Work Less, Earn More

Over the next several episodes, I'm going to be interviewing a series of online business owners about their business models, how their businesses make money, their biggest expenses, how much time their businesses take to run, how big or small their teams are, and more.Today I’m interviewing Anna Wolf, the owner of Superscript Marketing, a small agency that sells a productized service, meaning they sell a service that looks very similar for each of the different types of clients they serve.We’ll talk about why she chose this model, how it works and some of the additional considerations that this type of business can create, as well as the pros of selling a simple service rather than responding to each individual client’s specific needs.Listen to the full episode to hear:The legal, financial, and psychological reasons behind using a mix of contractors and employeesWhy Superscript’s highly specialized niche means they don’t have to spend a lot of effort bringing in new clientsWhy Anna has chosen to remain a boutique firm rather than scaling up, and how she is branching out her businessWhy professional development and team bonding are significant line items in her budgetLearn more about Anna Wolf:Superscript MarketingConnect with Anna on LinkedInLearn more about Gillian:Startup SocietyGet on the waitlist for VALIDATEProfit Planning ChallengeGet in touch!

Over the next several episodes, I'm going to be interviewing a series of online business owners about their business models, how their businesses make money, their biggest expenses, how much time their businesses take to run, how big or small their teams are and more.Today I’m talking to Marie Poulin, creator of Notion Mastery, her hybrid online course that mixes self-paced study with office hours and community support.Marie helps solopreneurs and small teams streamline their digital systems, processes, and workflows, so they can spend more time on what matters.Notion Mastery is an online course and community that helps folks use Notion to live and work better.Listen to the full episode to hear:Why having live calls and office hours was instrumental to developing Notion MasteryHow a hybrid course plays to Marie’s strengths, personality and how she wants to show up in her businessWhy leveraging interest in an existing tool like Notion or YouTube is a great beginner strategy for developing coursesThe real costs in money and time of running a hybrid course and communityLearn more about Marie Poulin:Notion MasteryYouTubeTwitter: @MariePoulinLearn more about Gillian:Startup SocietyGet on the waitlist for VALIDATEProfit Planning ChallengeGet in touch!

Over the next several episodes, I'm going to be interviewing a series of online business owners about their business models, how their businesses make money, their biggest expenses, how much time their businesses take to run, how big or small their teams are, and more.Today I’m talking to interior designer Candice Prather about how she blends her offerings to capture very different types of customers in a service-based business.Candice Prather is a Maryland-based Interior Designer and Realtor at Keller Williams Preferred Properties. She is a proud member of The American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), the Real Estate Staging Association (RESA), and The National Association of Realtors (NAR).Listen to the full episode to hear:Why you have to think like your customer when developing a marketing strategyHow Candice uses a detailed questionnaire to prep potential clients for their sales callHow she manages client workload across her two primary offeringsWhat add-on products boost Candice’s bottom lineHow Candice envisions scaling her businessLearn more about Candice Prather:CandicePrather.comInstagram: @CandicePratherLearn more about Gillian:Startup SocietyGet on the waitlist for VALIDATEProfit Planning ChallengeGet in touch!

Over the next several episodes, I'm going to be interviewing a series of online business owners about their business models, how their businesses make money, their biggest expenses, how much time their businesses take to run, how big or small their teams are and more.Today I’m talking to Cher Hale about how she’s built a micro-agency by design, serving a very specific demographic and market that aligns with her values and passions.Cher Hale is the founder and director of Ginkgo PR, a boutique agency that believes in using public relations to help historically-excluded authors and entrepreneurs take back their narratives.As a Taiwanese-Black American woman, Cher is passionate about leveraging the power of media to tell diverse stories through online, print, TV, and podcast mediums so she can play a role in reshaping how our society views social justice, feminism, and multiculturalism.Listen to the full episode to hear:How Cher mixes a limited number of traditional retainer clients with consults and a membership optionWhere the biggest chunks of her money and time go as a micro-agencyWhat she loves about her hybrid business model and one big disadvantage of a longer contractLearn more about Cher Hale:Gingko Public RelationsConnect with Cher on LinkedInLearn more about Gillian:Startup SocietyGet on the waitlist for VALIDATEProfit Planning ChallengeGet in touch!

When I started working on starting my online business, it was because I was running away from the business that I already had.Essentially, I was breaking up with my current business and my online business was a bit of a rebound. What I wanted out of my online business was flexibility and freedom. I wanted to know how to make as much money with as little effort as possible and in those rebound days, I was susceptible to anything that sounded like what I was looking for.It wasn't until I was well into the process of building my business that I realized there were some things about the business model I had inadvertently chosen that I wasn't all that fond of or that there were other options out there.Over the next several episodes, I'm going to be interviewing a series of online business owners about their business models, how their businesses make money, their biggest expenses, how much time their businesses take to run, how big or small their teams are and more.To start this series off, I'm bringing on my friend, business mentor and podcast producer, Tara McMullin. In this episode, Tara breaks down seven simple business models for small business owners.Tara McMullin is a coach, community builder, podcaster, producer, and writer. She’s the founder of What Works, a digital platform for small business owners who are building strong, resilient, and sustainable companies. She’s also the co-founder of YellowHouse.Media, a podcast production agency that helps entrepreneurs create standout podcasts that grow their businesses. Tara’s podcast, What Works, has been downloaded over 2 million times and boasts over 300 interviews with thriving small business owners.Listen to the full episode to hear:Why getting clear on your business model helps your business become more sustainable, resilient and easier to runHow keeping it simple can actually generate more revenue with fewer expensesSeven simple business models with real-life examples and a breakdown of the math behind the revenuePlus two models for physical product-based businessesKey questions to consider when choosing a business modelLearn more about Tara McMullin:What WorksThe What Works PodcastInstagram: @tara_mcmullinYellowHouse.MediaLearn more about Gillian:Startup SocietyGet on the waitlist for VALIDATEProfit Planning ChallengeGet in touch!

Did you set a goal to take your business from $0 to $100,000 in 2022?You might think of dividing 100,000 by 365 and figure, “okay, I need to earn at least $274 per day and I’ll hit that mark.”But the first thing to know is that it isn’t going to happen that way.Most likely this process of going from zero to six figures over the next year is something that's going to happen exponentially.You're going to start slow. It'll seem like you aren't making any progress at all at first, but over time, your income will increase faster and faster.It will almost certainly be something of a rollercoaster, where you’ll earn more one month and less the next.It’s a two steps forward, one step back kind of experience.And that might not be what you want to hear, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s the truth.Keep listening to find out what else you need to know to hit that six-figure milestone in 2022.Listen to the full episode to hear:How to keep discouragement at bay so you keep putting in the work to hit six figuresWhy it’s okay to have some unknowns in your business planWhy you need to get to market quickly, even if your product isn’t yet perfectWhy your income might dip while you’re setting up scalable systemsHow to build a marketing and sales process that works for your businessLearn more about Gillian:Startup SocietyGet on the waitlist for VALIDATEProfit Planning ChallengeGet in touch!50 Service Business Ideas – Free Download

To celebrate our reaching 100 episodes of Work Less, Earn More, I’m revisiting some of my favorite episodes all this week.I went all the way back to the very first episode and pulled out the ones that stood out to me as must-listens, ones that I think even if you've heard them before, they would be worth listening to again. Then I had to narrow it down from 20 or so episodes to 5.To do that, I needed a theme or a topic, and I landed on doing a whole week of episodes all about funnels and launching.For the final episode of our five-part bonus series, we're going to do something that is a little bit unrelated if I'm going to be completely honest, but I think it's an important piece of the puzzle.When I was first trying to build my business, my funnels weren’t working and my launches were falling flat.And it wasn’t because of the funnels or the launches.The reason they would have worked for me is because I was barking up the wrong tree. I was trying to sell something that there wasn't demand for. I was trying to sell something that nobody wanted to buy.I hadn’t validated my business idea.So today, I’ll walk you through how to do that, so you can put all of the great lessons in the last four episodes this week to use.Listen to the full episode to hear:3 questions to ask to validate your business ideaWhy market research is essential to building a successful businessHow to tell if your business idea is valid and worth pursuingWhy it might not take a long time to build a substantial, successful businessLearn more about Gillian:Startup SocietyGet on the waitlist for VALIDATEProfit Planning ChallengeGet in touch!

To celebrate our reaching 100 episodes of Work Less, Earn More, I’m revisiting some of my favorite episodes all this week.I went all the way back to the very first episode and pulled out the ones that stood out to me as must-listens, ones that I think even if you've heard them before, they would be worth listening to again. Then I had to narrow it down from 20 or so episodes to 5.To do that, I needed a theme or a topic, and I landed on doing a whole week of episodes all about funnels and launching.I'm bringing you back to one of the earliest episodes from Work Less, Earn More.In this episode, I share with you six things that took us past the six-figure mark.One thing I love about this episode is that it's a really good recap of some of the biggest things that we did that grew the business, and I did it while hitting that milestone was still pretty fresh and we were still using a lot of the same strategies as we continued to grow.So if you’re aiming for that goal, listen in and I’ll share how we did it.Listen to the full episode to hear:Why I had to narrow my focus and get specificWhy I stopped selling and dug into market researchWhy different is better than betterHow I found my bottlenecks and hired help strategically to get past themHow subscriptions and evergreen funnels took us over the six-figure markLearn more about Gillian:Startup SocietyGet on the waitlist for VALIDATEProfit Planning ChallengeGet in touch!

To celebrate our reaching 100 episodes of Work Less, Earn More, I’m revisiting some of my favorite episodes all this week.I went all the way back to the very first episode and pulled out the ones that stood out to me as must-listens, ones that I think even if you've heard them before, they would be worth listening to again. Then I had to narrow it down from 20 or so episodes to 5.To do that, I needed a theme or a topic, and I landed on doing a whole week of episodes all about funnels and launching.Today I'm bringing you an interview that I did with my friend, Lucy Griffiths, who has a truly incredible evergreen sales funnel set up that sold over 30,000 copies of one of her courses in just 18 months!Whether you’re just starting to set up funnels or you have one running you want to improve, listen in as Lucy shares the dirt on how she set it up and how it works.Lucy Griffiths went from TV journalist reporting from conflict zones and interviewing political heavyweights and rubbing elbows with A-listers to building a course business that has now generated over a million dollars in revenue. Her Confident on Camera course has over 50,000 downloads and counting.Listen to the full episode to hear:How micro-courses allow you to quickly scale up your salesWhy you should script and record your sales pitchHow Lucy structures her offers to increase her total cart value from a low-cost courseWhy she uses still image ads to sell a video-based courseLucy’s surprising strategy for generating leads and converting themLearn more about Lucy:lucygriffiths.comConfident On Camera CourseFollow Lucy on YouTubeLearn more about Gillian:Startup SocietyGet on the waitlist for VALIDATEProfit Planning ChallengeGet in touch!

To celebrate our reaching 100 episodes of Work Less, Earn More, I’m revisiting some of my favorite episodes all this week.I went all the way back to the very first episode and pulled out the ones that stood out to me as must-listens, ones that I think even if you've heard them before, they would be worth listening to again. Then I had to narrow it down from 20 or so episodes to 5.To do that, I needed a theme or a topic, and I landed on doing a whole week of episodes all about funnels and launching.Today is Episode 22 with Tarzan Kay.Tarzan reveals all of her best secrets and tips for launching to a small list and really maximizing your sales, even when you aren't selling to very many people.And I know that that is the situation that many of you are in right now. And I was in that situation not too long ago myself.Tarzan Kay is a master of email marketing and former copywriter-for-hire who specializes in fun-to-read, more-addictive-than-Game-of-Thrones email copy. She also helps freelancers attract better clients who’ll reach deeper into their pockets to pay for top-quality services using the power of email.She shares all of her expert email marketing and copywriting tips on how she stands out in a crowded market—and how you can, too.Listen to the full episode to hear:Sales strategies to make the most of your small listHow to calculate your real conversion rate for your launchA two-part offer structure that helps you capture missed leadsWhy you should never judge your launch in the middle of itLearn more about Tarzan:TarzanKay.com10 Free Email Promo Sequence SwipesInstagram: @tarzan_kayThe Must-Have Tool For Promoting To A List of Less Than 1000 SubscribersLearn more about Gillian:Startup SocietyGet on the waitlist for VALIDATEProfit Planning ChallengeGet in touch!