300% Profit Growth & Early Retirement In 12 Months

Counselling Tutor is a leading provider of online training and resources for counselling professionals and students in the UK. 

Built by Ken and his business partner — both qualified counsellors with many years at the coal face — the platform has evolved over time. It now offers student study resources, a professional development library, niche courses and its premium product, the Advanced Certificate in Clinical Supervision.

As CEO, Ken was deeply involved in running the business. However, after ten years in the trenches, he was ready for a change.

On the surface, Counselling Tutor was thriving:

• 7-figure revenue
• Strong reputation in the counselling education field
• Growing student base
• Established product suite

But underneath?

Ken was exhausted, uncertain, and feeling trapped by his own success.

I was in a challenging place and I just didn't know what to do anymore. I was lost and the only message I ever heard about growth was "sell more, more, more". But that just wasn't resonating with me. I knew there needed to be more to success. 

As I see with so many entrepreneurs, Ken's success had become the thing holding him captive

When we first talked, he was torn between two opposing paths:

1. Throwing himself headlong into growing the business and increasing turnover
2. Stepping back and enjoying a quieter life.

The biggest challenge of all?

Figuring out if he could afford — personally and professionally — to take either route.

The Business

Whenever I mentor a business owner, I always want to start by understanding them and their business.

As Ken says:

You didn't start by saying (as so many do): "This is what we're going to do." Rather, you did the exact opposite, asking: "Let me learn about your business... show me this, show me that.” 

Understanding values and goals comes first.

No growth strategy works without aligning with the business owner's vision for their life and business. The most important question isn't "how do we grow?" but "what do you truly want?"

To properly understand Ken's situation and help him decide what he wanted, I needed to explore where Counselling Tutor had come from, look at where it was headed and uncover what obstacles stood in the way.

As our conversations deepened, several key challenges emerged.

These were the obstacles preventing Ken from moving forward.

Finding New Customers

You highlighted how one critical risk area was our dependence on search traffic, on coming up in Google when people search for us. And this was even before AI really significantly hit how search is done and the algorithms went haywire.

Ken and his team were producing a tonne of valuable content — including a podcast and YouTube channel -- but these visitors didn’t include enough of the professionals they were set up to serve.

Also, the lion's share of the traffic was coming from Google search, creating a major problem: Single channel dependency. 

What would happen if SEO was disrupted?

This dependency on search traffic created a vulnerability in the business model that Ken hadn't properly addressed before.

Little did we know (talking in early 2023), that this doomsday scenario was actually just around the corner.

Outdated Brand Didn’t Match Industry Reputation

As we dug deeper into Counselling Tutor's challenges, another critical issue emerged.

They were still operating their original website — the one Ken had cobbled together 10+ years ago — clunky, full of annoying menus and looking like a relic from the 2010s. 

People raved about our gold-standard courses and wanted to send others our way. But you would never have known that by looking at our website or our social media or any of our channels. It wasn’t what someone looking for this training in 2025 would expect to find. The whole thing felt out of alignment.

This gap between their reputation and how they appeared online wasn't just a matter of looks.

It was actively limiting growth.

The site was in a dreadful state. That's because I built it myself back in the day! The website was the very same WordPress that I sat there uploading the files while my wife did the logo. It was still like that and it needed a refresh. It needed to level up to the quality of our delivery.

People arrived expecting a platform that met those glowing recommendations and found a tired site instead.

That undermined their trust and was no foundation on which to build reputation and attract the right people.

The whole brand package needed a substantial overhaul to bring it into the 2020s and beyond.

Customer Journey Didn't Gel

There was a further misalignment, too...

Counselling Tutor's content wasn't targeted to their ideal customers -- professional counsellors. It was often attracting individuals looking for counsellors.

As such, not only were the wrong people finding the site, the right people were arriving and leaving disappointed. 

As we worked, Ken realised his business priorities needed to change.

I needed to understand that lead gen was the most important focus within the business and it was about focusing on lead generation of the right person.

Moreover, for those who did buy, there wasn’t a clear customer journey for students to ascend through the product range.

The pricing of the various products often didn't align with expectations.

For example, their Advanced Certificate in Clinical Supervision was underpriced, and didn’t reflect its true worth or status as a premium product.

Ken was reluctant to raise the price, fearing that making it more expensive would cut sales -- a common fear among entrepreneurs but.

But I disagreed and pushed him into seeing the wider positioning of the business. 

Ken needed to reframe his thinking. Someone who comes to a leading provider in their industry usually expects the premium course to be at a certain level.

So, it’s not about making it more expensive but simply pricing the certificate where it needed to be to align with their brand and reputation.

In short... the whole customer journey, from content through to purchase was muddled.

This is what happens when a business is 10+ years old. And that's precisely why you need an outside perspective.

Poor Financial Reporting

Ken wanted to step back from the business.

But was Counselling Tutor financially healthy enough for Ken to step away from the day-to-day, and sustain a team that operates without him?

Ken couldn't answer that question.

He didn’t have proper management reporting — or even understand that he needed it at all.

What’s more, the business was leaving significant amounts of cash idling in the bank, not working for the business.

(Remember, money needs a plan.)

I would get my books from my accountant, and I would look and say "Yeah, I did okay this year," and then if I was feeling particularly unsure I would look at the business's bank account... if we had more coming in than going out, then great! This was how I was managing the money because I'd never been taught how to do that."

The Work

Let’s summarise:

Ken wanted to step back from running Counselling Tutor but…

• The business was heavily reliant on SEO
• Their content wasn’t attracting enough of the right people
• Their website was outdated and didn’t reflect their true worth
• Premium training was underpriced
• He was relying on the wrong things to measure the finances
• Money wasn’t working as it should

So, we needed to:

• Reposition the business
• Rework the content marketing approach
• Align the entire customer journey
• Fix the financial management
• Create systems that would allow Ken to step back, giving less to the business and more to living his life.

Now, Ken gave me six months to help him achieve this.

He explains:

The actual goal, as we stated it in February, was that by July 1st, I would be down to three days a week working within the company.

To achieve this, we needed to systematically address each challenge with strategic solutions.

Here’s what we did:

1. Ecosystem

Many clients found Counselling Tutor via SEO. Others signed up from enthusiastic recommendations from past students.

But, when Ken and I dug deeper into the analytics, it was clear the tiny conversion rate had to change.

The problem was too many of the wrong people found the website through SEO.

And when ideal customers did arrive, they didn’t have a clear path to follow.

We needed to:

1. Attract the right people
2. Build a logical ecosystem that lead them towards Ken’s products

The content was valuable — but it was too broad.

So, we reworked Counselling Tutor's content planning to focus on the correct ICP:

Now, every podcast episode we discuss a topic that we know is of interest to our audience. We link that topic to something that we offer in Counselling Tutor but, most importantly, we created a custom handout for every single topic that we discussed. So, our podcast started bringing in those qualified leads for the content that links in to the products and services that we sell.

YouTube got the same treatment, with each video including a CTA to download the lead magnet.

By planning content from the top-down, we were able to create much more synergy between various channels -- between the podcast, YouTube and email.

By removing the focus on SEO, overall traffic declined.

However, the people who did arrive were more likely to buy.

This had two effects:

1. Made marketing more efficient
2. Reduced reliance on SEO

2. Pricing

With the content strategy now attracting the right audience, we turned to another critical element of the ecosystem — pricing.

When you come to a leading training provider, you expect a certain level of pricing.

Low pricing can even backfire, as people tend to equate high prices with higher quality and value:

"Why are you so cheap? Something's not right..."

With that in mind, we adjusted the pricing across Counselling Tutor's training to bring it in line with the true value of each product being offered.

You expect a diploma to be more expensive that a certificate.

Matching student expectations is part of the game.

Ken was resistant to the pricing changes at first (just like everyone is!), and compromised by gradually raising prices over time.

The result? 

No drop-off in conversion.

Higher revenue per customer. 

Bingo.

You said, re-look at your pricing on the supervision training. I thought that's going to hit the conversion rates, fewer people are going to buy, and I was wrong. I'm very happy to say I was wrong. So, the conversion rate on that now is just as it was, it's just at a higher price.

3. Website

On the surface, it might seem as if a website is just about looks.

But your website shapes the first (and often last) impression for potential clients when they arrive. An outdated website gives the impression that the whole company is behind the times. But, a slick, contemporary website would gel with their standing as modern experts in their field.

I recommended some vendors, and Ken engaged them to redesign the Counselling Tutor website and branding to match their market standing. (Click through and check out the website if you like -- it's looking sharp!)

This was a massive, massive step that just wasn’t apparent to me — that our website didn’t reflect our standing — until you pointed it out. We now have an online presence which looks and feels better. It generates trust and now when you're there as a prospective client, you look at it and think this makes sense.

4. Partnerships 

Lead gen isn't just about search traffic. 

It's important to look at the wider industry. 

Industry relationships can be a major driver of business, especially in a professional sector like counselling.

Ken has a high standing within the counselling community, yet I felt he wasn’t making the best use of his contacts.

His business partner was deeply embedded in all the major counselling institutions in the UK. They were even recommending Counselling Tutor in an ad-hoc way.

There was a huge opportunity to systematise these referrals, growing revenue and further diversifying away from SEO.

So, we formed a plan to strategically build relationships with the various ethical bodies counsellors have to join.

We now receive hundreds of referrals coming from ethical bodies every month.

This is what happens when you focus on quality and finding the right people.

By using his excellent professional reputation, Ken created a direct path to exactly who needed his services — something that regular marketing could never do so well.

5. Smarter Finances

It was crucial for Ken to to change how he thought about the company’s finances, and to put the right reporting systems in place.

He wasn't going to be stepping back without them! 

The data provided by such reports -- return on marketing spend, refund rates, gross profit and other KPIs -- would be key to helping Ken make informed decisions and let him manage the business from a distance. 

Your bank balance lies to you:

1. It doesn't tell any kind of story -- it's just a snapshot in time
2. It doesn't show what's round the corner
3. Some of that money isn't even yours (sales tax)

Instead, management reports help you to situate the numbers in time -- the story of the business in the past, present and future. 

They can also forewarn of problems before they crop up in the future.

Strategic adjustments across a business can combine to create outsized results. And this is what happened as Counselling Tutor transformed.

The numbers I see now... and how I see them... is a very different story to what I saw before. Before, I would look at my bank account and use it as an indication of the health of my business. Now I have profitability reports and a dashboard that gives me the numbers that actually matter.

Results

When Ken first came to me at the end of 2023, he was confused.

He’d put all his energy into growing Counselling Tutor over the past ten years.

But he didn’t know whether he wanted to stay in the business and keep growing it, or move away from the day-to-day grind.

As we worked together, Ken realised that he wanted to step away altogether.

So, I recommended he focus on:

• Reworking content marketing to attract the ICP
• Strengthening the positioning of the business
• Aligning pricing
• Modernising the website
• Financial management and reporting

And we set a goal for Ken to be down to working three days a week by July, 2024.

Profitability

Here’s where we landed...

• January 2025 was their highest turnover month ever 
• February reports showed a 100% increase YoY
• March profit was up 300% from the year before

It’s fair to say that Counselling Tutor’s funds have never been so healthy.

A key driver of this profitability:

We were able to keep costs relatively flat, while revenue increased dramatically, meaning profit margins significantly improved.

These are fantastic numbers and reflect the coming together of all the strategies we worked on during 2024.

But one of the great things about working with 7-figure businesses is that they're already operating at a scale where significant efficiency savings are possible. 

For example, here's one simple change where Ken was able to make back much of the cost of the mentorship in just a couple of weeks:

During our initial consultation, before the strategy was even written up, you told me how we could work our taxation more smartly. Implementing that put an extra £10,000 into my pocket (and £10,000 into my business partner's pocket) that year and in every year going forward.

So, tax changes were a big win.

But what about that money lying idle in the business bank account?

I think what is important is guidance on how to smartly use the funds that were held within the business. It was another massive win for us. That money was just sitting there doing nothing. And we moved it on your recommendation into an interest-bearing account and have been receiving 4% interest on that ever since. It's the... catastrophe fund but it's working, it's bringing money in.

We looked at how to manage capital investment, too.

We talked a lot about where would be smart places to invest cash for maximum return: I'm talking about branding, the website, putting it into places that are really going to make a difference in the business that I didn't really see until now. This was a big mindset upgrade.

These changes helped the business improve profitability and reduce Ken’s involvement in day-to-day operations — the exact outcome he was hoping for.

Lead Generation

Traffic coming to the website from organic SEO is  down... to the tune of 40%.

Not surprising, considering the entire education industry has faced a huge SEO challenge during these past 12 months.

So, how is that traffic is down, but the profits have soared?

It all comes down to smarter, targeted messaging:

Leads coming in now are the right people for us. And they're converting better. The messaging and product offerings are more focused. It’s just smarter messaging and a better customer journey throughout.

And partnering with the various ethical bodies associated with counselling has paid off spectacularly:

From all the partnerships we created, they are so qualified that 25% of them convert into a sale.

25% conversion? 

That's a number I like.

Better Branding

Counselling Tutor’s website and product placement flows beautifully now, drawing potential clients in and providing a smooth journey throughout.

We went to the designers and took the process that you suggested. One of the things that really helped was first of all recognising that need, because I was blind to it. And secondly, you shared contacts with me. We now have an online presence which looks and feels better. It generates trust and when you're there as a client now or prospective client you're looking at a company and going "okay yeah, this makes sense".

Has Ken Stepped Back?

Remember that goal Ken set back at the start?

To be working three days a week by July, 2024.

Did he achieve it?

Yes, Ken has very happily stepped back from the business.

It took a little bit longer that I'd hoped, because of the SEO challenges that hit a lot of people in 2023-24. So I had to stick around a little bit longer. We're now a year from when we started working together and I'm exactly at that intended goal. I now have a CEO doing an incredible job in the business and I'm now a man of leisure, chasing my passion projects.

I suggested the strategies, but all credit has to go to Ken and his team for all the hard work put in to implementing.

He has peace of mind thanks to his clear visibility into Counselling Tutor’s performance and a justified confidence in the business’s trajectory.

And that's a wrap.

A lot can happen in 12 months.

Where will you be a year from now?

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To find out more about Ken, visit: counsellingtutor.com

To find out about mentorship with Olly, click here.