What Works

The Nitty-Gritty: * Why Maria Rodriguez started Fear Her Fight Athletics –and the surprising results of her initial product launch* How Maria centers her mission to empower people of all shapes, sizes, and identities in the gym* The key question Maria asks of herself and her community before designing new products* How Maria is doubling-down on her mission and exploring new territory with her 2019...

The Nitty-Gritty * The many ways Tara McMullin’s business and brand has changed over the years* Why she finally feels able to be 100% honest with her brand and content* How to nurture community culture that affirms the contribution of every member* Why CoCommercial has become The What Works Network At the end of 2016, I decided I wanted to do business differently. I wanted more for our customers,...

The Nitty Gritty: * What Jennifer Louden has learned about hosting & selling retreats in the 20 years she’s been running them* How far in advance Jen starts planning for a retreat–and how far in advance she starts marketing a retreat* The core role retreats play in Jen’s business model* How Jen structures each retreat to create the best experience for herself and her guests Every time I go to...

The Nitty-Gritty on Kyla’s Coaching Business Model: * How business strategist Kyla Roma created a new coaching business model that combines both her needs and her clients’ needs* Why Kyla decided to change things up and what constraints inspired her to innovate on what was working* The unique coaching program structure and technology Kyla uses to respect her clients’ lives as “rich tapestries”* Ho...

Well, we’ve nearly made it to the end of another January. As of today, I’m 24 days into my first Whole30. I’m 4 weeks into a new training program. I’m 14 posts into committing to writing and sharing more often on Instagram and LinkedIn. I’m 4 weeks into bullet journaling. As you might guess, I love January. I love the potential, the possibility, and the opportunity of the new year. I love setting...

Meagan Francis, founder of Life, Listened, discovered a whole new entrepreneurial mindset as she made the transition from the owner of a content marketing business to the employee of a marketing & communications firm to the head of her own podcasting business. ★ Support this podcast ★

The Nitty Gritty * Margy Thomas, Ph. D. and founder of ScholarShape , supports academics and researchers in telling their stories through what she calls the Story-Argument concept. This tool or strategy, applied to her clients’ work, turns their text into “both a functional machine and a pleasing work of art.”* Why Margy’s so passionate about academic writing, plus the reason Margy works with clie...

The Nitty Gritty: * Why Facebook ad costs have risen so dramatically and what we’ve been doing that contributes to the problem* The metric that Amanda Bond encourages her clients and students to prioritize instead of Cost Per Lead* How skewed expectations for conversion rates have led to declining ad performance* The 3-part customer journey that Bond advises for excellent customer experience and p...

After over 10 years in this business, I’ve seen a lot when it comes to social media. I’ve been around for Blogspotting and LiveJournaling. I’ve seen the rise and fall of the Twitter empire. I remember when organic reach on Facebook was a given and I watched as Instagram morphed from iPhone snaps to carefully posed and perfected images. Much has changed about the way small businesses approach socia...

A few weeks ago, Derek Halpern —who has made millions of dollars selling online courses—announced that he was quitting information marketing. He said he was burnt out. He’d lost track of why he was in the business in the first place. His information marketing business didn’t light him up. He announced a sort of digital fire sale of all his courses, one final time, and then took them off the market...

Imagine making money in your sleep. When I first started selling ebooks and courses that’s all anyone could talk about, and I’ll admit that the first time I woke up to money having been deposited in my PayPal account over night, I was pretty damn excited. But what I realized soon after was that there was nothing passive about passive income. Whether you’re making money through ads, online courses,...

It’s tempting to think that all the time you spend on social media, writing articles, creating podcast episodes, or recording videos is time spent building relationships. Heck, I’m doing it right now. Every podcast episode I create is an effort to create a genuine connection between you and me. But I know from experience that my efforts in broadcasting—whether on the podcast, with content marketin...

This January, I’m celebrating 10 years as a small business owner. To say that a lot has changed since I started my very first website while breastfeeding my infant daughter is an extreme understatement. It’s not just the marketing tactics we rely on or the social platforms we frequent that have changed, though. I think it comes right down to the kinds of questions we’re asking and the visions we’r...

The Nitty Gritty * The origin story of the “wing woman effect” * How Mia Scharphie, founder of Build Yourself Workshop , uses what she calls a Virtuous Circle to connect with other business owners and grow her company (and how it differs from a mastermind) * Why making amazing connections with other entrepreneurs doesn’t come down to magic or luck but instead by intentionally crafting the relation...

Both as humans and as business owners, we tell ourselves stories. I might tell myself that no one will pay what I need to charge for my work. You might tell yourself that you can’t hire anyone who will do the work the way you want it to be done. Someone else might tell themselves that they don’t have enough experience to be taken seriously, that hard work equals results, or that they can do it all...

The Nitty Gritty * Why Maggie of Scoop Studios pivoted from working with online entrepreneurs to local, in-person clients — and how tapping into her existing network made all the difference in finding leads * How Maggie’s role within the agency shifted to Director of Sales when her business partner left — and how that impacted the rest of the team structure * Who updates standard operating procedu...

The Nitty Gritty * The live video broadcasting opportunity Sai Hossain saw for creators and entrepreneurs that inspired him to create Crowdcast * How small business owners are generating leads with live video and 2 key ways they are using live video to drive revenue * How live video is working for small business owners today as they build audiences and nurture relationships * Plus, the inside scoo...

The Nitty Gritty * What Jessica Fialkovich ’s daily life looks like as President and Cofounder of Transworld Business Advisors—Rocky Mountain, investor, and nonprofit board of director * How Jessica uses the bottom up approach for setting company goals * How goals are established among team members and how those goals influence yearly company goals * Why you should think about your business not as...

I avoided confronting my mindset as a business owner for years. I figured that, if I got the numbers and the strategy right, I could grow my business without worrying about my own personal development or leadership. But the more I looked around, the more I realized that the entrepreneurs who were excelling in ways I wanted to excel thought differently than I did. They approached their systems, cus...

The Nitty Gritty * Why speaker, author, and publicist Dana Kaye prefers intentional slow growth in business — and how she manages her company’s growth today * How growing too fast can negatively impact you, your clients, and your business — and, on the contrary, how growing more intentionally can change everything for the better * How Dana uses strategic partnerships to grow her business and serve...

The Nitty Gritty * Why Natalie decided to pursue a personal brand under her name — and why she decided to keep The Suitcase Entrepreneur, too. * What Natalie’s personal brand looks like from the inside out — and why she’s considering a done-for-you offering as part of her services * What she learned from taking a 3-month sabbatical to figure out her next moves — and how Natalie decided to move bac...

What would 11-star service look like? That’s the question that Brian Chesky asked himself to figure out how he and his team at Airbnb needed support hosts to help everyone involved have an exceptional experience. I first heard this idea of 11-star service during Brian’s interview with Reid Hoffman on the first episode of Masters of Scale. The idea is that you want to create the capacity for these...

The Nitty Gritty * How Kristen Runvik is scheduling her life, job, and business to make sure she’s spending her time the way she wants to * How she divides her time to find  balance between her side hustle with her day job * What she does to get the most out of Instagram marketing without letting it consume her * How Kristen takes what she has learned at in-person events online More than 44 millio...

The Nitty Gritty * Who is succeeding with email marketing today–and how they think about their email lists differently * How ConvertKit makes it easy to test ideas and create a new product * Why simplicity is winning when it comes to email–and how that means you can spend less time marketing * How ConvertKit bridges the gap between the business just setting out and the more mature business with mo...

The Nitty Gritty * Why Jason Van Orden ultimately left the business he ran for ten years and how taking a sabbatical helped him get to the heart of why he felt so discontent and uninspired * The identity crisis Jason experienced as he shifted from being known as the founder of Internet Business Mastery to being a consultant * How Jason realized that his unique genius comes out when he’s in a room...