50. Will & Courtney Kassner: The Best Day at Work Is the Day the Boss Stays Home

58. Small Team, Big Mission: How Karen Stubbs Operates Birds on a Wire

Karen Stubbs is the founder of Birds on a Wire, a ministry built to equip and encourage moms with practical, biblical wisdom. What started as a small group of seven moms in her basement has grown over 15 years into a worldwide ministry with a podcast, curriculum, books, and a conference. In this episode, Karen joins Courtney for a candid conversation about the real operational challenges of running a lean faith-based nonprofit, from managing a small team to diversifying revenue to launching a brand-new curriculum for grandmothers.   Karen shares how she learned to read her team's temperaments and adjust her leadership accordingly, why she started a Patreon subscription tier to offset podcast production costs, and how she thinks about the generational ripple effect of pouring into moms. She also opens up about what she prays every single morning and the season she chose her family over her biggest fundraising window, and what happened as a result.   If you are building something with purpose and feeling the weight of wearing a lot of hats, this conversation will encourage you and give you a few things to think about practically.   In this episode:   * How Birds on a Wire grew from a basement small group to a worldwide ministry * Managing a small team and knowing when to pump the brakes on new ideas * Balancing the roles of founder, grandmother, and mom in the same season * The Patreon model Karen built to offset podcast production costs * Why Birds on a Wire is launching a grandmother-focused curriculum * What Karen talks to God about in her business every single morning   Episode Links:   Birds on a Wire: www.birdsonawiremoms.com [http://www.birdsonawiremoms.com] Wire Talk Podcast: Available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Wire Talk Plus (Patreon): Available through the Wire Talk podcast feed Monarch COO: www.monarchcoo.com [http://www.monarchcoo.com] Instagram: @monarch_coo

57. Productivity for Founders

Most productivity advice was written for people with too much free time. In this solo episode, Courtney cuts through the noise and shares seven of her most important productivity practices, the ones that have actually moved the needle for her as a founder and fractional COO working inside other founders' businesses.   Courtney breaks down not just what to do, but why your current approach is probably costing you more than you realize.   In this episode, Courtney covers:   * Why your brain is your biggest productivity killer and what to do about it * Why running your life across multiple systems creates gaps that cost you * How to block focus time before anyone else can take it * Matching your work to your energy, not just your schedule * Why a weekly planning session is the single highest-leverage habit for founders   Want all 14 productivity tips? I've pulled together the full list — including how to use AI as your admin layer, how to build a real shutdown routine, and how to guard your calendar like a business asset. Download it free: Productivity Tips [https://docs.google.com/document/d/18k2YjF5uww5qhktXoKjVp9-9PPOd748KYf1_aGL__rA/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.1mkfrbeuqi0w]   Episode Links   Full Productivity Download: Productivity Tips [https://docs.google.com/document/d/18k2YjF5uww5qhktXoKjVp9-9PPOd748KYf1_aGL__rA/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.1mkfrbeuqi0w] Monarch COO: www.monarchcoo.com [http://www.monarchcoo.com] Instagram: @monarch_coo

56. Jacob Willis: Running Lean, Giving Big, and Trusting God With the Rest

Jacob and Christin Willis are the founders of We Heart Nutrition, a research-backed supplement company on a mission to help people live energetic, joyful lives. They are also pro-life and proudly donate 10% of all sales to pregnancy care centers across the country.   Jacob is back for a second conversation, and a lot has changed. He and Courtney dig into the team and agency structure that is keeping the business lean but functional, what it actually took to fix a manufacturing and fulfillment crisis that was tanking customer experience, how Christin is managing creative direction as the brand scales, and the decision to launch a nonprofit to create sustainable, multi-year support for pregnancy care centers instead of one-time donations.   There is also a real conversation about faith and what it looks like to release the pressure of growth targets and trust that the labor is yours but the increase belongs to God.   Episode Links We Heart Nutrition: weheartnutrition.com [weheartnutrition.com] Monarch COO: monarchcoo.com [monarchcoo.com] Monarch COO on Instagram: @monarch_coo [https://www.instagram.com/monarch_coo/] monarchcoo.com/ops-health-check [monarchcoo.com/ops-health-check]

55. What Your Onboarding Process Says About Your Business

You closed the deal. You made the hire. Everyone's excited. And then the first two weeks happen and something feels off. Files are coming from three different places. The kickoff call agenda is being built in real time. Your new hire is spending their first three days tracking down login credentials that should have been ready before they walked in the door.   Most founders file this under "we'll get better as we go." This episode is about why that's a mistake.   Courtney breaks down why your onboarding process isn't just a logistics task. It's the first time someone experiences your business from the inside, and what they find either confirms or contradicts everything you showed them to get them to yes.   In this episode: * Why onboarding is a brand moment, not an admin task * The four messages a chaotic onboarding sends, whether you intend to or not * How disorganized client onboarding creates doubt before you've delivered a single result * How disorganized employee onboarding trains your team to operate in ambiguity * The three honest reasons founders haven't fixed this yet * What it looks like when onboarding actually works, and what it makes possible for your business   If your process lives in your head and gets reconstructed from memory every time, it's time to make some changes. This episode is your push to fix it.   Ready to build an onboarding process your clients and team members actually rave about? Fill out a quick intake in the link below and let's talk about what that looks like for your business specifically.   Episode Links Work with Courtney: www.monarchcoo.com [http://www.monarchcoo.com] Instagram: @monarchcoo Monarch COO Inquiry Form [https://hello.dubsado.com/public/form/view/69b4af9e3ac23b55897ce038]

54. The Shepherd Doesn't Run Ahead: Josh Menold on Pace, People, and Leading Well

Josh Menold is the CEO and owner of CHE Companies, an exterior construction platform serving the Carolinas and Virginia. Before CHE, he spent two decades in finance and operations leadership, including CFO roles at Bobbitt Design Build and Faulkner Hays. He's also the founder of ITABWODI LLC, a parent brand for several ventures rooted in a question his grandfather taught him on the farm: Is there a better way of doing it? He's an elder at Summit Church in Apex, North Carolina, holds an MBA from Campbell University, and lives in Raleigh with his wife, Jen, and their five kids.   Josh came into ownership through a management buyout, not a startup, not an inheritance. He saw an opportunity, led with a question about how he could help, and eventually stepped into the seat. In this conversation, he and Courtney get into what two decades of being the operator behind other people's visions actually taught him, why he stopped believing the leader's job is to drive hardest, and what it looks like to run a 68-person company with a stewardship framework instead of an ambition framework.   They cover: * * How nonprofit leadership in the Dominican Republic, across three languages, became an unexpected training ground in communication and culture * * What ITABWODI means and why the question behind it is the thing keeping Josh curious every day * * Hiring for hungry, humble, and smart, and why one of those three being off is usually enough to derail a team * * How Josh built a custom AI-powered field tool for CHE that beats anything available on the market, and what that process actually looked like * * The stewardship framework he uses to decide which of his 15 AI-built apps actually get his time * * Why he says the leader's job isn't to drive harder than anyone in the room, and the shepherd metaphor that replaced that belief * * The daily posture of trust he starts every morning with, even when cash flow, family, and business pressure are all hitting at once * * What he'd say to the founder quietly pretending they have it all together   Episode Links ITABWODI.com www.monarchcoo.com [http://www.monarchcoo.com] @monarchcoo on Instagram   Monarch COO Inquiry Form [https://hello.dubsado.com/public/form/view/69b4af9e3ac23b55897ce038]