Aventive Academy Review: What Is Kady Sandel's Crickets to Clients Method? |IPPEI

Updated On 2025-08-14

Aventive Academy Review

Aventive Academy is Kady Sandel’s design business training platform. It offers courses, masterclasses, coaching, and other resources. Aventive Academy teaches freelancers and agencies how to get high-ticket clients using Kady’s “Crickets to Clients” method. Its Fully Booked Designer program also teaches freelancers how to scale into a full-fledged agency using the “floating agency model.”

Aventive Academy reviews are positive. Students like Kady’s accessibility and her contractor management strategies. There are many success stories on the Aventive Academy website and channels. However, I found no student reviews on 3rd-party sites.

In my opinion as an online business owner for over a decade, scaling a freelance design business like Aventive Academy teaches is similar to selling designer bags like Gucci or Burberry. You’re typically the first expense to get cut during economic downturns. On the contrary, with a local lead generation business, you’re more like a tattoo. Although a business can contemplate getting rid of you, it’s painful and often not worth it because they would lose an entire marketing channel that might not cost them anything except a commission on their sales. Scaling a freelance business also means filling your own schedule with more work. To maximize your income, you mirror Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada by working around the clock. You need to become an expert at balancing the demands of multiple clients. It can feel like you’re Rong Niu (a.k.a Red Panda), the famous halftime performer who balances many bowls on her head while riding around on a giant unicycle.

This article reviews Aventive Academy and Kady’s Crickets to Clients method. It includes Laura’s experience at the Academy. There is also a list of what the Academy offers, such as the Fully Booked Designer program and the free resources.

Aventive Academy Pros and Cons

Pros

The Fully Booked Designer’s curriculum covers a wide range of topics from business planning to AI integration
Fully Booked Designer gives you direct access to Kady through email and Instagram DMs
The Fully Booked Designer program gives you access to a private community for networking and support

Cons

The contractor-based agency model requires management skills that transitioning freelancers may find difficult
The high-value model may not apply in all markets or design niches
Relying on contractors may lead to delays and low-quality services

Price: Aventive Academy programs cost range from $27 to $997.

Refund Policy: Aventive Academy does not offer any refunds.

Origin: Aventive Academy was founded by Kady Sandel in 2020.

What Is Aventive Academy’s Crickets to Clients Method?

The Crickets to Clients method attracts high-paying clients without relying on social media trends. Instead, Kady gets clients by positioning herself as strategic business partners rather than order-taking service providers. She targets clients with $10,000 to $50,000 budgets who view design as a business investment rather than an expense.

The Crickets to Clients method centers on “The Big 3”:

Solutions to problems: High-ticket clients want designs that help them make more money in their business. Kady teaches how to frame offers around business growth. Instead of saying she’ll design a great logo, she says she’ll design a brand that attracts more customers and increases sales.
Professional experience: High-ticket clients expect professionalism, such as organized workflows and systematic delivery. Kady says to focus on providing the best experience.
Make their lives easier: High-ticket clients pay a lot to avoid being involved in every decision. Kady teaches how to identify exactly what they want and handle the projects with minimal back-and-forth communication.

How Laura Scaled to $3,500 Minimum Design Projects With Aventive Academy

Laura

Laura went from $350 to $650 individual services to $3,500 minimum projects with the Crickets to Clients method. She previously had to compete on price with hundreds of other designers. After joining Aventive Academy, Laura learned how to package her services. She marketed them as “branding and web solutions” and focused on selling the outcome instead of the service.

She repositioned herself as a “brand strategist for growing businesses” instead of a “graphic designer.” She then adopted Kady’s floating agency mode. This allowed her to attract high-ticket clients and deliver full-packages on time.

Laura says the Crickets to Clients method is the most valuable lesson she learned from Aventive Academy. It helped her identify and communicate with clients who saw branding as an investment and not an expense.

What Does Aventive Academy Offer?

Fully Booked Designer program - A 12-week intensive design business program that teaches freelancers how to transition into the “floating agency model.” It covers everything from client acquisition to scaling. Students also gain access to the private community and support from Kady via email and Instagram DMs. Bonuses include blogging and portfolio bootcamps and a certification upon completion of the program. Fully Booked Designer has 13 modules with 85 video lessons and 47 downloadable worksheets.

Paid courses:

The Wealthy Client Blueprint - $27 video course teaches a 4-step process for landing high-paying design clients.
Client Workflow Course - $197 short course on streamlining client processes and workflows. It comes with 8 lessons, workbooks, and email templates.
Pricing Your Services Course - $197 course on strategic pricing for design services. It has 9 lessons covering hourly, project, package, and value-based pricing models.
Marketing for Designers Course - $197 marketing course specifically for designers. It has 6 lessons covering networking, social media, blogging, SEO, and paid advertising.
Niche Your Business Course - $197 training on finding and developing a niche. It has 8 lessons covering specialization, market research, and positioning.

Free resources:

Get a $12K Client in a Couple of Days - Free downloadable lead magnet for attracting high-paying clients.
From Crickets to Clients Workshop - Free webinar masterclass on how to book $5K to $10K design projects. It covers client acquisition strategies and transitioning from freelancing to agency ownership.
The Profitable Graphic Designer Podcast - Weekly podcast hosted by Kady Sandel. She gives tips and strategies that help agencies and freelancers grow to $10K a month.
$10,000 Profitable Blogging Bootcamp - SEO-optimized content creation course. It covers the fundamentals of SEO, positioning, and authority building.
$12K Client Attraction Masterclass - Free webinar masterclass where Kady walks through strategies to attract high-paying clients. It also covers how to get them to ‌increase repeat business.
Client Portal - Free downloadable tool to reduce back-and-forth emails with clients.
Uplevel Your Design Portfolio to Land More Clients - Free webinar workshop that teaches you how to build a portfolio and land $10K projects.
Get Clients | 5-Day Email Challenge - Free 5-day email challenge for client acquisition strategies.

Who Is Kady Sandel?

Kady Sandel

Kady Sandel is the Serbian-born founder and CEO of Aventive Academy. She went from designing $65 logos as a freelancer to $20,000 branding packages with her agency Aventive Studio. Her Austin-based branding agency ‌maintains a 68% profit margin through the “floating agency model.”

How Local Lead Generation Earns Passively Without Constant Client Acquisition?

Local lead generation earns passive income without constant client acquisition through the rank-and-rent model. I build and rank lead-generating sites and rent them out to local service-based businesses. Instead of constantly looking for projects, each client pays me $500 to $3,000 every month. In exchange, they get exclusive unlimited leads. I only have to go back and update the site if it drops in ranking, which takes months to years. As long as the site is ranked and rented, I earn hands-free.

conclusion

One of my sites is Orange County Electric Gate Repair Elite, 130 East Collins Avenue, Orange, California 92867, 714-912-1585 https://www.ocelectricgates.com/ . Last month, it generated 67 leads and my client closed $15,768 in new business. We have a 10% commission deal so I earned $1,577 for the month.

In my experience, local lead generation income is more guaranteed like the aurora borealis appearing in Iceland each winter. Freelancing income is more like a hurricane, it comes in seasons and oftentimes it can be overwhelming because you’re trying to accommodate multiple businesses with active work. I’d rather be like Barbara Corcoran, scaling my income through strategic investments in passive income assets, than Spongebob Squarepants, who must show up to work everyday to collect a paycheck.

Check out our local lead generation program to learn how you can start a passive income business. You can even earn while learning by selling leads to my high-ticket client.