There’s a reason the old ways of marketing aren’t working like they used to. Audiences have gotten smart and skeptical. 

After being burned one too many times, people are no longer giving businesses the benefit of the doubt. Instead of “I’ll believe you until you give me a reason not to,” it’s now “I won’t believe you until you prove that I should.” 

And that changes everything.

If you want to build trust in a distrusting market, you have to stop trying to look authentic and instead be authen...

Have you ever reached a point in your business where more success actually felt like more stress?

It’s something I hear from business owners all the time, especially those running consulting or service-based businesses in the $500k to $5M range.

You’re finally seeing traction. Clients are coming in consistently. Revenue is climbing.

But instead of feeling like you're winning, it feels like you're drowning.

That feeling isn’t just common.

It’s a warning sign.

Not of failure, but of growth ...

If you’re like many founders, you hired an operations-focused person with the hope that they would take things off your plate, free you from the day-to-day, and give you more time to focus on the big-picture.

In fact, they probably assured you that this is what would happen.

Instead, you find yourself just as involved in the business as before. 

I hear this all the time from founders:

"I thought hiring an operations person would get me out of the day-to-day, but I’m still in the weeds. What ...

One of the biggest mistakes operational leaders, consultants, and advisors make is relying on short-term, project-based work.

Aside from frequently taking more time than expected, leaving you feeling overworked and underpaid, the reality is that if you’re always looking for your next client, you never have the time or space to scale your services.

The path for more consistent and higher revenue is to focus on building long-term strategic partnerships.

Here’s how:

Shift from Short-Term Pro...

Most visionaries are not excited by their business operations. 

They started their business to make an impact, innovate, and drive growth, not to manage the day-to-day details.

As the operational leader, it’s your job to ensure the business runs like a well-oiled machine, allowing the founder to stay focused on their big-picture vision.

Your role is critical. You’re the one who makes sure the systems are in place, the team is supported, and operations run smoothly.

But supporting a visionary...

As we enter the last three months of the year and come out of summer, you might find your founder looking to generate short-term cash flow to make up for slower summer revenue or to hit financial targets for the year.

This year has seen a lot of changes in buyer behaviors, and figuring out what's working has felt like a moving target for many small businesses in the coaching, consulting, and service-based space.

As the operational leader, you play a critical role in making sure the strategies ...

When you start incorporating AI into your business, it's critical to protect your data and intellectual property (IP). 

As a small business owner or key team member in an online coaching, consulting, or service-based business, you understand that the business' intellectual property (IP) and proprietary frameworks are the backbone of its offerings. These assets are critical for delivering value to clients and ensuring the success of the business.

With the increasing use of AI tools to streamlin...

There are countless ways that AI can be leveraged to both simplify and scale your business, with new tools, technologies, and techniques being introduced every day. 

Yet most small businesses are significantly underutilizing AI as a means of saving time and money and balancing innovation with efficiency.

Just a few of the many benefits of using AI include:

• Enhanced Efficiency and Productivity: AI can automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks, allowing your team to focus on higher-value a
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Time = money.  And I have yet to find a business that doesn't have hidden time and money within their business in the form of waste.

Also known as muda, waste is the killer of productivity and efficiency. 

There are many forms of waste.  For this post, we are going to focus on wasted time, which in turn results in wasted money.

• How much time do you and your team spend searching for things?  For product-based businesses, this could be physical inventory to pack and ship an order, or for serv
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