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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

42:08

Coordination Offload System: Ship Projects Without...

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

2025/10/28

After 11 years, Tanya’s business hums. She's got warm leads, proven offers, talented contractors. And yet… projects that should take two weeks stretch to two months because she’s the translator between client and designer. In this live diagnosis, we map a transition from “Tanya-as-critical-path” to a productized, reliable service with automated coordination, a structured client-feedback loop, and clear handoffs. We also unpack the fear behind delegating client trust - and why productizing

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44:04

Calm isn't an App: Culture, Autonomy, and the Myth of...

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

2025/10/14

Meetings don’t equal management—most of the time, they’re just control theater. Freelance project manager Kacie Brennell joins Susan to unpack how autonomy—not attendance—drives real outcomes. They dig into async accountability, why tools fail without culture shifts, and how perfectionism + codependency quietly sabotage calm. If you’ve ever looked up from a day of calls with a longer to-do list, this one’s for you.What you’ll learnHow to shift from presence-driven management to

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38:13

The Most Human Metric in Operations: Layla Pomper’s...

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

2025/09/30

What if your most important KPI wasn’t about revenue, leads, or efficiency—but about people? In this episode, operations strategist Layla Pomper shares the story of her Death List KPI: a surprisingly human metric born out of emergency planning that reshaped her entire approach to resilience.What started as a morbid exercise—writing down who her partner should call if she died—became a powerful reframe. It forced Layla to measure not just internal systems, but the strength of her external

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44:59

The Expertise Trap: When Your Signature Skill Becomes...

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

2025/09/16

When your signature skill is the thing clients line up for, it’s easy to accidentally build a beautiful trap. In this live diagnosis, Jeremy Enns, the founder of Podcast Marketing Academy,shares how his rave-review podcast audits started running his weeks (and energy) into the ground. We focus on Business Design and Margin Mindset to keep the magic intact while redesigning delivery so results scale and burnout doesn’t. Think: fewer audits, higher prices, phased delivery, and using your

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39:12

Frameworks as a System: Scale Your Ideas Without...

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

2025/08/05

If you've been sharing the same ideas for years but still feel like you're reinventing the wheel every time you explain them, this episode is for you. Susan sits down with Melanie Deziel, creator of the IRON Framework, to explore how to transform raw, unstructured ideas into scalable, repeatable frameworks. Go behind the scenes of the Calmer Framework’s evolution, explore why naming comes last, and show how frameworks can become the backbone of your services, content, and operations

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38:59

Calmer Brain, Clearer Decisions: Consolidating Your...

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

2025/07/15

Susan sits down with leadership and culture consultant Melissa Carson to tackle a challenge so many entrepreneurs face: digital tool sprawl. Together, they unpack the overwhelm caused by scattered systems and explore how creating a single source of truth—your personal data warehouse—can unlock mental clarity and free up energy for more meaningful work.Melissa shares her struggles with multiple overlapping tools (Google, Microsoft, Airtable, and more) and the mental load of duplicated

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23:48

Vibe Coding: Delivering Client Projects Without Scope...

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

2025/06/30

This episode is part 2 of a 2-part conversation with Joe Casabona, a systems architect for solopreneurs and a self-described automation geek. You can catch part 1 over on the Streamlined Solopreneur feed hereWhat if the difference between a chaotic, scope-creeping project and one delivered calmly, on time, and on budget wasn’t just better estimating - but a totally different approach? Joe shares how he used "vibe coding" - collaborating with AI as a coding partner - to rescue a complex

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43:23

Momentum by Design: Diagnose Your Stuckness and Build...

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

2025/06/17

What if the reason you're stuck isn't mindset—or even procrastination? What if you're just solving the wrong problem?In this episode, I’m talking with Cat Mulvihill, creator of the Momentum Framework—a diagnostic tool that helps you figure out exactly why you’re stalled out in your business and what to do about it. Whether the block is a skills gap, an energy mismatch, or a lurking fear, Cat’s approach helps you pinpoint the true cause so you can move forward without forcing it.We explore

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39:20

Voice on Autopilot: How I Systematized My Brand Voice...

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

2025/06/03

What if your brand voice didn’t live solely inside your head? What if it was a system—a tool that helped you write faster, delegate confidently, and create calm across your business?In this episode, I share how I took my brand voice from “just a vibe” to a repeatable, documented system with the help of voice strategist Justin Blackman. We dig into how building a voice guide changed the way I write, collaborate, and scale. If content creation feels like a bottleneck—especially when you're

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33:01

Pay Me When You Win: A Revenue Sharing Model for...

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

2025/05/06

Most advice about scaling a service business means giving up the work you love or cranking your rates until clients walk away. But what if you could grow your revenue with your clients—without adding more to your plate? In this episode, Susan revisits a standout 2019 interview with business coach Lacey Sites, who doubled her revenue without taking on a single new client.Lacey did it by shifting to a revenue-sharing compensation model—one that ties her income directly to her clients’

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40:09

Four-Hour Work Year? The Hidden Power of Licensing...

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

2025/04/22

Tired of hitting a wall with your client-based business? You don’t have to build a course or start a membership to scale. In this episode of Calm is the New KPI, host Susan Boles talks with Janet Alexandersson—an international licensing lawyer and founder of Piggy Bank Legal—about how licensing can become a powerful, margin-creating revenue stream for service-based business owners.If you've ever wondered how to productize your existing client work without burning out or shifting your entire

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37:35

Calmer Capacity: Use Automation and AI to Lighten...

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

2025/04/08

You’ve duct-taped your service business together with tools and automations. But now things are breaking, you’re chasing Zapier errors, and client delivery is starting to feel like a drag. What if the next step wasn’t hiring a team or flattening your services—but turning your system into the service?In this episode, we're geeking out with Dylan Kinder, founder and CEO of DataCose, about how service-based businesses can scale by transforming parts of their delivery into software. We explore

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38:36

The Anti-Call Sales Process: Build Trust, Close...

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

2025/03/25

Eliminate Sales Calls? Yes, Really.What if your entire sales process could feel human, high-touch, and not require a single call?This week on Calm is the New KPI, I’m joined by Becky Pierson Davidson, founder of Affinity Collective, a product strategy agency for community-driven businesses. Becky shares how she’s turned the traditional, time-consuming sales process on its head—closing $15K+ client engagements with zero sales calls.Instead of long proposal timelines, back-to-back Zooms, and

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28:41

Can Friendship Be a KPI? How Relationships Shape a...

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

2025/03/11

Business is personal—so why do we so often separate relationships from our work? In this episode, Tara Robertson, leadership coach and DEI consultant, shares why she set a KPI around the number of new friends she makes this year. We explore how measuring relationships impacts not only joy but also business sustainability.Tara realized that working alone was draining her energy, so she made a bold decision: she would never go into an organization alone again. Instead, she’d co-lead,

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51:05

How to Measure the Unmeasurable: Tracking Resonance...

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

2025/02/25

We all want our work to resonate—but how do we know if it actually does? In this episode, I sit down with storytelling and speaking expert Jay Acunzo to explore the concept of resonance over reach and how we can track something that feels inherently unmeasurable. Jay shares his Unsolicited Response Rate (URR) framework, a KPI designed to measure whether your ideas truly connect with your audience. If you're tired of vanity metrics and want to focus on making an impact, this conversation is

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38:26

How to Build a Client Report Card for a Calmer...

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

2025/02/11

Managing client relationships is one of the biggest challenges of running a service-based business. Expectations, boundaries, and communication all play a role in whether an engagement runs smoothly or goes off the rails. So, how do you actually know if you're doing a good job?Karen Sergeant has a solution: a Client Report Card. This system helps her measure and manage client relationships proactively, identifying potential issues before they become problems. As a fractional COO, Karen has

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44:45

Fresh Content, Fewer Posts: Kendall Cherry's Calmer KPI

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

2025/01/28

In this episode of Beyond Margins, we explore the concept of calmer KPIs with guest Kendall Cherry, founder of The Candid Collective. Kendall shares her innovative metric, “Fresh Content Inked,” and how it has transformed her content creation process, business systems, and sales cycle—all while doubling her income. We geek out about how to build sustainable systems that create spaciousness in your business, reduce overwhelm, and prioritize what truly matters.What You’ll Learn in This

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11:59

Making Calm Your New KPI: How to Set Goals That Truly...

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

2025/01/14

In this episode of Beyond Margins, Susan dives into the heart of goal-setting, breaking free from default metrics and focusing on what truly matters to your business and life. She shares her own approach to prioritizing calm as a core business metric and gives a behind-the-scenes look at how she set and tracked a single impactful goal in 2024—taking 12 weeks off to rest (spoiler: she surpassed it).Susan explores:Why default metrics like revenue targets may not align with your values.How to

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50:18

Anti-Oppressive Marketing & Reducing Urgency with...

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

2024/12/17

How do you reduce urgency in a world where urgency is so deeply embedded? How do you market yourself and your work in a way that is anti-oppressive? We're continuing in our mini-series on my calmer framework for a calmer business. This week, we're focused on reudcing urgency and techniques for anti-oppressive marketing. We're joined by Natalia Sanyal, an anti-oppressive copywriter and brand messaging strategist. She’s worked with billion-dollar businesses like Apple and Lululemon, New York

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46:35

Architecting Rest with Jordan Maney

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

2024/12/03

We live in a society obsessed with productivity and working more, so how can we lean into rest? What are the benefits of building rest into our businesses? And how can we begin to do that? We're continuing in our mini-series on my calmer framework for a calmer business. This week, we're focused on rest. Rest is often a challenge for us go-getters, solopreneurs, and entrepreneurs. But, it's essential to stop burnout, stay creative, and have a truly calm and sustainable business. We're joined

en

129 results

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