Today we're talking about creating an intranet (which we also refer to as a “garage”) for your company. This is separate from the project management of your day-to-day operations. This is more about setting the precedent for your company culture, creating SOPs, and focusing on other high level elements that are essential to the running of a successful business. You can think of it as Union Station for your team, your clients, and you!

Until we had an intranet in our business, we wouldn’t have known it was missing. Now, we can’t imagine ever living without it! It has been so useful in so many ways. At first we used it only internally, but then we decided to branch out and use it to enhance our clients’ experience, and the results have been incredible.

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!

How to live more and do less is one of our favorite topics of conversation. If you’re a natural people pleaser, it can be really hard to consider taking some things off of your to-do list. But people-pleasing can be rooted in a manipulative reflex. It can also be a trauma response. During the conference that Abagail recently attended, she heard from three speakers with one underlying message-- do less!

While this sounds counterintuitive, it's something we truly believe, and we want to share some of the nuggets of wisdom that helped us to prioritize this in our own lives, within a productivity-obsessed culture. Three inspiring speakers shared very different insights from their own personal journeys and the research they have done to understand the lives of others. Today, we’re sharing them with you.

If you follow us on social media, you might have seen that we have been on quite the podcast roadshow! One theme that kept coming out of our conversations is the things that service providers need to think about before scaling. We realized we need to take a step back and talk about it: what is scaling actually?

A lot of business owners misconstrue scaling and growth. Today, we want to talk about the actual definitions of these two processes, and how you can apply them in your business. You can have one without the other. You can have both. You can have neither. What does that really look like, intentionally, in your business? Tune in to find out!

We’ve been building websites for over a decade and have really honed in on what’s working (and what isn’t) in the service world. Your website might look impressive, but if it’s not representative of who you are today, it’s not serving you. In this episode, we outline five signs it’s time to consider a new website design. And we’re not merely talking about branding! In many cases, major reconfigurations are in order, taking into account everything from your site architecture and user interface to your messaging; what you’re saying, how you’re saying it, and who you’re connecting it to. Tune in to find out which pitfalls to avoid and how best to make your website work for you.

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.

Today’s discussion is about an idea that has had a resurgence recently for a number of reasons. The concept of finding a Third Place is nothing new! It’s actually been around for a long time; it is just popular at the moment. No matter how trendy it is, it is worthwhile to discuss and integrate into your life. The ‘Third Place’ was coined by a US sociologist who wrote a book called The Great Good Place describing a place outside of your home or work where you can relax.

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!

The onset of a New Year is often accompanied by an inordinate amount of pressure. From the onslaught of 30-day health and wellness challenges to the call to “be more productive,” it seems like we are constantly being asked to do more and be better. But what does “better” mean exactly? And who are we doing it for?

In today’s episode, we unpack how to create better habits that actually stick and discuss ways to bring positivity and intentionality to both our personal and professional lives. We discovered long ago that New Year's resolutions just aren’t designed for us and that everyone has a preference when it comes to building healthier habits. Tune in as we discuss everything from starting your morning with positive intentions to crafting a mission statement for your business, and much more!

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!