Case Study: Turning Corporate Experience into a Thriving Business
Meet Keziah!
She is a mom of three living in Denver, Colorado who leapt into entrepreneurship last year following a successful, 14-year career in management consulting.
Keziah launched Vannin Consulting to provide Chief of Staff services to founders and CEOs, giving them the leverage they need to focus on what they do best: talking to clients and driving growth.
“I've always loved to organize and my favorite part about my business is that I get to come in and organize the back end of someone's business while they get to go out and do what they love.”
While Keziah has a pretty incredible resume - serving as Chief of Staff for a $1 BILLION business and working across the world with ten different Fortune 500 companies - there were clear turning points that launched her into becoming an entrepreneur:
(1) Keziah felt strongly that she wasn’t making the impact she knew was possible while working in such a huge company, serving other huge companies.
(2) One of her children experienced a scary health issue. Coming out of it, she knew that her priorities had shifted, and she wanted to create a more flexible work schedule to spend more time with her family and kids.
She knew the time to venture out on her own had come, but learning how to launch her own company was a whole new challenge.
So she enlisted the help of REL Impact with Rachel to navigate the waters of entrepreneurship.
Highlights
Challenges:
Clarify the business model and brand
Let people know about her new business
Learn how to build and run a business
Solutions:
Accountability & a sounding board
Clear offerings, cohesive brand and beautiful website
Establish systems and build a model for scaling
Results:
30x her revenue
Expanded her team
Feels and acts like a CEO
Recognized as an industry leader
Challenges
Clarify the business model and brand
Keziah launched her business in “stealth mode” and initially started by offering a dozen different services to her clients. She knew this wasn’t a sustainable and profitable business model and that to grow meant establishing clear foundations from the beginning.
Let people know about her business
Keziah initially started her business by working as a Chief of Staff for a colleague. She knew that for her business to grow, she’d need to expand beyond her personal network and market her business to a wider audience. Her goal was to grow her presence on LinkedIn, create a clear plan to get the most out of the platform and connect with potential clients.
Learn how to build and run a business
As Keziah was leaving a 14-year career in corporate America, she knew she wanted someone to help her learn how to make the leap from big box to small business.
Solutions
Keziah says, “I really enjoyed and got a lot of value from the 1:1 coaching. You showed me what it looks like from an entrepreneurial perspective and what I needed to get started. It gave me the context to work within.”
Accountability & a sounding board
Keziah knows her lane of expertise and really wanted a sounding board to help distill her thoughts and ideas. Providing weekly accountability and small business guidance gave her the space to do this.
Clear offerings, cohesive brand and beautiful website
We worked through a brand exploration and design process, determined Vannin’s target audience and solidified the services the company would offer - opening up the doors to clear marketing messages and huge first-year results.
What makes Keziah and her business different is her experience as a chief of staff for a $1B business - and having worked across the world with over 10 different fortune 500 companies - so we wanted to be sure to highlight this in an organized way when she launched her brand presence publicly. This meant homing in on what sets Vannin apart, pricing her offerings for profitability, and creating a brand that represented her expertise and leadership in the industry.
Establish systems and build a model for scaling
The systems that Keziah was used to in a corporate setting were quite different from those needed by a new entrepreneur. And while systems is a Chief of Staff’s zone of genius, Keziah was looking to tap into more simple software that would meet the needs of her small business clients.
She also recognized early on that she would quickly max out on the number of clients she could serve on her own, so we created a long-term vision for growth, a model for building the team, and systems that would enable scaling sooner rather than later - including systems around scheduling, onboarding, contracts and other essential areas of her business.
Results
In just 3 months of working together, Keziah experienced HUGE results!
30x her revenue
Since January, Keziah’s revenue has increased by more than 30 times what she was bringing in before - putting her revenue at multiple 5-figure months! We attribute her fast growth to a clear offer and brand, including a revamped website and active LinkedIn profile.
Expanded her team, Feels and acts like a CEO
The work we did around building belief and confidence - as well as the brand, business model and systems - allowed Keziah to go from being a solopreneur to becoming a CEO running a team of 4… and she’s on track to continue hiring more team members each month for the foreseeable future.
Recognized as an industry leader
Keziah has quickly become known as THE Chief of Staff for small- to mid-size businesses in the startup and tech worlds internationally. She was even accepted into the Oxford Chief of Staff Certification Program, a prestigious program out of England, which is close to the island home where Vannin got its name. Things have truly come full circle for this impressive entrepreneur!
Are you next?
To learn more about Keziah and her Chief of Staff services and training program, visit her website or connect with her on LinkedIn.
To learn more about getting these kinds of results in your business, schedule a call to speak with Rachel.