Scaling Expertise

In this episode, I talk about the role that contracts and processes play in meeting your KPI objectives. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are those metrics that are most critical to your business. KPIs are used to help you measure your progress toward achieving your strategic goals. KPIs apply throughout your business from four perspectives: financial, customer, process, and people. Today I cover...

According to statistics, 90% of women’s income is invested back into their families for nutrition, education, and healthcare. As the mother of a high school junior, I can definitely attest to this. We women are naturally caregivers. Unfortunately, this generosity can strain our well-being and financial future. This episode’s guest is Cathy Sikorski, an Elder Law attorney, blogger, and video influe...

It’s a busy day. You’ve ticked items off your to-do list but you still have plenty of things to do. And so you’re thinking, why do I only have 24 hours a day? Can I just clone myself so I can do two things at a time? Now you can! Not literally though. There are several systems you can develop that integrate artificial intelligence and other modern technology to replicate yourself. Having a replica...

If you are a business owner, do you fall into one of these categories: a) Earning too little; b) working too much; or c) struggling to exit? Yes? Greg Alexander is your guy. He is the founder of Collective 54, a company and a community that  creates a great impact on brilliant founders who may need a piece of advice. Greg is not just doing the talking. He actually proved his expertise and kno...

AI is everywhere now.  You might now be fully aware of it, but you carry it in your pockets—our phones are built to understand users through data usage and the apps that we download make use of AI technology. In the workplace, the competition shifts not only in making sure employees are equipped, efficient, and accurate but that they are also fast and productive—and that’s where AI takes the...

In this episode, our repeat guest, Patty Block, shares another brilliant concept to help women grow their businesses. 62% of women rely on their businesses for their primary income, yet 88% of these businesses generate less than $100,000 in annual revenue. Having seen the same struggles time and again, Patty teaches women how to shift their mindset and build their confidence to generate more reven...

The first time I saw Kylie Hodges’ website, one of the things that stuck with me was how she described her work: she helps clients grow their businesses “while working with their ADHD, anxiety, or depression.” No—she isn’t speaking from the perspective of a medical doctor. She coaches from the perspective of someone diagnosed with ADHD, anxiety, and depression, and acknowledging this had been pivo...

Making sure we identify, track, and protect the many IP assets that flow through our businesses is a common source of anxiety.  That’s why I created the Asset Tracker (also known as IP Tracker). You can download your free copy [here] . In this episode, recorded as a LinkedIn Live demonstration (I encourage you to watch the YouTube video for the most benefit), I introduce this new solution to...

Women’s intuition is a superpower.  As Shoshanna French puts it, intuition is “a direct way of knowing or understanding something without any prior experience or knowledge.” So, rather than doubting these thoughts in our heads, we should start using them as a guide to practical business decisions and self-healing journeys. It is a long process to be able to recognize intuition in the midst of...

To replicate successful work with clients, it's neither efficient nor necessary to recreate the wheel. - Erin Austin An astounding 70% of the US domestic product is intellectual property. As expertise-based service providers, we are creating intellectual property (IP) every day.  Yet some of you (I’m not naming names) still challenge the importance of creating and protecting IP. Remember: we...

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) is a term used to represent an organization's corporate financial interests that focus mainly on sustainable and ethical impacts. Despite the war on “Woke”, ESG is here to stay and not just for large public companies. Christy Cook, an expert who focuses on ESG for small to medium size businesses, joined the podcast to talk about the subject and shed some...

In this episode, I put a new spin on journaling to achieve your personal and business goals—keeping an IP journal. The goal of an IP journal is to document the who, when, what, and how of all your content and ideas at the time you create them. The benefit—confidence in your legal foundation as you create IP-based revenue streams, like products and licensing, and knowing that you are building a bus...

Non-Disclosure Agreements have become ubiquitous in US business these days because so much of our economy runs on Intellectual Property. In one of my LinkedIn Live broadcasts, I focus on some critical provisions that appear in most NDAs. I call them the Hot Spots because the person receiving the information (usually called the Recipient) needs to pay close attention to these provisions. In this ep...

Imagine if there was a way to get back a whole day of your busy week. That’s the goal of Sarah Greener, a specialist in helping women business owners find ways to focus on their high-creative tasks instead of getting bogged down with the minutia of running a business. She joined me in a fruitful conversation that covered a range of issues related to time management, including: SOPs – standard oper...

I confess that I’m a nerd who loves other nerds, and Staci Hauschild is a self-confessed nerd about strategic plans. In this episode of Hourly to Exit, she and I talked about how essential it is for expertise-based service providers to figure out what to do, when to do it, and who should do it. We covered some important topics like The nuts and bolts of a good strategic plan Why the key to growth...

I know most people hate legalese, and contracts seem full of that kind of language. But services agreements and NDAs are inevitable in today’s business world. They are the lifeblood that can make or break your business; in this episode, I talk about why. You will learn: How contracts are necessary to avoid assumptions; Seven reasons to learn to love your contracts; and To build a sustainable, scal...

The key to scaling your expertise-based service business is transforming your assets into something you can replicate, and an online course (an e-course) is one way to do that. I had a conversation with Molly Kaiser, who has a decade of experience building, selling, and teaching others the secrets to a good ecourse. In this episode, you will Learn the ingredients to a good, profitable ecourse Unde...

I’ve always said that this podcast is meta in that I am on the Hourly to Exit journey with my listeners, my guests, my clients, and the many folks I encounter on LinkedIn, webinars, and in other forums. I’ve collected their wisdom in some super-charged market research, and as we enter 2023, I am drinking some of my own Kool-Aid. In this episode of the podcast, you’ll learn Why the expert-to-client...

Shining Some Light on Trade Secrets In Episode 27 of the Hourly to Exit Podcast, we hear a recording of a recent LinkedIn Live session by Erin, in which she breaks down the major elements of a confusing but critical area of Intellectual Property (IP) law: Trade Secrets. Unlike the other three major areas of IP law – copyright, trademark, and patent- Trade Secrets aren’t registered to be protected....

Sometimes a single post can inspire transformative insights. Imagine if that post were about insights. In Episode 26 of the podcast, I welcomed Michelle Calcagni to the show to reflect on her career and her valuable LinkedIn post about insights. We dug deep about professional women at the top of their game and preserving our unique, acquired knowledge to pass along to a buyer, a mentee, or the nex...

When it comes to money – especially feelings of insufficiency or inadequacy – there’s often a lot more going on than the numbers. I was so lucky to host the incredibly inspiring Joan Sotkin in an intense conversation about our relationship with money and prosperity. She shared her unique philosophy and approach to helping people with their finances, and we learned a lot about things like · It’s no...

As you grow your team, Organizational Culture becomes one of the critical moving pieces in the valuation of your business. I was lucky enough to have a conversation with Lilly Smith, an expert in this subject. Together we talked about what organizational culture means and, more importantly, what it can imply to others as an essential part of your business brand. In this episode, you will learn · T...

2022 has been a special year for the Hourly to Exit podcast. Not only is it the year I started the podcast – and what a ride it’s been! – but I’ve also had some truly phenomenal guests join me in sharing wisdom about how to make an expertise-based service business scalable and saleable. Since I am on that journey myself with my own business – Think Beyond IP – the podcast has been pretty Meta. I g...

We always go Meta on the podcast, but my guest Eva Jannotta and I really doubled down as we learned more about her thought leadership as a coach to women entrepreneurs on thought leadership. Eva has some truly progressive approaches to her own business and her work with clients, which she generously shared with us. In this podcast, you will hear about · How business owners can use their profits to...

I’m always preaching about the ways expertise-based service providers can scale their business using their intellectual property (IP) as an asset. In Episode 21 of Hourly to Exit , I open the firehose and introduce a whole bunch of approaches that convert your IP into an asset that you can sell without relying on yourself to deliver the service. In this episode I cover some serious ground, includi...