It is officially Christmas in July here at Boss Project! In case you haven’t heard, we are in the midst of our wildly popular 5 Days to Launch Challenge, which has helped over 10,000 business owners get their products, offers, and big dream ideas out into the world. If you are listening to this and you haven’t signed up yet, head on over to 5daystolaunchchallenge.com to sign up for this completely free program RIGHT NOW! Diving into today’s episode, we share the seven things you need to know and think about in order to take full advantage of this challenge. We know that any time and energy you give us this week is precious, which is why we want to help you make the most of it.

This program is specifically designed to move you and your business forward by identifying your most viable offer, packaging and selling it, and creating a WOW! experience for your customers, as well as walking you through your marketing game plan and, of course, the launch itself. In this episode, we cover how selfishness is the thing that will keep you motivated, why you need a Tinder-level offer right now, and the best way to use people in order to land more dreamy clients, plus a whole lot more! Tune in to find out everything you need to know to fully benefit from this powerful opportunity to get yourself out there and get started today!

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 businesses 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 lot more on getting your next launch off the ground and into the air, join us as we talk strategy!

In this episode, we share some of the surprising influencers in your business that could be distracting you from making CEO decisions, how to execute based on where you want to be versus where you are today, and when to shift from finite thinking to future-focused thinking. We also highlight the importance of trusting your intuition, not letting your goals hold you back, and taking your future into your own hands, so make sure to tune in today!

Today on the show we welcome Shunta Grant, an incredible soul who helps women live lives with intention. Through her company, Best Today, Shunta equips women with resources to be both proactive and intentional with their time. Shunta begins with time because it is the container that holds our days in our lives. She also offers a Best Today Guide, which is a 14-week undated guide that helps women plan their days with intention through her signature process, The Right Now Routine, which is what we are talking about today — how to create realistic routines that last.

We are super excited to break down this conversation for you today, while Abagail shares her journey of going through the program and how it deeply impacted her life, and the examples of how she has used it. Then Emylee shares about the program and why she has avoided going through it because of her misconceptions about routine and what it might mean for her in her day. Shunta does a really amazing job breaking down those hesitations and how routines can still work for creatives, for neurodivergents, and for people who don’t want a lot of structure in their day. We know you will get a lot of great ideas from this episode, so stick to the very end to find out more about all of Shunta’s amazing resources that you can dive into today to learn how to create a routine that’s perfect for you!

So, we just wrapped up the recording for our most popular webinar ever, Day Job to Dream Job. The discussion sparked some further conversations between us and some of our students about the whole ‘you can earn a full-time income without putting in full-time hours.’ We have the belief that you can do this from day one, and that it doesn't have to just be a financial milestone you reward yourself with. But the time and space freedom you get when you work for yourself looks different when you're just getting started versus when you are two years in, six years in, and even further in than that. So, today, we want to break down what we mean by that and dive into what we truly think is needed for the brain to rewire that thought process. We also give a sneak peek of what it looks like when you chase after free time, and how you choose to fill that free time. Because there are some of us who simply fill the free time we work so hard for with just more work!

If you have been listening to us for a minute, you will have heard us alluding to the fact that we are headed toward a growth phase of our business and our lives. We were having a conversation the other day about why we are ready for this now versus when we weren't, what's different, and what we think we need to shift in order to do it. One of the things that came up is that we realized that we had perfected delegating tasks in our business that stabilize it, make it do the thing that it's meant to be doing, and not let it slip back and fall.

On the flip side, what we haven't done and what we don't know how to do yet is delegate, hire for, plan and help other people grow the business. So, we talked about this the other day, when just a couple of years ago, if one of us was out of the office, there would be a direct impact on our sales because there would be less posting on social media and less content creation, which means we would have to plan and account for that. We grew out of that phase, so now one of us can head off for a week, and it does not impact our sales at all! This is fantastic, but the next phase for us is about more than just being able to go on vacation and see the business grow; it's about not having to be one of the two brains that contribute to the growth.

Today we are going to talk about doing #allthethings, or rather, not doing them. We know a lot of you have so many things on your plate and are really struggling with what to let go of. You are feeling married to every department that you are the head of, and not really seeing or understanding how you could give up any of those things. So with that in mind, we want to holler at you in the way that we do best and permit you and help you let go of some stuff if you have been trudging along in your workspace, your day, and your business.

We used to be the people who didn’t only not want to pay to give up things but also were super intimidated and concerned with delegation. It has been something we have had to work hard to do because we used to be aware of everything that happens in our business and we were at the point where if we didn’t let go of some of it, we were going to slow down the business. So we have had some life experience in this department and hope you can take away some of the lessons we have learned and apply them in your own life and business after this episode!

In today’s episode, we welcome Rachel Rodgers, a woman of color, mother of four, and seven-figure business owner – in that order. Rachel started her career working on The Hill with nonprofits, federal judges, and Hillary Clinton. When she realized that changing the world is easier when you have some cash in your bank account, she decided to build a million-dollar business and then teach other women how to do the same. Her new book, We Should All Be Millionaires, from Harper’s Leadership is out now! (as of release, not recording)

For this show, we break down our favorite parts of Rachel’s book, which not only addresses our ingrained mindsets around money issues but also provides activities you can do, from homework assignments to different mindset reframes to help you better your headspace, grow, and move forward, whether you have a business or you just want to be a literal millionaire!

Today on the show we have Dr. Lindsay Padilla, Founder of Hello Audio, a SaaS product that lets users easily create private audio feeds their customers can listen to anywhere, anytime! She has been building this SaaS product from the ground up. It has been fascinating to watch from the sidelines and we are excited for you guys to dive in. For the first half of this episode, Lindsay gives us a true, honest, behind-the-scenes look at everything it takes both mentally and logistically to build a software. Everything that she wanted to create from the hole she saw in the market of audio and how course creators can deliver amazing content to their students and how Lindsay could make that happen.

She talks about breaking down barriers in a male-dominated space, learning things in the tech space, raising money, deciding to bootstrap or not, and everything in between. And then at the end of the episode, we talk about what Hello Audio actually is and how you as a service-based business owner, online course creator, educator, could use this platform to better your customer experience and to add more value. You get a peek into the stuff that Abagail and Emylee have been thinking about doing in their business and ideas for what you can use in your own one to help you grow and create an amazing experience for the people you already have.

Today on our show, we have Ariel Kuhn, who started out as a photographer and has since grown her business to focus more on brand strategy, working with small business owners as they figure out how to grow online. She helps these businesses with everything from brand strategy to photography, copywriting, web design, and mentorship so they can take their business to the next level. Ariel has been around the Boss Project / TCC block for a while, and she is actually a current Strategy Academy student. She shares the evolution of her business, why she decided to invest in the program, the art of her pivot, what it means to her to feel good about what you’re doing in your business, and what to do with all the extra ideas you might have. We also discuss various things she has learned in the program that could help other small business owners who are in a similar position. So, if you have an existing business and have been stressing out about all of the brilliant ideas you have in your brain and what to do next, this episode will give you clarity.

Back in the day, we recorded an entire series on starting your business and one of the first subjects we talked about was adopting a profit-first mentality. Here’s the thing, we re-looked at that episode and have so many more things to say! The way we run our business has dramatically shifted in the last 12 months and because of that, we have so many things to say to people who are just getting started. Even if you have an established business, we have some thoughts about what you should be doing differently when it comes to your dollar bills.

We recorded that first episode about adopting a profit-first mentality in February of 2018 but we honestly didn’t really put our ideas into practice until 2020! It took two years for us to learn how to do that, so we are going to save you that time today. We are not saying that our first episode has no value, but now that we have actually been through the trenches, this is the episode you want!

Back in the day, we recorded an entire series on starting your business and one of the first subjects we talked about was adopting a profit-first mentality. Here’s the thing, we re-looked at that episode and have so many more things to say! The way we run our business has dramatically shifted in the last 12 months and because of that, we have so many things to say to people who are just getting started. Even if you have an established business, we have some thoughts about what you should be doing differently when it comes to your dollar bills.

We recorded that first episode about adopting a profit-first mentality in February of 2018 but we honestly didn’t really put our ideas into practice until 2020! It took two years for us to learn how to do that, so we are going to save you that time today. We are not saying that our first episode has no value, but now that we have actually been through the trenches, this is the episode you want!

Today, we have two of our good friends and product-based business gurus on the show. First up is Rachel Allene, who Abagail met years ago at a creative entrepreneur conference. They have stayed friends, and Abagail has watched her hand calligraphy business grow into what it is today. She makes all kinds of products that are not necessarily handmade but rather, hand-lettered. We're comparing and contrasting that with our other guest, Emylee's friend, Mia Graves. We are so excited to hear from her because we love the way her marketing and business brain works. She has two different business models because she makes polymer clay earrings and also sells cutters for polymer clay makers.

In this episode, we are breaking down a deliberate sellout, restock model strategy and the mentality behind it, why it works, why it's hard sometimes, who it's right for, and the pros and cons both for you as the maker and for the customer. We hear about the journeys Rachel and Mia have been on and the slight tweaks they have made to their selling mechanisms, strategies, and marketing in order to please more people and not go absolutely insane. This roundtable discussion will give you some really great insights into the product world. You have asked for more product-focused content, and this information is coming from two very smart women.

Today we get to talk about one of our favorite things — meetings the Traction way! While most people hate meetings, we are going to share a few things that might change your mind. Meetings are notorious for consuming a lot of time, often with little real progress, but we will present you with an outline that will make your every meeting from here on out a super productive, efficient one. We’ve spoken about the book Traction many times, but we want to remind you once more to go read it because this is where this outline and our guidelines around meetings come from.

Sometimes a meeting is not necessary and a Slack message or quick update will suffice, but other times having a meeting makes sense, and therefore it’s important to know how to approach them. Having a weekly meeting keeps all parties fully informed on decisions that were made, as it can be easy to think that everybody is in the loop when they’re not. If you are someone who has little patience for inefficiency and is always looking for the quickest, most productive ways to communicate and do things, this outline is perfect for you! This is as applicable to small teams as it is big ones, and don’t hesitate to ask your contractor to attend these meetings. Be sure to tune in to this episode to get the best strategy for efficient meetings!

Are you ready to plan the year ahead? It might be easier to do when you’ve had a great 2020 but, even then, you can plan to stick to the plan! We know we just want more of what we had but we are also keen to try new things too. In 2020, we found the sweet spot of being consistent and boring and realized that they are our middle names. We embrace them, we love them, and this is where we flourish and feel comfortable. While it’s not flashy or sexy and it doesn’t do dances on TikTok, we are 100% okay with that!

Not all of us dream of making seven figures. For some of us, our businesses are perfect the way they are when they work for us instead of us working for them. In other words, while you might not roll in the dough, if you are satisfied with what your business brings in and it supports you to the extent that it suits your lifestyle, who cares about the rest? It is worth remembering that you risk much more when you try to grow and scale your business aggressively, and many have closed their doors after pursuing exponential growth instead of keeping to the stable and consistent things. We would like to be around, no matter what happens in the world, and we believe that we can do that by doing more of the same-old same-old. This strategy will not get us on Oprah’s couch or anything spectacular like that, and we don’t have $10 million growth plans, but tune in to hear how we are planning to bring boring, stable, and consistent back!