What Works | Small Business Podcast With Tara Mcmullin

In This Episode: * Why SuperScript Marketing founder Anna Wolf started her niche content marketing agency aimed at the financial service industry* How learning search engine optimization led to major growth—and a focus on productized service* What prompted Anna to become obsessed with building sustainable structures & systems for her agency* How focusing on SuperScript’s core competency gave Anna a framework for pursuing growth What does your business need to be able to do really, really well in order to thrive? The answer to that question is your business’s core competency—or one of its core competencies. Your core competency is the key capability your business has or a key promise that it makes that differentiates your business from others offering similar products or services. And knowing your core competency is a key way to build both opportunity and capacity into your business—which in turn, makes it more sustainable. This month, we’re taking a closer look at how business own

What if your biggest opportunity didn’t involve doing more but doing less? What if scaling back and simplifying wasn’t only a way to make your life better but a way to build a more successful business, too? This month on What Works, we’re exploring opportunity—how we discover it, how we decide to pursue it, and what we do to take advantage of it. Lately, I’ve been thinking about how we are prone to waiting until “opportunity” comes to us nicely packaged and easy to use. We wonder if the latest social media platform will be the key to growing an audience or if the new trend in products or services will unlock a new revenue level. But I find that the best opportunities don’t come nicely packaged. Instead, opportunities often present themselves in messy ways—a series of “What if?” questions, a loose synthesis of seemingly unrelated information, or a jarring new perspective on an old problem. And I have found, over and over again, that the best way to notice these messy, half-formed op

A big part of how I do what I do is by spotting patterns. As a podcaster, I’m looking for the patterns in the stories my guests tell me. As a business coach, I’m looking for the patterns in how a business is functioning or how a business owner is approaching a challenge. As a community builder, I’m looking for patterns in how people connect and ask for help. As a producer, I’m looking for patterns in content, perspective, and voice. We have a lot of patterns when it comes to our relationships. And I’ll spare you the impromptu podcast therapy session and assume that you’ve noticed some of yours. My own patterns include conflict avoidance, overgiving, and ghosting–that’s my non-technical term for my pattern of just disappearing from relationships. I have good relationship patterns, too. Of course, those don’t make for entertaining and educational podcast episodes. All this month, we’ve been examining the relationships in our businesses and how we make them stronger. We looked

Do you know your neighbors? Sean and I know a couple of ours—but most are strangers. At this point in time, not knowing your neighbors is pretty common. We mind our own business. We go about our own lives. We rarely intersect with the people around us–which is even more true today when we are not supposed to be intersecting with people outside of our own households! Most of the time this is fine, right? Maybe it’s not ideal. But it’s fine. It becomes a problem when there’s a need. Maybe you just need to borrow a cup of milk. Or maybe you’ve got to leave town for a month to care for a family member. Maybe there’s an extended power outage in town. Who can you rely on? This week, we’re wrapping up our series on relationship-building. We’ve looked at your relationship with yourself & your business, your relationship with your customers, and your relationship with your team. Now, it’s time to examine your relationship with your network. All the neighbors in your neighborhood, if you wi

I didn’t start a business because I was excited about managing people. I wasn’t dreaming of hiring a team while I was writing blog posts in the stolen moments between nursing my baby and nap times. Truth be told, I’m still not excited about managing people–although, I do dream about hiring more often. Yet, here I am–managing 5 people between 2 companies. If I had to pin down the biggest lessons that I’ve learned about building a business, I think they might all have to do with the relationships I have with my team members. Which is not to say that I have it all figured out! But boy oh boy, do I approach things differently than I used to. This week, we’re examining how we nurture the relationships we have with the people who work with us. I’ll be honest with you: there are so many different places I’d like to take this episode. There are so many of the lessons I’ve learned that I’d like to pass on. Luckily, the lessons I’ve learned have largely come through conversations I’ve had on th

“Exceptional customer service.” I’m sure you’ve heard those words uttered during a training session for a retail or service industry job at some point in your life. Heck, those words might even be in your own values statement or team member handbook. Goodness knows I’ve got nothing against exceptional customer service–it’s just that it’s a little… vague. And more than that… We tend to associate “customer service” with fixing problems. There will always be problems to fix for customers but what about the rest of their experience with us? What if we used the relationship we want our customers to have with our business as the basis for designing their WHOLE experience. Last week, we talked through how critically examining your relationship to yourself as a business owner can help you develop a healthier relationship with your business so that it can take care of you instead of you always taking care of it. This week, we’re taking a closer look at our relationships with our customer

Businesses are all about relationships, right? Sure, I think we can all agree on that to one extent or another. But what exactly do we mean by that? Most often, a business’s relationships are understood in terms of customer service, promotional partnerships, and management structures. They’re draped in the same words we use to describe our time and money: optimization, efficiency, investment, opportunity. That’s not the language we use to describe our relationships with the people we genuinely care about, though. Most of us don’t want to optimize our marriages or see our friendships as opportunities for advancement. We want to connect. To relate. To belong. To nurture. So what happens when we apply this same motivation to our business relationships? This month, I’ve got a series on relationships for you. We’re going to explore the obvious—our relationships with customers, with our teams, and our colleagues. We’re also going to explore the not-so-obvious—our relationship to ourselve

Margin is space—the space between and around. There is the margin of a page, of course. And there is the margin around the border of a forest. There’s also the margin in your business–the space between your revenue and your expenses. Most of us don’t have nearly as much margin as we used to. At one point in our lives, we uttered the words, “I’m bored…” and our caregivers rolled their eyes and told us to go outside. The margin between planned activities, play dates, and bursts of play gave us an opportunity to feel that boredom. When do we ever feel bored now? When are we ever faced with a lack of things to do or chores to take care of? Even in the midst of this Great Pause, margin feels tenuous. I’ve had countless conversations with people who fear returning to normal and, with it, the crush of things to do and places to go that squeezes all of the margin out of our lives and work. I’m one of those people who feels anxious at the thought of losing the margin I’m now enjoying thanks to th

In This Episode: * What Sell From Love author Finka Jerkovic learned from the process of writing her book’s first draft* How she determined what problem the book was solving* Why her writing process changed between her first draft and her second draft* Why writing the book was a “top secret” project Planning is a learning process. When we set out an objective, make a plan to achieve it, and then implement that plan, we inevitably learn key things. We might learn that we don’t want to achieve the objective after all. We might learn that the path to achieve it isn’t what we thought it was going to be. We might learn that we need more help or different help, that we need to acquire a new skill, or that we need to adjust our implementation. Making changes—even big ones—to our plan doesn’t mean we’ve abandoned it. It means we’re learning. All this month, we’ve been talking about working the plan. It’s January, after all, and I’m sure you’ve made some plans for this year! I kicked thi

Flow. Rhythm. Consistency. These are all words we want to associate with how we do our work, but so rarely can we actually describe a week or even a day as flowing, rhythmic, or even possessing some level of consistency. Variable, external circumstances certainly contribute to our state of relentless syncopation. But the way we think about our work–how we organize it, visualize it, plan it–doesn’t help either. Now, this episode of What Works is a bonus. In fact, up until yesterday, I had no idea we were going to be publishing this. But when Sean and I got off our latest round table discussion in the Standout Podcast Club, we knew it was the perfect addition to this month’s What Works series on working the plan. If you haven’t heard, Standout Podcast Club is the brand-new training, coaching, and networking hub for podcasters that we launched through YellowHouse.Media. Every month, we host a round table discussion where we dig deeper into an aspect of podcast production. This month’s top

In This Episode: * How The Pocket PhD founder Emily Crookston started leveraging LinkedIn after the pandemic threw a wrench in her public speaking plans* Why she went from posting spontaneously to planning out her content and using a weekly structure to guide her* What prompted her to start a video interview series on LinkedIn* And why Emily doesn’t care about trying to work the LinkedIn algorithm So you’ve got a big plan for this year (or even this week or this month!). What happens when somebody throws a wrench in the works? Do you fight to get back on track? Do you flee to something else entirely? Do you freeze and hope that it’ll all blow over soon? Each of these 3 responses is perfectly normal & understandable. After all, fight, flight or freeze is a baked-in biological response we all have. But most of the time, we need a different way to respond when our plans get interrupted. Fight, flight, or freeze might be our biological response when faced with a threat but th

In This Episode: * How Startup Society creator Gillian Perkins prepared for her recent parental leave* What her normal 20-hour workweek looks like and how she adapted that as she was working toward her leave* Why she describes her process as “batching chaotically” and how making that process what she plans for has made things easier for her* What she’s learned from taking time away from the business over the years There are a lot of folks out there telling you how to get your work done. There are planners, apps, frameworks, and methods. And there are even more messages about delegating, time-blocking, batching, and fitting a whole year’s work into just 12 weeks. It’s easy to think that the “way you work” works for you—and maybe it does. But it’s also easy to believe, if you let yourself, that the way you work has been shaped by the “shoulds” of an entire industry devoted to the capitalist pursuit of helping you produce more, be more efficient, and crank out more value for every hour of labo

In This Episode: * What Works founder Tara McMullin shares how she’s planning for 2021 at both What Works & YellowHouse.Media, as well as how she’s allocating her resources to better serve her teams* The 3 commitments she’s made to guide her personal and leadership choices throughout the year* The Strategic Priorities her companies are focusing on to move forward and what projects she’s working on to make it all happen!* Plus, Tara’s unconventional take on goal-setting & sticking with her plans Welcome to the first What Works episode of 2021! This episode is going to be a look behind the scenes of my two companies and how we’re planning for 2021, some of the choices we’re making, and what we’ll be looking for as the year progresses. Not only is this the kick-off episode for 2021, it’s the kick-off for our January series on “working the plan.” This month, I’m going to be sharing conversations about planning for parental leave, leveraging LinkedIn, and writing a book—all things that h

In This Episode: * How Modern Learners Chief Learning Office, Melissa Emler, grew to meet the challenge her business faced leading thousands of educators through adapting to online learning* Why she continues to work her day job—and how it serves her as a business owner and leader* The 3-part framework she used to lead her community through the frantic pace of change this year* Why she’s prioritizing difficult conversations about systemic oppression and racial injustice in education There’s a little cartoon that I’ve seen pop up again and again over the years. A caterpillar and a butterfly sit at a cafe table, each with glasses of wine. The caterpillar says, “You’ve changed.” And the butterfly replies, “We’re supposed to.” “You’ve changed” is often wielded as negative feedback. And sure, I guess there are times when people change for the worse. But more often, “you’ve changed” means something more like, “You’re not playing small like me anymore.” No matter how much you know you’re

In This Episode: * How Co-Creating Inclusion founder Alethea Fitzpatrick navigated this year by focusing on what she could control and letting go of what she can’t* How she took care of herself during troubling times, all while her business was taking off* What operational adjustments she led the business through as they grew* How she’s planning for next year with more uncertainty and growth on the horizon It’s a bit cliche to say that entrepreneurs have control issues. I mean, our drive for control over our time, our work, our creative output—it’s one of the reasons many of us ended up starting our own businesses in the first place! Our control issues can have positive side effects. Needing to be in control can inspire you into resourcefulness, it can motivate you to learn new skills, it can help you find a sense of independence… …but control issues, ultimately, harm us and our companies. Our control issues can hurt the people we work with and can stifle our creativity. Trying to get

In This Episode: * How coach & strategist Valerie Black led herself through a year of ups & downs* The practices she uses to find her center and stay present—so she doesn’t end up “future-tripping”* What she did to hold boundaries around her work as clients started to come back* The question she’s asking to find direction for the next phase of her work I used to live in Astoria, Oregon. That’s where the mighty Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean—the northwest corner of the state and the home of the Tribes of the Chinookan people. Every day, I’d walk along the river several times and just watch the water flow. Because we were so close to the mouth, the river actually experienced considerable tides. Throughout the day, the height of the river might change anywhere from 6-10 feet. Not only did the level of the water change dramatically throughout the day, it would appear that the flow of the river reversed. When the tide was out, the river flowed as you would expect—toward

In This Episode: * How Emily Thompson, host of Being Boss & founder of Almanac Supply Co, led herself through a year with plenty of twists & turns* How she knew that taking over Being Boss on her own with the right decision for her & the vision she has* How she managed herself through turning an in-person event into an online one* The practice she uses to stay focused and present with her own experience* What she did at Almanac Supply Co to replace a revenue stream lost to lockdown Well, folks—we’ve made it. It’s the final month of 2020 and we’ve been through a lot this year. I can’t even pretend to know what the year was like for you. I don’t know if you felt incredibly lonely or never got a moment to yourself after March 17th (or both). I don’t know if you finally confronted your racist uncle or spent precious energy reminding people that your life does matter. I don’t know if your business cratered or skyrocketed. I don’t know if you lost a loved one or welcomed a new life in

In This Episode: * How financial coach Keina Newell realized she had a mindset problem–plus all the ways she tried to make things work without working on her mindset* The personal practices she uses to notice her thoughts and create new ones* How her sales process and revenue has shifted since she started addressing her mindset–and the incredible financial results she’s been able to create* Why taking a more objective approach to noticing her thoughts has helped her keep her mind fresh and her options open Life teaches us a lot. Some of it is good and helpful—the skills that help us make our way in the world. And some of it… well, some of it ends up getting in our way. But we might not realize the friction that it’s causing or the opportunities that it’s blocking until things come to a head. Once you’ve discovered that there’s a problem with what you’ve already learned, what do you do? All this month, we’ve been talking about leveling up and learning new skills. But this week,

Today, you’re going to hear from four small business owners who have learned to see things in a new way–to shift their perspective–and as a result show up differently for themselves and their businesses. I’ve got stories from writing coach Beth Barany, Work Brighter founder Brittany Berger, business finance coach Lauren Caselli, and speech language pathologist and life coach Melissa Page Deutsch. Each one has a very different story of how they learned something new and it shifted their perspective. Pay attention to how that new perspective helped them see both their challenges and their opportunities in new ways. What Works Is Brought To You By Mighty Networks powers brands and businesses – like yours! – that bring people together.With a Mighty Network, online business owners just like you can bring together in one place: * Your website* Your content* Your courses* Your community* Your events online and in real life* And charge for them…all while building YOUR brand. Visit might

In This Episode: * Why Dana Kaye  and Felton Kizer came together to build a stock photography business–and the important mission behind the company* How the process of making things official helped them learn how to work with each other* The skills they’ve learned as they have developed the new business, as well as how they’ve leveraged their existing business-building skills to give it a jumpstart* Why they’re each playing the roles they are in the new business and how that’s guided the development of the business Starting a second—or third or fourth—business is a great test of your skills as an entrepreneur. On one hand, you’re reminded of all the things you learned getting the first venture or few off the ground. You can put those skills to use faster and avoid some of the hassle you went through when you did it before. On the other hand, there are inevitably new things to learn. You might need to pick up skills that come from using a different kind of business model. Or, you might need