802: 23 Things I Learned in 2023 and Two I’ll Never Do Again

625: Bootstrap, Burnout and Beyond: The 3 Phases of Your Service Based Business: 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. by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

47 min listen

643: We Hate Marketing: Here's Why: The current market is shifting. There’s no doubt about it. What do you think the future of marketing looks like online? Maybe we’re at the next stage of marketing, and the next iteration hasn’t revealed itself yet. A lot of the things that people consider ‘marketing’ may not even be helpful for the majority of service-based business owners. For the majority of you, marketing is a huge distraction! It’s also an ego-killer. Watching other businesses on social media can lead us to feel despondent about our skills and what we have to offer. It can lead us to set unrealistic expectations for ourselves. Vanity metrics aren’t helpful, but is traditional marketing even helpful? Can it help to an extent? Sure. But is it even necessary? For a lot of people, the answer is no. If you’re passionate about marketing, go for it! But what we suggest is to disconnect the line between social media, and sales. The role of Instagram and Facebook is totally changing, an by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

47 min listen

637: We're Reclaiming The "C" Word (No, Not That One): 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 relentle by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

43 min listen

628: The Difference Between Working IN Your Business Vs. ON Your Business: 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! by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

34 min listen

626: There's Never a "Good" Time to Make Radical Changes: Here's What to Do About It: 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 w by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

44 min listen

631: Are You Creating a Business or a Job? Here's How to Realign Your Service: 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 fo by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

43 min listen

639: The Secrets Multiple 6-Figure Earners Aren't Telling You: 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 B by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

41 min listen

648: What Does Scaling Mean to You? Here's What You Need to Do Before Going Into a Growth Phase: What lever do you need to pull in order to get the result that you want? There aren’t actually that many levers that you have the option of pulling but people like to complicate things. We are here to simplify them for you! by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

33 min listen

627: Why You Should Encourage Conflict Within Your Team: Different perspectives, backgrounds and insights all help us to make better decisions as a company. by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

35 min listen

632: 10 Strategies to Get More Referrals in 2022: 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 the by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

42 min listen

636: Why Narrowing Your Services Will be The Best Thing You Do For Your Business This Year: 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 whe by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

46 min listen

641: Incubator Client Strategy Breakdown: Bonnie Hit $30k Months & Took a 10 Day Vacay 5 Months Into the Incubator Program: Most of us have a set of preconceived notions about what it takes to grow and scale our businesses. We’re often convinced that in order to make more money we need more clients, which means we need to grow our team. But we can’t grow our team until we have more money. The situation can feel impossible and even send you on a doom-spiral of dread. But it doesn’t need to be this way! Sometimes all you need is a new perspective and a gentle nudge in the right direction. In today’s episode, we share the incredible story of our wonderful client, Bonnie. We unpack how the Incubator Program helped her understand her business, readjust her pricing structure, and transform her life and her company in the process. We take a deep dive into the preconceived notions around growing and scaling your business, and how small shifts can bring about dramatic changes. Discover how Bo by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

36 min listen

629: The 7 Red Flags and Toxic Behaviors Happening In Your Business + How to Correct Them: 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 by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

49 min listen

653: What Does a CEO Actually Do?: What being a CEO entails, the tasks you should always be in control of, and those which you can delegate to other team members at a certain point along your journey. by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

47 min listen

630: What's Your Business Retirement Plan?: 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 hel by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

36 min listen

646: Do You Have a Cognitive Bias Towards Action or Thinking?: Today on the show we discuss a recent conversation we encountered that unpacks the differences between having a cognitive bias towards either action or thinking, and the consequences of that bias. by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

48 min listen

635: What to Do With Existing Clients When You Eliminate Part of Their Service: 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 by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

38 min listen

650: Part 2- How to Teach Your Team to Develop a Culture of Curiosity (Strategies We Use With Our Own Team): What does it mean to cultivate a culture of curiosity? That’s what we’re going to be discussing today! by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

40 min listen

642: This is The Sign of What's Next For Your Service Based Business: The ‘work smarter not harder club’ tells you that the only way to work smarter, not harder, is to have a low-priced digital offering, and all of a sudden all your dreams of riches will come true. by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

37 min listen

651: Boss Project is Closing...For Our 1st Summer Break - Here's How We Made it Happen: We walk you through the steps we’ve taken to prepare for our time off and show you how any business can prepare for a substantial and regenerative summer break. by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

36 min listen

652: How Premium Services Function Differently For B2B vs. B2C Businesses: There are plenty of scenarios that work amazingly for some people and don’t work at all for others. The question to focus on is not what is right, and what gets the greatest return, but what feels attainable for you. If something is not in step with who you are as a person, it’s not going to work! by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

41 min listen

633: The #1 Thing Holding Service Providers Back From Raising Their Prices (and What to Do About it): 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! by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

37 min listen

661: The 4 Things a Service Provider Must Get Right: Part One Identify Your Result: Business is cyclical. When you first start your business, you will probably have a naive way of thinking and you’ll try out lots of different things to see what sticks. by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

38 min listen

638: Everything You Need to Know About Hiring: 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, com by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

42 min listen

659: How Team Boss Project Lives in Our Life-First Value: Our very first absolute priority when it comes to our business values, is building a business that is life first. To us, that means that our business structure reflects the season we are in. by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

43 min listen

644: You Can Earn a Full Time Income Without Working Full Time Hours: The theme of needing more time is a common one that we are seeing amongst our clients, which is why we started off today’s conversation with a discussion about gardening and candle making! by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

44 min listen

640: The Difference Between a Coffee Date, a Discovery Call and a Pitch Meeting: 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. by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

35 min listen

634: Incubator Client Strategy Breakdown: How Krystina Eliminated 9 Weeks of Work with 1 New Client: 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 by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

30 min listen

658: How Your Service Pricing Changes When You Choose to Have a Team: How to grow your team ethically, calculate appropriate service pricing, and why you might be pricing inappropriately, to begin with! by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

30 min listen

647: The Audacity (Taylor's Version): We’ve whittled down a list of things you can do to create your own confidence if you weren’t naturally born with it or nurtured in that area! by The Strategy Hour Podcast: Systems and Marketing for Service Based Businesses with Boss Project

41 min listen

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802: 23 Things I Learned in 2023 and Two I’ll Never Do Again

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