The Busy to Boss Podcast

Due to personal reasons, over the next few months I am going to come completely offline. This means that there will be no new podcast episodes, email newsletters or Instagram content and I will also not be online to respond to messages etc.

Get ready to hear the full method (PLUS a concrete example!) for how to turn your goal into a step-by-step action plan.

In this episode, I introduce you to my 'Growth Goal Mapping Method' to help you achieve your business goals. I take the example of "launching a podcast" and provide a detailed guide on how to break down big goals into manageable tasks, set deadlines, and maintain productive momentum. 

Here's what to expect: 
- A change coming to our weekly shorty episodes
- Planning for September and Setting Goals
- The Growth Goal Mapping Method
- Step-by-Step Guide to Launching a Podcast
- Creating an Action Plan
- Setting Deadlines and Prioritising Tasks
- Maintaining Momentum and Avoiding Overwhelm
- Final Thoughts and How to Get Help

 If you want help breaking your big goals down into action plans, book your Make It Happen Intensive here! https://abranchofholly.thrivecart.com/intensive/ 

 To making it happen 💫

Happy August! We are officially in the second month of Q3. In this week's episode, I wanted to continue with the theme of walking you through some of my best strategies to be thinking about as we continue through the summer.

So in today's episode, I'm going to share five ways you can find that time this summer and how to actually make this happen.

Here's what we cover in the episode:

- Why a mid-year review is a non-negotiable to help you figure out what you want to focus on over the summer

- How to set your summer hours (and why reevaluating your values and priorities every season is important)

- A review of your Weekly Prep Meeting and how it'll help you make things happen quicker

- The importance of saying "no" over the summer and identifying what's important to you

- Why to change up your environment over the summer (with lots of examples!)

And spoiler alert before we dive in: there is no finding the time you have to make the time.

Let's dive in and make it happen!

In this episode, I want to share how you can balance work and time off. How you can take a break without falling behind, and the ONE practice I have put in place in my business that ensures that I'm staying focused and on track towards achieving my goals... even during the summer.

Even if you do nothing else for your business over the summer apart from this, you will be MORE than okay. 

Here's what we cover in this episode:

• The purpose of having a weekly CEO date in your business (plus how to carve out the time for it)

• Two major parts of this weekly self-accountability session that mean you can work through this in 30 minutes or less

• The only two metrics you need to track in your business (and how to identify them for you specifically)

• All the steps we go through for the Weekly Prep Meeting, and what tasks and projects you need to be laying out for the week ahead 

This episode takes you through this step-by-step (it's truly one of mine and my clients' favourite parts of running our businesses!

To making it happen,

Holly

In this episode, I have another client case study for you, where I’m breaking down how my client doubled her turnover in a year.

You’ll learn more about their results and strategies to make this happen, as well as get lessons to implement in your own business.

I’m going to walk you through how she achieved this using The Focus Method that I mentor and manage my clients through.

What’s so interesting about this is that we worked together to implement this method into her business to generate these results - and we’re about to do the same again for her next level, next iteration, next phase of business which I’ll also talk about!

We’ll dive into:

• How to stay the course when you’re in the “messy middle”

• Why it’s safe to raise your prices (and important to do so)

• The importance of staying true to who you are and what you preach

As a mentor, I am BIG on implementation. 

Because being fully booked once is one thing. But sustaining it from there is the biggest difference. Not to mention sustaining a fully booked business while life naturally “lifes”.

There’s also a big different between just running on intuition vs having a plan and a strong foundation.

We want both - the space for creativity and intuition, as well as a sustainable system to grow from.

So let’s dive into 6 proven strategies that can help you build a fully booked business on repeat.

It’s going to be juicy!

Buckle up, because we’re going to talk about the elephant in the room in terms of what could be holding you back from reaching your next milestone in business. 

Last week I really spoke about what is possible for you when you implement my FOCUS Operating System into your business.

But I also think it’s important as your Mentor, to meet you where you’re at.

The FOCUS Operating System has been created based on the 6 most common problems I’ve seen clients struggle with in their businesses.

In this episode, I’m going to walk you through each one (using REAL words from my clients), how these might manifest in your business PLUS how to solve each one using a component from the FOCUS Operating System.

It’s going to be a good one!

As ambitious business owners, we're always looking for ways to make our income more predictable and consistent.

But what's inevitable for all of us is hitting the ceiling. 

And there comes a tipping point where we either take specific action to continue our growth or we plateau and become stuck where we’re at.

That’s where my FOCUS Operating System comes in.

This allows you to run your business on a system so you can predict your revenue and hit your income goals month after month.

In this episode, I'll walk you through the 6 key components of the FOCUS operating system and how each piece can allow you to hit your income goals month after month.

Making the decision to pivot is one of the hardest things to do because you’re the only one who can really make it.

And it’s my job today to guide you in making that decision!

We’re going to cover:

• What to do when your current business doesn’t align with your life (and what alignment actually means)

• How a shift in your identity can encourage you to make a pivot

• Why you aren’t getting anywhere by craving clarity (and what to do instead)

• How to get your creative spark back with your work

• What to do when your ideal client changes

• How to manage when you’re forced to pivot for reasons outside of your control 

This is a juicy episode so get ready to make notes!

I have always been so open about sharing how much my business has changed since having kids.

But I haven’t been fully honest with you this year.

And what I’ve realised over the last few weeks?

If I carry on the way I am, there’s only one way it will go 

So because of that, something needs to change.

Not only a complete business restructure and rebrand (!) - but also in my approach thinking.

The big mistake I made is this:

What has been driving everything for me has been “what will bring in money and what do I think my audience wants/needs?”

Vs “What do I feel so called to share? Where do my passions lie? What’s my mission and my legacy? What can I help people with and why am I the person to help them with that?”

This is what my next level looks like.

No more creating offers just because that’s what other coaches in the space are doing.

No more talking about certain content topics because it’s what a business coach does.

I am not your average business coach and I never have been.

And the truth is - I have not been honouring my business in the way it deserves and that all changes now.

A new era of ABOH is evolving.

Do I know all the specifics yet? No, but I’ll be bringing you along for the ride.

And in this episode, you’re hearing it all first.

I’m sharing the specifics of how I’ve been feeling, what I’ve been craving in my business (that I haven’t shared yet), plus what I’ve done so far to navigate through this.

This is your permission slip if you need one

What would you do with an extra 10 hours a week in your business?

Boss - I’m about to make that a reality.

In this episode, I’m going to share 10 ways you can actually get 10 hours back in your work week.

These are things that have helped myself and my clients, and now they’ll help you to become less overwhelmed, to be more productive and to get more time back in your business, so you can spend your time how you want to be spending your time, rather than your business running your life.

And full transparency - that used to be me. I used to work more than 60 hours in my business each week. I wasn’t getting done everything that I wanted to get done and I didn’t feel like I was creating momentum or achieving any of my goals because I was always putting out fires. I just felt like I was keeping my head above water with the day-to-day tasks that needed doing each week.

Now, I’ve changed all of that so I’ll skip the story and get into how you can create these productivity systems for yourself.

Get ready to take notes!

Need a pep talk? I got you. 

A lot of us are fed up with some things that are happening in the online space at the moment and I think we need to talk about it.

This pep talk is for you if you are feeling overwhelmed, disorganised, you’re trying things but nothing is working, or you think you’re not cut out for entrepreneurship.

It’s going to be okay.

In this pep talk, we will chat through:

#: The ONE thing you need to do to go from overwhelm to empowerment

#: What the most successful people in our industry are ACTUALLY doing every day

#: What you need to focus on to get to where you want to be

#: How to empower yourself to know your numbers  

This is a real Sassy Holly pep talk and my DMs are always open if you need me!

Do you have a deep knowing that you’re meant for more? Maybe you know it’s time to expand your capacity or that you’re bumping into an upper limit right now.

 I’m going to talk to you about what all that means and use my own experience to share the 3 biggest things I shifted, so you can get some inspiration and advice for what you can do to start to expand your capacity so that you can grow, get out of that plateau and avoid burnout.

 We will chat through:

• What my plateau looked like when I first started my business 

• The biggest places where I see all business owners get stuck (and what to do if this happens to you)

• Why it’s so powerful to pause (and why so many of us don’t do this)

• The importance of connecting with yourself and understanding what your brain is doing

• Why you need to prioritise discomfort every single day

• How I changed my identity as a coach to help me deliver even better results for my clients

I came at this episode from a different perspective than I originally anticipated so I hope this resonates with you!

Why do successful people quit their businesses? Perplexing, right?

In this episode, we are going to talk about the paradox of successful people quitting, why it happens, and what to do if you ever face this in your business.

I will walk you through a conversation that I had with my client which inspired this episode, as well as elements of my own story (so this will be a bit of a vulnerable share!)

We will chat through:

• What circumstances led to my client experiencing this

• My experience with fear and shame in my own business and how it led to me wanting to burn everything down

• What happens when shame is in the drivers seat trying to run our business

• How I would coach you through other options/routes to go down if you were my client

If you resonate with this, I really hope it gives you the clarity you’re looking for! 

We've had quite a few different series running on the podcast lately. So, I wanted to take this episode as a chance to reset before our new segment starts. On the first Thursday of each month, I’ll be sharing the Boss News. It's basically a segment where I'll share everything going on in our boss community here at A Branch of Holly.

Tuesday Shorties on the podcast are making a comeback! Yes, indeed. In January 2023, I introduced these short pep-talk style episodes to the podcast. During my maternity leave, I used snippets from older episodes for these Shorties because I have a lot of content I can repurpose. Then, I needed to focus on prepping the core weekly episodes to go live while I was on leave, so I paused the Shorties. But now, I've been able to rearrange things and make space for them again because I realised I missed recording them, and I know you enjoy listening to them too. They'll be back soon on the podcast, so listen for a more spontaneous, behind-the-scenes style recording.

In this episode, I introduce you to my FOCUS method, which I teach in The Embodied Boss Collective - my 12 month group program for online business owners who want to achieve more of their goals and increase the completion of their most needle-moving tasks, so they can gain control of their schedule, increase their confidence and generate sustainable business growth.

You’ll learn about the approach to sustainable growth that I’ve found works best, what areas of your business you should focus on to optimise your growth and why this method really works.

We’re going to cover:

• Why “copy and paste” strategies don’t tend to work long-term

• The 5 core areas we cover in the FOCUS method (macro, micro, map, meet & move)

• Factors that make the FOCUS method be super successful in your life and business.

Boy do I have an exciting one for you today.

I sat down on a Zoom chat with ALL of my private clients and got them to answer a question:

“How have you taken the strategies & frameworks I’ve taught you and implemented them into YOUR life and business?”

The conversation we had was absolutely transformative.

Every single one of my clients leads a different lifestyle and the purpose behind this was to really show you exactly how my methods and frameworks really can be customised to anyone.

I’ve wanted to bring my clients together in one space for so long. This is in celebration of them.

Get ready for a big announcement, Boss!

I’m sharing the details about my *new* program… drum roll please… the Embodied Boss Collective.

I’ll walk through the structure of this new offer, what’s included, how it works, the pricing, and why I created this integrated way of getting your hands on *all* of my strategies, coaching, and tools in one place, at your fingertips. I want you to have as much info as possible so you can plan to join us when the doors officially open to the public on Tuesday 19th March!

Today, we’re discussing:

• Why I am finally launching a program that has been years in the making

• Everything you need to know about the program

• What the Embodied Boss Collective means to me and the philosophy behind building a simple, sophisticated, strategic business that focuses on profit without a bunch of fluff that doesn’t move the needle

• The “pilot pricing” of the first intake of the program - including payment plan options 

• How my approach to business has shifted as I’ve matured as a CEO and why I don’t try to “have all the answers for everyone” anymore

Get excited and get ready to join us when the doors open!

Do you find you often have to throw your 90-day plans out of the window because events come up that throw you off track?

Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.

Over the past few years, the world has felt more chaotic than ever. That impacts you as a small business owner, as do the things going on in your personal life.

So how do you turn your yearly goals into actionable plans?

In this episode of the Busy To Boss podcast, you’ll learn how to take your goals for the next year and turn them into an achievable plan.

I’ll walk you through the difference between outcome based goals and habit based goals, the critical systems you need to make it all work, and examples of where you might need to tighten things up in your business.

We’re going to cover:

• The two types of goals you can set for your business and the difference between each one

• 2 questions to ask yourself when it comes to your goals to see if they’re actually going to grow your business 

• How to do an audit to plug any gaps where your business is leaking 

• The 3 systems you need dialed in for all of your offers so that you can succeed without burnout

• What happens if you don’t implement these key systems in your business before adding new things 

There are lots of powerful questions in here so get ready to make notes!

Welcome to the final part of the How To Run Your Business Like a Boss series!

Let me ask you this: are your mornings the craziest time of the day? 

We are getting up trying to deal with getting the dog outside, putting the kettle on, taking care of your kids, and trying to get yourself ready and focused so that you can get into work… 

But you end up ultimately feeling frazzled by the time you sit down at your desk? 

Or maybe the end of your day, you're just collapsing into bed just flat-out exhausted?

Well, Embodied Bosses know that they need to manage their day well. They need to conserve their brain space and energy for what really matters so that they can get the results they're looking for in their life, health, relationships, and yes, in their business.  

So in today's episode, we're going to round out this series by talking about how you can run your day like an embodied boss.

We’re going to cover:

• Why a great day truly starts the night before and how to maximise that

• How to personalise your morning routine to suit what works for you

• Other things you can consider to keep your days running smoothly

• What I do to simplify decision making

• The things that could be sucking away your time and what to do about them

• How to choose your Top 3 Tasks every day

• What to do if you start feeling resistance

 This is a little bit of a different episode compared to the others in this series and I hope you love it!

Welcome to part four of the How To Run Your Business Like a Boss series! 

Running your business like a boss requires strategy. It requires having a plan. It also requires skilfully managing your time and energy each and every week as a boss, so that you are putting your attention on the boss-level tasks that are actually going to move your business forward. 

But I know we can get stuck because we all know that the inbox, the admin, the busy work, the day-to-day in our business can overtake everything and become a big distraction.

Then at the end of the week, we realise we have not made progress towards those big rocks, those highest priority tasks that are going to move our business forward. 

So in this episode, we're talking about how you can run your week like a boss and make those higher-valued ceo-level tasks a priority.

We’re going to cover:

• What’s a weekly outline, how you use one and examples of how I use my own

• The importance of your Weekly Prep Meeting

• A strategy that I’m ruthless at implementing that helps massively with business boundaries

• Important questions to ask yourself to help you run your week more effectively

• A breakdown of what your Boss Score is all about & why you need it to stick to your weekly plan

• The importance of the review part of a Weekly Prep Meeting & questions to ask yourself

This is what we’ll be doing live together every week as part of The Embodied Boss Collective and it’s going to be so fun to dive into together!

Keep bossing it.

Welcome to part three of the How To Run Your Business Like a Boss series!

In this episode, we’re diving into part 2 of my Triple Threat Method - the Monthly Prep Meeting. I want to talk about how a monthly practice, a monthly meeting on your calendar to actually build in a feedback loop for yourself and for self-accountability will help so much!

Having a system like this in place for your business means that your plan doesn't just become another Google doc or Notion page that you're never looking at again but is actually a living, breathing document that you are actively using and checking in with to create progress and momentum in your business.

 We’re going to cover:

• The check-in process I use for my Monthly Prep Meeting

• What kids of questions you can ask yourself as you look back on the previous month

• The consequences of NOT tracking and documenting things in your business on a consistent basis

• How to check in on your business metrics & revenue each month (without obsessing over them)

• What to do if you discover you’ve fallen behind on your project goals

• The last thing you need to do at the end of your monthly prep meeting

This is what we’ll be doing live together every month as part of The Embodied Boss Collective so I hope it gives you some good insights!

Keep bossing it.

Welcome to part two of the How To Run Your Business Like a Boss series!

If you're anything like me, the new year feels like a fresh start, a blank slate, and a new chance to go after those big amazing goals for our lives and our business. 

But if the ups and downs of entrepreneurship have taught us anything, it’s this: our plans need to be adaptable and adjustable. 

That's why I absolutely love turning my big business goals for the year into actionable checkoffable 90-day plans - which is what we’re talking about today. 

How do you dig in and start creating 90-day plans for more momentum in your business?

We’re going to cover:

• Why 90 day plans are so powerful and the intention behind them

• They 3 key systems you need to have in place in your business (& how to implement them)

• The difference between habit-based goals and outcome-based goals as we map out our 90 day plans

• Questions to ask yourself when it comes to breaking down the action steps for each goal

• How to create a 30-60-90 plan to hold you accountable so you can see real momentum and progress

This is basically like an hour long masterclass, so get ready to take notes!

Keep bossing it.

Welcome to the first episode of a brand new series of the podcast: How To Run Your Business Like a BOSS! 

We’re getting started with a big question…

Have you ever fallen out of love with your business? 

You’ll know if you have but it also might disguise itself as other things… it looks like feeling frustrated all the time, things might not be working smoothly, and maybe you even feel like you want to just burn it all down and start again.

Well, good news for you - if you have ever felt this way, it's likely not because you need to start over from scratch, but because you're out of alignment. 

Sounds fluffy? Don’t worry Boss - in this episode, we're going to talk about how you can realign your vision with your business so that you can fall back in love with it again.

We’re going to cover three key areas:

• Your definition of success - I’ll walk you through 5 different core areas of your life, questions to ask yourself to measure your version of success as well as examples from my own life (I know you love a concrete example!)

• How to figure out your owner’s intent, so what you want your business to do for YOU personally, what you want it to provide in terms of time, money & energy

• Your whole business vision in terms of the direction you are going in with your offers, content, systems, etc.

This is a jam packed episodes full of lots of concrete examples!

This will help you SO much in getting realigned in your business and when you feel more aligned, your business becomes more fun. 

And THAT’S when you start to fall back in love because you see that energy, enthusiasm, and excitement come back.

This is my first episode back from maternity leave - I hope you love it!

Let’s dive in.

Oftentimes after you've run your business for a certain amount of time, you will always get asked this one question: if you had to start over, what would you do?  

As I’ve been gearing up for my launch of The Embodied Boss Collective, I’ve been thinking about the different women I’ve been talking to who want to be inside of the programme and the conversations I’ve been having with my clients, and it got me thinking - what would I do differently?

What would I do if I was my own student sitting here, wanting to join The Embodied Boss Collective to take my business to the next level or pivot or even start over?

 So here we are. Here's that conversation. Here are the answers that continued from that thought process. 

 In today’s episode, I’m going to share if I was starting over today in 2024 exactly what I’d focus on. 

I’ll go through what I would differently, what I would do the same, and what I would just do out of the blue that was never even in the mix for me before.  

This is going to be a juicy episode so let’s dive in!

A phrase that I say often to my clients, and that is one of my guiding principles is this: if you want big results, you've got make big moves.

 This is one of the most common topics of conversation I have with potential clients in the DMs who are considering joining The Embodied Boss Collective this year because we look at, okay, well I'm doing this little thing and I'm doing that little thing.

 But then we go through the same motions every single day wondering why nothing is working or changing…

 So, Boss - it’s time to make some big moves. But to make big moves, you often have to take big risks. It is simply a requirement as an entrepreneur to take risks. 

But rather than me just telling you that you need to take risks, let's actually dissect in today's episode what taking risks means, what safety means, and how you can completely reframe the way that you look at taking risks.

 This episode is actually inspired by some of my clients. Over the past few months, I’ve noticed that they’ve been asking me way more questions about my journey and how I’ve taken big leaps in my business pretty much every year since I started.

 So I’ve almost been dissecting this based on their questions and I had this lightbulb moment one day where I thought oh my gosh, I need to talk about this more. I need to talk about this on the podcast. And so here we are.

 I loved recording this episode so I hope you love listening to it! Let’s dive in.

If you are looking to scale your business to consistent £5k income months this year, this episode is for you. 

 If you dream big and know that you are meant to do big things, you've got this amazing vision - this episode is going to share some real uncomfortable truths (that aren’t always shared on Instagram), of the things that you are going to need to do and what it's really going to take to grow and scale a business of that magnitude.

 What I DO want you to know is that it’s 100% possible. And that's what's so exciting about being an entrepreneur to build a business at this scale. 

 But a lot of people do us a disservice by making it seem so easy, and we often feel like we're doing something wrong or we're missing a secret piece of information, or just simply are not prepared for what it truly takes to scale a business. 

 So this episode is the real and raw truth (10 truths to be specific) about scaling to consistent income months in my business based on everything that I have done over the past 4 years, as well as helping countless students and clients scale their businesses to consistent income months ranging from 3k to 5k and beyond.

 Let’s dive in.

Happy 2024, happy January, and happy first podcast episode of the new year!

I hope you had a gorgeous time with your loved ones and I have to say - I'm feeling really inspired and pumped up for this episode which is all about getting your ish together. 

 This is meant to be a little bit of some hard truths - yes Sassy Holly is back for 2024 you’ll be glad to know!

 But also a bit of yes Boss, we're in the new year, it's gonna be amazing. It’s going to be better than last year and I’m going to give you some really good things to reflect on. 

 This is 1000% not another training on 2024 planning because I know you’ve had enough of that by now… PLUS we talked about that topic loads on the podcast, especially in the series that we did at the end of last year.

 Another thing we're going to touch on in today's episode is about who is actually making your decisions.

 Now, I know what you're thinking: “what do you even mean, Holly? Obviously I'm making my own decisions”. But you might be surprised that it's not you that you want to be making your decisions. So stay tuned.

We've got a good episode today so let’s dive in.

Here we are at our last episode of 2023 - can you believe it?!

 The final episode of the year and all I’m going to tell you before you go into this is that this is going to be a classic, Sassy Holly pep talk  - she had to make one more appearance didn’t she? And I couldn’t think of a better way to end the year. 

 So this is going to be short, sweet and oh so so sassy, so let’s dive in.

 This also means that 2023 on the podcast is officially wrapped! Have a beautiful festive break with your loved ones. Eat, drink, rest, be merry.

 I will see you in 2024 when I will be back from maternity leave and let me tell you… I’m coming back with a bang, Boss.

Here’s a little spoiler for you Boss - being a female business owner doesn't have to be so lonely. 

That’s why in today's episode, I want to talk about some observations I have been seeing in the world of women in business, and how we are creating new rooms, new circles for women who are ready to take their business to the next level.

This episode has been sitting on my heart for a long time and the end of the year felt like the best time to bring it to the table.

It’s come about because of the conversations I’ve been having with my private clients and people in my community.

These conversations have led me in this new direction where I'm going from 2024 onwards with what is going to be my new signature group offer, The Embodied Boss Collective.

So I wanted to share with you why I'm truly doubling down on this and on making more space for female business owners in 2024.

Let’s dive in.