#001 The Insight Edge - Why data beats guesswork & how to identify the clients who will actually pay
From the desk of Maeve Ferguson - August 23, 2025
Prefer to listen? Click the play button below.
In this first week of The Insight Edge™ newsletter, I’m writing to you on board a plane to Poland, listening to a little bit of Bruce Springsteen, my fave singer.
I’m headed for a few days of masterminding with my personal identity magician and energetics advisor, Kasia Rutkowiak. By the time you’re reading this, I’ll be back home and I’ll tell you in just a moment about something exciting we have up our sleeves for you.
Before then, I want to dive into the topic of this week’s newsletter: Why data beats guesswork: How to identify the clients who will actually pay.
Earlier this week, with one of my private clients, we were able to identify the hottest 83 leads on her list who were best suited to her high ticket offer - and it gave her a sales gameplan for the rest of the month - and $605,000 potential revenue in the pipeline to focus on.
No energy wasted on leads looking for a $997 thing. No guesswork. No spray and pray marketing.
Instead, an elegant easy system to laser focus on those who matter most.
What would having access to that mean for your business?
Week in, week out, being able to know ONLY the prospects you should be engaging with?
Allowing your nurture sequences to handle those who aren’t quite ready. Sounds good, right?
Now you’ll know this week’s edition of The Insight Edge™ is for you, if you send the same weekly or daily email to everyone on your list, hoping that something sticks for someone - and then you’re questioning everything from your deliverability to your subject lines to your call to action inside when you’re getting crickets.
Stick with me if that's you.
If you’re feeling like people aren’t buying your courses like they used to, if they aren’t as keen on group coaching as they used to be, stay tuned.
Earlier this week, as mentioned above, we designed a new sales campaign for one of my private clients - where she knew exactly what offers to make to which individuals on her list.
A prescription, person by person, no guesswork - just a detailed plan to execute on.
We were able to do that because she has a diagnostic assessment in place (that we built for her) that grows and segments her list every single day. That segmentation - and how her leads have answered certain questions - gives us data and insights. Not only into what they want - but what they are actually willing to pay for.
And remember: data = power.
If you don’t have this data, to be honest, you’re flying blind.
Data and insights into your market are often overlooked. And I get it - it isn’t exactly the sexiest topic in the world, it isn’t the shiniest tactic that people are raving about. But, it is where true power lies. It tells you where your people are - what they want - and it makes selling SO much easier, because we aren’t trying to fit square pegs into round holes.
How many times has it felt like the true thought leaders are ‘ahead’ - or that it is ‘easier for others?’ This is often because they have this level of insight into their market - they don’t have to guess.
Today I invite you to pause, to think, to consider what you might be missing out on, if you’re not leveraging data and insights in your business.
Data and insights into your market come from your leads, when hyper segmentation is in place. And the easiest way to do that hyper segmentation is with a diagnostic assessment funnel - where you ask your leads questions on different areas of your framework or methodology - and then you’re able to tag them across to your CRM, based on their problems, desires, ability to invest in themselves etc.
Think of it as a way to separate the wheat from the chaff - because remember - not all leads are created equal. We do it two ways for our done-for-you assessment clients - lead qualification (their greatest struggles and desires) and lead classification (Tier 1, 2, 3 etc).
My mentor Ryan Levesque got me into this way of thinking many years ago as I studied his art of creating converting quiz funnels for clients. I’m excited to be headed to Ryan’s Vermont Farm Mastermind event in early September - kicking off my (monthly!) USA autumn travel schedule.
I attended the Boston version of this event last March (see the pics below) and, alongside my VIP day with him, - it was truly profound - so I am really looking forward to Vermont.
- - Side note, I’m also excited to take a few pics of his cattle - we live on a farm too here in Ireland and my little boy Jack is OBSESSED with cattle - so I’m going to show him what the american ones look like! (I promise I’m not flying to Vermont for that sole reason! Honest 🙊.)
Whilst we are on that topic - do yourself a favour and sign up for
’s Digital Contrarian newsletter here - it will really shift your thinking. It is one of the only emails I read in full, every single week. Every week it changes how I choose to live my life, especially since we lost my wonderful mum in June.Now, enough about travels and cattle - lets get back to data and insights. Cause that is what is going to make you money, right?!
If you’re already at six figures, getting to seven and beyond, like many of my clients, may simply be a matter of getting the right message and the right offer in front of the right person at the right time.
But how do you know who those people are - if they got onto your list via a webinar or old school lead magnet funnel?
You’ve got no insight into what they want, what they are struggling with, or what they will pay for, aside from their name, email, phone number and the thing they downloaded (and probably didn’t read), right?
See, most experts who hovering below the cusp of being seen as a true thought leader are falling into the trap of treating everyone on their list the same. Instead of sending your weekly or daily email to your list - where the same message goes to everyone, imagine the power of segmentation - where your people only see a message that is relevant to them.
Before we get into how to build one of these diagnostics for yourself, I want to highlight a few things to avoid.
Smart Enough to Spot the Mouse
My mother in law has a mouse in the house at the moment… and this conniving little thing is avoiding traps like a ninja. He’s pretty smart, to be honest. My kids are having great fun trying to find the mouse - to no avail. So let's make sure you avoid the traps just like said mouse.
Firstly - a common misunderstanding is that segmentation involves those who signed up for masterclasses versus those who signed up for calls or a certain lead magnet.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
See, within each of our audiences there are differing struggles, differing desires and differing abilities to invest in themselves. And I don’t know about you - but much as I care for those who can’t invest - we are here to build companies - and companies require revenue.
So you must ONLY speak to your rich niche.
And it is 100% possible for you to identify your rich niche from those who are kicking tyres. That is the level of segmentation I am talking about - where you’re able to build audiences who answered e.g. question 3 with answer C AND question 9 with answer D and so on - you can create prescriptions that are just for them.
Goes without saying that we need water in the pipes (leads) for this to be effective - as I say to each and every client when they onboard - having a funnel is completely pointless if you don’t have a traffic plan. So avoid the trap of thinking that putting a funnel online will build a company. It won’t. Obviously. Even if the dudes pretend that it does.
Now if you feel the objection coming up internally of - ‘how do I even start to do this?’ Or ‘what do I do with my existing list’ - I’ll outline the ‘how to’ for you below (and if you’re interested in getting on the wait list for us building it for you, reply with the word ASSESSMENT).
So, lets get to it.
As with anything in life - begin with the end in mind. And it all starts with your offer. An extreme example - but we don’t want to build an assessment about gardening if your offer is on the topic of synchronised swimming, right?
Funnel congruence is critical.
Step 1: Diagnostic Design™
Therefore, the first thing to do is begin with the end in mind - where you want to send people - map out your core offer. You’ll want to define the core problem, the solution, your unique mechanism, target market (rich niche) and investment.
Step 2: The Client Engine™
Here you’ll want to create the conversion process - for example - landing page > questions > bespoke results pages > application > call.
An action for you today - what does your client engine look like, comment and let me know.
Step 3: Scorecraft™
Next up, you’ll want to define the outcome definitions for each segment, scoring criteria and characteristics as well as scoring thresholds and boundaries.
Step 4: Results Engine™
Then, create the bespoke results pages and bespoke reports - where your leads get personalised follow up (don’t worry it is all automated) that show them how you have the solution to their exact problem.
Step 5: The Click Catalyst™
Now remember, a bit like our water in the pipes conversation - if we can’t get leads to start our assessment - there won’t be much data and insight, right? So we must create the hook and value proposition to make sure potential leads dive in and get started. Notice how we didn’t start here
Step 6: Question Architecture™
Next up you need to craft the questions for the assessment, being mindful of how each question and answer leads to the diagnosis you give them at the end. You’ll need both diagnostic and non diagnostic questions - that not only qualify the lead, but they also classify them for sale purposes as Tier 1, 2, 3 etc.
(I’ll write another day about our hot leads alert system and how you can make sure your sales team are notified about Tier 1 leads so that they can give them priority attention)
Step 7: The Profit Path™
Finally, is it time to hop to the profit path, adding bespoke follow up sequences and bespoke invitations and applications for each segment.
This is personalisation at the next level.
And your competitors aren’t doing it well - so this is how you set yourself apart.
So, that's it, how to build your diagnostic, step by step.
When you’ve run water through the pipes, run the csv of your leads through an AI driven data and insights analyser and voila - you’ll have identified where your high ticket buyers are hiding too.
Now I mentioned earlier that you might be feeling in recent months that people aren’t buying your courses like they used to.. That people aren’t just as keen on group coaching. And yes, there are some shifts going on in the industry - I’ll dive into my view on this in a future edition of The Insight Edge™.
The trick here is not to burn down your business. Instead, build what people ARE buying - and that is VIP Days.
People are buying VIP days left right and centre - they want quick fast results.
They don’t want long drawn out processes. They don’t want a hundred zoom calls and workbooks. Those ships have sailed.
For you, they are easy to deliver, there's no long tail, you get paid $10K for one day and you ONLY work with 5* clients. No PITAs (pain in the ass clients!). No headaches. No re-explaining yourself over and over week after week to needy clients.
And that is exactly why Kasia and I created The $10K Day System™ when I was in Poland.
A VIP day where you get both the strategy, the tactics AND the energetic shift required to easily command $10K per VIP day.
You can find out all the info on it, how it works and if it is the right fit for you here.
Do check it out today as I expect the 3 spots to go really quickly.
In the meantime - I’d love to hear from you and read every response personally. So hit reply and let me know what really stood out for you today.
Till next week,
Maeve
PS want to see how to build your own client engine? Watch this video on YouTube