Business Model Redesign & Growth Strategy | Case Study
£5,000 grant secured and a consultancy repositioned for more sustainable income
I helped a London-based leadership and education consultant secure £5,000 in grant funding, reduce reliance on intensive full-time contracts, and build a clearer, more commercially sustainable business model designed to support long-term income with greater flexibility.
CLIENT
Leadership & Education Consultant, London
PROJECT SCOPE
Business planning, repositioning, marketing, CRM and project delivery
ENGAGEMENT
Ongoing support over 8–9 months, 2–3 days per month
PROJECT OVERVIEW
My client came to me with a clear five-year goal: to retire while maintaining their current income and significantly reducing their working hours.
To make that possible, they needed a more commercially viable business model and a robust business plan to support an application for a £5,000 marketing grant. The funding would be used to strengthen their online presence, refresh their website, and invest in targeted marketing activity designed to improve visibility and attract better-quality opportunities.
They were referred to me after seeing the impact of my work with one of their coaching clients (a start-up I had supported through launch) and wanted the same commercial focus, structure, and strategic direction applied to their own business.
At the point of engagement, the client was struggling to clearly articulate their value and communicate the strength of their high-ticket services. Their existing delivery model depended too heavily on full-time contracts, which conflicted directly with the more flexible, part-time way of working they wanted as they moved towards retirement.
THE CHALLENGE
The core challenge was both strategic and practical: the client needed to diversify revenue, reposition their services, and build a business model that was less dependent on intensive turnaround contracts in the education sector.
These contracts typically required three to nine months of full-time delivery, leaving little space for the 1:1 and group leadership coaching work they wanted to prioritise. Their goal was to move towards a model that allowed them to work two to four days per week, travel more, and balance the business alongside caring responsibilities for a family member in poor health.
Without a clear repositioning strategy and commercially grounded plan, the client risked remaining locked into a workload that offered neither the flexibility nor personal freedom they were working towards.
OBJECTIVES
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Develop a robust business plan to strengthen the client’s application for £5,000 grant funding.
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Improve online presence through a website refresh, the introduction of a blog, and more consistent social media activity.
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Build and segment a mailing list to support regular communications and a quarterly newsletter.
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Introduce a CRM system to replace spreadsheet-based lead tracking and provide better visibility of leads, pipeline activity, and lapsed customers.
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Review and refine the service offering, clarify the target audience, and strengthen messaging to support future sales and marketing activity.
MY APPROACH
I began by reviewing the grant funding criteria and developing a comprehensive, commercially focused business plan to support a successful application for the £5,000 marketing grant.
I then carried out a full audit of the client’s service offering, website, social media presence, and lead-generation activity. This included analysis of their customer base, lapsed customers, lost proposals, and pricing structure to identify gaps, opportunities, and areas for commercial improvement.
To strengthen their market position, I conducted a competitor review and SWOT analysis, introduced clear revenue and sales targets for the next three years, and created milestones the client could use to track progress and refine their strategy over time.
I also sourced and managed a team of freelance specialists (covering website design, copywriting, and graphic design) and coordinated delivery through Trello so the client could stay focused on their own client work. Alongside this, I introduced a budget-tracking system and met with the client weekly or fortnightly to review progress, align priorities, and measure success.
WHAT I DELIVERED
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A comprehensive business plan that secured the £5,000 grant.
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A clear sales and marketing plan to support growth, visibility, and lead generation.
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A practical roadmap for more stable, sustainable income while reducing working hours.
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A redesigned website, including a blog, alongside refreshed social media profiles and renewed marketing activity.
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A clearer target audience, stronger messaging, and simple outreach actions the founder could implement immediately.
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A free CRM system to manage leads, track the sales pipeline, and improve visibility across current and lapsed opportunities.
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Project management of the specialist freelance support, with all work delivered within budget and with funds remaining.
RESULTS
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£5,000 grant secured, enabling investment in marketing, website improvements, and lead-generation activity that had previously been out of reach.
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Stronger commercial foundations, with clearer positioning, improved visibility, and more consistent revenue-generation activity.
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Reduced dependency on high-intensity contracts, allowing the founder to focus more of their time on the higher-value services they most wanted to deliver.
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Improved work-life balance, creating more capacity for family care and enabling the client to take at least two holidays each year - a key personal goal from the outset.
CLIENT FEEDBACK
The client has since recommended my work to others and invited me to collaborate on several of their education projects. We continue to stay in touch, reflecting the strength of the relationship built during the engagement.
TOOLS, METHODS & EXPERTISE USED
Sales strategy • Commercial planning • Project management • Competitor analysis • Squarespace • Social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram) • Trello • Zoho CRM • Excel • Zoom
This project enabled the client to work fewer hours, focus on the higher‑value services she enjoyed most, and create the personal freedom she had been striving for, including caring for her family and taking regular holidays each year.
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