Top Business Podcast • over 4 million downloads • 900+ episodes

The Strategy Hour Podcast

with abagail pumphrey

Recognized by INC and Forbes as one of the best podcasts for entrepreneurs, join our twice-weekly show as we share business strategies, interviews, and actionable advice for building an online business your way.

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Our Episodes

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How Your Values Shape Your Business Strategy with Lindsay Hotmire

Today on the podcast we have Lindsay Hotmire. She loves to work with female creatives, entrepreneurs, and CEOs to help them discover a non-formulaic version of authenticity. She’s helped over 200 clients and counting ditch the one-size-fits-all formulas and frameworks and helps them genuinely align with their message. In this episode with Lindsay, we break down what being authentic actually means and how to be authentic in a way that feels good for you and with your audience.

We talk a lot about business values, your core values as a person, and how to not only identify them but then use the results in marketing, branding, messaging, and in your overall strategy to grow your business and sell your product, offer, or service. There are so many examples we talk about today, everything from messaging and Instagram presence to how you build community; so many different ideas! It’s a really good one and we hope you love it!

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Introducing The Goal Crusher Club

Before we dive into anything, can we just have a moment of silence for the phenomenal fact that this is episode 200! And guess what? We’re not going anywhere – hopefully we will be around for another 200 episodes. If you’re listening to this right now, we’re sending you a big fat thank you. Your time, energy and ears really mean a lot to us. Now that we’re done jumping up and down in celebration of this 200-episode milestone, let’s move onto the topic of today’s episode…Spoiler alert, there’s something new in TCC land, it’s called the Goal Crusher Club, it’s available right now and it’s fricken’ incredible! We know that you’ve got more biz ideas than you know what to do with and what you need is someone to help you organize the chaos and hold you accountable. That’s what we’re best at, babe, and that’s what The Goal Crusher Club is all about – accountability.

We created The Goal Crusher Club to help you go from that frazzled hot mess to a master-of-systems goal crusher. This is going to be a super unique way to interact with us, other creatives and allow you to get elbow-deep into the mechanics of your own business. In this episode, we are going to walk you through why we created The Goal Crusher Club, how it will help you, how it is organized, what you can expect, the insane benefits and why it is the most unique course on the block! This club provides the perfect opportunity for people who are wanting to get more stuff done, get some hardcore focus, get some support and in-depth feedback and finally start reaching their goals. And did we mention it’s just $29 a month?

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Cultivating Diversity and Creating Community for the Geek Chic with Jordan Ellis of Jordandené

Today on the podcast we welcome our good friend, Jordan Ellis of Jordandené. She is an amazing woman who has a geeky lifestyle brand based in Brooklyn. She sells things that are subtly nerdy, from tee’s, to tanks, to mugs, to phone cases and more. Jordan also recently started the Sartorial Geek, a quarterly magazine and now a podcast all about girl power and promoting that nerd culture. Jordan is so amazing that it’s no wonder this is our third time having her on the show!

We’ll give you an overview of the other episodes Jordan has done with us, in order to give you a bird’s eye view of her business and some of the strategic moves she’s made. In this episode however, we discuss adding extra aspects to a physical product-based business as a way to contribute to bigger goals that might not be present today. We also discuss the challenges around diversity, representation and inclusivity in the online space and look to Jordan as a business owner who is really leading the way. We also get her insights on how to stand out in a super tiny product-based niche. There is so much to be learned from Jordan and we hope you enjoy her company as much as we do!

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Releasing the Shame and Creating Real Relationships with Women with Cyndie Spiegel

Today on the podcast we are bringing back Cyndie Spiegel. Cyndie is a Brooklyn-based consultant, coach and TedX speaker. She is the founder of The Community of Us – an inclusive strategic community for women change makers, founders, creative business owners and solopreneurs. Today, we are talking about creating real relationships, what it means to have friendships and empower other women. In the creative community, particularly the entrepreneurial women’s space today, there has been a shift in the way we support one another; all love, all positivity, all empowering, 2018 feminism, all sisters high-fiving sisters! When in reality, it’s all a little phony.

Despite what we promote online, there are often still shameful feelings of jealousy, envy and resentment that are difficult to talk about. These feelings often get in the way of us helping others, which is really not what we want as good human beings! So, how do we release our shame, embrace this community mindset and truly empower other women? Cyndie gives us four really tangible steps to analyze how we are treating other women, be it in our industry or in our friendships, in order to help us forgive ourselves and quit the Tall Poppy Syndrome! Take a listen to find out what that is. It’s real!

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Be Good to People with Kris Wittenberg

Today on the podcast we have Kris Wittenberg of Be Good to People. We fell in love with her brand and the impact it was making on people around the world. The idea for Be Good to People was inspired by a rude experience that Wittenberg had back in the spring of 2008 while running errands at lunch. Kris has long forgotten the exact bad experience but the idea that people need to be better to one another has stuck with her ever since. We have loved hearing her message and getting to the root of how she got started.

Inside this episode, you are going to hear a pretty crazy story all about how a failed business helped Kris follow her passions and her dreams and then how she landed in front of Oprah and Gayle. Like actually hugging and seeing Gayle in-person. That exposure had huge impacts on her business, her confidence and everything Be Good to People stood for. There are a lot of lessons learned here from an entrepreneur who has been in business for a while, so we hope you take away some good nuggets today!

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Spreading Kindness with Carrie McQuaid

Today on the show we have Carrie McQuaid. If we could describe her in any way, Carrie is truly a kindness spreader. She loves pink, Taylor Swift, confetti, having fun and traveling the world to speak to companies and colleges about the power of kindness and generosity. She is head over heals in love with mason jars, sweet tea and rocking chairs on a front porch. A classic Southern belle at heart. Picture fresh flowers, polka dots and stripes, a day filled with love, laughter and spreading joy to others around — that’s Carrie!

In this episode, Carrie comes with some pretty fantastic ideas for business owners, entrepreneurs and just human beings in general and how we can be nicer people, helping fellow strangers (even in the Target parking lot). She also shares her story of viral kindness success. You might have heard of her on the little Southwest Airlines birthday party that she threw? This is a really upbeat episode and if you have ever wanted to start implementing small acts of kindness in your every day or in your business, Carrie comes full with ideas for you to take away and start implementing right now. So let’s jump in and spread some kindness around like confetti!

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Balancing a Membership and Being a Momma with Heather Crabtree of The Savvy Community

Today on the podcast, we have our friend and our mentor, the lovely Mamma Heather Crabtree from The Savvy Community. If you are not familiar with this woman, what rock have you been hiding under? Her Facebook community and her community in general that she has built over the last few years is phenomenal and literally the online space where we first met. Sparkles and all the confetti for that! We talk a bit about the legendary Savvy Community where we met online, and how it’s transitioned over the years.

In this episode, Heather shares with us how she has grown just a couple hundred members to over 13,000 and how that evolved into her bringing on a membership community where she hosts female entrepreneurs from all over the world and helps train and coach them. We also go into the programs she has brought along with her and even how she has been able to walk with her daughter as she has gone through stage four cancer, what it’s like balancing a business and a chronic illness like cancer and how that has affected her as a person and really made her stronger for the better. This is a little bit of a rollercoaster episode, but know that it comes from a good place and we are so excited to have her on.

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The Consequences of Finding Joy in Your Work

Finding joy in your work is a wonderful thing. It can energize you, further your drive, and help you push through challenging tasks and deadlines. But it can also have a detrimental effect.

Many of us have fallen into the trap of trying to get all our meaning and joy from one source, whether it’s your partner or your company. The problem with that is that it puts untenable pressure on the people we love the most. It can also cause us to neglect other parts of ourselves, leaving us devastated and adrift when we no longer have the partner, or job, that defined our identity.

Today on the show we delve into the consequences of finding joy in our work. We discuss some of the common traps people fall into when their actions aren’t in alignment with what they want, and how to do the difficult, introspective work of uncovering our true needs and aspirations. Tuning in you’ll learn about the biggest obstacles we’ve seen clients face, and how we can help you overcome them. We also discuss how to find more time in your life and identify exactly what you want for your future self!

Abagail Pumphrey 7/26/22 Abagail Pumphrey 7/26/22

How Team Boss Project Lives in Our Life-First Value

Our very first absolute priority when it comes to our business values, is building a business that is life first. To us, that means that our business structure reflects the season we are in. Seasons can be short or long, but they are intentional choices. You can choose to work full time, build a business, and still respect life first.

What this looks like for us, is allowing ourselves plenty of flexibility even while working full-time hours. When we chose to do business this way, we structured our days in a way where we could still prioritize family and life over work. How it looks is not the point, how it is communicated, and how it is honored, are! Life first looks completely different in every different context - what our team looks like when we’re working, what our team looks like when we are not working. Open and early communication is the essential building block for a life-first business to thrive.

We’ve made it a rule that every single employee has to take both their birthday and their anniversary off from work. That’s just one example of how we’ve built the life-first value into our business, and we’re proud of it! Building a life-first business can look any way you want it to, and it can be the little things, and ultimately our goal is that you have the freedom to choose what you want to prioritize and how that works.

Abagail Pumphrey 6/21/22 Abagail Pumphrey 6/21/22

Part 1: How to Develop an Experimental Mindset (The Mind Work it Actually Takes)

How many times have you struggled to make a decision in business out of fear that you’d make the wrong decision? What if instead, you viewed every decision as an opportunity to learn, rather than succeed or fail? Today on the show we unpack what it means to have an experimental mindset, how to foster that for yourself and within your team, and how it can free you from regret and help you make decisions that will help you learn and grow.

Tuning in you’ll get a taste of what we've been chatting about with our clients inside the incubator; from how unrealistic expectations can warp your mindset, to how to figure out what you really want. We’ve seen so many of our clients struggle to react to success and failure and as a result, we wanted to discuss examples of actionable strategies. Learn what you can implement within your company and your team so that if you're in a similar situation, you have strategies to help you adapt to any situation!

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Do You Have a Cognitive Bias Towards Action or Thinking?

When you’re trying to express a complex psychological feeling or event, but you aren’t familiar with the agreed-upon terms that experts use to describe it, the experience can be incredibly isolating. Today on the show we discuss a recent conversation we encountered that unpacks the differences between having a cognitive bias towards either action or thinking, and the consequences of that bias.

Anyone who has spent some time listening to our show will likely be familiar with the terms being a ‘doer’ or a ‘be-er’. Tuning in, you’ll hear us discuss how being a doer correlates with a cognitive bias towards action, while being a be-er strongly resembles having a cognitive bias towards thinking. We also cover some of the traps that action takers can fall into, including hasty decision-making and why you need to be able to take action while also making time to process and strategize. Tune in for a breakdown of these fascinating topics, as well as insights into some of the steps you can take to shape your cognitive bias!

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Bootstrap, Burnout, and Beyond: The 3 Phases of Your Service Based Business

The things we hear all the time are either, “I’m doing all the right things but I don’t necessarily know what to focus on next. I don’t know which lever to pull next and I don’t know why I’m feeling so overwhelmed.” Or, “This is so fun and easy! How do I set up myself for success in the future? How do I maintain this and keep growing?” We find that everyone’s always trying to look ahead, yet what’s truly beneficial is understanding the phase that you’re currently in order to clock why things are going well, where they’re going wrong, and what you need to do to move into the next phase. What we forget is that pitfalls are inevitable and that, as things grow, there are going to be roadblocks, hesitations, and frustrations. We are all bound to feel stuck at some point or another we want to assure you that this feeling is normal (and necessary) and that we can help you to get out of it! In this episode, we tackle the three phases we see every service-based business owner move through, fill you in on how we really feel about burnout, and share our greatest wish for every single service-based business owner out there.

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Myth Busting: Here's a Reframe for Beliefs That Might Be Holding You Back

If you are a service provider finding yourself in need of a little bit of a serotonin boost and you’re looking for a pep talk from your Biz Fairy Godmothers, this is the episode for you! We have some really valuable reframes for you; some shifts in thinking. We see you in ways that you perhaps don’t see yourself, and we want to share those insights with you. We’re going to share some really cool, kind, impactful things with you today, so prepare to be showered in words of support. It might make you feel uncomfortable and you may have a hard time accepting the compliments, but here’s the thing: it’s because we genuinely care!

No one else is saying these things to you and it’s important to us that we pour back into you in the same way that you’ve poured into us over the years. We are ready for you to believe in yourself in the way that we believe in you. That means listening to the things we’re saying, truly taking them to heart, and allowing them to sink in and make an impact. Tune in to learn about the reframes that service providers need to hear right now and to find out what we see in you (it’s a lot!) so you can believe in yourself in new ways. Never fear, your Biz Fairy Godmothers are here!

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Slowing Down to Speed Up: The Mindset & Boundaries Required for Growth, Plus Your Opportunity to Work with Us

With all the conversations we’ve been having about learning, scaling, and unlocking new strategies for your business, people have started to worry about how they are going to find the time to add something else to their plate. You may really feel that learning something new will be beneficial to your business, but the thought of doing that when you’re already overwhelmed can be extremely daunting.

But the thing is, it’s mentally taxing to be a human in the world right now, and learning strategies that will help you better manage the hustle and grind that you’re on is one of the best ways to grow! If you’re feeling overwhelmed, this episode is for you, because we’re going to provide you with some mindset and business benchmarks to help you gain some clarity on what you should be focusing on right now!

Abagail Pumphrey 1/11/22 Abagail Pumphrey 1/11/22

Uncovering Your Relationship with Money and Identifying what Financial Freedom Looks Like

We've been hearing the term 'financial freedom’ a lot within our community within the past year. But what does that mean and how do we achieve it? Too many people are looking at financial freedom in the wrong way; it’s not something that you suddenly wake up with one morning, there are various milestones along the journey. In today’s episode we’re going to break down what these milestones could look like for you, and what you should avoid while seeking financial freedom.

Boss Project is here to serve you, and a major part of our personal mission is to help you achieve financial freedom so that you can reach your big goals and thrive! We’re not here just to teach you how to make more money, we want to give you the financial education necessary to build the life you truly want!

Woman leaning on back of chair and smiling at camera

meet your host

I don’t believe there’s one right way to build a business.

I’m your host, Abagail Pumphrey. And I’m dedicated to supporting online businesses.

I’m here to help you build business your way: one that supports not only the life you have but the life you want. I’m on a personal mission to help you become financially free.

I’m talking about all the lessons learned as I turned a layoff into a 7-figure online business. I’m here to help you prioritize your life every step of the way, whether you’re creating your first digital product, growing an email list, or scaling an already profitable business.

I want to hear your hot takes, your biggest takeaways, or the genius ideas that pop in your head as you’re listening to the show.

My DMs are always open on Instagram, so head over and introduce yourself so I can get to know you!

DM Me on Instagram

Listener Love

paigeamberbacani
Abagail, thank you SO MUCH for this fresh passion! I can hear the genuine excitement in your voice over what is working well for you right now and what you have overcome in the past! Your resilience is truly contagious and I am so grateful for the knowledge that you freely share!
GoodGood Investing
An amazing podcast! From business strategy and systemization, to motivation and inspiration, The Strategy Hour really does cover it all! We love this podcast to bits!
Genevieve0721
I wanted to reach out and let you know how much I’m enjoying your podcast. It’s truly amazing and I’ve learned so many valuable tips and insights on how to scale a business without burning out. Your content is truly awesome and I appreciate you sharing it with us listeners!
Mezar C
Your podcasts are fantastic! The latest episodes highlighing your journey from graphic design to various marketing roles is truly motivating for aspiring entrepreneuers unsure of their career paths. Awesome content!
Fabi Paolini
Love your podcast, you bring so much value to your listeners. Thank you!
Josuediazv
I really enjoyed the episode that covered the importance of building a highly engaged and motivated team to help company scale and grow. I would highly recommend this podcast to everyone interested in learning practical business strategies to start, scale, and grow a business.
Ashao FreeSky
Super valuable. Abagail provides simple and actionable advice for growing your business. Her episodes are super practical. I love how grounded and down-to-earth she is. You can tell she genuinely cares about helping. I definitely recommend giving the podcast a listen!

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Software & Services We Swear By

Meet Our Partners

The links below are affiliate links. We receive a commission (at no additional cost to you) when you purchase through these links.

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Digital Product Jumpstart

Build your list and grow your revenue at the same time!

I’ve kept these details to myself for far too long. I’m ready to spill everything and give you the exact steps that’ve helped me generate tens of thousands of qualified leads and MILLIONS in low-ticket digital product sales. I won’t just show you what I did, I’ll teach you how you can do it too.

Learn More