She says it with confidence, and she probably does know. She has been doing this work for years, has solved enough problems to recognize patterns quickly, and can walk into a complicated situation and begin making sense of it before someone less experienced even knows what questions to ask. “It depends.” “On what?” “The client.” “Okay. What happens first when someone hires you?” “That depends on what she needs.” “How do you determine what she needs?” There is a pause before s

“What do you want me to say?” She had been explaining her business to me for several minutes, and she knew the service well. She could tell me what was included, how long clients worked with her, why she created her framework, what happened during each phase, and how much experience she had accumulated before developing the methodology. The problem appeared when I stopped asking about the service and asked about the person buying it. “What does your client say she wants when

A client sends you an email with a question you know you have already answered. You remember answering it because you spent an unreasonable amount of time making sure nobody would ever need to ask. You wrote the instructions, created the welcome email, recorded the tutorial, and placed the resource inside the client portal under a heading that seems perfectly obvious to you. Somewhere between irritation and disbelief, you wonder how she missed it. You answer politely and move

A woman can spend twenty years becoming exceptional at something and reduce the entire body of work to the word just in less than ten seconds. “I just help companies…” “I just created…” “I’ve been fortunate enough to…” “I don’t want to brag, but…” Then she spends the next six months wondering why the market does not seem to understand the value of what she does. There is a difference between humility and making yourself commercially difficult to understand. Humility does not

Somewhere in your business, there is probably something you spent months building that your clients think is perfectly fine. And somewhere else, there is something you can do in five minutes that makes them wonder how you knew. Guess which one is more likely to be on your sales page. We have a habit of assigning value according to effort. The framework took six months to develop, so it must be valuable. The workbook has 47 pages, so surely it belongs in the offer. The process

There is a peculiar thing that happens when you have been in business for a while: you become an unreliable narrator of your own expertise. You have years of evidence, experience, client work, opinions, successes, disappointments, and habits shaping the way you see your business. That history can make you fiercely confident about something that is no longer particularly exceptional. At the same time, it can make you completely overlook something you do extraordinarily well be

There is a point at which more marketing stops being the responsible answer. You can rewrite the website, increase your posting schedule, work on your SEO, build another funnel, attend more networking events, or create a marketing plan impressive enough to require its own binder. But none of those things can compensate for a business you have not examined closely enough. Before you decide how to sell it, you need to know what you are selling. I call this curating reality. Cur

What happens when the event planner does not know what to ask? What happens when an entrepreneur’s disability, tic disorder, or sensory experiences affect how they network, market, travel, speak, work, or participate in a room? What happens when a person has the expertise but the environment keeps adding unnecessary friction? And perhaps the biggest question of all: Why are we waiting until someone asks for an accommodation to start thinking? Most people do not set out to cre

How to use traditional marketing, live events and relationship-based marketing when your health changes how you can show up. Recently, I spoke at an event where a woman shared some of the medical challenges she has been facing. She wants to market her business more. She is interested in hosting events and getting herself in front of more people, but she also recognizes that some of the things happening with her health may make that difficult. I understood exactly what she me

A Theme Is More Than a Decorating Style Whenever I ask someone about the theme for their event, I almost always hear the same kinds of answers. "We're thinking black and gold." "It's kind of a garden theme." "We're doing Great Gatsby." None of those answers are necessarily wrong, but they often reveal something much bigger. Most people think a theme is primarily a decorating decision. They imagine flowers, linens, invitations, or perhaps a signature cocktail. The theme become

For many affluent founders, executives, investors, and client-facing business owners, the home has become more than a private retreat. It is a carefully managed setting for relationship building. A dinner at home can do what a boardroom, restaurant, or event space often cannot. It can lower defenses, protect privacy, and create a sense of access that feels personal and rare. Hosting at home is not just about showing wealth. At its best, it is about creating the exact conditio

The word free has done a remarkable job of convincing business owners and consumers alike that something has little value. I think the opposite is often true. Some of the most valuable events you'll ever host won't generate a dollar at the registration table. Instead, they'll generate something much harder to buy: trust. I've watched free events reconnect dormant prospects, deepen relationships with existing clients, create referral opportunities, introduce businesses to enti

A tray of untouched chicken. Three extra pans of pasta. A stack of boxed lunches no one ever opens. They all have the same thing in common. Someone guessed. When most people think about food waste, they picture leftovers at the end of an event. I think about the decisions that created those leftovers in the first place. More often than not, the problem isn't the caterer or the menu. It's that the host had to make dozens of decisions with incomplete information. One of the eas

Almost every time I speak, someone eventually asks the same question. "How much should I spend on my event?" At first glance, it sounds like a budgeting question. I've come to believe it's something else entirely. Very few people are actually asking what they can afford. What they're really trying to understand is whether the investment will be worth it. They want to know if spending $5,000, $25,000, or even $100,000 will produce a return that justifies the decision. That's a

There was a season in my business when my calendar looked exactly the way people said it should. Coffee on Tuesday. Lunch on Wednesday. A networking event on Thursday evening. Another coffee the following week because someone knew someone they thought I should meet. None of those conversations was a waste of time. In fact, many of them were genuinely worthwhile. Some became clients. Others became friends. A few introduced me to opportunities I would never have discovered othe