172: From 2 Years to ~5 Months: The 'Unsexy' Way I Signed Clients Faster

If you’ve been grinding for months (or years) and still don’t have the clients you want, I get it. For me, the time it took from 'I first meet you' to 'you become a client' used to be about two years. Now it’s about five months. That’s ~79% faster - with a full-time job, two kids, and 1 hour a day for my business.

In this episode, I walk through what actually changed. Spoiler: it wasn’t a shiny tactic. It was my identity and beliefs. When I started becoming the woman who already signs clients - the way I think, feel, show up - everything sped up. Strategies didn’t suddenly start working; I started working, because I was aligned.

What I cover:

• Why strategies 'work for others' but don’t stick for you (yet)
• How your identity + beliefs → emotions → actions → results (and timelines)
• The uncomfortable truth behind my first refund (and why it was a gift)
• Why my latest inbound, no-ads client felt easy and sustainable
• My 12-month 'do the scary thing' experiment (and how I gut-check fear vs. truth)
• The MES Framework I use now: Mindset, Energy, Systems

Mentions & resources:

• My free, First Client Starter Kit for Side-Hustling Moms: https://sharonsinghsidhu.com/start
• Louis Butterfield — the video guy whose honesty about failures inspired me to share the messy middle (see his posts and video philosophy on LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/posts/louis-the-butterfield_this-week-i-wrote-a-post-about-my-money-activity-7374837794302541824-9P5O?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAB1JVjgBFeq_djFMXzfkbhmmZbdDVTvKl9s
• David Ghiyam — my go-to for learning Kabbalah and the inner work that powers outer results: https://www.instagram.com/davidghiyam

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:38

Hi and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. So I wanted to talk today about the magic secret formula behind how I reduced the time to sign a client by about 79% I know this sounds like such a clickbaity kind of a title but I was reflecting on this and it dawned on me that actually the improvement was quite significant. So from taking about two years like a few years ago it took me about two years before I signed my first client and then you know kind of like recently it took me about maybe five months when I when how I measure that time is from the time like I know someone until the time they decide to become a client and work with me and I know it sounds like I say it sounds so clickbaity but I just feel like that's what we're all wanting to know right we want to sign clients we want it to happen faster and easier and I want it to share how I did it from my perspective as a side hustling mom who works full time I only have about an hour a day on the weekdays to work on my business and a little bit more during the weekends but basically the point is that my time is quite limited my energy is also you know spread across different things and I just thought I wanted to share a little bit more about some insights I got as I was driving recently and reflecting on you know how I how I actually sign clients because I'm always trying to help you to do that, right? Especially if you're also like me, maybe have a full-time job, maybe have kids and don't have a lot of time but you still have dreams of building something of your own, starting up a business or growing a business. So I decided to make this episode for you, especially if you are a side hustling mom as well and maybe you're feeling a little bit disillusioned why it's taking so long for you to sign clients. I recently saw a comment and I could kind of really feel the energy behind it I can't remember what my post was about but it was probably something about like an encouraging post to kind of inspire you to keep going even when results the results that you want aren't there yet and someone made a comment about how do you keep going when you have no one showing up maybe not no one showing up to your webinars no one saying yes to you or or you know no one wanting to engage you and so my response was that of course on a LinkedIn comment right how you can't really go so deep like you can in a podcast which is why I love having the podcast but I basically responded to say that well you know you just have to keep going and of course it's more than just keep going you don't want to be doing you don't want to keep doing something that isn't working right so of course there's like other things other nuances in there but I didn't really want to go into it on a LinkedIn reply to a commenter so I decided to make this podcast and the second thing also why I decided to record this which is quite a scary thing for me to do because Because I am almost like coming clean. I feel like there's this coming clean energy about it. Like I'm really trying to be very transparent and honest with you about what the journey really is like when you're trying to build a business on the side and you have many other things going on. And it's inspired by Louis Butterfield on LinkedIn. He's someone that I recently followed and he's the video guy, right? If you don't know who he is, I highly recommend you checking him out on LinkedIn. He just has some really very like you know, just very authentic. I hate to use that word, but you know, very real, honest kind of a vibe. I like about how he shares what he's doing to grow his business. And he talked about how, you know, he made a post and he talked about and shared his failures and how like many of us sometimes don't want to share that side of things because we fear that people will see us less of an expert. But he talked about when he did that, actually it led to more engaged more impressions, and I think eventually even clients and leads and clients. And so I wanted to, you know, just experiment with that. Obviously, I just want to show you the behind the scenes. And of course, at the back of my mind, of course, I'm also trying to get leads and clients, right? So let's just be really honest and open about that. But I think there is value in giving you the real story, what it actually takes, because I also feel like online these days on the Internet, like what you see is not the full picture. and I always appreciate like really big names who share the real thing that's happening behind the scenes like how much it actually takes and then when I have a glimpse into that I realize oh you know maybe I don't want that kind of a lifestyle after all I just see the glamorous side of it and I want that side of it but we don't see the behind the scenes what comes along with that it's a whole package you know and we don't see the other side of that and so that really comforted me and reassured me in my own decisions about why there were certain things that I just they just were not a priority for me it was not something to me the trade-off wasn't worth it I'm not saying that you have to follow me but it's just for me and my personal situation and what I want in life right for myself and for my family and so as you listen to today's podcast you might be wondering and I know I'm taking a risk here you might be thinking oh this this Sharon she doesn't know what she's talking about she's like a complete failure and he way but you know what I just decided my 12 month experiment of doing scary things is one of the things is just to be like more transparent and be more real and tell you what actually is behind the scenes that maybe some people don't talk about okay so anyway so my magic secret formula I just I don't know I just thought about that on the fly and I know it sounds very like scammy but it just sticks for me so magic secret formula about how you can reduce the time to sign your clients and the key point I want to make if nothing else from this episode I just want you to remember the key point that if you are not getting what you want yet the clients that you want the customers that you want in your side business is not growing as fast you're not making your revenue numbers like the way you want to make it in the time frame it isn't because you're doing anything wrong okay let's just let's just say put it out there but the key thing is because you're not being the version of that person the version of you who already has all those clients and revenue that you want. So what do I mean by this? I think I want to illustrate this with my own story and my own journey, because as I was preparing for this episode, I started reflecting about my entire journey in this whole entrepreneurship, which started way back. I think this seed or this seed of a desire to be an entrepreneur was in me. I don't remember how, but all I remember is When I graduated college, I worked in a few jobs and then, you know, I really wanted to start my own business already since then. And I did start a children's party planning business. Some of you who have followed me maybe have heard this story. I started my first business and I did get clients. I, you know, basically like a party organizer for children's parties. And I got my first kind of client, right? Through referrals, like my cousin referred me to a parent who wanted to have someone organize the party and then after that I got like subsequently I also got some other customers through I guess I guess word of mouth I suppose but you know I was in my early 20s very fresh very green and through that experience I realized I really didn't like event organizing I really did not enjoy being around kids you know I'm not really the sort of person who loves kids I love my own kids very much but I'm not a natural around kids like some other people are and so I stopped right and I decided you know what and also you know I didn't have a network of people and I just wanted to focus on my 9 to 5 job and you know I continued doing that and I really like I kind of like just focus on that and climb the corporate ladder etc etc grew my corporate career but along the way always on the side and especially when the kids came along I really wanted to find a different way to generate income you know and at that time of course as the key bridge winner also i wasn't in a position to be able to quit my job i mean this is still the same as it is now i'm kind of like still the primary earner but i also knew i wanted to have multiple income streams and maybe one day i could get to a point where i could have the choice whether or not i wanted to leave my uh you know nine to five job right and so that kind of started the whole journey of always kind of like dabbling trying different things exploring and researching different side businesses that gave me the flexibility to do it on the side of my job And I did all sorts of things, right? Like MLMs. I went into freelance writing. I was writing for even like publications, parenting magazines. And then eventually, you know, in 2014, like I can't believe it's like over a decade ago, me and my husband and I decided, okay, let's go do a brick and mortar, start a cafe. And that led to a six-figure debt. And, you know, I mean, at the time, of course, it was very difficult. But now on looking back, I know that it was what needed to happen for me to learn everything I needed to learn. to learn like really quickly accelerate my um mba education like in real life um but then i then after that like so we ran it for about four years 2014 to 2018 actually my husband was the one who ran it a lot more than i did i did go back to a job to really try to repay the the debt because we had to take on um loans for all the capital investments we had to make into a brick and mortar setup and then you know that's when i decided okay i'm i'm not doing this again i don't want to have to pay rental and deal with labor issues and, you know, and just be location stuck. And that's when I started researching, right? And came upon the idea, discovered the world of online businesses basically in the end of, let's say, 2017 and bought my very first online program, like quite a big investment, right? Like about, I think it was$2,000 or something. And that was my first program I bought about starting a business online, probably end of 2017. And that's when I really started kind of delving into this world of online businesses, right? And then I also was continuing to write on Medium, started writing on Medium in 2018, you know, like, and I continued to buy different programs, join different coaching programs. Like, probably, I think, I mean, at this point, I'm probably about, I don't know how many, I've lost count, definitely more than 10 programs I've invested in. And I was kind of like tracking my progress as I was preparing for this podcast. And I realized that It was almost like every year I would have a milestone in terms of actually money made, whether it was writing on Medium or whether it was selling an online program or signing one-on-one coaching clients. And I was tracking the time it took me to achieve these key milestones and looking at what led to me being able to kind of sign the clients and get the customers, right? And one thing that I noticed was that the time between, you know, the one and the other, so like from the first time I signed a client to the next time, the time kind of like shortened over time. So, you know, you can imagine it's been a journey, right? Since 2018 I started and then today we're in 2025, we are talking about like 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, seven years, right? So we're talking about seven years span. And for me, the pacing, like I said, my priority was always my family, providing a good life, repaying the debt, and also not get to a point of so much deprivation that I would deprive my kids of having experiences. So we still traveled. I still spend money on like, you know, annual family vacations to all over the world, you know, not just the nearby locations, but we're talking about across the world to the Grand Canyon, to see the Northern Lights, to go to the Maldives. So we're talking about like pretty much luxurious travel right and I'm very grateful that my nine-to-five job actually allowed me to do that and that was not something I was prepared to give up it wasn't just a salary in Singapore we also get the CPF which is you know the contribution by the employer into a retirement fund that we can invest and for us my husband and I we use it for housing because we can also use that for housing and so it just financially does not make sense for us to for me to like you you know, not be working a nine to five, right? And of course, there's always the other intangible bits like your network, you know, used to work with people. And then you also learn to navigate complex organizations and different stakeholders. And these are all skills that I feel really served me well, also in terms of building up my business. And I think also a very key point is that it enabled me to continue to invest in myself, to become a better version of myself, to be more skilled, to increase my value you know to increase my market value not just by paying for it myself but even getting sponsorships from my employers because it also helps my work right and so I think it just for you wherever you might be on your journey just also take some time to reflect upon the decisions you made and the actions you took you you did those things because it's really the best decisions for you so even if it feels like it's slow for you in terms of your side business there is a good reason for it now of course there's the other side of it would be maybe there are certain things that I'm really not really helpful and you're still hanging on to out of fear out of doubt and uncertainty and that's something I want to talk a little bit about too and so the thing is how did I go from signing my taking two years to sign my first client to then now taking about five months to sign a client and so this is how I calculated the 79% improvement right and when I talk about it I'm talking about like from stranger from the point of like meeting a stranger to the point where they know, like, and trust you enough to hand over money, significant amounts of money to you to engage you as, you know, a service provider or if you're selling a product, right? So I really looked at that and I realized after taking all of these courses, I must have spent, I don't know, like definitely five figures worth of programs, right? Invested all of this money into all these programs and ultimately my conclusion is this. Many different methods, many different different strategies out there. They all work. They all work. They all can work or they all may not work, right? And why I say that is because everyone who's taught these courses and programs and coaches that I engaged, they all experienced success. So you can't say that whatever they're teaching doesn't work and it's not good. I went through a period of that, like, oh, this is a scam. This doesn't work. You know, I didn't get to sign clients after signing up with the program. And then, you know, for me, it took time, right? It took me years, right? to come to this realization. But what makes the big difference is that how I got from two years to five years was the shift I made in my identity and my beliefs. Now, I know that sounds really fluffy, but it isn't, right? Because I want to kind of talk a little bit more about this. So, you know, it was a gradual process for me because I started off being very completely unconscious and unaware. I was very rooted in the 3D world. around like logic and rationale was number one for me. Like if you cannot reason it out and show me the evidence, I'm not buying it, you know? So that was me, right? About maybe 10, 20 years ago. And this is a result of all the conditioning, right? How we are raised, the society, our education, our occupation, being in the corporate world, you really have to always, it's always about tangibles and targets and deliverables. You got to do it within the quarter. And if you don't, it means it doesn't work. So, you know, I think that we're so entrapped wrenched in all of this which is not a bad thing of course we want evidence we want data all of these things but they cannot be at the expense of the so-called metaphysical or softer side because um that is the the identity your identity and your beliefs meaning to say how you see yourself how you see the world what do you believe is true and right and the rules of reality that you have all of this i kind of like put it under the umbrella of i you know your identity your self image your belief systems and how your world operates you know how you perceive the world as operating your whole world view that is actually the key thing that is going to drive how you feel about things happening how you feel about people the interactions you have they affect us at an emotional level and we are emotional creatures this took me a really long time I think that's why it took me so many years right because it took me a long time to really come to terms with this and accept that no I am not as irrational and logical as I think. I make a lot of decisions out of emotions and then I use my logic and reason to back it up and rationalize why it was a good decision. But at the very subconscious, like instinctive level, it's a very emotional gut response, right? And so your identity and your beliefs are going to then drive how you see and view things and perspectives and how you feel about things. And it's your emotions that drive your actions, what you do, what you don't do. And it is your actions or inaction that leads you lead to the circumstances that you find yourself in now the results that you have the outcomes that you have and so all these years I see and I look back now and I realize it was these small little shifts I was making around my identity right and because as I tried certain things some things work some didn't work and you know I reflect on it and then I come to certain conclusions I draw certain lessons and insights from it and then I apply that and I try it in a different way. So all of this time, the seven years has all been about all of that. And I think that it really accelerated in the recent years because I really started working on my identity and my beliefs. So like the programs I started investing in were like so not so business-y, not so corporate-y, you can even call it maybe a little bit more spiritual, a little bit more fluffy and woo-woo, a little bit more around energy and And it was because of this that I feel like it really accelerated the results. Because when I started shifting my identity and my beliefs and started, I noticed myself thinking differently, like seeing things differently, feeling differently too. Like, Les, I used to always complain about everything, you know, very negative. And I think I was a real drag to be around, to be honest. Like, I would complain to everyone about every single boss I ever worked for, every single colleague. Like, i was just so negative but and now i actually um of course through the process made a very conscious deliberate effort to start to see the good in things to start to see the positive in things and um you know really made an effort to do that and i noticed myself starting to see things differently and perceive things differently and feel differently i feel a lot more at peace i feel a lot more certain i um some people might call it like i have a lot more faith and belief and trust in myself even though I may not know the answers things might be very scary and uncertain like putting this episode out to speak about how long it has really taken me you know I was a little bit hesitant about it because I was worried that if I put it out there and then you hear wow seven years and she's still like doing this and trying to you know make her dreams come true but then I realized like I think you need to hear this and I also have come to the conclusion that our dreams also evolve and what we thought was like our dream life maybe after you find out a bit more you realize that that's not really what i want which is what happened with me with so many examples like with the cafe business you know with like do i really want to run my business full-time it doesn't make financial sense for me now to do it you know so all these things i think just being more open about it and then also being open about how i i've invested recently in more like spiritual kind of stuff um you know studying things like manifestation learning about human desire learning I'm really very interested in learning about the Kabbalah right now by David Guillaume another very very good person to follow if you're interested in that so I'm like really doing more of this kind of inner spiritual energy work right which is not very rational at all on the surface but it has really made the biggest difference for me and so the key takeaway I wanted to leave you with from today is that yes strategies can work and that's really how of course I signed earlier clients based on strategy alone, right? Like less of the identity and belief shifting part, more of the strategies. And I tried all sorts of different things. I saw online products. I saw physical products. I had a cafe. I had, you know, a coaching, one-on-one coaching. And what I found was that, yeah, the strategies all work, but over time it's not sustainable because it was also during that time that I experienced my first refund. And it was very difficult. But then now when I look back now, I realize that it may you know it makes sense because the person who refunded was not the right fit for me anyway was really not the right kind of client not that she was bad or anything it's just like we weren't really on the same wavelength and the same vibe and definitely there was a mismatch and I felt it you know and I felt it even before she refunded and it's just because I feel now in retrospect when I look back it's because I I was really pushing through on the strategies and the belief and the identity had not really matched up to it. And I needed to experience that refund because it was to show me, hey, you know, this is what it feels like when it is not aligned, you know, compared to a client I recently signed. Oh, I love her so much. You know, she's like the most ideal, perfect client you could ask for. She is very open minded. She's very excited. She's very proactive. She's got a lot of energy, positive energy. and she's just like she wants to try different things and you know we just talk like we're friends and this is this like talk like someone you already know this is the kind of clients that I want to work with there is no kind of a sleazy feeling to it I did not have to cold DM anyone is a completely inbound organic no ads nothing someone just reached out after they we got to know each other and she just asked she just asked you know how do I work with you and this feels so much better for me and I feel feel like it would be so much more sustainable and so you know strategies can work focusing on the tactics and the strategies yes but they're not sustainable and when you make the identity and self image shift and you shift your belief system to become that sort of a person that has that kind of outcomes that you want I feel like it can happen so much quicker so much easier and in a way that feels good and natural to you so work on your beliefs work on your identity and so now I guess in the next question you might have is well okay um how do i do that right so if you want to like um start today you can just start today just simply by being aware of what your current identity and beliefs are and because identity and beliefs actually live in your not in your conscious mind right they're actually deep in your unconscious subconscious and unconscious part of you so it may not be very obvious and one simple way is to just take a look at your current situation and maybe i what is it you don't like about it right now or what's something that's missing for you right now for me for example it was I knew that there was this dream in my heart right like I want to build something of my own on the side I wanted flexibility so that I could have time with my kids I also wanted financial independence and financial freedom so like just list out whatever it is right for you just being aware of what is the gap that you're experiencing now in your life and just be really curious about it right no judgment at this point needed and then what I did was I also studied the people that I aspire to be right the people who have what they have what looks like what I want right and I would just observe right I follow them on LinkedIn I watch I listen to their podcast I read their books and just whatever that I'm drawn to I would just follow those breadcrumbs I would study them and then i would try to emulate them because we know that they definitely are doing something that is getting them the thing that we want and so we want to see what is it that we can kind of role model after them right and specifically i would look for their identity you know what is their belief system what's their worldview like how do they see the world and and i want to try to be more like them right the more we are assuming that identity and belief system the more we will start to naturally think like that and feel like that and when we feel like that we know that our actions are driven from our emotions and so we'll start to take actions more like that and the results we want come from those actions right and so the idea logically so this is my logical brain following that kind of like argument is logically you will have results a little bit more like that and so we want to start to emulate them and shift our own current identity and beliefs to be more like them first before we jump straight into implementing the strategy and taking the action without doing the identity and belief work because actually once you shift your identity and beliefs you will naturally start to think and feel and act like that right however a point to note so although it sounds like linear logical deduction is that okay if I'm more like them then I should get the results like them but we know that's not true right because again like I said whatever you see is just one sliver of aversion there's so much more there's so much more depth and subtlety and nuances behind everything everything that they might be doing that you are not seeing. And therefore, even if you, like, copy exactly whatever is available to you to see, copy exactly what they're doing and the way they're thinking, you still might not get the exact same results, right? And maybe if you're like me, you realize, oh, you may not want to get the exact same results, too, because you realize what it involves, right? And so, you know, I think, like, ultimately, we want to emulate, we want to shift, but then we also want to know where we are, who we are honestly, be honest with ourselves, what we really want, is it really worth it for us? And is it really a priority? And is it my priority or is it someone else's expectation of me? So all of these things are the things like that and helping you to shift your identity and beliefs are all the things that I love to work with moms with, especially those of you who are also side hustling, maybe trying to build up your side business. So if you want to learn a little bit more about my approach, definitely get my starter kit because I share my framework that is all around mindset, energy system. And I'm now thinking I should call it the MES framework for mindset, energy and systems. And also tools like the MAP method in terms of how you can give simple instructions to your mind to kind of help to shift your identity and beliefs using things like human design, learning how to work with your natural and natural energy to help you to make those shifts quicker than I did it in eight years you probably won't need eight years okay that it took me because now obviously I've got all a lot more experience and knowledge that I've taken from the programs and application in my real my own life so hopefully you don't need to take as long as that and reduce the time for you to sign your your clients okay so if that's something that you want get my starter kit you have an over of the framework to see whether it's something that you can get on board with and you think like makes sense, go to sharonsingseru.com forward slash start to get the starter kit. I'll put the link also in the show notes. And, you know, maybe like just see whether it's something that you want to explore together further. And there'll be details about all of that in the starter kit as well. All right. That's really all I have for you today. I hope it was a helpful episode. If you liked it, please consider following the show, writing a review on apple podcast if you listen on apple podcast and tell also a fellow side hustling mom about the podcast and maybe this will be helpful for her as well thank you so much for listening again i appreciate you being here to the end and i'll talk to you again next week bye