Examples of Customer-Focused Story

Here are 3 examples of the five elements of the Customer Focused Story (CFS) developed through this module.  This is a pivotal teaching as it more fully turns your perspective from what you give to what your client is needing.

This is critical and extremely helpful for your marketing, with marketing’s main goal being to create safety. The syntax of the CFS is specifically designed to support this goal.

Your CFS then becomes your template when producing the copy for your website and sales pages.  And as you become comfortable and confident in  this method, because you experience how this language creates results, you can tweak your CFS for specific offers as well.

Example #1

Julie Henderson’s CFS for her business Midlife Evolution:

1) The Problem:

All kinds of things happen as we get older that can leave you feeling unmoored and unsure of everything that once defined you.

For some women, the years after 40 feel like a series of losses that reshape your world and your identity.

Often, despite following the rules, making reasonably smart choices, and creating a pretty good life, you start to feel unhappy, dissatisfied, or disconnected from your life—even though it looks perfectly fine on paper. You live in the strange paradox of feeling both overwhelmed and underwhelmed by your life.

Longing for something…”more”, even if you have no idea what that “more” means.

And perhaps worst of all, there’s a quiet fear that keeps you up at night: worry that it’s too late; that you missed your chance to have a life that feels meaningful and fulfilling.

It’s so frustrating because you don’t know why. You don’t know what’s wrong, and can’t get enough time and space in your busy life to figure it out, let alone fix it!

2) What They’ve Already Tried:

You’ve read books and listened to podcasts trying to figure out what’s wrong and how to be happier. Maybe you’ve started working out, or changed your diet. Maybe you’ve tried to ease your discomfort with yoga, meditation, or even medication. Maybe you’ve made a big life change or two.

Or maybe you’ve ignored it in hopes that “this too shall pass.”

And while this may help things feel more bearable, the uneasy feeling never really goes away, and you’re getting increasingly frustrated.

3) Why Those Don’t work:

There’s a simple reason these fixes aren’t working well, and I want you to hear me clearly:

You are not broken, and you don’t need to be fixed.

The truth is that you’re in a normal stage of human development, and it’s called Midlife.

Midlife is a time when multiple forces converge to push women towards re-centering themselves and finding their flow.

It is a time of reckoning, and all your confusion and pain is in fact an invitation.

What’s really happening is that your midlife crisis (because yes, this is exactly how a “midlife crisis” shows up in women) is inviting you to undertake the journey of your midlife soul-work.

4) What you really need to do:

You see, you are meant to be whole, content, and fulfilled. You are meant to bring the light of your unique beingness to the world.

This is the “more” that you’re longing for.

Your life happens, in all its challenges and complexities, and often you arrive in the prime of your life dragging a lot of baggage with you, and these icky feelings are your wake-up call, alerting you to the inner work you’re being called to.

Midlife is meant to be a time to step back. It’s a time of reflection and reclaiming, healing and wholing, visioning and evolving—a process I call your “midlife soulwork”. It’s the life stage when you’re meant to coalesce the wisdom you’ve spent a lifetime gathering in order to create a life of deep meaning, fulfillment, and contentment.

So you see, you’re not too late. In fact, you’re right on time.

And the great news is that this process needn’t be overwhelming and painful, nor drag out for decades. It can be much gentler when you have supportive guidance to lean on, and more efficient when you have a proven structure to lean into.

5) Why I’m so good at #4:

I’ve been helping people find their way through their pain since 1994, first as a licensed massage and craniosacral therapist, where I discovered, honed, and expanded my intuitive healing skills. During those 27 years of working with hundreds of clients I witnessed first-hand the profound impact of mental, emotional, and spiritual stress on the body.

In 2006, at the tender age of 41, my own dark night of the soul, and all the healing  and research I undertook to make my own journey through that midlife crisis, was the catalyst to bring me to my work as a “midlife mentor”.

In a beautiful synchronicity, my midlife crisis brought me back to my academic roots: to my Masters Degrees in developmental psychology—in which I focused on adult development and aging, with a special focus on women’s issues in aging.

Yet even with that academic background I hadn’t realized what was happening when I was in the midst of it. This fact drives my mission to spread the gospel of midlife not as a crisis to be managed, but rather an invitation to reflection and an opportunity for transformation, and to ensure that no woman needs to go through her own midlife soul-work alone.

In all truthfulness, as a personal growth junkie I’ve read more books and taken more courses than I can count, resulting in work that is an amalgam of all of them. My training as a SoulCollage® Facilitator and Creative Depth Coach has been informed by trauma-focused modalities like Somatic Experiencing, and systemic approaches like Internal Family Systems (IFS) and constellation work.  Since 2010, I’ve spent thousands of hours mentoring midlife women both as individual clients as well as by leading retreats and workshops: supporting them as they heal their wounds, release their stories, and come to know themselves more deeply. I’ve combined the wisdom gleaned from all my study and training with my natural gifts as an intuitive healer to create a holistic and multilayered approach to the midlife journey—one that honors mind, body, emotions, and creative spirit, and helps women forge an everyday connection to their own Inner Knowing.

Example #2

Holly Glaser’s CFS for her role at Heart Of Business:

1) The Problem:

You know you help people with the work you do, yet when you take a step towards being more visible something happens, maybe your knees wobble, you stop breathing, you’re overcome with doubt and so you quickly distract yourself.  Then you’re with one of your (maybe few and certainly not enough) clients again and the help they need just flows through you.  You’re sure you could help a lot more people, yet your confidence dissolves whenever you try to work on one of our modules or otherwise work on your business

2) What they’ve already tried:

You’ve been working on yourself for years, maybe decades, and you’ve come a long way.  You’ve read self-help books, gone to workshops, done therapy and spiritual practice.

And you are surely more aware and capable than you had been in so many ways.  Yet still the ground under you dissolves somehow when you put your hand on the tools to really build a foundation for this business you so want to share with the world.

3) Why Those Don’t Work:

The real reason the standard solutions have failed:

Being visible in the world is super vulnerable.  It just is.  And no matter how much healing you’ve done, you still have triggers, unhealed places of pain or shame or fear.  We all do.  Unless we’re fully enlightened.

And these places are sure to show up in the process of putting your business out in the world.  It doesn’t matter how much work you’ve done on yourself before, saying yes to being visible in this way is sure to shine a bright light on any remaining tender places inside.

4) What you really need to do:

If you could make space for the triggers you will surely hit,

then building your business could be the perfect opportunity to do yet another, even deeper, layer of healing.

With just a few key tools around you while you are building your business, this next, possibly deeper, layer of healing can happen at the same time.  Not only that, but the business foundation that you build will be built on sturdier ground, on true ground.  It won’t end up on top of any anxt that you are consciously or unconsciously sitting on top of.

Because you’ve come so far, you don’t need much.  Or maybe we never needed much, there are just a few specific things that support you in being our own best healer.

The main tools are simply; mercy, acceptance, witnessing and love.  When we can approach our inner landscape with mercy and say yes to whatever it is we find there, and when we have others to witness what we have found and to support us in holding it all in love, integration can happen.

And as we integrate more and more of the stray pieces of ourselves in present time, we become stronger and stronger containers for the gifts that are pouring through us.

So while you are building the business you feel called to offer, and you allow yourself to consciously integrate even more of yourself in the process, the structure you create can be even more solid and what you give more pure.

5) Why I’m so good at #4:

The tools I keep closest are the simple ones I listed above; mercy, acceptance, witnessing and love.  I gathered these during years of exploration through Wicca, Women’s Circles, Jewish and Sufi spirituality, through studying  Hypnotherapy, Massage, Deep Listening and Sufi Healing, through learning Meditation, Past Life Regression, Non-violent Communication, and Family Constellations.  I continue learning too, every day in many ways.  Formerly I’m presently studying Resonant Attention, a bit of a miraculous and simple form of healing that incorporates much of what I already know.

Before I started the serious healing journey I outline above, I was gifted with a beautiful mystical experience.  When I finished college and was facing my future, I was shown, from inside my heart and head, in the most merciful and gentle way, how to see/sense/feel myself onto the path with the most light for me.  I’ve surely had my ups and downs since.

And while I’m far from complete in my journey, I’ve reached a point of incredible ease just because I feel confident that the tools I’ve gathered and honed will carry me through whatever I might run into in my inner world as I navigate the outer one.  So while I am perfectly imperfect still, I’m also perfectly equipt and fully at peace.

So when I sit with you I have all of this behind me.  But here in the present, together, it’s simple.  And at times it can be miraculous.  I know that you are your own best healer and simply having support and witnessing, to be really seen and accepted in all you carry, the most challenging parts through to the brightest beauty that pours through you, and have it all held in love, that this is all you truly need.  When this is present, integration happens and you become more and more free in present time.

Example #3

Diane Douiyssi’s CFS for her business Inner Wisdom Wayfinder:

1) The Problem:

You’re at your desk, trying to ignore the low hum of anxiety.

You’re a heart-centered coach, healer or creative entrepreneur, and you want to build your business. You know your ideal clients are out there, but you haven’t been as successful as you’d like connecting with them. If you’re honest, you’re struggling to reach them.

You’re having problems with marketing.

Maybe you don’t exactly know how to talk about your business, so you don’t. Not really.  Everything you read is telling you to just get over it and get out there. But you feel stuck.

Or perhaps you don’t feel great about your website. Maybe it was pulled together quickly just so you could start your practice. You have a hunch it’s not as effective as it could be. It might feel disjointed, like you’re trying to force fit all the aspects of your business together. Or maybe it just doesn’t feel like you. It’s too…too something. In any case, you don’t love your website, so you don’t invite people to visit it. Not really.

Or maybe your marketing efforts and content feel formulaic. Your methods and messages aren’t lighting you up, so can you really expect them to land with your potential clients?

2) What They’ve Already Tried:

If you’re like most people, you’ve been trying hard to get the marketing of your business off the ground.

You’ve probably read lots of books on marketing and business development. You’ve likely attended free webinars on how to get more clients hosted by successful coaches or creative entrepreneurs. Perhaps you’ve dug out and revisited the commerce modules in your training program.

Maybe you’ve spent lots of money on business building courses or coaching. Maybe you’ve even tried hiring a copywriter to help you write some of your stuff.

Or maybe it’s been all so overwhelming, you’ve just been going along, day by day, hoping you’ll land a break and get more clients.

Maybe you’ve tried all these things, yet nothing seems to be working. Not really.

The truth is you are starting to wonder if this business idea was all just a dream, that it’s not meant to be.

Maybe, you think, it’s just not possible to make what I want to do real.

Wait, I whisper. I see you.

I see your unique genius, your gifts and talent. Your essence.  I know you’re aching to get your message out and help others.

3) Why Those Don’t Work: 

And, I know one of the reasons you’re struggling is that most marketing advice doesn’t pay attention to two ingredients essential for success.

First, although it’s not commonly discussed, having an offer or service to sell that’s aligned not just to your clients’ needs but also to your essential self is such an important starting point. Spending time homing in and creating something that meets both your clients’ needs as well as your own gives you a concrete service offering for your business that’s built upon your gifts and passions and that allows you work with clients in a way you absolutely love. Once you have that, the related marketing content you craft flows naturally as an output and is inherently more authentic.

Second, truly effective marketing for coaches, healers and other creative entrepreneurs needs to embody what’s unique about the practitioners themselves. The messages need to be suffused with their essence. And this is a personal, customized exercise, not one that’s easily proscribed via books and courses designed for mass consumption. It’s usually really hard for people to see their own essence clearly, to see the intangible qualities that makes them stand out as a person. And it’s harder still to transmute that into marketing messages that are also clear, effective and resonant to their potential customers.

4) What you really need to do:

The foundation for creating effective marketing messages is based on six principles:

• Essence – Everyone is born with a purpose and a unique set of talents, gifts and way of being in the world that’s imprinted on their soul. This genius is singular and forms a person’s divine essence.
• Authenticity – Authenticity is magnetic. When you transmit your essence, your individual authentic self through your marketing people sense your genuineness, your wholeness, and are more willing to trust you.
• Resonance – Your ideal clients need to see themselves in your messages and in your solutions. They have to be able to envision that you can help them.
• Impact – In order to be effective, your marketing needs to be based on the fundamentals of how messages work and how they don’t.
• Clarity – Your marketing messages need to be clear and concise, easy to read and understand.
• Alignment – When your marketing materials are effectively written and energetically aligned with your essence, you feel naturally empowered to take them out into the world. You feel more excited about your offers, and can talk about them naturally.

Once you can integrate these six principles into your marketing, reaching out to the world with your offerings becomes much easier and more effective. It means finally having marketing materials that feel like they fit you and your business. It means having your ideal clients recognize you as exactly the one to help them.

5) Why I’m So Good at #4:

Prior to becoming a coach, I spent 15 years as a Director in a Talent Mobility company working with some of the world’s largest companies. I spent the last several years of my corporate career as a Director, Global Marketing and Communications, where I created campaigns, events, and programs designed to increase customer engagement. I was also responsible for creating a harmonized content strategy, signature program content, and for overseeing copy development.

I bring all those marketing skills to my work now, helping business owners break down the mysteries of marketing and create a simple, easy way for them to get out in the world, connecting with others and talking about their programs and services.

In 2016, I completed an in-depth coach training program, and then went on to become a Martha Beck Certified Wayfinder Life Coach. After that, I went on to study intuition and learn the ARTs method of energy reading at Beverly Belling’s Intuitive Arts Studio where I soon became one of the program’s Endorsed Intuitives.

Since then, I’ve spent hundreds of hours coaching, mentoring and reading energy for individuals, creatives, and other coaches, helping them align their projects, businesses and lives to their soul-selves.

A bit more about me – I’m a deeply intuitive empath, gifted with a strong sense of knowing and creativity. I’ve lived overseas, in Italy, Morocco and Argentina, and across the central part of the U.S. And, oh. You have to know this about me. I love writing. It makes my soul sing, and I love exploring the connection between writing, creativity and Spirit.