ACThoughtful Consulting

Are you feeling the end-of year squeeze? That final push to hit your milestones and create a strong plan for the coming year? We've got your back!

Harness your ideas, big and small, into a plan you can actually act on, and that serves your unique goals.

In our upcoming FREE workshop, put on with the help of SCORE Mentors, we'll help you do just that. You'll walk-away with a 1-page strategy plan and action roadmap!

I'd love to see you there!

Activate Your Ideas You are a visionary entrepreneur with ideas, but how do you get the ball rolling? Fall is the perfect time to pause and get ready to gear up in a highly interactive workshop to capture a one-page strategy and action plan for you and your business that will carry you through wrapping up this year str...

Now's the time, to get paid what you need. We designed an easy-to-use worksheet that does the math for you, and in our brand new micro-course we walk you through it step-by-step. Leave no stone unturned! https://acthoughtful.thinkific.com/courses/how-to-get-paid

Getting Paid By Your Business When was the last time your business cut you a check? We're breaking down the process to figure out exactly what you need to get paid.

You're a business owner. But you're also a leader. And you manage client relationships. And referral partners. And you make connections for people every day.

It's a big responsibility.

This week my daughter and I were struggling through a conversation about feedback. It's difficult because the constructive feedback can hurt AND it's also worth its weight in gold. And it's possible for us to see both truths at the same time and get stuck in whether we are grateful or upset.

It's not any different in our business dealings. Every day we lean into an interconnected world and need to strike a balance between being direct and creating a warm and welcoming environment where people can truly trust us.

So what's worked for us?

1) We hire for it.
2) We take what we dish. When a client says, "I'm not getting what I need". It's a compliment. It means they trust me enough to tell me and know that I will take it seriously and we'll adjust together.
3) We take ownership when we screw up the balance.
4) We forgive ourselves when it doesn't go perfectly.

Life's lessons are sometimes hard-won --- and worth winning.

Are you getting paid enough by your business?

Chances are, there's something you want to improve.

Do you know what that will take? We're breaking it down step-by-step:

Do You Know What It Takes To Get Paid? — ACThoughtful Consulting Are you getting paid what you need? Do you know your bottom line? We help you break it down, and arm you with the knowledge you need to get paid and achieve your goals

One of the perks of COVID is integrating my life between work and home more seamlessly in subtle ways.

I pared back my wardrobe so my weekend and weekday wardrobe are the same.
I wear little to no makeup most days, and I went back to the kitchen --- using more basic ingredients for my needs so I need less to do more.

All of this helps to match my desire to build a sustainable world, create a simpler life, and do meaningful work, while showing up as my whole (unmasked) self.

As part of that journey, my amazing promo products partner Joal McAlister introduced me to a local clothing company called Storm Creek and I have been loving their clothing.

Part outdoors/hiking.
Part weekday uniform.
Part sustainable.
WAY comfortable.

It allows me to put my logo on the most comfortable clothing ---- And then call it workwear ;)

Thanks, Joal!

Storm Creek | Outdoor Apparel Outdoor inspired apparel for every season, with unrivaled value and quality. We passionately pursue the finest fabrics, fit, and function.

The holy grail of business ownership.

🍹Sipping Mai Thais on a beach while your team grows your company.
🚵Taking on your next adventure (you know who you are serial entrepreneurs!)
👬 Giving back to your loved ones or the community.
🎤Doing something different --- just because you love it.

Why do you want to grow?

Whatever the reason, having your business run while you are away is not the same as having it grow while you are away.

Here are five ways you can build a team that grows your company (whether or not you are there). So you can be prepared for your next adventure. Or life's unexpected twists and turns.

https://acthoughtful.com/insights/build-your-team/

Want to know what words to use in your marketing?

Listen to what your customers tell you.

In every conversation...

Review...

Email...

They are sending you a message of what they love about you and why they hired you. Channel those adjectives in your website, emails, social and networking discussions and you will find that the people who you can serve the best will find you.

What adjectives do people use to describe you?

Here are a few we get a lot at ACThoughtful...

It was like being in high school again.

Someone talks to you that you have wanted to notice you for forever. And then you can't say a single word right.

So I have a habit. I affectionately call it "text bombing"

When I reach out to people I know and love and their phone chirps 8 times in a row, everyone in the house says, "Jenny must be texting." It's a sign of affection.

It's also something I do when I get SUPER excited.

This week was no exception when my first lead came in via my new online chat functionality on my website.

Getting new leads is a completely normal occurrence for me. Getting them via chat was NOT. So after almost falling out of my chair, I proceeded to... guess what.... chat bomb them.

😳

I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. That first person who likes your page or reshares your content that you do not personally know... or the first time you got a referral. As you grow, it's the first investor that proactively reaches out to pursue you. Or the first person who asks to work for you before there is a job posted.

Whatever it is. These are the moments that we know we are doing something right.

Even if I did scare them away.

Go ahead. Get excited.

Just don't text bomb them ;)

People find you in more than one place. Your strategy to connect with your potential customers needs to line up to their complex world.

Here's an example. This week I had someone schedule a coffee with me.
..Their first interaction was at a workshop. 💻..Another was in an email.📥..They saw a video on YouTube 🎥

All those things happened before they were ready to reach out.

Very few people you interact with are ready to buy right now. But many of them may be ready in the future.

Be present where they are, when they are there. Know where to find the signals that the time is right. And let it happen.

We don't make a sale; a customer chooses to buy. We just need to make sure the experience from the first time they meet us, throughout their delivery with us is seamless and honors where they are and what they need.

Change is afoot! What big change did you make in 2020 that you plan on carrying into 2021?

We went from...

✈️ Local to national - We now have clients in 7 states covering both coasts
💻 Physical to virtual - With screen control and sharing we can move quicker
📅 Bi-Weekly to weekly - Most of our clients meet weekly so they can move faster
👥 A team of one to a team of two - So you can always get on someone's calendar
📆 Enabling stand-alone appointments for clients who can't commit to long term
🤓 Added a supported DIY program for micro-business owners looking to grow

Change is a necessity. We all had to adapt to 2020.

But transformation is a choice.

What will you choose?

A big shout out to Josh Heriot at Heriot Creative who helped me create this amazing logo. I wanted more edge to represent the drive we bring to the table while still keeping the hope, possibility, flight, and transformation captured in the butterfly.

While I had to leave the whimsy behind, I am embracing this origami-like version of our animal spirit and mascot as it can be molded and shaped much like our businesses.

If you ever need a logo --- Josh did a fantastic job working with me and I highly recommend him!

Getting ready to grow in 2021?

Need a simple plan that can fit on one page?

If you have 5 days and 5-10 minutes a day --- here's a free course to walk away with a concrete plan that includes your:

📈 Measures - How do you know are taking the right actions that are working?
🛠️ Top projects and actions - Priorities
💡 Professional and cultural areas of development

All mapped to your why for business and life.

Ready to demystify annual (or multi-year) planning? Go ahead, what do you have to lose?

5 Day Idea Activation Challenge You have places you want to take your micro-business. But you need a simple plan that is practical and can be (actually) implemented. In 10 minutes a day, for 5 days you can move from ideating to growing and have a one-page strategy map to follow.

I had the best time chatting with Adam Thompson at the Phase 2 podcast about growing and scaling a business. Nothing was untouchable during this interview. From kids schooling at home to pricing strategies, and life purposes ---- we got deep.

And best part? He didn't ask me to slow down ;)

Have fun --- you're in for a wild and fast ride!

‎The Phase 2 Podcast on Apple Podcasts ‎Business · 2020

Attracting a great hire starts before the job description.

But a great job description doesn't hurt either ;)

This article outlines in detail 4 steps to get you the best at a great hire (and how to apply them in your hiring process).

The highlights?

✔️Be honest with yourself and the candidate..Know where you’re going and what your constraints are, and hire to fit that.

✔️Hire for ownership and values..Don’t focus on the tasks that will change; focus on what they’ll own and how they need to show up — let them color in the details on how they will make that happen.

✔️Avoid bias..Incorporate technical interviews, diverse perspectives, and screen for concrete requirements you can write on paper.

What tips do you have to make a great hire?

https://acthoughtful.com/insights/hire-like-it-counts/

I'm starting a series on what I've learned as I've launched and grown my business. It's all the stuff no one told me and I had to learn (sometimes the hard way, sometimes the easy way). Hopefully, it will help all of you! The lessons will range from the esoteric to the practical, to the hyper details you might never have thought of...

This week's lesson: Don't use URLs provided by your SAAS solutions to share with customers. If you're scheduling, hosting media, etc. always make sure you use a vanity URL housed in your domain redirected to the provider's URL.

It's so easy to use the URLs our partners provide us with.

But then we have to move things around, and suddenly the feat of updating those URLs everywhere they are (including in our client's bookmarks and on calls to action outside of our direct editing control) now become monumental.

Take my advice - set it up once, then all you have to do is repoint the URL to the best available alternative when you move to a new solution.

Which you will! Eventually.... ;)

We are doing another event through SCORE on December 1 from 12 PM -1:30 PM Central Time! Boggott and I will be focused on helping you clearly outline what scale means to you and your first steps to get there ---- whether you are a solopreneur, a tech start-up, or a business owner looking to build a company that scales beyond your personal reach.

Are you ready to Scale Smart?

http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=5vk8e5cab&oeidk=a07ehej8ef02f44ca7a

How do you hang onto good employees?

If you're nervous you might be losing great talent and aren't sure how to get your arms around it, we break tracking, understanding, and solving for turnover into 5 steps.

How do you retain your team? Start with knowing how you are losing them. It'll tell you a lot.

Do you know how to track employee turnover? — ACThoughtful Consulting Employee turnover is a simple formula, but it requires a little probing to get the right measures and decide if it is useful for you to track as a business owner.

This Saturday is Small Business Saturday! First of all --- kudos to American Express for getting this thing started. It's a great way to over the holidays. Whether it's the food you get delivered in (cough --- that would be me most years) or you cook, or the trimmings for the tree or the gifts you buy --- local can be beautiful.

Many people will be ordering in gifts (after all, this year has been an odd one). And many local businesses have risen to the challenge by beefing up eCommerce and online ordering capabilities.

I support small businesses every day. I wake up in the morning, and I live and breathe for their success. It's why I started this business in the first place.

How can you ---- with one small gesture ---- go local this year and say thank you to the small business owners? Their success or failure is tied completely to the community. They hire our local talent and give back in a meaningful way. If the community rejects them --- they won't survive, so they are intrinsically tied to the web of our daily lives deeply and powerfully.

What is your favorite local business? And how can you say thanks?

Now is the time to support the places you love. Shop Small. Learn about the nationwide Shop Small movement to help small businesses and communities thrive.

This week I want to thank my amazing bookkeeping firm Spader Group for keeping my financial wheels moving each month. In addition, they have been picking up some VA tasks when I need to burn the midnight oil a little less - and keep moving on the important stuff.

Thanks to Shawndel Spader, Kari Kasel, and Lauren Lagoo for being the lifesavers who are there for me every month! I couldn't have navigated this transitional growth period without you.

Check them out @ https://www.spadergroup.com/

Don't look! (But please --- do look :) )

I hear regularly that people just don't want to look at the 2020 numbers (or the numbers in general). But what if you had a different way to look at them? One where you didn't see a miss as a failure, but as a hypothesis you were testing and something you could learn.

If you're setting goals for 2021 and wrapping up 2020 --- now is the time to set your measures that matter.

And here are 4 steps you can take to identify them!

How to find measures that matter to your business — ACThoughtful Consulting Do you know what measures matter to your micro-business? We break it down to 4 steps (with a lot of definition) so you can focus on what matters —- and let go of the rest.

This week I received the most thoughtful thank you note I have received since launching my business into the wild a year ago. It was for a connection we made and about all of the ways the connection made an impact on people --- the people who benefited and got access to opportunities they might not have, to the joy it created within the teams, and the positive impact on the business.

What's even better is that the other half of the connection feels the same way.

John Mackey - Who is the founder of Whole Foods Market co-wrote an amazing book called Conscious Capitalism where he talks about win to the power of 6. He talks about leading in an environment where all stakeholders are receiving value.

This is a more nuanced and layered version of Stephen Covey's concept of creating win-win solutions and getting comfortable walking away from the win-lose solutions or the lose-win solutions.

When we are able to connect two people or organizations in a way where all parties and the world benefit it can be extremely powerful to moving our world forward.

How are you being a conscious leader in the connections you make this week?