121 COACHING FOR CLARITY, ACTION & SALES IN YOUR ONE PERSON BUSINESS

Get paid doing the work you were called to do

Ellen Donnelly wearing a silk skirt leaning on a table with red chairs
blue fabric background behind Ellen Donnelly
multicoloured textured background behind startup coach Ellen Donnelly

Imagine growing a profitable business around your skills, talents and expertise…

Unique Contribution is the proven five month coaching & mentoring programme for the solo entrepreneur ready for results. Less talking, thinking and waiting, and more clarity, action and sales.

10,000 hours later...

10,000 hours later...

Your Coach, Ellen Donnelly, has spent the last decade supporting thousands of entrepreneurial professionals as a headhunter, talent advisor and ICF -certified coach.

Since launching The Ask in 2020 she's coached hundreds of individuals to pivot their careers and build businesses that are as unique as they are.
The Ask's content has been viewed over .5m times online and Ellen has been featured or collaborated with brands including...

Marcella testimonial from coaching
Pale blush pink fabric background behind a coaching client
Pink shiny background behind headshot of coaching client

"I'm well on my way to growing my coaching business with high quality clients that light me up, and replacing my corporate income."

Marcella, MARCHA coaching

Startup coach Ellen Donnelly wearing yellow satin dress standing in front of a pink and white wall
pink satin fabric background behind full length shot of ellen donnelly
gold glitter background behind photo of Ellen Donnelly

Your Unique Contribution is calling you in.

Your Unique Contribution is the truest expression of the work you were put on this earth to do and is the foundation of building an expertise-based business you’ll love. Are you in?


  • Nailing your proposition, messaging & pricing for a financially viable one person business

  • Knowing the exact steps you need to take in order to stand out from the competition and get clients

  • Overwhelm of all your ideas, curiosities & interests, stuck in analysis paralysis mode

  • Confidence & mindset niggles... pesky internal voices preventing you from shipping work or asking for the sale

  • Spending too much time working on other people's businesses as a freelancer or employee, at the expense of building something that belongs to you.

Perhaps you're struggling with:


But you’d love:

  • To replace your corporate salary doing work on your own terms

  • To design a mission driven one business person and brand that positions you as the expert that you are

  • To build a body of work, programmes and services you are proud of

  • To know you have the plan, systems and marketing actions in place that will get you repeat results

  • An unshakeable confidence in your abilities and belief you are on the right track for long term success

  • To positively impact your clients lives for the better, and the world at large, with a values driven approach to business

Join Unique Contribution for personalised coaching and mentoring,
to define your unique calling, personal brand and
build a profitable business around yourself,
doing what you love.

Rachel
PR Business Owner

“I was at a bit of a crossroads when I met Ellen, and now I am super clear about how to build a company I am proud of.

Coaching provides such a tangible return on investment and I got clear goals, timelines and objectives and am feeling much more positive about the road ahead"

Simon
Strategy Consulting

"I've gotten everything that I wanted out of coaching. I now have a foundation for my new direction, and I'm super excited to get going, having left my old position for a portfolio career as a writer and consultant. I have a growing sales pipe line and I'm moving continent, too. My new life is set to begin and I'm thrilled by the opportunities that I get to create for myself. "

Eliza
ESG Consultant

“I've gotten clarity on how to build a business unique to me. I’m now really clear on how best to serve my clients, to spend my time and allocate my strengths and my business revenues have grown significantly since our work together. I was looking for accountability, action steps and helpful guidance and Ellen always provides all three in each of our sessions.”

Ted
E-commerce Agency

“Working with Ellen has been fundamental to my personal and business growth. Her well-structured, clear-cut approach is balanced between regular 1:1 meetings, ad hoc contact and tasks to complete in your own time. Ellen helped me to workout achievable goals and provides clear tools on how to reach them. It wasn't long before I'd signed on my first new agency client, the first big step towards my main goals!”

Why Unique Contribution?

Since 2014 I’ve been thinking deeply about how to bring all of my skills and talents into my work.

After many years searching for my ‘dream job’ I decided I had to create my own. As you probably feel too, rarely are 9-5 jobs as fulfilling, flexible, or creative as we would like them to be.


But when you start a business around your unique skills and talents you get to choose the work, people and projects that light you up. And, your growth and earning potential is uncapped.

Except, what stops so many people pursuing their own path is the fear they won’t make it.

There really are no guarantees in entrepreneurship.. ‘Get rich quick’, MLM schemes or or ‘copy-cat’ business models won’t sustain you.

What will sustain you in business is:

  • Knowing yourself, your values, strengths and building around that

  • Being intentional about what business you choose, and how you build it

  • Being as much of yourself as you can be in the process

We live in a noisy online world, and the only way you can stand out is being authentically you. No other strategy will stand the test of time (and the changes that will happen around you) more than being yourself ever will. I’ve headhunted for top VC backed businesses, ran startup accelerator programmes helping founders to identify their next big ventures, and coached and mentored hundreds of individuals to pivot careers and launch businesses.

I’ve learnt that there is no *one* way to run your business, delight your customers or grow your income.

That’s why I designed the Unique Contribution programme: to help entrepreneurs running service-based businesses to unearth their greatness; their secret sauce, talents, unique advantages, network and personality. Unique Contribution dives into all of your past, your strengths, your why, your beliefs, vision, ambition and skillsets … all of it.

Much like a jigsaw puzzle, we bring all of the pieces together.

I will interview you, articulate what I see, and help you to tell the story AND build the foundations of your one person business around the things that will set you apart. The picture of you is created. We turn all of this into business assets and messaging that leave your customers feeling convicted that you are who they’ve been looking for. It’s a carefully designed process that I’ve been iterating on for myself, and hundreds of others through coaching, mentoring and talent consulting work.

I cannot wait to meet you and help you turn your one person business into profitable, stand out service, doing what you love.

In five months time, you could be making big moves in your industry. What's stopping you?

Ellen Donnelly startup coach, sitting on an orange chair wearing gold top and white trousers
Image of gold satin background behind Ellen Donnelly headshot
White paint pattern background behind photo of Ellen Donnelly

The Coaching Process

Unique Contribution is five months of support to help you create a repeatable system that gets dream clients for your one person business. We get there in three phases:

— Phase 1

  • Define your Unique Contribution statement, your mission, long term vision and unique value proposition so that you have full clarity and conviction in your path ahead

  • Identify your top gifts & talent so that you build from a place of strengths, and succeed faster

  • Align how you want your business (and life) to look, and what success looks like on your own terms

— Phase 2

  • Define a compelling offer your ideal client wants to buy (programme/service/consulting approach) that you can confidently deliver, and returns you a profit

  • Design your unique method and approach, sales and marketing plan that gets you to stand out, and customers lining up to buy from you

  • Establish your goals, timelines, and financial plan

  • Uncover mindset blocks or limiting beliefs to move into the new version of you and make big moves

— Phase 3

  • Pitch your offer, market your services, build your network, and make repeatable income from your dream clients so you feel secure in your business

  • Develop your capacity for creativity, build mastery, resourcefulness, resilience and step into your greatness. Dream bigger each day.

Get profitable in 5 months
— Download the Coaching Syllabus

Find out what's covered in the coaching programme, plus get a bonus FREE guide on how to start a one person business today.

White and pink cover of the unique contribution coaching programme syllabus

What people say about me

What people say about me

This is my first rodeo, but it's not Ellen's - her experience shines through every time we meet. She provides me feedback I need to hear, plays devil's advocate, brainstorms, and helps me visualize what I need to do, what I'm capable of, and where I should invest my time and resources.

Her advice and writing are grounded in research, theory, and real world experience. I also appreciate the little things she does like review emails for me, make introductions, or provide the bolder feedback that my friends and family can't always give!

Alice
SaaS Educator

What you'll get

What you'll get

5 months of 1-1 support.

Including:

  • Weekly coaching session (50 mins)

  • Private coaching portal with your session notes, next steps & bespoke resources/reading

  • Remote DM access to Ellen between sessions for mindset blocks, challenges or accountability

  • Strength & Personality profiling

  • Support with your LinkedIn, About Page and social profiles

  • Access to The Ask masterclasses and intros to The Ask clients & alumni

  • MARKETING BOOST BONUS:
    To accelerate your online marketing presence Ellen and The Ask team will deliver a high quality piece of content, done for you (with your creative input of course. You can choose between:
    - A 3-part email series introducing new customers to your business
    - A 3-page lead magnet that showcases your expertise and offers a mini transformation for your reader
    - 10 x illustrated images for your socials in your branding (whichever platform) that you can then keep as your template to repurpose again and again

Investment — £5,500 (paid in full)
or £1,150 per month x 5.

FAQs

  • A: Ellen typically works with entrepreneurs in their first few years of operations, who are looking to make £5-10k months consistently from their service based business, or more if selling b2b. If this journey is the one you are working towards then a fit is likely. If you feel ready to take action, follow through on tasks, take risks, are open to learning and want to be challenged to grow and succeed, you’ll benefit.

  • A: The Unique Contribution approach is about creating a one person business around YOU. Providing you bring the professional skills and experience, Ellen will support you to define a compelling value proposition and business model around it. After many years interviewing professionals she has a knack for identifying talent and your unique advantage.

  • A: Totally fine! Most of The Ask's clients bring tonnes of professional experience already. They don't need to be 'taught' each step of the way. The programme can be flexed to focus on what you need most. Ellen will help you identify potential blindspots, provide expert feedback, and plenty of both cheerleading and challenge. There is always more work to be done on the entrepreneurial journey either on ourselves or on our business. Ellen will help you to plug your gaps and to fill them, faster.

  • A: You have nothing to lose by dropping Ellen a message below via the question box. You can share some details about your situation and what you feel you are missing. From there Ellen may provide you with a free tool/resource, a point of contact, or you might decide to get on the waitlist for a future 1-1 space. A few times per year she accepts clients who need a quick fix on smaller programmes of work, too.

Ellen Donnelly wearing gold satin dress, smiling at the camera with red lipstick

Have a question?

Have a question?