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If you run a business online, then this is the show for you. Listen in as your host, Abagail Pumphrey delivers semi-ranty business strategies touching on everything from building a profitable offer to scaling sustainably to growing an ethical culture and everything in between.
top 10 business podcast | 4 Million+ downloads | 750+ episodes
Meet Your Host
Semi-ranty business strategies for successful small business owners.
Hey, it’s your host, Abagail Pumphrey. And I’m on a personal mission to help more small business owners become financially free.
I like to nerd out on all things business, marketing, and most definitely the numbers. I’m talking all the lessons learned as I turned a layoff into a 7-figure online business.
I like to share it all and no conversation is off the table. We talk actionable strategies, biz challenges, and all the things life throws your way - grief, anxiety, loss, and resilience are all topics you’ll find here.
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What Does Scaling Mean to You? Here's What You Need to Do Before Going Into a Growth Phase
Today we are going to have a fabulous conversation! When working with our current clients inside The Incubator we always talk about levers. 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! Sometimes the things that people think they need to do to scale and grow are actually just the opposite of what they should be doing.
This conversation is all about what you should be thinking about before you start scaling. We want to give you insights into what scaling looks like in reality, so that you can decide if scaling your business really is something you want to do at this current stage of your journey.
Do You Have a Cognitive Bias Towards Action or Thinking?
When you’re trying to express a complex psychological feeling or event, but you aren’t familiar with the agreed-upon terms that experts use to describe it, the experience can be incredibly isolating. 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.
Anyone who has spent some time listening to our show will likely be familiar with the terms being a ‘doer’ or a ‘be-er’. Tuning in, you’ll hear us discuss how being a doer correlates with a cognitive bias towards action, while being a be-er strongly resembles having a cognitive bias towards thinking. We also cover some of the traps that action takers can fall into, including hasty decision-making and why you need to be able to take action while also making time to process and strategize. Tune in for a breakdown of these fascinating topics, as well as insights into some of the steps you can take to shape your cognitive bias!
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! Our thoughts on this topic have changed a lot over the last 6 months because of the unexpected outcomes that we’ve witnessed, and we want to share them with you.
Our advanced training is called “How to Double Your Income by Working 20 Hours a Week or Less.” Service providers, we see you, we know you’re burnt out, and our goal is to help you make more money and get your time back! Our strategy works, we have proof through the lives that have been changed as a result, so come and see how it can change your life too!
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 Bonnie managed to double her revenue in five months, find ease within her business, and take a 10-day vacation in Costa Rica, without a laptop! We’ve loved seeing the Incubator community grow, and it’s so rewarding to see members flourish, share, and support one another. Tune in to learn more about the program and how it helped Bonnie transform her business!
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!
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 Business Past, telling you your future so you can really decipher what you want to focus on in this phase! Tune in to find out which things you’re tying to success that need to be let go.
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, comes in.
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 relentless growth because that’s what the world tells us we should want, but when you consider the consequences of constantly scaling it becomes apparent how unrealistic (and unpleasant!) that is. Tune in today as we discuss how to unpack the consequences of our decisions, how to make choices based on the season of your business, and much more!
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 tune in today!
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What if I told you that introducing humor to your online presence can attract more customers to your brand? Today, I’m joined by the hilarious founders of Take2Content, Shelby Dash and Kristina Clifford. Their business began as a passion project for making funny videos, but things really took off when brands started noticing their comedic talent and requesting custom content. After both our guests lost their day jobs during the pandemic, they seized the opportunity to pitch their unique, funny videos to companies, and it worked!