This episode is truly all about you– how you get feedback from the people you ultimately want to sell to, and how to move forward. Many of my takeaways are coming off the back of a really big launch in my business. I did an event in May that allowed me to connect with over 7,000 small business owners, serve them high value, and go through a launch process on the back end.

Today on the show, I want to talk about what it was like to diversify from one-on-one client work services to adding digital products and courses.

In this episode, I want to remind you that business can be fun, exciting, empowering, and encouraging! Following your intuition to make your business feel good is going to inspire you in so many ways. It’s going to give you the kind of contagious energy to pursue things in a way that will not only improve your mood but also attract people who want what you’re offering.

Some of you are mulling over the question of what business to start. Others are just nosy and want to know how I would do it if I had the chance to start again. Which of your million-and-one ideas should you pursue? Where do you focus your time and energy? How niche do you go? Should you sell your offer as a service, a digital product, a course, or a membership? We answer all of these questions and more in today’s episode!

Joining us in this episode is Boss Project’s Program Manager and Creative Director, Caitlin O’Bryant. She is an integral part of the team and contributes to a broad mix of things, but she’s here today to discuss our development cycle, how we go from idea to launch to product, and offer improvement!

Today we are unearthing an episode that we recorded at the end of 2022 because it’s important that you hear this. The strategy this client used is still extremely relevant and effective in the current sales climate where leads are a little bit wonky. This is the perfect time to seek improvement opportunities within your sales cycle and work on increasing your close rate.

We walk you through how our client was able to increase her close rate by a whopping 40%, and how you can be just as successful in your own sales process. In this season, focus and refine how things are looking in your business. Evaluate what’s working, what’s not, and use that critical information to make strategic, educated plans as you move forward with your business. Start gathering this data and figure out where you want to place your focus and where your biggest opportunities are right now. Today we’re using particular examples from a previously aired episode to help you learn how to improve your close rate.

Our new Incubator is finally here! It’s always exciting taking on a new cohort, and in this episode, we break down what you can expect from our newly refined Incubator program and how to determine whether it’s right for you. Tuning in, you’ll learn about the type of issues we address (like how to price correctly) and how we help business owners step into their role as CEO by gaining a deeper understanding of the different aspects of their business, and how they impact one another.

We have a list of goodies to share with you today of things we have learned over the last 18 months. We aren’t digging into the archives from years ago. These are definitely things we have learned and implemented more recently, and they are things we know you can benefit from. If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, these are tips that you should pay attention to for yourself, and try to figure out how they can work for you!

We are so excited to walk you through some of what we’ve been working on behind the scenes. Today we are going to let you guys filter through our brains about how we got to this point, what is new, and how you can be a part of it. One of the incredible things about running an online business is that we have been able to be part of a lot of the shifts that have happened for the entire industry. We have had to act and react based on many changes and our business has gone through loads of pivots.

In today’s episode, we share what we’ve learned about the business journey, and break down some of the phases, checkpoints, and milestones you’ll experience along the way. Throughout our careers, we’ve had the honor and privilege of working with some pretty phenomenal service-based organizations. And due to the nature of our work, we’ve had the opportunity to observe the inner workings of countless small businesses. In that time, we’ve seen key patterns emerge that we believe anyone can learn from!

Today, we discuss the difference between one-time projects and retainer projects for clients and how you can determine which is right for you. There are many filters through which to run your decision-making process when deciding whether to explore one over the other or have a hybrid between the two. In this episode, we share insight into the questions you should be asking yourself in order to make that call.

What would you do if your business disappeared overnight but your skills and experiences remained? How would you choose your product or service? Would you want to play a similar role? Should you even remain in the same industry? Today on the show we share our answers to all these complicated questions, and more, as we reflect on what we’ve learned from building a business and running it for almost ten years!

In our conversation, we reflect on the current economic climate, what we learned from starting a business during a recession, and what we would want from a second business after building a company based on passion from the ground up. Tune in as we indulge in a conceptual exercise examining what we’ve learned over the past few years and what we would do differently for our next business, and why!

We usually share a free-balling, brain-storming episode around this time of year about what we want the next year to look like. We are so ecstatic (and intimidated) about some of our ideas and we want to document them for you all to hear! This year, we dove into having a hybrid company really heavily but going into 2023, we have to ask ourselves what the right mix is for our team.

We know how stressful it can be to figure out how projects are going to happen and we encourage you to plan for the new year with flexibility. Find the balance between having a plan and being flexible to allow for inevitable changes that you can’t predict. Be prepared that your plan may not happen exactly the way you want it to. Spend your planning time looking at where your leads are coming from and what makes sense for your business based on the leads that you have.

There have been a lot of conversations in our incubator coaching lately about what to do when leads are lower. But that’s only part of the conversation. Today, we want to focus on how to know what’s right when you’re considering different ideas to pursue. When we’re in a rut, we tend to think that it’s time to think far outside of the box. Innovation is amazing when you’re in a season to be able to create something new and it makes sense, but when you need a cash injection, or you want to start the year off with a bang, it’s not necessarily the best time to start with something brand new!

What if, instead, you looked for ways to do the same thing, but in a different room? Could you do the same thing through a different lens? At the end of the day, if you already have systems and processes around the thing that you have been delivering, selling, and pricing, it’s so much easier to stay in that lane. Don't reinvent the wheel! While it might sound counterintuitive, we encourage you not to think outside the box, but to spin it in a different direction. It’s the same thing, just from a different viewpoint!