Most people who go into business are usually technicians who are really skilled at one area of the business. Learning to be a leader in your business is the most challenging part of running a business. Here’s the hierarchy we see: you’re a technician, and then hopefully you begin to love sales too. Then, hopefully, you begin to learn and love how to be a leader. If you don’t like sales, then we would say, don’t start a business. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible to find a way to sell that is in alignment with you, but you do absolutely have to find a way to like it.

We’ve been asked countless times about our business partnership and our take on whether we feel that partnership is a good route. We’ve been in a partnership from the get-go, and clients are often curious as to how we manage communication and generally maintain a healthy working relationship. In this episode, we tackle the cons of partnership: why you should never get into one and why, and the next episode will explore the pros. Naturally, there are potential issues that can arise and cause tension in a partnership, and today we identify what to look out for if you’re considering partnering up with someone. You’ll discover a few of the, dare we say, many drawbacks of partnership, the requirements for maintaining a successful partnership, and the principal cause of partnerships (and subsequently, businesses) going down in flames!

Today we are talking about hiring in the current economic climate. The biggest layoffs since 2008 are taking place at the moment, and layoffs in the technology industry have actually surpassed those that took place during the Great Recession.

The common trend that we are seeing amongst business owners who have been operating for more than four years is a collective desire to move away from being the “doers” in their business and shift towards a leadership position where they can focus more on strategy and creative direction. This means needing to hire people who can take up the “implementer” type of work. A lot of the work we are doing with our clients is around how to make this pivot as smooth and successful as possible! It’s a challenge, but it’s such an important move to make if you are going to take your business to the next level.

A lot of our clients are currently in a space where they are wanting to add to their team but have concerns over how to make the right choices while maintaining the character and values of their company. We’ve recently expanded our team, and while it has come with some lessons, it has been an incredibly rewarding experience for our company and our team! In today’s episode, we unpack the five biggest barriers to trust, as outlined in an article by Fast Company called 5 Barriers To Break in Order To Build Trust Between Coworkers. We discuss the rules that all high-trust companies follow to ensure employees feel secure and confident in their work environment.

We talk so often about financial literacy and creating sustainable businesses online that we’ve had a handful of clients ask us questions about bookkeeping. Based on all of the questions that come in, there are some things we want to share with our listeners about how to make sure that you have a bookkeeper that’s really well suited to you. Whether you’re interviewing someone for the first time or looking to get the most out of your existing relationship, this episode is for you.

Our mission in business is to help more women build profitable, sustainable businesses online. So much of that success is rooted in proper financial literacy. It’s so important to understand how to manage your finances so that you can take out enough money to live the life you want while at the same time ensuring that you leave enough money in the business so that it remains profitable in the long run. As you scale, money management becomes more complicated, but thankfully there are several different software options for payroll, accounting, and bookkeeping that can help!

Anytime we have a big growth year, the year to follow is one to watch. It’s a lot of working on the business and less working in the business. We put systems back in place, bring operations up to date, and tackle all the things we were too busy to attend to the year before. We had to work some of this out while hiring seven employees. We find that identifying and communicating your focus for the year can make all the difference.

One recommendation we have is to figure out whether you’re in a red, yellow, or green year. Do you need to stop and do the bare minimum, maintain what you have, or go big or go home? Whichever method you choose, it feels better to remind yourself that you intentionally chose this as you are making decisions throughout the year.

In the process of reflecting on our mistakes and successes for 2022, we realized that all of the “mistakes” (except one) that we’ve made, we would actually classify as lessons-learned instead. So, in this episode, we go over the key lessons that we’ve learned this past year and some of our most memorable success stories. Overall, this year was very challenging but we are feeling so good about what we’re creating, who is along for the ride with us, and what 2023 holds!

Recent developments in the AI space are undoubtedly going to change our world. The most significant shift is the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT which can create any content according to refined prompts. OpenAI has multiple other bots that utilize different databases, but ChatGPT is the one that got the most press and is publicly setting the precedent for what’s to come. We don’t believe that AI will take jobs immediately, but that it absolutely will in the long term. In this episode, we look at the impact of AI in the near future versus the long-term future, its implications and benefits, and the evolution of job creation in the new world!

Due largely to the media we’ve been consuming, attention spans are waning. Now, more than ever, we need to focus on concise communication at work so as not to waste time or lose focus, and to cater to neurodivergence. We recently had a conversation with our team about innovation, problem-solving, and presenting the root of those problems with solutions in a clear, concise way. The importance of utilizing meeting minutes as efficiently as possible is becoming more and more evident to us, and we want to promote the concise communication of new launch game plans, offers, marketing strategies, etc. This is a skill we could all use some practice in, and today’s episode is all about how to be more concise as a leader and how to train your team to identify and communicate the bottom line of their presentation and client communication.

We know that so many business owners, at all stages of their growth, do not understand their finances and we can see how much it affects their businesses! We want to talk about what understanding your numbers will do for you and why it’s such an important thing to prioritize. Often, the anxiety when discussing finances is rooted in a lack of financial literacy and the attachment we have to money that results in avoidance.

Sometimes these kinds of conversations will be uncomfortable, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are bad. We want to remind you that our mission at Boss Project is to equip more women and femmes with the financial knowledge that they need to build a sustainable business that supports them financially and soulfully. These things are only possible with a level of financial literacy!

Today, we’re using you guys for practice. We have a workshop meeting coming up with the team at Boss Project to go over some updates for our team Wiki page, practices for problem-solving, and other aspects, and we wanted to share some of that information with our listeners. Consider these the highlights of what we’ve learned about innovation, problem-solving, and creative thinking.

This episode is best suited if you also listen to our recent episode on the four types of problem solvers that you need in your team. You don’t necessarily need to listen to it first, but it will help you. In the last year, we’ve been able to put definition to the culture behind the scenes at Boss Project, making our mission and vision a more prominent part of the work that we do. We talked about creating a motto to highlight the areas we really want to enhance and how we could share our philosophy with our team in a meaningful way.

Today’s episode is all about how to define your role in your company. As we look towards the start of a new year, we always like to comb through the job descriptions of the people on our team, as well as ourselves. What we’ve noticed is that defining the role of founders and CEOs is something that is often overlooked. So, we are intentional about taking the time to get really clear on the things that we need to do versus the things that we want to do so that we can find a healthy balance between the two!

As we look ahead to the new year, we’re evaluating what we want to take forward with us, what we’ll discontinue in the new year, and what we’d like to tentatively start investigating. Here at Boss Project, we’ve been in the throes of planning for 2023 and have settled on some decisions which we share with you in this episode! Tune in to find out what we’re carrying forward with us and why, what we’ve decided to drop, and three potential additions that we’re contemplating bringing into the mix.

If you dream of having a team full of problem solvers, you’ve come to the right place. In the previous episode, we talked about the four types of problem solvers that your team needs. In this episode, we investigate how to encourage your employees to be problem solvers in the first place. Efficiency is championed in the workplace, and the number one thing to get in the way of it is the brake of identifying and solving problems. For this reason, there is often a lot of resistance to turning the focus onto innovation. Yes, it takes time, but it’s worth it! Tune in to hear our advice on creating space for innovation and incentivizing problem-solving. We leave you with seven practical ways to promote a culture of creativity and innovation within your team!