This is the second hottest take of a conversation we’ve ever had publicly! We are so passionate about this topic, and we really want to pass on this valuable information to you because we deeply care about you and your team! When the mistakes that we are going to talk about today are made, we know that it’s coming from the best of places, but because the future of your company is at stake, and because we care about that, we really hope you’re going to listen to this episode!

The fact of the matter is that you are most likely drastically overpaying your staff. We so often see owners hardly taking a salary for themselves, but then paying their staff six figure salaries. We also see people hiring super cheap labor. There is so much wrong with both of these phenomenons, but the good news is that there is another option!

When we first decided to take a workcation, there was no way of knowing just how beneficial it would be. We have always added in times to do planning sessions and pin down what we want, but what we have learned is that creating a dedicated time to make sure it happens is so, so important. The only way for our business to move forward in the past was for us to hop on the phone with one another, and brainstorm ideas. But as our roles have shifted, this hasn’t happened as often. That’s why we’ve carved out CEO time on our to-do list, to help us have the correct focus.

We’ve all spent so many years working for businesses that are not structured well, not managed well, and that took all the lessons we didn’t like and implemented them in the workplace. This is the extreme opposite of many of our efforts to create flexible environments that take into account all of our humanity. But what we’ve found is that the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Not having boundaries or expectations doesn’t help anyone either!

To us, knowing that we had the time to think and brainstorm without boundaries, but also adding boundaries to make the follow-through inevitable, was everything! It’s so important to add enough momentum to make sure that you achieve what you’re hoping to achieve. When you take incremental steps, it doesn’t feel like you’re eating the whole pie at once! Our main takeaways from the experience were that there’s a difference between the conversations that are had within leadership and team meetings, and within the room where it’s just you and your business partner. It’s so important that this happens periodically for the good of the business. That’s the high-level stuff that moves everything forward. If you’re not ahead of your people, they’re not going to know where to go.

A year is a long time, and you forget some things that happened throughout the year. We consistently overestimate what we can accomplish in a short period of time, and dramatically underestimate what we can achieve in a long period of time. A lot can happen in a year! We’re taking a walk down memory lane to discuss the things that have happened throughout the year!

While we feel mostly like the same people, we’re coming from a different starting point at the end of 2021 than at the beginning. There’s some irony to the decisions we made this year. This year, we decided not to grow, but to maintain the business that we had. We needed a breather. Despite that being true, we grew topline revenue by nearly 20%. The lesson? We don’t give rest the credit it deserves! That period of rest was a lot more significant than we give it credit for and it prepared us for easily the busiest year we’ve ever had.

This week on the Strategy Hour podcast, we discuss how to create benefits that will attract top talent while also allowing your company to thrive. Running your business can often put you in situations where you have to compromise, but that doesn’t mean those compromises have to be permanent. Once you reach the point where you can take on new staff, you can begin to ask yourself what benefits you can offer versus what you want to offer. It won’t happen overnight, but setting out goals that build towards your vision for your company can be incredibly motivating!

Hiring new staff can come with a series of unanticipated costs outside of their salaries, like taxes and opening new 401K plans. While it may seem overwhelming at first, a little planning goes a long way. We’ve benefited greatly from having expert consultants advise us on how to take on new hires, from accountants to help us with cash flow, to HR’s advice on how to structure maternity leave and healthcare benefits. It’s been incredibly exciting entering this stage of our business, where we can grow our work community and set goals for how we can support our employees in every aspect of their lives! We fully believe that you are so much more than your job and your career, and we want to support all those elements from family, to friends, to health and alternative medicine.

Today, we’re talking about what it is like to start to view your business through a new lens, specifically the new lens that we’ve been looking at our business through; the hybrid. What is a hybrid business model and how does it infiltrate into all the areas of our business that we’re running? Our hybrid thought process is something that has shifted how we view our business, from looking at each piece separately to understanding it as a coherent whole. A lot of this new thinking centers around our approach to hiring people and managing their roles, as well as our own roles, in our business.

As you guys know, when we learn or uncover something we like to immediately turn around and workshop it here on the podcast because it helps us wrap our brains around it. We are by no means at the point where we have a complete understanding of what our hybrid business model means, we’re still at the early stages of discovery. It’s important for you to have context so you need to hear a bit of the background and how a late-night moment allowed us to open our eyes to the value of a hybrid model. So, join us on the journey!

In this week’s episode, we take a look at the role of the integrator in online businesses. We discuss how the role has come about, what exactly it entails, and how hiring the wrong integrator places your business in jeopardy. While the role has gained significant traction in the last few years as a necessary step for any expanding online business, there are also some serious pitfalls that need to be considered!

Today on the podcast, please join us in welcoming Megan Hale. Megan is a Profit First® certified business strategist and money mentor for freedom-driven entrepreneurs who are ready to step into #feelgoodmoney and create sustainable, aligned business growth. With a special emphasis on empowering women-identifying entrepreneurs into their next level of growth, she regularly podcasts on the intersections of business, money, psychology, and leadership with a focus on leveraging entrepreneurship to build a more equitable world.

Speaking of making the world a better place, this episode is all about giving back! Listen in as Megan outlines how to build giving into your future, and not only how you can integrate it into your business but how to do it sustainably too. During the course of this conversation, you’ll find out how you can grow your business through giving back, if that is in alignment with your business goals, of course. Megan breaks down what a sustainable percentage is, how you can logistically set that up within your finances, and how to find causes to give to, as well as her suggestions for some important questions to ask yourself along the way.

For everything you’ve ever wanted to know about having an even bigger impact within your business and giving back, make sure not to miss this thoughtful and inspiring episode!