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Success Story: Emily Banks

“I finally feel in control of my numbers and income goals and have solid data to base them off instead of imaginary numbers in my head…I’ve been saving an average of $700 a month just from one WAIM exercise.”

WAIM Member Emily Banks

Jason and Caroline’s “ETAC exercise” inside Wandering Aimfully (WAIM) Unlimited was probably the first time I’ve ever looked at all my expenses as a whole and it revealed to me that I was spending way more than I thought I was. It made me realize that I can’t trust the imaginary number in my head. Seeing it laid out like that allowed me to make a few small changes and use my money in a more intentional way. I’ve been saving an average of $700 a month just from that one exercise. About 20% of that came from cutting out unnecessary business expenses and another 30% came from getting real honest about my random emotional buying habits.

One of the biggest messages I’ve taken from being a part of WAIM Unlimited is that taking action will always beat doing nothing.

Even if the result of that action isn’t great, at least you did everything you could and you won’t be left wondering what could have been. A couple of months ago I hit an unexpected slower client season. In the past, my default response to that would have been to worry about it daily and hope that a new client would materialise, which is totally not smart or productive.

Instead, I asked for help from the Wandering Aimfully community.

I’ve never felt comfortable speaking up or asking for help in groups, because who wants to announce to a few hundred strangers that you’ve got no clients and don’t know what to do about it?

Wandering Aimfully is probably the first place I’ve really felt I could be totally open and honest with both my wins and my failures.

The community feels more like a team than a ‘group’, and everyone in there will cheer you on when things go well and help pick you up when they’re not.

Right away I got a ton of suggestions. We brainstormed a few ways I could reach out to different people to drum up some work. Jason gave me an example of an email I could send. It was a huge step out of my comfort zone, but with everyone backing me, I started working through the list.

Within a couple of weeks, I’d signed a lead I thought had ghosted me up to a retainer, arranged to do more work for a couple of past clients, and made valuable connections with some future clients—some of whom were actually fellow WAIMers that saw my question reached out.

It was enough to get me through the month, and I know some of those connections I made will continue to pay off months from now. If I didn’t put that ask out there I likely would have continued to have zero clients and zero connections and ALL the stress. And without WAIM I don’t think I would have been brave enough to ask.

Now the Build Without Burnout program inside WAIM Unlimited is helping me move to digital products.

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with client work. There are some clients and projects I feel so passionate about, and then there are others that I dread. Part of my plan was always to have some digital products that could take over the income of those client jobs that I didn’t love, but then I got stuck in a place where I couldn’t work on the products because I couldn’t financially afford to say no to those clients. So when Build Without Burnout was announced it felt like the perfect way to finally make that change.

I was super hopeful, but I was also a little hesitant to completely trust that BWB would change things. In the past I’ve been a serial buyer of courses that I thought would change the game for me, but they were always so expansive and overwhelming and I’d try for a few weeks and then fall off the wagon.

When it was announced that BWB would be a six-month program my gut reaction was kind of like, Oh my god, I’m never going to be able to stick with something for six months???? I can’t wait that long, I need this to work NOW???? But given that shorter or self-paced programs hadn’t worked for me in the past (and that Jason & Carol have my full trust), I made a commitment to do my best to follow along and trust the process.

This program has surprised me in so many ways. The content so far was nothing like what I imagined it would be, but it’s definitely what I needed it to be.

I finally feel in control of my numbers and income goals and have solid data to base them off instead of imaginary numbers in my head.

I’ve built up a really specific audience profile that I’m excited about serving and have a solid plan to make a product I’ve been playing with for years become a reality. I’ve learned how to create and publish content on a regular basis for my audience after not being able to publish a post or send an email with any kind of consistency for over two years. And whenever I’ve felt stuck, the WAIM community have jumped in to help.

Most of all, I feel like BWB is training me how to show up every week and take action. The lessons started out small and manageable and grew by such a tiny increment each week that I almost haven’t noticed that I’m now doing a lot more work than I thought was possible for me. I’ve always struggled with motivation – mostly wondering why I never seemed to have it, but the structure of this program has given me enough small wins to start cultivating that motivation from within. I’m so excited and determined to start working on my product knowing that I’ve got a much stronger foundation than I ever had before.

 


Read more case studies:

WAIM Member Rachel Shillcock

WAIM Member Brendan Hufford

WAIM Member Michelle Rohr