100 freaking episodes of Sell the Damn Service. WHAT?!
If you told me a couple of years ago that I'd be sitting here recording my 100th episode, running a business I rebuilt from scratch, and genuinely loving the work I'm doing, I don't know if I would've believed you.
Mostly because I spent a year and a half overthinking whether I should even start this podcast.
And now here we are, celebrating 100 episodes, a whole lot of conversations about selling services, and some pretty significant changes in how I approach business.
I've been a business owner since 2011, and over those 15 years, I've made decisions that cost me a shit ton of money, decisions that gave me my time back, and decisions that completely changed what I thought my business could look like.
For this milestone episode, I'm sharing 10 of the biggest decisions that changed how I build, sell, and run my business. Some are lessons I've learned the expensive way, while others are decisions I'm still actively figuring out.
And if you're building a service business of your own, I think a few of these might make you question what you've been saying yes to.
Walking Away From the Business I Thought I'd Run Forever
In 2023, I left the business I'd spent nearly a decade building.
I genuinely believed that company was my forever career. I'd helped grow it into a large marketing agency and education business, and my husband had even left his career in finance to join the team.
Walking away meant losing our salaries, benefits, and health insurance within weeks. I also left with no clients, intellectual property, email list, or established brand to build on.
It was one of the hardest and most expensive decisions I've ever made.
For a while, I seriously considered getting a traditional job. I worked with a career consultant, built a resume, and applied for positions. I didn't get a single interview.
Eventually, I accepted that I wanted to keep building businesses, but I needed to decide what I wanted this one to look like.
And here's something I've had to learn: Being capable of building something doesn't obligate you to keep running it forever.
Deciding to Be Known for One Thing
For years, I was the person who could turn almost any idea into an offer.
Someone would ask for something, I'd build it, put a price tag on it, and sell it. A lot of those offers made money, which made it tempting to keep creating more.
The problem was that nobody knew what to come to me for.
I eventually made a bet with my husband that I'd commit to one offer for an entire year. No new freebies every other week, no random offers because someone asked for something, and no complicated suite of products to maintain.
That decision helped me establish my authority around productized services and Sold Out Services.
It also made selling easier because I knew exactly what I wanted people to hire me for.
When you give your business one clear thing to become known for, people have a much easier time remembering you and referring you.
Every Revenue Opportunity Comes With an Operational Obligation
This might be one of my favorite business lessons because I've had to learn it more than once.
Just because I can sell something doesn't mean I want to be responsible for delivering it.
In 2025, I created a low-ticket membership called Clarity Council. I knew going into it that I probably shouldn't be building it, but I also knew I could sell it.
A few months later, I closed it.
The membership required a kind of ongoing delivery that I didn't want to build my business around.
I had to get comfortable turning down perfectly legitimate ways to make money because they weren't the right ways for me.
Before you create another offer, consider what you're committing yourself to after someone pays you. The revenue is one part of the decision. The work required to deliver that promise is what you'll be living with.
My Expertise Is Worth More Than My Deliverables
This is a lesson I'm still practicing.
As service providers, we're often very good at producing something tangible. We can write the email, design the asset, build the system, or solve the problem ourselves.
And sometimes that's exactly what the client needs.
But I've been paying closer attention to the value of knowing what needs to happen in the first place.
A client inside Sold Out Services once asked me how to respond to a prospect about a large proposal that hadn't closed yet.
My first instinct was to write the email for her.
Instead, I looked at what was happening in the conversation and realized the prospect hadn't asked a question that required a response. My client was uncomfortable with the uncertainty of waiting for a big contract to close.
So we talked through that.
She didn't send the email, and the contract eventually closed after a couple more conversations.
I could have written her a lovely response, but helping her understand the situation gave her something she could use the next time she faced a similar decision.
That's the kind of expertise I want to be paid for.
Technology Should Make My Work Better
I've got some opinions about AI, and if you've been around here for any amount of time, you probably know that.
I'm an artist first. Creating, thinking through problems, and developing my own approach to the work are some of the reasons I love owning a business.
I have no interest in handing all of that over to an army of AI agents.
I use Airtable, automations, and technology because they help me manage information and create more capacity to serve my clients.
When technology makes the client experience better or removes repetitive administrative work, I'm interested.
I want to remain involved in the parts of my business that require my judgment and creativity, even as the business grows.
I Actually Want to Work in My Business
There's this persistent idea that the ultimate goal of entrepreneurship is to build something you never have to touch.
You hire people, automate everything, and disappear to a beach while money keeps coming in.
I understand why that's appealing to some business owners, but I've realized that isn't what I want.
I enjoy my work. I want to have conversations with clients and solve complicated problems. I like getting to create something and see what happens when we put it into practice.
I've designed my business so I can keep doing those things while having the operational support necessary to serve more clients.
That decision has made it much easier to evaluate what belongs in my business because I have a clearer picture of the kind of work I want to spend my time doing.
Visibility Needs to Lead Somewhere
For a long time, I treated visibility as something I was supposed to do.
Post on Threads. Create content. Grow the email list. Get people to sign up for things.
Eventually, I had to ask myself what all of that activity was accomplishing.
I run a service business with a relatively small number of clients. I don't need thousands of people buying inexpensive products every month.
I need the right people to know what I do and understand when it makes sense to hire me.
Now I think about my content according to what my business needs.
Sometimes I need new leads, so I'm creating content that helps those people identify themselves. Other times I have interested prospects who need to understand my process and the results I help create. And sometimes I'm ready to invite people to take the next step.
That distinction changed the way I measure whether my content is working.
A post with fewer likes can still introduce me to someone who becomes a paying client. I'd rather pay attention to those conversations than obsess over engagement.
More One-on-One Access Doesn't Guarantee Better Results
The service industry has spent years convincing people that customization and unlimited founder access are the ultimate measures of value.
I decided to test that assumption inside Sold Out Services.
I redesigned the client experience around a defined process, a resource hub, group conversations, office hours, and access to me when clients need guidance.
My clients now have more ways to get support, although that support isn't always delivered privately in a one-on-one meeting.
And something interesting has happened.
Around months four through six, I've noticed some clients become less active in office hours because they're busy working with the clients they've booked.
That's created a new question for me about how to support them through the next stage of business, once the foundations we've worked on are producing results.
It also reinforced why I'm interested in designing client experiences around outcomes rather than the number of calls on someone's calendar.
The Next Version of My Business Needs Different Decisions
For a while, having one offer was exactly what I needed.
It helped me build a reputation and develop a repeatable way to help service providers improve their offers and lead generation.
Now I'm exploring what comes after that.
Some of my clients have already established their services and built consistent lead pipelines. They have operational support, they're booking clients, and they want to understand how their business can support significantly more work.
I'm interested in helping those business owners think through the changes required to double the capacity of their business.
That doesn't automatically mean doubling their personal workload or adding a bunch of employees.
It means examining how the business operates and deciding what needs to change to support that amount of client work.
I'm still developing what that next offer could look like, and I'm giving myself room to figure it out with the right people.
A year ago, sticking to one offer was the decision that helped me grow. Now I get to consider whether adding something new makes sense.
And that's a pretty fun problem to have.
Cheers to 100 Episodes of Sell the Damn Service
This podcast almost didn't exist because I made the process of starting it far more complicated than it needed to be.
A conversation with my friend and strategist Emily Mathis helped me realize that a few relatively simple technology decisions could make recording and managing the show easier.
I set up the process, announced the podcast on Threads, and booked about six months of guests from that first post.
By the time I reviewed my client acquisition data earlier this year, clients who credited the podcast as a major factor in their decision to work with me represented more than $64,000 in revenue.
Pretty damn good for something I almost talked myself out of doing.
So cheers to 100 episodes, and to figuring out the next stage of business while you're still running the one you've built.
Listen to the full 100th episode of Sell the Damn Service for the stories behind these decisions, including the ones that were a whole lot messier than they look from the outside.
Chapters
00:00 Cheers to 100 Episodes!
02:21 How I Almost Talked Myself Out of Starting This Podcast
04:43 Leaving the Business I Thought I'd Run Forever
11:56 The Decision to Become Known for One Thing
16:34 Why I Stopped Building Offers I Didn't Want to Sell
18:52 Getting Paid for Expertise Over Deliverables
26:56 My Rules for AI, Automation, and Technology
31:58 Why I Still Want to Work in My Business
33:10 Turning Visibility Into a Lead Acquisition Strategy
38:05 Why More One-on-One Access Doesn't Mean Better Results
41:21 What's Next for My Business and Sold Out Services
46:15 Celebrating 100 Episodes and What's Coming Next
Ready to Restructure and Productize Your Service?
Inside Sold Out Services, I help service providers examine who each offer serves, what happens after someone buys, and where qualified clients are being left without a clear next step.
You do not need to create an entirely new business every time you reach capacity.
There may be more revenue, impact, and long-term client value hiding inside the client relationships you have already built.
If you’d like to see a library of all published episodes in a gallery with easy-to-find links to all listening platforms be sure to check out the Sell The Damn Service Episode Library.
