Three years ago, I planted a seed.
Not in a pot (I’d kill it in days), but in my pipeline.
It was a lead so small and so unlikely that if I’d still been in corporate, I’d have written it off as “not worth my time.” That’s the thing about getting your first consulting client — the path rarely looks obvious at the start.
That seed gave some tiny fruits within a year — nice, but nothing to rave about.
Fast-forward to August 2025, and I’m about to hit my highest August ever since launching my business.
August is usually a very shite month.
This only happened because of the pipeline work I started years ago — back when results felt far away and the odds were uncertain.
Here’s what’s even more important: while I’m harvesting those results now, I’m also planting the seeds I’ll need to see results six or nine months from today.
If you’ve been following since Newsletter 20 (“I Don’t Manifest”), you’ll remember I shared how I stopped outsourcing outcomes to the universe and started acting like the engine of my own business.
One of the hardest shifts from employee to entrepreneur? Harvest and planting season must coexist at all times. You must keep planting even when it looks like shit is going to hit the fan.
You don’t just trust the process — you keep pitching even when the probability of winning is low. That’s how you get the reps, learn, and make your own luck.
Quote of the Week
“Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot, but make it hot by striking.”
W.B. Yeats
You Are the Engine
Leaving corporate is like stepping out of a well-lit office into a foggy car park. You can drive — you just can’t see 50 meters ahead.
What I wish someone had told me in 2017? Your pipeline is a time machine.
The conversations you start now will pay you later — often 6–12 months later. In mid-market and enterprise deals, nine months is a pretty standard sales cycle. That means today’s follow-up might not show up in your bank account until next spring.
That’s why, as an entrepreneur, you can’t just “do sales when you need sales.” You always need sales. And that means you’re always pitching — even on those days when you’d rather hide behind “research” or “tweaking your offer” for the fifteenth time. You have to keep meeting people even when you feel you have a face for radio.
From Employee to Entrepreneur: Why Pitching Feels So Awkward
If you’ve spent your career in roles that weren’t sales, the only time you pitched yourself was for a job. And let’s be honest — that might have felt as natural to you as going to the dentist or getting a colonic. You get the picture.
When you package your corporate skills into a coaching offer or consulting service, the game changes. Now you have to pitch every week. Sometimes every day.
At first it feels like wearing someone else’s shoes. You trip over your words. You over-explain. You can’t tell if they’re interested or just being polite.
This is normal.
Pitching is a skill — and like any skill, you only get better with practice. You learn by doing it badly at first, and by doing it often.
Instead of aiming for a 100% close rate, the goal in those early days is building muscle memory:
- You hear yourself say your offer enough times that it stops sounding weird in your own ears.
- You notice which phrases light people up, and which ones land like a brick.
- Your tone shifts from “I hope they like me” to “Here’s how I can help you.”
Make Your Own Luck
People talk about “being in the right place at the right time” like it’s magic. The reality? The more places you put yourself, the more times you put yourself forward, the more you become the right place at the right time.
It’s exposure math. If you pitch once a month, you have twelve chances a year. If you pitch three times a week, you have over 150.
That’s why I pitch even when the odds look low:
- Sometimes the long shot surprises you.
- More often, you gain a rep that makes the next pitch sharper.
- And every single time, you increase the number of people who know what you do and who might refer you later.
The Pipeline Faith Problem
The hard part is you won’t see results from most of today’s effort until months later. That means you need unwavering faith in the process and a way to measure progress in the meantime.
I track leading indicators (things I can control) instead of obsessing over lagging indicators (like revenue, which lags behind outreach by months):
- Number of new warm intros booked
- First-to-second meeting conversion rate
- Proposals sent
- Number of follow-ups completed this week
These metrics tell me if the engine is running — even if the “revenue” dashboard light hasn’t turned on yet.
Why Low-Probability Pitches Are Worth It
When you’re new to pitching, the temptation is to “save yourself” for the perfect opportunity. But you won’t have a perfect pitch ready unless you’ve practiced in imperfect situations.
Early, low-probability pitches give you:
- Reps without pressure. If you know the odds are slim, you can focus on delivery and structure without obsessing over the outcome.
- Real feedback. You see where your audience leans in and where their eyes glaze over.
- Resilience. Rejection stings less when you see it as part of training, not a verdict on your business.
The arena is where you learn. And you can’t become fluent in your offer by thinking about it in your office — you have to test it in the wild.
Process Over Outcome
This isn’t just motivational fluff — the research backs it up:
- Students who visualised studying for an exam did better than those who visualised getting an A. The process focus led to better performance.
- “Mental contrasting” — imagining your goal and the obstacles, then planning for them — boosts follow-through far more than positive thinking alone.
Entrepreneurship rewards the same mindset. The win comes later. The work is now.
Why This Matters for Getting Your First Consulting Client
If you’re still trying to land your first client, here’s the truth: you can’t wait for the “perfect” lead.
Your first offer doesn’t have to be perfect either — but it does have to be pitched. Out loud. In real conversations. Many times.
That first offer is where you learn:
- How to explain what you do without losing people halfway through.
- Which parts of your solution make eyes light up.
- Where you lose them, so you can fix it before the next pitch.
Even if your earliest pitches don’t close, they’re still doing the heavy lifting of building your skills and your reputation.
The clients you sign six months from now? They’ll come partly from the offers you put out there today.
So if you want a booked calendar by next quarter, your job this week is to pitch pitch pitch. Treat every conversation as a rep. Every rep as a deposit in your future revenue.
Weekly Action Plan — Pitch Muscle Edition
- Book your call with me this week so we can script, sharpen, and deliver your best pitch yet
- Identify 3 “low probability” opportunities and pitch them anyway
- Track which words or offers get the most engaged responses
- Schedule one “pipeline tending” hour this week — follow up, reconnect, replant
- Log every pitch you make (no matter how small) — and review at month-end to see your volume
Make sure you pitch this week. As for me, another coffee…
Claudia