Strategy Hour | Online Marketing for Business Growth

If you’re a true crime fan and you enjoy a scandalous story about fraud, you’ve definitely spent some time thinking about people who are bigger visioning. These are people who started by looking at the end result, instead of asking themselves what they can do today. While we’re definitely not advocating for crime, we totally believe that there’s great benefit to be had when you consider the big picture of your business! Legacy planning doesn’t mean you’re not invested in your business today; it just means you’re building with the future in mind, and that can only benefit you, both today AND in the long term.We’ve seen people invest so much into their business only to realize that the success of their business rests solely on their ability to keep it afloat. Creating systems, training staff, and starting with the end in mind are all powerful tools to help your business to thrive even once you have made your exit. We’re in the business of helping you to make the changes you need to make to create a sustainable business plan that will enable you to thrive today, and to continue to flourish after you eventually leave! So, tune in today to find out more about creating a retirement plan for your business! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As owners and CEOs, we’ve made plenty of mistakes, but we’ve also learned a lot from them. In today’s episode, we discuss some of the mistakes we’ve made, as well as the errors we’ve seen TONS of CEOs make over the years. So, if you recognize any of these in yourself, don’t worry, you’re in good company! Tuning in, you’ll hear us break down the 7 most prominent red flags and toxic behaviors that continue to happen in business. Learn how to recognize them, why they happen, and the tiny course corrections you can make to solve them.The things that we are pointing out today are based on specific lessons we’ve observed throughout our careers. We’ve seen these errors play out in various ways, from friends who have needed to course-correct, to mistakes that we have inadvertently made in our own business. We’re taking this as an opportunity to share our knowledge so that you can become aware of these potential pitfalls and hopefully skip them altogether! Stepping Into Your CEO Seat In our opinion, the general conversation around stepping into your CEO seat has come with some flaws. Not only has it predominantly been discussed through a very gendered lens, but it has also been structured as a false dichotomy where there’s a wrong and a right way to do something when in truth there are many nuanced approaches one can take. We’ve learned repeatedly in business, even at the CEO level, that you have to find what works for you, and what’s in alignment with your goals. There are universal traits that we’ve recognized that hold people back from really thriving in their CEO seat in a way that is good for them. How Much Time Do You Really Have? You are, to some extent, lying to yourself about your time. This one is super common, but don’t worry, if you ask the right questions, you can start getting back your time and working in your zone of genius! First ask yourself, where is your time actually the most beneficial, and by that we mean, where exactly is your zone of genius? What is the number one thing that is delivering client results? Ask yourself what is truly resulting in sales in your business. Think about the environment and perspective that helps you live in your zone of genius most effectively. Maybe you need to carve out quiet time for yourself every morning that’s conducive to operating in your zone of genius. Perhaps you’re already spread way too thin and you need to accept that there are some things you won’t have time for, or that you need to give yourself permission to get something done at a much slower pace.We also talk about: You Can’t Just Wear Your Owner Hat Are You Delegating Poorly?  Why You Need To Design The Solution Before You Hire  Why Contractors Are NOT Employees How to Avoid Creating Unethical Circumstances  Allowing Perfectionism to Prevent Improvements Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you ready for even more content? Bite sized videos, lessons, tutorials? We can’t believe it’s taken us this long, but we finally have a TikTok account! If you are a business owner looking for marketing tips, Canva tips, Dubsado tips, client-based tips, and everything in between, we are sharing everything there. That’s just a side note, our episode today is all about the difference between working in your business and working on your business. We’ve gone through many different seasons together, in life and in business, and in our usual style, we’re going to be spilling all the beans for you today! Cycles of Introspection Versus InvitationWe went from a season of introspection into a season of inviting new things in. These seasons are so radically different that it almost feels like we have become different versions of ourselves. Change can be scary, but we’re super excited about it. Introspection is a season that’s about learning to relisten to yourself, becoming reengaged with your thoughts and your intuition and asking yourself questions about how you feel and where you are going. On the other side of this introspective cycle, for us there was a deep desire to add to our lives and fill them with new things. At the moment we’re inviting things in, but we probably wouldn’t have the capacity to do this if we hadn’t gone through our introspection stage; both stages are super important and wherever you are at, we’ll meet you there! Our Top Reading Tips to Get the Most Out of BooksWe both went through a phase where we couldn’t get enough of podcasts and we were reading hardly anything at all, but then we decided we wanted to read more this year, and we’ve been knee-deep in books ever since! If you’re struggling to get back into reading, getting a Kindle Unlimited Membership gives you access to so many books, and you can just start off with the easy ones like we did to flex those reading muscles again. Once you’ve passed the early stages, you may want to learn tips to read faster so that you can take in more information. If you’re at that stage, we have a top speed reading tip to share with you today; read diagonally! Don’t worry, this sounded crazy to us at first too, but it really works! We’ve built up a pretty extensive library of business books. Value in Different PerspectivesReading books has rubbed off on so many other areas of our lives; we’re finding new people to follow and making new connections. What we’re really trying to focus on now is not only reading books and making connections with people that validate the opinions that we already hold. We’re intentionally trying to absorb information that doesn’t quite align with what we’ve always believed to be true. For example, Emylee recently bought a book called REWORK which was written by the co-founders of BaseCamp, and even though she really doesn’t like using BaseCamp, she bought it so that she can expand her mind by reading about a new business perspective. HIGHLIGHTS Cycles of Introspection Versus Invitation. [0:09:00]  Our Top Reading Tips to Get the Most Out of Books. [0:12:03]  Value in Different Perspectives. [0:22:12]  KEY TOPICS Introspection Learning vs. Doing Phases Books Speed Reading WE MENTIONED Co-op Boss Project Incubator   The Nugget Podcast  Rework  The Creative Template Shop on TikTok Boss Project on Amazon Emylee on Instagram Abagail on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you’ve listened to this podcast before, you might be under the impression that the hosts get along just fine. You’re right! When there are just two people, conflict is a lot less complicated, and a lot easier to resolve. Around two weeks into having a bigger team, we noticed that everyone would look to us for the answers, never contesting our conclusions. Different perspectives, backgrounds and insights all help us to make better decisions as a company. Abagail and Emylee want to make it really clear that not only do they not want to make all the decisions, but they actually believe that would be a really bad idea! That’s where conflict is necessary for the business to grow and thrive.Our new policies regarding encouraging conflict here at Team Boss ProjectEver heard of artificial harmony? That’s what happens when the owner throws out a bunch of ideas, and the employees act as an agreeable audience. The motivations are good, but the effect is that you never end up saying what you really want to say unless you are the owner. Emylee and Abigail are no longer looking for consensus, they don’t need everyone to agree and back their ideas, but rather to disagree and commit! So, how do you, as a leader, create an environment where there can be healthy conflict? Ask the question, and then shut up! This leaves the necessary room to hear everyone else’s thoughts and opinions on the matter.The most crucial rule to follow for healthy conflict.A decision is better than no decision! An action is better than perfect action. It’s getting the ball rolling that teaches you what you need to do next. Generally speaking, this way of doing things helps us to stop things before they develop in the wrong direction. Critiques Abagail and Emylee experienced in art school helped us to manage feedback in our work. Don’t get 90% into a project before you send it through for feedback! It’s not personal, it’s a way to help everyone not to waste time.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There’s never a good time to make radical changes and you can always find a reason not to do something. But we’ve learned from experience that there is so much to be gained from pursuing opportunities, even under adverse circumstances. One of the things that inhibit us from pursuing growth and opportunities is the feeling that we wouldn’t be able to cope with these new changes in a healthy and sustainable way. We often feel this because we compare ourselves to others. But the truth is that you can never know the full story of someone’s success. You have no idea what’s going on behind the scenes or how their life really looks.One of the biggest things we’ve learned from building our business is the importance of a supportive team and designing a business that is flexible enough to accommodate you during the different seasons of your life. We discuss some of the difficult circumstances we’ve been in while building our business and how it motivated us to build a business that could adapt to our needs. We also share our advice and insights on how to change your mindset and start pursuing radical change. So make sure you tune in to hear how we’ve adapted to our circumstances and how we’re helping others do the same! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The things we hear all the time are either, “I’m doing all the right things but I don’t necessarily know what to focus on next. I don’t know which lever to pull next and I don’t know why I’m feeling so overwhelmed.” Or, “This is so fun and easy! How do I set up myself for success in the future? How do I maintain this and keep growing?” We find that everyone’s always trying to look ahead, yet what’s truly beneficial is understanding the phase that you’re currently in order to clock why things are going well, where they’re going wrong, and what you need to do to move into the next phase. What we forget is that pitfalls are inevitable and that, as things grow, there are going to be roadblocks, hesitations, and frustrations. We are all bound to feel stuck at some point or another. We want to assure you that this feeling is normal (and necessary) and that we can help you to get out of it! In this episode, we tackle the three phases we see every service-based business owner move through, fill you in on how we really feel about burnout, and share our greatest wish for every single service-based business owner out there. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The podcast discusses the concept of building a life-first business and the importance of taking responsibility for implementing and living it. It also explores strategic pivots in business, building a sustainable and profitable business, and the meaning of a life-first business. The hosts offer guidance and support for maintaining client satisfaction while maintaining personal boundaries.

Starting a business is a huge undertaking. And sometimes when we’re in the midst of building a company and struggling with a particular problem, it can be tempting to simply give up and start over with a new business. But the amount of work it takes to get a business off the ground is far more overwhelming than making changes to your current business. It’s just that it usually doesn’t feel that way because you’re not in the thick of things.  In today’s episode, we’ll be tackling the topic ‘What would we do differently if we were starting over?’. Tuning in you’ll hear about some of the mistakes we’ve made, what precipitated them, and how we’ve helped clients avoid the same pitfalls. It may seem like the things that worked seven years ago would no longer be relevant today, but we’ve found that’s totally not the case. Many of the most important lessons we’ve learned are ones we often need to be reminded of to help us solve current problems. So this episode has been really helpful for us too! Tune in to hear our lessons on scaling up, honing in on your talents, why we love collaboration, and so 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

We may be divided in how aware we currently feel in terms of how we’re spending our time, but one thing we can agree on is that we need to be mindful of it! So many mentors over the years have questioned how we’re utilizing our time and, for as many years, it wasn’t being used as effectively as it could be! As service-based business owners, many of us tend to wear too many hats, which prevents us from focusing on what we do best. We’ve personally been through a really unique season where we've been hiring a lot and we have more help than we’ve ever had! This has allowed for more time to rethink how we’re spending the time we do have, instead of simply filling it with the necessary tasks to keep charging on. Does that mean we’re working any less? Absolutely not. This is not a slow season by any means, but we have been able to dig into a time where we can be really intentional. In this episode, we discuss the importance of protecting your hours and being intentional with your time, the value of visioning, and the seven most common mistakes we see service-based business owners making. Tune in to find out what needs to shift in order for you to unlock future growth and move towards a life-first business!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

There’s something in the air at the moment; so many people are questioning themselves and their businesses, and there’s a whole lot of very valid reasons for this (we are in the midst of a pandemic and heading towards a potential World War, after all). A lot of service providers have, as a result of these feelings of uncertainty and overwhelm, considered pivoting their business by adding different streams of revenue, changing their offerings, and so on. For anyone who is entertaining alternative ideas, we understand the allure, but we want to bring you back to reality and share with you what you should be doing during these challenging times instead! 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