Beyond Margins: Designing Calmer B2B Agencies & Consulting Firms

Beyond Margins: Designing Calmer B2B Agencies & Consulting Firms

Susan Boles

Can you build a business based on… “calm?” On Beyond Margins, host Susan Boles looks beyond the usual metrics of success to help you build a business where calm is the new KPI. With over 15 years of experience as an entrepreneur, CFO, and COO, Susan shares the business strategies that lead to a business with comfortable margins—financial, emotional, energetic, and scheduling margins. Join her and her guests as they counter the prevailing “wisdom” about business growth, productivity, and success to provide a framework for making choices that align with your values and true goals. Episode by episode, you’ll get a look at...

How to Measure the Unmeasurable: Tracking Resonance with Jay Acunzo

How to Measure the Unmeasurable: Tracking Resonance with Jay Acunzo

We all want our work to resonate—but how do we know if it actually does? In this episode, I sit down with storytelling and speaking expert Jay Acunzo to explore the concept of resonance over reach and how we can track something that feels inherently unmeasurable. Jay shares his Unsolicited Response Rate (URR) framework, a KPI designed to measure whether your ideas truly connect with your audience. If you're tired of vanity metrics and want to focus on making an impact, this conversation is for y

Feb 25, • 51:05

How to Build a Client Report Card for a Calmer Business with Karen Sergeant

How to Build a Client Report Card for a Calmer Business with Karen Sergeant

Managing client relationships is one of the biggest challenges of running a service-based business. Expectations, boundaries, and communication all play a role in whether an engagement runs smoothly or goes off the rails. So, how do you actually know if you're doing a good job?Karen Sergeant has a solution: a Client Report Card. This system helps her measure and manage client relationships proactively, identifying potential issues before they become problems. As a fractional COO, Karen has spent

Feb 11, • 38:26

Fresh Content, Fewer Posts: Kendall Cherry's Calmer KPI

Fresh Content, Fewer Posts: Kendall Cherry's Calmer KPI

In this episode of Beyond Margins, we explore the concept of calmer KPIs with guest Kendall Cherry, founder of The Candid Collective. Kendall shares her innovative metric, “Fresh Content Inked,” and how it has transformed her content creation process, business systems, and sales cycle—all while doubling her income. We geek out about how to build sustainable systems that create spaciousness in your business, reduce overwhelm, and prioritize what truly matters.What You’ll Learn in This Episode:  •

Jan 28, • 44:45

Making Calm Your New KPI: How to Set Goals That Truly Matter

Making Calm Your New KPI: How to Set Goals That Truly Matter

In this episode of Beyond Margins, Susan dives into the heart of goal-setting, breaking free from default metrics and focusing on what truly matters to your business and life. She shares her own approach to prioritizing calm as a core business metric and gives a behind-the-scenes look at how she set and tracked a single impactful goal in 2024—taking 12 weeks off to rest (spoiler: she surpassed it).Susan explores:Why default metrics like revenue targets may not align with your values.How to set m

Jan 14, • 11:59

Anti-Oppressive Marketing & Reducing Urgency with Natalia Sanyal

Anti-Oppressive Marketing & Reducing Urgency with Natalia Sanyal

How do you reduce urgency in a world where urgency is so deeply embedded? How do you market yourself and your work in a way that is anti-oppressive? We're continuing in our mini-series on my calmer framework for a calmer business. This week, we're focused on reudcing urgency and techniques for anti-oppressive marketing. We're joined by Natalia Sanyal, an anti-oppressive copywriter and brand messaging strategist. She’s worked with billion-dollar businesses like Apple and Lululemon, New York Times

Dec 17, 2024 • 50:18

Architecting Rest with Jordan Maney

Architecting Rest with Jordan Maney

We live in a society obsessed with productivity and working more, so how can we lean into rest? What are the benefits of building rest into our businesses? And how can we begin to do that? We're continuing in our mini-series on my calmer framework for a calmer business. This week, we're focused on rest. Rest is often a challenge for us go-getters, solopreneurs, and entrepreneurs. But, it's essential to stop burnout, stay creative, and have a truly calm and sustainable business. We're joined by J

Dec 3, 2024 • 46:35

Using Efficient Systems to Create Calm with Amelia Hruby

Using Efficient Systems to Create Calm with Amelia Hruby

Why are efficient systems so essential for building a calmer business? And how do you go about finding the right systems and processes for yourself? We're continuing in our mini-series on my calmer framework for a calmer business. This week, we're focused on my favorite aspect of my CALMER framework -- efficient systems. We dive into the importance of understanding our own processes before building systems, and then explore some of the many ways our individual systems can look. We're joined by A

Nov 19, 2024 • 44:48

Transitioning to a 4-day Workweek with Nathalie Lussier

Transitioning to a 4-day Workweek with Nathalie Lussier

What if you could build in more space to your business? An extra day off? More time to strategize? Less urgency and more rest? We're continuing in our mini-series on my calmer framework for a calmer business. This week, we're diving into margins -- financial margins, capacity margins, and energetic margins -- to decrease urgency and burnout and create calmer, more sustainable businesses. We're joined by Nathalie Lussier, an award-winning entrepreneur who has been making websites since she was 12

Nov 5, 2024 • 42:01

Building Systems of Care with Heather O'Neill

Building Systems of Care with Heather O'Neill

Taking care of people in or around your business isn't the default when it comes to business and what we're taught business should be. How is this way of doing business actually hurting us? And, how can we change our systems to be more authentically people-first? We're continuing in our mini-series on my calmer framework for a calmer business. This week, we're diving into lens of care and how operating with a lens of care can decrease panic and urgency in our daily work. We're joined by Heather

Oct 22, 2024 • 41:02

Engineering an Autonomous Work Culture with Marissa Goldberg

Engineering an Autonomous Work Culture with Marissa Goldberg

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Oct 2, 2024 • 40:09

Why Clarity Matters: Creating a Calmer Business Environment

Why Clarity Matters: Creating a Calmer Business Environment

How can defining your business values and success more clearly lead to a calmer operation?This episode kicks off our miniseries on deconstructing the common elements that all calm businesses share. We're starting with the most foundational element: clarity. Clarity in business is often summarized by a simple yet powerful term: "freedom from ambiguity." In today’s discussion, Susan Boles explores how achieving clarity in your business's values, goals, and communications can lead to more engaged e

Sep 24, 2024 • 8:55

Essential Elements of Building a Calm Business

Essential Elements of Building a Calm Business

What if you could design a business that inherently operates on calm, not chaos? What are the essential elements to make this possible, and how can they be systematically incorporated into your business model?As we dive into our new series on creating calmer businesses, we explore the foundational elements that make businesses serene and sustainable. Each episode of this series will deconstruct a key component, starting today with an overview of what it takes to design a business for calm.So, ho

Sep 3, 2024 • 9:26

Hidden Funding: Grants for Creatives, Consultants & Agency Owners with Danielle Desir Corbett

Hidden Funding: Grants for Creatives, Consultants & Agency Owners with Danielle Desir Corbett

Can grants really fund your service business? This episode wraps up our deep dive into unique funding options for service businesses, exploring an often overlooked resource—grants.Meet Danielle Desir Corbett. She's a former grants administrator turned 4x grant-funded creative entrepreneur. She curates a monthly newsletter called "Grants For Creators," which shares funding opportunities for U.S. creatives and small business owners like grants, accelerators, pitch competitions, and more. Danielle

Aug 20, 2024 • 22:57

How to Use Debt Strategically

How to Use Debt Strategically

In this special 100th episode of Beyond Margins, host Susan Boles delivers her first solo discussion on utilizing debt thoughtfully to fund service businesses. Drawing from her experience as a fractional CFO, she explores the benefits and strategic uses of debt, shares real-world examples, and provides practical tips for business owners facing cash flow challenges or looking to seize growth opportunities. (00:00) - Introduction to Business Funding Options (01:40) - Celebrating 100 Episodes: A So

Aug 6, 2024 • 13:10

Crowdfunding For service Businesses with Lena West

Crowdfunding For service Businesses with Lena West

Do you need funding for your business but loathe the idea of giving up a piece of your company to someone else?I get it. You built this baby with your own two hands, most likely giving up nights, weekends, early mornings, and time with your friends and family to do it. So the idea of handing over part of that to someone who wasn’t sweating it out with you might make you feel pretty uncomfortable.The good news is, you don’t have to. There are other funding options that can provide the financial s

Jul 23, 2024 • 49:12

Finding the Money to Grow with Eda Henries

Finding the Money to Grow with Eda Henries

Cash is only easy to come by when you don't really need it. When things are going well, banks are happy to finance loans and lines of credit, and investors are easy to find when you're profitable and growing quickly. But we all know things aren’t always going well.For service-based businesses, where our products aren’t widgets but more often the intangible value of our brains and experiences, we tend to think that outside funding just doesn’t apply to us and our business model.But the truth is t

Jul 9, 2024 • 38:22

The Structure & Policies That Support Your Team with Kate Tyson

The Structure & Policies That Support Your Team with Kate Tyson

Consider this scenario: a key employee unexpectedly needs to take an extended leave. Is your business financially and structurally prepared to handle that without a hitch? This is a challenge many small businesses face, and it's crucial to be prepared.As we wrap up our series on sabbaticals, leaves, and breaks, we will examine the policies and financial planning that underpin them. To guide us through this topic, we have the privilege of hearing from Kate Tyson, a seasoned professional from Wand

Jun 25, 2024 • 49:34

Lazy Training, Fire Drills & Expecting the Unexpected with Layla Pomper

Lazy Training, Fire Drills & Expecting the Unexpected with Layla Pomper

What happens when you unexpectedly need to step away from your business's operations? How can you prepare your business not just to survive but to thrive, even when key team members are away?In our continuing series on planning for leaves, sabbaticals, and breaks from your business, we’re shifting our focus from the personal side to the backbone of any business: operations.Layla Pomper, creator of Process Driven, joins me to delve into the empowering process of building operational resilience in

Jun 11, 2024 • 37:45

Planning for Parental Leave with Erica Courdae & India Jackson

Planning for Parental Leave with Erica Courdae & India Jackson

How do you step away from your business for a necessary break without losing momentum or compromising your values? Deciding to take a leave or sabbatical, and then figuring out the best approach for you, how to maintain client relationships while you're away, or even ensuring you have enough financial security during your break are all complex challenges that many of us face.As part of my exploration of breaks, leaves, and sabbaticals and all of the different ways you can plan for them, I’m talk

May 28, 2024 • 45:16

Navigating Breaks In Business and Life: Inside My Unplanned Hiatus

Navigating Breaks In Business and Life: Inside My Unplanned Hiatus

Sometimes, you just need a break. I know I did. What was meant to be a quick breather turned into a transformative journey of two and a half years. The show (and my company) emerged with a new name, a new look, and a new perspective on what truly sustains a business—and a life.I say that I took a break from my business. But the reality is that I broke. I realized that I was burnt out to the point where I was physically, psychologically, and emotionally impaired. In this episode, I share the whol

May 14, 2024 • 48:04

Introducing Beyond Margins

Introducing Beyond Margins

Break the Ceiling is now Beyond Margins. I’m excited to bring back the show and introduce you to people thinking about operations, finance, and business-building with calm as their top KPI. Do you know someone who could use a little more calm in their business? Someone who wants to think beyond margins? Share the show with them! And make sure you follow or subscribe in your favorite podcast app.***Honestly, I don’t really want to 10x my business. There. I said it. I want interesting work, enough

May 1, 2024 • 3:51

Taking a Break

Taking a Break

I wanted to give you an update on what's going on with Break the Ceiling. Over the last two years, I've released almost a hundred episodes of Break the Ceiling. I've put out so many episodes that I'm really proud of, and I've talked to a ton of really amazing business owners. Thank you so much for listening and hanging out here with me, geeking out on the backend of running a business.I wanted to let you know that we're going on hiatus, so we won't be releasing any new episodes for a while. I wa

Aug 3, 2021 • 1:41

Bake In Boundaries in Your Default Settings with Brittany Berger

Bake In Boundaries in Your Default Settings with Brittany Berger

Boundaries are all about setting guidelines for how you work.From your very first interaction with a client or a prospect, you're giving them hints about how you work or even explicitly setting expectations for how you'll work together.So if you take four days to respond to their request for information, they might have the impression that you're a little slow. React immediately, and they'll think you're always available.What choices we make about where our boundaries are–or aren't–can have a hu

Jul 27, 2021 • 31:22

Examining Your Relationship With Your Business With Nicole Lewis-Keeber

Examining Your Relationship With Your Business With Nicole Lewis-Keeber

You are not your business.Your business is something you are creating, which means you have a relationship with it.Like any relationship that we are in, the relationship that we have with our business can be complex and takes understanding, consideration, and work. And as with our personal relationships, the ones that we have with our businesses are shaped by our past experiences, for better or worse.We might have been told that we’re supposed to leave our baggage at the door when we come into w

Jul 20, 2021 • 31:15

Busting Productivity Myths and Redefining Work Life Balance with Tanya Dalton

Busting Productivity Myths and Redefining Work Life Balance with Tanya Dalton

When was the last time you crossed off everything on your to-do list? Have you ever? Does even glancing at it make you feel overwhelmed and maybe a little bad about yourself?Hustle culture tells us that working 24/7, 365 will bring us success, that we have to grind it out to gain ground.But not only is that not realistic for real people with families and friends and lives we want to live, it’s not even true.There’s a ton of research out there that says resting actually increases your productivit

Jul 13, 2021 • 46:51

The End Goal of Maintenance Mode, What it Is, and What it Isn't

The End Goal of Maintenance Mode, What it Is, and What it Isn't

Maintenance mode as a topic for the podcast actually came out of a personal capacity crisis.Like a lot of people, since March of 2020, I've been without child care. With my son in hybrid school all year long, I gradually started having less and less time to devote to ScaleSpark.I lowered the bar on my expectations for myself and what I could accomplish again and again and again, but there was still stuff that just wasn't getting done.Don't get me wrong, I wasn't sitting around doing nothing. I e

Jul 6, 2021 • 43:29

Self Awareness as the Key That Unlocks Consistency with Marie Poulin

Self Awareness as the Key That Unlocks Consistency with Marie Poulin

Sometimes the challenges to consistency come from self-sabotage, things like distraction, boredom, imposter syndrome.But especially for folks who are neurodivergent or dealing with chronic issues or disabilities, consistency comes with additional challenges that require you to figure out how to manage unpredictable energy levels, or how to cope with executive function issues.Most common productivity advice centers on the idea of trying to do more work, to shove more into the day, to force yourse

Jun 29, 2021 • 46:54

When to Quit and When to Persevere in Your Business with Margo Aaron

When to Quit and When to Persevere in Your Business with Margo Aaron

It's ok to quit.Consistency can be critical to success, but knowing when to quit is an equally valuable skill.So, how do you know when to quit and when to just push through the hard parts?You've heard me talking to business owners who credit being consistent as the key to their success.But failure is also a part of being an entrepreneur and one we talk about a lot less because it's not as pretty. Most successful business owners have at least a few failures in their rearview mirror.I had 2 busine

Jun 22, 2021 • 51:55

Building Healthy Habits That Facilitate Consistency with Sarah Von Bargen

Building Healthy Habits That Facilitate Consistency with Sarah Von Bargen

Consistency is the underlying premise behind maintenance mode, behind working the system, behind the mantra of "don't break it". It's the opposite of shiny object syndrome.When you're consistent with your offers and your messaging, people know who you are, what you stand for, and what you sell.When you're consistent in your operations, your team and your clients know exactly what to do next.When you're consistent, you're efficient and you don't waste time, effort, or money.Consistency means that

Jun 15, 2021 • 38:08

Preparing Your Business So You Can Take a Real Break with Claire Pelletreau

Preparing Your Business So You Can Take a Real Break with Claire Pelletreau

The point of maintenance mode is to give you time and space to take a REAL break. Not a vacation where you're checking your email or you're stuck on your laptop kind of break. But a real, genuine break.That step back can feel kinda scary. It might feel like you're standing at a precipice, trying to figure out if you'll trip and fall over the edge, or if it's just a tiny step down to a solid surface. That step means that you have to trust that the systems you've built and the team you've trained

Jun 8, 2021 • 46:35

Hiring, Selecting Business Partners, and Growing a Team That Enables Maintenance Mode with India Jackson

Hiring, Selecting Business Partners, and Growing a Team That Enables Maintenance Mode with India Jackson

In order to be completely away from your business for any length of time, you probably need to hire someone. Or maybe a few someones.In the last episode, I talked to Jason Staats about how he uses technology to help him keep his 4 different ongoing projects in maintenance mode, but hiring is also part of his maintenance strategy. He comes up with the ideas, figures out the tools, then hires someone to monitor and maintain. Technology and Team are the two most powerful resources you have when it

Jun 1, 2021 • 43:19

Leveraging People, Processes and Technology with Jason Staats

Leveraging People, Processes and Technology with Jason Staats

You can't step away and do something else if everything's going to come to a screeching halt when you do. To be prepared for maintenance mode, you have to figure out how to get the behind-the-scenes systems to operate, consistently, without you.In order to get your business into maintenance mode–and build a stronger business while you're at it–you have to answer the question, "What if I'm not here?"Ideally, the answer is that nothing changes. Invoices still get sent on time, your products and se

May 25, 2021 • 41:50

Develop a Sales Process With An Eye Toward Consistency with Allison Davis

Develop a Sales Process With An Eye Toward Consistency with Allison Davis

Sales are the lifeblood of any business.So when you're thinking about maintenance mode in your business, you need to think about how to make sure sales still come in, even if you're not around.Last week we talked about the first step in preparing for maintenance mode by being consistent with your messaging and your offers. If you haven't listened to Episode 81 with Michelle Mazur, go check that one out.This week, I want to talk about step two in preparing for maintenance mode and that's your sal

May 18, 2021 • 33:35

Work on a  Consistent Message and Marketing System to Prepare For Maintenance Mode with Michelle Mazur

Work on a Consistent Message and Marketing System to Prepare For Maintenance Mode with Michelle Mazur

No one is bored with your business but you.The last month or two, we've been talking about maintenance mode–the idea that you can create a business that can kind of run itself. There are systems and processes set up, so everyone knows exactly what they need to do.The same kinds of systems and tools that you would use to prepare your business for maintenance are the SAME ones that you would use to free up capacity and prepare your business to scale.And that means that spending time setting up rep

May 11, 2021 • 39:22

Shift Your Model To Get Your Business to Maintenance Mode with Mark Butler

Shift Your Model To Get Your Business to Maintenance Mode with Mark Butler

Sometimes we end up building a business that just doesn't fit our lives. Not intentionally. Sometimes it just happens that way.Maybe you don’t have the freedom you thought you’d have. Maybe you’re doing group courses but you really want to be 1 on 1 with clients, or vice versa. Sometimes when you step back and examine what it'll take to get to maintenance mode or what it will take to scale or grow, you realize that you don't actually have the capacity to grow this thing you built. The business y

May 4, 2021 • 33:41

The Maintenance Mode Mindset: Stop Breaking Your Business with Racheal Cook

The Maintenance Mode Mindset: Stop Breaking Your Business with Racheal Cook

Don't break it, stay the course, work the system. Don't break it, stay the course, work the system. That's the refrain that's in the back of my head all the time now. One of the biggest challenges of getting your business into maintenance mode is your mindset. It's not that it's so difficult to build systems or design your business model to be sustainable and resilient. It's that we, as entrepreneurs like breaking stuff and we LIKE shiny new things–shiny things are FUN! Breaking your business ov

Apr 27, 2021 • 44:23

Finka Jerkovic - Assessing + Addressing Your Capacity as Founder

Finka Jerkovic - Assessing + Addressing Your Capacity as Founder

As I have been talking with business owners about maintenance mode, they have consistently brought up burnout. That moment when they realized that they couldn't keep working the way they were working.Caring for a family member or realizing they were burnt out or trying to handle a load of virtual school with no child care for a year – they all encountered a recognition that their own personal capacity had been reduced. For me, that moment of recognition forced me to realize that my realistic max

Apr 20, 2021 • 40:01

Assessing Your Business' Capacity with Anna Wolf

Assessing Your Business' Capacity with Anna Wolf

How's your capacity feeling these days? Getting a lot done? Or, like me, have you been hitting that pandemic wall hard? Over the last few weeks, I've been exploring the idea of maintenance mode in business, and today I want to shift from exploring the IDEA of maintenance mode into more tactical applications. If YOU wanted to move your business into maintenance mode, or you wanted to focus on scaling, how would you DO that? How would you prepare for maintenance mode? In all of my conversations wi

Apr 13, 2021 • 30:13

Startup vs Maintenance CEO: Is it One or the Other? with Sarah Avenir

Startup vs Maintenance CEO: Is it One or the Other? with Sarah Avenir

Visionary or Integrator? Startup or Maintenance CEO?In the world of business, there is no shortage of ways to categorize your leadership style and the way you operate. But maybe in the real world, it's not quite so distinct.I LOVE quizzes and personality tests and different ways of categorizing my personality, my skills, and how I think about things.Sometimes these assessments are genuinely useful and can help us understand how and why we do the things we do and think the way we think - which ca

Apr 6, 2021 • 40:12

Starting With the End in Mind and Reverse Engineering the Plan with Ryan Lazanis

Starting With the End in Mind and Reverse Engineering the Plan with Ryan Lazanis

Sometimes it takes more than one try to really nail the execution of an idea. Creating scalable systems isn't necessarily intuitive and it runs counter to most of our narratives about how hustling hard and creating more is the path to success. I propose that the path to success is actually radical consistency.As I was looking around for guests for this series on maintenance mode, I started thinking about all the business owners I know who REALLY seem to have nailed it. Who think in systems, in p

Mar 30, 2021 • 26:05

What Does Maintenance Mode Look Like? featuring Ryan Lazanis, Anna Wolf, and Tamara Kemper

What Does Maintenance Mode Look Like? featuring Ryan Lazanis, Anna Wolf, and Tamara Kemper

I've been spending a lot of time this year thinking about capacity. A lot of the work I do focuses on helping clients streamline their operations to increase their capacity without increasing their costs or business complexity. ScaleSpark actually started as an outgrowth of me running businesses and holding a full-time job. We owned a guest ranch and a brick-and-mortar store while I worked full time and ran all the back ends of those operations.I had to figure out a way to make that backend run

Mar 23, 2021 • 18:29

The Best of Break the Ceiling – Michelle Warner

The Best of Break the Ceiling – Michelle Warner

I’m working on some really cool updates for my course, Not Rocket Finance – releasing at the end of March! – so I’m going to take a very short break from releasing new episodes to give myself some breathing room to finish those updates.For the past couple of weeks, I've been re-releasing episodes that are the best cuts from three of my very favorite Break The Ceiling Episodes.This week—and our last Best of Break The Ceiling—I'm revisiting my interview with Michelle Warner.Michelle designs tiny c

Mar 16, 2021 • 10:51

The Best of Break the Ceiling – Charlie Gilkey

The Best of Break the Ceiling – Charlie Gilkey

I’m working on some really cool updates for my course, Not Rocket Finance – releasing at the end of March! – so I’m going to take a very short break from releasing new episodes to give myself some breathing room to finish those updates.For the next three weeks, I'm going to re-release episodes that are the best cuts from three of my very favorite Break The Ceiling Episodes.This week, I'm revisiting my interview with Charlie Gilkey.Charlie helps people start finishing the stuff that matters. He's

Mar 9, 2021 • 12:13

The Best of Break the Ceiling – Justin Jackson

The Best of Break the Ceiling – Justin Jackson

I’m working on some really cool updates for my course, Not Rocket Finance – releasing at the end of March! – so I’m going to take a very short break from releasing new episodes to give myself some breathing room to finish those updates.For the next three weeks, I'm going to re-release episodes that are the best cuts from three of my very favorite Break The Ceiling Episodes.This week, I'm revisiting my interview with Justin Jackson, co-founder of transistor.fm, the company that hosts this podcast

Mar 2, 2021 • 9:35

Leaving Social Media and Re-Investing in Organic Growth with Nathalie Lussier

Leaving Social Media and Re-Investing in Organic Growth with Nathalie Lussier

Have you thought about leaving Facebook? Or what would happen if you pulled your advertising and ditched the Facebook pixel? How are YOU getting feedback about whether or not your marketing efforts are "worth it"? All this month, I've been talking about digital privacy and online security and sharing how I researched and implemented a privacy-first marketing strategy for my business. So far, I’ve talked to Paul Jarvis on privacy-focused alternatives to Google Analytics, Jessica Robinson on how t

Feb 23, 2021 • 29:36

Why SEO is Well-Suited For Privacy-Focused Marketing with Kim Herrington

Why SEO is Well-Suited For Privacy-Focused Marketing with Kim Herrington

When I was first thinking about what privacy-focused marketing meant, I asked a few of my favorite marketing friends: if THEY were going to do privacy-focused marketing, what would they do?Universally, everyone came back with the answer of podcasting and SEO.Podcasting is one of the very few places in the world of media still without automatic digital ad insertions, for the most part. Also, podcast data tracking is not that detailed. Download or subscriber numbers are notoriously unreliable and

Feb 16, 2021 • 31:47

Security and Digital Privacy Concerns for Small Businesses with Jessica Robinson

Security and Digital Privacy Concerns for Small Businesses with Jessica Robinson

This month on the podcast, I'm talking about privacy and security. Those are actually two different aspects of overall cybersecurity. I really love the definition of these two from the Fathom analytics blog about the difference between digital privacy and online security (I'll link to it in the show notes). It says: Digital privacy protects our personal information and data so that it's not unnecessarily exposed. This means that your information is protected before it’s known.Online security pro

Feb 9, 2021 • 34:26

Growing a Business With Digital Privacy as a Priority with Paul Jarvis

Growing a Business With Digital Privacy as a Priority with Paul Jarvis

Last summer, I started really thinking about values. What values do I have that I want to make sure I'm building into the DNA of my business? When it came right down to it, I realized that my core value—the one I wanted to make sure lived in every essence of my business—was safety.  The work I do with clients requires trust and vulnerability. It’s intimate. Money is a touchy, uncomfortable subject for most of us, especially when we're talking in specific numbers. There's SO much shame and guilt

Feb 2, 2021 • 47:59

Make Financial Choices and Business Decisions Based on Your Definition of Success with Brian Plain

Make Financial Choices and Business Decisions Based on Your Definition of Success with Brian Plain

The choices we make about how to earn, save and spend our money all ultimately come down to how we think and feel about money - and work.And whether or not you're "successful" with your financial choices is all a matter of your perspective. That’s why understanding and thinking about how you define success has a lot to do with whether or not you're satisfied—or feel successful—with your finances.If you live in the US, you live in a capitalist society that equates accumulation of money with succe

Jan 26, 2021 • 28:51

Making "Enough" in Our Business with Rita Barry

Making "Enough" in Our Business with Rita Barry

I think there are three different stages when it comes to your business and your personal finances: pre-enough, enough, and post-enough.And at each stage, you'll have different priorities, weigh different choices, and view your world in very different ways. These definitions are mine and I think everyone will probably interpret the idea of pre-enough, enough, or post-enough in their own terms—but here's how I tend to think about it. Pre-enough is that stage when you may have a decent business, b

Jan 19, 2021 • 47:57

Understanding Our Money Mindset Lineage with Bear Hebert

Understanding Our Money Mindset Lineage with Bear Hebert

What's YOUR earliest memory of money? Mine is going with my parents to open my own bank account at our local credit union. A lot of our experiences with and stories around money come from our childhood: how we saw money handled and what we got told about money, to name a few.And that stuff sticks with you. All of us have a completely unique and individual relationship to money that's influenced by not JUST those factors, but also the impact of every decision (good or bad) we've made with our own

Jan 12, 2021 • 57:04

Why We Buy The Things We Buy with Margo Aaron

Why We Buy The Things We Buy with Margo Aaron

You're not a spreadsheet and you're not a calculator. You're a person with experiences, feelings, and history. But when most of us think about managing money, we think about it like it's math. We expect to make decisions about money like a calculator. But managing your money is actually more like figuring out psychology than math. Human beings don't make decisions like a calculator. We make decisions emotionally—and that includes financial ones. Learning how to manage your money well is part ski

Jan 5, 2021 • 41:02

BONUS – Think Like a CFO

BONUS – Think Like a CFO

You want to feel like you’re on top of your money stuff but it’s tough to climb over all the questions and reports and bank accounts and spreadsheets. That’s where I come in. I help you Think Like a CFO. And in this Bonus episode I talk about: - Everything you’ll learn during Think Like A CFO - How we’ll examine your relationship to (and mindset of!) money - The kind of support you can expect from me when you sign up for Think Like A CFO - Your bonus if you sign up by December 31

Dec 29, 2020 • 4:51

Increasing Profits Through a Revenue Sharing Structure with Lacey Sites

Increasing Profits Through a Revenue Sharing Structure with Lacey Sites

What if you could change the way you price your services and double your revenue without bringing on any new clients or changing anything about HOW you work with your clients? Oh, yes, it’s possible!Sometimes, just switching up how you're pricing your services can have a dramatic effect on your overall profitability—and I don't just mean raising your prices—but reimagining how those prices are structured in the first place.We've been talking this month about creative strategies around pricing or

Dec 22, 2020 • 35:24

Combining Intensive Service Offerings with Recurring Revenue with Hunter Niland Welling

Combining Intensive Service Offerings with Recurring Revenue with Hunter Niland Welling

Imagine your ideal way of working with a client. For me, it's working ALL in on a single project. I'm someone who likes going 100% or 0%. I'm either all in or I want to shut my brain completely off. What does it look like for you?This month, we've been talking about creative offerings and pricing strategies this month and thinking generally about how we offer and price our services. I talked to Kate Strathmann in Episode 59 about using pricing strategies to create more equitable businesses. I al

Dec 15, 2020 • 48:19

Building Long-Term Relationships as a Core Strategy with Rob Howard

Building Long-Term Relationships as a Core Strategy with Rob Howard

When you think about the relationships you build with your clients, what does that look like? Are you setting it up from the very first touchpoint to be a long-term relationship? Or do you approach it as a one-and-done kind of thing?Neither is better than the other—but your business values influence your business model, rippling out into how you build relationships, do your work, and create your legacy. Last week, I talked with Kate Strathmann about using pricing strategies to move towards creat

Dec 8, 2020 • 41:11

Pricing Strategies Through a Lens of Justice With Kate Strathmann

Pricing Strategies Through a Lens of Justice With Kate Strathmann

What kinds of changes are you thinking about for next year? Are you making a pivot? Focusing on taking a break? Diving deep into improving at your craft? Maybe you're thinking about raising your prices?One of the changes that you might be considering is a shift in your business model, or how you package your services—or even how you price them. The decision about how to price, package, or accept payment for your services can be a bit of a challenge, especially in a service business where the cho

Dec 1, 2020 • 44:24

Managing Increased Demand When You Have Less Capacity with Alethea Cheng Fitzpatrick

Managing Increased Demand When You Have Less Capacity with Alethea Cheng Fitzpatrick

On the podcast lately, we've been talking about how to manage change, how to become more resilient, and how to develop our skills in these areas—both personally and as leaders—so that our businesses can weather storms and so our team can stay calm, relaxed and supported. I talked to Elatia Abate in Episode 54 about what it MEANS to be resilient and how much of a role mindset plays in our ability to be resilient. In the last episode with Lauren Caselli, you can see how that played out for her in

Nov 24, 2020 • 50:10

Managing Through The Worst Case Scenario with Lauren Caselli

Managing Through The Worst Case Scenario with Lauren Caselli

What happens when the worst-case scenario becomes reality? Every business owner I know has that nightmare that runs through the back of their head... What if it all just stops? What if no one needs my services and suddenly no one needs what I'm selling? What do I do then? For a lot of business owners, this has been the year where they had to figure out what the answer to those questions was. How do you manage that change? Do you shut down? Do you pivot? When everything stops, how do you decide w

Nov 17, 2020 • 48:59

Managing Risks and Contingency Planning with Mary Beth Simon

Managing Risks and Contingency Planning with Mary Beth Simon

What would happen if you had to step away from your business for a few weeks? A few months? Would everything come crashing to a halt? Or would there be a clear path forward for someone else to pick up the baton and keep your business going?Being resilient means being able to bounce back from adversity, to pivot and reset after a change. But you only become truly resilient if you examine where your risks are. Where could hiccups happen? What could go wrong? And then you figure out a plan for how

Nov 10, 2020 • 25:11

How Personal Resilience Builds Business Resilience with Melody Wilding

How Personal Resilience Builds Business Resilience with Melody Wilding

As founders and business owners, we tend to build businesses that reflect us. Our strengths become the strengths of our business. And, yep, our weaknesses become the weaknesses of the business… because we’re the ones who are building it. That’s why investing in developing skills to strengthen how we personally deal with change creates a huge impact on how we approach leading our businesses through change. If you listened to the episode with Elatia Abate, you know that the ability to be resilient

Nov 3, 2020 • 33:57

Managing Change and Building Our Resilience Muscles with Elatia Abate

Managing Change and Building Our Resilience Muscles with Elatia Abate

Change is hard. There's no real way around that. It's disruptive, it breaks your flow and it takes time and resources to react to and manage changes as they happen. And yet, you and your business won't flourish without some change. Being able to manage and adapt to change in a rapidly changing environment is one of the hallmarks of being resilient. But for most people, change means unknown and scary. Our brains evolved to analyze and to predict—or try to!—what’s going to happen next. As humans,

Oct 27, 2020 • 36:23

Driving New Business and Managing Operations Using ClickUp with Layla Pomper

Driving New Business and Managing Operations Using ClickUp with Layla Pomper

What happens when you FULLY commit to something in your business? What happens when you are completely, totally, 100% all-in? This month we’re talking all about no-code tools and today’s guest, Layla Pomper, has taken her commitment to ClickUp—an extremely flexible no-code project management platform—to the next level. You can use no-code tools like ClickUp to streamline and automate your internal processes and enhance your communication with clients. You can also build digital products, help yo

Oct 20, 2020 • 47:56

Building Products and Adding Value Using No-Code Tools with Brittany Berger

Building Products and Adding Value Using No-Code Tools with Brittany Berger

The landscape of software is changing: no longer do you need to know how to code to build what you need. Now, building software has been democratized. No-code tools allow you to build your own software which means you can build custom products, services and tools on your own without having to spend piles of money developing custom software.There are lots of ways you can use this technology to benefit your business: you can streamline and automate internal processes, you can build tools and resou

Oct 13, 2020 • 35:22

Scaling a Service-Based Business Using No-Code Tools and Solutions with Jason Staats

Scaling a Service-Based Business Using No-Code Tools and Solutions with Jason Staats

Software has come a LONG way in the last decade or so.  When I started my first business as a professional organizer in 2006, it was still pretty manual.  My business systems consisted of a website, Quicken, a label maker, some file folders, and printed out checklists. I needed physical signatures on my contracts and took checks as payments—and I had a fax number.It might seem like it was a simpler time before—there was less to keep up with—but our systems were also cumbersome, inefficient, expe

Oct 6, 2020 • 46:50

How To Measure the Value and Success of Your Podcast with Tara McMullin

How To Measure the Value and Success of Your Podcast with Tara McMullin

Is it worth it? That’s the number one question I get about this podcast. And it’s a good one because we should be evaluating any and every business decision based on the business results we’re expecting it to create. According to today’s guest, evaluating your podcast’s value and success can be evaluated based on if it drives results for your business, puts money in your bank account, gets emails into your inbox, or gets you sales calls."In the series, Is It Worth It, I’ve been talking about inv

Sep 29, 2020 • 1:01:57

How Do You Measure the ROI On Your Social Media Investment with Andréa Jones

How Do You Measure the ROI On Your Social Media Investment with Andréa Jones

You've decided to make an investment in your business. You evaluated the alternatives, you accepted the costs and you decided this particular investment was the right one for your business.You're about to commit a significant chunk of time, money, and resources to this. And, at least for now, you've decided this investment is worth investing in. But later down the road, you'll need to decide whether this was a good, helpful investment that moved your business forward—or if it ultimately didn't a

Sep 22, 2020 • 32:12

When Your Values & Opportunities Collide with Nancy Jane Smith & Bonnie Gillespie

When Your Values & Opportunities Collide with Nancy Jane Smith & Bonnie Gillespie

How do you decide what to invest in? How do you examine the opportunity costs of that investment? How do you make sure you're giving your investments every chance to succeed? That's what we've been talking about in the Is It "Worth It"? Series. In the last part of this series, I spoke with Michelle Mazur about how to approach investments in your business and with Beryl Young about deciding WHAT to invest in. In this episode, I want to talk about when an investment seems like a pretty straightfor

Sep 15, 2020 • 1:06:33

How Do You Decide WHAT to Invest In? with Beryl Young

How Do You Decide WHAT to Invest In? with Beryl Young

When you're deciding what to invest in, examining the opportunity cost of your potential investments is a crucial part of the decision making process. Every option includes a cost associated with it because any opportunity requires an investment of time, money, or resources—or all of the above! And if we invest them in one initiative? Then they're not available for other opportunities. We all have a process we go through when we're thinking through new investments in our business. Whether you're

Sep 3, 2020 • 41:21

How to Approach Investments in Your Business with Michelle Mazur

How to Approach Investments in Your Business with Michelle Mazur

Deciding whether or not to make an investment in your business — whether it's hiring a consultant, enrolling in a course, getting a new piece of software — is always a bit of a gamble. You're trying to manage your risk, manage your cash flow, predict the future, evaluate the opportunity cost, and a million other parts and pieces. All to answer the question, "Will it be worth it"? Because when it comes to return on investment, that's the question we're really trying to answer. Many entrepreneurs

Sep 1, 2020 • 36:39

How Your Team Impacts Your Business' Ecosystem with Emily Thompson

How Your Team Impacts Your Business' Ecosystem with Emily Thompson

Hiring the RIGHT people in the RIGHT positions with the RIGHT mix of skills makes your business more efficient, more effective, and more profitable. And having just one wrong team member can tank the whole thing. Getting this right is all about your strategic—and every day—decisions. Your decisions on who you hire touches everything in your business. Decisions about what your process looks like affect your software choices. Decisions about your business model affect your marketing strategy. Deci

Aug 25, 2020 • 53:20

How Your Software Impacts Your Business' Ecosystem with Melanie Richards

How Your Software Impacts Your Business' Ecosystem with Melanie Richards

Software is the lifeblood of any modern business. Software keeps projects on track and helps clients pay you. Software is how we communicate with each other. Software allows you to operate leaner and smaller than ever before. And every piece of software involved in your business has a role to play—an integral part of your business’ ecosystem. It has a job description and it's a core member of your team, just like any human. That’s why it’s even more important that you have the right tool, doing

Aug 18, 2020 • 42:59

How Your Process Impacts Your Business' Ecosystem with Tamara Kemper

How Your Process Impacts Your Business' Ecosystem with Tamara Kemper

Do you know the secret to scaling profitably and effectively? In reality, it’s not much of a secret. It’s just something that not a lot of companies prioritize: building a solid process and making sure it's documented.It’s unfortunate, really, because creating well-documented processes is the one thing that I consistently see that makes a huge difference in growing lean, resilient companies. It's not necessarily sexy but documented processes affect every area of your business ecosystem and make

Aug 11, 2020 • 36:08

How Your Default Decisions Impact your Business' Ecosystem with Ashley Gartland

How Your Default Decisions Impact your Business' Ecosystem with Ashley Gartland

Every decision you make in your business impacts every other area of your business. Yet, we often tend to think of the different areas of our businesses—marketing, finance, operations, team—as if they’re disconnected from each other.In actuality, business doesn’t work that way. Your business is an ecosystem. Every part of your business is interconnected with other areas of your business. The decisions you make about the kind of business model you have affects how you market your business. Today,

Aug 4, 2020 • 59:18

How to Build a Community Around Your Business with Katie Hunt

How to Build a Community Around Your Business with Katie Hunt

Right now, building a community around your business is more popular than ever.You might even be considering adding one to your business—perhaps to save you time, to add another income stream, or to make you more accessible to your clients—or all of the above.No matter why you might consider adding community to your business model, you might wonder—a business owner who does the same thing is already doing this. So how can I do it, too? Should I do it at all? Seeing someone beat you to the punch

Jul 28, 2020 • 39:27

Evolving Toward a Community Business Model with Margy Thomas

Evolving Toward a Community Business Model with Margy Thomas

Thinking about shifting your business model is one thing… Actually doing it? Well, that’s a whole other thing. You might wonder: do I burn the old one to the ground? Do I make a gradual shift? Or do I just tack on one more service to my offerings? Maybe you do start from scratch… or maybe you take a more nuanced approach to shifting your business model from one to another… or maybe you add more value to your existing model. Whatever your path, it’s crucial to examine the risks in your business,

Jul 21, 2020 • 39:53

Where Community Belongs In Your Business Model with Sophie Bujold

Where Community Belongs In Your Business Model with Sophie Bujold

It seems like everyone is adding a community or membership to their product lineup these days. It’s a great idea for three reasons: it diversifies your revenue stream, allows you to be in direct conversation with your customers, and scales pretty easily. But is adding a community right for YOUR business? And what makes a good community anyway?And how might a community reduce your risk as an entrepreneur?We've been talking about how you can manage risk and build resilience into your business all

Jul 14, 2020 • 45:32

Using Your Intellectual Property To Pivot & Build Resilience with JoAnn Holmes

Using Your Intellectual Property To Pivot & Build Resilience with JoAnn Holmes

Your business model might already have some inherent risks built into it because of the choices you've made about how you want to run your business. For example, maybe you only want to work with high-value retainer clients. Totally valid choice! But it’s inherently riskier than other models where you might have several sources of income. If you only work with 2 or 3 of those clients at a time, what happens when you lose one of them? That's a pretty big blow to your income all at once. As long as

Jul 7, 2020 • 49:28

How to Better Understand Your Numbers & Your Tax Risk with Luke Frye

How to Better Understand Your Numbers & Your Tax Risk with Luke Frye

Nothing is certain but death and taxes.Except that taxes are very rarely certain—and in the U.S., taxes are a labyrinth of confusion. Our tax system is founded on the idea that the government knows how much we owe them... but they're not going to tell us—we have to guess. And if we guess wrong? We either pay more or go to jail. It’s not really the friendliest system. That might be why taxes are a bit of an afterthought for small business owners. For most, having a “tax strategy” means making sur

Jun 30, 2020 • 47:29

The Risk of Inconsistent Cash Flow with Priya Malani

The Risk of Inconsistent Cash Flow with Priya Malani

Consider this: the number one reason why businesses go under is because of cash flow issues (with number two being a lack of access to capital.) While there are a ton of different kinds of risks that can impact your business, financial health is still the most pressing because of the threat they pose to the health of your business if you don’t get it right. More often than not—no matter your business model—sales don’t show up consistently on the same day, month after month, even though your pers

Jun 23, 2020 • 40:18

Identifying Financial Risks & Building Resilience with Jacquette Timmons

Identifying Financial Risks & Building Resilience with Jacquette Timmons

You can never completely eliminate risk. It's something you just have to live with. But risk doesn't have to consume you.In fact, identifying and addressing risks in your business is one of the main ways to build resilience into it. You can't fix what you can't see and if you don't understand what's most likely to break, it's pretty hard to build that trampoline of resilience right where you need it most. That's what building resilience in your business REALLY means: you're building systems and

Jun 16, 2020 • 57:28

Procrastination and Why The Bootstrapper Mindset Keeps You Stuck & Frustrated with Charlie Gilkey

Procrastination and Why The Bootstrapper Mindset Keeps You Stuck & Frustrated with Charlie Gilkey

Busy, busy, busy.We are all so busy.And that makes it really easy—too easy, in fact—to come up with excuses not to do the work that’s most important to us. Because that’s also usually the work that’s the scariest.For the last month, we’ve been talking about all the ways that founders get in their own way and the practical tools you can use to get OUT of your own way. In the first episode of the series, Michelle Warner talks about the critical importance of setting up systems and how process can

Jun 9, 2020 • 41:34

Patience & Purposeful Experimentation with Jason Van Orden

Patience & Purposeful Experimentation with Jason Van Orden

Often, we come up with new ideas, launch them, and then get disappointed that they don't work. So we shift to something else, create something new, and run through the whole cycle again. But what if it was a great idea and you just didn't give it a chance to succeed? Maybe you didn't give it enough time? Or devote enough resources to it? Or tell enough people about it? Maybe you didn't market it to the right people or in the right way. Maybe this thing you created is actually a great thing and y

Jun 2, 2020 • 37:41

How Trauma & Perfectionism Affect Your Business with Nicole Lewis-Keeber

How Trauma & Perfectionism Affect Your Business with Nicole Lewis-Keeber

What kind of relationship do you have with your business? Are you ride-or-die BFFs? Or is your business a mean, demanding boss that makes you dread going to work?Like any relationship that we are in, the relationship that we have with our business can be complex and they take understanding, consideration, and work. This month, we've been talking about the various ways that business owners get in their own way, the different ways this shows up, and some practical strategies to avoid making these

May 26, 2020 • 36:04

How Your Money Story Impacts Your Business with Agnes Kowalski

How Your Money Story Impacts Your Business with Agnes Kowalski

Money. You earn it. You spend it. Maybe you even save or invest it. But do you know how your personal feelings and beliefs around money affect your business growth?Our feelings about money color every part of our businesses and it’s the #1 way I see my clients getting in their own way.How we approach our finances, both personally and professionally, is heavily impacted by our feelings about money and the stories we tell ourselves about it. Those stories are often rooted in our childhood experien

May 19, 2020 • 51:36

How To Prioritize When EVERYTHING Is Important with Tonya Dalton

How To Prioritize When EVERYTHING Is Important with Tonya Dalton

Hustle culture tells us that in order to gain ground, we have to grind it out. That putting in the long hours day after day will bring us success.But that just doesn't work for real people. Real people need rest. Rest increases your productivity, your effectiveness, your problem-solving skills, and your creativity. We NEED rest to do our best work and to be able to bring our best selves to our businesses. But when there's SO much going on and the to-do list is SO long, how do you create the spac

May 12, 2020 • 50:42

The Competitive Edge of Process With Networking That Pays Creator Michelle Warner

The Competitive Edge of Process With Networking That Pays Creator Michelle Warner

This week, someone asked me about the main thing my clients struggle with – the one thing I would fix for them if I could. I think my answer surprised them.All my clients are working towards the same goal -- profitable, efficient, resilient businesses. But how you go about creating that is specific to each business because each business is a reflection of the owner or the founder. Our businesses take on our characteristics. Our weaknesses become weaknesses in our business. Our strengths are its

May 5, 2020 • 34:54

When Your Business Needs A Project Manager With Yellow House Media Founder Sean McMullin

When Your Business Needs A Project Manager With Yellow House Media Founder Sean McMullin

These days, we're all looking for a way to cut costs, shore up our foundations, and make our businesses just that little bit simpler. I was in a small group call the other day and one of the women on the call compared this moment in our businesses to when a jigsaw puzzle gets knocked to the floor, scattering pieces everywhere. The great thing is that we don’t have to pick all the pieces – we get to pick and choose.This might mean re-examining your business model or changing up your service offer

Apr 28, 2020 • 46:49

Project Management Duel: Notion vs ClickUp with Marie Poulin & Layla Pomper

Project Management Duel: Notion vs ClickUp with Marie Poulin & Layla Pomper

Most businesses grow on the fly. We add software and processes and systems here and there – patching in tools “for now” because “it’ll do”. But “for now” almost always turns into “forever”. Because who wants to spend time picking out (and setting up) project management software when you could be out closing clients or delivering white-glove service? You probably picked your project management software based on a recommendation or because it’s something you’re “supposed” to have. Maybe you got st

Apr 21, 2020 • 48:06

Client-Based Project Management With Execution Expert Hailey Thomas

Client-Based Project Management With Execution Expert Hailey Thomas

For a service business, every single task and touchpoint – from the initial contact to the final payment – should be considered as part of the project that needs to be managed.And you've got a lot of projects on your plate. Projects for clients, projects for your own business – there's always more stuff to do. That's the nature of running a business. When we talk about 'project management', we're usually talking about managing an individual project. But in a service business, project management

Apr 14, 2020 • 47:01

Cash Flow In A Crisis With Lauren Caselli

Cash Flow In A Crisis With Lauren Caselli

"Everything sucks at first, very few things suck forever.” – John GormanBeing an entrepreneur is a roller coaster.Some days you’re excited, some days you’re terrified, and every day there is something new – something you’re testing, improving or changing. For me, this is a reminder: When you're on that roller coaster it might a day when you're heading up and it might be a day when you’re heading down. Things are always changing and we don’t know what tomorrow might look like.We still don't reall

Apr 7, 2020 • 34:15

Software As Service Metrics Applied To Small Business Growth With Justin Jackson

Software As Service Metrics Applied To Small Business Growth With Justin Jackson

You don’t have to look like the other businesses in your industry to learn from them. In my work as a CFO, I've have had the privilege of looking behind the scenes of a lot of different companies in a lot of different industries. And what I've found is that most tend to look toward businesses that are similar to their own for ideas on how to operate.This is something that has always been my goal on this show – talking to service business owners about how they run their business in the hopes that

Mar 31, 2020 • 51:35

Using Data To Make Better Decisions About Your Business With Maggie Patterson

Using Data To Make Better Decisions About Your Business With Maggie Patterson

"If you can't measure it, you can't improve it."My guess is that you've probably heard some version of this Peter Drucker quote. It’s a widespread idea for good reason: it's true. Luckily, there are tons of ways to gather good data on your business and track the metrics that really matter. But having access to good data isn't the only hurdle to measuring growth.It’s the day-to-day realities of running a business that are most likely to get in our way.All this month we've been talking about how t

Mar 24, 2020 • 30:09

Making Space To Grow Your Service Business With Kathleen Shannon

Making Space To Grow Your Service Business With Kathleen Shannon

Are you creating space for growth in your business?You might be measuring every metric–collecting every piece of data and then turning it into a strategy for growth–but do you have the operational foundations to be able to handle growth? Does your team have the capacity to take on more work?In the last 2 episodes–episode 20, episode 21–I talked about two different approaches to collecting data about your business. I talked about the numbers and the nuances, and what to do with that information o

Mar 17, 2020 • 37:24

There's More To Measure Than Numbers With Karyn Kelbaugh

There's More To Measure Than Numbers With Karyn Kelbaugh

It’s easy to get caught up in all the numbers you can track to measure growth.You might be measuring your time, your profit & loss, the number of new clients closed, or even profit per hour per client like we talked about in the last episode.But not all of the useful information in your business presents itself as a number. When it comes to measuring the more murky, squishy, qualitative information in your business, where do you even begin?There's a lot of information rolling around in there tha

Mar 10, 2020 • 36:19

Use This One Weird Metric To Measure Your Service Business With Rob Howard

Use This One Weird Metric To Measure Your Service Business With Rob Howard

Is there one metric you could track that would ensure the success of your business?A lot of startups would like to think so. Some call it the “One Metric That Matters,” or the “North Star Metric.”It’s basically the idea that you focus on measuring and improving one thing at a time. By focusing on a single thing, you can filter for decision making and ensure that the actions you're taking in your business are actions that will truly make an impact.The problem is that what you track has a huge imp

Mar 3, 2020 • 34:23

How Your Pricing Choices Can Make You Happier With Marketing Analyst Rita Barry

How Your Pricing Choices Can Make You Happier With Marketing Analyst Rita Barry

How you choose to price your services and accept payments is one of those business design choices that we don’t always make conscious choices about. But it is a choice that can have a profound impact on your business and how it feels to run it. It just simplifies everything: from your team composition to how you work to even what project management software you use.We’ve been talking this month about the operational benefits of value-based pricing and upfront payments, taking a close look at how

Feb 25, 2020 • 40:43

Getting Paid Faster Using Practice Ignition With Tier One Services Co-Founder Jaime Campbell

Getting Paid Faster Using Practice Ignition With Tier One Services Co-Founder Jaime Campbell

Getting paid more for your work, up-front, and without the hassle of tracking your billable hours or issuing invoice after invoice sounds like a dream scenario.But how exactly do you make that happen?Luckily, like so many other aspects of making a service business more efficient: there’s an app for that!In our last few episodes, we’ve talked about some business design choices with pricing and payments. How switching to a value-based pricing model allows you to charge upfront. And being able to c

Feb 18, 2020 • 42:12

Taking Payments In A Positive & Transparent Client Relationship With Kate Strathmann

Taking Payments In A Positive & Transparent Client Relationship With Kate Strathmann

Getting paid by clients is the #1 most important part of the workflow in a service business. If you don’t get paid, eventually, you won’t have a business. But how you go about getting paid – now that’s where some magic can really happen. In our last episode, we talked with Dana Kaye about transitioning from hourly to value-based pricing. The choice to make that switch to value-based pricing then allows you to the next logical step – making your client payments easier. Today, we’re going to talk

Feb 11, 2020 • 34:46

Using Value-Based Pricing To Boost Profit With Dana Kaye

Using Value-Based Pricing To Boost Profit With Dana Kaye

Switching from charging by the hour to a value-based or flat rate model can dramatically improve your workflow.Value-based pricing is a great way to boost profits and to keep your value separate from the hours you work. It allows you to charge your clients upfront, creating a business that is more efficient to run.Take the payment and go do the work. That's it. Most of the time, I'm not a big advocate of the whole “make one decision and it'll change your life and your business” idea, but this is

Feb 4, 2020 • 53:28

Streamlining Done With You Services With Greg Hickman

Streamlining Done With You Services With Greg Hickman

Sometimes, when you get really specific about the one thing you do, client meetings become unnecessaryEven one-to-one services become unneeded when you've streamlined and productized your service.But how can you keep that high-touch, high-value feeling and still be ruthlessly streamlined behind the scenes?Today, we're talking about an evolution that moves almost completely away from client meetings altogether.My guest is Greg Hickman, the founder and CEO of System.ly. Greg and his team have over

Jan 28, 2020 • 43:59

How To Spend Less Time On Client Calls While Managing Retainers With Parker Stevenson

How To Spend Less Time On Client Calls While Managing Retainers With Parker Stevenson

Monthly client meetings––they’re a requirement of service retainers.Or, are they?There's an expectation that if you're working with clients on retainer, in an ongoing, recurring way, that you have to have meetings––ya know, just to touch base.Conventional wisdom says that meetings should be included in the service because they seem to deliver inherent value. But meetings are a huge limitation when it comes to scaling a service business. There's only so much of you to go around. Is spending time

Jan 21, 2020 • 43:20

How Voxer Can Save You And Your Client Time With Ashley Gartland & Nancy Jane Smith

How Voxer Can Save You And Your Client Time With Ashley Gartland & Nancy Jane Smith

Client meetings can easily fill up your entire calendar–sucking away all of your available time. This time is a valuable asset and it is often the single most limiting factor to the growth of service-based businesses.So what if there was something you could do to reduce this time-suck?All this month on the show we are looking at alternatives–unique ways to communicate with clients and opt-out of meetings, email, and conventional communication methods.Today, we’re talking about using Voxer with c

Jan 14, 2020 • 47:57

Faster Results In Fewer Meetings With Ashley Gartland & Hailey Thomas

Faster Results In Fewer Meetings With Ashley Gartland & Hailey Thomas

I make no attempt at hiding my personal dislike of meetings. I’ve spent more time in meetings about meetings and meetings to prepare for other meetings than I can count. I’ve even suffered through long staff meetings where my boss literally just read printed out emails. I’ve truly felt the pain of being in meetings that could have just been an email. But are meetings really inevitable? All this month, I'm asking the question: does it really have to be a meeting?I am starting off by applying this

Jan 7, 2020 • 36:58

Productize Hands-On Services To Earn More & Stress Less With Lead Cookie Founder Jake Jorgovan

Productize Hands-On Services To Earn More & Stress Less With Lead Cookie Founder Jake Jorgovan

Even a small, one-person business becomes more profitable and efficient with a solid, repeatable process. So what happens when we double down on process?In our last episode, I talked to Lacey Stites about how she does this in her agency using a revenue share model.Today, we hear how Jake Jorgovan takes a bit of a different approach and focuses on productizing his service delivery so he can operate efficiently at scale. A productized service is a simple, streamlined way of delivering hands-on cli

Dec 31, 2019 • 36:14

Creating Consistent Scalable Income Through Revenue Sharing With Lacey Sites

Creating Consistent Scalable Income Through Revenue Sharing With Lacey Sites

The messages we get about scaling a service business are pretty one-note. We’re told that we can’t scale a service business profitably and sustainably while sticking to a one-to-one service delivery model. We're told to do a bit of client work, spin that into a few digital courses or membership groups, and then sit back and let the money roll on it. But this isn’t a great fit for everyone. And it’s just not how many of us want to run our businesses. So, what else is out there? My guest today, La

Dec 24, 2019 • 32:20

Save Time and Boost Profit Using A Proposal Calculator With Rob Howard

Save Time and Boost Profit Using A Proposal Calculator With Rob Howard

What if instead of spending tons of time creating complicated proposals for prospective clients, you just didn't? Maybe you believe your complicated, customized proposals help win you more business. But there’s a good chance you’re sacrificing profit and efficiency--without truly seeing gains in real revenue.All this month we are talking about opting out–choosing not to do certain things in your business as a tool for freeing up your time, money, and brain space for more important things. I star

Dec 17, 2019 • 57:52

Setting Boundaries To Increase Capacity With Work Brighter Founder Brittany Berger

Setting Boundaries To Increase Capacity With Work Brighter Founder Brittany Berger

We have the freedom to design just about any business we want. We can work with clients in a hundred different ways to deliver our service.  But how that works has a lot to do with the boundaries you set in place.  Boundaries are expectations, guidelines, and frameworks around how we want our work and our lives to happen. They're a really effective way to both deliver better customer service and make your business more efficient. All while building more resiliency into your processes.  Today, I

Dec 10, 2019 • 33:15

Why Streamlining Your Effort Pays Off With Business Strategist Michelle Warner

Why Streamlining Your Effort Pays Off With Business Strategist Michelle Warner

Opting out of business-as-usual practices  or deciding to buck your industry trend can be a really powerful point of differentiation for service businesses  When you opt-out of using corporate jargon or ridiculously complicated implementation processes, you can really stand out from the crowd.  And, making this choice can also be a really great tool for increasing your operational capacity behind the scenes.  By opting-out and choosing not to implement a cumbersome or overly complicated process,

Dec 3, 2019 • 36:54

Defaulting to Simple with ScaleSpark Founder, Susan Boles

Defaulting to Simple with ScaleSpark Founder, Susan Boles

If you’re struggling to keep your head above water in your business and you can’t figure out how to break the ceiling and scale your business, then you should listen to this Break the Ceiling podcast with ScaleSpark Founder, Susan Boles. In the first few episodes of this series, Susan has focused on tackling default decisions, those decisions that you might have made in your business without thinking about them or realising that you had another choice. “Default decisions aren't necessarily good

Nov 19, 2019 • 13:38

Using Software to Scale with ScaleSpark Founder, Susan Boles

Using Software to Scale with ScaleSpark Founder, Susan Boles

In this special podcast episode, the shoe is on the other foot - Susan herself is on the receiving end of the interview. And she’s talking to Tara McMullin (who you might remember from the first ever Break the Ceiling episode.)Bottlenecks in a business workflow process and complicated workflows can combine to create huge business growth headaches, not to mention potentially impacting your quality of work, resulting in poor customer satisfaction, or worse, letting things slip through the gaps. So

Nov 5, 2019 • 38:38

Breaking the Default Model: Building a Badass Business with Badass Your Brand Founder, Pia Silva

Breaking the Default Model: Building a Badass Business with Badass Your Brand Founder, Pia Silva

Are you looking to break the mold with your business model? Are you one of those business people that make very deliberate decisions and knows that default decisions just can’t apply to your business? Then you need to meet Pia Silva. If you haven’t heard of the powerhouse that is Pia Silva, then you’re in for a treat. Pia is the founder of Badass Your Brand and Worst of All Design, and she made a very deliberate decision to step away from the default agency model. She knew she had to structure h

Oct 22, 2019 • 43:30

Crossing the chasm from experimentation to deliberate model with business designer Michelle Warner

Crossing the chasm from experimentation to deliberate model with business designer Michelle Warner

We’ve been focusing our attention on default decisions in the last couple of episodes- those choices that you make about how to run your business. And a lot of these decisions happen without us even realizing we're making a choice, especially at the beginning of our businesses. But sometimes those choices we didn't know we made come back and bite us in the butt when we need to make the transition from experimentation mode or validation mode into growth mode.I chat with business designer Michelle

Oct 8, 2019 • 38:26

Is it The Dip or time to pivot with That Seems Important founder Margo Aaron

Is it The Dip or time to pivot with That Seems Important founder Margo Aaron

Are you an entrepreneur who thinks marketing is prosaic, a series of boxes that need to be checked off in a certain order? Are you too scared to break the ceiling with your own brand of personal marketing because it’s not something that you’ve been told to do? Then you should listen to Margo Aaron on today’s podcast, because she is someone you need in your life. Margo Aaron is the cohost of #HAMYAW and the author behind That Seems Important. She accidentally ended up in marketing and today she t

Sep 24, 2019 • 53:34

Default Decisions and What Works with Tara McMullin

Default Decisions and What Works with Tara McMullin

Welcome to this first episode of Break the Ceiling, the podcast where we'll talk about how you might structure your business, or even why you're in the business you're in in the first place. We're going to talk about financial decisions, hiring decisions as well as technology decisions, and give you some ideas to consider. But mostly, I just want you to start asking yourself, ‘why did I make this choice and does it still serve my business?’My first guest in the series is Tara McMullin. Tara is a

Sep 10, 2019 • 53:09

Introducing Break the Ceiling

Introducing Break the Ceiling

Introducing Break the Ceiling launching early September 2019.For more information, visit https://scalespark.co/podcast Scalespark Dollars + Decisions Roundtable Twitter @ScaleSpark LinkedIn @thesusanboles

Aug 29, 2019 • 3:17

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