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I think there are three different stages when it comes to your business and your personal finances: pre-enough, enough, and post-enough.And at each stage, you'll have different priorities, weigh different choices, and view your world in very different ways. These definitions are mine and I think everyone will probably interpret the idea of pre-enough, enough, or post-enough in their own terms—but here's how I tend to think about it. Pre-enough is that stage when you may have a decent business, but you haven't hit that level of revenue where you're covering your costs and comfortably paying yourself what you need to be able to support your personal financial needs. In this stage, you're usually taking whatever work comes your way. It can be a difficult place where you are lacking in both time AND money because you're just trying to do whatever you can to get to that enough benchmark. Enough is where you have... enough. Your costs are covered, both business and personal. You're paying yourself and your team enough. You have enough to start building up some cash reserves and the choices and decisions you're making become a lot more about is this WORTH it for me? Is this client someone I WANT to work with? Is this the kind of work I want to be doing? Is this choice worth my time or energy? It's about using your resources effectively -- and the kinds of choices you make. Eventually, you might find yourself in the land of post-enough. Where your questions might be: what do I DO with all of this money?!? Where am I supposed to put it? And how do I use it responsibly? I wanted to explore this idea of pre-enough and post-enough by trying to follow someone's journey through these stages and beyond… to look at the choices they made, what helped them breakthrough that "enough" ceiling, and how their perspective changed in each of the different stages.Meet Rita Barry. Rita is a certified measurement marketer. She founded her company, a boutique digital marketing optimization consultancy based in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, in 2009. Rita Barry & Co. is a relationship-driven company focused on metrics, and they help select 6 to 8 figure female-led businesses take control of their numbers so they can transform their marketing campaigns and drive more sales.Rita deals with numbers and measuring success all day long and this journey to and through enough has been one she's spent a LOT of time thinking about. Listen to the full episode to hear: Step-by-step through the journey to (and past) enough What enough means to Rita What it looked like pre-enough and what she did to break through and past enough How her goals and what she was concerned about changed throughout her journey What she does, now that revenue benchmarks don't mean quite as much. Learn more about Rita Barry: ritabarry.co/breaktheceiling @ritabarryco on Instagram Connect with Rita on LinkedIn Learn more about Susan: Think Like A CFO Scalespark Action Plan ScaleSpark

What's YOUR earliest memory of money? Mine is going with my parents to open my own bank account at our local credit union. A lot of our experiences with and stories around money come from our childhood: how we saw money handled and what we got told about money, to name a few.And that stuff sticks with you. All of us have a completely unique and individual relationship to money that's influenced by not JUST those factors, but also the impact of every decision (good or bad) we've made with our own money and the impact of every decision (good and bad) we've seen OTHER people make with THEIR money.Your relationship with and access to money is impacted by your societal class, your demographics, and your generational wealth (or lack thereof). It's also influenced by the society you live in -- and if you're in the US, at least, that means a capitalist society. One where power and money are often interchangeable and where the depth of inequality is stunning -- and only getting more dramatic. Some of the workaround examining our relationship to our money also needs to examine how the system we live in impacts that relationship. Because it DOES. Once we understand that, we can start thinking about our relationship to money in a much broader view -- and we can start considering using our businesses as a means to start evening out some of that inequality. My guest today spends a lot of time thinking about, talking about, and teaching this work. Bear Hebert is a radical life coach, social justice educator, and anti-capitalist business consultant. In work and in life, Bear actively looks at the intersections of power and privilege and will ask you to do the same, pushing both you and your business in the direction of more liberated moments. Their current offerings include Anti-Capitalist Business Consulting and their online course, Freely: An Anti-Capitalist Guide To Pricing Your Work.Listen to the full episode to hear: The value of doing money mindset work How your relationship to money affects just about every area of your business, including a deep dive on pricing How Bear approaches making their services more accessible  And what accessible actually MEANS in the first place... Learn more about Bear Hebert: bearcoaches.com Anti-Capitalist Business Consulting Freely: An Anti-Capitalist Guide To Pricing Your Work  Follow Bear on Instagram Learn more about Susan: Think Like A CFO Scalespark Action Plan ScaleSpark

You're not a spreadsheet and you're not a calculator. You're a person with experiences, feelings, and history. But when most of us think about managing money, we think about it like it's math. We expect to make decisions about money like a calculator. But managing your money is actually more like figuring out psychology than math. Human beings don't make decisions like a calculator. We make decisions emotionally—and that includes financial ones. Learning how to manage your money well is part skill, sure. But a whole lot more is about examining your own relationship with money and dealing with all that baggage you're bringing to the table.How you think about money, the choices you make with your own money, and the relationship you have with it is ultimately impacted by a lot of stuff BESIDES just those decisions. It's influenced by what you learned about money as a kid. It's influenced by your reactions to previous decisions you've made with your money - both good and bad. We all have a completely unique and individual relationship to money that's influenced by all those factors. By examining that relationship, we can understand WHY we do the things we do and think the way we think, identify those influences -- and ultimately be able to make more conscious choices about what we do with our money.All this month we're going to examine the psychology behind money and why we think the way we do about it. To kick us off, I want to talk about buying things because that's where most of us start thinking about money. What should we buy? Or even SHOULD we buy something? We're bombarded with messages every day that encourage us to buy, buy, buy. Sometimes we even get told that it's patriotic. But WHY do we buy what we buy? That's what I want to know. And, as it happens, I know someone who LOVES geeking out on buying and marketing psychology. Meet Margo Aaron. She's a psychological researcher, turned marketer and the founder of That Seems Important, which is quite possibly my favorite blog in existence. She also co-hosts "Hillary and Margo Yell at Websites", an award-winning show about marketing and teaches writing and marketing to business owners. When I want to nerd out on the psychology behind marketing, Margo is my go-to. Listen to the full episode to hear: How shopping was INVENTED (yes, I said invented!) Why we buy things we WANT instead of only things we need How to ethically use the power of psychology for good in your marketing Learn more about Margo Aaron: thatseemsimportant.com  Marketing Masterclass: The Art and Science Of Getting People To Care on Skillshare Why We Buy Things We Don’t Need on Medium Learn more about Susan: Think Like A CFO Scalespark Action Plan ScaleSpark

If you're like me, you've started to think in earnest about your goals for 2021.And if you’re like a lot of business owners I know, you might be thinking that this is the year you’re going to get your sh*t together when it comes to your money. You’re going to start reviewing that P&L statement you get every month. You’re going to be more intentional about how you spend and pay attention to the ROI you’re getting.You’re going to get clear on exactly how you’re making money--and how you can make more of it without working yourself into the ground.Now, if you’re both nodding your head and feeling the anxiety rise in your chest as I describe these financial goals, I see you.We all have the best of intentions about how we’re going to manage our business finances… ...but few people actually follow through on learning how to manage their business’s money or execute the financial plans they create.Part of that is that most of us have no small amount of shame or guilt around not having done work this already. And part of it is that it can be hard to figure out where to even start. The world of finance doesn't do a great job of making learning about your business finances approachable. You want to feel like you’re on top of your money stuff but it’s tough to climb over all the questions and reports and bank accounts and spreadsheets.That’s where I come in. I help you think like a CFO. Working together, you’ll learn the skills you need to confidently make decisions about how to spend your money and how to structure your business so you make more. You’ll build a more resilient business that’s efficient and easy to run. And, you’ll create meaningful financial processes so you’re never caught with your pants down again.Think Like A CFO is a 6-month accelerator and coaching program that will teach you to think about your business like a CFO would, so that you know exactly what to do with every dollar in your business.Each month, we'll cover one of our 6 core topics: Your Relationship To Money, Risk + Resilience, Cash Cushions + Beyond, Investing in Your Business, Measuring Success, and Scaling Sustainably.Listen to the full episode to hear How we’ll examine your relationship to (and mindset of!) money Everything you’ll learn during Think Like A CFO The kind of support you can expect from me when you sign up for Think Like A CFO  Your bonus if you sign up by December 31, 2020! Learn more about Susan: Think Like A CFO Scalespark Action Plan ScaleSpark

What if you could change the way you price your services and double your revenue without bringing on any new clients or changing anything about HOW you work with your clients? Oh, yes, it’s possible!Sometimes, just switching up how you're pricing your services can have a dramatic effect on your overall profitability—and I don't just mean raising your prices—but reimagining how those prices are structured in the first place.We've been talking this month about creative strategies around pricing or packaging your services. And as part of that exploration, I wanted to re-air an interview that I did with Lacey Sites from a Lit Up Life in 2019. Lacey is a business mentor and success coach for high-performing women entrepreneurs and she created a unique revenue sharing pricing structure that allowed her to scale her one-on-one coaching business and dramatically grow her profits without bringing on a single new client. This unique model allowed Lacey to double down on her investment in each client, reap the rewards when their work with her pays off—and it also creates a pricing structure that builds trust and represents the true long-term partnership she wants to build with each client.This episode originally aired in December of 2019. It's been one of the most listened-to episodes ever and I think that's because it creates a model that allows you to genuinely grow and scale a service business without having to give up the close 1-1 client relationship. Listen to the full episode to hear: Increasing revenue without increasing work by using a revenue or profit-sharing model The logistics of actually creating a revenue-sharing model How a revenue-sharing model requires Lacey to filter her clients more carefully  The impact that shifting to this pricing model had on Lacey’s business Learn more about Lacey Sites: alituplife.com LITerally Podcast With Lacey Sites @alituplife in Instagram @A Lit Up Life on Facebook Facebook Group: The Lit Up and Loaded Entrepreneur Learn more about Susan: Think Like A CFO Scalespark Action Plan ScaleSpark

Imagine your ideal way of working with a client. For me, it's working ALL in on a single project. I'm someone who likes going 100% or 0%. I'm either all in or I want to shut my brain completely off. What does it look like for you?This month, we've been talking about creative offerings and pricing strategies this month and thinking generally about how we offer and price our services. I talked to Kate Strathmann in Episode 59 about using pricing strategies to create more equitable businesses. I also talked with Rob Howard in Episode 60 about how to create offerings that build recurring revenue and strengthen relationships, even in an industry that's traditionally very project-oriented. Today, I'm talking to Hunter Niland Welling, my business’ Chief Marketing Officer. She is a marketing consultant and coach for women growing high-end service-based businesses. I wanted to bring Hunter on the podcast because she has a way of working with her clients that, when I experienced it as a client, was so effective that I actually shifted my OWN work with my 1:1 clients to the same model. Hunter has created what I like to call Recurring Intensives. It is a PERFECT model for folks like Hunter and me who REALLY like to go all in and work in an intensive style while building long-term relationships with their clients and creating recurring revenue. If you're unfamiliar with intensives or intensive-style offerings—which you might also hear referred to as VIP days or a Buy-My-Day kind of offering—they are short, very dedicated time blocks that are normally used to implement a specific project.What Hunter and I do is create one of these VIP days every month for our clients. Each month, we spend an entire day dedicated to a single client. This format works well for us because we get to work in a way that feels right for us but it also benefits the client because they get to see results immediately without wasting a ton of time in meetings. For the client, it's short and sweet and then the results show up that same day.If you want to get a better idea of some different intensive formats, take a listen to Episode 12 where I talked to Ashley Gartland and Hailey Thomas about the different ways they've implemented intensive-style offerings in their businesses.Listen to the full episode to hear: How to combine intensive-style offerings with recurring revenue How Hunter developed intensives as the right model for her and her clients The kind of impact she's seen on both her business AND her clients as a result of implementing recurring intensives Learn more about Hunter Welling: theagenshe.club @theagenshe on Instagram Listeners can get a free 12-month membership in The AgenShe Club, using code BREAKTHECEILING or simply use this link to claim your discount! Learn more about Susan: Think Like A CFO Scalespark Action Plan ScaleSpark

When you think about the relationships you build with your clients, what does that look like? Are you setting it up from the very first touchpoint to be a long-term relationship? Or do you approach it as a one-and-done kind of thing?Neither is better than the other—but your business values influence your business model, rippling out into how you build relationships, do your work, and create your legacy. Last week, I talked with Kate Strathmann about using pricing strategies to move towards creating more equitable businesses. We talked about making sure that you’re using strategies that make sense for YOUR business and how the pricing strategies you choose are one way to build your values into the DNA of your business. Your values SHOULD be a part of your pricing and business model choices from day one and my guest today has really taken that idea to heart. Meet Rob Howard, the founder and CEO of Howard Development & Consulting, the web development firm that creative agencies trust when every pixel matters. One of Rob’s core values is building relationships—and not just ANY relationships. To him, long term relationships with both his clients and with his team are essential to business. He treats clients as friends—folks he’s going to be working with for 5 or 10 years, at least. And several of his team members have been with him for a decade.Rob’s created some pretty unique offerings that reflect that value and we’re going to talk all about it today on the podcast.Listen to the full episode to hear: Why Rob has something that he calls an Assurance Plan which is a hybrid retainer that allows him to continue to work with his web design clients long term Why Rob offers a 30-day satisfaction guarantee on his work The logistics behind Rob’s offerings and how these are just a few of the ways that he infuses relationship-building into every aspect of his agency  How to create offerings that embody your company values Details on crafting ALL your services around a long-term recurring relationship model Learn more about Rob Howard: The Agency Owner's Guide to Hiring Web Developers Connect with Rob on LinkedIn Learn more about Susan: Think Like A CFO Scalespark Action Plan ScaleSpark

What kinds of changes are you thinking about for next year? Are you making a pivot? Focusing on taking a break? Diving deep into improving at your craft? Maybe you're thinking about raising your prices?One of the changes that you might be considering is a shift in your business model, or how you package your services—or even how you price them. The decision about how to price, package, or accept payment for your services can be a bit of a challenge, especially in a service business where the choices are limitless. Those decisions say a lot about your business: who you want to work with, how you want to engage with them, and what your values as a company are.The strategies and psychology behind pricing your services can affect the behavior of your potential clients. It can serve as a filter to make sure you're bringing in the RIGHT clients or customers. Low prices aren't going to attract enterprise clients. Likewise, super high prices are going to be a barrier to entry for small businesses or individuals looking to work with you. You can use your pricing to create exclusivity—BUT, you can also use your pricing to create access and to start moving towards using your business to create more social and economic justice. My guest today is Kate Strathmann. Kate is the owner and director of Wanderwell, a consulting and bookkeeping practice that grows thriving small businesses while investigating new models for being in business. Wanderwell integrates financial expertise with an empathic, vision-forward approach, and leads with the belief that businesses can help create a new paradigm that centers people, community, and the environment. Kate spends a lot of time exploring new techniques and strategies to create more equitable businesses and works with business owners to start thinking about how to implement them in their own business.Listen to the full episode to hear: The different pricing strategies you might consider using, like sliding scale or pay what you wish pricing models When these strategies make sense, and when a different strategy might be a better option Some of the pitfalls that Kate's seen come up as folks start to implement some of these strategies (and how to avoid them) Learn more about Kate: Wanderwellconsulting.com Follow Kate on Instagram Follow Wanderwell on LinkedIn Learn more about Susan: Dollars + Decisions Roundtable Think Like A CFO Scalespark Action Plan ScaleSpark

On the podcast lately, we've been talking about how to manage change, how to become more resilient, and how to develop our skills in these areas—both personally and as leaders—so that our businesses can weather storms and so our team can stay calm, relaxed and supported. I talked to Elatia Abate in Episode 54 about what it MEANS to be resilient and how much of a role mindset plays in our ability to be resilient. In the last episode with Lauren Caselli, you can see how that played out for her in real-life this year in how she both weathered a HUGE business change and how she dealt with the loss of the business she had spent almost a decade building. Today I’m going to talk about the OTHER end of that change spectrum. What happens when things go BOOM and you have to figure out how to manage that boom in your business at a time when your personal situation might actually mean that you have less time than ever to spend in or on your business?Today’s guest is Alethea Cheng Fitzpatrick. Alethea is the Principal and Founder of Co-Creating Inclusion, a diversity, equity, and inclusion firm with a focus on shifting culture and driving equity through strategic consulting, leadership and team development, workshop facilitation, and business integration. Alethea’s mission is to help people, teams, and organizations create culture transformation through inclusion and belonging in order to co-create the conditions where all can thrive and do their best and most fulfilling work.Alethea is also the mom of 2 kids, 8 and 11-year-old boys, in Brooklyn. And, like a lot of us, she’s now running a business and being the main parent, at home, dealing with virtual school for both kids—all while her business has seen unprecedented growth this year.Listen to the full episode to hear: What 2020 has looked like for Alethea and how she’s figuring out how to balance business and homeschooling her kids—and how she’s being conscious about taking care of her own needs, too What techniques and systems she’s put into place to try and cope with all the changes that this year has brought How Alethea’s day-to-day looks as she manages having the capacity to work less but having MORE business than ever How to balance business and life when they're both changing Learn more about Alethea: cocreatinginclusion.com Connect with Alethea on LinkedIn Learn more about Susan: Think Like A CFO Scalespark Action Plan ScaleSpark Resources mentioned in this episodeWhite Supremacy Characteristics by Tema Okun

What happens when the worst-case scenario becomes reality? Every business owner I know has that nightmare that runs through the back of their head... What if it all just stops? What if no one needs my services and suddenly no one needs what I'm selling? What do I do then? For a lot of business owners, this has been the year where they had to figure out what the answer to those questions was. How do you manage that change? Do you shut down? Do you pivot? When everything stops, how do you decide what to do next? How do you actually get through that and lead your business through change? Or make the decision to actually close? Today, I'm talking to Lauren Caselli. Lauren was on the show back in March in Episode 25. I talked to her about cash flow planning in a crisis right as the shutdown was really starting to take effect and Lauren's event planning business was heavily affected. Lauren's been through a MASSIVE change this year, so I wanted to bring her back on the show to talk about how she's been managing the impact on her business. Lauren Caselli helps womxn and gender non-binary folx get paid like the expert that they are. Lauren used to run an event planning business for tech, and after her best year ever in 2019, was ready to give 2020 a run for its money. Sadly, the opposite happened, but out of breakdowns come breakthroughs. She is the founder of the Boss Lady Bash, a now laid-to-rest community of female entrepreneurs in Montana, and is working on launching The Money Club that helps womxn make strategic choices with the well-earned money that they're making. Listen to the full episode to hear: How Lauren’s cash flow management skills gave her the time she needed to make strategic decisions instead of reacting out of panic Making a HUGE pivot in your business and how to stay resilient Processing grief as a business skill An update on what Lauren decided to do about her business this year  Learn more about Lauren: laurencaselli.com Follow Lauren on Twitter Follow Lauren on Instagram Learn more about Susan: Think Like A CFO Scalespark Action Plan ScaleSpark

What would happen if you had to step away from your business for a few weeks? A few months? Would everything come crashing to a halt? Or would there be a clear path forward for someone else to pick up the baton and keep your business going?Being resilient means being able to bounce back from adversity, to pivot and reset after a change. But you only become truly resilient if you examine where your risks are. Where could hiccups happen? What could go wrong? And then you figure out a plan for how to handle that scenario if it really does happen. We do this all the time with cash flow projections and with strategic planning in our businesses. But we very rarely plan for what happens in the absolute worst-case scenario of you not being able to run your business. As a business owner, YOU are a risk. YOU built your business and most likely, it depends on you in some form or fashion to keep going. Even if you have a staff or other people that do a lot of the day-to-day work, they still look to you for direction. If you suddenly aren't there anymore, what happens?That's what contingency planning is all about: making a plan for what happens to your business (and your personal business) if you need to step away for a while or you just flat out can’t run the business.My guest on this episode, Mary Beth Simon, is an expert in planning for contingencies. Mary Beth is the founder of Niche Partnership Consulting where she helps business owners create plans for transitions and crisis. Mary Beth helps business owners teach those who depend on them so that they're prepared to step in if something happens and to minimize the suffering and prevent someone from experiencing added pain and struggle during already difficult times.Listen to the full episode to hear: Who should be creating contingency plans and what it looks like in the real world when you have to execute your plan How important your preparation is when it comes to ensuring your business can survive a big change  Tips for planning for a worst-case scenario  How being prepared for crisis helps you be resilient in your business and personal life  Learn more about Mary Beth Simon: Free Contingency Planning Kit Connect with Mary Beth Simon on LinkedIn Follow Niche Partnership Consulting on Facebook Learn more about Susan: Be Your Own CFO Scalespark Action Plan ScaleSpark

As founders and business owners, we tend to build businesses that reflect us. Our strengths become the strengths of our business. And, yep, our weaknesses become the weaknesses of the business… because we’re the ones who are building it. That’s why investing in developing skills to strengthen how we personally deal with change creates a huge impact on how we approach leading our businesses through change. If you listened to the episode with Elatia Abate, you know that the ability to be resilient and flexible in the face of change IS a skill and a mindset that you can work on. You can't control the change (because change is inevitable!)—but you can control how you react to it. On today’s episode, I’m talking with Melody Wilding. Melody is a former therapist turned leadership and executive coach for smart, sensitive high-achievers who are tired of getting in their own way.Melody is a licensed social worker and a former researcher at Rutgers University. She is also a professor of Human Behavior at Hunter College and she has a group coaching program all about building resilience.Listen to the full episode to hear: How Melody uses systems and structures to help minimize stress, build resilience and manage change in her life and business Why being kind to yourself and empathetic to your team is a HUGE part of effectively managing a rapidly changing environment How to accept that during intense change, your bandwidth is a LOT smaller than it was Techniques and systems to building personal and business resilience in your own life How to find the right structures that minimize your mental load so you can take care of you and your team Learn more about Melody: The 5-Minute Inner Critic Makeover The Haven: A Home for Sensitive High Achievers Connect with Melody on LinkedIn Follow Melody on Instagram Follow Melody on Twitter Follow Melody on Facebook Learn more about Susan: Think Like A CFO Scalespark Action Plan ScaleSpark

Change is hard. There's no real way around that. It's disruptive, it breaks your flow and it takes time and resources to react to and manage changes as they happen. And yet, you and your business won't flourish without some change. Being able to manage and adapt to change in a rapidly changing environment is one of the hallmarks of being resilient. But for most people, change means unknown and scary. Our brains evolved to analyze and to predict—or try to!—what’s going to happen next. As humans, we’re hardwired to hate uncertainty. So, theoretically, the more "known" you can make the change before it happens, the more comfortable people will be with it.But, right now... we're living in a world where there's no real way to make the change known. This is change that no one is really sure how to manage or when the pace of change will slow. As overused as the phrase has become this year, it's unprecedented. NO one has a model for how to deal with everything 2020 has thrown at us.  So... how DO we go about building up those change management muscles? How do we make ourselves and our business stronger and better able to weather this ever-changing environment? Meet Elatia Abate. She is an entrepreneur, educator, and future-forward strategist. She partners with organizations that range in size from Fortune 500 to early-stage start-ups to help leaders make sense of the ever-growing disruption in our world and channel that disruption into tangible results. And she has a line on her website that I just love. It says, "change is unpredictable. But we can still be ready." Listen to the full episode to hear: How resilience and change management are intertwined What does the future of work/future of business look like NOW? Strategies to exist and thrive in a constantly changing environment  What Elatia learned from her personal experiment in resiliency Learn more about Elatia: elatiaabate.com  Connect with Elatia on LinkedIn Follow Elatia on Instagram Learn more about Susan: Think Like A CFO Scalespark Action Plan ScaleSpark

What happens when you FULLY commit to something in your business? What happens when you are completely, totally, 100% all-in? This month we’re talking all about no-code tools and today’s guest, Layla Pomper, has taken her commitment to ClickUp—an extremely flexible no-code project management platform—to the next level. You can use no-code tools like ClickUp to streamline and automate your internal processes and enhance your communication with clients. You can also build digital products, help your students learn more effectively, and add to diversity your revenue streams. Some of the no-code tools out there are so flexible and so capable that you can actually run your entire business, pretty much end-to-end on them.  Well, Layla is ALL IN with ClickUp. She uses it to bring in new clients by using it as her opt-in and as the topic of her YouTube channel. She uses it to communicate and manage her one-on-one clients. She uses it to manage her own team and all of ProcessDriven's operations. She even now has a small group learning program all about how to use ClickUp more effectively. She went all in… and it's paid BIG dividends for her business and her clients. Listen to the full episode to hear: How Layla’s using ClickUp EVERYWHERE in her business The impact she's seen by systemizing everything using ClickUp How to use no-code templates and tools as an opt-in and marketing tool How to get the most out of the no-code tools you're using in your business Learn more about Layla: ProcessDriven ClickingUp Community ProcessDriven Collective  Subscribe to Layla on YouTube Follow Layla on Facebook Follow Layla on Instagram Learn more about Susan: Think Like A CFO Scalespark Action Plan ScaleSpark

The landscape of software is changing: no longer do you need to know how to code to build what you need. Now, building software has been democratized. No-code tools allow you to build your own software which means you can build custom products, services and tools on your own without having to spend piles of money developing custom software.There are lots of ways you can use this technology to benefit your business: you can streamline and automate internal processes, you can build tools and resources to diversify your revenue streams, and you can even use these tools to market your business and bring in new clients. Oftentimes when we think about a product-based business, we think about physical products or about maybe a software-as-a-service business, but there are SO many more ways that you can harness no-code tools to build your own apps, resources, and tools. This month, we're talking about how you can harness these no-code tools to increase your operational capacity, attract new clients, add new evergreen revenue streams—and ultimately grow your business. Last week, I talked to Jason Staats about using no-code tools internally to automate and scale processes and to improve client communication. This week, we're talking about using no-code tools to actually build your own custom software products. My guest today is the queen of this. Brittany Berger is the founder of Work Brighter, a digital media company that helps productive unicorns go beyond working smarter to a version of productivity that makes room for “unproductive” things like rest, self-care, and fun.She builds all kinds of no-code tools and resources and sells them and she uses them in a LOT of different ways. We'll talk about this more in detail during the episode, but Brittany sells the tools individually as stand-alone products. They make up a good chunk of the value proposition behind her community, the Work Brighter Clubhouse, and she uses them to help folks who take her courses implement faster and easier.Listen to the full episode to hear: How Brittany’s business is structured around no-code tools How she comes up with ideas for new no-code products What her development process looks like to build and refine these products How to use no-code to build products and additional revenue streams  How to use no-code tools and resources to add value to a community or course Learn more about Brittany: Work Brighter Work Brighter Clubhouse Follow Brittany on Instagram Productive Unicorns Group on Facebook Follow Brittany on Twitter Learn more about Susan: Think Like A CFO Scalespark Action Plan ScaleSpark

Software has come a LONG way in the last decade or so.  When I started my first business as a professional organizer in 2006, it was still pretty manual.  My business systems consisted of a website, Quicken, a label maker, some file folders, and printed out checklists. I needed physical signatures on my contracts and took checks as payments—and I had a fax number.It might seem like it was a simpler time before—there was less to keep up with—but our systems were also cumbersome, inefficient, expensive and the idea of building a customized software tool was only available to big companies with big budgets.Fast forward to today and we have apps and tools that can solve just about any problem in your small business with the click of a button pretty inexpensively. We can automate and streamline our workflows and take advantage of technology to operate a very lean, very profitable service business using tools that you don't need a degree in coding to figure out. I'm talking about no-code or low-code tools, which means that the tools have been built specifically to enable YOU, someone with no background or experience in building software, to build your own custom tools. And those tools are very, very powerful when it comes to operating a service business. They can be the key to you taking some time off and knowing that your systems are still flowing, clients are still being taken care of, your team knows exactly what to do. When harnessed, no-code tools can be THE thing that lets you scale to $2M+ with 2 team members. I've seen it happen. And this month, we're talking about the different ways you can harness these no-code tools to increase your operational capacity, attract new clients, add new evergreen revenue streams—and ultimately grow your business. To kick us off, I’m talking with one of my accounting friends, Jason Staats, who also happens to be a huge fan of no-code tools. Jason is a CPA in Salem, Oregon. He's a principal at Brenner LLP by day and accounting tech enthusiast by night. Jason spent his first 10 years in the tax profession and has now spent the last five years running a remote CAS team, working with staff and clients across the country. Jason is especially interested in the intersection of the accounting industry and emergent technology—and, specifically, how we can turn the automation doom and gloom narrative on its head and show accountants how to proactively leverage new technology.Listen to the full episode to hear: How to use no-code tools to scale operations (because the more efficient the workflow, the more clients you can serve with the same staff, and the more profitable you can be) Using no-code tools to automate workflow—both internal AND with clients How to leverage automated technology so client communication feels really personal  Learn more about Jason: launchfa.com rlz.io Follow Jason on Twitter Learn more about Susan: Think Like A CFO Scalespark Action Plan ScaleSpark

Is it worth it? That’s the number one question I get about this podcast. And it’s a good one because we should be evaluating any and every business decision based on the business results we’re expecting it to create. According to today’s guest, evaluating your podcast’s value and success can be evaluated based on if it drives results for your business, puts money in your bank account, gets emails into your inbox, or gets you sales calls."In the series, Is It Worth It, I’ve been talking about investing in our businesses and trying to answer the question of whether or not an investment was a worthwhile one. In this episode, I thought it’d be fun to take you behind the scenes and talk through how and why I decided to invest in starting this podcast, how it all works behind the scenes, and a look back a year into podcasting. To help me answer the question of if it's been worth it, I’m delighted to bring my friend Tara McMullin to discuss just that. Tara is a small business strategist, host of the What Works Podcast,  and the founder of What Works, an online community for small business owners. Tara is also the co-founder of Yellow House Media, the company that helps produce this podcast. Listen to the full episode to hear: How do you evaluate the ROI of a podcast? My decision-making process and how long I was willing to give it  The strategy behind my podcast and what business goals I was trying to achieve How much time goes into producing a single podcast episode  Learn more about Tara McMullin: The What Works Network The What Works Podcast Yellow House Media Follow Tara on Instagram Follow Tara on Twitter Learn more about Susan: Think Like A CFO Scalespark Action Plan ScaleSpark

You've decided to make an investment in your business. You evaluated the alternatives, you accepted the costs and you decided this particular investment was the right one for your business.You're about to commit a significant chunk of time, money, and resources to this. And, at least for now, you've decided this investment is worth investing in. But later down the road, you'll need to decide whether this was a good, helpful investment that moved your business forward—or if it ultimately didn't accomplish what you thought it would.To evaluate your investment later on, you need to answer: what does success LOOK like? What will tell you that this investment WAS a success? What are the measurements for success?Is it new clients? New leads? More efficiency? More profit? What are your GOALS for this investment and how will you know you've reached them? Sometimes that metrics piece can be a little fuzzy. There's usually a lot of intangible benefits that come from investments as Michelle Mazur talked about in episode 46 with her rebrand. Investing in that professional rebrand and website paid off in credibility, speaking engagements, clients, and more. But sometimes that can be hard to get cold hard data on. Social media is one of those investments you can choose to make in your business where the ROI isn’t always super clear. That’s why I invited Andréa Jones—host of the Savvy Social podcast, creator of the Savvy Social School, and an expert at social media—to talk all about measuring the ROI on your investments even if there isn’t a straight line from investment to payoff. Listen to the full episode to hear: How to measure and evaluate whether or not your social media strategy is "working" How coaches, consultants, and service-based business owners can use social media as a tool for business connection Why Andréa prefers tracking profile visits and link clicks over followers and engagement How to evaluate your social media data—and why any strategy needs at least 3 months to see what works and what doesn’t Learn more about Andréa Jones: Andréa’s Social Media Success Framework  Social Media Management Business Building Blueprint Savvy Social Podcast Savvy Social School Connect with Andréa on Facebook Follow Andréa on Twitter Follow with Andréa on Instagram Connect with Andréa on LinkedIn Learn more about Susan: Think Like A CFO Scalespark Action Plan ScaleSpark

How do you decide what to invest in? How do you examine the opportunity costs of that investment? How do you make sure you're giving your investments every chance to succeed? That's what we've been talking about in the Is It "Worth It"? Series. In the last part of this series, I spoke with Michelle Mazur about how to approach investments in your business and with Beryl Young about deciding WHAT to invest in. In this episode, I want to talk about when an investment seems like a pretty straightforward payoff—but taking advantage of that opportunity might conflict with your values. The question I’m asking, in addition to the others above, is: how do you balance the financial health of your business against your values? Of course, those values SHOULD be an important consideration of any investment you’re making. But we all still need to make money in order for our businesses to survive. In this episode, I’m talking with two guests, Nancy Jane Smith and Bonnie Gillespie, about their thought processes behind making some big business decisions. Nancy is a Licensed Professional Counselor with thirteen years in private practice and has spent 20+ years working as a counselor and coach for people with high-functioning anxiety. She's written three books on living happier and is the host of the Live Happier podcast. Bonnie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. As a weekly columnist, she began demystifying the casting process for actors in 1999. Her most popular book is Self-Management for Actors, the curriculum upon which her teaching is based. As a producer and Emmy-honored casting director, Bonnie specializes in indie darlings. Whether casting, coaching, or exploring the woo as The Astrologer's Daughter, she is passionate about leaving this world better than she found it.Listen to the full episode to hear: What if the ROI could be great, but it conflicts with your values? Why Nancy decided to fully pull her business activities out of Facebook and Instagram—and why they were at odds with her personal values What Nancy’s noticed in her business since leaving social media and how she’s grown her email list without the help of Instagram  How Bonnie uses her Facebook account strictly for business (and how she’s set it up that way) The strategy behind Bonnie’s Facebook ads and why she prefers Instagram and Facebook to other social media or professional platforms Learn more about Nancy Jane Smith: live-happier.com Coach In Your Pocket The Happier Approach Podcast The Happier Approach Book Learn more about Bonnie Gillespie: bonniegillespie.com Follow Bonnie on Instagram Follow Bonnie on Twitter Subscribe to Bonnie on YouTube Follow Cricket Feet on Facebook More about Bonnie on IMDB Learn more about Susan: Be Your Own CFO Scalespark Action Plan ScaleSpark Other resources mentioned in this episodeStop Hate For Profit campaign

When you're deciding what to invest in, examining the opportunity cost of your potential investments is a crucial part of the decision making process. Every option includes a cost associated with it because any opportunity requires an investment of time, money, or resources—or all of the above! And if we invest them in one initiative? Then they're not available for other opportunities. We all have a process we go through when we're thinking through new investments in our business. Whether you're conscious of your process or not... it's there. In the last episode, you heard from Michelle Mazur about how she thinks about investments—that 3-6 month minimum investment. Today, we’re continuing the conversation about making investments in your business with Beryl Young.Beryl is the founder & CEO of Momtography and Teentography, about how she decides what to invest in for her business. As a former elementary school teacher, Beryl's true calling is in education. Through a range of curriculum and programs for ANY type of skill level or camera, Momtography and Teentography is on a mission to show families how to unlock their creative potential and find a bit of joy in each and every day. Listen to the full episode to hear: How Beryl decides what to invest in—or not—for her business The opportunity cost of the investments Beryl’s made over the years The 3 main buckets where Beryl invested her resources and the outcome of each Learn more about Beryl Young: Mammography Club Follow Beryl on Facebook Follow Beryl on Instagram Learn more about Susan: Be Your Own CFO Scalespark Action Plan ScaleSpark