Parker Stevenson is a great friend of ours and someone we love and respect a lot! He has done so much for us and our business in the years that we have been working together with Parker handling all of our bookkeeping. He has already been on the podcast a bunch of times and today he is back to talk about the all-important topic of launching! We get into cash-flowing a launch, how to know when you are ready or not ready, questions and preparation and how to pay yourself when it's all done. So basically we cover all the things you might be thinking about and what better person to ask than a bookkeeper.

Parker is all about helping his clients remain profitable and this conversation will get you into a great headspace for possible launches in the future. We offer tons of free resources in the second half of the show so be sure to stick around for those and Parker gives the inside scoop on many business and how he has seen launches evolve. In his work, he has helped countless small businesses that apply to so much of our audience. So for all that and a whole more on getting your next launch off the ground and into the air, join us as we talk strategy!

Today on the show we welcome Justine Nelson, founder of Debt Free Millennials. Justine is on a mission to advocate for a debt-free lifestyle, and today you will learn how this is relevant for your business and how it can fuel your personal financial goals. By the age of 25, Justine Nelson had paid off $35,000 in student loan debt making an average of $37,000 per year. Grit, discipline and a motivation to kick debt's ass for good helped her achieve this goal within two and a half years.

In this episode, we talk about leveraging your side hustle to pay off debt or save for that dream vacation, Justine’s go-to worksheets and business books, and a list of things you can do each month to ensure that you stay on track with your goals. We also talk about bookkeeping systems, budgeting, planning for annual subscriptions, and setting measurable goals. Now that 2020 is in full swing, why not tune in to this episode and learn how to get your debt and savings dealt with? 

Can you believe it? The year 2019 is over and we’re starting 2020 in just a few hours! We’re talking about our New Year’s Eve plans and how Emylee is going to navigate a house full of party people – thanks to marrying a frat guy who has a million friends! But speaking about plans to enter the new year on a high note, today we share with you our biggest lessons from 2019 and how they should impact your (and our) strategies for 2020. Tricky situations are unavoidable, and we offer you some solid advice for mitigating their potentially negative effects. 

As business owners, we are required to keep learning and developing all the time – otherwise, we simply won’t be able to keep up and we’d never reach our full potential. There are logistics and technicalities you must deal with at some point, whether it’s your thing or not, because entrepreneurs and business owners need to fulfill a multitude of roles and responsibilities. We reckon you can give yourself a pat on the back for what you have achieved in your business this year. It’s not easy, and it takes a lot of grit. Join us for this last episode of 2019 to hear more about break-even points, short-term sacrifices, distractions, and a whole lot more! 

Welcome to the November profit report! All businesses experience ups and downs – we do too – and sometimes what at first seems like a minor thing turns out to have a big impact on profitability. You all know by now that we’re all about profit here at Boss Project and we’ve spent too much time focused on the top line that we missed many of the intricacies going on in the background of our business. We’ve been showing you how to stabilize your profit and our own goal is to get to that 30% mark, but we also understand that there are many moving parts – things that are beyond our control – that ultimately determine your profit. For starters, it’s imperative for you to know exactly what comes in and goes out of your business every single month and to be truly aware: you can’t fix something if you didn’t know it was broken! Three factors impacted us negatively in November, two of them were actually preventable, but now we know and we won’t make those same mistakes again. 

When we talk about being aware, you have to know your awareness not only drives your decision-making, but it makes you alter your focus on the flip side. It’s not necessarily that you need to decrease your costs, but it’s about looking carefully at what the root problem is. Something might even seem like an issue when it really isn’t. That’s why you never make decisions on a whim: decisions should be made after digging deeper to find the underlying problem. When you have this kind of information, you might look at your results differently. Join us again today as we take you through the highs and lows of November 2019! 

So Emylee has been following a new Instagram account and just wanted to share some of the amazing data that she has been geeking out over for the last while! We have selected four specific posts that she found thought-provoking and worth talking about and will be unpacking what they are about and what we can learn from them. The account is called Chartr Daily and they post charts and graphs that represent interesting statistics and facts from the business world. They often add some commentary and discussion in the description, as well as having a newsletter with more detailed information. 

Here at the Strategy Hour, we love looking at charts! They might be slightly more difficult to make but that does not mean we cannot appreciate and enjoy what they are communicating! The four charts we have selected to discuss in today's episode are especially applicable to us, our industry and the conversations we have been having on this podcast, so head over to have a look at the posts and let's get into some strategy!

Ya’ll know we’re on a mission to turn you into a full-time creative entrepreneur who earns a sustainable income from your passion. Because we’ve been on this journey ourselves for the past four years and have helped thousands of people through it, we have seen and heard most, if not all, of the mistakes in the book. While we’ve spoken a great deal about getting your perfectionist or overachieving mindset right, that alone won’t help you to succeed. On a practical level, you need to stop making crucial mistakes, including focusing too heavily on the appearance of your brand, thinking that your audience is a bunch of strangers and convincing yourself that gadgets and systems will get you to where you want to be. Today we unpack each of these common mistakes, so get your notebook and listen up! 

Today on The Strategy Hour we are so happy to be joined by our friend Jill Stanton! Jill is the co-founder of Screw the 9 to 5, where she helps ambitious entrepreneurs quit their day jobs and live out their business dreams. They also have a very popular podcast and through all this work has inspired tens of thousands of people to build thriving businesses and live lives full of meaning and purpose. You can see why we love Jill! This is such a fun conversation, in which we focus on what it means to hire for growth instead of filling spaces. There is a big difference between building a team that actually helps you make more money and just getting bigger. It is such an opportune time to talk to Jill about this as she and her husband have just implemented these changes themselves within the last year! So the results are not all in yet, but it is looking good so far.

No matter how big or small your business is, this episode has lessons for you, many of which can be implemented from day one in order to set yourself up for success. As many of you will have noticed we are getting into the habit of emphasizing profit above all else and this is something we have in common with Jill! We are just so excited to have someone with this much experience in the online business world to share their genius with you. We have so much respect for Jill and Screw the 9 to 5 as she has learned so many lessons and we can all be really grateful that she is here to share these us!

It’s time for another profit report! These are not an excuse to talk about our business – we truly want to arm you with helpful information that you can apply to your business as a full-time creative entrepreneur. Ups and downs are a natural part of any business, so we want to give you a glimpse into our month-to-month profit not so that you might compare your business to ours, but learn from our mistakes and find your own rhythm. We aim for a 30% profit and share what all our expenses are each month and the different sources of income over that period so you get all the details. Today you’ll learn what profit means to us, how our summit sales performed, why you must get hooked up with sponsors, the ins and outs of payment plans, and more! 

We cannot believe we are about to enter into a new decade! It's crazy but it's true, so get ready! This is a bit of an unplanned episode, which is what makes it special. We want to take this chance to share our planning around the new year with all of you, and exactly what we are thinking about accomplishing for our business in 2020. 

This chat will be the build-up to our end of year meetings around wrapping up and looking ahead. Just think of it as an unofficial look inside our minds as we close out another year at Boss Project and The Strategy Hour! So many businesses do not make it past the fifth year and we do not aim to add to this statistic! So feel free to drop in and eavesdrop on a typical meeting between us as we voice our thoughts and ideas going into the last part of 2019!