What Works

The Nitty Gritty: * Marie shares the role customer interviews have played in the evolution of her online learning software product, Doki * How automation plays an important role in how Marie and her partner manage their workload without assistants or contractors * What enables Marie to balance managing her business with outside pursuits like rock climbing and permaculture On this episode, I’m caught up with Marie Poulin, the co-founder of digital agency Oki Doki during another live recording of the podcast. Marie is a designer and digital strategist who helps small business owners translate their 1:1 services into profitable digital products and programs. She co-founded Oki Doki with her partner Ben, and together they run Doki, their platform for delivering online learning experiences. When she’s not working with clients, you can find her climbing rocks or playing in the garden. On a personal note… One of the personal goals that I set for myself this year was: “Spend at least as much time mastering technique and perfecting form as learning new things” You have no idea how difficult this is for me. I love to try new things… and I hate repeating things for precision. You can ask my mom about how well I handled that in grade school. But I’m in the process of massively leveling up—as I know you are too—and technique counts. It counts big time. I’m applying this goal to everything from physical fitness to new digital tools to tried-and-true marketing techniques. It always takes a mental cue for me to pause and perfect my technique before I move on but, each time I do, I get better and better. Without spending time on optimizing what works and mastering technique, you end up piling more and more on your plate because you assume the only way to move forward is to do more. You never give what you’ve introduced into your business (a new social media channel, a sales funnel, a team member, etc…) the time to show you what it can really accomplish on its own. It might feel slow at first–but it’s the fastest, most sustainable way to make progress in the long-term. Marie cares deeply about mastering technique and optimizing what works One thing I always take away from conversations with Marie is her commitment to getting things right, focusing on the details, and optimizing what works. She recognizes that the best way to get big things done is to care about the little things. You’ll find this theme throughout the whole interview and you’ll see how she’s applied technique and optimization to everything from her product development to her service delivery to the way she sets up her weekly schedule. Listen to the full episode to hear it all. ★ Support this podcast ★

The Nitty Gritty * What prompted Carlos to shut down a thriving digital agency to start The Happy Startup School * What happiness as a business model looks like — and how Carlos teaches that model to others * Why Carlos includes an application process for his in-person events, plus the four main elements he always follows to produce a great event * How Carlos and his business partner Lawrence turned an idea for in-person conversations in unique places around the world into their retreat, Alptitude Carlos Saba is an agency owner turned community builder — and his focus? Happiness. Through his work with The Happy Startup School and his retreat, Alptitude, Carlos is sparking conversations around building a life and business rich in purpose. In this episode of What Works, Carlos digs into why he left agency life behind, the importance of starting conversations with like-minded people, giving yourself space to think up new ideas, and how to turn a dream into reality. We release new episodes of What Works every week. Subscribe on iTunes so you never miss an episode. Making a case for the lazy approach to business “Some people are built in a certain way that they can just chase that thing and they make a success out of it through brute force. What we’re much more about is the lazy approach to business: how can we do things a bit more effortlessly? How can we actually tune into what we want to do and what we get energy from, and where we find flow — and overlap that with a way of making money and a way of sustaining ourselves and making a business?” — Carlos Saba In modern life, quick success is celebrated. We love overnight successes — even when we know, behind the scenes, they are anything but instant wins. No doubt you know of an entrepreneur who seemingly popped out of nowhere and are killing it. While it may seem glamorous — and something that all entrepreneurs strive for — what if you don’t? What if you want to move more slowly towards your goals? What if you don’t want to hustle hard for 50 or 60 hours a week? What if you want more balance in work so you can more fully enjoy your life? Those were some questions that Carlos asked himself as he created The Happy Startup School — and something he wanted to share with others. Optimizing for happiness in life and work “We were optimizing for happiness. It isn’t just about the money — what we’re all trying to do is find happiness. And happiness is a personal thing and it’s different for everyone, but that’s the thing… the startup school wasn’t just about starting a business: it was also about building a business that aligns with who you are.” — Carlos Saba When Carlos and his business partner Lawrence started talking about The Happy Startup School, they knew they wanted to focus on educating clients. They thought the school would train entrepreneurs on how to build and grow lean startups in a happy way, that was based on two of their favorite books: Lean Startup and Delivering Happiness. But they realized they could do so much more than that. That’s when they decided to focus entirely on happiness in life and business — and to share that with their community. Now, they provide resources, gatherings, and people to spark new ideas and conversations around infusing happiness into every aspect of life and business. Creating space for event attendees “The real key thing that we think is really important is space. Not filling it for the sake of filling it because you think that’s how you create value but actually creating the space for value to emerge fr... ★ Support this podcast ★

The Nitty Gritty: * How Michelle created the “3 Word Rebellion” framework that brings her new client leads * Why Michelle uses a free consultation to book new clients * The importance of Being Boss’s Chalkboard Method for knowing how many clients she needs at any time * How Michelle has optimized her schedule to make 1:1 client coaching more sustainable In this episode, I catch up with Dr. Michelle Mazur (episode 53) for another special LIVE episode of the podcast! Michelle founded Communication Rebel on the belief that communication changes the world. To do that, Michelle helps business owners, executives, and thought leaders craft their 3 Word Rebellion, their speech, and their positioning and pricing so they can get booked. The speakers she works with have generated incredible results like booking a $10,000 speaking gig, raising 3x the amount of money expected for the launch of a charity, and becoming an international speaker in front of world leaders. She lives in Seattle with her adoring husband, 3 obsessive felines, and a huge collection of Duran Duran memorabilia. Michelle made her “lead magnet” and her first offer one and the same Instead of spending time creating a piece of lead generation content that was separate from her initial offer, Michelle uses her 3 Word Rebellion framework 2 ways. First, it’s freely available right here. She acknowledges: There will be a small percentage of people who can do it. They can nail their 3 Word Rebellion on their own; they don’t need any help. And… the majority of people struggle with this because they are so close to their message. Once she’s delivered the framework and given people a chance to give it a try on their own, she shares why it can be so difficult to come up with it on your own. This opens the door to make an invitation to work with her to craft your 3 Word Rebellion. Michelle doesn’t take any speech coaching clients that haven’t first completed their 3 Word Rebellion–her seed offer. She’s learning to make an offer much, much sooner What I’m realizing is that people want to find out how to work with you a lot sooner than you think. I know everybody thinks you have to do so much nurturing and give 3 or 4 emails of packed-tight content but we have to start making the ask sooner! Because Michelle’s lead magnet is perfect for people ready to work with her right now instead of 6 months from now, she’s started to realize that people want to find out how she can help right away. The big takeaway here–and I was so excited Michelle spoke about this–is that, if you make your marketing assets much closer to the “buying” part of the customer journey, you’ll need to spend less time in nurture mode and can get to the sale right away. You’ll not only move people through the process faster, but you’ll end up losing fewer clients to competitors because they want help now… not at the end of your 26-part email automation sequence. Learn more about how Michelle is building a client pipeline and turning lookers into buyers by listening to the full episode below or anywhere you listen to podcasts. ★ Support this podcast ★

The Nitty Gritty * The breaking point in Lisa’s life that inspired her to turn to herbalism for answers — and why she decided to study herbalism deeper * How Lisa manages her job as a spaceship builder and her herbalism clients * What specific strategies Lisa uses to plan and optimize her daily and weekly tasks * Who, exactly, Lisa works with through her herbalism business — and how she balances client sessions with the unpredictable needs of spaceship building Lisa Akers is both a spaceship builder and herbalist (really!) While this might sound like an unusual duo, Lisa demonstrates just how closely the two are related — and how she balances working as an engineer and working as an herbalist. In this episode of What Works, Lisa shares how she connects engineering and herbalism, what’s so magical about herbalism, and how she optimizes her week around the energy available to her. We release new episodes of What Works every week. Subscribe on iTunes so you never miss an episode. What drew a spaceship engineer to clinical herbalism “I saw an acupuncturist, a massage therapist, and eventually an herbalist who said, ‘here’s what’s going on, sweetheart.’ And she was right. I said, ‘this is magic so I need to learn more about this herbalism thing.’ If she can do that over the course of 90 minutes then I need to know how this works because I could be really helpful and support other people. I wasn’t thinking of it as a business at that point — just to learn for myself to support my own needs and my family’s needs.” — Lisa Akers At one point in Lisa’s health journey, she ended up in the emergency room, convinced she was suffering from a heart attack. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case — but doctors gave her Xanax to help her mediate the stress she was under from working long hours instead. Dissatisfied with that solution, Lisa sought additional professional opinions. Every doctor she saw recommended Xanax. At that point, she explored alternative routes in an effort to understand and fix the root problem. “I’m an engineer. I’m trained to search for the root cause so that we can fix it and prevent the symptoms and the indications of failure from happening,” says Lisa. Through her experience with the herbalist who pinpointed her health imbalance, Lisa knew that herbalism worked — and she wanted to learn more about how she could help herself, her family, and eventually clients. Pinpointing and working with ideal clients “I work with a fairly narrow group of people in midlife and later who are finding that the lifestyle they lived as young people no longer works for them in their more mature adulthood. They’re struggling with diabetes, high blood pressure, autoimmune disease, or maybe even cancer. They need a better solution. They don’t just want to follow down this pathway where they take this medication that makes this other symptom happen that they have to take another medication for that causes something else. They have this downward spiral that ends in their death and nobody wants that — they actually want to make it better so I’m looking for people who want to understand how that works.” — Lisa Akers Lisa knows exactly who she can help: people who want answers to their health woes that they can’t find anywhere else. One way Lisa attracts those folks is through positioning herself as a scientist.  She’s someone who not only understands plants, but someone who also thinks with an engineering perspective: that we need to get to the root of the issue to truly fix it. And Lisa’s knowledge and ability to find and understand scientific studies around plants give her a strong foundation to her herbalism bu... ★ Support this podcast ★

The Nitty Gritty * Why Michelle Fifis consolidated her offers into her membership program, the Textile Design Lab * The steps Michelle took to achieve greater profitability focusing on doing less and more meaningful growth * What parameters Michelle uses to decide whether a new marketing opportunity is worth pursuing–or just a time suck * The brand partnership Michelle has leveraged to increase her reach, get paid, and amp up her brand’s visibility * How Michelle’s team has evolved to support the focus she’s created in her business–and what her next steps are with hiring Today, I’m catching up with Michelle Fifis for a special episode of What Works that we recorded live on Crowdcast. Michelle is the creator of Pattern Observer, a blog all about surface design, and the founder of The Textile Design Lab, a community and education space for emerging and established surface designers. After leaving her corporate textile design job in 2010, Michelle wanted to keep her momentum going, stay up with the trends and industry news and keep track of her inspiration and resources, so she created the blog Pattern Observer. Today, Michelle is a successful textile designer who has worked with such clients as Lucy Activewear, Columbia Sportswear, Jantzen Swimwear, Pendleton and P&B Textiles. On her blog, she continues to write about business and textile design and her membership community, The Textile Design Lab, offers learning and networking opportunities to hundreds of designers worldwide. Fewer moving pieces, more profit Michelle and I focused our conversation on how she’s made her business more lean-and-mean over the last year–and increased profitability at the same time. She said: I am constantly trying to systematize what I am doing and then passing it off to someone on our team, which includes my teammate Chelsea and my husband Ken. I have cut back on the amount of information that I am taking in with regards to marketing and business growth. I used to constantly try new things and really bought into the “you have to do x,y, or z to grow your business.” I am now very hesitant to start something new or add something to our business unless I can figure out a way for someone else in our team to manage it AND it is not going to affect our profitability. Meaningful growth instead of a breakneck pace It can be so tempting to pursue growth at the expense of your life, health, and bottom line. Michelle took a hard look at how she’d been growing her business over the years and decided to make some changes. She said: I am over this focus on super fast business growth. When my business was very young, it would double every year, so I got into this mindset that I needed to continue to grow at that rate. But that level of growth became stressful and I was investing so much money in future growth that my profitability was becoming lower and lower. Since pausing on my extreme growth plan I am happier, less stressful and more profitable than ever! And still growing at a healthy rate! Listen to the full episode to learn more about how Michelle Fifis has streamlined her business to make more money. ★ Support this podcast ★

The Nitty Gritty * Why Ali’s new brand message is all about shifting the way her clients see themselves * How she draws a connection between health and politics — and positions her opinion in a way that her ideal customers breathe out: “finally, someone gets it!” * What writing exercise she used to inform her new website copy (and exactly what her company’s new position is) * Why you should always ask your customers for feedback, plus the exact process Ali used to choose a logo that spoke to them In this episode of What Works, we welcome Ali Shapiro, MSOD, certified holistic health counselor, and founder of Truce with Food® to talk about her recent rebranding and repositioning of her business. We cover everything from what she’s learned as a health coach and her own experience with cancer as a teenager, to the importance of using customer feedback to inform branding decisions, to bringing politics into your business as a way to truly serve your customers. Listen to this episode to learn more about Ali’s health journey and her experience working with women who are fed up with the status quo — and are looking for radical shifts toward true healing. We release new episodes of What Works every week. Subscribe on iTunes so you never miss an episode. How Ali knew it was time to reposition. “I realized that as I got more resilient, I actually became healthier. I really started to see with my clients that if I could help them with a research-based but client-proven process to focus on that emotional piece, their healing was exponential.” — Ali Shapiro For Ali and her clients, experiencing true healing isn’t just about what you eat. It’s about how food and emotions work together to cultivate and activate natural healing within the body. Ali knew that positioning her work around both the body and the emotions would be more difficult than just talking about food. At the same time, she felt that it might be too much for people — would they resonate with it? Would they want to work with her? Ultimately, she knew that bringing together food and emotions was crucial for her clients to experience true healing. Fortunately, her clients responded well and told her just how much of a relief it was, despite the hard work. Why? Because it gave them answers. They were finally understanding aspects of themselves that they never had. This was the foundation of her rebranding and repositioning. The importance of asking for customer feedback as you rebrand. “I didn’t end up going with the logo because I didn’t want to turn people off before they really understood what it was about. Always ask your customers and clients — even your ideal clients are going to have a range of reactions.” — Ali Shapiro As Ali worked with her clients, she realized that her work was founded on liberating women so they can get answers and feel their absolute best. As she rebranded, Ali wanted a logo that represented the work she did — and ended up with two that she loved. One logo was a dynamic logo of a woman’s body behind bars — and the bars faded away — it was a literal representation of her work. Ali loved it, but when she asked her customers, it was a split: half of them liked it while others felt that it didn’t totally encompass her work — and in a way, it didn’t align with the experience they had with her. So… instead of using the logo that she liked the most, she decided against it based on customer insights. Why Ali brings politics into her business (and her branding) “When you start talking about who has power, and who doesn’t, ★ Support this podcast ★

Lacy Boggs, Founder of Content Direction Agency, talks about shifting her content strategy, focusing on referrals, changing priorities in growing her email list, and managing her growing client load and team.

The Nitty Gritty * The four reasons why Emily and Kathleen, co-hosts of the Being Boss podcast, chose to traditionally publish their first book, Being Boss, instead of self-publishing (and how they weighed the pros and cons of each) * What the collaborative process looked like behind-the-scenes for them, from writing sessions over Zoom to in-the-moment editing * The multiple marketing channels they’re using for the book launch from traditional methods like radio and T.V. to community-focused methods like launch teams made up of passionate Being Boss supporters and more. Today on What Works, we welcome back Emily Thompson, founder of Indie Shopography, co-host of the Being Boss podcast, and co-author of Being Boss: Take Control Of Your Work + Live Life On Your Own Terms. Emily graciously takes us behind the scenes of co-writing her first book, including what she considered when choosing between traditional and self-publishing. She also shares the process behind writing the book together with Kathleen Shannon, and what marketing methods they used for promoting the book. We release new episodes of What Works every week. Subscribe on iTunes so you never miss an episode. Why they chose traditional publishing over eBook and print-on-demand “For us, it was a matter of a couple different things, one of those being our multi-year long relationship where we were both talking about writing the book — and neither of us had done it yet. We both knew that external pressure — those deadlines and expectations from someone else — would actually help us write the book. That was a big part of it: knowing that we were answering to someone else.”  — Emily Thompson If you know Emily and Kathleen, you know they are no strangers to doing the work. Each of the women run their own successful companies in web design and branding, respectively. Yet despite their independent success and work ethics, the book still hadn’t been written. Ultimately, the pair looked at their biggest roadblocks to writing the book and realized that while they’re both completely capable entrepreneurs, they felt that having to answer to someone else would actually force them to get the book out the door. But that wasn’t their only reason for choosing traditional publishing. They also wanted to reach further than their Being Boss community — something they felt they could only do by traditionally publishing their book. “For us it was about creating an experience for the people who are going to be reading the book,” says Emily. And that simply wasn’t something they could create through self-publishing as an eBook or even as a print-on-demand book. How they collaboratively wrote the book “The book started with us getting really clear on the entire linear outline. From there, we started writing from the very beginning all the way to the very end so we could really build upon each piece as we went as opposed to piecemealing it together. We found that writing separately was a lot less productive than actually writing together so we would block out a couple of hours every week. We would get on Zoom and we would write together.” — Emily Thompson Yay! for the digital age where we can co-collaborate on projects, no matter where we are physically located. That was definitely the case for Emily and Kathleen, who co-wrote their book together from two different states, using the (practical) beauty of Zoom and Google Docs. Have the right tools was only one part of the book writing process, though. It also required that Emily and Kathleen release any expectations (and the... ★ Support this podcast ★