from passion to boutique business
Helping passion-driven coaches & educators grow their business without burning out or scaling the joy out of it
Anke Herrmann here. Strategic thinking partner, online tech expert, coach, author of Taming the Tech Monster, podcaster, PolyMind, founder of Soul Touched by Dogs. Proudly owned by 2 dogs.
“It's time to stop being the hustling solopreneur, it's time to become the CEO of your business,” so many business-building programs promise.
I'm not interested in being the hustling solopreneur (I've done my time and I'm done with it 😛)
But I'm definitely not interested in being a CEO.
It brings up images of my corporate days .. so much time spent in meetings and managing people and projects rather than doing the work I loved. Scaling to a multi-million dollar service machine is not what I want for my business.
It's not that I want to play small. Trust me, I don't 😏
I want to be at the helm of my ship – consciously choosing my direction, taking responsibilty for my decisions (and taking and enjoying the credit when things go well). And I don't mind hiring support. I'm just not interested in creating something that removes me from the work that I created my business to do.
If you're now sitting there thinking, “Oh, me too!!” I have good news for you:
There IS a way …
“The third path” .. building a Boutique Business as I like to call it. It's what I'm building for myself and it's what I help my clients build.
So what's a Boutique Business?
Let me ask you a question: What pops to mind when you think of a boutique (apart from the clothes 🤪)?
Here is what comes to mind for me:
- it's small(ish)
- it's specialized and special – in what it offers and how it offers it
- it's elegant and sophisticated
- it treats clients with a personal touch
- it's not necessarily ridiculously expensive but it's definitely not cheap
- it's run in a smooth, streamlined manner
- it values quality over quantity
- it values relationships over transactions
- it grows organically, though happy clients and connection-first marketing
The best of both worlds – you get to make a decent living with ease doing what you love doing.
If that's the kind of business you'd love to build too, you're in the right place.
So what's your next step?
Your Boutique Business Blueprint
A free email series for passion-driven coaches and educators who want a fulfilling, lucrative and sustainable way to do the work they love.
Exclusive battle-tested strategies and provocative insights to help you shift to a boutique-style business model with a leveraged premium offer, even if you’re an introvert or hate tech.
Don't just learn, CREATE!
Don't just learn, CREATE! Business Building for Mavericks is a supportive, FREE Facebook group for service-based business owners who are courageous enough to embrace uncertainty, to take ownership of their business, rather than following someone else's “6 step proven success formula”
Let's Talk
The best and only way to find out if and how I can help you bring your business vision to life online is to have a conversation. Let me know what you're passionate about creating. If I can help you make that happen and we both feel it's the best way forward for you, I'll share the options available for working together.
“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.”
Elizabeth Lovius - Leadership Coach, Mentor and Social Entrepreneur specialising in giving leaders headspace to let their wisdom lead. She is an international speaker, author and award winning trainer and facilitator. And she co-founded the The Wisdom and Wellbeing Consultancy and The Wisdom and Wellbeing Collective CIC both established to kickstart a wellbeing revolution.
Lafaya Mitchell - Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Founder of The Lafaya Way, an advanced relational approach for effective interactions in difficult interpersonal relationships, speaker and author of The Lafaya Way book series.
Do you want to build a boutique business?
Hi 💃 I'm Anke. I help you transform your business from selling time-for-money to a boutique-style business model with a premium offer designed to boost your income AND clear your calendar, while you maintain the joy and artistry of your work and delight your clients.
📌 What we'll do
1. We craft a leveraged premium offer that gets your ideal clients the results they want in a way that suits you and them (not just selling time with you)
2. We set up smooth and efficient systems and operations so you spend your time doing what you love, not wrestling with tech or admin
3. We create organic, authentic and connection-based marketing and sales systems to enroll amazing clients consistently without selling your soul
🛠️ Worried about tech?
I’ve got you covered with straightforward tech setup and continuous support. From booking calendars, email marketing tools, or course/membership platforms .. I’ll handle the complexities for you so you can remain focused on your clients and craft.
📌 How we do it
– We remove all pressure.
Yep, you heard that right .. because humans simply do better with less pressure and more flow (especially if you're the hard-working type who can't even imagine that 😛)
– We question assumptions and expectations, never our capabilities
– We co-create because when passionate minds come together, anything is possible
– We experiment because with experiments, there is no failure, just info for planning the next step
– We bring our whole beings to the business because we know we signed up for a crash course in personal growth
We make Peaceful Progress – calm, steady, with ease.
Want that? Get in touch and we'll start a conversation.
📌 Why clients hire me
“She is a brilliant strategic partner who helps me think through the best process to deliver my idea. I cannot recommend her patience, calmness and practical genius enough.” – Elizabeth Lovius
“Anke by name, anchor by nature. Clear, calm and caring. In a nutshell, you embody less hype and more hope.” Angela Durrant
📌 Not ready to talk? Sign up for your Boutique Business Blueprint
My free email series: https://anke.fyi/bbb
📌 The Book: Taming the Tech Monster
Purchase your copy on Amazon or download a free pdf at https://tamingthetechmonster.com
📌 The Passion Project
Soul Touched by Dogs – podcast & virtual events to advocate for holistic approaches to taking care of our dogs
Love my dogs, living by the ocean, Thai food, making stuff. Always learning.
Love Albert Einstein quotes, like this one:
“The definition of genius is taking the complex and making it simple.”
Word cloud created from feedback I've received from clients.
What Others Have Said
As we have just finished the last of our Passion Business Coaching sessions, I wanted to say a huge Thank You for your support and encouragement these past 6 months.
As you know, when we started I was at the point of deciding to either pursue my handmade business, or giving up and accepting it would never happen. I am beyond pleased that I reached out after wanting to make one last push and invest in myself before giving up.
Our sessions have been varied and were sometimes counselling, sometimes friendly chat, sometimes business and sometimes pure tech coaching but reflecting on the journey each one was what was needed at the time and have fitted together to bring my business to a much better place.
With your encouragement, I exhibited at the UK's biggest Teddy Bear Fair in February; updated my website; have received order for Memory Bears and grown in confidence with social media (still a work in progress!; and more recently have been kept very busy making face masks. I now feel confident to hold my head up and say I have a sewing business and spread the word whenever I can.
If there is anyone who is thinking of investing in a coaching course with you, I would say, 'Go for it!' It is honestly the best decision you could make, if like me you want to move your passion into a thriving business.
I will definitely keep in touch and look forward to meeting you in person sometime, somewhere (preferably Spain! )
Love & hugs,
Carole
The podcast
The Passion Business Podcast
I started the podcast because I wanted to prove that the “Buy my program and make a million dollars next month” messages we're bombarded with daily achieve little beyond messing with your expectations and slowing down progress.
Listen to ordinary people like you and me share their stories of creating their passion business and see ..
- it probably takes longer than you thought,
- it involves plenty of twists and turns,
- it’s more challenging but also more rewarding than you imagined.
Basically, we'll crush the “6 figures in 6 weeks following someone's 6 step proven success formula” myth, one episode at a time. And you’ll see how that's really good news and that you have what it takes to build YOUR passion business.
"With Anke's coaching, I have seen my sales, operations and productivity improve on a daily basis. But most surprising of all is the change I have felt in myself. I don’t have time for sabotaging and worrying anymore, because I am busy running a thriving sewing business - my dream job!" (click here to read the full story)
Hi, I'm Anke Herrmann
Long Story Short ..
I'm originally from Germany and started my career as a translator. I didn't last long, neither in Germany nor as a translator. I moved to Australia, later the UK and became a software developer. I enjoyed almost 10 fun years in IT until all projects got outsourced to India and project management was the only way forward in that industry.
So it was time to change tack again and in 2004 I decided to move to Granada in the south of Spain, by myself, with the idea of starting my own business as a dressmaker offering made to measure flamenco dance costumes. I had no idea really, neither about flamenco costumes nor about running a business. All I had was a love for sewing, a whole lot of enthusiasm and a way of seeing opportunity in uncertainty.
Not surprisingly, starting a business from scratch in a foreign country brought me close to throwing the towel on more than one occasion. The tough times were a blessing in disguise though .. they triggered my own journey of personal growth and eventually lead me “back to school” to become a coach so I could share what I've learnt and help others leave stress, worry and overwhelm behind to tap into their creativity, inspiration, resourcefulness and resilience, which really is what makes business (or any other) success not just possible but pretty much inevitable 🙂
In the process of reflection and self-discovery I also realized that the same creative process I know so well from designing and developing software as well as creating custom dance costumes for flamenco artists also applies to building a business. Approaching business building as a creative process takes the struggle and frustration out and brings the fun and enthusiasm that got you started back in.
From the Blog
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When I talk about starting my sewing business the early days sound like, “Orders just started to come in ..” and today I want to talk about what that really looked like.
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Is Your Analytical Mind a Bully?
☀ Is your analytical mind a bully? ☀ I remember the first flamenco performance I saw. I was blown away. The next thing I did was find myself a guitar teacher. I wanted to learn how to play the flamenco guitar. I remember the first class .. “Put your finger here, do...
For more articles check out the Blog.
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