Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm is the New KPI

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 interna...

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 ben...

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 simpl...

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...

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 whet...

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...

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...

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 c...

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 af...

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...

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...

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 dec...

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 al...

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 va...

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 entre...

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, wha...

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...

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 busin...

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...

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...

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 t...

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...

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 mone...

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 b...

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...