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EP 237: Discovering What Scales With Writer & Maximum Impact Founder Katey Schultz

The Nitty-Gritty

  • How writing mentor Katey Schultz knew she wanted to scale up her Monthly Mentorship program
  • What she did first to scale… and why it wasn’t enough to meet her goals or her personal needs
  • Why some big mindset shifts were key to seeing the real opportunity—and how a moment of deep fatigue opened the door to an important aha moment
  • How Katey settled on a format for serving many more writers in much less time

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Scaling up often requires zoning in.

What I mean is that, most of the time, a business doesn’t actually scale up the whole of what can do. It scales up one small piece of the puzzle.

The result might be focusing on a particular outcome you can create for clients. It might be focusing on a particular aspect of your methodology. It might be creating leverage from a particular component of the brand. It might even be a particular feature or component of your value proposition.

And, quite often, businesses choose the wrong thing to focus on.

A business that’s not operating at scale can be good at many things. But which one of those many good things will be the key to scaling up?

It’s easy to see how the wrong choice gets made.

My guest today had a business that resembles so many: one that required her constant input, expertise, and care just to stay afloat.

While she felt like it was already a success in many ways, Katey Schultz (get Katey’s free guide to using flash storytelling to power your content marketing) realized that her business wasn’t really meeting her needs. She wanted more of a challenge. She wanted more time. She wanted more money.

So Katey started to look at how to scale her offer, a monthly mentorship for writers.

This conversation is the story of her journey to do that. We talk through the mindset shifts she needed to make, the experiments she ran, and the aha! moment that made her realize she’d scaled the wrong thing.

Now, let’s find out what works for Katey Schultz!

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A good story, in about one page or less, is a powerful and genuine way to sell things. Katey is offering What Works listeners a guide on how to do just that. Get the free PDf here!

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EP 299: How To Design Your Own Sales System

EP 299: How To Design Your Own Sales System

This week, I’ve got 4 more stories to share with you from small business owners who have intentionally done things their own way when it comes to sales and selling. They’ve found what truly works for them–even if it bucks the prevailing wisdom or would make a bro marketing expert role his or her eyes.

These stories come from business coach Ashley Gartland, marketing expert Amy Lippmann, designer Mel Richards, and work reinvention coach Lydia Lee.

Listen for how they incorporated these same considerations into finding their own unique sales systems. They designed their systems with personal values, strong relationships, reduced anxiety, and agency in mind.

EP 298: Creating A Less Harmful Sales System with Wanderwell Founder Kate Strathmann

EP 298: Creating A Less Harmful Sales System with Wanderwell Founder Kate Strathmann

This show is called What Works for a reason.

Sometimes it’s a declaration: this is what worked for this small business. And often, it’s a question, “What works?”

Today’s episode is very much a question, many questions, really:

What works when it comes to selling when you want to avoid manipulative or exploitative practices?

What works when your values conflict with many of the best practices of selling online but you still want people to buy your stuff?

What works when it comes to sales in a business that is actively anti-racist and anti-capitalist?

And even more bluntly: Can you even sell things without causing harm or perpetuating harmful systems?

My friend Kate Strathmann is the founder of Wanderwell, a bookkeeping and consulting firm that grows thriving businesses while investigating new models for being in business.

Recently, Kate took a bit of a detour from how she’s used to building her business, which is 90% referral based and fueled by deep relationship- and community-building. She decided to offer a small group program called the Equitable Business Incubator as a way of exploring anti-capitalist business practices and how they apply to the small businesses we’re building.

To fill the program, Kate need to sell differently.

Which led her to asking the question: Can you even sell things as a anti-capitalist?

While that might not be your specific question, I have a feeling that you too have wondering how you can effectively sell your offers without causing harm, perpetuating harmful systems, or damaging relationships. And that’s why I knew Kate and I needed to explore this topic on the show.

This is a conversation about what a kinder, less harmful sales process could look like—and it probably contains more questions than answers. But I’m confident those questions can help you find the answers that are right for you and the sales system that you want to build to make your business stronger.

We start out by defining what we’re really talking about when we talk about capitalism and anti-capitalism. Then, Kate shares how the Equitable Business Incubator came to be and how she ended up selling it. And then we dig into what makes many of the sales formulas and best practices being taught today problematic—and how to think differently to create your own alternative practices.

Now, let’s take a look at what works for creating less harmful sales systems!

EP 297: Selling A New Program With Proof To Product Founder Katie Hunt

EP 297: Selling A New Program With Proof To Product Founder Katie Hunt

Today’s guest is Katie Hunt—who is a member of the former group and serves the latter group.

Katie is the founder of Proof To Product, which helps creative entrepreneurs run and grow thriving product-based businesses. She works with designers, illustrators, and artists to help them develop in-demand product lines and get them sold in stores all over the world.

Not long after the pandemic threw her business and the industry she serves for a major loop, Katie and her team launched Proof To Product Labs to provide a completely digital, ongoing support opportunity for business owners when they needed it most.

And that launch was a smash.

Katie and I get into all of the nuts and bolts of how she adjusted the offer to meet the moment and how she warmed up her audience before the campaign, as well as the exact mix of emails, podcast ads, and social media content she used to sell the offer when it went live. We also talk about how she sees the sales system evolving in the future and how the offer has been received now that people are using it!

What Works offers in-depth, well-researched content that strips away the hype of the 21st-century economy. Whether you love the podcast, the articles, or the Instagram content, we’d love your support.