free quiz →

Three minutes, and you’ll see which part of your garden needs your attention first.

Take care,
Lilli

P.S. We’re opening the doors to IMMA again soon. The kind of tending Mel does isn’t something she figured out on her own. It happens week by week when you’re surrounded by people doing the same. More on that soon. For now, just notice: who’s one person you’d love to work with, who you’ve gone a bit quiet on?

This is sowing. The second part of the garden.

For me it comes down to one thing. An email address. Someone gifting you permission to land in their inbox. That’s a seed that sprouted.

Not every seed sprouts, but that’s not you failing. That’s just how sowing works. Which is why you keep going, so enough of them take.

Most people sow wherever they happen to be standing. Wherever feels comfortable. But the real question is where the soil is right. Which rooms, which channels, are your people already in? You can plant the most beautiful seed there is, but plant it in the wrong ground, and nothing will come out of it.

Then there’s the waiting, which is the part nobody likes.

Some things come up fast like lettuce. A few weeks after sowing you can have a nice salad. Other things are like apricot trees; they take years. So what’s the best approach?

Well, you plant both. One feeds you this month, one feeds you later.

Often the hard bit is that at the start because while the seed is growing underground it looks like nothing’s happening. You’re putting int the work, but the plant’s growing roots, and you can’t see any of it. So it feels like failure when it isn’t.

And this is where I watch caring and competent independents give up. I’ve done it myself, so I recognise it instantly.

They try LinkedIn for a few months and when they don’t get the results they hope for, they move on to start their Substack. But a new problem emerges because it gets harder to sustain two things. And that’s when you either take a break and disappear for a bit or you start something else entirely.

But neither of these actions solves your problem.

So today’s takeaway is to stop spreading yourself too thin. Because when you, you’re and not allowing your seeds to grow roots.

Keep showing up, in the right place, again and again. Keep showing up long enough for the roots to take.

If you’re not sure where you’re stuck or what next step to take, check this quiz.

With you in this,
Lilli

Designing the garden.

Before anyone can find you, your services, and before any of the visibility stuff, you have to choose what you’re growing. And whether it can even grow where you are.

Let me tell you about three things I’ve tried to grow.

I love mangoes. But I live in Verona, and a mango doesn’t stand a chance here. Wrong climate. Doesn’t matter how much I want it, or how carefully I look after it. It’s just not going to happen.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with someone who was sure about her market. But then every person she reached out to had just lost their funding. Budget cut overnight. Nothing wrong with what she was offering. But the ground just went cold under her all at once. Same problem as my problem with growing mango. You can’t go against the weather and market shift.

Then there’s radicchio. When I lived in London, my veg box would turn up with radicchio in it in winter. I’m Italian, I love the stuff. But the farm had to put in a little note explaining what to do with it, because most people in UK think it’s bitter and leave it in the veg box. Even if it grows fine in the UK people just don’t want it.

And artichokes. In Italy in winter they’re everywhere, and cheap, so you eat them all the time. In London they were so expensive I stopped buying them. I wanted them. I just couldn’t justify the price.

The mango couldn’t grow at all. The radicchio grew, but nobody wanted it. The artichoke, people wanted (at least me:), but couldn’t afford.

There you have it, three things I couldn’t grow or eat, for three completely different reasons.

And really, that’s the whole of it. What you’re offering has to be something people need, and want, and can pay for. Miss one of those three, and it doesn’t much matter how hard you work.

Coincidentally, this is the bit most people skip. They want to jump straight to being seen. Posting, pitching, getting out there. I get it, because I’ve been there. But just like I wondered back then, many quickly realize none of it sticks.

But if you’re growing the wrong thing, no amount of marketing fixes that. And look, this stuff is genuinely hard, so don’t be harsh on yourself if you haven’t nailed it. For most startups it takes about eighteen months to figure out product market fit. I certainly didn’t get it right the first time, or the second.

But once you’re clear, everything gets easier. Because clarity is what lets the right person read what you do and go, “oh, that’s me! That’s what I need.”

So before you plant anything else, let me ask you this:

Are you growing something people need, want, and can pay for?

Or are you planting mangos in Verona?

If you’re unsure where your sales chain breaks, take the quiz to discover where you’re stuck →

It takes three minutes, and it’ll show you which part of your garden is holding things up.

With you in this,
Lilli

P.S. When you know what you’re growing and that people want it, it’s time to let know everyone about it. So the next challenge is making sure the right people know you and your services exist. More about it in my next issue.

P.P.S - here is the weekly round-up of opportunities RFPs, funding & gigs as usual.

Today I’ll show you the four parts of that sales chain. And for that, I need to take you into a garden.

This is a garden with rows of vegetables, fruit trees with herbs tangled in among them. Some things in the garden you can pluck and eat this week. Others you won’t taste for another year or two.

That’s not so different from running a business. It grows. It has seasons. It needs tending. You plant seeds, some sprout, some don’t. The same goes with clients, some conversations turn into work, others don’t. Others just take time.

A garden isn’t only beautiful to look at. You grow it to eat. To feed yourself, month after month, through summer and through winter. That’s the whole point of it. Sustenance.

But most traditional start-up business advice is optimised to grow a monoculture. You plant one crop at scale and harvest it all at once. Then you’re left with bare soil until you start again. That’s the feast and famine so many of us know. A big project, then nothing, then the scramble.

And what you need to grow your business is a big garden full of food. Something with enough variety that it keeps feeding you. The anchor client on a retainer. The steady referrals. The smaller pieces growing alongside. Things ripening in different seasons, so you’re never staring at an empty field wondering where your next meal comes from.

You already know a seed doesn’t sprout the day you plant it. Some seeds take a season, some take years. And you have to water what you’ve sown, and rushing it doesn’t work (it can even harm it often). So you don’t panic when a garden takes its time. Instead you tend it, and you trust the season.

And that patience is most of what separates growing a business from burning out trying to force one.

So over the next four letters, we’ll walk the garden, one part at a time.

Designing it. Are you growing the right thing, for the right people, in the right climate?

Sowing it. Do the right people know you exist?

Tending it. Are you nurturing the relationships, so trust has time to grow?

Harvesting it. Are you turning that trust into work?

Someone in the four parts above is where your sales chain breaks today.

So today’s question for you is this: when you picture your own garden, which part feels overgrown, and which one have you barely touched?

I’ll help you find the answer to that question on my upcoming workshop on 5 August. We’ll map your garden together and find the part that needs you most.

For more information about it, follow this link.

Come find your gap.

With you in this,
Lilli

P.S. Next time we start digging into the first part of the garden. Designing it. Because before you worry about anyone finding you, you have to be growing something people actually want.

I had just moved from London to Verona. My consulting business was working. I’d hit my six figure revenue goals. I knew how to get clients, I knew how to deliver. It was stable in a way most people spend years trying to reach.

So from the outside, there was no reason to stop.

But I’d always told myself that if I hit my revenue goals, I’d stop and figure out what I wanted to do that was more aligned with my values and who I am. We only get one precious life and I wanted to spend more of mine on work I cared about.

For me, that had always been somewhere in sustainability.

What made sense (on paper)

At the beginning, I approached it the way I approach most things. Logically.
I thought I’d pivot my consulting. Work with organisations. Help them think about climate resilience. Maybe build a collective of experts around it.

On paper, it made perfect sense.
Then I had the conversations. A lot of them.
Organisations said it mattered. It wasn’t a priority.

And I was starting to notice something else. Sustainability is as vague as saying you like sports. Which sport? Played how, for whom, solving what? I’d used the word for years thinking I was clear. I wasn’t.

What people actually responded to

What surprised me was this. When I shifted the conversation slightly, people didn’t want to talk about how their company should prepare for climate breakdown. They wanted to talk about how they should prepare. Their work. Their income. Their future.

So almost by accident, I started talking about something else. What would later become IMMA Collective.

Helping people build careers that could adapt when the market shifted under them, instead of collapsing.

I could feel the difference immediately. People leaned in. They asked more questions.
A couple of people, Christina and Lexie, said something that made me want to go deeper.

“You really light up when you talk about this.”

What it actually felt like

I wish I could say that was the moment it all clicked. It wasn’t. There was no clean pivot or path. It was way messier than that.

There was no clear offer. No clear answer at dinner when someone asked what I did.
Money going out. Nothing coming in. Month after month.

That’s the worst place to get stuck, because when you can’t say who you serve or what you do, you feel blocked on reaching out. And reaching out is exactly the thing you need to be doing.

I felt it physically. I wasn’t sleeping properly. There was a constant humming kind of anxiety.

I remember walking along the river in Verona one grey afternoon, thinking, what the hell have I done. Why didn’t I just keep going. I could have kept my comfortable life instead of building something out of thin air and a half-formed idea.

I opened my bank account more than once, just to do the math on how long I could keep going like this.

A short video from the many walks along the river in Verona where I questioned my life choices. Outside beauty, inside fear of failure.

The reframe that got me through it

At some point I needed a way to make sense of what I was doing, or I’d have gone straight back to consulting.

So I reframed it. I told myself, this is maternity. I’d saved money for one day, thinking maybe I’d use it if I had a child. Instead I used it for this. I also calculated how much it would cost to raise a child 😅 It suddenly made my choice look way better. Don’t do it if you want children in this cost of living crisis.

That framing helped more than I expected. It stopped being “I’m not earning” and became “I’m investing in myself and those skills will pay off.” I was gestating a business. And that takes time, discomfort, and a kind of patience I don’t naturally have.

Two ways of building a business

Looking back now, I can see what was actually happening. At the time it just felt slow and uncomfortable.

Here’s what I understand now. There are two ways to build a business, and both fail on their own.

Building from the outside

Building from the outside starts with the market. You look at what people already want to buy, you validate quickly, you build something they’ll pay for, and you optimise for revenue as early as possible.

That’s how I built ventures earlier in my career, back when I worked in a venture studio and we looked solely at what the market wanted. It’s how most businesses are built. It’s what we’re taught to do, and I’ve seen it work, more than once.

But there’s a trade-off I didn’t understand until I’d lived it. You can build something that works. Clients, revenue, growth. And still end up resenting the business you built, because it isn’t yours. It works on paper but you don’t want to run it.

Building from the inside

Building from the inside starts somewhere else. Not “follow your passion,” something more concrete than that. How do you naturally think? What do you do fast, almost without effort? What problems do you enjoy sitting with, even when they’re hard?

Instead of turning that straight into something sellable, you sit with it. You test it. You let it evolve.

This is where I spent most of 2022 and 2024. And it has its own failure mode. You can build something that’s fully yours, something you love, and nobody’s buying it. It’s honest, and it doesn’t work.

I didn’t choose one of these consciously. I lived both, in sequence, before I understood they were two halves of the same problem.

Also, a little side note. It took me trial and error to figure out what's aligned with who I am. Then I met Caroline Harris, who introduced me to Human Design. I was sceptical at the beginning, but now I wish I’d done a session with her back in 2023. It would have shortcut so much soul-searching.

The fastest way to get clients

A concrete example, still true inside IMMA today. The number one thing our members want is a steady flow of aligned clients.

The obvious way to give it to them would be to turn IMMA into a matchmaking platform. Connect people directly to opportunities. Act like a recruiter. It would look like the fast path.

It isn’t. The fastest way to get clients isn’t waiting to be matched. It’s learning to nurture your own relationships and network, so clients keep coming without you being dependent on anyone else.

We already share over a hundred opportunities a month inside IMMA. RFPs, gigs, roles people come across and pass on. We reach out to organisations to offer intros to our members.

But handing someone a fish and teaching them to fish are two different things. Only a fraction of opportunities go public. They’re competitive, and often the ones that pay the least. The skill of building your own offer, then knowing how to market and sell it, doesn’t run out. It compounds. That’s what makes someone antifragile in this market, and boy do we need that.

So the answer isn’t matchmaking, and it isn’t ignoring what the market wants either. It’s building the bridge between what you actually want to make and what people are ready to pay for.

Which one are you in?

I don’t think one way of building is better than the other. It’s about balancing them. There are moments to prioritise speed and revenue. There are moments you can afford to go slower and build something that fits who you are. Most of us are somewhere in between, holding both, more often than we’d like to admit.

Sometimes that looks like a bit of a Robin Hood business model: getting paid for the work that pays the bills, and using it to fund the thing you want to build on the side. More on that in the next newsletter.

If you’re in that stretch right now, stuck, slow, or uncomfortable, I don’t think that means something is wrong. It usually means something new is still taking shape. There’s no way to skip that part.

I’d love to know where you’re stuck. Outside-in, building something that works but isn’t quite yours. Or inside-out, building something that’s yours but not enough people are buying yet.

Reply and tell me which one. I read every one.

— Lilli
Founder, IMMA Collective

For the past few months I did something I’d never done before. I ran outreach on behalf of five businesses inside IMMA. By now, over two thousand people.

Here is what I learned.

Why we did it at all

The five businesses joined a pilot with one promise: aligned clients, more consistently. An end to the feast-and-famine cycle most independents know too well, where you’re either buried in delivery or staring at an empty pipeline.

The experiment had two parts. One: build the ground with each person, their LinkedIn, their website, a lead magnet, a way to run sales conversations. Assets, not theory. The outcome: a sales system that gives you leverage and doesn’t rely on your memory or willpower.

Two: open the doors for them. Because prospecting is the most draining part of all of this. Finding the right people, starting the conversation. Once you’re in the room, things get easier. It’s getting into the room that wears you down.

The “I clean the kitchen” problem

One thing became obvious fast.

When you reach out on your own, you’re pitching one thing. Christine designs the digital experience of femtech companies. Ariel is a fractional data lead who untangles messy data. Tiana designs team days people actually remember.

All valuable. But each one, reaching out alone, is knocking on a door saying “I clean your kitchen,” when the organisation behind it might need the bathroom done, or honestly, the whole apartment.

Reaching out as a collective changes that. You arrive not as one narrow service, but as access to a trusted circle of senior people who can solve whatever the problem turns out to be.

To do that well, two things had to be in place. Ruthless clarity on who the ideal client was, because without it outreach is generic and scattered.

And small experiments, because what worked even a year ago doesn’t work now. A marketing expert I spoke to recently, someone who’s done this for fifteen years, put it plainly: everything that worked last year is failing this year. People are flooded. Every channel is louder. Everyone is pushing harder. What used to cut through doesn’t anymore.

So we reached out in small batches. Different angles. Bundled offers. Instead of leading with an ask, each person had something to give: a lead magnet, a useful resource, a reason to open the conversation that wasn’t “please hire me.”

Building those took time, which matters for a reason I’ll come back to. If you want to see what they look like, I’ve put the collection here.

The statistic I wish I’d known years ago

Here’s the thing I wish someone had told me when I first started working for myself.

When you reach out to potential clients, only a small fraction are ready to buy now. Research from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute puts it bluntly: at any moment, roughly 95% of potential buyers are out of market. Only about 5% are actively looking.

The other 95% aren’t uninterested. They aren’t ready yet.
They may become clients over the next six, twelve, eighteen months, when their budget turns over, when a leadership change happens, when the timing lines up. In trust-based work especially, people buy when the moment is right, not when they first come across you.

So if you reach out once and hear nothing back, the most likely reason isn’t that your message was weak, or that you’re bad at this. It’s that you reached ninety-five people out of a hundred at the wrong moment. Single outreach isn’t failed outreach. It’s mistimed outreach.

Which means the whole game is staying in touch over time without it consuming you. Daniel Priestley’s well-known rule of thumb is that people need around seven hours of cumulative contact before they trust a business enough to buy from it. You don’t reach seven hours with one cold message.

This is why we built the things I wrote about earlier in this series. The opportunities roundup. The funding digest for organisations. A reason to stay in touch every month that’s useful, rather than another “just checking in.”
That groundwork isn’t a nice extra. It’s the only thing that makes outreach pay off over the timeline it actually takes.

Now the honest part

I have a love-hate relationship with this experiment.

I was, in a way, forced into it. I’d made the promise to the five businesses, and keeping it pushed me right to the edge of what I can carry. It became the most time-intensive thing we have ever done at IMMA Collective. I brought in help, from people and from tools, to keep it moving. And before we could even reach out properly, we had to build all those lead magnets first, so each person had something to give rather than ask for. That alone took weeks.

So here is the first honest thing. I won’t run it in this format again. Measured against what the members paid for the pilot and the hours it has taken me, the maths doesn’t work. Not even close. I’ll finish it for this cohort because I made a promise I want to keep. But running outreach for people, one by one, is not something I’d take on again.

And here is the second, which took me longer to admit. I took too much responsibility over the result. I put enormous pressure on myself to make this “absolutely successful” in the obvious way. Signed contracts, visible wins, a tidy ROI story by a date I had set. That date was mine, not the market’s.

Experiments take time to run, and longer to read. Some bombed. Others are performing well. What I can already see is that the messages land and people reply. What won’t bend to my will is the clock, and no amount of effort on my side compresses that.

What the pilot did do was force me to be more creative, more resourceful, more adaptive than I have ever been in this business. Adjusting what we sent. Rebuilding lists. Reframing offers. Learning from each batch and changing course faster than I thought possible.

That’s the thing I’m proudest of. Not the contracts. The resilience. The proof, again, that what I can rely on isn’t a plan working perfectly. It’s my ability to keep figuring it out when it doesn’t.

It’s working. Just not in the shape I imagined. In a stronger one.

And I have to be honest about timing. We’re only a couple of months in, and the effect of this kind of work shows up late. I don’t yet know how it will pay off, and it might not pay off while these particular people are still in the pilot. That’s the uncomfortable truth about relationship-building. You plant now and harvest much later, sometimes after the season you planted in has ended.

What I can see, even halfway through, is where the value gathers. Less in the cold messages. More in the relationships between the people already here.

Last week someone in the collective sent me a small message. She’d noticed members mentioning her, recommending her, when they came across something that fit her work. She was delighted. She hadn’t pitched anyone. Her name got tagged in places she wasn’t in.

That is the thing. If I had to build the whole of IMMA around one idea, it would be that one. Not getting better at cold outreach. Becoming the kind of person others think of, and say out loud, when the right moment lands in front of them.

The small cross-pollination gatherings we run, which are not networking events but rooms where people get to know each other’s work, built more of that than two thousand cold connections did.

In a world where AI can personalise outreach endlessly, every inbox fills with plausible, tailored, slightly hollow messages. What gets through that isn’t a cleverer cold email. It’s a person who already trusts you, or trusts someone who trusts you.

As AI floods every channel, the future of finding work is relational. The cold outreach experiment taught me that by showing me its edges.

One harder thing it surfaced

There’s a more uncomfortable truth in here, and it’s worth saying.

For some of the people we reached out for, there are fewer opportunities than a year ago, because AI is absorbing parts of what they used to be hired to do. You feel that fast when you’re doing outreach. Some offers need reframing to stay attractive. The organisations that used to want a service delivered now want to know how to use AI to do it themselves, or how to do it differently.

Almost all of us need to rethink what we’re offering right now. And the only way to discover what’s still relevant is to be in conversation. The payoff of outreach often isn’t the sale. It’s the market insight, the signal about what people actually need now, which you only get by talking to them.

Something concrete you can do this week

Pick one person you’d love to work with. Someone who isn’t ready to buy now, and might not be for a year.

Don’t pitch them. Do one small, useful thing with no ask attached. Send a funding opportunity that fits them. Share something relevant to a problem they’re wrestling with. Make an introduction that helps them.

Then put a note in your calendar to do it again next month. A different useful thing. Still no ask.

That’s how you turn one cold contact into the start of a warm, slow relationship. The kind that’s there when the 5% moment arrives. Do it with five people and you’ve built more pipeline than most cold campaigns ever manage.

This was the fifth of five ways to find clients in this series. (Earlier: 1. intro, 2. referrals, 3. opportunities, 4. peer promotion aka. getting clients without talking about yourself.)

Next week is the last one, and it’s different. It’s the system we’re building right now, together. The one I’m most excited about. And the most honest look yet at where IMMA is going.

Take care,
Lilli

P. S. That room, where your name comes up when you're not in it, is what IMMA is for. A circle of senior people who get to know your work well enough to think of you, and say your name, when the right opportunity appears. We've opened the waitlist, twenty new members joining in June. If you'd like your next aligned opportunity to find you through a relationship rather than a cold message, add your name to the waitlist.

Because it’s about visibility. And visibility is where a lot of us get stuck.

I speak to purpose-driven independents and business owners every day, and something comes up constantly, usually lowered to half-volume, as if it’s a little embarrassing:

“I know I should post more. I know I should put myself out there. I just… can’t quite bring myself to do it.”

It’s usually followed by a small apology. As though the inability to self-promote were a personal weakness, a discipline problem, a thing to fix with more willpower.

I want to offer a different reading. By the end of this, I want to show you that the way out isn’t to get louder or better at talking about yourself. It’s something different. And it starts somewhere you might not expect.

We think visible equals successful

Here’s a belief almost all of us hold without examining it.

We assume the people we see most often, the ones posting, speaking, showing up in the feed, are the most successful. We equate visibility with success. More visible, more legit. Quieter, presumably struggling.

There’s a grain of truth in it. Being visible increases what I’d call the surface area of luck. The more people who understand what you do, the more chances the right opportunity finds you. Learning to be visible matters.

But the equation has a hidden cost nobody prints on the label. And that cost is not paid equally.

Visibility doesn’t feel equally safe for everyone

There’s something we don’t talk about enough: visibility doesn’t feel equally safe for everyone.

A 2023 international study of 4,710 women across 103 countries found that nearly 87% had experienced hostility because of their success or achievements. Many also reported having achievements downplayed, or feeling penalised for being seen as ambitious.

It even has a name: Tall Poppy Syndrome. Being cut down precisely because you stand out.

For many people, self-promotion isn’t just uncomfortable. It carries a real social cost. The instinct to stay quiet isn’t always a confidence problem or a lack of discipline. Sometimes it’s a rational response to past experience.

I know this one personally. It took me a long time to understand why being visible felt almost physically hard for me, until I traced it back to being bullied as a child for the way I spoke.
When being seen feels risky, staying quiet starts to feel safer. I wrote about that here, if it resonates:

So if putting yourself out there feels harder than it “should,” you’re probably not imagining it. I don’t think the only answer is to push through. There’s another way that works differently.

The strongest opportunities often come from someone else saying your name in the right room

It is excruciating to say “I’m really good at this.”

It costs almost nothing to say “she’s really good at this.”

That asymmetry is the whole opportunity.

When you promote yourself, you’re transferring information. Here’s what I do, here’s why I’m good. The listener has to decide whether to believe you, and some part of them discounts it, because of course you’d say that. And for anyone carrying internalised tall poppy wiring, sounding confident in your own skill can feel, to yourself most of all, like arrogance.

When someone else says it about you, something different happens. They’re not transferring information. They’re transferring trust. Spending a little of their own reputation to vouch for yours. We believe that in a way we can never quite believe self-praise.

This is why one sentence from a respected peer, “you should really talk to her,” outperforms months of your own careful posting. And it’s why the visibility that wins the most work often happens in rooms you’ll never enter: a conversation where your name comes up, a “do you know anyone who…” answered with “actually, yes.” You can’t be in those rooms. But your work can be, carried in by someone who knows it well enough to describe it.

This is the system. Getting clients through someone else saying your name works better the less you rely on talking about yourself. But it doesn’t happen by accident. It has to be tended.

Here’s the part I find genuinely moving

Look again at what Tall Poppy Syndrome actually is. It’s people cutting each other down for succeeding. Downplaying. Diminishing. Making sure no one stands too tall.

Spotlighting someone else is the exact opposite move.

When you publicly celebrate another person’s work, you’re not just helping them. You’re refusing to participate in the thing that keeps everyone small, including you. You’re doing the precise inverse of the syndrome.

Daniel Priestley makes a point I keep coming back to: the most influential people are almost always the ones who spotlight others. They lift, they introduce, they vouch. Generosity isn’t the opposite of status. It’s how status is built.

So peer promotion does three things at once:

1. It sidesteps the tax you pay for self-promotion.

2. It builds your own influence rather than spending it.

3. And it dismantles the culture of cutting-down, one celebration at a time.

That’s why, inside IMMA, we practise this deliberately rather than leave it to chance.

But none of it works without one thing first

Here’s the part people often miss: someone can only recommend your work if they understand it clearly.

If your description is vague, “I help mission-driven organisations,” or “I do strategy consulting,” even the most generous supporter can’t explain what makes you valuable.

But a clear story? That travels. “She worked with a founder who was involved in every decision, and six months later the team was running without him.” That sticks. That gets repeated in rooms you’re not in.

That’s why, inside IMMA Collective, we spend time helping members get specific: who they help, what changes because of their work, what story someone else could easily repeat. In our monthly cross-pollination sessions, we have one counterintuitive rule: don’t pitch your offer, tell a story instead.

Because visibility works differently when it isn’t just you carrying it. The best opportunities often begin with someone simply saying: “You should talk to them.”

This is also, honestly, where the peer-powered part of IMMA reaches its limit, and where the closer work matters.

The community can surface and celebrate your wins. But getting your positioning crisp, the kind of crisp that makes you effortless to recommend, usually takes someone giving you direct, honest feedback.
That’s the closer work we do with members. Clarity first. Then everything else can grow. Your own visibility, others speaking on your behalf, IMMA being visible on your behalf, all of it has something to root in.

We’ve started doing that last part more deliberately. We are going to publish a newsletter for organisations that, alongside funding opportunities, spotlights individual members’ work. So the right people get to know them without the member having to stand on a chair and wave. The collective doing the visibility work, at scale. But it only works because the clarity work came first.

Something concrete you can do this week

Don’t promote yourself this week. Promote someone else.

Pick one person whose work you genuinely admire. Write a short, specific post about them. Not a vague endorsement, a real one. What did they do, for whom, and what changed because of it.

A simple structure:

I want to spotlight [name]. [One sentence on who they help.] Recently they [specific thing they did, and the outcome]. If you’re someone who [the situation their ideal client is in], talk to them.

Post it. Tag them.

Notice two things. How much easier it is to celebrate someone else than to celebrate yourself. And how good it feels. That feeling is the small proof you’ve just done the opposite of cutting someone down.

If you want a few real examples to make this concrete: Ariel’s work, Eliza’s work.

This was the third of five ways to find clients I’m walking through in this series. (Earlier instalments: 1. intro, 2. referrals, 3. opportunities.)

Next week: outreach. What we’ve actually learned reaching out to 1,500 ideal clients. What’s working in 2026, what isn’t, and the statistic that changed how I think about the whole thing.

With you in this,
Lilli

P.S. If you write a spotlight post this week, tag me or send it over. I’d love to read it, and there’s a good chance I’ll share it.

P.P.S. We’ve opened the waitlist for IMMA Collective, 20 new members in June. If getting aligned clients more consistently is a priority this year, that’s what IMMA is built for: creating a steady flow of aligned opportunities together with others. If this series has resonated, here’s the door.

You scroll LinkedIn looking for opportunities. You see one. It’s a week old. Eighty comments already. You think about putting your name forward, then think what’s the point. You move on.

You check the job boards you know. The Slack channels other consultants share things in. Most of what’s there is permanent roles, or requires travel, or doesn’t quite fit.

Or you find an RFP that would be perfect, but you’re a one-person band and you’d need to partner up with others to be credible enough, or to take on a piece of work too big for one. But who?

Or you spot a grant or fellowship that could be perfect for a past client. You consider forwarding it. Then a small voice says: is this too random? Will it feel like I’m reaching out for the wrong reason? You leave the tab open. You don’t send it. You go back to scrolling.

You go down a rabbit hole on one half-promising thing, lose forty minutes, and emerge with nothing to show for it.

By the time you close the laptop you feel more tired than when you started. And slightly worse about your business than when you opened it.

This is how most of us hunt for opportunities. Alone. Late. Inefficient. And then we wonder why the desert of opportunities I wrote about in newsletter one looks bigger than it should.

Two kinds of opportunities, two different jobs

Before going further, a distinction worth making. Most consultants treat all opportunities the same, something to apply to. They’re not. There are two categories, and they do completely different work.

Contracts. RFPs, gigs, fractional roles. Work for you. These are the visible-competitive ones. The good ones often have someone in mind before they’re posted. So even when you find one and write a strong application, you’re often six rounds behind a name the team already trusts. They can convert. Just less often than the time you spend hunting them would suggest.

Funding. Grants, awards, prizes, fellowships. Money for your ideal clients. You don’t apply to these. You forward them. “I saw this and thought of you.” They’re the most generous way to (re)start a conversation with someone you want to stay close to. And because someone else already did the work of finding them, they arrive on a golden platter for relationship-building.

Once you see this split, your whole orientation shifts.

You stop spending precious hours scrolling for contracts that mostly won’t convert. And you start using funding opportunities as the warm, ready-made reason to reach out to past or potential clients, without an ask, and without feeling salesy.

What you actually want to be doing instead

The real contracts don’t come from scrolling. They come from the conversations that happen before anything gets posted. “Do you know anyone who…” “We’re scoping something for next quarter, who’d be good for this?” You can’t make those conversations happen. But you can be the person who comes to mind when they do.

And here’s something worth naming, especially if you’re newer to this. If you don’t yet have the skill of starting conversations with ideal clients, scrolling can feel like the only option you have. That’s understandable. It’s also the trap — because every hour you spend hunting visible contracts is an hour you can’t spend learning to create your own.

Time is the one non-renewable resource any of us has. And most of us are spending it on the lowest-yield part of finding work.

How we approach this inside IMMA

Inside IMMA Collective — the ecosystem I run for experienced independent consultants and founders in climate and impact — system two is about staying close to opportunity flow without it becoming the second job nobody calls a job.

Here’s how it actually works for a member.

You don’t scroll for opportunities. We do. Members tag IMMA on LinkedIn when they spot something interesting. We scout both categories — contracts that members can respond to, and funding opportunities they can forward to clients. We share an almost-daily roundup inside the collective, because being quick to respond often matters. And one weekly digest goes out more broadly.

If you’re a member, you don’t open ten tabs at 11pm. You open one feed.

A few of the things that have come from this:

• Anna got her first client through one of the contracts we shared

• A reader of our newsletter landed a £22K engagement from one we surfaced

• Ivor made back 5x his IMMA investment from a single opportunity that came through the system

These do happen. The point isn’t that visible contracts never convert. It’s that you shouldn’t be the one spending hours searching for them when someone else can do that work and surface the good ones to you.

But it’s not just about opportunities flowing in. It’s about what becomes possible when you’re not doing this alone. Earlier this year, a small agency wanted to get onto the preferred-supplier list for a global foundation — but they needed to show a global team to qualify. Partnering with IMMA gave them exactly that: a curated network of senior experts that made their bid credible, the kind no single agency could assemble on its own.

Funding opportunities as relationship currency

The funding side is where the leverage is even higher.

Every grant, prize or fellowship we find is a reason to reach out to a past or potential client and say “hey, I saw this and thought of you.” It’s a simple, generous way to stay top of mind without feeling like you’re chasing.

Last week I shared a funding opportunity with one of the members I work with most closely. She used it as a reason to follow up with past and potential clients. Within days she’d secured a couple of follow-up conversations.

She said: “I hadn’t thought of this. It’s so simple, and so fruitful.”

Staying top of mind is the whole game, because the best contracts don’t surface publicly. You can’t control when the need lands. You can only be there when it does.

And there’s a second loop. When we find opportunities, we also reach out to the organisations behind them. “We’re a collective of senior practitioners. Next time you need someone, come directly to us.” It doesn’t work with every organisation. But it’s collective business development happening daily, so that in time, the right organisations come to IMMA first, to access a pool of vetted experts rather than be flooded with random applications they don’t have hours to wade through.

None of this comes from cold outreach or endless scrolling. Just staying closer to opportunity flow, together. And for members, saving hours every week that used to disappear into the search.

Something concrete you can do this week

This one isn’t a download. It’s three small actions, any of which costs you almost nothing.

Tag someone.
If you see an opportunity that fits a person you know, send it their way. The generosity gets paid forward, and it’s the kind of thing people remember.

Endorse in public.
When someone you’ve worked with comments on a post — even one with eighty comments already — leave a short note. “I worked with X on this and they were excellent.” That’s how Stefanie, who built the IMMA website, got hired despite the many comments.

Forward funding.
If you see a grant, prize or fellowship that fits one of your ideal clients, send a one-line email letting them know you saw it and thought of them. A small, genuine gesture that keeps you in their mind.

Try one of these every week for a month and watch what changes.
Not in your inbox right away. In the way people think of you.

This was the second of five ways to find clients I’m walking through in this series. (If you missed earlier instalments: intro and referral system. They stand alone but compound if you read them in order.)

Next week: Peer promotion - the system that solves a problem most of us have but won’t say out loud, we’re terrible at talking about our own work. Plus a small swap template that takes the awkwardness out of the fix.

In the meantime take care,
Lilli - Founder of IMMA Collective

P.S. While you’re here, we publish a free weekly roundup of funding, grants, RFPs and opportunities relevant to climate and impact consultants. Both types of opportunity, one post, no endless scrolling. You can see it here

P.P.S We've opened the waitlist for IMMA Collective, 20 spots in June. If getting aligned clients, more consistently, is a priority for you this year, that's what IMMA is built for: members get 100+ opportunities surfaced every month, plus the relationships and visibility that bring the right clients to you. Here's the door.

If five clients walked into your inbox, would you actually know which kind you’d want?

I asked it because if you can’t answer it clearly, the rest of this is harder than it needs to be. Especially this week’s piece, which is referrals.

The introduction that never happens

Here’s a scene I’ve seen many times. Both in IMMA Collective and in myself.

You’re sitting in a coffee shop with an old work colleague you haven’t seen in a long time. They ask you about you, about what you’re up to. And when it comes to describing what you do now, the words don’t quite arrive. Something close, but not exact. You watch their face slightly zone out. They wait politely and then change subject.

Or maybe you’ve done the work on this and the description lands. They nod and actually respond with “this sounds like something for…”

And then after the conversation, nothing.

The friend who could have helped still doesn’t really know what you do. The person with the problem gets help from someone else.

This happens all day, everywhere, to all of us.

It isn’t motivation. It’s friction.

We assume referrals fail because people don’t care, or don’t value our work enough. Most of the time, that’s not it. The people who care about you want you to do well. They just don’t always know how.

Referrals stall because referring you is slightly too unclear, slightly too hard, or slightly too easy to postpone.

“I’m not sure this is actually the right fit.”

“How would I even explain what they do?”

“I’ll sort it out later.”

Later doesn’t come.

So the real problem isn’t motivation. It’s friction. And friction is something you can remove, one piece at a time.

When I started looking at this more closely inside IMMA Collective — the ecosystem I run for experienced independent consultants and founders in climate and impact — I noticed four things show up every time someone gets referred well.

1. Clarity

Who you help, and just as importantly, who you don’t.

If your description is generic, no one can match you to a real person they know. “I help mission-driven leaders” makes it hard to think of a specific person.

“I work with founders of early-stage clean-tech companies whose growth is bottlenecking through them” — that one calls a specific person to mind. Rather than a category, a name surfaces.

The test: read your description out loud. Can the listener picture an actual human they know who fits it? If not, it’s not specific enough yet.

2. Situation

When should someone think of you?

A trigger phrase someone might actually say in a real conversation, that makes them connect your name to the situation someone is describing.

Nobody wakes up thinking “who can I refer today?” So we need to give people something recognisable to listen for.

“Everything still ends up on my plate.”

“We got funding and grew the team, but we’re not getting more done.”

“I’m thinking about leaving my job, but I don’t know what I’m leaving for.”

Without a trigger like this, your name comes up at the wrong moment. Or not at all. With one, your name surfaces in conversations you’re not even in.

3. Proof

When someone refers you, they’re putting their reputation behind yours.

It’s not simply an information transfer. It’s a reputation transfer. The person making the introduction needs something concrete to lean on — evidence they can trust that this will go well.

This is what makes it feel safe to introduce you.

Vague: “She’s great at leadership development.”

Repeatable: “She worked with a founder who was involved in every decision. Six months in, the team was running weekly ops without him.”

You don’t need a long case study. You need one or two specific outcomes or stories someone else could repeat easily.

If you’ve worked with well-known names or organisations, that’s another kind of proof. It buys you authority quickly.

This isn’t about impressing people. It’s about reducing the uncertainty around the quiet question every referrer is asking: will this introduction reflect well on me?

4. Ease

A simple, explicit path for making the introduction.

Without it, people mean to refer you but don’t. Or they say they referred you, but you have no way of following up.

So how do we make the introduction as easy as possible?

The most reliable format is still a two-line warm email. Ideally, you give them something they can copy.

Try this next time someone offers to mention your name:

“That’s really kind, thank you. The easiest thing is a quick intro email so I know who to look out for. If it helps, I can send you a line you can use.”

That sentence converts more vague mentions into actual introductions than any other thing I’ve tested.

Clarity. Situation. Proof. Ease.

That’s the four.

If you take only one thing from this newsletter, take this:

The people who already love your work want to refer you. They mostly aren’t, because you’ve made it slightly too hard. Removing that friction is more valuable than any new marketing tactic you could try this year.

Why this is the first thing we do inside IMMA

When members join IMMA Collective, the first thing we ask them to do is make themselves easy to refer. This way they can activate their existing network, and tap into the network inside IMMA.

Inside, that happens through monthly cross-pollination sessions, where the whole point of the hour is getting to know each other’s work and opening doors for each other. Most members work in the climate and impact space, all with ten to twenty years of experience. Because we spend time together, we know each other’s work well enough to refer each other with confidence. Between us, we hold networks that span the globe.

The fastest way to get clients is almost always to activate the people who already know you, rather than reach for strangers. Why?
Because people buy from those they know, like and trust. Referrals are how that trust gets transferred.

Something concrete for you

We’re running a free live workshop: How to get clients through your network, by making yourself easy to refer.

If referrals have felt passive — something that happens to you, or doesn’t, and over which you don’t feel you have much control — this is the session to join. You’ll leave with the four pieces above worked out for your own business.

Sign up here

This is part of an ongoing series of free sessions on relational business development. The first one — How to get clients on LinkedIn without posting or cold outreach — brought over a hundred people together in May.

This was the first of five ways to find clients I’m walking through in this series. (If you missed last week’s intro, it’s here — short version: I run IMMA, and we’re building five systems to bring aligned clients to our collective, so no one has to do business development alone.)

Next week: the second system. How to stop hunting for opportunities alone, late at night — multiple browser tabs open, hours invested, very little to show for it.
Including the kind of opportunity that turned into a £22K engagement for one of our members. (If you are looking for some, here is a round-up).

Take care,
Lilli from IMMA Collective

P.S. I read every reply. If one of the four pieces above is the one you’re stuck on, hit reply (or drop it in the comments) and tell me which.

The question.

The one nobody warned you about, or warned you it would be this persistent, when you left the job.

Where’s the next one coming from?

You open LinkedIn. You scroll past three posts about AI replacing your work. Two from people who seem to be doing brilliantly, somehow, effortlessly. Two with frameworks and advice. One about a fellowship that closed yesterday. You think about posting something. You don’t. You make tea instead.

If this is familiar, you’re in good company. I hear some version of this from almost everyone I work with.

“When I’m in the work, I’m 100% in. Then I come out and I’m staring at a desert.”

It’s so hard to carve out the space for any of this when you’re heads down trying to deliver good work. And anyway, what’s the point of reaching out when you don’t even have availability? You don’t want to start a conversation you’ll have to say no to.

So you wait. Until later. Until things settle.

Until you reach the moment you wish you’d been quietly nurturing those relationships all along, because now you actually need something. And reaching out when you need something gives off that bootycall energy. Needy. Off. Visible in a way you didn’t want to be visible.

Posting feels worse. If your business were really thriving, would you be posting? What would people think?

So you don’t. And the desert gets a little wider.

The second job nobody calls a job

I’m Lilli. I run a small collective called IMMA, for solopreneurs doing service-based work in mission-driven sectors. Consultants, advisors, coaches, expert practitioners. The kind of work that’s earned through relationships, not cold outreach.

Most of the people I know in this ecosystem are excellent at the work itself. Delivery isn’t the hard part. The hard part is the second job nobody calls a job. Reaching out. Following up. Staying top of mind. Tending a pipeline that goes quiet the moment we step back into delivery.

And it’s getting harder, not easier.

AI is changing how people search and how outreach lands. Funding cycles are tighter. Attention is more crowded. The playbooks that worked even just a year ago feel slightly off now.

The problem: we're competing when we shouldn't be

Inside IMMA Collective, members serve similar clients across Europe, the UK and the US. And right now, every one of us is reaching out separately. One person writes “I can help with your strategy.” Another writes “I can help with operations.”

But maybe right now the organisation doesn’t need any of that. They might need someone to plan a team day. Or they might have a bigger problem a single freelancer can’t solve alone.

Lots of effort. Fragmented. Which makes it feel much harder.

So for the past few months, with a small pilot of five businesses, we’ve been building something different. Five systems for finding clients. The core idea: finding work together rather than have each person hustling alone.

Why five ways and not one

Because one would be fragile. In a time when everything is reshuffling, putting all your eggs in one basket is risky. Running five experiments at once lets us learn much faster what’s working in 2026, and what isn’t. And longer-term, a business shouldn’t depend on a single way of finding work anyway. When one channel goes quiet, the others keep working.

What is coming over the next five weeks

I’ll walk you through each one, so you can get some inspiration and tips:

Referrals. The channel most of us already rely on, and most of us never intentionally set up to make it easy for someone to refer us.

Collecting opportunities. How to stop scrolling alone at 11pm. Where the opportunities already are, and how to tap into them.

Peer promotion. Getting your work seen without relying on self-promotion. Because it lands very differently when someone else says you’re great than when you say “look how great I am.”

Outreach. What we’ve actually learned reaching out to 1,500 ideal clients. What’s working in 2026. What isn’t.

The fifth one. Still being built. The one I’m most excited about.

Each newsletter will leave you with something you can use this week, whether or not you’re ever in IMMA. Some weeks that’s a worksheet. Some weeks a small action you can take. By the end of the series you’ll have a clearer view of five ways to bring in clients, and a few of them already started.

You’ll also get the honest version. What’s working, what isn’t, what we see changing in the market right now, where we’re still figuring it out.

It isn’t you. It’s the moment.

If finding clients has felt heavier than it should this year, you’re not imagining it. Every week I get emails from people who used to have work coming their way without much effort, and who suddenly find themselves wondering how they’re going to bring money in over the next month. People who are very good at what they do.

It isn’t you. It’s the moment.

Let’s start next week with the one most people make harder than it needs to be. Referrals.

Something concrete to get clients

Before that, one thing worth flagging. Next week we’re running a free live workshop: How to Get Clients on LinkedIn — Without Posting or Cold Outreach. There’s a small gift for everyone who joins live. If finding clients is on your mind right now, this is the most concrete thing I can offer you this month. You can sign up here.

Sign-up here

A small question to sit with until then:

How easy is it for others to refer you or open doors for you?

That question is where the next newsletter begins.

With you in this, Lilli

P.S. If a friend of yours is currently looking for clients, forward this. The best version of this conversation is the one more of us are in.

You sit down. You know you should follow up with the person you spoke to three weeks ago. You open the draft. You stop.

How do I word this without sounding like I’m chasing?

You want to post something on LinkedIn. You have a thought. You open the app. You stop.

What should I post? What’s the hook?

You meant to reach out to three people in your network. You have their names on a sticky note somewhere.

What do I even say? “Just checking in” sounds like nothing. Anything longer feels like I’m asking for something.

So the tab stays open. The draft stays saved. The sticky note gets moved to tomorrow.
And this is the part almost no one names: the weight isn’t the task.

The weight is that every small task comes with its own small decision. What to say. How to say it. How to phrase it so it lands. Whether it’s worth sending.

Any one of these is nothing. Five minutes. You could do it in the gap between meetings.
But they don’t arrive one at a time. They stack.
The follow-up. The post. The outreach. The CRM you keep meaning to clean. The newsletter you keep meaning to send. Each one waiting for you to decide what it should be.

And you’re also the person delivering the client work. Running the finances. Making the strategic calls. Deciding whether to take this contract or wait for a better one. Figuring out whether to raise your rate.

By the time you get to business development, the decision-making muscle is tired. So you postpone. And the thing you postponed compounds into tomorrow’s list, which was already more than full.

It’s the load of all those tiny decisions, adding up, making you feel like you’re carrying an elephant.
Every day, alone, in your own head.

What a ritual actually holds for you

When the weight is this kind of weight, it’s not fixed by another tactic. Or another tool. Or another webinar.

It’s fixed by a hour that holds the shape of the work for you.

An hour you don’t have to design from scratch. An hour with one area of focus, not three. An hour where the small things you do become visible, so by Friday you can still see them.

Inside IMMA we call it Promotion Monday. Promo for short. Here’s how to run it, whether or not you ever join us.

The recipe

Block 60 minutes on Monday morning. The point of a rhythm is that it runs on the weeks you’re too busy, not the weeks you have spare time. That’s exactly when you need it most.

Start with a win from last week. Big or small. A conversation you were proud of. A message you finally sent. Getting through it at all. Gratitude is a better starting point than a to-do list.

Pick one area for this month:

🌱 Visibility. You’re doing great work, but no one knows. The right people aren’t discovering you.

💧 Nurturing. People show interest, then vanish. You don’t know how to follow up without it feeling like nagging.

🌾 Sales. You’re having great conversations, but they don’t convert. You hesitate to invite.

Pick one. The other two will still get attention. But your energy goes to one.

Sit with the reframe for your area. This changes how the work feels. And how it feels is what decides whether you’ll do it.

Visibility isn’t shouting. It’s inviting resonance. Not “look at me” but “here’s something you might be navigating too.”

Follow-up is a service, not a bother. It’s what maintenance the connection when we are all busy and overwhelmed.

Sales isn’t convincing. It’s surfacing clarity. You’re not trying to make them say yes. You’re helping them know what they need and whether it’s a fit.

Name one or two moves for the week. Be specific:

Message 5 people I’d genuinely like to reconnect with, with something useful.

Send one clear invitation to someone who recently showed interest: “Want to set up a time to explore this (challenge)?”

Then do them. Don’t plan more. Don’t research. Do the thing.

Track what you did. A running list. Notion, a Google doc, a spreadsheet, it doesn’t matter. The tool doesn’t do the work. The seeing does.

Once a month, read the list. This is where the weight comes off. Not in the doing, in the seeing. You made the introductions. You sent the posts. You stayed in touch. We can’t control the result, but we can control the input. And when you can see the input, you can give yourself credit for it, spot what’s working, and notice what’s getting in the way.

Try it for a month. See what shifts.

Where a room changes everything

The recipe works on your own. It works differently when done together with others.

Because the hardest part isn’t blocking the hour. It’s the decisions inside the hour. How do I phrase this so it doesn’t sound transactional? Is this follow-up caring or am I overdoing it? What’s the right way to invite this person into a conversation?

These are relational decisions. And the work most of us do, trust-based, long sales cycles, clients buying you, is all relational decisions. Which means the weight of business development is the weight of all those small relational calls. Made alone. Every week.

They get lighter when someone else is making theirs next to you.

You say I’m running a workshop next week and I don’t know how to make something actually happen afterward, and someone says drop the thank-you slide with five links. Use a QR code to one resource. One next step.

One small shift. A different outcome.

(That was Jess. Her work at Sporesight explores what fungi can teach us about shaping regenerative futures. Worth a look if you don’t know it.)

The wins of others pull you a bit higher. Someone’s question makes you realise you already know the answer. Someone’s resource saves you two hours.

That's what a room does every Monday. Business development done first thing in the week, with people whose work is different from yours but whose clients are the same kind. The rest of the week feels different because of it. Calmer. Lighter. Help is there when you need it.

We run Promo Monday twice a week inside IMMA to cover time zones and caring responsibilities. Small groups of experienced independents, 10+ years behind them, working in climate, sustainability, health, and systems change.

This works when you show up. Not perfectly, not every week, but enough that the rhythm becomes yours. I can’t do the work for you. What I can do is hold the conditions that make it easier to show up: the hour is blocked, the structure is there, the people are there. You don’t have to design it or drag yourself through it alone.

If you want to run this on your own, everything above is yours. Take it. Adapt it. Run it for a month. The reframes are the valuable part, and they’re yours whether or not you ever join IMMA.

If you want to run it with others, the door for the April intake is open until the 28th. Here’s how we do this inside IMMA.

And if you’re reading this thinking this is me, hit reply. Happy to answer questions.

With care,
Lilli

Hi impact maker,

Does this feel familiar?
You open your laptop in the morning.

Emails first. Admin, at least the things you don’t want to procrastinate on.
Then client work.

And by the time you come up for air, it’s 4pm. You’re tired. The outreach, the LinkedIn post, the message you meant to send to that old contact — it didn’t happen. Again.

A while back I came across a framework from Joanna Galvao that reframes this perfectly.

She draws it as a pyramid. At the top sit marketing and sales. Not because they’re the priority. Because that’s where we put the things that only get whatever scraps of time and energy are left. Admin and client work fill everything below, expanding to take up most of the day.

The top gets the least. The bottom gets the most.

She says: invert it.

Put marketing and sales at the bottom of the pyramid, where the weight is. Start your morning there, when you have the most energy and the clearest head. Then move to client work. Then admin, in contained windows, not as a constant background hum.

It makes complete sense. And most people I talk to immediately see themselves in it.

But it misses something key.

Understanding the pyramid doesn’t mean you’ll implement it.

Because the problem isn’t just when in your day you do outreach. It’s that you were never taught how to do it in the first place.
When you worked in organisations, someone else handled business development. Sales and marketing were whole departments. You focused on your craft.

Now you’re the work and the pipeline. And nobody handed you a manual.
So you sit down to do outreach and hit a blank page.

What do I even say?
How do I reach out without sounding salesy?
Do I need to post more on LinkedIn, and about what?
How do I follow up with a lead that’s gone cold?

And because there’s no clear answer, client work wins. Every time.

There’s also something else.

When your calendar is full, outreach feels optional.
Why nurture relationships when you have plenty of work right now?

But that’s exactly when it matters most.

Because the feast-and-famine cycle doesn’t happen because you stopped caring.
It happens because you only reach out when you need to. And by then, as Ross Ó Lochlainn puts it, you’re giving off booty call energy.

Scarcity, not connection.

In IMMA, we address this at the structural level.

We start each week with a clear ritual, not a vague intention, so outreach actually happens. We share a relational outreach library: scripts, prompts, and resources you didn’t know you needed until they saved you hours.

And you’re not doing this alone.

Last week we had a conversation about reconnecting with university friends.
People who are now 10 to 15 years into their careers, in positions to open doors, with trust already built. It sounds obvious when you say it out loud.
But nobody had thought about it until we talked it through together.

That’s what collective intelligence does. It surfaces what you couldn’t have found on your own.

This month, we’re offering three Explore IMMA Collective sessions, live, at different times to cover different time zones.

If you’re tired of the feast-and-famine cycle and want to see how we build healthy pipelines together, join us for a session.

Join us for a session

We’ll look at where you are, where you want to go, and how others inside IMMA are building businesses that stay full, even when life gets busy.

With you in this,
Lilli

Opportunities & Behind the scenes at IMMA Collective

• Here are eight of the best opportunities in the impact space that we shared this week.

• Want to get a sneak-peak around our referral & cross-pollination system that we launched at IMMA Collective? Because introductions are a powerful way to grow your business.

Not just to see what happened.
But to understand something else:
How people are actually building.

Because from the outside, you mostly see outcomes.
A new client.
A launch.
A post that performs well.

But you don’t see what sits underneath that.

The decisions.
The trade-offs.
The moments of doubt.
The small shifts that change everything.

And that’s the part I’ve been paying attention to.

What you don’t see (but can feel when you’re in the room)

What’s becoming visible inside IMMA right now isn’t just momentum.
It’s a different relationship to growth.

People are still moving forward.
Still signing clients.
Still building offers.

But they’re doing it in a way that feels… more considered.
More intentional.
Less reactive.

And you feel that almost immediately when you’re in the room.
In the way people talk about their work.
In the way they make decisions.
In the way they hold both ambition and limits at the same time.

There’s a different pace to it.
A different kind of confidence.
Not louder. But more grounded.
So I wanted to reflect some of that back.

What has been unfolding at IMMA this last season

Caroline Harris (career alignment & human design) redesigned her entire business model to better match her energy and strengths, while preparing to launch a digital product. Not rushing, but committing to steady progress.

Stefanie Kruse (sustainable web design) is finding her rhythm in content and visibility, building a blog that turns into newsletters and social content, refining her IP… and recently doubled her prices, signing higher-value work with more ease.

Ariel Chamberlain (data strategy for mission-driven teams) has been experimenting in true “IMMA mode”, redesigning their offer, testing new calls, and at the same time creating a gentler way to start their days. That combination led to one of their most productive months yet.

Natalie Tucker (coach development & coaching for social leaders) has been nurturing a small supportive community around her Coaching Practice Pods – opening up unexpected opportunities. There’s depth here, not just growth.

Chloe Hill (systems transformation & futures) is stepping more into thought leadership, redesigning her website, sharing her thinking, and planting seeds in the philanthropy space through intentional conversations.

Joshua Stehr (designer & facilitator) has been quietly building strong personal foundations, routines, boundaries, and ways of sustaining his energy, while deepening his facilitation practice.

Aline Kubiak (operations & process expert) is moving forward with both care and determination, finishing her website, signing a new client, and building the structures that will support her business long-term.

Eliza Yvette Esquivel (strategy & protopian furtures) is in a powerful moment of expression, launching her newsletter, publishing consistently, delivering strategy work, and turning her ideas into something that can grow into a signature offer.

Rachael Wiid(coach & facilitator) is bringing clarity and focus into her business and launching her new coaching website.

Ben Candea (fractional Chief of Staff for climate tech) is seeing how small, consistent visibility actions compound, turning LinkedIn posts into inbound leads and new clients.

Ruth Hoyal (strategy & behaviour change) is refining her positioning while staying deeply anchored in what feels aligned, choosing momentum, relationships, and meaningful work.

Jess Jorgensen (Sporesight - futures & funghi) is bringing her ideas into the world through talks, field trips, and workshops, translating complex futures thinking into tangible experiences.

Jennifer Barrios (circular fashion) designed and delivered her first workshop, using it as a space to test, learn, and understand what she wants to build next.

Andrea Dos Anjos Pinto (communications & community) is refining her offer while also showing something equally important: resilience. Navigating setbacks, continuing conversations, and staying open to collaboration.

Tiana Veldwisch (team dynamics & product consultant) is expanding existing client work while designing new ways for ideal clients to engage, including new lead magnets and experiences.

Marco Di Norcia (service design & regenerative tourism) is building both his business (he launched the Coralia Experiences website) and his personal rhythm, early mornings, yoga, and a growing sense of clarity in his work.

Christine Maggi (UX & web design) refined her positioning in the femtech space and is actively choosing health and boundaries, recognising that stepping away is part of doing better work.

Philippe Arnez (culture & leadership) continues to invest in his craft, completing facilitation training and stepping into more visible conversations and networking.

Trey Brooks (impact consultant) got accepted to TU Delft to expand his skill set into strategic design and have more impact in his work!

There are many more, but let me stop here.

What I’m noticing

When I look across all of this, a few patterns stand out.
Members are not constantly reinventing.
They are refining.

They are sharing their thinking before it’s perfect.
They are turning conversations into opportunities.
They are building visibility in ways that feel human.
They are experimenting instead of waiting.

And at the same time:

They are setting boundaries.
Creating healthier routines.
Taking time off when it matters.
Navigating setbacks with resilience.
Choosing alignment over urgency.

And I think that’s the real shift.
Not just:

“I signed a client.”
“I launched something.”

But:

“I’m learning how to build this in a way that actually works for me.”

What this really is

The more I watch this unfold, the more I realise:
This is not a community trying to grow as fast as possible.

It’s a community learning how to grow well.
And you can feel that difference.

I felt it again very clearly during our Spring Equinox gathering.
Not because of one big highlight.
But because of the texture of it.
People celebrating wins — yes.
But also naming grief.
Uncertainty.
Health challenges.
Financial pressure.
The weight of the wider world.

And still showing up.
That combination matters.

Because it creates something you don’t often find in business spaces:
A place where you don’t have to perform growth.
A place where you can be honest about what’s hard.
A place where both things can exist at the same time.

Momentum and doubt.
Clarity and confusion.
Progress and rest.

That, to me, is what makes this different.
And maybe also what makes people stay.

A question for this next season

As we move into spring, I’ve been sitting with two questions:

What am I actually celebrating right now?

And what am I ready to let go of — even if it once worked?

You might want to sit with those too.

A small note on what’s changing

One thing that became very clear to me through this reflection is how different types of value need different kinds of space.

These kinds of reflections, what I’m seeing inside IMMA, how people are building, the patterns underneath it, need room to breathe.

So this is what you can expect here going forward:
I’ll be sharing these longer reflections every two weeks.
Usually on Thursdays or Fridays. I’ll give myself some flexibility.

The weekly opportunities, funding, RFPs, gigs, are different.
They are most useful when they arrive at the right moment, directly in your inbox, ready to act on.
So those will move to a separate list.
If you want those, you can sign up here.

“I got a 22k client engagement from the opportunities IMMA shares.”

—A newsletter subscriber

Because in the end, how you build your business shapes the life you end up living.

Lilli
Founder, IMMA Collective

I took some distance to look at what IMMA has actually become and what it needs to grow into next.

From the outside, this might look like a pivot.
From the inside, it feels like continuing a thread that’s been there all along.

So I want to take a moment to share what IMMA is about.

What IMMA Collective has always been

IMMA began as a place to not build a solo business alone.
A space shaped by generous reciprocity.
Where you can say something half-formed and have others help you make it clearer.
Where people don’t just nod — they help you think, and they keep you accountable.

A place to experiment before taking ideas into the world.
A place with rituals that slow you down enough to act with intention, rather than react to whatever comes your way.

We share templates, resources, contacts, and hard-won lessons.
Introductions happen.
Prices get raised.
Confidence grows quietly and translates into revenue.

What makes it work is the calibre of people in the room:
experienced, thoughtful, generous, and serious about building businesses that do good and earn well.

That part of IMMA is not going anywhere.
It’s the foundation.

The problem that kept coming back

Over the past year, though, the same need kept surfacing — no matter how experienced someone was.

Aligned clients.

Not just any client.
But the kind where the work makes sense.
Where values align.
Where collaboration feels inspiring, not draining.
Where you finish a call with energy, not a knot in your stomach.

But to earn the privilege of choosing your clients, you need something first:
a reliable way to get into the right conversations.

A pipeline that doesn’t depend on luck.
Or waiting.
Or hoping the next referral comes through.
Because what worked a few years ago doesn’t reliably work anymore.

Again and again, I heard versions of the same thing:

“The money worries are what keep me up at night.”

It’s the difference between hoping for opportunities and knowing how to turn the volume up when things go quiet.

In this climate — tighter budgets, slower decisions, more uncertainty — that capability matters more than ever.

Where IMMA is focusing now

This is where IMMA has sharpened its focus.
Everything we do now for solopreneurs is oriented around one thing:
helping you land aligned clients — together.

It starts with clarity.
Clarity about what you offer.
So clear that when someone asks, “What do you do?”, you can answer in one clean sentence — and see recognition land.
Clarity that allows others to refer you confidently.
Clarity that helps clients immediately see the need.

From there, we help you build a simple, effective system to:
attract the right people,
nurture relationships over time,
and convert interest into paid work, even when you’re busy delivering.

Our approach to marketing and sales is grounded in trust and values.
No pushy tactics.
No performance.

That’s also why we’ve carefully chosen the experts-in-residence who support this work — people who understand the climate and impact space and the realities of selling within it.

When clarity meets connection

We’ve seen this work.

• Ivor landed his very first client with a new offer — from LinkedIn post to signed contract in just 16 days.

• Stefán refined his proposal and won a five-figure rebranding project, his biggest client to date in Nature Conservation.

• Joshua was introduced by another member — an intro that has since generated €50K+ in ongoing work.

These are just a few examples of what happens when clarity, confidence, and connection come together.

Doing the hard part together

As we supported IMMA members more closely, another pattern became impossible to ignore.

Many of you serve the same kinds of organisations.

Climate-focused teams.
Foundations.
Impact-driven startups.
Public-interest organisations.

One of you does strategy.
Another brand.
Another comms.
Another web or delivery.

And yet — everyone was reaching out alone.

Different emails.
Different messages.
Different timing.
Often to the same organisations.

It reminded me of this:

One person writing,
“I can clean your bathroom.”

Another writing,
“I can clean your kitchen.”

When what the organisation actually wants is a trusted team, not a puzzle they have to assemble themselves.

At the same time, we heard this from founders and small teams:

“We know we need help — but we don’t know who, or what, exactly.”
They didn’t want hundreds of applications.
They didn’t want to sift through profiles.
They wanted to talk to someone who understood the work — and could introduce the right people.

That’s when it became clear this wasn’t an individual problem.
The problem wasn’t a lack of talent.
It was fragmentation.

So instead of everyone knocking on doors alone, we started doing this differently.
IMMA is becoming connective infrastructure.

We prospect collectively.
We bring complementary expertise together.
We share reach, signal, and credibility.

Not at scale for the sake of it.
Not as a marketplace.

Quality over quantity, always.

We’re not building the next Fiverr or Upwork.
We’re building something slower, more intentional, and far more human.

We open the right doors.
And once you’re in the room, your expertise does the rest.

But more the than the possibility of being hired our goal is to make you resilient.

Giving you the skills to create offers that make sense, start conversations without forcing them, and sell your work in a world that keeps changing.

Not so you depend on IMMA — but so you can stand on your own feet, again and again.

All while building businesses that do good, earn well, and contribute to a more equitable world.

The other side of the win–win

On the other side, IMMA supports mission-driven founders and small teams.

We help them clarify what kind of help would actually move the needle.
Then we introduce a small number of vetted experts, who understand this work and can share insights.
We aggregate experitse to bring cutting-edge perspectives from across the globe.

No floods of applications.
Less risk and overwhelm.
Fewer costly mis-hires.
More momentum.

That’s the win–win.

If this resonates

If you’re reading this and thinking,
“Yes — I want something more reliable than luck,”
start here:

What’s actually getting in the way of landing aligned clients right now?

We’ve created a short self-assessment to help you see that clearly.
For most people, the gap is one of four things: clarity, visibility, pipeline, or confidence in sales conversations.

This will show you which one in under five minutes and give a clearer picture of where to focus your precious time.

Take the quiz

Community spotlights

A few things IMMA members have been putting into the world recently:

Aline Kubiak
Aline has been building her new website using Claude Code iterating on positioning, copy, and visuals at the same time.

What started as a simple one-pager quickly became an MVP, then a V1 and V2.Her current challenge? Calling it “good enough” and launching, a very real moment many of you will recognize.

Marco di Norcia
Marco is exploring a big question: what would tourism look like if it actually regenerated places and communities?

He’s building a curated collection of regenerative travel experiences across Europe — easy to find, easy to book, and genuinely beneficial to the places they exist in.
They’re testing interest here.

Eliza Yvette Esquivel
Eliza has launched a ne newsletter, The Future We Seek weaving together foresight, systems change, and inner work. It acts as connective tissue between her book-in-progress, Radical Sabbatical Consulting, and Love & Order.

The Future We Seek

Foresight and soul alignment for leaders shaping what’s next

By Eliza Yvette Esquivel

Witnessing these projects take shape is one of my favourite parts of this work.

I’ll keep sharing what we’re learning as IMMA continues to evolve.
Slowly. Intentionally.
And in service of work that reshapes our world.

Lilli
Founder, IMMA Collective

This was meant to go out before the end of the year. It didn’t.
January arrived instead. And honestly, that might be exactly right.

This time of year often carries a strange pressure. New plans. New energy. New versions of ourselves.

But many people I speak to are doing the opposite.
They’re tired. A little flat.
Still processing what last year asked of them.

In IMMA, reflection isn’t something we do once a year.
It’s a core practice.
Because most of the learning doesn’t come from what we experience, but from taking time to make sense of it.

Before creating anything new, it helps to look at what already moved.

So instead of sending something fresh, I wanted to offer this.
A gentle return to the pieces many of you came back to this year.
When things felt unclear.
When you were questioning yourself.
When you needed language, or reassurance, or a small nudge forward.

Take your time with it.

Knowing who you are in your business

This was one of the most-read pieces of the year.
Because when we want to change something in our business, we often start in the wrong place.

We tweak offers.
We adjust pricing.
We try new strategies.
But lasting change usually starts with identity.

How you see yourself shapes the kind of business you build, just like James Clear describes in Atomic Habits.

This piece helped people see why their business felt the way it did.
Some realised they were operating like freelancers while expecting solopreneur results.
Others noticed they were actually building something closer to a system.
Many finally understood that feast and famine wasn’t a personal failure, but a structural mismatch.

If you want a simple place to reflect, start here:
Finish the sentence:
“For the next season, I am running my business as a…”
Freelancer. Solopreneur. Entrepreneur.

For those doing work that’s hard to explain

Last year, I shared a letter for people who are pioneers in what they do.
People whose work doesn’t fit neatly into existing boxes.
Who are often a few steps ahead of the language available to describe it.
And who end up carrying a lot of doubt simply because others don’t fully understand what they’re building.

This kind of work can feel lonely.
It also makes it harder to build a business around it. To explain your value.
To stay confident when your questioning whether you’re making things unnecessarily hard for yourself.

That letter resonated because it named something many of you live with quietly.
If it speaks to you, consider sharing it with someone whose work you genuinely admire. Sometimes being seen matters more than advice.

Read it here:

Building IMMA in the open

People often ask me what it’s actually been like to build IMMA.
What I’m learning.
What’s changing.
What I’m questioning along the way.

I write about this regularly, not as a highlight reel, but as a way of building in the open.
These reflections give you a behind-the-scenes view of what it means to grow something slowly, intentionally, and in alignment, including the parts that are messy or uncertain.

If you’re curious about what’s been unfolding, these two pieces capture that process well.

Testing ideas without overinvesting

Many people in IMMA have ideas they’ve been carrying around for months — sometimes years.
This piece shows what it can look like to test one quickly, without money and without overcommitting.

In less than three days, working just a few hours each day, my brother and I tested a business idea together.

The outcome wasn’t a viable business. But it was clarity.

He understood the idea didn’t have a market, felt relieved rather than disappointed, and could stop spending mental energy on “what if”.
That clarity freed him up to focus on other things that mattered more in that season.

If you have an idea you’ve been noodling with, this offers a concrete example of how to test it simply.

👉 Read it here:

The One Page Business Plan

These two posts bring together many of the patterns I see again and again in IMMA.
How offers are shaped.
Where things get unnecessarily complex.
What actually makes a business sustainable, financially and energetically.

Last year, we ran workshops around this with almost 200 people.
One person used it to build a 160k pipeline.
Others said it helped them see their business clearly for the first time.
New collaborations started.
Conversations shifted.
It wasn’t about doing more. It was about seeing the whole picture.

If you haven’t explored it yet, it’s a good place to return to.

👉 Part 2:

If you’re feeling behind right now, I want to leave you with this:

You might not need a new plan yet.
You might just need a bit of time to integrate what last year already changed in you, how you see yourself, what you want to give your energy to, and what you’re ready to leave behind.

That’s often where the next season begins.

Thank you for reading and happy new year!
With care,
Lilli

PS. If this way of working resonates, reflection as a practice, building at your own pace, and being in community with others doing meaningful work, IMMA is where this happens in real time. You can learn more and apply here.

For a long time, I genuinely believed that if I just did great work, the right people would find me. And sometimes they did.
But it wasn’t intentional.It wasn’t repeatable.
It was mostly me reacting to whatever landed in my inbox.

Eventually, something clicked:
Most of us were never taught how to get clients.

In many roles, sales was handled by someone else. We were hired to do the work, not to open the door. But when you work for yourself, you are the business. And learning how to bring in work in a way that feels human and relational becomes part of the job.

If getting clients feels heavy, confusing, or unpredictable, these six patterns will likely feel familiar.
They’re not mistakes.
They’re what happens when no one shows you another way.

1. You are using the wrong sales playbook

The first question is deceptively simple.
Are you selling B2B or B2C?
Because these aren’t just different audiences. They are different decision systems.

In B2B, the person you speak to is rarely the only one involved. They may need to justify the decision to finance, procurement, a manager, or a committee. Someone else might evaluate risk, budget, or timing using criteria you never hear about directly.

Your contact is not just deciding whether they like you.
They are deciding whether they can safely bring you into their organisation.

That means your job isn’t only to sound capable or inspiring. It’s to give them clarity they can repeat, language that travels, and confidence they can stand behind internally.

In B2C, this complexity collapses into one person. The decision is personal, emotional, and immediate. They don’t need internal alignment. They need clarity, trust, and a sense that you understand their world.

When sales feels hard, it’s often because someone is using the wrong playbook for the decision environment they’re actually in.

2. You are not clear who you are talking to

This is one of the biggest hidden drains I see in independent businesses.
When your message is broad, the reader has to work harder. They have to translate your words into their context and decide whether this really applies to them.

Most people won’t do that work.
They won’t say no. They’ll say “interesting” and move on.
This isn’t about narrowing yourself into a niche for the sake of it.
It’s about naming.

When you know who you’re speaking to, everything else becomes easier: writing, selling, deciding what not to do.

Naming means understanding one person’s world well enough that they recognise themselves immediately. That moment of recognition creates relief. It pulls the right people closer and quietly filters out the rest.

That’s why I often ask people to give their ideal client a name. Not as a branding exercise, but as a thinking tool.
Clarity reduces friction, for you and for them.

3. You are mentally tracking everything

Many independents carry their entire pipeline in their head.

A warm lead. A message you meant to reply to. An introduction someone mentioned in passing. A follow-up you forgot.
It’s exhausting, and it leaks opportunities.

You don’t need a complex CRM to fix this. If you need five to ten clients a year, a simple Notion board or spreadsheet is often enough.

The shift isn’t about sophistication. It’s about moving information out of your head and into a place you can trust.

Inside IMMA, people often say the same thing after setting this up: they feel lighter. They stop carrying everything mentally. They can switch off.

A simple system running quietly in the background gives you peace of mind.

4. You reach out only when you need something

This one is uncomfortable because it’s so human.
You finish a project. Your calendar opens up. Urgency creeps in.
Then you send a few friendly messages, hoping something will come of it.

People can feel this.
Someone once described it as “booty call energy,” and it stuck with me because the timing reveals the intention.

Outreach works best when you’re already in delivery mode. You’re grounded. You’re not reaching out from urgency. You’re simply staying in relationship.
A thoughtful message. A useful resource. A genuine check-in.

This is how trust compounds over time. And it’s why they come to you when they realise they need someone.

5. You have made it unintentionally hard to say yes

You do good work.
But the path to working with you feels unclear.

Your offer might be hard to find. Booking a call might take too many steps.
Pricing or scope might be vague. Your website might leave people guessing.

Often, this happens as a form of self-protection. From rejection. From wrong-fit clients. From over-commitment.

I’ve done this too.
But clarity is kindness.
A clear offer. A simple pathway. An easy way to start a conversation.
These aren’t pushy. They respect everyone’s time and energy.

6. You are chasing strangers instead of nurturing people who already trust you

When work slows down, many people think:
“I need to post more.”
“I need more visibility.”
“I need a new content strategy.”

But visibility is rarely the real bottleneck.
Most work comes through trust: past clients, colleagues, introductions, people who’ve been quietly following your work.
Posting creates awareness. Relationships create work.

Reaching out feels vulnerable, which is why it’s often avoided. But your next opportunity is usually closer than you think.

Recently inside IMMA, we held a relational outreach session. People were surprised by how many real conversations were already available to them.
The question is not who you need to find. It’s which relationships you can you nurture?

What this really comes down to

Getting clients isn’t about shouting louder.
It’s not about tricks or constant visibility.

It’s about clarity. Resonance. Making it easy to say yes. Staying in relationship.
And designing enough structure around your work so the business supports you instead of draining you.

Simple doesn’t mean easy.
But simple tends to work.

Which pattern should we go deeper on next week?

I’m happy to go deeper on one of these six patterns
Reply or add a comment with the number that resonates most:

1. The B2B vs B2C playbook

2. Naming your ideal client

3. Creating a simple tracking system

4. Breaking the “booty call outreach” pattern

5. Making it easy to say yes

6. Nurturing your network

I’ll write the most requested one next.

Behind the scenes at IMMA

This week inside the community, we’re seeing the ripple effects of our Promo Session ritual. A weekly space to review what happened, reset intention, and focus on actions that build awareness, nurture relationships, and support sales.

This Friday, we’re also gathering for our Winter Solstice event. Our version of a business Christmas. A moment to connect and close the year well.

We’re onboarding a small group into Nurture on January 7th. IMMA isn’t a click-to-enter membership. You apply, and we take the time to see if it’s the right fit.

Opportunity corner

A few roles and RFPs circulating inside IMMA this week:

• Corporate Partnerships Manager (Consultancy)- Rivet

• Youth Impact Fund Manager (Consultancy) - Rivet

• Hope and Healing Evaluation Partner - Platfform

• Canva Education Instructional Designer

We share more inside the community, but these are a few highlights.

If something here landed

You’re always welcome to reply and share which pattern feels most present for you right now.

I genuinely love hearing where people are in their journey.

With care,
Lilli

There’s a story I keep seeing unfold.
Two people, same path.
Both building something new.
Both wanting more meaning, autonomy, and flow.

But their approach?
Completely different.

One says:

“I need to earn more before I can get support.”

The other says:

“I need support so I can earn more.”

One waits.
The other moves.

One plays safe.
The other takes a risk.

And I understand both, because I’ve been both.
Especially when money feels tight, investing in support can feel almost irresponsible.
You hit “pay,” and ten seconds later think:
What have I done?

But here’s what surprised me:

The support itself is rarely the scary part.
It’s who you become because of it.

A small shift that changed everything

A person I worked with recently hit that exact edge.
The investment felt like a stretch.
Each session, they wanted to get the absolute most out of it, and rightly so.

One day, we reviewed their pricing.
They’d been charging €3,500.
We explored what it might feel like to charge €5,000.

Not in theory, but in tone, language, and confidence.
The next proposal they sent used the new price.
The client said yes.

Two weeks later, they submitted their biggest proposal ever. A five figure project.
And it wasn’t about the number.
It was about the shift in identity.

• Backing their value

• Showing up with clarity

• Letting support change how they see themselves

Transformation rarely arrives with fireworks.

Most often, it sneaks in quietly, through one sentence or one moment where something clicks.

And in my own business? The same story.

This year, I joined a year-long accelerator.
€25,000.
It felt terrifying.
The investment seemed outsized compared to what I was making at the time.
My whole body contracted when I paid.

But within the first two months, I could feel the difference:

• in my confidence

• in how I made decisions

• in how I showed up

• in the way my work was expanding

And last month, for the first time, I hit the revenue goal I had set for myself.
Not because the accelerator magically fixed anything.

But because I stopped trying to figure everything out alone.
Honestly, I wish I understood this sooner.

I’ve spent years looping:

• building IMMA Collective by trial and error

• learning community design by myself

• navigating relational marketing alone

• exhausting myself before finally hiring support

Every time I eventually invested, whether in the community audit, the website work with Stefanie, the marketing work with Branden, the data and systems support with Ariel, or now the accelerator, I had the same thought:

Why didn’t I do this earlier?

It’s always obvious in hindsight.
Rarely in the moment.

The cost we rarely talk about

If you were opening a bar or ceramics studio, investing in tools would be unquestioned.
But in service businesses, we’re taught:

“Just figure it out yourself.”

And when we can’t, or when it feels slow, we think we’re the problem.
But here’s the quiet truth:

Not getting support is also a cost.
You pay it in time.
In stuckness.
In underpricing.
In clients who weren’t the right fit.
In the years spent procrastinating or circling.

Sometimes the right support isn’t about speed.
It’s about direction.
The shift from trying to growing.

A reflection for you

Which path are you on today?

→ earn first, then get support?

→ or get support so you can earn?

There’s no right answer.
Just different outcomes.

And sometimes, the shift begins long before the money arrives.
Often, it begins in the moment you stop trying to do everything alone.

PS: If you don’t want to do everything on your own you can apply to join us.

Behind the scenes at IMMA

This week inside IMMA, we’ve been:

• Noel a web developer launched his new website (yeah). Feels like a theme lately, so many of you are finally letting yourselves be seen. It’s one of my favourite shifts to witness.

• We’ve paused onboarding for the Nurture membership and will open one intentional round on 7 January. If you want more support and structure heading into 2026, this is the moment to apply

Opportunity corner

A few openings we shared in our community this week:

• Researcher Global Report on the Situation of Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs)

• Invitation to tender: Delivery partner - maternal and mental health services - Impact on Urban Health

• Freelance roster for 2026

• Terms of reference for evaluation consultancy

If you want to share where you’re at

If this brought something up for you, a question, a shift, a quiet yes, that’s me, you’re always welcome to reply or to leave a comment.

I love hearing where you are in your journey.

With care,
Lilli

Because there’s no single way to make a living as an independent.
No one-size-fits-all.
Your business model should reflect your strengths, your energy, and where you are right now.
You can always evolve it later.

Below is one of the resources we curate within IMMA Collective designed to save our members hours (if not weeks) of figuring things out.

The overview

1. Projects 🤖

2. Advising & Coaching 💎

3. Freelance / Interim Contract / Fractional Role ⏳

4. Retainer / Monthly Subscription 🔄

5. Training & Workshops 🧑‍🏫

6. Digital Products 🎁

7. Speaking 🎤

8. Media 📺

9. Affiliate Marketing / Referrals 🎫

10. Marketplaces 🤝

1. Projects 🤖

You solve a specific problem for a client through a clearly defined project, for example:

• A sustainability consultant designing a materiality assessment.

• A UX designer rebuilding a client’s onboarding flow.

• A financial analyst creating a forecasting model for an NGO.

Projects have a clear scope, deliverables, and timeline. Pricing can be fixed, hourly, or outcome-based. Sliding-scale or tiered pricing can make your work more accessible while keeping it profitable.

• 👍 Pros: Quick to start; flexible scope; ideal for building your portfolio and testing what you enjoy.

• 👎 Cons: Income depends on availability; hard to predict monthly earnings; limited scalability.

Tip: If you’re just starting out, focus on 2–3 high-value projects. Once you see repeat requests, turn them into toolkits or retainers.

2. Advising & Coaching 💎

You offer tailored guidance to help clients achieve specific goals, like helping a founder clarify their brand narrative or supporting a sustainability lead in shaping an internal strategy.

Sessions can be structured as single deep dives or longer journeys. Many solopreneurs combine advising (strategic direction) with coaching (personal clarity and confidence), allowing for both practical and emotional progress.

• 👍 Pros: Builds deep trust; high perceived value; positions you as a thought partner, not just a service provider.

• 👎 Cons: Hard to scale; income tied to hours; client flow depends on reputation and referrals.

Tip: Define clear outcomes so clients see tangible results, not just sessions. Record frameworks or exercises, they can evolve into workshops or digital products later.

3. Freelance /Contracts / Fractional Role ⏳

You join an organisation part-time or for a fixed term, embedding your expertise in their team. Think: interim comms lead for a startup, fractional sustainability officer for a B Corp, or part-time data specialist.

You get the stability of contracted work without full employment, and you can maintain autonomy by taking on one or two clients at a time.

Billing is typically bi-weekly or monthly, and contracts can last from a few weeks to a year.

• 👍 Pros: Reliable income during the engagement; deep integration with teams; builds experience and credibility.

• 👎 Cons: Potential gaps between contracts; can start to feel like employment if you overcommit your time.

Tip: Clarify boundaries early, especially if working remotely. You’re not “staff,” and setting scope clearly keeps this model sustainable.

4. Retainer/Monthly Subscription 🔄

You provide ongoing support under a fixed monthly fee. This could look like monthly content strategy sessions or ongoing design support.

Retainers work best when you provide measurable, ongoing value. Clear deliverables and check-ins keep expectations balanced.

• 👍 Pros: Predictable income; steady relationships with long-term clients. Space to deliver deeper value.

• 👎 Cons: Can lead to scope creep if not well-defined; you may feel “always on.”

Tip: Frame your offer around access, not hours. For example, “Ongoing advisory and feedback support” sounds lighter and higher-value than “10 hours a month.”

5. Training & Workshops 🧑‍🏫

You share your knowledge through live sessions, either for teams or open groups. Workshops can be one-off sessions (“How to design for circularity”) or multi-part programs (“Building an impact-driven brand”).

Live delivery helps you test what resonates. Once refined, your content can evolve into digital formats.

• Conversion insights for online courses:

  • Low conversions: 0.1% to 1%

  • Medium conversions: 2-5%

  • High conversions: 6-10%

• 👍 Pros: Strong positioning as an expert; great visibility; potential to scale through recordings or courses.

• 👎 Cons: Time-bound; requires energy and performance skills; online versions need marketing to sell consistently.

Tip: Start with a small, practical 90-minute live workshop. Record it, the session can become the foundation for a larger course or a strong marketing asset later on.

6. Digital Products 🎁

Create and sell digital products such as e-books, templates, or online courses. Building a product once and selling it multiple times makes this a scalable model. Validating your idea before investing too much time, for example through waiting lists, presales, or sharing early drafts with your community, can save significant effort and ensure you’re building something people actually want.

If you create something, aim for a higher-ticket product: the effort it takes to sell a €10 resource versus a €150 one is often the same, but your revenue potential grows exponentially.

Memberships and SaaS-style subscriptions are also part of this model. They provide recurring revenue and build community around your work, but they take time to grow and require consistent engagement to keep members active and connected.

Distribution is as important as creation. Use your newsletter, LinkedIn presence, and partnerships to get your product in front of the right people.

• Typical conversion rate:

  • Low conversions: 0.5% to 1%

  • Medium conversions: 2-3%

• 👍 Pros: Scalable and not directly tied to your time; simple to distribute.

• 👎 Cons: Requires upfront work and ongoing marketing to stay visible; not an instant revenue source.

Tip: Think of digital products as an extension of your client work, not a separate business. Start with something you already use: a framework, template, or process. Package it, test it with your community/clients, and refine it before scaling.

7. Speaking 🎤

Earn fees by speaking or moderating at conferences, company events, or online summits. Developing a strong speaker profile, including a professional bio and short reel, helps you secure better-paying engagements.

• Intel from Alex Merry: 84% of engagements pay under £2,500. However, as you build your reputation, you can start charging typical rates of £3-5k and £5-10k—as some organisations don’t consider speakers under £5k.

• 👍 Pros: Builds authority and visibility; often leads to advisory or workshop opportunities; can become highly lucrative.

• 👎 Cons: Takes time to build your profile; finding consistent, well-paid gigs can be competitive.

Tip: Record every talk, even smaller ones. A short highlight reel can open doors to paid opportunities and help position you for higher-value roles later.

Tip: I left my reel clean, without any text or testimonials, so I can adapt and overlay them later depending on who I’m pitching to.

8. Media 📺

Build a following through content platforms like newsletters, podcasts, or YouTube channels and monetize later through sponsorships, ads, or subscriptions. Focusing on a niche market helps attract a dedicated audience, which is attractive to advertisers.

Monetization typically evolves in stages: audience growth first, sponsorships second, and paid subscriptions later. Many consultants use these platforms not just for income, but to build trust and nurture leads for their main services.

Insight: Substack conversion rate from free to paid subscriptions is typically 5–10%.

• 👍 Pros: Builds reach, trust, and authority; potential for passive income once established.

• 👎 Cons: Requires time, consistency, and patience; results compound slowly.

Tip: See your media platform as a visibility engine, not just a revenue stream. It strengthens every other business model you use.

9. Affiliate Marketing / Referrals 🎫

Earn commissions for recommending products, services, or collaborators you genuinely believe in. This model works well if you have a large or highly engaged audience.

Commissions often range from 3–10%. Authenticity is crucial, your audience needs to trust your recommendations.

• 👍 Pros: Low effort once set up; diversifies income; builds partnerships.

• 👎 Cons: Requires an existing, engaged audience; limited control over sales outcomes.

Tip: You can also earn a success fee when you refer another freelancer into a project. This works well if you’re just starting out and want to collaborate. Or if you’re fully booked but still want to create value (and income) through your network.

10. Marketplaces 🤝

You build or curate a platform that connects buyers and sellers. Like a our member Selma has recently launched ClimeChain a decentralized data marketplace for climate adaptation or IMMA which is turning into a curated collective of purpose-driven experts shaping the next era of impact.

Revenue often comes from subscriptions, referral fees, or small percentages of transactions.

• 👍 Pros: High earning potential if scaled; builds community and credibility.

• 👎 Cons: Long validation phase; balancing supply and demand is tricky in the early stages.
  

Tip: Start small. Launch as a curated list, Slack group, or simple landing page before developing a full platform. This helps you test real demand without heavy upfront costs.

Now that you’ve seen the full spectrum, from one-to-one consulting to scalable digital products and platforms, let’s talk about how to choose the right model for where you are right now and how to evolve it as your business grows.

What to consider when choosing a business model

If financial stability is a priority, consider:

✅ Keep it simple
It’s tempting to try multiple business models at once, but focusing on one or two will help you build momentum faster. Don’t spread yourself too thin.

✅ Start with what’s easy to monetize
1:1 advising or bespoke consulting is the fastest. path to revenue. Once you notice recurring patterns in client needs, you can productize your services to scale more efficiently.

✅ Be strategic about pricing
Starting with high-value, bespoke offerings positions you as an expert. Later, when you introduce lower-priced options, they’ll be perceived as a cost-effective alternative rather than a low-value service.

✅ Consider your audience size
Fewer clients = high-touch, low-volume, less visibility needed.
Many clients = lower-priced, scalable, but more reach/marketing required.

✅ B2B vs. B2C: Choose one to focus on first
Businesses (B2B) usually have bigger budgets but longer decision cycles.
Consumers (B2C) decide faster but often require more volume to hit your income goals.
Trying to serve both at once means juggling two different sales and marketing strategies

✅ Niche smartly
You don’t need a niche title, just a clear focus.
If you’re a generalist, try narrowing by:
• Who you help (e.g. startups, nonprofits)
• Where they are in their journey (e.g. launching vs. scaling)
• What you help with (e.g. strategy, concept, execution)

Focusing makes it easier to stand out, attract the right clients, and build momentum, faster.

Final thoughts

Each model offers a path to impact, freedom, and income, but they serve different seasons of your business.
You can mix and evolve them as you grow.
Your business model is more than a way to earn, it’s how you structure your day, energy, creativity, and impact in the world.

Behind the scenes at IMMA Collective

We’re reviewing our website. Again.
Over the past month, we’ve been rethinking our offerings and realised we’re shifting in what our community needs and how we work. So, we’re updating the site (and ourselves) to reflect that. (More on that soon).

Big thanks to Brendan for steering the website redefinition and to Stefanie for helping us make it happen. (This is version twelve, by the way, you can read about the eleven before here.)

This round came after introducing a new offering that changed everything for IMMA. We’re experimenting with a revenue-share model, so we win when our members win. It makes our relationships true partnerships with more shared upside and, yes, a little more skin in the game.

My ongoing question has been: how do we make it irresistible to be part of IMMA?
We’re getting closer.

P.S. If you want to explore IMMA? Join us for the next session.

Thanks for reading,
Lilli

There’s a story we were taught.
That employment is safe.
And working for yourself is a gamble.

No paycheck. No safety net. No one to catch you if things fall apart.
You hear it in small talk. In your parents’ voices. In your own nervous thoughts when things slow down.

And it makes sense. That structure is familiar:
A salary. A title. A calendar that’s not fully yours.
You learn the rules. You follow them. You’re protected. Until you’re not.

Because in the last few years, more and more people are realising:

Safety isn’t given. It’s rented.

And the lease can be pulled at any time.
Layoffs. Budget cuts. Restructurings.
The ground is not as firm as it once seemed.

So I want to ask a different question:

What if safety isn’t found in employment or self-employment?
What if it’s not something you’re given, but something you build?
And what if most of us were never taught how?

The driving metaphor (and why it still holds)

Here’s how I often explain it:
Most of us spend our careers in the passenger seat.
We’re moving. Maybe even fast. But we’re not choosing the route.

Even if we’re senior in our roles (directors, leads, specialists) we’re still inside a system someone else designed.
A job title. A salary band. Someone else’s map.

And when we leave?
We think we’ve taken the steering wheel.
We start consulting, freelancing, contracting. A few projects come in. We’re busy.

But underneath, we’re still using the same logic:

• We take whatever work shows up.

• We let clients steer.

• We avoid business development because it feels awkward or unclear.

That’s not driving.
That’s coasting.

We don’t have a map.
We never took a lesson.
We don’t know how to handle a sharp turn.

When I first started freelancing, I was exactly there.
I had great clients. I was being paid well. I wasn’t burned out.
From the outside, it looked solid.

But I hadn’t built anything that could hold me.
I didn’t know how to grow. Or raise my rates. Or bring in new work when referrals slowed.

If one client disappeared, I had no plan.
If I got sick, I had no backup.
If someone asked what I did, I stumbled.
If I looked six months ahead, I saw fog.

And honestly?
I didn’t want to learn to drive.
I just wanted to keep coasting.
To do good work quietly. To trust that more would come.

But building something safe doesn’t come from coasting.

It comes from learning to drive.
Even when it’s uncomfortable.
Even when it means trading current money for future stability.

Why we don’t learn to drive

Here’s what I’ve seen, over and over:
We’re not taught to think of work as something we can design.

We’re taught to be excellent.
To deliver. To stay useful. To please.
We become experts.
But usually, someone else does the selling.

So when we go out on our own, we still deliver brilliantly.
But we don’t always know how to:

• Translate our work into outcomes decision-makers care about

  Most websites talk about us, not what changes for the client. No clear outcome or transformation, and therefore no clear value.

• Spot opportunities to retain, deepen, or grow

  We finish one project and go find another. Instead of staying in the room and building and expanding our relationship strategically.

• Connect our offer to a clear business case

  We lack a clear articulation of ROI: time saved, money made, risk reduced or growth unlocked, and so what we offer feels like a nice to have and gets delayed.

• Protect time to grow, not just deliver

  We’re fully booked, and busy. Every hour goes to client work, with no space to reflect, follow up, or build a pipeline.

It’s a skills gap.
But more than that, it’s a design gap.

And the longer we avoid designing intentionally,
The longer we stay in no man’s land:

Independent, but not empowered.
Working hard, but not building anything.

Choose your discomfort

Here’s what’s uncomfortable:
Building something safe takes effort.

It means questioning what makes you valuable.
It means saying no. Rewriting old stories.
Investing before you feel ready.

And I get why that can feel like too much.
Many people are already tired. Already stretched.
They want clarity, not complexity.

So they choose the other discomfort:

A sense of instability.
A fragile business model.
Constant anxiety about where the next thing comes from.
Always feeling a little behind, a little exposed.

Most people don’t realise they’re choosing it.
But they are.

Discomfort is inevitable.
The question is: what kind of discomfort will move you somewhere better?

Let’s get specific

❌ What makes self-employment fragile?

• One income stream

  One client. One contract. When it ends, everything wobbles.

If your business stops when you’re fully booked, it’s not a business, it’s a job without benefits.

• No protected time for business development

  You’re too busy delivering to plant new seeds for what comes next.

• A reactive model

  You take whatever comes your way. Your pricing is shaped by what others will pay, not what you need to thrive.

• Fuzzy positioning

  You can’t describe what you do without listing ten things. And it’s not clear why someone would choose you.

• An employee mindset

  You still wait for work. You don’t set terms. You’re waiting to be chosen, not choosing.

✅ What makes it safer?

• Diversified income

  Multiple clients. Different types of offers. Not all eggs in one basket.

• A clear model for how you make money

  You understand how your business creates value and how to explain that to others.

• Time carved out to work on your business

  Even one or two hours a week to reflect, plan, nurture relationships, and follow up.

• Positioning that connects your work to real outcomes

  You lead with outcomes, not process or experience. You make it easy to say “yes.”

• You can get new work when you need to

  You know where clients come from, how to reach them, and how to move them forward.

This is what I mean when I say I now feel safe.
It’s not that I have everything figured out.

It’s that if I needed to earn money quickly, I’d know where to start.
If I needed to pivot, I’d know how to test.
If I wanted to grow my audience or launch something new, I have the skills and the tools.
I know how to drive, not just sit in the car.

It’s not control or certainty.
It’s capability.
And that makes all the difference.

If you’re here, reflecting...

Start small. But start. Here are three aspects I suggest exploring:

1. Look at your income.
Is it coming from one place? What would it look like to add just one more stream?

2. Audit your week.
Are you spending any time on business development or nurturing relationships - or just delivery?

3. Review how you talk about your work.
Is it about you? Or the outcome? Is it clear who it’s for, what it changes and why it matters now?

One last thing

Working for yourself can feel fragile. Especially at the start.
But fragile doesn’t mean broken.
It means you’re still building.

And the good news is: you can learn how to drive.

Not just to get by
But to go where you want to go.
Because safety isn’t a salary.

It’s knowing what to do when things change.
And in a world where change is constant,
That might be the most valuable skill of all.

Want to build this kind of safety?

At IMMA, this is what we work on every week, together.

If you’ve been meaning to get clearer, braver, or better supported in building your business…
Don’t wait another six months to feel more in control.

Apply to join us

Because the cost of waiting isn’t just financial. It’s emotional.
You deserve better than uncertainty on repeat.
And you don’t have to build it alone.

Behind the scenes at IMMA Collective

It’s been a few exciting and busy weeks at IMMA.

• We’ve welcomed Andrea dos Anjos Pinto as a Community Leader. She’s a strategist, facilitator, and community builder with over a decade of experience leading initiatives across Latin America and Europe. With a deep focus on systems change, migration, and belonging. She brings the kind of depth that makes communities not just active, but transformative.

• We’re redesigning everything — our website, our offers, our rhythms — around one clear goal: helping our members consistently get aligned clients so they can increase their income, focus on what they do best, and grow a business that’s built to last.

• Thinking about going independent? Join me and Caroline Harris for a workshop on how to explore that shift without burning bridges or blowing up your life. Reserve your spot →

Thanks for reading.
If something resonated — or raised a question — feel free to hit reply. I’d love to hear what it sparked.

Lilli
Founder of IMMA Collective