Why it’s always a good idea to keep evaluating your client base and your product/service ladder—and what to consider now.How to think about economy-fueled pivots to ensure you don’t make fear-based moves.Managing your mindset (and your nerves) through economic change—and why staying closely connected to clients helps all of you.One hidden opportunity to grow your authority (and potentially your business) during economic uncertainty.Quotables“The kind of—almost advantage—of news about a recession or whatever is that you've got months potentially to plan for it.”—JS“The strategic part of this is to really think about your client base and start to imagine what might happen to them in the future.”—RM“If you're experiencing any kind of like trepidation or nerves around the economy right now, guess what? Your clients probably are too.”—JS“There sometimes needs to be a little air between checking in on clients to see how they're doing and offering them a new product.”—RM“I think that the key here is resisting the urge to go into your shell and batten down the hatches.”—JS“If your client base is all saying the same thing (when you check in with them), you're getting some themes to write about and speak about.”—RM“It's okay to be nervous, just don't act on the nerves.”—JS“It’s really important to manage your own mindset vs. letting the media do it for you.”—RM

Why—and under what circumstances—you might want to consider a listening tour.How to choose who to interview and increase your chances for getting a yes.Uncovering specific belief systems and comments that you can incorporate into your sales copy.The one question that will get your interviewees to go deeper in sharing their experiences.Why avoiding any sort of persuasion is critical (and how to stay in listening mode).Quotables“It’s an ideal gig when you can basically package and sell your expertise.”—RM“There's something about writing, actual writing, not typing, that focuses me more on the conversation.”—JS“My marketing copy came out of the mouths of the women that I interviewed.”—RM“There's just something magical about unfiltered input from the buyers’ side of the table.”—JS“You really have to look at this as a listening tour—not a selling tour, not even a warm-up-to-buy tour.”—RM“Obviously this whole episode is to encourage listeners to do this…but it's also about how you're going to communicate the offer in a way that the right people will recognize that it's for them.”—JS“I looked at my job (on the listening tour) as “tell me more”. How do you think about that? What made you think that way?”—RM“You don't want to be too rigid in your thinking and then go out and try and validate that, because it'll turn persuasive and that'll just be gross.”—JS

Hosts discuss time-oriented challenges and a Genius Time Challenge. They explore a short-term challenge program for project starters. Tips on maintaining focus in creative projects and strategic planning for success. Efficiently building a video recording system and automating platform engagement. Mastering sales email strategy and streamlining project documentation for efficiency.

The difference between getting critiqued by your email list, social media types and your intimates.How to think about criticism from your circle and use it to benefit the revolution you’re leading.When to unplug or take steps to protect your mental health.Deciding whether your critics are coming for you (to be helpful) or at you (to tear you down a peg).When receiving criticism can be a form of deep care (and how to keep the right kind coming).Quotables“I think people (critics), are a little bit more thoughtful in email than social media.”—JS“Just breathe. Walk away from the keyboard...”—RM“When somebody on my list sends me one of these sort of polite pushback kinds of things, they're usually right.”—JS“I have unfollowed and blocked (social media critics) for my mental health because I don't need somebody who's just gonna go around trolling.”—RM“Where do you get your canary in the coal mine when you actually are wrong, or you actually have too shallow of an understanding of something that's much deeper?”—JS“I can feel if they (critics) are coming for me or at me—and I take critical feedback really well from the people that I know are for me.”—RM“You have to consider the messenger. When someone on my list pushes back, I'm like ‘this feedback is totally valid because you are the person I made it for.’”  —JS“It's so valuable to have somebody tell you when you're doing something that they perceive differently than you do.”—RM

Just as we have each built our own systems to produce our desired outcomes, there is no one perfect model of working.Conscious experimenting—with your ultimate vision firmly in mind—will help you master how to best invest your business building time.Why when you find your sweet-spot, “work” doesn’t have to feel like work.How pivoting from serving clients day-to-day to high-level advisory or teaching (books, courses, speaking) shifts how you spend your time.Quotables“I don't think about it consciously on a weekly basis. It's something I think about at the beginning of the year..what's going to be my strategy for the coming year?”—JS“What happens for a lot of people is we get caught in the weeds. Like how am I going to get through this week with client deliverable X?”—RM“Did you hear what my schedule looks like? I don't need a vacation.”—JS“I want work to be fun.”—RM“Slack is my social media…I know that it's not going to be a cesspool of doom scrolling.”—JS“When you're doing what you love, you can do it for as long as you want to.”—RM“Podcasting became much more important because it serves a similar purpose to speaking at conferences. They're not exactly the same of course, but bang for the buck wise, podcasting is a lot more my speed these days.”—JS“Who do you want to give pride of place in your head to…what is it that you want to write about and talk about and teach them?”—RM

Why the intersection of idle time, an outlet and a deadline is exactly what you need to build content for your expertise business (and authority for you).The importance of mindset and how to keep yours working FOR you as you go about growing your business.Giving yourself some guardrails to develop great content efficiently—without putting a damper on your creativity.How to get out of your own way so you can release your personal genius for other people to benefit from.Quotables“It's pretty common for non-business things to creep in to business coaching and become obstacles. And a lot of them have to do with internal monologue stories.”—JS“We all have our own internal hurdles to leap over. And you have to understand what those are.”—RM“I feel a lot worse after I've been exposed to a TV for 90 minutes.”—JS“When you have a deadline and some idle time or some free space in your brain, things happen.”—RM“If you want to be recognized as the go-to person, as the expert for your area of expertise, then you need to be producing content. It’s probably a great rule of thumb to be producing content regularly.”—JS“You're not just writing to write or have a podcast to hear yourself talk. It's about figuring out what you want to share. How are you going to get your audience to the transformations that you promise?”—RM“The best thing about daily writing is it makes you better. It makes you smarter. It makes your insights deeper. It differentiates you because you have new ideas or old ideas framed in radically new ways.“— JS“The important thing is that we get out of our own way as much as we can and put that genius that each of us have out in the world for other people to benefit from.”—RM

The big money decisions you’ll want to make early and how to decide between setting up a sole proprietorship, an LLC or a Sub S.When does it make sense to build processes to handle things like paying yourself and funding and paying taxes?What to ask your CPA and why you don’t want to wait till year-end to get advice.When to look for longer-term, perhaps tax-advantaged opportunities for savings.How to think of and use your business profits now to build your desired legacy later on.Quotables“Usually the starting point is a sole proprietorship and you don't want to hang out there too long.”—EG“If you can't pay yourself what the IRS calls “reasonable compensation”…it's not time for you to be an S-corp yet.”—EG“I'm really big on paying yourself a consistent salary—not necessarily varying with your revenue stream—because with consultants, expertise businesses, coaching businesses, you get these roller coaster spikes of revenue.”—EG“Get a small refund or maybe owe a little bit…but we try to always avoid these four or five figure surprises that you're writing a check for in April.”—EG“There's a lot of relationships with CPAs where you're just sending them a packet of documents in February, and they're sending you back something in April, and you're either happy about it or sad about it.”—EG“My preference, especially for somebody in an expertise business where they're a soloist, would be to look at a solo 401k. You can only have a solo 401k if you and or your spouse are the only employees or owners of the business.”—EG“You say: ‘I can use this to change my trajectory or my lifestyle or my retirement plan. I could use this money I'm making in this business. And the more profit I make means that I could pay off my mortgage sooner.’”—EG“It's always good to have an out of tax season conversation with a CPA… And have somebody respond with ideas that you would have never thought of (or would have taken a lot of hours of research for you to get).”—EG“If you've noticed that you've acquired two more cars, a four Wheeler, three campers and a boat, it's probably time to start thinking about some tax advantageous ways that you can spend your money.”—EGLINKSErica Goode, CPA Erica’s Newsletter sign-up 

When you’re working like a dog (earning maybe $100-$250K billing hourly on a site like Upwork or from an agency or two) without real positioning—and you’re ready for a more livable alternative.When you’ve just left corporate life and are first hanging out your shingle as a freelancer or consultant.When you’re so new at your craft that you’re actually not that good yet.And even where we could make an edge case for hourly billing, we get hyper-specific on when/how to gracefully transition out.Quotables“They like the promise of not feeling like they're losing $200 an hour when they're on vacation.”—JS“Just go back to your source of leads…and significantly increase your hourly rate.”—RM “Why would anyone feel obligated to pay you some amount of money per hour because you decided to have a really expensive lifestyle?”—JS“It's a very rare person who comes right out of corporate and says ‘I'm going to do productized services. Here's what they are. Boom. Let's go’.”—RM“I don't think it never makes sense to think about how many hours something's going to take you to do, just don't base your prices on it.”—JS“Hourly rates just exacerbate that inner discussion about whether or not you're worth it.”—RM“Productized services make it easier for you to hit a home run, to deliver positive ROI, to get a great testimonial.”—JS“Offering productized services gets rid of a lot of extraneous BS because you are hyper-focused on delivering only the things that you are really good at delivering.”—RM

Addressing the chicken/egg nature of developing an idea for your course with targeting the ideal audience for it.Why building cohorts will improve the effectiveness of your course (and your future sales).How to build your course materials with reasonable deadlines that match your comfort level with teaching the topic.Why we hate launch hype and what to do instead.Quotables“The majority of the time you probably are thinking of teaching something bigger than you need.”—JS“When we're trying to teach something that involves significant behavior change, that's when I really love building a cohort.”—RM “I found it (the cohort experience) drawing me back almost like a social media network might because I wanted to find out what happened with Jason's thing that he was working on.”—JS“When you have a cohort, you are actively engaging with them. And for people who are sort of natural teachers, that feels amazing.”—RM“You do want to figure out what you think is going to make the most sense for you—not drain you, keep you energized, keep you engaged teaching the thing that you want to teach.”—JS“I want to have a really clear direction (when prepping material). I want to know how many sections and what's going to go in each one so that it makes sense.”—RM“If we sound cynical (about launches), it's because we are.”—JS“If it's right for you, I want you to have it. That is the (launch) message.”—RM

Exploring challenges of launching new products while maintaining existing business stability. Importance of receiving early feedback from clients and conducting listening tours. Embracing imperfection and experimental mindset. Power of collaborative marketing and storytelling in business innovation.