Today on the show we are so happy to welcome the combined force behind the The Product Boss Podcast, Jacqueline and Minna! Through their show, they teach business owners how to grow product-based businesses with strategies and a strong community. Each of them have their own business as well and have taken their personal work into their joint venture, offering their expertise as a great service to other creatives out there!

Today's talk is all about taking your products further and the idea of going deeper instead of wider. Although Jacqueline and Minna mainly focus on product-based business, these strategies can be applied to whatever you are working on with the basic idea being to make more of the customers you already have rather than going to find new customers from scratch. So let's dive in and hear what they have to say!

Today on The Strategy Hour we’re diving deeper into what exactly we mean when we say that is 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 that 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. Whether you’re thinking of adding on products or offering more services, you think that the single solid service you’re offering will not get you to your financial goals. Today we’re busting that myth, and we’re going to show you have it is totally possible to achieve your goals by sticking to the basics.   

Hey, everyone! Welcome to another episode of the Strategy Hour Podcast. Today's show is dedicated to chatting about all the latest things we are addicted to, the things we are digging and what we are into right now! Sound exciting? We hope so! Luckily for all of you, most of these things are all things you can buy, so you can use this as a fantasy shopping list if you so please, no one is stopping you!

So basically, in this episode we are going to chat about stuff today; stuff that helps you get one step closer to your own personal success. Take your cues from us! We have scoured our lives to find what is making them better and are bringing them to you. We are talking the last six or so months in gadgets, ideas, aids and plans. And believe us, there is no shortage of it! So without further ado, let's get to the list!

Here at Boss Project we remember being young in the game; it was not that long ago! It is easy to look around and feel frustrated at everyone else's success, the success you are so badly lusting after. We usually try and figure out what our heroes are doing and how we can mimic it to get to where they are. Something that flipped this whole dynamic for us was the idea that you should never be comparing your beginnings to someone else's middle. This sentence stuck with us for a long time and helped us to take down our guard and look backwards to where other people started instead of where they are now.

Try this with us; think about a popular business or business person that you admire, one that makes you think, 'Damn! I want a piece of that!' If you want a business like theirs or something similar, the chances are you keep them in mind pretty often. Now believe us when we tell you that almost all of them started with services! That's why we have launched our new program this week! It is called Start with Services and it is the bomb! We know that for most of you, the biggest hurdle is not that you have nothing to sell or no great ideas, but rather that you need more leads and buyers. We teach the exact methods for these things. We want you to be able to go to your inbox and find new and interesting leads there every morning! Wouldn't that be great? So we made this program just for you to get there. Let's start this journey together!

Hey everybody and welcome to a really, really epic episode! We are so excited to share some amazing stuff with all of you today, we can barely control ourselves! Okay, so we have a brand new program that we are launching and it is probably the best thing that has ever existed, anywhere, at any time. It is called the Start with Services Program and we are going to be digging into all its great benefits and telling you exactly why you should be signing up yesterday. We do not say this lightly, you could just go straight over the website and sign up immediately, it's that good! So if you are interested in getting booked out in your business, which you obviously are, look no further!

The thing that we have noticed is that most of you have amazing services, that is definitely not the problem. You have skills, ideas and all the rest in bucket loads. You know your craft and we would never claim to be able to teach you that side of things any better. We just want you to have more opportunities to share these gifts with more people and more clients. That's where the program comes in, it will guarantee and we mean guarantee, you more leads. In fact you will most probably have more leads than you will know what to do with, so what are you waiting for?

Last time we shared a lot about our personal journey and the mishaps we had. Everybody makes mistakes, but we hope to learn as we go. So today we’re talking about the things that you might be getting wrong in trying to scale your service based business. Regardless of where you are in the process, these mistakes can be made at any and every level. So the episode today is going to involve a conversation that no one else is talking about. You might have incorporated some of the most popular strategies with the hope of landing more clients but have discovered that they are ineffective.

Trust us when we say we’ve tried and tested every trick in the book! Sometimes the problem is that we are aligning the wrong goal with the strategy. Other times, we try something just because everyone else is doing it and it seems to be appropriate for the service we offer. We are bombarded with information about how we should run our businesses, and sometimes this just clouds our judgment and overcomplicates everything. Get ready to find out how to fix these bugs with some practical examples from our own experience, so be sure to tune in for this episode!

Welcome back to the show everyone, today we are giving you the scoop on the lessons we have learned from our failed businesses from the past and talking about how much you should lean into your dreams. We start businesses for a number of reasons, maybe you were laid off, want your own identity back, can't find another job, hate your current job, whatever it is, it is valid! So when we start something we usually tell ourselves a story of why we are starting it, we might want to be our own boss, make more money or any other of a plethora of reasons. The problem is that our strategies often do not match this initial motivations and we can find ourselves in our 'dream job', but also in a nightmare arrangement!

In our experience, this is the number one cause of burnout and panic attacks. If you do not allow yourself the space and grace to live the life you wanted when you set out on this journey, you might find yourself hating your biz more than any other thing you have done. Why would you want that? Some of us make big sacrifices in the beginning, telling ourselves that we will get to where we need to be one day and that this discomfort is only temporary. This usually lasts a long time and the hole only gets deeper, so do not dig yourself into it in the beginning! Why not guarantee your business and lifestyle of your dreams from the start? Take control and make the life you want, you do not need anyone's permission for that!

Ready for our drop-the-mic statement? Service-based peeps listen up: You already know your next client, and guess where she is not? Online. In this episode we are sharing with you the secret double whammy referral engine that service-based owners can use right now, today, to get booked out within thirty days. This exact method can be used to get a constant stream of referrals who pay quickly and who are a dream to serve.

Today we are unwrapping the secrets of a super effective referral engine for service-based businesses and we’re coming at it from two, no three, different angles, starting with that first important connection and going onto how existing clients can be leveraged to gain even more quality leads. But before you think you’ve heard it all before, we are not giving you the same old tips and tricks, we’re dishing out hot off the press information, things that very few people have heard of. If you have ever worried about where your next client is going to come from, grab a notebook and a yummy cup of something, because this episode is going to knock your socks off!

Hey everybody and welcome back to The Strategy Hour Podcast! Today we are joined by Kimberly Crossland who is the former founder, owner, and operator of Savvy Copywriters, a communication and digital marketing agency based in Tucson, Arizona. However, she has now transitioned into a role as Content and Marketing Manager at Rocket Source and she is going to be talking to us all about this transition and how she went from a business owner to working directly and solely for one client. You might recall that this is the second conversation we are having of this type but today we are offering a slightly different perspective on the idea. We will be talking work-life balance, mental time and space, motherhood and creativity.

This episode will hopefully show you a way that you can trim the fat off your work, if that is something you have been considering, and this roadmap might be just the inspiration you need to keep moving forward. This conversation is applicable to both service and product based businesses and from Kimberly’s specific journey, many applicable lessons can be extrapolated. These types of ideas definitely seem to be popping up more and more since we did our first episode on the subject and the online biz community is increasingly interested in scaling back and working more directly and with more focus. We hope you enjoy!

Yes, you read that heading right! We feel like one of our dreams came true recently. We have been dying for physical products for God knows how long. Well, instead of developing our own products, which will probably happen at some point in the future, this feels like a major stepping stone in the right direction for us. We’re SUPER excited to announce it and we can’t wait to tell you all about it.

We officially have our own online shop! You can literally go buy anything from there. It’s curated to have our most favorite items from the most important categories in our lives and it’s hosted on your favorite platform ever! If you want to screw this whole episode and rather go shop, you can — we won’t hold it against you! However, if you want to know more about it, listen up first and then you can go shop til you drop!

Today on the show we welcome Monica Woodhams. Monica is a success coach & lifestyle expert with over half a decade of experience in the blogging industry. She assists influencers and creative entrepreneurs in conquering the work-life balance needed for success and is also the host of the Influencer Lifestyle Podcast. Today we speak with Monica about about health and success and how the two go hand in hand. As business owners, and especially as women business owners, we have a tendency to want to accomplish great things. Taking care of yourself, mentally and physically, is not something that you can just check off your list and it’s done. It is an ongoing practice and because of this, we tend not to prioritize it because the benefits are not immediate.

We want to see the clients coming in, the money coming in and your health is not necessarily a tangible accomplishment within your business. In your business, you are proactive about so many things, so why are you not proactive about your personal life and personal health? In this episode, Monica shares with us the benefits of slowing down and how taking care of yourself leads to added self-worth and added confidence in your business. Monica gives us four tangible steps to taking better care of ourselves and how to turn personal care into a habit. In this fast-paced world with burnouts and breakdowns around the bend, there is no better time to look after yourself so that you can in turn, look after your business and those around you.

We’re back for part three of the Beginner Business Series! First off, the response has been great and we just want to thank you for your comments on Facebook and Instagram – we love hearing from you! Keep using the hashtag #bbs. It helps us keep track of your questions, concerns, comments and feedback. If you’re just joining us now and don’t know what the hell this is, we’d advise you pause right now and go back to part one and part two and then dive into this one. So, let’s go!

In this episode, we are going to do a quick recap of where you should be at and make sure that you’re ready to tackle part three – setting up shop. Websites are where we see so many people get stuck. Often, they get so obsessed with perfecting it and hold themselves back from actually doing what their business is supposed to be doing – which is making money, honey! Sound like you? In this part three episode, we’re going to be tackling this challenge with you step by step. We’ll be focusing on the four core pages that get people from landing page to checkout, feeling confident in their purchase and believing that you are their superhero. We’re going to help you put the most relevant information on these pages and show you just how easy it really is.  

Welcome to the second part of our Beginner Business Series! If you have not checked out the first episode in this series, we highly recommend you do before listening to this golden egg! So now that you are up to date, let’s get down to it. Today, we are going to be talking about packaging and pricing your offer. This goes for selling products or services and we will be dealing with specifics as well as general rules during this discussion. You can post in the Think Creative Group with the hashtag bbs, that’s #bbs, so we can get to your questions and feedback easily and serve you even better.

In the first episode, we got you to look at what you should be selling by gauging your skills and interests. In this episode, we are asking you to make this final decision from the ideas of last time and dive in with that choice. This choice does not have to be forever, but you do need some commitment. The talk includes looking at motivators for buying, what might be holding sales back, good ideas to jumpstart sales, trusting yourself and your business and how all of this and more ties into a successful business. So without any more ceremony, let’s get into the episode. Join us as we help you with you beginner business!

Today, we are tackling a concept and question that we get asked ALL THE TIME. Specifically, we are going to answer it around the framework of The Strategy Academy because in case you haven’t been paying attention, the doors are opening again soon and we are pretty freaking pumped about it. But, regardless of whether you are considering The Strategy Academy or any other program, or you’ve asked this question from us in the past, maybe this kind of walkthrough, mindset or framework will help you answer this question next time it pops up for you. The question we get asked all the time is, “Ok, but who is this program perfect for? What type of person is this program for; someone who is just starting out or someone who has been in business and needs to up a level?”

It’s one of those questions we have always had a hard time answering. We have always felt like we need to box ourselves in but it turns out that we kinda gave the middle finger to that rule and did what we wanted to anyways. This program isn’t just for someone brand new in business. It isn’t just for someone who is ready to move up a level and take things seriously. It isn’t just for someone who is not profitable yet. It isn’t just for someone who is profitable. It’s for all of those people — for different reasons. Today, we are diving into the why, the how and the benefit of why opening it up to so many different people has created a community in which all these different types of people thrive. So, keep listening to hear more!

We are super excited to bring you our friend, Christy Laurence, who is the founder of Plann, a visual planner and scheduler app for Instagram. Plann is designed to help you create a follow worthy feed in advance as a great strategy for Instagram growth. A bunch of you probably already use this app and know and love it, so we are really excited today for her to share some of the ins and outs of her business.

Inside this episode, we are talking about what it is like to build an app, what did it cost, what are the startup expectations of working with a developer, and what kind of person it takes to actually do it. Christy also shares what you need to know before hiring someone, and where you should be putting your app — iOS, android, or both? We dive into how to get traction, how to create a marketing strategy, and the whole nine yards. Plus, we even get a little behind-the-scenes story of why Christy started Plann in the first place. You’re going to learn a lot inside this episode, so get excited to dive right in.