Eyes up, ar*e down – why your clients should give you a case study

‘Don’t worry, the camera only captured you down low and from behind.’

Not sure what excellent things you were told last week, but that ranks highly on my list of ‘Oh Dear God No.’

Before someone reports this as a front for an Only Fans account (NO THANKS), I go to a circuits class in a local park every Friday morning. Not because I’m the type of fitty who could open an Only Fans (I’m going to flag for the wrong type of content in a minute…) but because it reduces my stress and boosts my social levels. Win.

Friday morning, I rocked up to find a local news station on site.

It was a heatwave so I was sweating before I’d even moved.

Worse still, it was the first time I’d worn shorts in the UK in 20 years (no joke) thinking it was a ‘safe space’.

I had four clear options:

1)           Go home, immediately.

2)           Mutter ‘f*ck f*ck f*ck’ on repeat. That way, they’d be forced to create silent footage and/or block out my face so no one could swear lip read on tea time telly.

3)           Follow my pal Eleanor’s advice and fake a medical emergency.

4)           Go home, shouting ‘sh*t!’ while faking injury.

(Number four was looking most appealing.)

Instead, I cracked on as normal.

If you’re thinking ‘ooh, there’s incoming inspo about overcoming resilience and how to apply it to your business/how to learn to love your thighs Cosmopolitan 90s headline style’, you’ll be gutted. I did the class as usual because our instructor had, in fact, had a medical emergency a few years ago. And that’s why the channel was there.

The reporter wanted to cover Cath’s journey from her role in the police, through a blood clot on her brain, to regaining her health and offering fitness classes for all ages and abilities. As well as putting us lovely Friday folk through our paces, she also goes into care homes to deliver movement sessions (which is what I might need after pretending I could do a press up for the cameras).

So there’s no moral and there are no #ThighGapGoals?

No. But my instructor’s story is important, her classes are fab, and I really like her. So I wasn’t going to bail out when I could be part of a story to give her business a boost.

If people like you and the help you’ve given them, they’re usually quite willing to get involved in a case study to spread the word about your brilliance. I say this confidently as a big chunk of what I do involves writing case studies for clients, interviewing their customers and writing up a story. And I’m yet to call one person who’s told me to sod off. Instead, they’ve said cracking things my clients can use to win more business.

I’ve stepped up to this recently and asked my ever-brilliant client, Debbie Whitaker of Not Just Numbers, to be a case study subject for me. And guess what? She happily gave up her time to meet me and say thinks that made my confidence rise. She even bought me a drink.

Go on, ask people to give you a case study (and me to write it up, obviously. See how and why that works). If I can be part of one on TV in a pair of shorts with sweat running into my eyeballs, then your customers will probably be quite alright having a chat to me on the phone, behind closed doors and (presumably) when no one’s filming them from the a*se up.

Class for anyone who wants to check it out: Cath CFit, Cawood.