What Works | Small Business Podcast With Tara Mcmullin

Do you ever get the feeling you’re white-knuckling it through business ownership? Like if you just squeeze the wheel hard enough and focus on what’s in front of you, you can keep your business from ending up in a serious fender bender (or worse)? I’ve certainly felt that way. All throughout 2020, I felt like my extreme vigilance was the only thing between my business and an 8-car pileup. And we didn’t get hit nearly as hard as many businesses. It’s a burden, being able to control situations with my hyper-vigilance, but it’s my lot in life. — Tina Fey, Bossypants That hyper-vigilance can look like needing to have my fingers in every project or having to touch base with every customer. It can look like working 10 hours a day or checking in on the weekends. It can look like not going on vacation for fear of things crumbling without me or always leaving my inbox open throughout the day. This last year involved every one of those habits at one point or another. Sometimes all at once. Truthfu

I did not like group work as a student. I much preferred to take on a project myself. I wanted complete control over the vision for that project, its execution, and all of the details along the way. And when I say I “preferred,” what I really mean is that I still prefer to do things on my own. However, building a business has taught me that I’m not going to build what I want to build without group work. All this month, we’ve been exploring the possibilities for teaming up as we run our businesses. We explored hiring & managing with Podge Thomas, and I shared how I cope as an anxious, introverted, and autistic boss with Annie Schuessler. We explored how we can expand the visions of our businesses to ask how they can help us take better care of each other–and not just meet individual goals for success–with Kate Strathmann. And we explored how to guide ourselves through the process of asking for and receiving support from others with Shulamit Ber Levtov. This week, we’re going to wra

In This Episode: * How mindset & resilience consultant Shulamit Ber Levtov became interested in the mental health challenges women face in entrepreneurship* Why she took a month off from work to prevent experiencing a full burnout last year* The methods she uses to identify what she needs and how she’s feeling* Why she always starts with getting her emotional support needs met first* How she crafts clear boundaries and direct communication about what she really needs When was the last time you asked for help? The last time you tried to solve a problem by asking for guidance instead of throwing yourself into Google? The last time you told someone about something that was really weighing on you, not looking for answers but just reaching out for empathy and understanding? I can’t remember the last time I did. So if you’re having a hard time picturing it, I’m right there with you. I’ve been my identity around being the one with the answers, the one who has it all together. Of course,

In This Episode: * Wanderwell founder Kate Strathmann and I unpack how our personal values often don’t line up with economic forces—and how that impacts our business* Why rethinking the purpose of your business might help you rethink your goals to be more aligned with your personal values* How expanding your vision to include taking care of others as well as yourself can create a paradigm shift in your business Marketers love to tell you: do this and you’ll make more money. Or, do this and you’ll have more freedom. Or, do this and you’ll get to be more you. If you do what I tell you to do, your life will significantly improve. The reason for this is simple: capitalism turns life improvement into a task of consumption. We’re convinced we can buy our way to an easier, more satisfying life. And that means many of us are convinced we can work our way to the money we need to do that. Further, the more we improve ourselves and enhance our lives, the more we can use our selves as a for

In This Episode: * How I decide what roles to hire for (and why understanding our team structure is key)* When it’s time increase capacity by hiring versus fixing messy operations* Why you don’t want to clone yourself to get more done* How product and operations can overlap to creating some really exciting opportunities When I say I’m an introvert, I mean I’m a hardcore introvert. People don’t believe me when I say that because I’m loud and enthusiastic—but being loud and enthusiastic is not the same thing as being extroverted. If you spend more than an hour with me in a social situation, you’ll see the life drain from my eyes as my internal batteries release their last burst of energy. I wish I was kidding—but I am not. I also happen to be an introvert surrounded by extroverts. I’m an internal processor surrounded by external processors. I’m an avoider of small talk surrounded by people who love small talk. It’s a tricky situation. Who are these people? They’re my team membe

In This Episode: * Why management specialist Podge Thomas believes your team should be your biggest asset* How to prepare to hire—and how to take better care of your team member through careful onboarding* How our previous experiences with management shape the way we approach the prospect of hiring today Managing has gotten a bad rap. In fact, if I had to guess, I’d say that “not wanting to manage people” is the biggest reason people cite for not hiring. Sure, there might be financial issues. There might be issues with finding the right person. There might issues about knowing what to hand off. But almost everyone I talk to has either a fear or an unwillingness to manage people. So why do so many of us have such an aversion to management? Why have so many people sworn off hiring help? Why has solopreneurship become such an enticing thing for people wanting to build a business? Here’s my take: we grossly overestimate the risks & liabilities of hiring people and managing th

How do you know what content should be free? And, what should be paid for? This month, we’ve been talking all about building an audience and/or finding customers—as well as how those two things are different. And one of the things a conversation about audience-building always comes back to is content. What kind of content do you create? Where do you share it? Who do you create it for? And on & on… The big question I get repeatedly, though is: How do I know what content should be paid for and what content should be free? And I get it! There’s a whole industry out there that appears to be helping you sell content–whether as ebooks, online courses, membership sites, Patreon incentives, or paid newsletters. But what I’ve learned is that we are never really selling content. Or information. Or even ideas. We’re always selling an experience. We craft an experience of content that facilitates transformation–and that’s really what people buy. Because the info is out there, right?

This month, we’ve explored finding customers and building an audience—which are not the same things. Every business needs to find customers. But not every business—not even most businesses—needs to build an audience. Yet, so many small business owners get hung up on building their following counts or email lists instead of doing the things that actually lead to sales. The drive to build an audience partially comes from the false belief that “scale” is the universal goal for all businesses. Many successful businesses never scale—or they don’t scale in terms of serving thousands of people instead of tens of people. They might scale in terms of efficiency or price or team—but scaling up one or all of those things does not require you to build an audience. But everywhere you look on social media, someone is telling you that you have to scale. As Maggie Patterson put it, they’re serving you poison and then selling you the cure. Now look, if you’re excited about scaling up or you’ve foun

In This Episode: * Why storytelling is good for business and how it can help you build your audience* Why you don’t have to squeeze your story into the hero’s journey* How finding a related emotional touchpoint can lead to telling a powerful story even if it isn’t directly related to the information you’re sharing* How to start your own story bank so you’re never at a loss for a good story to tell Nothing fosters human connection faster than a story. Stories are the most direct way to tell someone else—or a whole audience of people—an important truth about you. Stories give us shared experiences and emotions to build relationships from. Stories make even the biggest concepts or most technical information feel real. Practicing storytelling has been a game changer for me in the way I communicate, market, and teach. And I believe it can do the same for you. Today’s episode is a sort of conversation-meets-workshop excerpted from a special joint event for The What Works Network and Standou

In This Episode: * Why brand strategist Felicia Sullivan doesn’t bother with using social media to find clients* How she uses coffee dates to make long-lasting relationships* Why she prioritizes consuming remarkable content and how it helps her meet the people she wants to meet* How she uses Medium to deliver remarkable content on the platform her clients are most likely to be engaging with “Do things that don’t scale.” That’s venture capitalist Paul Graham’s advice to new entrepreneurs. What he means is that instead of trying to appeal to the masses or market an idea with a million-dollar advertising budget, start by wooing 1 person at a time. I’ve always loved this advice and found it to be unfailingly effective. But… it’s possible to take this idea too far. When I say it’s possible to take the idea of doing things that don’t scale too far, I’m talking about the tendency to assume that you do things that don’t scale until you can do the things that scale. For Graham’s audience

In This Episode: * How social media marketing expert Andréa Jones balances two different marketing strategies for her agency and for her membership community* Why she prioritizes feelings when it comes to positioning and messaging* How she incorporates social media marketing into the larger context of a sales campaign* Why promotional content isn’t all that useful for building an audience or finding customers—and what’s working instead Some of the most successful business owners I know spend absolutely no time on marketing. They have social media accounts but they’re for posting images about vacations or family or hobbies. They have blogs but they largely sit dormant. They have email lists but never send any email. They don’t have massive advertising budgets or a marketing team that takes care of it for them. Their businesses are simply designed to work—to thrive—without the playing the games we’ve come to associate with marketing in the 2020s. The topic we’re covering this month i

What’s the ROI on mental space? What would it be worth to you to get some peace of mind? What would you be willing to do to alleviate a bit of uncertainty from your life or business? All this month, we’ve been talking about simplifying and the immense benefits you can experience by building a simple business. We’re going to close things out here by taking a look at how operational improvements can create a profound sense of relief—and open up mental space that you didn’t even know was cluttered! I can easily remember what it was like to run my business before we built solid systems. Cluttered is exactly how I would describe it. It wasn’t just the operational clutter–files all over the place, to-do lists scattered all over my desk, and priorities that could change on a whim. It was also the mental clutter. Where did all that mental clutter come from? Well, it was a result of a whole bunch of unhelpful habits and patterns. It was people-pleasing and scarcity thinking and en

What Works is all about exploring what’s really working for small business owners. Because there are a lot of assumptions and misconceptions about what it takes to build a stronger business. This week, I’m bringing you something a little different. It’s an interview that I did for Andréa Jones’s podcast, The Savvy Social Podcast. Andréa and I are both on a mission to bust some of the assumptions that people have about what’s good for business when it comes to social media marketing. For me, it’s a small part of what I do. But for Andréa, this is her whole business. Andréa runs a thriving social media marketing agency called OnlineDrea as well as a training community for small business owners called Savvy Social School. I’ve featured Andréa here on the pod before and we talked about how she approaches social media pretty differently when it comes to her own business versus how she manages social media for her clients with very different business models. Good news: next week’s episode i

How do you make a big change to your business model without making it harder than it has to be? How do you navigate sunsetting an old offer (or a few), raising your prices, or shifting your target client? After spending a whole month talking about simplifying on What Works, I’ve had more than a few people wonder what it was actually going to take to make some big changes to the way they do business. This question happened to come up during this month’s Insider Hour—a Q&A session I host each month for What Works Network members. And I wanted to share my answer in case it’s helpful to you and the changes you’re considering for your business, too. You might also find it helpful to check out these resources: * Free Workbook: How To Create A Plan To Grow Your Business* 7 Simple Business Models For Small Business Owners* Why Reactivity Leads To Complexity* Embracing Simplicity with Brigitte Lyons & Sophy Dale* What I Wish Every Small Business Owner Knew About Making More Mo

I’m convinced that every entrepreneur has a fantasy business that they daydream about. It’s free from all of the baggage and assumptions that we’ve built up around our existing businesses. And I’m also convinced that that fantasy business—as pie-in-the-sky as it may be—has something to teach us about our existing businesses. They can show us how we’d market differently, set policies differently, and protect our time differently. They show us the kinds of relationships we’d prefer to have with clients or the type of work we’d rather be doing. And, maybe more than anything, they show us just how simple a business can be. With a few exceptions, I don’t think most of us daydream about convoluted, complicated businesses. We dream up simple businesses—ones that thrive with minimal BS. Today, I’m sharing 3 ways that I built my fantasy business—the one I’d been dreaming about for years—and how it’s different from What Works. In this episode, you’ll hear: * Why making changes to an exist

In This Episode: * How Sophy Dale decided to let go of 2 of her 3 businesses and just focus on one and why figuring out a novel distribution strategy was a key part of the decision* Why Brigitte Lyons paid attention to what would break if her business grew to figure out how things needed to become simpler* Why Brigitte chose to focus on long-term client engagements* How Sophy is actually able to get more support now that her business is simpler* The tools and software that they use to run their streamlined businesses* And, of course, the incredible results of all of this simplification! So… things have gotten complicated. Your business is a mess of competing priorities. Mismatched marketing messages. Dusty old brand positioning. Stale offers. And the clutter from all the times you’ve tried to solve problems by doing more. It’s easy to think that all of this unproductive complexity is a sign that you screwed up—that you’re not very good at this whole building a business thing. But that ig

In This Episode: * How Sophy Dale ended up running 3 separate businesses—and what made her realize it was all too complicated* How Brigitte Lyons realized that her PR agency was letting scope creep make it feel like she was still throwing spaghetti at a wall* What both Sophy & Brigitte did to approach simplifying their businesses* And the personal reasons why simplifying was the ticket to creating businesses that worked both for their bank accounts and for their lives What I wish every small business owner knew about making more money is… …it doesn’t have to be so complicated. I mean that literally. Creating a more complicated business doesn’t guarantee you a bigger paycheck, a bigger audience, or a bigger impact in the world. Adding more and more moving parts to how your business runs doesn’t get you more happy customers or more personal satisfaction, either. Of course, this doesn’t put a stop to the anxiety of feeling like, if only you could do more, things would be better.

Sometimes it can feel like you don’t find opportunity, opportunity finds you. But even then, it’s the fact that you were paying attention—listening, watching, taking it all in—that allows you to act on it. It can make me sick to my stomach to think of all of the opportunities I let slide because I wasn’t paying attention! All this month, we’ve been looking at identifying opportunity and making exciting things happen. To kick off the series, I shared a framework for examining your business through the lens of sustainability to discover your next opportunity. Then, I talked with Anna Wolf from Superscript Marketing about how she realized that the building sustainable structures & systems for her business was her big opportunity. Next, we turned our attention to financial sustainability and I shared my 2019 conversation with Systems Saved Me Founder, Jordan Gill. Finally, I shared my conversation with business coach Justine Clay and we looked at how identifying choice is a big part o

In This Episode: * How business coach Justine Clay decides whether or not to pursue an opportunity* Why she starts with feelings first and how she builds a “scaffolding” around those feelings with practical execution* What she did in the midst of the Great Recession to create a new opportunity by generously serving out-of-work creatives* How Justine views working on herself as an opportunity for growth Opportunities always come at a crossroads. Sometimes they’re intersections with big flashing lights and signs pointing to what’s ahead in either direction. Other times, it’s impossible to know where each path goes. Maybe it’s even hard to see that there is a choice of direction in the first place. But when we can really take notice of all the places we choose to go one direction or another, we can see that there are opportunities all around us—even when they’re not the opportunities we were looking for. This month, we’ve been exploring how we spot opportunities and what we do with them

In This Episode: * How Jordan Gill used data and experience to set competitive prices for her business operations firm* Why she focused on serving seasonal service-based businesses and how that impacts the way she delivers her service* The stat she used to figure out a new way to offer her services* What expenses Jordan accounts for in pricing her unusual offer Is your business financially sustainable? The answer to that question goes beyond how much revenue your business generates, how much you charge for your products or services, and or even how much you pay yourself. We tend to fixate on those measures of financial success because they’re pretty objective. I can check my P&L and spot how much revenue came in last month or last year. I can pat myself on the back for raising the prices on my offer. And I can enjoy a healthy salary or bask in my profit distribution… But none of those numbers really capture the financial sustainability of my business as a whole—and that can mean I mi