April 13, 2025 • 13 mins
If you’ve ever thought, “I should be further along by now”—this one’s for you. In this episode, we bust the myth that you’re behind and explore the powerful shift that happens when you decide you’re ready. It’s not about perfection. It’s about momentum. Charlotte shares why feeling “stuck” is often just the final stage before a breakthrough—and how to act on it.
In this episode, we cover:
•Why the percolation phase (yep, like coffee) is crucial to your growth
•The real reason smart creatives delay sales and lead generation
•The mindset shift from “I’m not ready” to “I choose to move”
•What happens when you stop waiting and take imperfect action
•A sneak peek into LinkedIn Lead Liftoff—your done-for-you system to attract clients
✨ Feeling like this might be your moment? It is.
Check out kaffeen.co/llo and get your system in place before the 10th of May 2025.
P.S. Whenever you’re ready, here are four ways I can help you attract more high-value clients—without the hustle:
📚 Start with my free book
Join 3,000+ service providers and agency owners who’ve downloaded Client Magnet: 97 Proven Strategies and Tactics to Attract New Business and Scale Your Creative Agency Revenue.
(It’s written for agencies, but packed with advice any service provider can use.)
👉 Grab it free: https://kaffeen.co/book
🚀 Build your lead system with LinkedIn Lead Liftoff
A done-for-you lead generation system that brings in high-quality leads from LinkedIn—no content, cold calls, or awkward DMs required.
We’ll build it, set it up, and show you how to run it in under 30 minutes a day.
👉 Learn more: https://kaffeen.co/llo
🎧 Tune into the podcast
Get honest advice, expert interviews, and actionable tips to grow your service business with more clarity and less noise.
👉 Follow here: https://open.spotify.com/show/7upjztW0B3hQi2YlHTVdNn
💬 Work with me 1:1
I work with a handful of clients each quarter to increase visibility, build authority, and land consistent £30k+ opportunities—with a system that runs on autopilot.
👉 Book a consult: ...
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hello.
Hello.
Welcome to the Kaffeen EspressoPodcast.
Today we're gonna be talkingabout something that hits deep
for a lots of creative businessowners.
That quiet little voice thatsays you should be further along
by now.
If you've ever felt likeeveryone else is ahead of you
when it comes to lead generationfinding clients, visibility,
marketing, sales systems, thisepisode is your reminder that
(00:24):
you are not behind.
You're just ready now.
And that's really powerful.
Okay, let's get straight to it.
So if you're listening to thisand feeling a bit behind, maybe
you've been watching others poston LinkedIn or running webinars
or talking about their fullybooked pipeline and thinking,
God, I should be doing that too.
Or, why have I not gone aroundto this?
(00:46):
What's wrong with me?
I'm disappointing or substandardbusiness owner.
Then first of all, take a breathbecause.
What I want to say to you todayis really simple.
You're not late, you're notbehind.
You're just ready now, and thatreadiness, that is your
superpower, I think.
Over the past few years, I'verealized just how much time it
(01:08):
takes me to percolateinformation and arrive at a
course of action.
Sometimes sometimes the decisionis instinctive and I know
exactly what to do, and I'm verymuch a kind of like gut moving
person.
But gosh, that sounded prettydisgusting.
Like a good decision person.
But there are other times when Ireally think about this the kind
of.
(01:29):
Coffee filter where you used touse those paper cones, like a V
60 filter.
People still use them, and.
You have to be really patient.
It takes time for the water tomove through the coffee grinds
and to go into the cup below Thepercolation process is basically
what I'm focusing on here, and Ihadn't realized we're rather
(01:51):
appreciated until relativelyrecently, just how much.
Information I am gathering on aparticular topic at any given
moment, and it's percolating.
It's working in my subconscious,of course it is.
I'm a human.
And then I arrive at a solutionlike it's come outta the blue,
like a thunderbolt, and I'mshocked by it and think, why
(02:11):
didn't I get there sooner?
I think I'm learning toappreciate that the percolation
process is the point, and itdoes take time to arrive at a
good solution often, if you arelistening to this, that's what I
mean by you're ready.
Now, if you are feelingfrustrated about this, if you're
feeling like you want to takeaction, then that's a sign that
you've reached the end of thepercolation process and you are
ready to move forward.
(02:32):
Okay?
Enough percolation analogy.
I.
There's already too much Kaffeenand coffee around this place.
So here's the thing I see allthe time with clients.
They think they've been doingnothing, but actually they've
been watching, observing,learning, gathering
intelligence, feeling out whatdoesn't work for them.
Kind of doing the reccon, partof the reconnaissance part of
(02:53):
the of the mission.
And that is, is that's thepercolation that I'm talking
about.
That is those coffee, that's thecoffee filter process.
You that phrase, that phasedoesn't look productive from the
outside.
But it's absolutely essential.
And like I said, I think it's asad thing that I've only
relatively recently understoodjust how that phase is so
(03:14):
essential to my decision makingprocess and, taking the right
course of action within my ownbusiness.
Because once you decide, okay,now I wanna get serious about
this, about whether it's aboutsales, about finding clients,
about being in control of yourgrowth, then that's when
everything changes.
So now I wanna talk a bit aboutwhy finding clients.
(03:38):
Whatever you call it, leadgeneration, sales, marketing,
outbound, inbound.
Why that gets pushed to thebottom of the list, and here's
why.
I think so many people,especially smart, skilled,
emotionally intelligent,creative, biased people put off
finding clients.
The reason is it's vulnerable.
It requires you to say, I wantmore clients.
(03:59):
I want something.
I need something.
And that opens the door torejection.
Self-doubt and all thosedelicious mindset gremlins that
say, what if no one responds?
What if I look desperate?
What if I'm bothering people?
So we push it down the to-dolist or we start like with real
gusto and then we stop when werun outta puff.
(04:20):
Or we tell ourselves we're justnot ready yet.
And that's the easy way out,right?
That's easy to say.
Oh, no, we're still in thatpercolation process and we kid
ourselves.
And we don't take action.
And then of course, very littlehappens as a result.
So I wanna float a differentidea.
Readiness isn't a feeling, it'sa decision.
And look, I get it.
(04:42):
I've done the same and I stilldo sometimes.
But what I've realized and whatI want you to take from this
episode is that being readyisn't about having everything
perfect.
It's about deciding to moveanyway, imperfect action.
Most people wait until theirsales pipeline or their client
base or revenue is completelydry.
(05:03):
Maybe they've lost a bigretained client or they're in
full blown panic mode when theytake action.
And by then the pressure'sreally on and everything feels
harder because there are otherfactors at play, like keeping on
your staff or contractors or.
Your coworking space or thelights on, whatever it is, it's,
(05:24):
there's a lot more pressure andthat makes it harder to take
action.
But if you're listening to thisnow and you're not in crisis
yet, this is your window.
This is your signal, becauseproactive beats reactive every
time.
Now I wanna get into why now isthe right time for you to take
action?
So let me tell you what happenswhen someone comes to me and
(05:45):
says, I've got great clients,but I'm nervous about where the
next ones are gonna be comingfrom.
I.
That person isn't behind,they're ready.
And when we get them set up witha lead system that runs in the
background that doesn't requiredaily posting or ads or hours of
their time, they feel somethingthey haven't felt in a while
calm, because now they're notjust hoping that referrals come
(06:09):
in or panicking when they don't.
They've done something to takecontrol.
They've done, they've takenaction.
They've shifted from passive toproactive, and the ripple effect
is huge.
More confidence, betterconversations, more strategic
clients, less stress.
Even if you're not seeing theimmediate impacts of clients
(06:29):
coming in the very, very shortterm, you know you are doing
something and that is.
It frees you up to do, to takeother action, to do the current
work.
It's like having an extra set ofhands within your business.
I frequently work with peoplewho say we should started this
six months ago or a year ago.
(06:52):
Somebody who said this to me awhile back was oh, hang on a
second.
I'm gonna have to find thequote.
So my client, Emma Sexton, whois the founder at Inside Out
said, before working withKaffeen, I had no idea or plan
and I wasted lots of moneytrying to work out what was best
for my agency, our current size,and future growth plans.
(07:12):
I really wish I'd met Charlotte12 months ago as I knew.
I wanted to get a smarterapproach to my agency marketing,
but I just couldn't work it outby myself.
We now have a clarity and asuper smart approach.
We have really strongfoundations in place, which are
not costing me lots of money,time, and effort to maintain.
And what I love most is the useof smart automation.
(07:33):
You really made it simple tounderstand and get in place and.
What Emma said there is notunusual.
I'm frequently told I reallywish I hadn't hesitated.
I wish I'd set this up a whileago.
It would've saved me worry, thewaste of time worrying and
thinking about this.
It would've freed me up to doother things.
It would've put my mind at rest.
(07:55):
It would've given me theknowledge, even if we were
really in a sound place that wedon't.
We have something ticking awayin the background that is
increasing our visibility isincreasing our connections out
to people, startingconversations with people.
There's a Chinese proverb that Imention quite a bit.
(08:16):
I'm just trying to find it nowbefore I misquote it really
badly.
Here we go.
The best time to plant a treewas 20 years ago.
The second best time is now.
And what I want to take or youto take from that is.
As soon as you start something,you are always gonna feel a bit
daft and feel like you shouldhave done this ages ago.
And I feel like that frequentlywithin my business oh my
(08:37):
goodness, I put this thing off.
It was actually really simple.
It was actually not that big adeal.
Maybe not costly, time consumingor anything else.
And now it's just happening inthe background without me
thinking about it and it'sworking on my behalf.
Don't feel silly if you you willfeel silly if you haven't
(08:58):
already set something.
I'll retake that.
So it's likely you're gonna feela bit daft, like I frequently
do.
If you set something up and yousee it working for you and you
wish you'd done it sooner.
But what you should be doing iscongratulating yourself that you
actually took action at thepoint you were at.
So again, imperfect action.
(09:21):
So what does this have to dowith you?
So if you're still listening andsomething in your gut is going,
Ugh, this is me, then here isyour moment.
You don't need a massive plan.
You don't need a full rebound.
You don't need to be ready toscale to seven figures.
You just need to decide, I'mready now.
And once you make that decision,you can get help.
So this month or over the courseof the next 30 days, we're
(09:42):
offering something calledLinkedIn Lead Liftoff at a
introductory price.
It's a done for you system thatgets your lead generation up and
running in just three hours.
No contact required, no callcalls, no weird pitchy dms.
You just show up for a call andwe build your client attraction
system fully set up and ready togo.
(10:03):
It's normally 1400 pounds, butright now it's available at the
launch price of just 900 poundsuntil the 10th of May, 2025.
So if you're listening to thisbefore the 10th of May, 2025,
and you've been putting thisoff, telling yourself, I'll sort
it out later, I want to lovinglysuggest that maybe later is
actually now.
(10:24):
You can find out all theinformation Kaffeen.co/llo
That's Kaffeen.co/llo and youcan find that link in the show
notes as well.
So that's it for today.
Just wanna remind you're notbehind, you're ready right now.
And Ready is a bloody brilliantplace to be.
(10:46):
Thank you for listening.
I'll catch you next week.
Hello.
Hello.
Welcome to the Kaffeen EspressoPodcast.
Today we're gonna be talkingabout something that hits deep
for a lots of creative businessowners.
That quiet little voice thatsays you should be further along
by now.
If you've ever felt likeeveryone else is ahead of you
when it comes to lead generationfinding clients, visibility,
marketing, sales systems, thisepisode is your reminder that
(00:24):
you are not behind.
You're just ready now.
And that's really powerful.
Okay, let's get straight to it.
So if you're listening to thisand feeling a bit behind, maybe
you've been watching others poston LinkedIn or running webinars
or talking about their fullybooked pipeline and thinking,
God, I should be doing that too.
Or, why have I not gone aroundto this?
(00:46):
What's wrong with me?
I'm disappointing or substandardbusiness owner.
Then first of all, take a breathbecause.
What I want to say to you todayis really simple.
You're not late, you're notbehind.
You're just ready now, and thatreadiness, that is your
superpower, I think.
Over the past few years, I'verealized just how much time it
(01:08):
takes me to percolateinformation and arrive at a
course of action.
Sometimes sometimes the decisionis instinctive and I know
exactly what to do, and I'm verymuch a kind of like gut moving
person.
But gosh, that sounded prettydisgusting.
Like a good decision person.
But there are other times when Ireally think about this the kind
of.
(01:29):
Coffee filter where you used touse those paper cones, like a V
60 filter.
People still use them, and.
You have to be really patient.
It takes time for the water tomove through the coffee grinds
and to go into the cup below Thepercolation process is basically
what I'm focusing on here, and Ihadn't realized we're rather
(01:51):
appreciated until relativelyrecently, just how much.
Information I am gathering on aparticular topic at any given
moment, and it's percolating.
It's working in my subconscious,of course it is.
I'm a human.
And then I arrive at a solutionlike it's come outta the blue,
like a thunderbolt, and I'mshocked by it and think, why
(02:11):
didn't I get there sooner?
I think I'm learning toappreciate that the percolation
process is the point, and itdoes take time to arrive at a
good solution often, if you arelistening to this, that's what I
mean by you're ready.
Now, if you are feelingfrustrated about this, if you're
feeling like you want to takeaction, then that's a sign that
you've reached the end of thepercolation process and you are
ready to move forward.
(02:32):
Okay?
Enough percolation analogy.
I.
There's already too much Kaffeenand coffee around this place.
So here's the thing I see allthe time with clients.
They think they've been doingnothing, but actually they've
been watching, observing,learning, gathering
intelligence, feeling out whatdoesn't work for them.
Kind of doing the reccon, partof the reconnaissance part of
(02:53):
the of the mission.
And that is, is that's thepercolation that I'm talking
about.
That is those coffee, that's thecoffee filter process.
You that phrase, that phasedoesn't look productive from the
outside.
But it's absolutely essential.
And like I said, I think it's asad thing that I've only
relatively recently understoodjust how that phase is so
(03:14):
essential to my decision makingprocess and, taking the right
course of action within my ownbusiness.
Because once you decide, okay,now I wanna get serious about
this, about whether it's aboutsales, about finding clients,
about being in control of yourgrowth, then that's when
everything changes.
So now I wanna talk a bit aboutwhy finding clients.
(03:38):
Whatever you call it, leadgeneration, sales, marketing,
outbound, inbound.
Why that gets pushed to thebottom of the list, and here's
why.
I think so many people,especially smart, skilled,
emotionally intelligent,creative, biased people put off
finding clients.
The reason is it's vulnerable.
It requires you to say, I wantmore clients.
(03:59):
I want something.
I need something.
And that opens the door torejection.
Self-doubt and all thosedelicious mindset gremlins that
say, what if no one responds?
What if I look desperate?
What if I'm bothering people?
So we push it down the to-dolist or we start like with real
gusto and then we stop when werun outta puff.
(04:20):
Or we tell ourselves we're justnot ready yet.
And that's the easy way out,right?
That's easy to say.
Oh, no, we're still in thatpercolation process and we kid
ourselves.
And we don't take action.
And then of course, very littlehappens as a result.
So I wanna float a differentidea.
Readiness isn't a feeling, it'sa decision.
And look, I get it.
(04:42):
I've done the same and I stilldo sometimes.
But what I've realized and whatI want you to take from this
episode is that being readyisn't about having everything
perfect.
It's about deciding to moveanyway, imperfect action.
Most people wait until theirsales pipeline or their client
base or revenue is completelydry.
(05:03):
Maybe they've lost a bigretained client or they're in
full blown panic mode when theytake action.
And by then the pressure'sreally on and everything feels
harder because there are otherfactors at play, like keeping on
your staff or contractors or.
Your coworking space or thelights on, whatever it is, it's,
(05:24):
there's a lot more pressure andthat makes it harder to take
action.
But if you're listening to thisnow and you're not in crisis
yet, this is your window.
This is your signal, becauseproactive beats reactive every
time.
Now I wanna get into why now isthe right time for you to take
action?
So let me tell you what happenswhen someone comes to me and
(05:45):
says, I've got great clients,but I'm nervous about where the
next ones are gonna be comingfrom.
I.
That person isn't behind,they're ready.
And when we get them set up witha lead system that runs in the
background that doesn't requiredaily posting or ads or hours of
their time, they feel somethingthey haven't felt in a while
calm, because now they're notjust hoping that referrals come
(06:09):
in or panicking when they don't.
They've done something to takecontrol.
They've done, they've takenaction.
They've shifted from passive toproactive, and the ripple effect
is huge.
More confidence, betterconversations, more strategic
clients, less stress.
Even if you're not seeing theimmediate impacts of clients
(06:29):
coming in the very, very shortterm, you know you are doing
something and that is.
It frees you up to do, to takeother action, to do the current
work.
It's like having an extra set ofhands within your business.
I frequently work with peoplewho say we should started this
six months ago or a year ago.
(06:52):
Somebody who said this to me awhile back was oh, hang on a
second.
I'm gonna have to find thequote.
So my client, Emma Sexton, whois the founder at Inside Out
said, before working withKaffeen, I had no idea or plan
and I wasted lots of moneytrying to work out what was best
for my agency, our current size,and future growth plans.
(07:12):
I really wish I'd met Charlotte12 months ago as I knew.
I wanted to get a smarterapproach to my agency marketing,
but I just couldn't work it outby myself.
We now have a clarity and asuper smart approach.
We have really strongfoundations in place, which are
not costing me lots of money,time, and effort to maintain.
And what I love most is the useof smart automation.
(07:33):
You really made it simple tounderstand and get in place and.
What Emma said there is notunusual.
I'm frequently told I reallywish I hadn't hesitated.
I wish I'd set this up a whileago.
It would've saved me worry, thewaste of time worrying and
thinking about this.
It would've freed me up to doother things.
It would've put my mind at rest.
(07:55):
It would've given me theknowledge, even if we were
really in a sound place that wedon't.
We have something ticking awayin the background that is
increasing our visibility isincreasing our connections out
to people, startingconversations with people.
There's a Chinese proverb that Imention quite a bit.
(08:16):
I'm just trying to find it nowbefore I misquote it really
badly.
Here we go.
The best time to plant a treewas 20 years ago.
The second best time is now.
And what I want to take or youto take from that is.
As soon as you start something,you are always gonna feel a bit
daft and feel like you shouldhave done this ages ago.
And I feel like that frequentlywithin my business oh my
(08:37):
goodness, I put this thing off.
It was actually really simple.
It was actually not that big adeal.
Maybe not costly, time consumingor anything else.
And now it's just happening inthe background without me
thinking about it and it'sworking on my behalf.
Don't feel silly if you you willfeel silly if you haven't
(08:58):
already set something.
I'll retake that.
So it's likely you're gonna feela bit daft, like I frequently
do.
If you set something up and yousee it working for you and you
wish you'd done it sooner.
But what you should be doing iscongratulating yourself that you
actually took action at thepoint you were at.
So again, imperfect action.
(09:21):
So what does this have to dowith you?
So if you're still listening andsomething in your gut is going,
Ugh, this is me, then here isyour moment.
You don't need a massive plan.
You don't need a full rebound.
You don't need to be ready toscale to seven figures.
You just need to decide, I'mready now.
And once you make that decision,you can get help.
So this month or over the courseof the next 30 days, we're
(09:42):
offering something calledLinkedIn Lead Liftoff at a
introductory price.
It's a done for you system thatgets your lead generation up and
running in just three hours.
No contact required, no callcalls, no weird pitchy dms.
You just show up for a call andwe build your client attraction
system fully set up and ready togo.
(10:03):
It's normally 1400 pounds, butright now it's available at the
launch price of just 900 poundsuntil the 10th of May, 2025.
So if you're listening to thisbefore the 10th of May, 2025,
and you've been putting thisoff, telling yourself, I'll sort
it out later, I want to lovinglysuggest that maybe later is
actually now.
(10:24):
You can find out all theinformation Kaffeen.co/llo
That's Kaffeen.co/llo and youcan find that link in the show
notes as well.
So that's it for today.
Just wanna remind you're notbehind, you're ready right now.
And Ready is a bloody brilliantplace to be.
(10:46):
Thank you for listening.
I'll catch you next week.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.