Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm is the New KPI

Are you looking to break the mold with your business model? Are you one of those business people that make very deliberate decisions and knows that default decisions just can’t apply to your business? Then you need to meet Pia Silva. If you haven’t heard of the powerhouse that is Pia Silva, then you’re in for a treat. Pia is the founder of Badass Your Brand and Worst of All Design, and she made a very deliberate decision to step away from the default agency model. She knew she had to structure her business in a way that suited her preferred working style, while ensuring it remained wholly efficient to meet her needs and the needs of her clients. “This model came about because a year prior, a business coach of mine had said to me, ‘you're selling $30,000 projects, you're looking for clients who have $30,000, but you're networking with people who think you're great, yet they don't have $30,000, they have $3,000. So maybe you don't want to keep saying, oh, sorry, you don't have $30,000, so forget you, and instead think of something to sell them. Just come up with something you would sell someone if they had $3,000.”And in the space of just a couple of days Pia had pivoted her whole business from chasing big projects via a traditional agency model, to making more money with a smaller project model. On today’s podcast:Break the ceiling by breaking the default agency modelWhy project management tools don’t work for every businessUsing a lead product and a bullseye productThe freedom of transparent pricingHow to figure out your pricing strategyIncrease your price as you increase your valueFigure out a model that works for you and what you want out of lifeCreate a marketing structure that means you constantly have leads coming upWhy the big agency model can’t work for smaller businessesLinks:Badass Your Brand - the impatient entrepreneur’s guide to turning expertise into profitScalespark Dollars + Decisions RoundtableTwitter @ScaleSparkLinkedIn @thesusanboles Grab the Calm Service Design + Delivery Swipe File here

We’ve been focusing our attention on default decisions in the last couple of episodes- those choices that you make about how to run your business. And a lot of these decisions happen without us even realizing we're making a choice, especially at the beginning of our businesses. But sometimes those choices we didn't know we made come back and bite us in the butt when we need to make the transition from experimentation mode or validation mode into growth mode.I chat with business designer Michelle Warner about business models, because lots of our default decisions are actually built into the model we choose. Michelle helps coaches, consultants and service-based entrepreneurs grow their businesses by showing them how to prioritize what matters and skipping what doesn’t. More importantly, Susan and Michelle discuss how to make that all-important decision of crossing the chasm from experimentation entrepreneur mode to a business model that's designed to grow, and how not to drive yourself crazy along the way.On today’s podcast:Why business design is a hybrid approach to creating your business modelThe inspiration behind moving from a multi million dollar tech startup to business designThe symptoms of knowing when you’ve hit the ceiling in your businessThe decisions entrepreneurs make over and over againHow to choose your business prioritiesFocusing your team to do the 80%, leaving you free to do the 20% fun stuffLinks:www.themichellewarner.comMichelle.warnerScalespark Dollars + Decisions RoundtableTwitter @ScaleSparkLinkedIn @thesusanboles Grab the Calm Service Design + Delivery Swipe File here

Are you an entrepreneur who thinks marketing is prosaic, a series of boxes that need to be checked off in a certain order? Are you too scared to break the ceiling with your own brand of personal marketing because it’s not something that you’ve been told to do? Then you should listen to Margo Aaron on today’s podcast, because she is someone you need in your life. Margo Aaron is the cohost of #HAMYAW and the author behind That Seems Important. She accidentally ended up in marketing and today she talks and writes about how to connect authentically with customers, and how to use ethical marketing to sell better, and more, online. “People really don't understand marketing, in part because marketers do a really bad job of explaining it. And they very very unethically sell it.”On today’s podcast:People don’t pay for strategy, they pay for outcomes and resultsWhy Margo was so nervous about launching ‘That Seems Important’You don't have a marketing problem, what you have is a self-doubt problemYou need to find the intersection between your business model and your personal dispositionWhy you shouldn’t measure your worth based on other people's benchmark successThe importance of playing and seeing where a business goes rather than sticking rigidly to a planPart of entrepreneurship is making things up - you are bringing something into the world that didn't exist beforeLinks:Hillary and Margo Yell at WebsitesThat Seems ImportantScalespark Dollars + Decisions RoundtableTwitter @ScaleSparkLinkedIn @thesusanboles Grab the Calm Service Design + Delivery Swipe File here

Welcome to this first episode of Break the Ceiling, the podcast where we'll talk about how you might structure your business, or even why you're in the business you're in in the first place. We're going to talk about financial decisions, hiring decisions as well as technology decisions, and give you some ideas to consider. But mostly, I just want you to start asking yourself, ‘why did I make this choice and does it still serve my business?’My first guest in the series is Tara McMullin. Tara is a podcaster, writer, and a small business community leader. With over a decade of experience helping thousands of small business owners grow their business. She's on a mission to change the dialogue about what's really working and she believes that no one person has the answer to “what works” in small business.Tara is the host of the What Works podcast, a top small business podcast that's been recommended by Forbes and Entrepreneur. And she's also the founder of the What Works network, a community hub for small business owners. She is also incidentally the person who came up with the name for this podcast.On today’s podcast:Why the default decisions you make at the beginning of your business may actually be causing the problems that are limiting your ability to growNot every framework or management tool works the same for each businessWhy ‘What Works’ is pretty much an entire business based around the concept of fighting default decisionsChallenges associated with switching between different types of business modelsHow to know when you’ve hit the ceilingKnow where your skills lie and focus on doing that well - outsource the other stuffWhy Tara’s personal growth will help her business break through the ceilingLinks:What Works - the podcastScalespark Dollars + Decisions RoundtableTwitter @ScaleSparkLinkedIn @thesusanboles Grab the Calm Service Design + Delivery Swipe File here