How Do I Write Articles that Attract Ready-to-Pay Clients
3 invisible levers that could cost you years ignoring
She found my content, reached out on a Tuesday.
$2,400 was sitting in my Stripe on Saturday.
It was a full-body yes.
No manipulation whatsoever in my content.
People would think it’s just a coincidence.
It was the result of the previous 3-6 months of intentional work I put into my content week after week, over 7 years of inner work,
and just going left when every creator goes write on Substack.
So get a glass of water (no shade if you’re swirling a Cabernet Sauvignon and letting it coat your palate like a warm ‘you’re doing fine’ hug 😝), and let’s reverse-engineer the energetics, the strategy and the messaging around what helps me get DMs like this:
The Energetics
This bit isn’t talked about a lot:
I am my first client.
And this has been a process for myself to learn,
given that I was always the brokest in class, the one who had a part-time job during uni because his parents couldn’t afford his education.
I constantly invest in my own expansion.
So imagine the heart rate someone’s heart reaches whose parents never made $500-800 combined
when he pays $997 for his Instagram course in 2020, and $3000 for business coaching the next year.
Do I always get what I wanted?
Is it always a course that delivers on the promise?
Nope.
But either way, that investment always teaches something about myself:
how I show up,
how I do the work that requires something from me,
who I’m still blaming, chasing, fuck-youing when I’m the one responsible for my life.
People think I’m an absolute coo-coo.
I’m back in my hometown, taking a break from my digital nomad life, and sometimes I do feel like a loser:
no car, no house I own, no pension scheme, and I’m 36.
But what I do have is commitment.
To my expansion, my skills-building, the impact-driven entrepreneurs I get to help, and along with that, the most important reason I constantly invest:
getting out of my fucking head.
I didn’t need to be the richest in class to get the results that got me a scholarship in a university my parents couldn’t afford.
I wouldn’t have been able to build a business in London if I hadn’t packed my shit into a 10kg suitcase, fly away from everyone I loved, slept in £6/night hostels for months where bed bugs were almost eating me alive, and was humble enough to start charging for my genius.
I’m not sharing this because I somehow need anyone’s justification or compassion for all the clusterfuck I’ve been through in my live.
I’m sharing this because the energetics that get me loyal clients who stay for years, upgrading, joining my mastermind, being willing to do the uncomfortable work connect with me beyond the words I’m sharing:
Commitment recognises commitment.
That’s the edge of someone with embodied wisdom in an ocean of insight junkies, and promise-only coaches who are a disgrace to our industry.
And not just that. Because it’s easy to say we’re committed, much harder to sit with the discomfort of having not created what we wanted for months or even years.
So it’s rather:
Self-integrity recognises self-integrity.
I’ve heard my dad saying this for two decades:
(If you read my previous piece, you know you’ll be showered with my stubborn-as-hell-but-all-the-more-real dad’s wisdom)
“We don’t make an ass out of our mouths.”
Too often we don’t keep our promises because
🅰️ we either get off experiencing a light-bulb moment, having a brilliant idea… and because the neurochemistry in our brain that creates an idea leaves us if we don’t act on it and integrate it, so this turns our whole life into endlessly chasing the next shiny thing, the next course, the next insight,
without allowing ourselves to sit in the discomfort of learning while we suck, it feels a lot easier to jump to the next niche, build the next product, or start creating on a new platform,
🅱️ or because we’re waaaaay too hard on ourselves. We either do it when we’re in the mood, or we don’t because we “can’t do it perfectly, so what’s the point”. And that all-or-nothing thinking distracts us from the very thing that would actually helps us get the clients, create the systems that convert without us having to convince anyone.
Most days, you won't have 100% to give.
But your 100% on a hard day doing the boring, repetitive, uncomfortable business activities getting clear on who we serve, selling our craft, learning how to articulate the value we bring,
might just be 20% of what you gave on your best one
That still counts as 100%.
That's why I keep investing in my own expansion.
Getting told my approach was wrong stings.
Being pushed to actually do the invisible work, learning how to communicate how I help, how to see the value I bring with a client’s eyes, and put that all into the right sequence that respects my soul-aligned clients autonomy isn’t for the faint of the hard.
But I'm not just building a business.
I'm building the person my ideal clients need me to be.
Not a thought-leader, an expert in his ivory tower.
A partner in crime, a guide walking side by side them, who’s their biggest cheerleader, as well as willing to push them off the cliff when needed,
using my own lived experience, skills and passions for human-centred communication.
I attract high-agency, committed, soul-aligned clients because I’ve been my first high-agency, committed, soul-aligned client for years.
They don't just hear my words.
That’s an important, but smaller part of the attraction.
They feel the self-integrity, the lived experience, the embodied wisdom behind them.
And that's the only energetics that creates clients who stay for years.
That’s also the challenging part for many of us overfunctioners who spent our entire lives being the one that works in the team, the one that takes care of everyone else’s problems, and hypes them up when we see their potential.
But the potential you see in other people is a projection.
That’s what you would do in their position.
So while you keep thinking of ways you could help, content that could really make an impact on someone else, have you sat with the question:
“Have I actually sat with the discomfort of working toward my own expansion? Have I shown myself how valuable all the skills, the gifts, the point of view I’ve picked up throughout the years would be to someone out there?
Or have I been using other people's potential as a distraction from claiming mine?”
No-one can hope that others will value what they’re not willing to value themselves enough to communicate it.
Just remember: one day you were proudly running to your parents showing off your latest drawings.
What makes you think you can’t learn to own your genius now that money, your reputation, and ?
The Messaging
Once we see how much of a treasure temple we are,
and realise that we no longer have to be the next Mayan temple hiding in the jungle because there are no signs, the path hasn’t built so it’s at least accessible for the courageous ones,
then comes the realisation that I made after being in the content conversion game for the past 6 years:
Tips, stories, insights don’t attract clients.
They attract people who get off the next tip, story and insight more than from the discomfort of change.
Problems are what attract clients.
I spent years:
building an audience of over 7,000 on Instagram, 135,000 on TikTok,
sharing top-notch strategies on how to acquire a foreign language (I speak 5, it was only natural I share what I learned so it helps others),
learning how to be vulnerable because that’s what the gurus told me to do to build connections.
My revenue from socials rarely went beyond $2000 for 1.5 years… 🫠
The way I created content attracted scrollers.
And that’s the danger of all the surface level advice we’re exposed to day in day out, and I don’t blame anyone:
There are always more beginners, creators fumbling around.
The bottom of the mountain is crowded for a reason.
The whole “build in public” idea convinced everyone they can share any tip that worked for them, even if they don’t fully grasp it.
Very few people talk about what truly matters to attract a committed client:
Understanding where they’re at:
If they were looking for tips, encouragement, or another inspiring story, they’d be screenshotting IG quotes and calling it ‘self-care’ for the day.
They’re not.
They’re looking for recognition:
Why haven’t I been able to solve this problem despite everything I’ve tried?
Is there anyone who’s transparent and reliable enough to invest in? I’ve burned way too much money on coaches who let me down.
And the question very few content pieces answer:
What’s the next clear step that I could trust would get me closer to the solution I already want?
Notice your CTAs.
How you build up the rest of the content that the CTA connects with.
I spent the past 3-4 years auditing, improving, refining my students’ content, and the call-to-action at the very end is where they’re missing out on actually showing a helping hand to someone.
Compare this:
“I specifically work with high achievers and help them prevent burnout by designing a life they don’t have to escape from anymore.”
[LINK TO BOOK THE CALL]
With this:
“I have 3 spots in September for high-achievers like you who
👉 feel less focused at work, less patient with the back-to-back meetings, and less and less like themselves,
👉 keep saying “I already know what I need to do.” for the past 2 year or so but still haven’t still haven’t made the changes stick,
👉 want to have energy left to actually build something on the side, and no longer jeopardise their most important relationships.
If you want to understand what’s draining your capacity, and what needs to change before the next crash, click here to book a clarity call.
It won’t take more than 30 minutes. And if you walk away with no clarity, I’ll give you a $10 Amazon gift card.
The risk is entirely on me.”
You may not be the same high-functioning person on the verge of a burnout, but you immediately feel the pull.
As if your brain just smelled fresh bread from a bakery you didn’t know existed, and now your feet are moving before your logic is even caughing up.
That’s the power of specificity, and understanding messaging:
This isn’t manipulation.
It’s just how brains decide, which is exactly what gets my students $2,000-5,000 clients into their DMs.
People move when the risk feels contained, the message feels like “shit, he’s speaking to me”, and the pain of staying the same finally outweighs the discomfort of change.
Not just that:
the content speaks to what a committed client cares about.
They don’t wallow in their own misery.
They don’t spend years commenting how they “relate” to a problem they have no intention of hiring support to solve.
Those are different problems.
The problems of an actual Power Player, which, if we’re all honest, tends to be a small segment of our audience who aren’t just willing to go through the transformation but also have the means to invest.
Once we see how much of a treasure temple we are, the old triquetra:
tell your stories, share your thinking,
show up consistently no matter what,
build an audience,
starts to feel less like a strategy and more like a hiding place.
Because if you never sit with:
“Does this move the very people I’m building this business for, or am I just wasting my time, my energy, my potential on trying to hype people up who come here for another insight?”
then you’re not building a temple. You’re building a museum.
Lots of people walking through, admiring the artefacts.
No one actually praying inside the innermost shrine, where the air feels different and the work is real.
And the real loss isn’t the missed revenue.
It’s the lives that never get moved, because you’re not compensated for the space you hold, with your unique gifts, skills and passions, while the committed ones simply scroll past because your content doesn’t speak to a high-agency client’s problems.
You’ll find creators talking about ‘being in your feminine,’ authenticity, and and divine timing, in a way that sounds beautiful, but somehow never lands on the specific wound the buyer is actually trying to heal.
You’ll also see creators who treat their business like a chessboard: every move calculated, every piece optimised, but no real skin in the game, wondering why they keep people who want the blueprint, but not the transformation.
Tactics have always given me the ick.
For over 14 years, I’ve worked as an adult education specialist:
designing curricula, facilitating workshops, building my own brick-and-mortar business in London, and learning how to speak in a way that considers how people actually process information and make decisions.
That training didn’t just teach me how to explain things clearly.
It taught me the language of caring about others
how to structure language so it lowers threat, increases relevance, and makes the next step feel emotionally safe enough to take.
So when I write, I’m not thinking,
“What hook will grab attention and help me self-promote like a crazy monkey?”
I’m thinking:
“How, in what sequence is this sentence landing in the nervous system of someone who already wants the solution? What decision am I making easier or harder for them right now?”
Now combine clear, aligned, and relevant communication that respects how humans move from reading to deciding
with the energetics of an impact-driven entrepreneur who:
has been integrating wisdom through doing the actual inner work,
has already invested serious money and discomfort into their expansion,
and knows, with pretty much certainty, even if they don’t say it out loud, that what they offer in their paid container helps way more than any free post ever could.
That’s who this is for.
Not the random creator who’s “here to help” from the sidelines, priding themselves on reading Marcus Aurelius chapter by chapter.
The practitioner who’s lived the work, trusts their gifts, and now needs the demand to match the depth of what they’ve built.
And you know what?
That’s my definition of selling.
It’s the process, however long it takes for the people who already want the solution, that invites the right people to match your depth and your commitment with their skin in the game.
Our job is to position ourselves as the guide who meets the client on their timeline, not ours,
and simply holds the door open long enough for them to decide on a ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
That’s how you attract power players who are almost ready to pay, without ever slipping into saviour, overfunctioner or salesperson energy at the cost of your own abundance.
If that’s you, you don’t need another three months of posting.
Or thousands of people in your audience.
Because the Aligned Entrepreneurs I see converting without ever feeling like they have to coerce anyone into buying simply treats their ideal client like the high-agency human they are:
They communicate with enough clarity that the person on the other side doesn’t have to guess what’s being offered.
They trust they hold an energetic container where saying yes feels like alignment, not feeling like an extra weight of responsibility should they say yes, and where saying no feels safe, not punished.
And they give people the dignity of making their own choice to invest.
If you’re a purpose-driven coach, mentor or guide who
has been posting content for the past 6-9 months and haven’t seen a single enquiry in their DMs about their services,
already has proof they’re doing important work in the world, get all the referrals and testimonials, just can’t wrap their head around articulating that value to a stranger on the internet,
want to attract committed, loyal, soul-aligned clients who actually do the work without having to explain themselves,
I’m running the only free event of Q3, How Today’s Impact-Led Coaches Post Content That Converts,
just click here to join our community space.
I’ll be revealing the 2 other client magnet levers my students bake into their content besides specificity that get them clients into their DMs who are just a few steps away from saying yes.
Imagine clarity calls that are more like a vibe check because your content has done the heavy lifting. No heavy objection handling, or forcing someone to say yes just because you’re told to “close the client on the call”.
That’s the magic of intentional messaging infused into your authentic truth, and what gives structure to it so you won’t leave the very people guessing who you know you’re meant to help.
We’re kicking off at 19.00 GMT, 19 August 2026.
The event isn’t just some random random content workshop rehashing the same old tips you forget by Day 3.
It’s an interactive experience with other impact-driven folks those who want to integrate a different, grounded way of looking at selling, are willing to ruffle feathers in their industry,
and find practical ways to turn content into a way into turn content into a way into a steady stream of soul-aligned clients who are ready to invest, not just consume.
Sign up here:
Appreciate the fact you shared always this wisdom, my G ;)
So…are you offering the Cabernet?🍷