Today, we want to talk about what happens when you grow your own business only to wake up one day and realize that, although you’ve grown out of the ‘wearing all the hats’ phase and you’ve got all the right people and systems in place, everything still seems to be falling apart. You might still feel like you’re doing 75 million things and you have no idea how you got here or what you’re doing and you feel deeply ashamed that you don’t know how to fix it.

We’ve met so many self-proclaimed entrepreneurs who are the CEOs of their businesses, yet they don’t really know what it means to fully sit in that seat, and part of the confusion lies in the fact that they are incredibly talented. We’re talking about people who have typically excelled in everything they’ve ever done! They’re so used to being the star and, suddenly, they feel like they’ve hit a ceiling. This moment of reckoning is inevitable, and it hits everyone at a different point. For some, it'll feel like an income ceiling and, for others, it might feel entirely time-related. For some of you, it might be a recognition that you need more help but you can’t afford it, or that you’re mismanaging the help you do have, have the wrong help, or you don’t know how to identify the help you need.

The interesting thing about any mistake is that it’s not always detrimental when you do it at the beginning, but holding onto it can sometimes prevent you from future success! At a recent conference we spoke at, we were asked about some of the biggest mistakes we have made in our business; and one of the things we highlighted was structuring our business according to task-based activities, rather than bringing in a team of permanent employees with outcome-based deliverables.

Something we feel is getting a little bit confused in the realm of being a service provider consultant, learning from other people, hiring contractors, having employees, and serving clients, is the question of how we serve said clients, how we learn, and how we get work done in our own business. The conversation around working one-on-one with people, using done-for-you services, and learning in different aspects by buying books, hiring a coach, or being in a group coaching program, all start to get a little muddy when we’re also service providers in that very business.

We want to clear this up and provide some perspectives and clarification on the buckets we see us providing, our clients providing, our clients hiring for, and really how things can be structured to have purpose within these different containers. Today, specifically, we’re talking about what the heck group coaching is and when it’s actually beneficial, versus one-on-one coaching and done-for-you services, both as a provider and the consumer.

If you follow us on social media you may be aware that we have just announced our first virtual conference! While the conference will no doubt share some similarities with our online summits, we anticipate that previous attendees will be shocked by how incredibly different this experience truly is. One of the developments that we are most excited about is the fact the entire event will be live, giving us the scope to connect with attendees in real-time! We are also deeply aware that our participants are incredibly busy which is why we’re so proud that the entire conference will take place over the course of one day within four sessions!

This is the second hottest take of a conversation we’ve ever had publicly! We are so passionate about this topic, and we really want to pass on this valuable information to you because we deeply care about you and your team! When the mistakes that we are going to talk about today are made, we know that it’s coming from the best of places, but because the future of your company is at stake, and because we care about that, we really hope you’re going to listen to this episode!

The fact of the matter is that you are most likely drastically overpaying your staff. We so often see owners hardly taking a salary for themselves, but then paying their staff six figure salaries. We also see people hiring super cheap labor. There is so much wrong with both of these phenomenons, but the good news is that there is another option!

Today we are going to be sharing some thoughts and some hot takes about hiring! There are so many people out there saying all sorts of things that make our insides squirm, and we don’t want you to waste your time and effort on strategies that definitely do not work. We also got sucked into the sexiness of the idea of hiring duplicates of ourselves, so we speak from firsthand experience when we tell you that this is a BIG mistake!

When people get to the point where they know they need to bring on someone else, it’s usually because of one of two main reasons; either that they need to hire for a very specific role for their company, or they’re burning the candle at both ends and therefore if they hire “another me” they’ll be able to get twice as much work done, but if you keep listening you’ll understand why you should never hire another you!

There’s a problem that we’re seeing in this space and it’s causing people to miss massive opportunities! You’re losing out on revenue and you’re losing out on tapping into familiar industry terms, and so much of this can be solved by simply re-labeling who you are to become well-known to the rest of the world. For years, small business owners, especially those in the creative space, have continued to label themselves as such. “I’m a small business owner”, “I run a small creative business”, “I’m a creative entrepreneur”, we’ve seen these terms run rampant.

But the thing that is missing right now in this space is that you are not utilizing terms that the rest of the world recognizes and already uses and, because of that, you’re missing out on business. If you have previously identified as a creative small business owner, especially those of you who are running a B2B service-based business helping other small businesses, we have an uplevel for you. We can change the game!

When we first decided to take a workcation, there was no way of knowing just how beneficial it would be. We have always added in times to do planning sessions and pin down what we want, but what we have learned is that creating a dedicated time to make sure it happens is so, so important. The only way for our business to move forward in the past was for us to hop on the phone with one another, and brainstorm ideas. But as our roles have shifted, this hasn’t happened as often. That’s why we’ve carved out CEO time on our to-do list, to help us have the correct focus.

We’ve all spent so many years working for businesses that are not structured well, not managed well, and that took all the lessons we didn’t like and implemented them in the workplace. This is the extreme opposite of many of our efforts to create flexible environments that take into account all of our humanity. But what we’ve found is that the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Not having boundaries or expectations doesn’t help anyone either!

To us, knowing that we had the time to think and brainstorm without boundaries, but also adding boundaries to make the follow-through inevitable, was everything! It’s so important to add enough momentum to make sure that you achieve what you’re hoping to achieve. When you take incremental steps, it doesn’t feel like you’re eating the whole pie at once! Our main takeaways from the experience were that there’s a difference between the conversations that are had within leadership and team meetings, and within the room where it’s just you and your business partner. It’s so important that this happens periodically for the good of the business. That’s the high-level stuff that moves everything forward. If you’re not ahead of your people, they’re not going to know where to go.

We’ve had a very special kick-off to 2022. Not only is our company expanding, but we are also making big shifts in our business and how we lead our teams. While hiring new team members has its challenges, it’s still been an incredibly exciting time. With our shift from contractors to full and part-time employees, we have had an unprecedented opportunity to intentionally build our team culture and empower our employees with a transfer of leadership to various departments!

Our growth as a company has also brought about a change in business needs, particularly when it comes to productivity and organizational systems. Tuning in you’ll learn about the new organizational system we’ve been working on and how it will elevate your offerings. If you’re a fan of what our previous offering Trello for Business brought to the industry, you’ll love what we have in store for you! To learn more about how we’ve been leveling up our leadership skills, as well as exclusive insights into our new offering, make sure you tune in today!

With all the conversations we’ve been having about learning, scaling, and unlocking new strategies for your business, people have started to worry about how they are going to find the time to add something else to their plate. You may really feel that learning something new will be beneficial to your business, but the thought of doing that when you’re already overwhelmed can be extremely daunting.

But the thing is, it’s mentally taxing to be a human in the world right now, and learning strategies that will help you better manage the hustle and grind that you’re on is one of the best ways to grow! If you’re feeling overwhelmed, this episode is for you, because we’re going to provide you with some mindset and business benchmarks to help you gain some clarity on what you should be focusing on right now!

This episode is inspired by a 45-second TikTok we stumbled upon about what’s going on in the online business world. We specifically loved the phrase, “We’re at the end of the Girlboss era” because, honestly, we couldn’t agree more! Today, we talk about what the landscape of online business looked like five or six years ago, what it’s looking like in 2022, and why we think there is so much more access and opportunity than ever before. However, it is going to take a shift! We are in a new season, we are in a new world, and people have different expectations.

Let's take it back in time and investigate what the Girlboss Era is, what started it, and why we think it’s on its way out! We take a look at the radical shift required to move forward in business and as a society, the realization required to shift your mindset, and where we really and truly hope the online business world isn’t heading!

December 2021 may have been the busiest and most strategic December we’ve ever had on record! Although we only took three days off this month, which is a huge deviation from how we normally run things, we’re extremely excited about how all our planning and purpose in December has set us up for a great Q1 in 2022! While it was tough having such a busy December, it was all with very particular goals and intentions in mind.

So much of our decision-making came back to growing our organization and looking at new employees and the positions that need to be filled as we continue to grow and scale. We had a lot of hiring decisions in the works, which formed a big part of our top priorities in December, but they were all 100% worth it. Luckily, because of the way we set things up in December, Q1 of 2022 is set to be the most intentional Q1 we've ever had!

One of our biggest pet peeves is watching people let their time escape from them. Time is our most valuable resource, yet it is the thing that we see people giving away freely all the time. In today’s episode, we are going to talk about the three biggest time wasters that really hold service providers back from being more productive. It is possible to work less while earning more at the same time!

There’s a mindset amongst many business owners that if they’re not busy, they’re doing something wrong, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. There are always going to be moments where you’re feeling frazzled and overwhelmed, but that doesn’t have to be your reality all the time. If you listen to this episode and resonate with what we’re saying, go to bossproject.com/incubator to sign up for our How to Double Your Income Working Less than 20 Hours Per Week workshop; you won’t regret it!

The opinions we share in this conversation might make you uncomfortable, and that’s okay! Today’s show addresses one of the patterns we’ve seen emerge among our clients: their goals are amazing, but the path they intend to take to get there keeps them playing small. This week we dive into the top scaling mistakes we see businesses make.

Getting distracted with new ideas is a common mistake we see as a business owner’s success accelerates. It is easy for them to neglect the health of their core mission and chase shiny objects.

We’ll brainstorm with you, regardless of how you intend to move forward, but we do have some hard-earned insights that suggest that staying focused on the skillset you have and knowing your value can lead you to a place where growth becomes potential. You CAN find the time and money freedom you’ve been dreaming of; it’s never too late to get back to your zone of genius, or to change, transition, and pivot to work on what you should be workin

Let’s start by saying it’s okay to be wherever you find yourself in your financial journey! This one is for those of us who are working our faces off on the back end, and not seeing this translate to profits. Maybe you’ve already identified your first baby step to start working towards your goal. Today’s episode is about identifying your goals and putting them into action. We’re here to equip you with the tools you need to put those steps into action with a long-term goal in mind, from identifying what you want out of it, to learning what you need to learn to grow a healthy business.