Engineering Calmer Agencies & Consulting Firms: Calm is the New KPI

Eliminate Sales Calls? Yes, Really.

What if your entire sales process could feel human, high-touch, and not require a single call?

This week on Calm is the New KPI, I’m joined by Becky Pierson Davidson, founder of Affinity Collective, a product strategy agency for community-driven businesses. Becky shares how she’s turned the traditional, time-consuming sales process on its head—closing $15K+ client engagements with ...

Business is personal—so why do we so often separate relationships from our work? 

In this episode, Tara Robertson, leadership coach and DEI consultant, shares why she set a KPI around the number of new friends she makes this year. We explore how measuring relationships impacts not only joy but also business sustainability.

Tara realized that working alone was draining her energy, so she made a bold decision: she would never ...

We all want our work to resonate—but how do we know if it actually does? In this episode, I sit down with storytelling and speaking expert Jay Acunzo to explore the concept of resonance over reach and how we can track something that feels inherently unmeasurable. Jay shares his Unsolicited Response Rate (URR) framework, a KPI designed to measure whether your ideas truly connect with your audience. If you're tired of vanity...

Managing client relationships is one of the biggest challenges of running a service-based business. Expectations, boundaries, and communication all play a role in whether an engagement runs smoothly or goes off the rails. So, how do you actually know if you're doing a good job?

Karen Sergeant has a solution: a Client Report Card. This system helps her measure and manage client relationships proactively, identifying potentia...

In this episode of Beyond Margins, we explore the concept of calmer KPIs with guest Kendall Cherry, founder of The Candid Collective. Kendall shares her innovative metric, “Fresh Content Inked,” and how it has transformed her content creation process, business systems, and sales cycle—all while doubling her income. We geek out about how to build sustainable systems that create spaciousness in your business, reduce overwhel...

In this episode of Beyond Margins, Susan dives into the heart of goal-setting, breaking free from default metrics and focusing on what truly matters to your business and life. She shares her own approach to prioritizing calm as a core business metric and gives a behind-the-scenes look at how she set and tracked a single impactful goal in 2024—taking 12 weeks off to rest (spoiler: she surpassed it).

Susan explores:

• Why de...

How do you reduce urgency in a world where urgency is so deeply embedded? How do you market yourself and your work in a way that is anti-oppressive? 

We're continuing in our mini-series on my calmer framework for a calmer business. This week, we're focused on reudcing urgency and techniques for anti-oppressive marketing. 

We're joined by Natalia Sanyal, an anti-oppressive copywriter and brand messaging strategist. She’s work...

We live in a society obsessed with productivity and working more, so how can we lean into rest? What are the benefits of building rest into our businesses? And how can we begin to do that? 

We're continuing in our mini-series on my calmer framework for a calmer business. This week, we're focused on rest. Rest is often a challenge for us go-getters, solopreneurs, and entrepreneurs. But, it's essential to stop burnout, stay c...

Why are efficient systems so essential for building a calmer business? And how do you go about finding the right systems and processes for yourself? 

We're continuing in our mini-series on my calmer framework for a calmer business. This week, we're focused on my favorite aspect of my CALMER framework -- efficient systems. We dive into the importance of understanding our own processes before building systems, and then explor...

What if you could build in more space to your business? An extra day off? More time to strategize? Less urgency and more rest? 

We're continuing in our mini-series on my calmer framework for a calmer business. This week, we're diving into margins -- financial margins, capacity margins, and energetic margins -- to decrease urgency and burnout and create calmer, more sustainable businesses. 

We're joined by Nathalie Lussier, a...

Taking care of people in or around your business isn't the default when it comes to business and what we're taught business should be. How is this way of doing business actually hurting us? And, how can we change our systems to be more authentically people-first? 

We're continuing in our mini-series on my calmer framework for a calmer business. This week, we're diving into lens of care and how operating with a lens of care ...

Can we create calm workplaces that are not only remote, but also asynchronous? And can we do it while avoiding micromanaging from afar? 

We're continuing in our mini-series on my calmer framework for a calmer business. This week, we're diving into autonomy. Why is autonomy essential for a calmer business? What does an autonomous work environment even look like? And how can you apply some of the best systems and tips for cre...

How can defining your business values and success more clearly lead to a calmer operation?

This episode kicks off our miniseries on deconstructing the common elements that all calm businesses share. We're starting with the most foundational element: clarity. Clarity in business is often summarized by a simple yet powerful term: "freedom from ambiguity." In today’s discussion, Susan Boles explores how achieving clarity in yo...

What if you could design a business that inherently operates on calm, not chaos? What are the essential elements to make this possible, and how can they be systematically incorporated into your business model?

As we dive into our new series on creating calmer businesses, we explore the foundational elements that make businesses serene and sustainable. Each episode of this series will deconstruct a key component, starting to...

Can grants really fund your service business? 

This episode wraps up our deep dive into unique funding options for service businesses, exploring an often overlooked resource—grants.

Meet Danielle Desir Corbett. She's a former grants administrator turned 4x grant-funded creative entrepreneur. She curates a monthly newsletter called "Grants For Creators," which shares funding opportunities for U.S. creatives and small business...

In this special 100th episode of Beyond Margins, host Susan Boles delivers her first solo discussion on utilizing debt thoughtfully to fund service businesses. Drawing from her experience as a fractional CFO, she explores the benefits and strategic uses of debt, shares real-world examples, and provides practical tips for business owners facing cash flow challenges or looking to seize growth opportunities.

• (00:00) - Int...

Do you need funding for your business but loathe the idea of giving up a piece of your company to someone else?

I get it. You built this baby with your own two hands, most likely giving up nights, weekends, early mornings, and time with your friends and family to do it. So the idea of handing over part of that to someone who wasn’t sweating it out with you might make you feel pretty uncomfortable.

The good news is, you don’t...

Cash is only easy to come by when you don't really need it.

When things are going well, banks are happy to finance loans and lines of credit, and investors are easy to find when you're profitable and growing quickly. But we all know things aren’t always going well.

For service-based businesses, where our products aren’t widgets but more often the intangible value of our brains and experiences, we tend to think that outside ...

Consider this scenario: a key employee unexpectedly needs to take an extended leave. Is your business financially and structurally prepared to handle that without a hitch? This is a challenge many small businesses face, and it's crucial to be prepared.

As we wrap up our series on sabbaticals, leaves, and breaks, we will examine the policies and financial planning that underpin them.

To guide us through this topic, we have t...