Sell Well: Helping Agencies Close More Deals and Grow Revenue

I scrapped the episode I had planned this week because the same question kept coming up on multiple  coaching calls this week.  "Who am I, if this business doesn't work out?" I know that sounds like a mindset guru thing, but stick with me, because getting this wrong is quietly costing you sales calls, and getting it right will change how you show up in your business completely.  Hea...

Most business owners don't hire a VA with a plan. They hire one because they're overwhelmed, hand off whatever feels urgent that day, and a few months later they're frustrated and convinced the VA just isn't cutting it. Here's the truth: it's rarely the VA. It's that nobody set them up to succeed in the first place. I'm walking through three steps to bring o...

Everybody keeps telling me LinkedIn outreach is dead. I hear it from my clients constantly, usually right after they forward me another one of those cringey DMs that opens with "we both went to college" and ends with a calendar link. So I phoned a friend who is booking calls and signing clients on LinkedIn every single week, and I asked him to make his case. Oaken Mulholland coaches agen...

My client Jasmine sent me a voice note this week that stopped me in my tracks. Her prospects are dropping her proposals into ChatGPT and Claude, then firing back giant lists of questions she has never gotten before, half of which do not even matter. And once people sign? They start handing over AI slop as briefs and acting shocked when the work comes back looking exactly like what they sent. AI is...

There is a client on your roster right now that you are quietly losing money on, and I'd bet it's not the one you'd guess. It's not your cheapest client, and it's not your most demanding one. It's a very specific combination of the two that wrecks your margin without ever showing up on an invoice. In this episode I'm handing you the ten-minute exercise I use to g...

A few years ago I had a client who drove me up the wall. Endless revisions, constant tweaks, the kind of name that made my stomach drop every time it hit my inbox. I was convinced she was the problem and I was this close to firing her. Then a mentor asked me one question that flipped the whole thing on its head, and I walked away making more money and actually enjoying the work again. In this epis...

We are back with another Monday Money Myth with Jason Medlin, fractional CFO, accountant, and tax strategist. Today's myth: I think my business might be set up incorrectly and it's too late to fix it. Spoiler alert, that's absolutely not true. We talk about why the way you structure your business matters, why most small business owners should be in an LLC, the compliance tasks that...

Listen in on my chat with Cheyenne Buttrey of Copy Girl Co. to break down one of the most misunderstood parts of growing a service business, marketing funnels. We talk about what a funnel actually is (spoiler, you probably already have one), why bigger isn't better, and the four core building blocks that make a funnel work. Cheyenne shares when you should bootstrap your funnel versus when to...

Back at it with another Monday Money Myth with special guest Jason Medlin, fractional CFO, accountant, and tax strategist.  In today's myth, we are tackling *shudder* taxes. If you're like me, you would rather just not think about it until it's a problem. Spoiler alert, that's the fastest way to April shock and sadness.  We talk about why most small business owners treat taxes...

We white labeled our branding and web process to other agencies for years, but 2023, my last year at Lawson House, is when we really saw the explosion, it added over half a million dollars in revenue. Here's what it actually is (and what it's not), why it works so well, and exactly how to implement it in your own business so you can scale without hiring more people or chasing clients one...

Kicking off a new recurring series with Jason Medlin , a fractional CFO, accountant, and bookkeeper, where we debunk the money myths that keep business owners up at night. First up: if you've got cash in the bank, you're good. Spoiler alert, that's not how it works. We talk about why cashflow modeling matters, why looking ahead 12 to 13 weeks is the sweet spot for forecasting, and h...

Someone's going to ask for their money back, and it's going to suck. But here's the thing, you don't have to panic. I'm breaking down the four-question framework that helped me decide whether to give refunds or hold firm, and why your emotional state matters way more than your contract's fine print. Plus, the one thing you absolutely need to do before any money change...

This week I'm phoning a friend.  Becky Pierson Davidson runs Affinity, a boutique agency building memberships and community products. She's also one of my coaching clients. Becky's the reason this podcast exists in the first place, so I had to have her on. Here's what I wanted to dig into with her. Most sales calls that go sideways aren't a delivery problem, they're a...

Years ago I watched someone proudly share that they'd saved $74 on a subscription plan. And I watched the CEO of that company stop everything and ask one question that I still think about at least once a week. Are you a comma person or a decimal person? This episode is about that question, and honestly, it's about the moment I had to ask it of myself all over again when my laptop screen...

When you're staring down a big gap between where you are and where you want to be, the instinct is to zoom out, audit your funnel, rethink your messaging, figure out what's broken. But sometimes nothing is broken. Sometimes you just need a blitz. In this episode, I break down the sales blitz: what it is, when to use it, and exactly how to execute one. You'll hear how one of my clien...

Caroline Lewis is the CEO of Lawson House, the marketing agency I founded and sold to her, and today she's pulling back the curtain on what that whole transition actually looked like. We get into how I blindsided her with the question of whether she'd want to run it, what she had to think through before saying yes, and the part that scared her most: taking over sales from the founder. Ca...

Nobody likes talking about money. You hate asking, they hate being asked, and somehow it still has to happen. In this episode I'm breaking down why the budget conversation doesn't have to be the awkward moment everyone dreads, how to bring it up in a way that actually feels helpful to your client, and what to do when they still won't give you a number. This one will change how you t...

In this episode I'm talking about when you actually need a business coach, what to look for, and why most of coaches are missing the thing that would actually help you grow. I'm also pulling back the curtain on the exact 7-stage framework I take my clients through, from evaluating where your business really is to building a 90-day plan that fits your actual life. If you've ever wond...

Most people follow up until they're desperate, and desperation costs you money. In this episode, I'm breaking down the two-part follow-up method I swear by: setting a defined sequence so you always know when a lead is dead, and why chasing new leads is almost always a better use of your time than begging old ones. I'll walk you through the exact timeline I use, and what to do with l...

Most service business owners are doing way more work than they're getting paid for just to land a client. In this episode I'm sharing the strategy that changed that for me at Lawson House, and for a lot of my clients too. If you've ever felt like prospects trust you enough to have a conversation but not quite enough to say yes, this one's for you.

In this episode I'm telling you the full story of how one of the most hostile cold calls I ever took turned into a $10,000 website and one of our longest running retainer clients. And then I'm breaking down exactly what I did so you can do it the next time you get a Larry. Because here's what I've learned: if you've only ever worked referral calls, cold calls can feel like...

If your close rate isn't where you want it to be, the problem might not be your pitch. It might be that you're trying to do too much on the first call. In this episode, I break down why pulling up a 40-slide deck before someone even knows your name is killing your deals, and what to do instead. I share the two-call close process I use with my coaching clients, including a story about a c...

So many of my clients come to me convinced that outbound sales is sleazy or off-brand, but it's actually what transformed my business. In this episode, I break down the difference between inbound and outbound marketing using a house party analogy that makes it all click, and share why relying solely on inbound (and referrals) is leaving money on the table. I talk about how outbound strategies...

I started this show because I know how lonely it can be to build something and feel like you're figuring it out alone. Every week I'm bringing you the sales tips, the hard lessons, and the honest conversations that nobody else is having. Think of this as your weekly gut check from someone who has been exactly where you are and made it to the other side. If you're ready to close more...

I never planned to be a business owner. If you'd asked me in college, this would've seemed way too far out of reach. But in March 2020, with no portfolio, no business plan, and a world that had just shut down, I took a leap anyway — and it changed everything. In this first episode of the Sell Well Podcast, I'm sharing my whole story. From trading design work for yoga classes to clos...