Do Less. Be More. Play Bigger.
Welcome to my blog
How hanging out with safe people can hold your business back
Having people around you who support what you do is important; it can be a very lonely job running your own business. Being able to pick up the phone, meet up for a walk or coffee and talk about what’s been going on in your week with someone you trust and feel...
Why down-sell products rarely work
There’s plenty to think through when deciding if your new product idea is going to be worth investing your time, energy and money in. Is it something that your clients *really* want? What price should you charge? How do you go about marketing it? But there’s one...
Do we over-egg the life shit stuff?
We have the habit of overestimating the life shit that comes our way. And underestimating the power and influence we believe we already have. This was the hard truth that I was told yesterday by one of the world’s leading experts on mindset and women’s leadership. As...
How to trust yourself to make good decisions
Being able to make good decisions is one of the keys to adopting a CEO mindset and growing a successful business. But decision fatigue is real; the more decisions you have to make each day, your ability to make decisions becomes worse. We’re faced with thousands of...
Breaking the YES habit
Last week, I was writing about the difference between being a freelancer, business owner and CEO, and the phrase that seemed to get the biggest reaction was … “You may think you are a business owner, and call yourself a business owner, but your current work schedule...
Being CEO in your business
Wow, what a week! I’m writing this just as I come to the end of our first week of our next new Momentum planning cycle, which is always a high energy, back-to-back week of calls, and I wanted to share with you today my thoughts about being a CEO in your business....
How to write a business proposal that wins you the work
“Send me a proposal” When you’re ending a great sales call with your ideal client, these are the words you want to hear. You’re excited. They’re excited. You both just want to get started on working together. So why do so many of us grapple with writing a business...
How patient are you at winning over ‘pregnancy clients’?
I want to write to you today about patience. I’ve been staying with my mum since Thursday last week. She’s 81, incredibly independent and wants to stay this way for a long while yet. But she’s had another operation on her hip; to correct the one she had in 2019 which...
How and when to hire an Operations Manager for your small business
Having a good Virtual Assistant (VA) to support you in your business is an essential first step to building your support team and releasing yourself from the trap of being a busy freelancer. Not only does a good VA free you up from day-to-day admin tasks, they also...
Relearning Lessons: What was on repeat for 2021
It is said that the lessons we *really* need to learn in life, show up time and time again. We don’t learn it once and be done. Life has a way of circling back and giving us another experience or challenge to navigate to make sure we *really* get the lessons. Many...
The Big VAT Ceiling Problem (and how you can avoid getting stuck under it)
If you are struggling with the thought of VAT registration, you need to read this. Perhaps you have a fear of losing clients if you have to put your prices up 20%, or you simply don't know how to approach the whole situation. You can become VAT registered at any time,...
Your Dream Team: who do you need to hire to help you grow?
Do you believe that you are the one to do anything and everything in your business? In the first few months of start-up, there is no doubt that you do almost everything yourself. From answering your emails and sending out proposals and brochures, through to writing...
The Growth Ceilings: what to do when your business growth plateaus
Have you wondered why you are not making the progress that you thought you ought to be making by now? It doesn’t matter how much harder your work, how many more hours you put in or what money you throw at your marketing, there comes a point where your growth gets...
Energy tracking and how to achieve more, with less stress
Our work culture is not working for us anymore! For the past thirty years, our obsession with doing more in less time has exponentially increased. The access to the first home computers and the World Wide Web has opened us to an endless stream of technology to make us...
Shifting with the seasons; why we can’t stay in spring or summer all year
image Hi Karen Walking into my Plotting Shed this morning, there was a distinct chill in the air. For the first time this season, I shuddered and realised it was time for ceremonial switching on of the wall heater. I love the shift in seasons. It reminds me that...
How our fears can be our greatest strengths
Back in 2017 ... those pre-covid days of being able to attend conferences with hundreds of other people! ... I had spent an incredible weekend at the One Woman Conference. There were 400+ women at this event and I had the honour of being invited up on the stage as one...
How to start your week off right
There's absolutely no doubt, that what you do on a Monday morning sets the tone for the rest of the week. And often the weeks proceeding. I've learned the hard way. If I start my week faffing about and scrolling through social feeds, the rest of my week will follow in...
Happy Revenue (and why ‘get more clients’ isn’t always the answer to growing your business)
"Get More Clients!" It’s the message that many marketers want you to hear. Making money is, of course, an important function of your business but when the numbers in your bank account may feel smaller than you think they should be, money has this habit of taking up...
The Profitability Sweet Spot: a simple pricing formula to use with your next proposal or programme
The problem with selling services, such as coaching, advice and consulting time, is that it’s very easy to get caught up with how much you ought to be charging. Emotional stories such as “I’m not that worth that much” or “There’s no way my clients will pay that” whip...
The 3 onboarding documents to help you set a clear, professional working relationship with new clients
I’m writing about boundaries this month; those often invisible lines that we need to have to protect and fuel our time and energy. Last week I wrote about the 4 work boundaries to increasing profitability and avoiding burnout. This week, I want to shine the light on...
The top 4 work boundaries to increasing profitability and avoiding burnout
As a woman of a certain age, I’ve grown wise to the fact that there are two things that are most precious to us. But too often we can spend our whole lives giving them away without a moment’s thought. When we have lots of these two things, we take them for granted....
Comfort and growth can’t co-exist: a one year reflection
This time last year, life, as we knew it, changed. As I sit here and reflect over the past year, and of course acknowledge the trauma that happened to so many, I am also in awe by how many people have shifted and grown their businesses. Comfort and growth can't...
Why health is the number one investment in your business
Fatigue, stress and hormone imbalances have become serious problems for many business owners, particularly those of us in our 40’s, 50’s and beyond. And it’s caused many to pull back and play small to protect themselves. When we feel exhausted, we can talk ourselves...
Money energy in your business: how to stop chasing pie-in-the-sky figures that burn you out
Your business instinct is far stronger than you give it credit for. However, if you are worn out and feeling frazzled (and hey, don’t we find ourselves at the end of our tethers most days right now!) it's easy to find yourself fire-fighting your way through your...
Using intuition in your business: critical insight or a risky delusion?
You know far more than you give yourself credit for. However, trusting yourself to know this and using your intuition to help you grow a business is not a natural way for many of us. If you are like a lot of people who I work with, you have spent much of your...
Are your referrals today the right clients for your growth tomorrow?
Do you believe referrals are good for business? I'm guessing that that the majority of answers to this are going to be a big, fat yes. It's always lovely to have new clients come to you because you've been recommended. Speaking to these people makes the whole selling...
Dancing with life and letting hope fuel your 2021
Earlier this year, at the start of our first lockdown, I wrote about the dangers of blind hope. A friend introduced me to the Stockdale Paradox, which seemed fitting at the time. We were all in full crisis management, dealing with school closures, businesses shutting...
3 simple ways of preventing a volcanic eruption
Many of us are really great at crisis management. In an emergency, our flight-or-fight instincts kick in and we just know what the right thing to do is in that moment. I look back to March of this year, and I saw myself and many others rise to the occasion to deal...
What does doing less look like?
What does doing less look like? This was a question that someone asked me this week (thanks Linda!). I write and talk a lot about the idea of doing less; my sign-off tag is Do Less, Be More, Play Bigger. And I get that it can sound like a little abstract. Images of...
Trusting the process: coachy smug or good business advice?
Has anyone ever said to you 'trust the process'? I used to hate this phase; I felt it was such a 'coachy' thing to say and it irritated the pants off me when anyone tried to use it with me. It's often said in the context of someone working hard, trying to get...
