Who do you talk to about your business?

Hello all,

Short note today to share a new article I've written, which is anchored by that question:

Who do you talk to about your business?

What have you learned about the type of support you need and who supports you best?

That's been on my mind the last few months as I:

• Wrote an article about the value of ongoing strategic support in your business​
• Was interviewed on The Well Collab's Lead Like a Girl podcast talking about how to get better at asking for advice (that bit starts 30 minutes in)
• Sent out spring feedback forms to my ongoing clients
• Reconsidered my own support needs

What I keep coming back to is how much I value people who have the capacity to let me be different than them.

It's a true gift (and I'd argue necessary!) that the people who give us advice have the ability and interest to get to know us for who we are, not who they assume us to be. Is this person curious about how you, your business, and your brain work? Or is the majority of their guidance rooted in what works for them or generalizations of your industry?

Respond and let me know what qualities you most value in someone who gives you advice (in or outside of business).

Thanks for being here,

What's happening in my world...

Working with several 1:1 clients who are nearing capacity in their service-based businesses (a financial planner, a fractional CFO, and a contractor doing high-end renovations). Two of these clients I started with two years ago when they were at maybe 1/4 or so of their current revenue (🎉). It's funny to shift from removing friction to encourage inquiries... to intentionally adding it to slow things down!

Supporting a few 1:1 clients through pivots — someone starting something new in their 40s after two decades in one field, a few people refining their niche/messaging/pricing after a few years in business*, and a client considering a flexible part-time job to create an income bridge for the new organization they're building.

*P.S. A good reminder that all this goes hand-in-hand. If you changed one thing, such as the price of your product/service, and then things got quiet and you worry you "broke" your business... you may need to tweak your positioning/messaging to keep up!

Designing a live training on behavioural psychology for financial professionals across Canada. The economics minor in me is happy as a clam (choice architecture, cognitive bias, and the implementation gap, oh my!). The workshop helps advisors understand how clients make decisions so they can ask better discovery questions, build stronger long-term relationships, and increase sales.

Building my team of "creative collaborators"! I'm thrilled to have a brand and web designer I love, and I recently started working with a fantastic editor to copyedit my articles. My aim here isn't just to supplement skills I lack, but to make the creative process more enjoyable. The next person I’m looking for is someone to help with "creative production"—setting up and publishing new content on my website and marketing channels. Is that you or someone you know? Email me.

Finally, I joined Women Facilitating to develop my group facilitation skills. That's my main professional development focus area this year, as I'm getting more of this work and enjoying it! If you or your team is interested, I'm currently booking bespoke workshops and facilitation projects for Q4. Email me.​

P.S. For anyone feeling knocked around by change lately... I want to remind us that business is not static because none of its parts are.

You, your customers, your employees, the economy, your market... ever changing. You're not "doing it wrong" if some part of your business seems to have "broken" in the past year. This is why it's helpful to see your business as a relationship between parts—one part changes, the others will be impacted—and why I believe business to be a fundamentally creative act. We are always shaping and being shaped.

Business is about evolving, not arriving.

What changes for you if you let yourself see it that way?