As a freelance SEO consultant who’s been building out my own agency model, I pay attention when someone has the growth systems for solopreneurs genuinely figured out. That’s why my conversation with Richard Hickman on the Unscripted Small Business podcast stuck with me. Richard runs Piqued Consulting, a marketing agency built specifically for high-ticket coaches — the established ones, usually around $20K a month, who’ve maxed out referrals and need something predictable. Here’s what I took away.
Systems Before Spend
Richard won’t let a client touch paid ads until the foundation is real: a proper CRM and marketing automation (he likes GoHighLevel), a centralized company phone number, calendar integration with show-up sequences, and lead automation. Speed-to-lead is the whole game — there’s no point turning on ads if it takes you two days to follow up.
Price for the Cost of Acquisition
His rule of thumb: don’t work with a coach whose offer is under $4,000–$5,000. Acquiring an online-coaching client can cost several hundred dollars, so a cheap offer can never scale profitably. Collect enough upfront to cover acquisition — and stay far away from pay-on-results.
Build Your Website for the AI
The part that resonated most with my own work: Richard reframes SEO as AEO — building so that ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude cite you when a prospect asks for help.
“You need to be building your website to where it’s not necessarily geared towards a human being visiting it, but an AI visiting it.” — Richard Hickman
His tactic is to title a blog post as the exact question a prospect would ask an LLM, then answer it in full.
“Who reads blogs anymore? AIs do. Perplexity reads your blog. ChatGPT reads your blog.” — Richard Hickman
He even built a free checker at coachingaiaudit.com that tells a coach whether they’re showing up in AI answers yet.
Own the Audience
Two more that I’m fully aligned with: email is the most underused channel (jab, jab, jab, hook — give value weekly before you ask), and never build your business on rented land.
“Social media is great, but don’t rely on it, because it could go away in an instant and we’ve seen it happen.” — Richard Hickman
Find Richard at Piqued Consulting and on Instagram, and run your own AI-visibility check at coachingaiaudit.com.