The Founder Shift Podcast

Scaling & Selling Three Businesses with Maryana Sky: People & processes that create real world value

Talk about a business turnaround. After leaving a career on Wall Street, Maryana Sky bought three businesses overseas and turned them around from struggling to profitable in three months, taking them from a 15% sales conversion rate to 85%. Now, she mentors beauty and esthetician business owners to do the same. But Maryana’s secret is so much more than just investment into these businesses. For her, it’s about building a whole business ecosystem: nurturing talent, overcoming mental blocks, creating new leadership practices, fine tuning your service stack, and getting REALLY good at business fundamentals. From there, the sky is the limit. She’s developed systems for people and operations that really work in the real world, and in this episode, we’re pulling back the curtain on what it really takes to create long-term, heart-led value in a competitive market. If you’re an esthetician who wants to grow, expand your client base, and increase your sales in a sustainable way, come for a free, no-obligation consultation. DM “CONSULTATION” on Instagram @maryanasky ! [https://www.instagram.com/maryanasky/]

Create The Space: Building a Business that Runs Without You with Luisa Alberto

What does it take to build and scale 4 businesses that run without you? For one thing… space. Luisa Alberto, the founder of People First Finance, People First Foundations, and Kindredly, has done it. Her financial services agency runs without her in the day-to-day, and in this episode she’s sharing the strong (unsexy) foundations and skills she had to learn and master in order to scale with ease. Luisa’s specialty is helping solopreneurs build businesses that last, without the constant stress of DIY management. You can join her email series for solo service business owners who are done with DIY and ready for practical solutions that help them grow beyond a party of one. https://www.luisakalberto.com/about-email-series [https://www.luisakalberto.com/about-email-series]

006: S2 - WE'RE BACK! Making Positive Progress and Throwing Out the Playbook (because we need to)

Can we fix the world? I actually think we can. But it's going to take a long time. There's never been a more important time to question what we have been told is "the only way to do things" and to create little corners of positive progress in our worlds, with whatever tools we do have. At heart, this is really what The Founder Shift is all about. So we're kicking off Season 2 by making sense and structure out of changes that are big enough to feel a little impossible. Because business CAN be an incredible proving ground for positive transformation, if we are ready to create something different than what we think we know. My goal is to give you tools for exactly this. Join me (and our upcoming incredible guests) in a bigger and better Season 2, where we're going deep into purpose-driven scaling and achieving bigger missions than money (while also making money).

005: Building a Scalable Client Experience Team with Erica Wood

Erica's been in client service the majority of her career: from helping children and parents in hospital settings, to scaling a VA staffing business, to helping founders design holistic client experiences, she's always been focused on creating proactive, compassionate, and intentional service journeys. Not reacting to things as they come up. This is what we mean by "10x everything" not being enough of a strategy. Just getting 10x more clients in the door won't necessarily provide more profitability... in fact, it could be costing you. In Episode 5, we go DEEP into the difference between being reactive (fixing issues with customer service) vs. being proactive about your client journey - and what it looks like to find team members for your clients who can operate more strategically. In other words, if you’re scaling fast but losing clients just as quickly, you’re always putting out fires and trying to figure out why good clients don’t stick. This episode gives you an alternative. Take Erica’s Client Journey Quiz to find out if your delivery model is helping or hindering your client retention: https://forms.gle/KnHYu3WvK8pmJLVeA

004: Systematizing Everyone's Favorite Hire, "The Social Media Person" with Kate Gilbert

Most entrepreneurs who aren’t already marketing experts pick social media as their number one thing to get off their plate as quickly as possible. But Kate Gilbert, the social media strategist for people who don’t like social media - sees it differently.  In this episode, we’re exploring how to systematize social before you give it away - and how an audit from someone like Kate can help you maximize your ROI on social, whether you choose to keep it with you or to hire someone to manage it longterm. Kate takes us behind the scenes to talk about running a magazine, and how it led her to develop her proprietary content method that helps you stay focused and keep things easy to scale. You can use this system for your current business or use it to scale up a new offer or reach a new audience! Want to learn more about how to streamline your social media so you can spend more time growing your business? Watch Kate’s free Time Is Money video here: https://kategilbert.com/timeismoney [https://kategilbert.com/timeismoney] Want to be a part of my favorite women's entrepreneur community, the one where Kate and I met? Join an Entreprenista info sesh [https://refer.entreprenista.com/JessInfoSesh] to see what it's all about! https://refer.entreprenista.com/JessInfoSesh [https://refer.entreprenista.com/JessInfoSesh]