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PODCAST

Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm is the New KPI

Can you build a business based on… “calm?” Host Susan Boles looks beyond the usual metrics of success to help you build a business where calm is the new KPI. With over 15 years of experience as an entrepreneur, CFO, and COO, Susan shares the business strategies that lead to a business with comfortable margins—financial, emotional, energetic, and scheduling margins. Join her and her guests as they counter the prevailing “wisdom” about business growth, productivity, and success to provide a framework

business entrepreneurship

All Episodes

46:49

When Your Business Needs A Project Manager With...

Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm... ·

2020/04/28

These days, we're all looking for a way to cut costs, shore up our foundations, and make our businesses just that little bit simpler. I was in a small group call the other day and one of the women on the call compared this moment in our businesses to when a jigsaw puzzle gets knocked to the floor, scattering pieces everywhere. The great thing is that we don’t have to pick all the pieces – we get to pick and choose.This might mean re-examining your business model or changing up your service

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48:06

Project Management Duel: Notion vs ClickUp with Marie...

Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm... ·

2020/04/21

Most businesses grow on the fly. We add software and processes and systems here and there – patching in tools “for now” because “it’ll do”. But “for now” almost always turns into “forever”. Because who wants to spend time picking out (and setting up) project management software when you could be out closing clients or delivering white-glove service? You probably picked your project management software based on a recommendation or because it’s something you’re “supposed” to have. Maybe you

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47:01

Client-Based Project Management With Execution Expert...

Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm... ·

2020/04/14

For a service business, every single task and touchpoint – from the initial contact to the final payment – should be considered as part of the project that needs to be managed.And you've got a lot of projects on your plate. Projects for clients, projects for your own business – there's always more stuff to do. That's the nature of running a business. When we talk about 'project management', we're usually talking about managing an individual project. But in a service business, project

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34:15

Cash Flow In A Crisis With Lauren Caselli

Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm... ·

2020/04/07

"Everything sucks at first, very few things suck forever.” – John GormanBeing an entrepreneur is a roller coaster.Some days you’re excited, some days you’re terrified, and every day there is something new – something you’re testing, improving or changing. For me, this is a reminder: When you're on that roller coaster it might a day when you're heading up and it might be a day when you’re heading down. Things are always changing and we don’t know what tomorrow might look like.We still don't

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51:35

Software As Service Metrics Applied To Small Business...

Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm... ·

2020/03/31

You don’t have to look like the other businesses in your industry to learn from them. In my work as a CFO, I've have had the privilege of looking behind the scenes of a lot of different companies in a lot of different industries. And what I've found is that most tend to look toward businesses that are similar to their own for ideas on how to operate.This is something that has always been my goal on this show – talking to service business owners about how they run their business in the hopes

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30:09

Using Data To Make Better Decisions About Your...

Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm... ·

2020/03/24

"If you can't measure it, you can't improve it."My guess is that you've probably heard some version of this Peter Drucker quote. It’s a widespread idea for good reason: it's true. Luckily, there are tons of ways to gather good data on your business and track the metrics that really matter. But having access to good data isn't the only hurdle to measuring growth.It’s the day-to-day realities of running a business that are most likely to get in our way.All this month we've been talking about

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37:24

Making Space To Grow Your Service Business With...

Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm... ·

2020/03/17

Are you creating space for growth in your business?You might be measuring every metric–collecting every piece of data and then turning it into a strategy for growth–but do you have the operational foundations to be able to handle growth? Does your team have the capacity to take on more work?In the last 2 episodes–episode 20, episode 21–I talked about two different approaches to collecting data about your business. I talked about the numbers and the nuances, and what to do with that

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36:19

There's More To Measure Than Numbers With Karyn Kelbaugh

Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm... ·

2020/03/10

It’s easy to get caught up in all the numbers you can track to measure growth.You might be measuring your time, your profit & loss, the number of new clients closed, or even profit per hour per client like we talked about in the last episode.But not all of the useful information in your business presents itself as a number. When it comes to measuring the more murky, squishy, qualitative information in your business, where do you even begin?There's a lot of information rolling around in

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34:23

Use This One Weird Metric To Measure Your Service...

Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm... ·

2020/03/03

Is there one metric you could track that would ensure the success of your business?A lot of startups would like to think so. Some call it the “One Metric That Matters,” or the “North Star Metric.”It’s basically the idea that you focus on measuring and improving one thing at a time. By focusing on a single thing, you can filter for decision making and ensure that the actions you're taking in your business are actions that will truly make an impact.The problem is that what you track has a

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40:43

How Your Pricing Choices Can Make You Happier With...

Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm... ·

2020/02/25

How you choose to price your services and accept payments is one of those business design choices that we don’t always make conscious choices about. But it is a choice that can have a profound impact on your business and how it feels to run it. It just simplifies everything: from your team composition to how you work to even what project management software you use.We’ve been talking this month about the operational benefits of value-based pricing and upfront payments, taking a close look

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42:12

Getting Paid Faster Using Practice Ignition With Tier...

Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm... ·

2020/02/18

Getting paid more for your work, up-front, and without the hassle of tracking your billable hours or issuing invoice after invoice sounds like a dream scenario.But how exactly do you make that happen?Luckily, like so many other aspects of making a service business more efficient: there’s an app for that!In our last few episodes, we’ve talked about some business design choices with pricing and payments. How switching to a value-based pricing model allows you to charge upfront. And being able

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34:46

Taking Payments In A Positive & Transparent Client...

Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm... ·

2020/02/11

Getting paid by clients is the #1 most important part of the workflow in a service business. If you don’t get paid, eventually, you won’t have a business. But how you go about getting paid – now that’s where some magic can really happen. In our last episode, we talked with Dana Kaye about transitioning from hourly to value-based pricing. The choice to make that switch to value-based pricing then allows you to the next logical step – making your client payments easier. Today, we’re going to

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53:28

Using Value-Based Pricing To Boost Profit With Dana Kaye

Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm... ·

2020/02/04

Switching from charging by the hour to a value-based or flat rate model can dramatically improve your workflow.Value-based pricing is a great way to boost profits and to keep your value separate from the hours you work. It allows you to charge your clients upfront, creating a business that is more efficient to run.Take the payment and go do the work. That's it. Most of the time, I'm not a big advocate of the whole “make one decision and it'll change your life and your business” idea, but

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43:59

Streamlining Done With You Services With Greg Hickman

Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm... ·

2020/01/28

Sometimes, when you get really specific about the one thing you do, client meetings become unnecessaryEven one-to-one services become unneeded when you've streamlined and productized your service.But how can you keep that high-touch, high-value feeling and still be ruthlessly streamlined behind the scenes?Today, we're talking about an evolution that moves almost completely away from client meetings altogether.My guest is Greg Hickman, the founder and CEO of System.ly. Greg and his team have

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43:20

How To Spend Less Time On Client Calls While Managing...

Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm... ·

2020/01/21

Monthly client meetings––they’re a requirement of service retainers.Or, are they?There's an expectation that if you're working with clients on retainer, in an ongoing, recurring way, that you have to have meetings––ya know, just to touch base.Conventional wisdom says that meetings should be included in the service because they seem to deliver inherent value. But meetings are a huge limitation when it comes to scaling a service business. There's only so much of you to go around. Is spending

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47:57

How Voxer Can Save You And Your Client Time With...

Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm... ·

2020/01/14

Client meetings can easily fill up your entire calendar–sucking away all of your available time. This time is a valuable asset and it is often the single most limiting factor to the growth of service-based businesses.So what if there was something you could do to reduce this time-suck?All this month on the show we are looking at alternatives–unique ways to communicate with clients and opt-out of meetings, email, and conventional communication methods.Today, we’re talking about using Voxer

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36:58

Faster Results In Fewer Meetings With Ashley Gartland...

Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm... ·

2020/01/07

I make no attempt at hiding my personal dislike of meetings. I’ve spent more time in meetings about meetings and meetings to prepare for other meetings than I can count. I’ve even suffered through long staff meetings where my boss literally just read printed out emails. I’ve truly felt the pain of being in meetings that could have just been an email. But are meetings really inevitable? All this month, I'm asking the question: does it really have to be a meeting?I am starting off by applying

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36:14

Productize Hands-On Services To Earn More & Stress...

Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm... ·

2019/12/31

Even a small, one-person business becomes more profitable and efficient with a solid, repeatable process. So what happens when we double down on process?In our last episode, I talked to Lacey Stites about how she does this in her agency using a revenue share model.Today, we hear how Jake Jorgovan takes a bit of a different approach and focuses on productizing his service delivery so he can operate efficiently at scale. A productized service is a simple, streamlined way of delivering

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32:20

Creating Consistent Scalable Income Through Revenue...

Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm... ·

2019/12/24

The messages we get about scaling a service business are pretty one-note. We’re told that we can’t scale a service business profitably and sustainably while sticking to a one-to-one service delivery model. We're told to do a bit of client work, spin that into a few digital courses or membership groups, and then sit back and let the money roll on it. But this isn’t a great fit for everyone. And it’s just not how many of us want to run our businesses. So, what else is out there? My guest

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57:52

Save Time and Boost Profit Using A Proposal...

Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm... ·

2019/12/17

What if instead of spending tons of time creating complicated proposals for prospective clients, you just didn't? Maybe you believe your complicated, customized proposals help win you more business. But there’s a good chance you’re sacrificing profit and efficiency--without truly seeing gains in real revenue.All this month we are talking about opting out–choosing not to do certain things in your business as a tool for freeing up your time, money, and brain space for more important things. I

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