I’m talking with Marissa Lawton (host of The Experienced Entrepreneur), and we went straight into the stuff that actually matters in 2026, profit margins, expense audits, and learning how to be present with your business instead of operating on vibes and denial.

It’s that time of year.

We’re looking ahead at the next 12 months, staring at revenue goals, auditing our current offers, and letting that running list of “things I could sell” start to feel very real again. Q1 is quiet for a lot of people. It’s winter. We’re slower. We’re thinking. We’re ideating.

And honestly, this is the most fertile season for ideas that should never see the light of day.

My guest is Heidi Yarger, the woman behind Spitfire Girl Design, and she’s been a designer for 30 years. Thirty. Which means she has seen every trend, every platform, every “new” marketing idea recycled with a fresh Canva template. These days, she works with authors (mostly high-performing women) to build personal brands and launch books, and her clients are landing real results, like USA Today bestseller lists, Publishers Weekly rankings, the whole deal.

I’m coming to you slightly sick and slightly late, so let’s just call this episode what it is, short, sweet, and honestly kind of perfect for the conversation I want to bring into Sold Out Services in 2026.

I love a good spicy internet claim as much as the next person, but if I see one more “I hit $XX,XXX months!” post with zero context, I’m going to start asking people to drop their profit margin in the caption like it’s their rising sign.

Because revenue is loud. Profit is honest.

In this guest episode, I’m yapping with Geily (Haley) Romero (aka the numbers queen) about what actually matters when you’re building a service business: understanding your numbers, planning before January, having a cash runway, and not hiring or investing based on vibes.

I’m not going to pretend this is my most polished episode. I recorded it sick (scratchy voice, coughing, the whole vibe), and I’m still publishing because I care about consistency more than I care about sounding cute. Also, the timing is rude. I was supposed to be out of office right before Christmas, and instead I got knocked out, cancelled a bunch of meetings, and spent the week doing the bare minimum while my brain refused to stop thinking about work (classic business owner problem).

Today’s conversation with my friend Morgaine went places. We started with queso and girl lunch energy and somehow ended up unraveling the emotional, psychological and operational roots of bookkeeping, money shame, childhood conditioning, nervous system patterns, the accounting industry collapse, digital nomadism and why most business owners are absolutely avoiding the one thing they say they want: clarity.

If you’ve ever felt like bookkeeping is confusing, overwhelming or “I’ll figure it out later” energy, this episode is going to hit. And if you’ve been telling yourself your messy books are a personal failure, I need you to hear this clearly: nope. There’s a whole ecosystem of systemic, emotional and operational things that collide inside your profit and loss statement.

Morgaine is one of the few bookkeepers I’ve met who gets the financial side and the psychological side. Today we unpack both.

If you’re a service provider who’s tired of guessing your way into your goals, this episode is the permission slip you didn’t know you needed. I’m walking you through the behind-the-mic version of how I use real data from my actual business to map out my goals for 2026. And I’m not talking about fluffy goal setting or manifestation Pinterest boards. I mean looking at your actual product pie, seeing what’s pulling weight, what’s dead weight, and what needs to shift so you can grow in a way that feels aligned, sustainable and actually doable.

Most people think they have a goal setting problem, but what they really have is a data avoidance problem. I’m here to help you fix that.

If you’ve ever looked at your service business and thought, “I love this… but also… I cannot keep doing this forever,” this episode is going to hit you right in the gut in the best way. Today I’m sitting down with Tania from Soulful Story Co, and we deep dive into the messy, nonlinear, beautifully human journey of starting as a photographer, adding digital products, building a membership, burning out on in-person work, and ultimately pivoting into copywriting.

Let’s talk about 2026. Not in the fluffy, “new year, new me” kind of way, but in the actually-sit-your-butt-down, get-your-numbers-out, map-your-capacity, and build-a-plan-that’s-realistic kind of way.

So many service providers skip the part where the math informs the strategy. They jump straight into wishful thinking, vision boarding, and manifesting a 500% revenue leap because it would be “nice.” But what I care about — and what I walk you through in this episode — is a grounded, data-backed approach that still leaves room for flexibility, alignment, intuition, and, yes, a little woo.

If you’ve ever wondered why some service providers can talk about their offers with total ease while the rest of the internet is out here duct-taping things together behind the scenes, this episode is going to hit hard. I brought on Aiza from Studio Koya because she’s doing something that honestly not enough service providers are talking about… branding your offer itself. Not just your business. Not just your aesthetic. Your actual offer.

And listen, as someone who has spent years helping service providers productize, position and sell their signature services, her Disneyland analogy finally made something click that I wish I had years ago. If you’ve been stuck in the land of confusing packages, overlapping deliverables or “light vs premium” versions that no one seems to understand… this conversation is going to feel like a warm hug and a wake-up call.

If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like to grow a service-based business in real time, this episode is basically me opening the books, pulling out the receipts, and walking you through the messy middle of it all. I am a big believer in radical transparency. The data, the decisions, the pivots, the wins, the “what the hell was I thinking” moments. All of it matters, especially if you’re building a business rooted in done-for-you, done-with-you, advisory, productized services, and the entire offer ecosystem that goes along with it.

This year stretched me in all the best (and most annoying) ways. I evolved my containers, finally dialed in the structure of Sold Out Services, split my business into two intentionally aligned brands, pulled visibility levers that actually worked, and looked at so much damn data I might start dreaming in Airtable formulas.

If you’re building a sustainable, scalable, freedom-based service business, this breakdown is going to hit home.

If you’ve ever felt behind because you “didn’t start early enough,” or overwhelmed by all the noise telling you to scale faster, post more, chase virality, or build a digital product empire, this episode is going to feel like a warm cup of coffee. I sat down with Rebecca Stanisic, a writer, strategist, and long-time creator who’s been building on the internet since 2009. And this conversation is basically a masterclass in longevity, trust-building, and building a service-based business that actually fits your life.

If you’re a service provider staring at your revenue gap and quietly spiraling about how many new leads you need to hit your year-end number, pause. Breathe. I want to walk you through the exact process I use (and teach inside Sold Out Services) to make money without getting a single new client. This is the same hidden-revenue strategy that helped one of my marketing agency clients generate $66,000 in contracted revenue in six weeks, just by auditing the clients she already had.

If you’re trying to end the year with more cash, more clarity, and less frantic “where are my leads” energy, this episode is your roadmap.

This episode is me pulling back the curtain on what happens after you get what you say you want. I talk about my own patterns with work, money, and self-worth, and how productization has given me the systems to create space… but not the tools to emotionally exist inside it.

If you’ve ever hit a goal and still felt that weird, restless “is this it?” energy — this one’s for you.

If you’ve ever felt torn between loving the consistent revenue of retainers and hating the anxiety spiral that comes with “what if they all cancel at once,” this episode is going to be your new comfort listen. I sat down with Tracy Medeiros, a business design architect and longtime systems girlie who has been in the online space since the wild west days of 2016. And let me tell you, this woman has takes. The kind I live for.

You know that thing we all say we want?
More freedom, more space, more ease.

But here’s the truth I had to face — even when I built the team, hit the revenue goals, and designed the dream schedule, I was still burnt out. I was still anxious about time. And I didn’t know how to actually exist inside the freedom I had worked so hard to create.

This episode is me pulling back the curtain on what happens after you get what you say you want. I talk about my own patterns with work, money, and self-worth, and how productization has given me the systems to create space… but not the tools to emotionally exist inside it.

If you’ve ever hit a goal and still felt that weird, restless “is this it?” energy — this one’s for you.

Let’s be real — half of online business advice is recycled gossip. Someone says “this strategy worked for me,” and suddenly it’s gospel. But is anyone actually tracking whether it works for them? In this episode, I sat down with data strategist and Airtable genius Zoe Dew to talk about what happens when you stop building your business on borrowed blueprints and start leading with data.

If you’re a service provider who feels like you’ve officially hit the wall—your calendar’s maxed, your brain’s fried, and yet your revenue has flatlined—then friend, you’re in what I call Ceiling Season. It’s not a failure. It’s a flag. It means you’ve grown your business as far as your current model will allow, and it’s time to make a strategic shift.

Andrea Shaw and I went from ranting about terrible dongle design to talking about designing a business that actually fits your life.

Andrea’s a copywriter for wedding professionals, but not the surface-level “romantic vibes” kind. She’s helping creative entrepreneurs build businesses that look as good behind the scenes as they do on Instagram — and we got real about the messy middle of that.

Whether you’re a service provider in weddings or any creative industry, this episode will hit home if you’ve ever struggled with niching, pricing, or what the hell to do when things get quiet in your business.

So, a couple weeks ago I posted on Threads about this ridiculous-fun “slideshow birthday party” I went to — and yes, I made a presentation about syrups, sewer cats, side projects, and serial killers (as one does). But what I really want to circle back to is something that’s been popping up on Threads lately that hits close to home for every service provider I know: the rise (again!) of done-for-you services.

There’s this viral thread that simply said:

“Can we bring back DFY services, please? Sincerely, a girlie who doesn’t want to learn to do everything herself.”

And it exploded. 200+ comments later, we’ve got a full-blown debate on the state of service work — and surprise, surprise, it all ties back to productization, pricing, and how we structure our offers as service providers.

Let’s talk about what’s really going on here and how it affects you if you’re offering done-for-you work, thinking about pivoting, or feeling burnt out by the constant “teach everything” model.