Strategy Hour | Online Marketing for Business Growth

Having discovery calls, going for coffee dates, and holding pitching meetings with potential clients is something that we’ve noticed that many service-based business owners struggle with in the early years. They feel like they either don’t say enough or they say too much, and this causes a lot of stress and anxiety. In this episode, we want to equip you with the confidence to go into these scenarios feeling like you know exactly what you’re doing!Thank you for listening! Please subscribe, rate and review The Strategy Hour Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. For show notes go to thestrategyhour.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After serving clients one-on-one, we ultimately changed the entire landscape of our business, yet we didn’t even realize that’s what we were doing! If we could go back in time, there are so many things we would do differently, and today, we’re going to share them with you. When we got to a certain stage of business, we froze up and felt like we were on an island. We had no idea what the next step should be and it felt like everyone else had all of the answers. So many of our clients reach the same phase where they hit a milestone marker and feel like there's something that they’re missing, like a missing piece of information; a formula, or a blueprint. If you feel like million-dollar businesses are gatekeeping this information, the truth is, some of them are! If you’re at the stage of hitting a quarter of a million dollars and don’t know where to go from here, we’re here to tell you. Consider us your Fairy Godmothers of Business Past, telling you your future so you can really decipher what you want to focus on in this phase! Tune in to find out which things you’re tying to success that need to be let go.Thank you for listening! Please subscribe, rate and review The Strategy Hour Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. For show notes go to thestrategyhour.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As most of our listeners at Boss Project know, Abagail is our CFO and sits in HR as well. She has worked hand in hand with plenty of amazing people in HR to learn about the hiring process for a company. She has single-handedly shifted her team from just Emylee and Abagail to exploring contractors, part-time employees, full-time employees, and pretty much everything in between! Inside the incubator, she has started to have conversations about hiring, and she has plenty of wisdom to share from all of this experience. Most business owners struggle with follow-through. The reason why Boss Project has been successful is that where Abagail struggles to see things through, Emylee excels! This formula, along with having the team to support it, has been a winning recipe for us. If you’re a solo business owner, you could be leaving money on the table for this reason. That’s where the magic of having help, even for ten to fifteen hours a month, comes in. Thank you for listening! Please subscribe, rate and review The Strategy Hour Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. For show notes go to thestrategyhour.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You don't have to be good at everything you try. And you don't have to only do things that you’re good at. As kids, we’re often far more comfortable with experimentation and trying new things, than we are as adults. When we get older we increasingly feel pressured to stick with what we’re good at and not ‘waste our time’ on things that aren’t directly related to productivity. For perfectionists, it can be particularly difficult to try new things, which can have an adverse effect on decision making abilities. The term consequences might be rife with negative connotations, but we’re determined to take it back and make it a neutral word! Examining the potential consequences of our decisions is hugely valuable. It can help us determine what we want and fully understand what each choice can offer us. There is no one-size-fits-all solution that will work for everyone, nor should there be. Many of us think we should be pursuing relentless growth because that’s what the world tells us we should want, but when you consider the consequences of constantly scaling it becomes apparent how unrealistic (and unpleasant!) that is. Tune in today as we discuss how to unpack the consequences of our decisions, how to make choices based on the season of your business, and much more!Thank you for listening! Please subscribe, rate and review The Strategy Hour Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. For show notes go to thestrategyhour.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we’re going to talk about offering too many services and how to transition out of your Cheesecake Factory phase, namely, having way too many items on your menu. In a recent episode, we discussed narrowing down your services, and what it would look like to have conversations with your existing clientele about changing their service or potentially even eliminating their service altogether. Today’s episode is for those of you who are too scared to even consider this option!Tuning in you’ll hear us tackle how to make this transition and why it doesn’t need to entail massive sacrifices. We realize that everyone has different needs and limitations. So whether you want to make your transition in twelve days or twelve months is completely up to you! In our conversation, we break down how to streamline your packages by asking yourself the right questions and what you should know about clients when creating your offers. We also talk about the immense possibilities that open up from living in your expertise, and what it means to make your life your career. If you can't even imagine reducing the number of options you have available to your clients and want to discover how to overcome your fear, then this episode is for you!Thank you for listening! Please subscribe, rate and review The Strategy Hour Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. For show notes go to thestrategyhour.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aside from our wonderful clients in the incubator, our DMs have been popping and we have so many great insights into the hurdles that service-based businesses are facing! One particular issue that continues to pop up, especially as we help people define a high-touch signature service or ultimately focus on a more primary offering (instead of having what we’ve lovingly called the Cheesecake Factory menu of offers), is the need to eliminate other services. Many people we’ve run into are open to the idea but have active clients utilizing those very services and don’t know how to make that transition. The question arises of how to pivot and how to communicate the changes, but the main risk factor that people dwell on is losing the income from those active clients. Well, in this episode, you’ll find out how to gently ease out of specific services with a transition plan, as well as how to inform your clients that you’re eliminating part of their service and raising their price. Tune in to hear why there is no question that you shouldn’t only offer the services you want to and how to get to a point where you’re billing ethically and creating space for rest and creativity!Thank you for listening! Please subscribe, rate and review The Strategy Hour Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. For show notes go to thestrategyhour.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we are so pumped to tell you the story of Krystina, a member of our community who has managed to get back nine full-time weeks of work at a mind-blowingly minimal cost! To set the stage, our advanced training promise is to help you make more money and work less. We’re helping you to design a life-first business and be more intentional about your hours. How you spend that time is ultimately up to you. The way we work and hustle with intention, launch, serve, grow, or reset is all based on the life-first bubble. This means that there are dedicated times for work and free times to either introduce more growth or introduce rest and, if there’s one thing we want our clients to walk away with, it’s the empowerment to choose what to use that time for. In this episode, we not only share Krystina’s result but the full circle moment she had around how she gained that time, so make sure to tune in today!The Cost-Benefit Analysis Required To Make Informed DecisionsIt is super important to price appropriately, based on your goals and the unique amount of time you have. At first, Krystina was resistant to making adjustments to her price point, but when she decided to set a minimum event cost, it totally changed the game. She’s now in her second year of working with us and in her first year, she increased her business by over 1,200 percent. Keeping the opportunity cost in mind is crucial; everything has risk and reward. If you have a product priced at a specific price point, you know what it could bring in for a certain amount of clients. But there’s also time associated! You need to gauge how much time is your time worth, doing one activity over another. Time can trick you though, and it’s not always apples for apples. What feels quicker and easier might not be the best use of your time. Krystina had inquiries sitting on her desk with an average order of only $200 but, by setting a minimum rate, Krystina realized that she could replace over 20 of her current clients and save nine full-time weeks of work!What You CAN Choose To Spend Your Time On As Soon as You Unlock More of ItWe all have the same amount of time in a day but we all have different constraints. In Krystina’s case, there are so many things she could use her time for now that it’s been opened up! She has a whole 360 hours to either land more high-touch signature service clients, focus on scaling systems, or take some time off! If important aspects of running your business are being sidelined, it’s because your time isn’t being used appropriately. Krystina was instantly able to reprioritize with her assistant, email past clients, reset priorities and goals, write content, and so much more!The Assembly Line Mentality We Need To ShiftWe were brought up in a working-class economy with a focus on production and service. We’re the byproduct of the assembly line culture of the 50s, but we are not machines; we are humans! We need time, rest, and different types of work. The trick is finding a balance between check-the-box activities and strategy. The power is in the numbers! The data will empower you to make the right decisions and assign your time appropriately.How To Get Your Time BackIf you’re looking into getting some of your time back, the solution is as simple as applying for the Incubator! Our superpower is helping you to figure out what your actual goals are, what you’re working with now, and bridging the gap!See the full show notes here! KEY TOPICS:  Time management Cost-benefit analysis Opportunity cost Saving time Reprioritizing Life-first business WE MENTIONED: Co-op Boss Project Incubator   The Nugget Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We have now done multiple callouts, promotions and launches of the Incubator. We've had hundreds of applications and we’re working with incredible clients inside the program. And if you’re not one of them, you should be! If you’re scared to start a conversation with us, you need to get rid of that feeling right now because we are really not scary at all. You can literally ask us anything, we have no boundaries when it comes to helping our clients. We’re here to help you change your business for the better, so don’t waste any more time stuck where you are!Inspirational Client StoriesWe had a client who was doing a variety of copywriting tasks and charging a flat rate. When she did an audit on how much time she was spending on the tasks, she realized how little money she was actually making per hour. After raising her prices for just one of her recurring clients, and letting go of the ones who were paying pennies, she completely replaced her previous salary! Another client of ours took on a major 6-month job in the safety and emergency management space, and although she was terrified of raising her price for an additional piece of work they needed, her client didn’t even bat an eyelid! You shouldn’t be measuring your success on the number of clients you work with; quality is far more important than quantity.The Danger of Making AssumptionsWe’ve all done it; we make assumptions about what our clients are willing to pay, we think conversations about raising prices are going to be awkward and uncomfortable and we’ll lose clients as a result. Why do we do this? Because of fear and anxiety. Anticipatory stress is paralyzing and we have to be able to look at it and understand where the response is coming from, and then address it head-on, even though we may be tempted to avoid it. You’re going to continually be facing so many different choices in your business, and as we have learned from experience, the best discoveries will usually be found on the other side of fear! Regardless of where you’re at on your journey of making a decision about pricing, we encourage you to just take the next step and sign up for the Incubator! See the full show notes here! KEY TOPICS: Business Books Pricing Change Overcoming Fear WE MENTIONED: Co-op Boss Project Incubator   The Nugget Podcast  Dubsado REWORK  Good to Great  The Last House on Needless Street The Droupout The Ultimatum Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Referrals are, without a doubt, one of the hottest topics that we have going on inside our world. We are so intentional about you doing business the easiest way possible without having to invest in huge ad spends, or allocate loads of money to marketing budgets, or focus on growing an absurdly huge social media presence. We really want you to focus on connections instead. The vast majority of our clients get booked out with almost exclusively referrals, and as they grow they start experimenting with different strategies.Today, we want to talk about ten ways to get more referrals in your world. A referral lead is just as real a lead as a stranger! Quit downplaying the quality and impact that referrals can have on your business, just because they felt easier to get. Referrals, by and far, are better quality, will pay better, will be easier to work with, will finish their projects faster, and they also know other dreamy clients which they may end up connecting you to. It literally only takes one dreamy client to connect you to a network of other dreamy clients, and the clients that we see who use that route, reach their goals way more easily, and are happy in their day-to-day business.See the full show notes here! KEY TOPICS: Referrals Budget Social Media Networking Relationships Industry Standard  WE MENTIONED: Co-op Boss Project Incubator   The Nugget Podcast  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Spring has indeed sprung and apart from our gardening rituals, we have so many new things happening in the Boss Project world! The most pressing news on the street for the month of April 2022 is we have completely exploded the Creative Template Shop and it is officially available as its own entity on all platforms! As you guys have noticed, the conversations here at Boss Project have up-leveled as our business and our clients’ businesses have up-leveled, yet our educational spirit lives on and we want to keep providing actionable, bite-sized, tutorial content for growing business owners. Our goal is to help you see quick wins with our incredible templates, marketing, and strategy. Join now on creativetemplateshop.com with discount code SAVE20 to save on our annual membership, and stay tuned for tips on how to realign expectations of scope with existing clients and how to get clear on creating a business for yourself rather than a job! In this episode, you’ll also discover the most common admin or general VA issue that arises when it comes to providing results for clients.See the full show notes here!KEY TOPICS: Up-leveling Setting Boundaries Realigning Expectations Service Provider Service-Based Business Hiring Contractors WE MENTIONED: Co-op Boss Project Incubator   The Nugget Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices