What I Found When I Followed Every Link in Her Free Offers | Ep. 35

What I Found When I Followed Every Link in Her Free Offers | Ep. 35

Last week Brooke sat down and did something most business owners never do — she followed every single link, clicked through every freebie, and traced every path in a client's free offers from start to finish. Not to find broken links. To find out where the business was actually pointing. What she found wasn't an error message. It was something a lot more common. In this episode, she walks through what the audit revealed and why it matters less as a story about freebies and more as a story about what happens when you get too close to your own business to see where it's actually aimed. Key Takeaways * When you build something in your business — a freebie, a funnel, an automation — you build it with a purpose that made sense at the time. But your business moves. The freebie doesn't. Over time it can end up pointing toward a version of your business that doesn't exist anymore. * Nothing signals the drift. The form still submits, the email still sends. From the inside, it looks like it's working. From the outside, following the full path, it's aimed at the wrong place. * A freebie is often the first real experience someone has with your business outside of your free content — before she's paid you, before she's talked to you. That first impression matters more than most founders account for. * When the path someone is on doesn't lead to where you want her to go, it doesn't show up as a complaint. It shows up as someone who downloaded something, seemed interested, and never came back. * The habit isn't auditing everything once a year. It's occasionally walking through your own business as if you were a stranger — not checking whether it works, checking whether it's still aimed at the right place. ---------------------------------------- Resources + Links * Business Read: https://withbrooke.com/the-business-read-with-brooke/ [https://withbrooke.com/the-business-read-with-brooke/] * Instagram: @with.brooke * Website: withbrooke.com [http://withbrooke.com]

What Neurofeedback Is and Why Entrepreneurs Should Know About It with Sandy Boone | Ep. 34

One of the things that comes up in backend audits is that the backend is only part of the picture — and sometimes the heaviest thing a founder is carrying goes beyond her systems. Sandy Boone is a therapist and coach who works at the intersection of trauma healing and burnout recovery, and she does it in a way that goes a lot deeper than traditional talk therapy. She works at the nervous system level — using somatic healing and neurofeedback to address what the body is holding that the mind alone can't fully process. In this episode, Brooke and Sandy dig into what neurofeedback is, what's actually happening in the brain during a neurofeedback session, who it's a good fit for, and what burnout really looks like at a nervous system level for high-performing founders. Brooke also shares her own experience doing neurofeedback — because yes, she's doing it too. Key Takeaways * Neurofeedback uses the electrical pulse of the brain — similar to how an EKG reads the heart — to monitor brainwave activity and train it to stay within healthy ranges. When your brain is where it needs to be, it gets positive feedback. Over time, it learns to stay there. * You can't force it. The harder you try to control the result during a session, the less it works. That's part of what makes it different — it's working at a level that willpower can't reach. * Neurofeedback can support anxiety, depression, ADHD, trauma, burnout, TBI, cognitive performance, stress management, and pain perception, among other things. The brain and body aren't as separate as we've been taught to treat them. * Burnout is what happens when you needed to take a break and didn't. Recovery looks different for every nervous system — and it's rarely what the self-care industry is selling. Did you eat today? Did you rest? Those are the questions that matter first. * As a society we are deeply disconnected from our bodies — and that disconnection is often by design. Neurofeedback brings awareness back in a way that's physiological, not just mindset-based. * Results typically show up between 30 and 60 sessions. Sandy doesn't assess for change until session 20. Younger brains tend to shift faster — but also revert faster. Resources + Links Work with Sandy * Free Neurofeedback Information Pack: https://www.sandyboone.com/opt-in [https://www.sandyboone.com/opt-in] * Work with Sandy for neurofeedback: https://www.sandyboone.com/neurofeedback-sales-page [https://www.sandyboone.com/neurofeedback-sales-page] * Email Sandy directly with questions: sandy@sandyboone.com [sandy@sandyboone.com] Find Brooke * Business Read With Brooke: https://withbrooke.com/the-business-read-with-brooke/ [https://withbrooke.com/the-business-read-with-brooke/] * Instagram: @with.brooke * Website: withbrooke.com [http://withbrooke.com]

Online Business Was Always Long Game. Now It's Just Obvious. | Ep. 33

There is a specific kind of frustration showing up in online businesses right now. Showing up, putting out content, doing everything the way it's supposed to be done — and the results feel slow. Slower than expected. Slower than they used to feel. The story a lot of founders are telling themselves is that something is off with their business. In this episode, Brooke offers a different way to look at it. The timeline has changed. And the founders who are going to build something that holds are the ones who start building for the actual timeline instead of the one that no longer exists. Key Takeaways * Sales cycles are longer. Trust takes longer to build. A person who finds you today might follow for months before they buy anything — and that is not a sign something is wrong. It's the current reality of how buying decisions happen online. * Social media was never labeled long game because early on, it was fast. That speed is gone. The runway from first impression to sale now looks a lot more like the blogging timeline than early Instagram ever did. * Ads are a tool, not a replacement for the runway. Without a clear client path and a backend that converts, ads accelerate the spend without accelerating the results. * Stop measuring progress by sales alone. Email list growth, podcast downloads trending up, DMs from people who have been watching for months — those are runway indicators. They show up before the revenue does. * Every time you rebuild the offer, change the messaging, or switch platforms, you reset the clock. Staying the course on something that's building — even when it doesn't feel like it's building — is how you play the long game. * The infrastructure worth building right now: an email list you own, a client path that's mapped and working, and backend systems that keep the business running when you step back. INFORMATION RESOURCES FOR YOU: * The four backend gaps showing up in founder businesses right now: https://withbrooke.com/episode-29-female-founder-business-diagnosis/ [https://withbrooke.com/episode-29-female-founder-business-diagnosis/] * Before we fix anything, we need to talk about your client path: https://withbrooke.com/episode-31-client-path-mapping/ [https://withbrooke.com/episode-31-client-path-mapping/] Links * Backend Business Audit: https://withbrooke.com/backend-business-audit/ [https://withbrooke.com/backend-business-audit/] * Free Backend Self Audit: https://withbrooke.myflodesk.com/self-audit [https://withbrooke.myflodesk.com/self-audit] * Instagram: @with.brooke * Website: withbrooke.com [http://withbrooke.com]

Building a Luxury Photography Brand on Your Own Terms with Lindsay Gronos | Ep. 32

This one is special — Brooke's first ever in-person podcast episode, recorded inside a local studio. If you're listening, head to YouTube to watch the video, because the experience of being in that room together is worth seeing. One of the things that comes up in backend audits is that the backend is only part of the picture — and building a business that looks and feels like you on the outside matters just as much as what's running behind the scenes. Lindsay Gronos is the owner and creative artist behind Oak & Ember Collective, a North Dakota-based photography brand known for cinematic, editorial-inspired work that blends emotion, storytelling, and intentional artistry. With over ten years of experience — including work alongside Walt Disney's Yellow Shoes Creative team and jewelry campaigns across the Midwest — she's building a luxury photography brand in a smaller market entirely on her own terms. Today they talk about what that takes creatively, personally, and as a business owner. Key Takeaways - These apply to most creative businesses! * Being in a smaller market isn't a limitation — it can mean more room to experiment, more creative freedom, and more meaningful client relationships than a saturated larger market allows. * There's a real difference between taking photos and creating an experience. Brand photography is an identity — it's showing who you are as a business owner and how you want to be seen. * Creative entrepreneurship has a specific kind of burnout. When the thing you do for passion becomes something you have to produce, the excitement and the obligation start to separate. Collaboration with other creatives is one of the ways to bring it back. * Investing in your craft — equipment, education, skill — is a belief in yourself made visible. It shifts your mindset as much as it shifts your output. * Submit anyway. Lindsay submitted late to a ProPhoto campaign, got featured in their top ten, and didn't even know until they tagged her. Keep tagging, keep submitting, keep going. * When it comes to brand photography, reach out. Getting comfortable with your photographer before you're in the room together makes all the difference in what you walk away with. Resources + Links Find Lindsay * Instagram: @oakandembercollective * Website: oakandembercollectivend.com [http://oakandembercollectivend.com] * Lindsay's Online Creative Collective: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1710326130138132 [https://www.facebook.com/groups/1710326130138132] Find Brooke * Instagram: @with.brooke * Website: withbrooke.com [http://withbrooke.com] * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withbrookefb [https://www.facebook.com/withbrookefb]

Before We Fix Anything, We Need to Talk About Your Client Path | Ep. 31

When founders book a Backend Business Audit with Brooke, some come in with a specific problem. Others come in with everything — overwhelmed, scattered, not sure where to look first. That second kind of founder almost always has the same gap underneath all of it: the client path hasn't been mapped. In this episode, Brooke breaks down what a client path is, what happens in a business when it isn't clear, and four questions to answer before building anything else. KEY TAKEAWAYS * Scattered confusion on an intake form almost always points to one thing: the client path isn't mapped yet. * A client path has four parts: * where you're meeting people and what they're aware of in that moment * what you're offering them first * where you're taking them * and what comes after * When the path isn't clear, freebies multiply, offers get rebuilt, and content feels scattered because nothing has a clear job to do. * Systems built without a clear client path have no clear purpose. They can be built, but they won't work the way they should. * Map the path first. Everything else gets easier once you know what you're building and where it's going. THE FOUR QUESTIONS FROM THIS EPISODE * Where am I meeting people, and what problem are they aware of in that moment? * What is the first thing I'm offering them that gives them a real result or gets them closer to one? * What is the offer I'm moving them toward, and what does their life or business look like on the other side of it? * What comes after that — is there a next step, a continuation, or a reason to stay? RESOURCES + LINKS Work with Brooke * Backend Business Audit: https://stan.store/withbrooke/p/backend-business-audit [https://stan.store/withbrooke/p/backend-business-audit] * Free Backend Self Audit: https://withbrooke.myflodesk.com/self-audit [https://withbrooke.myflodesk.com/self-audit] Connect * Instagram: @with.brooke * Website: withbrooke.com [http://withbrooke.com]