Can We Not? Business Is Hard Enough.

40. Can We Not People-Please Our Way Through a Growing Business? | Conference Growth with Megan Shapiro

Growing community, conference, or business without losing your original vision — and your sanity — can be a picasso painting that easily gets distorted. Host Samantha C. Prestidge chats with Megan Shapiro, construction attorney and founder of the Converge Construction Summit, about strategic community growth, what sustainable business building actually looks like, and how to stop people-pleasing your way into something you didn't mean to create. Megan grew Converge from 13 people in Savannah to 55 in Chicago — and her most important work wasn't any of that growth. It was the months she spent figuring out why her best-reviewed event left her completely drained. In this episode: * How to grow a community or event without losing what made it work * Why strategic growth beats fast growth — and how to tell the difference * What people-pleasing in business actually costs you, even when things look successful * How to hear what your audience wants and identify what they actually need * Why sustainable business growth requires knowing your vision before you scale it * What months of business coaching, therapy, and a mastermind finally unlocked that a successful event couldn't

39. Can We Not Be the Reason Our Assistant Fails? Three Crucial Calls for Clarity

You’ve hired an assistant before. It didn’t stick. And if you’re honest, you’re not totally sure why. Host Samantha C. Prestidge of Auxo Business Services breaks down the three areas of clarity founders need to have in place before they bring on an assistant — and why skipping them is almost always what tanks the working relationship. This solo episode gets into why even strong assistants fail when founders aren’t ready, the difference between delegating tasks and delegating outcomes, and the Map It → Keep It → Delegate It framework Sam uses with her own clients. Topic Bullets * Why building SOPs before you hire is the wrong starting point — and what to do instead * The “cart before the horse” pattern that ends most assistant relationships early * What “how you want to play in your business” actually means — and why founders who skip it become micromanagers * How to write a value statement that ties your assistant’s work to real business outcomes, not just your to-do list * When “I can’t grow because I’m at capacity” is actually a clarity problem, not a bandwidth one * The Map It, Keep It, Delegate It framework * Book a delegation strategy session: auxosvs.com/strategy Timestamps * 00:00 Hidden Expectations 00:21 Podcast Mission 01:49 Delegation Failures 03:31 Skip The SOP Trap 04:52 Three Clarity Areas 05:08 Map What Youre Building 07:18 Keep Your Founder Role 09:13 Delegate Outcomes Not Tasks 11:49 Map Keep Delegate Framework 12:27 Book A Strategy Session

38. Can We Not Keep Marketing to Everyone and Serving No One? | Finding the Right Operations Partner with Ashley Connell

Hiring operations help for your small business is harder than it should be — and most founders are looking at the wrong things when they do it. Ashley Connell, CEO of Prowess Project, has spent seven years matching small business owners with operations partners. She's learned that the skills on a resume tell you almost nothing about whether someone can actually run your business alongside you. In this episode: * Why hiring for tech stack and job titles fails service-based business owners * How to find the right operations partner for your small business * The four-step framework Ashley's ops partners use from day one * Why delegating outcomes doesn't work — and what to communicate instead * How to know if you need an operations partner or if your processes need fixing first * What a two-week time study reveals that no hiring process can 00:00 The Need for Management 00:41 Welcome to Can We Not 01:41 Meet Ashley Connell 02:22 What is an Ops Partner 04:46 Meeting Leah 05:42 Flexible and Fulfilling Careers 06:59 The 97 Percent Statistic 07:38 The Matching Algorithm 10:47 Proven Results and Success Stories 13:14 Overcomplicating the Journey 15:38 Niching Down to Accounting Firms 17:22 Testing and Experimentation 19:22 Naming the Ops Partner 21:20 Experimentation With Intent 22:35 Accountability and Feedback 26:06 Four Step Delivery Method 29:03 Setting Clear Expectations 32:24 Behaviors Over Outcomes 34:28 Practical AI Integration 36:29 Time Study to Simplify 38:40 Closing Thoughts

37. Can We Not Sell Like We're Trying to Win an Argument?

Most sales training teaches you to push harder when a prospect hesitates. Aleasha Bahr teaches you to get curious instead — and the results are hard to argue with. Host Samantha C. Prestidge chats with Aleasha Bahr, author of Black Sheep Sales and founder of a sales coaching practice that helps service business owners build strategies designed around how they actually think and communicate — not a pushy script that never fit them in the first place. They dig into what it looks like to simplify your message down to outcomes people actually want (hint: it's not your list of deliverables), why defining your anti-audience is as important as defining your ICP, and how knowing when to walk away from a sale is the thing that actually brings clients chasing you. LINKS * Aleasha Bahr on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleashabahr]  * Black Sheep Sales book [https://blacksheepsalesbook.com/] * Aleasha's website [https://aleashabahr.com/] * Catch more episodes: canwenotpodcast.com * Apply to be a guest [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdW-Fai45ZC1pNAD956IEPe0EzMigFLSC6pKfihC8_GVqXRLA/viewform?usp=header] * Have Sam as a guest on your podcast: info@auxosvs.com

36. Can We Not Duct-Tape Seven Apps Together? | Construction Tech & Quickbooks Alternatives with Bryant Solomon ?

You're not running seven apps because you're disorganized. You're running seven apps because each one solved a real problem at the time and nobody ever stopped to ask if the pile still made sense. Host Samantha C. Prestidge chats with Bryant Solomon, co-founder of ControlQore, who did something most founders skip — he went and worked inside his customer's business before building anything. What he found was a back office held together with workarounds, and a team trained on tools that were never designed for them. They get into how chasing the wrong kind of growth poisons an entire industry's relationship with technology, and why the founders who build slow and stay profitable are the ones still standing when the VC-fueled competitors burn out. Links: * Bryant Solomon on LinkedIn  [https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryant-solomon-cq-ceo/] * ControlQore website  [https://www.controlqore.com/] * Converge Summit  [https://convergeconstructionsummit.com/] * Josh Luebker (fractional CFO mentioned) on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-construction-cfo] * More episodes at canwenotpodcast.com * Apply to be a guest [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdW-Fai45ZC1pNAD956IEPe0EzMigFLSC6pKfihC8_GVqXRLA/viewform?usp=header] * Have Sam on your podcast: info@auxosvs.com