Today on the show, Emylee and Abagail walk listeners through their October profit report and, as per usual, it is nothing short of wild! Before October kicked off, Abagail and Jared suddenly needed a bigger space and ended up purchasing a new home without even planning to. What’s more is it is a fixer-upper that needs quite a bit of work, and we don’t need to tell you what a time-suck buying and renovating can be. At the same time, Emylee was away for a week on a much-needed break, and things got crazy and chaotic very quickly, but they managed to pull it together and still make a great profit in the end.

Amidst it all, they planned for a big launch in November and ran their first sale on the Creative Template Shop’s annual membership, all of which they discuss in this episode. They also had to establish whether a monthly or annual membership would be more profitable in the long term, so they did an experiment to see whether they could switch over to just an annual membership but realized that the slower conversion rate was not going to cut it just yet. Tuning in, listeners will find out how they managed to increase their memberships while reducing the one-off purchases in the Shop, and where all the other revenue came from in October. Of course, they also share the details on what they had to spend to keep things moving along smoothly and treat themselves appropriately. Be sure to tune in for all of it, and more!

In today’s episode, we are going to talk a bit about reorganization and what it looks like to really get clear on the roles and responsibilities of your team members inside your business. We will talk about how you might do this as a way to clean up and get your head straight before you go through a hiring process.

We have probably made every mistake in the book when it comes to hiring and have learned a lot over the last few years as we have expanded our team. We have come from every end of the spectrum when it comes to hiring a team – having a big team, a small team, no team, contractors, and everything in between!

Today's guest, Alyssa Bloom, has spent the last 10 years working for one of the biggest companies in the world, being a manager for virtual teams. She manages over 120 people and has an incredible background in management and people leadership. In this episode, we are talking about creating a sense of ownership in your community and culture in your business. We have always been open about our struggles as leaders of our internal teams. We have had challenges with motivation, delegation, and just making sure that our staff is happy and that they like what they are doing.

It has been something we have wanted to get better at ever since we hired our first VA. So, having someone we love and respect so much help us get organized and in shape was crucial, and we are sharing that process with you today, along with how you can replicate it. There are so many good takeaways that Alyssa shares. We hear how to get more organized, make good hires, and most importantly, how to create a sense of ownership within your team and have your staff be as happy as they can be.

Joining us on the show today is returning guest Ward Sandler, the co-founder and CEO of MemberSpace. Ward runs a SaaS company that enables entrepreneurs and organizations to turn any part of their website into members only with just a few clicks. But we are not talking only about MemberSpace in this conversation but a new way to integrate an amazing community to your membership or products using a tool called Circle. While Circle isn’t affiliated with MemberSpace, they work together perfectly — which we love! Ward breaks down the features of Circle and how you can add-on a community to make a great experience for your members and customers.

We did an episode on Patreon and Mighty Networks a while ago (Episode 468), and this is yet another option for those who want to move their community away from social media platforms such as Facebook groups. Ward gives his take on Patreon and Mighty Networks, explaining how the pricing and features differ from MemberSpace and Circle and why he is a huge fan of picking the best tools for every need and then making them fit together seamlessly. Listeners will also get plenty of advice for setting up MemberSpace and Circle and learn how it can transform their membership engagement. Be sure to try it and check it out at bossproject.com/memberspace!

We’re excited to talk about business in September and the fact we’ve been in business for five whole years! Honestly, it now feels like we were babies when we started this whole thing because looking back at old blog posts and videos we created in the early days – you can tell that a lot has changed. We have really aged – but we think in the way that fine wine does. Abagail used to have a perfectly smooth forehead when she got botox to alleviate her migraines, but now she embraces her age and is happy to have a few extra lines. It comes with the territory! Emylee, on the other hand, loves her potions and creams and whatever it takes to bring out her youthful side.

But in this episode, we talk about how our business has aged (along with us) and how we have found our groove, shifting from a do-er to a be-er mentality and enjoying much more calm than chaos. We share what we got up to in September, focusing on the live launch we did for Strategy Academy and how we have adjusted our approach to ads for the better. Tuning in, you will also hear us talk about the appropriate amount of planning, the strategy we implemented to make the next few months easy, and all our profit and expense numbers for September.

We know our listeners are super smart, and there are tons of cool things you do every day, so maybe the best thing you can do today is to outline your group course! We have been in the teaching space for a while now, and Boss Project has recently celebrated its fifth anniversary. Go us! Interestingly, even though we have taught tons of people over the years, we haven’t shared that much about what we put out into the world. We teach a lot about business and marketing, but we have not really gone into course development that much. This is mostly because this is not everyone’s primary job.

We have, however, noticed an influx of coaches, and actually, the majority of the people in the Creative Template Shop are coaches. While this is surprising, it is also really incredible because people are looking for connection and transformation, and they want someone to guide them in that process. Before we get started, we want to invite you to a party. All you need to do is open the Strategy Hour Podcast up in your favorite podcast app, give us five-star reviews only, and then share these screenshots on Instagram. You can win one of two great prizes, either a free copy of Trello for Business or a whole month free of the Creative Template Shop.

Most of us can use a little help with the tax and accounting side of our businesses and we have just the person to talk us through the important parts of this process! Back on the show is our friend Braden Drake, who runs Braden Drake Law, where he works with a handful of one on one clients to sort out their tax and legal issues. His mission is to help as many people get as much of their business on the right track and running smoothly! He believes strongly in treating yourself like the CEO you need to be and in this episode, he covers exactly what this looks like. Spoiler alert! Braden has just finished writing a book that is about to be published! It is called Unf*ck Your Biz and details the service that Braden provides for his clients.

Braden does an amazing job of unpacking the framework of the book for us and shares the initial steps in tackling the biggest and most common mistakes he comes across. He talks about the 'oh shit cycle' that business owners get into with their taxes, how to know you are in this, and how to go about getting out! Braden shares many of our biz philosophies, striving to help you become profitable, paying yourself, and paying your taxes. We know tax can sound a bit boring but Braden is amazing at making it fun and lighthearted, so make sure to stay tuned as we get into some strategy!

Can you believe it’s already time for another profit report? Literally, before we hopped on to record this show we were like what happened last month, what month was even last month? We couldn’t have told you! There has been a lot going on, and it’s not so much business – it’s like, life is crazy right now and we are keeping it together but hanging on by a thread. It’s a lot!

But August went so well despite what typically happens, which is sometimes a hot mess. And we definitely want to get into all the data around that, but one thing we did, as most of you would have, was throw out our 2020 plan. We didn’t even have one and just have been taking every month at a time. We expected we would have a dip in August, and then when we got on here, we were like, ‘Oh my gosh.’

Today on the show we have Rachel Proctor, an author, speaker, and second-generation entrepreneur who helps people turn ideas into successful online businesses. She is a self-proclaimed market research junkie, she’s hit seven figures, and she knows what she’s doing, having built a versatile and trusted learning resource hub for aspiring and successful business owners. In this episode, we get into Rachel’s belief and strategy that there is no better time to start a business than right now, even in a crazy 2020, even with less time – now is still the opportune moment! She explains why she believes that and dishes out tangible steps to figure out what to offer, how to find out what you’re good at, how to find people to pay you, perfect your process, grow, and everything in between. So, for those of you who had an idea and dropped it once the pandemic hit or are just ready to take the leap but don’t know where to start, tune in to learn more!

Today on the podcast we are joined by our wonderful friend and all round badass, Sarah Peck. Sarah is the founder of Startup Parent, a New York City based company dedicated to documenting women’s leadership. She is a writer, yoga teacher and hosts Startup Parent’s weekly podcast too! Her goal is to amplify women’s voices and promote their business through her work and she definitely has one of our favorite brains in the game! We share a lot of her business philosophy and will be using this episode to geek out on some strategies for listening to your audience as a way to help grow your product or service.

This super under-utilized and somewhat simple strategy can help you and your biz so much! By paying closer attention to your audience, you can really improve what you offer and make the direct connection between those paying you and what you provide for them. Quite a straightforward equation, right? This is the second time Sarah is joining us on the Strategy Hour and if you haven’t heard her previous appearance, go back and check it out immediately! It’s Episode 185. Today’s episode’s topic was sparked by a conversation a few days prior where we were chatting to Sarah about business philosophies and implementation. We really believe in these ideas and they are so in line with our core values that we could not resist having her on to talk all about it! So stayed tuned to hear it all.

Today on The Strategy Hour we’re diving deeper into what exactly we mean when we say that it should be easy and fun to make $100k from your service based business, within a year. There’s a misconception that money cannot be earned without really hard work, and to an extent this is true, especially for certain types of businesses. But you also have to be smart about it! Just to reiterate, when we say it’s easy to make six figures, we are talking about offering services like copywriting, designing and photography. And this is by doing the basic work only, aside from all the other side offerings like podcasts and training courses.

In fact, you should keep it as simple as possible, focusing on doing one thing really well instead of doing a bunch of different things. These other ideas are not bad, but until you’ve done the one thing properly, you won’t enjoy its full benefits. We’re also guilty of this and we’ve seen many of our mentees battling with the same thing. Today we’re breaking this down in a way we hope will help you not to fall into the trap of believing that diversifying will necessarily expand your business and make you more money. Today we’re busting the myth that the single solid service you’re offering will not get you to your financial goals, and we’re going to show you it is totally possible to achieve your goals by sticking to the basics.

Let’s get into our July 2020 profit report! This year has just been super satisfying. Around fall last year we had decided and declared out loud to you that we were on this mission to get to 30% recurring profit each month, and at the time it felt like climbing a mountain. We were just really struggling and had spent all this time and money trying to figure out who makes up our team, what our products are, and how we are selling them, but something about this year just really clicked for us!

We started sharing our profit reports last fall with this goal to hold ourselves accountable. We know you guys like to hear behind the scenes. We also restructured how we did our profit reports. We don’t do it like how a lot of others do it where we don’t share our actual numbers – not that we don’t want to, but we honestly think they are distracting and put you in a space of ‘comparisonitis’, and no-one needs to suffer from that. So we wanted to showcase more of the percentages, breakdowns of our expenses, our profits, and just big picture decisions that we make every month in order to reach our goals.

At the end of the day, the dollars are not what matter. We want you to see profit – more income in your business. Revenue is fancy. Revenue feels sexy. Revenue does not give you the lifestyle you want though. If you’re not keeping any of that revenue, then it is irrelevant. So we want to help you keep more revenue, that is make more profit so you can increase how much you’re getting paid and also just save for crazy times! So today, we are excited to talk about our June 2020 profit report.

Today on the podcast we have Jamie King, the owner of Flex & Flow PDX (originally Fit Approach) joining us! Together with her cousin/business partner, she has built a successful online fitness community, but that’s not what we are talking about today. Nope, we discuss company culture, how to establish it based on who you are as a human being, integrating it into your business, and how you can maintain it even when you have a virtual team.

We also talk about the evolution of our company culture and what our business values are. We have often alluded to company culture in our conversations, but since it is something that seems abstract and isn’t necessarily featured on the everyday to-do-list, we tend to easily forget about it. For a long time, we let our company culture be what it was and watched the evolution of it over the years, but now we are trying to give it more direction. We aim to cultivate a relaxed, easy-going culture that promotes independence and functions on a trust basis. But company culture does not happen overnight either; it develops when you show up consistently over time. At the same time, company culture is in everything you do: every social media post, every graphic, every email you send out—so be mindful about it. We had such a great conversation with Jamie today, so be sure to listen in!

Hey, friends! Today we are super excited to bring you another Boss Project profit report. As you may know, we love sharing all of the behind-the-scenes data about what worked, what didn’t work, and how everything got split up within May of this year. In this episode, you’ll get a little peek behind the curtain of our business, comparing last year to this year, and asking the hard questions for you to consider in your own business.

Before we dive in, we want to know: are you joining our podcast party? Because if you haven’t yet, now is the time! It is super easy to be a part of it. All you have to do is make sure that you are subscribed to the podcast, take a screenshot of the show, and share it over on your social media to be entered to win our monthly contest. Plus, make sure to leave a rating and review! As part of the perks of winning, you get to choose your prize: either a free copy of Trello for Business or one month free to the Creative Template Shop.