In 2020, I quit my $17K marketing coordinator job at a renowned restaurant.

In 2021, I stopped everything to go all becoming a freelancing digital nomad.

In 2022, I helped build Wealth Academy ltd and Funnels.com from scratch.

In 2023, We built Wealth Academy ltd and Funnels.com to over 100+ clients averaging $94K+ per client.

In 2024, I stopped the hustle mindset at the expense of my health and mental well being and decided to get my one-person business launched:

Because I wanted to build something meaningful for myself.

I can confidently say it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

And I want you to experience this as well.

Without taking sales calls or working more than 3-5 hours a day.

Here’s the potential of this system: 

Now let me walk you through the exact steps I took to build my business, what worked and what didn’t, so you can build your own 6-figure business.

After creating my first offer, I signed my first client at $1,000 within the first 15 days and testing another approach, I managed to land a client for $6,000 p/month with 5% profit share residual.

And today I’ll walk you through each step. There isn’t any guru information here. Everything here is something that I’ve actually done. 

And now - I’m documenting this so you can do it too. 

However, this case study will not be for everyone. 

If you don’t already have a skill that you can monetize - this is not for you. 

If you’re just looking to “get rich quick,” this is not for you. 

This is for experts who want to play long-term games with their personal brand and sell their expertise.

Consulting wasn’t my first business. Before I came onto the scene, I built courses, trained teams and full stack business growth strategies. I absolutely loved it.

The only problem? 

I was constantly stressed building other people's stuff while mine was left on the side burners.

The client I landed had 150+ members under his management and virtual events every month. But every day I'd wake up to a new problem I'd need to solve. A new fire to put out. Bunch of discord messages and team members come and go. More systems and SOP’s to build.

New messages would pop up at random times:

"Why are the ads not working, why is this!"

"Why is member engagement down!"

"Why are clients complaining!"

The experience of landing the performance based client had a very profound impact on my perspective for the future:

I came to learn the hard way that,... 

”if you can’t produce $$$, you’re not worth anything to anyone either you work a lot or not”

This made me realize that I was never benefiting from scaling the business. I was always saving the business from complaints. 

It was frustrating but the client wasn't wrong. It meant I could never leave the computer. And even if I did, by the next day there’s always a list of complaints piled up.

At the start, it was fun. I don’t regret any of it as I learned a lot. The client slowly grew based on some consultations we’ve done. I've built and coordinated some solid tracking processes for his business, and made a serious effort to be supportive where possible. I met amazing people and had transformative experiences.

But still it wasn’t what I wanted as we got caught up in not being able to scale effortlessly and the hustle & grind was becoming a toll on everyone. 

Now - in my consulting business, I’m less focused on becoming the biggest (no more ego). I’m not in the stage of “endless scaling” anymore to prove I’m someone important.

Instead of building my life around my business, I’d rather build my business around my life.

And instead of a complex business — a simple one.

My goal is to take this business from low 6-figures to 7-figures right now.

But I’m going to do it without sacrificing my health or energy.

And without working more than 4 hours a day.

But it wasn’t always like this…

I’m not bad in front of the camera. So I applied my skills and grew to 8,000+ followers in 90 days.

Just by sharing my adventures and insights on branding and business as a whole.

But then, I had another problem… I couldn’t monetize.

At some point, getting more followers was bittersweet because I was trying hard to create the best videos scenes and transitions for hours every day - but none of it was translating it into revenue.

Everybody was launching cohorts and communities at the time teaching different things.

Branding, copywriting, fitness, etc etc

So I decided to go ahead and launch my own.

You might think this is where I hit it big. But it actually completely flopped and only grossed $97. 

Even though I built a fancy sales page. Even though I had a full funnel. Even though I did all the marketing. Even though I had a very eye-catching design.

And all of this complexity wasn’t what I wanted to do.

Focusing on the selling took me away from what I actually wanted:

Helping people, making an impact, and building a freedom-first business.

It was so pathetic that it made me do an entire 180°.

Even though I was very transparent in my newsletter about all, a lot of subscribers left my newsletter as they said it doesn’t provide any value anymore to them or is not aligned anymore with their interests.

I still had to do it and that is where my new philosophy was born:

“Design Your Life.”

I didn’t want to spend time on long sales pages. So I focused on selling with my brand authority.

I didn’t want the stress of big launches. So I focused on stacking MRR month by month.

I didn’t want to spend all my time with prospects. So I built a system that puts clients first.

Business starts falling apart when you focus on things you don’t need.

This usually happens because a bunch of gurus start shouting at you about all their complex funnels and systems. When in reality - they’re just trying to sound smart.

I refuse to do business that doesn’t support my lifestyle.

That’s why I’m on Instagram in the first place. Because I’m not a huge fan of short form videos, but I build trust faster with long form videos vs anything else and it has a long shelf life. Therefore I combine short form with longform inside my newsletter.

Let’s be honest here: doing business in a way that you don’t like isn’t sustainable.

Not only can it crash and burn easily, but you won’t enjoy it. 

But I see a lot of people burn a lot of their time and energy doing business that they don’t like, and building things they don’t need.

Every decision that you make in your business should be a decision you make.

When I stopped building infrastructure that I didn’t need, business became far more enjoyable.

So that’s the goal now.

Fun, profitable businesses.

So this will be best for you if you want a few simple things…

I’m going to lay out the system that’s been working for me in 2024 moving into 2025.

Now, I’m not saying that the “old stuff” doesn’t work.

Because business fundamentals always stay the same.

This is just from my personal experience. So take what’s helpful and feel free to ignore the rest.

In just a second, I’ll walk you through exactly how to build this yourself.

But first I want you to get a clear picture of exactly what we’re building here.

I firmly believe this is the path for the creator economy moving forward.

Instead of just creating content or selling a service…

You’re creating VALUE.

The world runs on results. And you can “give” value in two different ways. 

Exchanging it or creating it. 

Humans exchange value every single day. Humans used to trade silk for horses and pottery on the Silk Road. Most people can exchange value. You give something and you get something back.

Humans exchange value every day. They go to work, put in the hours and in exchange get a sum of money for that work they put in. This is something every single human being can do. You give something and you get something back.

But as a business, you need to do more than exchange value...

You need to create value.

This entire system runs on the premise of providing immense amounts of value.

Rather than selling just your time or skills…

People just “selling services” aren’t going to cut it anymore as the market grows more saturated.

You need to take the hybrid approach:

You’re not just a content creator anymore… running on the tweet treadmill like everyone else.

You’re not just a service provider or coach either… competing on bigger offers and guarantees.

You’re a value creator.

You monetize your skills and experience - not how many hours you work.

You get paid to learn, teach, and build awesome things with people, whether that’s through content or working directly with clients.

You only get to the new model by creating value.

Because instead of positioning yourself as a commodity…

You have a personal brand that drives sales in just a few hours a day.

And people see the value you bring to the table.

So you’re never hustling in cold DMs or hopping on endless sales calls with ungrateful prospects.

It all starts with your personal brand. A lot of people come to me from other methods: stuff like running ads or cold email campaigns.

These all work. I’m not going to hate on any of these methods. I just personally believe that building a personal brand is the highest leverage you can build in the digital age. Even Alex Hormozi, the “$70k+ p/mo content publishing guy”, agrees that a personal brand is the highest-converting asset.

Because a personal brand positions you as an authority.

It lets you make a massive impact on thousands of people for free. You write content or publish videos and people absolutely love it. Plus it does all the selling for you so you turn 5-10 people into new clients every single month.

I have a pretty “small” audience compared to most creators.

We’re creeping up on 2,000 followers right now.

But I’ve still been able to land multi-5-figure deals and become a sought after creator in the space.

Because small, profitable audiences are the future. Personal branding is not about the likes.

It’s about the impact you make, the opportunities you get, and the authority you build.

Building a personal brand is not about publishing 3x times a day. It’s also not about “engaging” or talking about your impressions all day. Instead?

By positioning yourself as a niche authority, whether that’s in entrepreneurship, fitness, or video editing, people trust you. And trust is the biggest factor in turning a lead into a client.

It’s not like cold email or cold DMs where you have one chance to make an impression. And then unless you’ve nailed the system down to a tee, you have leads falling through every day. 

Or you just get trashed. When you build a personal brand - people see your face every day. They start to warm up to you.

It makes sales easy because the marketing is strong. So when they hop on a call, workshop, or in the chat with you… they’re already half sold.

But how do we make sure this personal brand actually works?

Most people selling “personal branding” aren’t profitable or are one-hit wonders.

With many peers hitting $100K/mo month after month (doing 7-figures in a year) I won’t claim to be super successful next to them. But I do want you to avoid the most common pitfalls people fall into.

But I want to make sure you don’t fall into the “content-preneur” trap, hustling for $500/mo clients (which is a total waste of time) or getting embarrassed by people with less experience than you taking your clients.

Our goal is to build something massive. If you’re reading this, you’re probably decently ambitious. And we want to make sure you have a quality brand from the start so you cut through the Instagram BS and get people to see the expertise you actually have.

Because when you have authority… you can feel it. Nobody ignores your posts or DMs. You get invited to random podcasts. Prospects don’t waste your time and they’re asking to work with you.

So how does this actually happen?

You need to extract the knowledge out of your own mind. And share it with people.

Collect golden nuggets of what you’ve done and talk about it.

Stop thinking of yourself as a coach or service provider and start thinking of yourself as a leader.

That’s what the “follow” button means. People follow leaders.

So if you actually want to stand out, become a leader and educator.

Teach people about your skill and show them how you can help them.

For example, I used to build systems, strategies, and sop’s for teams so I was able to talk about that and help people with their info product one-person businesses. I also turned out to be pretty good at content so I started doing video content work for people.

Right now, my forte is Instagram branding and client acquisition without taking phone calls.

So that’s what you’re reading about in this document.

Building a buyers (customers) audience is showing that you have the expertise to achieve a transformation for people.

That’s leadership.

Now that we know you need to: 

a) build trust and, 

b) position yourself as a leader…

What’s the last step of branding?

It’s attracting people with similar values.

This image was posted in April 2024. I wrote down my key pillars. My ideas, perspectives, and values.

It’s grown to several pages by now. And I’ve cut out ones that I don’t resonate with anymore. Treat this like an evolving bucket. Within it are an infinite amount of content ideas.

Personal branding is attracting a community that shares your values. 

So write about your;

You might have a lot of expertise in your skill… but nobody cares if they don’t know who you are.

You can have the best offer in the world. But if you have nobody to sell it to - you lose the game.

Therefore I’ve grown my newsletter to over 800+ subscribers in under 6 months and am focusing on growing it to over 10,000+ subscribers in the following year and it’s not because I’m the best at what I do. 

It’s also not because I’m “unique.” It’s because I’ve shared my values and attracted an audience who resonated with them.

I always ask each client WHY they start working with me. I get the normal ones. But there's one that I've gotten multiple times that isn't related to my business at all. What is it?

“You’ve worked with TOP experts in the industry”

Working with various experts has given me crazy opportunities. If you’re new here, I’ve worked with Shaqir Hussyin, ​Omar Msaddi, ​Jamal Ahmed, ​Mike Barron, ​Todd Phillips, Ree Hurakan, Johanna Silva, and many more… (and it was the experience of a lifetime). 

Being a “Full Stack - Generalist” has given me so much in my personal life and makes me who I am today.

But the funny thing is it’s also landed me multiple consulting deals. From other marketers, or people who just want to start a business online. Because that’s the power of personal branding:

People chose me because I had something in common with them. For me, it's my Insight On Marketing. For you, it might be branding. Or growing an audience. Or spending time with your loved ones. Or your faith.

And that's what I love so much about personal branding:

You can get paid just for being yourself.

Because building your personal brand isn't just about flexing. It isn’t about the likes or the comments. It's attracting people with the same values.

It makes landing clients easy. Because they've already bought into your ideas and philosophy. You don't need to compete with every other coach anymore. Because you're not fighting for who has the "best" offer.

Instead? It's about you.

People buy into your ideas before they buy into you. People buy into you before they buy into your offer. You are the prize.

But having a brand isn’t enough if you want to monetize.

I don’t build content creator brands, I build Nomad Creator brands.

Which means we pair up your;

Personal Brand (on the front end)  + Consulting/Service Business (on the backend)

This way, you don’t need to rely on sponsorships and ad revenue. But you’re in complete control of your income, your workflow, and your lifestyle.

Business Insight:

“It is easier to sell an expensive product to a small group of people than a cheap product to a lot of people.”

You want to package your expertise into an offer that can get you paid $1,000-$10,000 to just give advice to people. But you don’t want to do this randomly. You want to build this the right way - so you have maximum leverage.

I believe in a Done-With-You coaching service specifically, and not any service because it’s the maximum leverage you can build. Low operational effort, high margins, and you’re selling your experience instead of your time.

Because we have two simple goals:

97% of your audience won’t buy anything from you. But 3% are ready to give you $3,000-$15,000 to solve their problems. Remember the idea of creating value?

You’re not just getting paid for your time. You’re getting paid to give them a transformation (an outcome).

This trips a lot of people up. Most people see Dan Koe, Justin Welsh, Kieran Drew or other big names and think that the way to run an online business is to sell courses.

This is wrong from my experience. They sell courses because they have the leverage. But you don’t. If you want to scale quickly, you’re going to need something better.

A high-ticket program with clear, deliverable results and skills to back it up.

So you can work with a handful of dream clients and change people’s lives. I love consulting because I love making an impact and helping people directly. And I hope you feel the same way.

This is your core offer. Your goal is to promise a clear, quantifiable result that you can charge a premium price for. You can sell a $2,000 program to 10 people → $20K/mo.

But the secret is to maximize client results while reducing delivery time.

1. Selling your time

2. Selling your skills

3. Selling your expertise

Most coaches or service providers are glorified freelancers.

One-time projects and your client pays you to get something done.

If you don’t mind running a freelance-style business, 1 + 2 will help you easily hit $3K-$5K, and up towards $10K depending on the service you offer.

But if you want to build a long-term sustainable business, that maximizes revenue, prioritizes fruitful relationships with clients and builds a community over months and years, you need to focus on offer #3.

In the next part of this guide, I’ll show you how I’ve made my way from 1 -> 3 over the past couple months.

When I started, I was selling my time.

1-hour consultation calls.

This is a good place to start validating your offer - by exchanging your time for money so you can get hands-on experience.

But as soon as you collect a couple case studies, it’s time to raise prices and package your service into a skill-based offer, not a time-based offer.

This is a great place to be if you want to make a couple 4-figures every month.

You’ve proven yourself, learned a skill and you can now sell this high-income skill to people who are willing to pay you for a specific result.

This can be Done-For-You such as web design or ghostwriting, or Done-With-You where you teach your clients something of value.

Note that this isn’t the final stage, but this is the stage that most people get stuck at.

You can get comfortable and hit a ceiling, or worse, feel overworked with no consistent income.

It’s true that you’re not selling your time anymore.

But client work can still eat up a ton of your day.

This is the exact spot I was in when I hit $8K/mo in content work and burned out.

Obviously my burnout was NOT 100% seen on camera as most of the time I kept it under wraps to keep it professional but it can be noticed through my serious face and or body language in the workshops.

And this is still a glorified freelance job because you end up with multiple bosses and individual, one-time services where your business isn’t consistent.

Making my service too cheap and taking on too many clients was just a result of being stuck and not knowing how to take it to the next level.

In order to break past the 5-figure ceiling and collect $100,000+, I needed to apply a better system:

Selling my experience.

Selling my experience made my calendar look like this:

This next section is not for any wannabe entrepreneurs that dream of getting rich quick, or don’t have a service that you are already delivering.

If you’re at this point - you should already be selling an $1,000-$15,000/mo service but can’t figure out how to profit asymmetrically or land clients consistently.

No hourly rates, selling your time or consulting call packages. No inefficient service delivery or overwork (burnout). Consistent clients that want to work with you month after month.

Instead of one-off projects, clients stay forever because of the results you’ve given them and the relationship you’ve built.

I had clients at $5K-$8K/mo just toiling away at individual consulting calls, and this system works to go from 0 to 1 very easily. But if you want to build a stable, consistent, and scalable coaching model, you need to guarantee MRR.

This is one of 3 things I shared for coaches in the creator economy. And it’s already coming true with big names following the path I laid out at the end of 2023.  Travel  ✈  Build  ✈  Profit.

When you sell your experience…

At a time-based offer, I was doing $3,000/mo.

In a skill-based offer, I capped at $8,000-$10,000/mo.

With an experience-based offer, I’ve hit consistent $30,000+ months.

The secret?

You’re not just promising “video editing” or “ghostwriting” or any variation of this.

You’re not just teaching them knowledge on “productivity” or “fitness” anymore.

You’re giving them a transformation. You’re changing their life.

You’re creating value.

When you build the Priority-PASS MRR-System…

The goal isn’t another job, or another agency, or more long hours.

We want to build something fun:

Working only with dream clients, working only a few hours a day, and with 1 VA and 1 EDITOR.

If you want to continue selling the same thing as everyone else, getting compared with your competition & trying to ‘fit in’ your niche or ‘become the biggest in your space’... you’ll be out of business soon.

It just doesn’t work.

It’s far more profitable to carve out your own unique corner of the internet. I’m not saying to “reinvent the wheel.” But instead of just trying to be the best - it’s much better to be the only.

The ideal path for an expert in 2024 and 2025 is to build a coaching group or community around their expertise. That way you can get paid to give advice and share your insights.

So you want to build your offer stack by selling access to your experience.

Because nobody else is you.

1. Your offer inherently becomes unique and you stop competing with others

2. Your program becomes leveraged without being dependent on crazy systems

This is hands-down the best system if you want to build a profitable consulting business that’s also fun.

I’ve sold a coaching program where it wasn’t about me (Mastermind, which I took to 6-figures before shutting it down.) I’ve done a cohort. I’ve sold one-off products.

But if you want consistent MRR and have fun while doing it… (because I build businesses not just for profit, but also for the thrill of it): you need a leveraged, recurring system that focuses on one thing: giving clients access to you and your expertise through workshops or flagship program.

Applying this system into my business has helped me build my dream life.

I only take calls 3 days a week. 

I take weekends off (unlike most coaches that are chained to their computer 24/7). 

I design the business around my life and not the other way around. 

I can travel places on a random day and take month-long trips to Colombia without any issue.

There is more to scaling than just adopting the “Level Access". A ton of entrepreneurs I talk to get stuck at $10K/mo and just can’t break through the ceiling. It’s not just about the model that you’re running.

You also need to be building systems, a flagship program, and dialing in marketing. Right now, I have 2 team members and a whole bunch of backend infrastructure that is outside the scope of the document.

But if you’re gunning for a sustainable and enjoyable business, this is the biggest shift you can make in the way you structure your program.

Focus on delivering an outstanding experience to your clients. Hire as appropriate because solopreneurship just means all the stress is on you. And build a high leverage system that allows you to give the most help to your clients without destroying your own lifestyle.

You have your brand. You have your program. You have your expertise.

Now it’s time to actually start landing clients.

Your personal brand is a funnel. It’s a simple one and if you come from the high-ticket world or the old agency world, you know the IG Ads → Follower → Priority-PASS Invite.

But just because this system is 10x simpler and has 97% profit margins doesn’t mean it’s instant clients. You still need to dial in the steps.

Here’s a walkthrough of how it works (and how it gets me 5-10 clients every month):

The way I run my business is simple.

I post content and or run ads that attract my dream clients. People want to work with me. I ignore all the “maybes” and the people who are “thinking about it.” Simplifies my business and reduces stress. Because I don’t want to spend all my time on people who waste my time and energy.

That’s why I believe that trust is the foundation of your business. 

The only way to guarantee a consistent, strong business is if you have people that love your stuff and trust you with their time and money. So I use this nomad creator funnel to qualify and convert people without any sales calls.

Every day I make 2 offers.

One offer to get people into my newsletter. 

One offer to get people into my program.

This funnel is crazy simple. Every day, your goal is to bring a few people down the funnel.

As long as you make these offers every day you will make money.

Whether the offer is a compelling piece of content, an invitation to your newsletter, a call for your program, or an upsell… these are critically simple offers to make.

But it allows the system to run smoothly. As long as I maintain the top of the funnel, and make offers on the backend, this is a sustainable system. That’s why I love this funnel.

Because it doesn’t rely on any fancy tactics. This means that I put all of my systems into client experience, delivery, and retention. Having a crazy simple funnel allows me to put more time into my clients.

And that’s my favorite part of the business.

This isn’t automatic or “printing on autopilot” like the cringe gurus say. I need to operate this to work by making 2 offers every day.

This means it’s reliable - after all, I’m the one steering the wheel. I like it because I’m in control.

I decide what kind of prospects I attract.

I decide how many people enter the pipeline.

I decide how many clients I take on.

And that’s the way that I like to run my business. My way.

Your business begins falling apart the moment you lose control. Or when you let others dictate what you build. Because you don’t need complicated funnels to land lots of clients.

You need a simple business. A simple business that’s fun, profitable, and transformative.

That’s the exact strategy that I’m using to go from 0 → $100,000+ in 12 months with 1 Instagram funnel, 2 offers, and a team of 2.

It wasn’t easy. I made a lot of mistakes along the way.

But I truly believe that with the right support, almost anybody can make this happen.

We’ll get crystal clear on your positioning so you never have to compete with anybody.

We build your offer together so clients show up ready to buy.

Ready to pay the high price your service is worth (even if you get nervous pitching it).

This step takes minutes. But when done right it makes signing clients effortless.

More importantly, you become “the person” in your niche and people actually listen to you.

You get quick cash flow.

But you also get a personal brand that you can leverage for life.

You don’t need to be a good writer - you just need to write for the right people.

There are people in your audience ready to buy from you right now.

I’ll give you all my content systems so you get new clients every week.

The goal is making your authority so good your reputation sells itself.

(And if you want, you can grow thousands of followers along the way.)

Most people hit big months but can’t sustain the momentum.

I’ll help you improve your systems and delivery so your clients stay and pay you again.

Plus we set up your consulting system the right way so you stack MRR without burning out.

This reduces your stress because you’re not always hunting for a sale.

And it gives you the freedom to actually enjoy your money.

We cashflow your offer to a consistent $20,000 months.

Once I take you to consistent $20,000 months - we can talk about what options you have next.

If you’re ready to build a personal brand that gets you $20K-$30K/mo consistently…

Just by monetizing your expertise…

I’ll work directly with you to scale your business past the $20K/mo mark.

Without working 8-12 hour days or wasting time with ungrateful prospects.

This is not some “program” or “community” where you’re thrown into a crowd.

You’re working directly with me and getting personalized help every step of the way.

You’ll get access to all of my 6-figure offer frameworks and templates.

If you’re looking to scale “to the moon” - I’m not the right person for you.

But if you want to build a lean, fun coaching business that lands you $20K every month…

DM me at @renald.croes with any question or learn how to get started here! 👈

You'll probably get to $20K/mo eventually. When you do, that's an extra $20K/mo you can enjoy.

But until you do, you have a –$20K/mo problem.

You can figure it out on your own. But you don't have to.

And it can be slow. But it doesn't have to be.

You’ll definitely hit $20K-$30K/mo in the next 6-12 months working with me.

If that’s something you’re interested in…

learn how to get started here! 👈 before spots run out!

Let’s get started!

Renald 🚀