Why Staying Small Can Be the Smartest Business Decision You Make with Maggie Patterson

Colie: I think that no matter how long you’ve been in business, you are constantly redefining what success means to you, what it means as a human, as a partner, as a parent, and more specifically for today’s conversation as a business owner. That is why I’m super excited to be having a conversation with Maggie Patterson today, and we’re really gonna be talking about why it is okay to stay small. Maggie, welcome to the podcast.

Maggie: I’m so excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Colie: Ah. So you know, I got your pitch and I’m kind of familiar with who you are.

I think we have a lot of like business friends

Maggie: Mutuals. Yes.

Colie: Yeah. And when I saw you in my inbox, I was like, oh, like this is perfect timing because I have been doing what I would consider to be a lot of reevaluation of my business. I mean, I have been very successful by. Lots of metrics that we could talk about and you know, most people want for their business.

But in the last few years I’ve kind of scaled back down mostly because my physical and mental health needed me to kind of come back and be a little smaller. But I’ve also been like really focusing on who I’m talking to because I would rather run a business where I am really serving my people to where I’m not constantly trying to market to do this one thing when I could just be really happy with where I’m at. And so I am really excited that that’s what we’re gonna be talking about today.

Maggie: And I think what you just said about the reevaluation, I feel like it’s a really natural thing that happens to people at multiple points in their business. And you go, wait a second, this isn’t. This isn’t working for me. And the capacity part, your mental health, your physical health, like that is true for so many of us.

Yet we just are, we, we just keep chasing after things and we don’t necessarily slow down often until we’re really, truly burnt out, or we have some sort of, um, a life event that causes us to go, wait a second, this actually doesn’t work for me at all.

Colie: Hmm. Yeah, I feel like I’m just gonna like jump right in with the six figures because I feel like six figure business is so sexy to to say lots of people make it their dream, but like Maggie, why is it that a lot of people feel like six figures is the success measurement that we should all be going towards?

Maggie: Well, it really comes back to. That at some point some celebrity entrepreneur on the internet decided to call their program, you know, six steps to six figure success. And then it just, and it kind of gets in the zeitgeist and then we just all think like a six figure business is normal when the metrics actually don’t show at that.

That’s true. It’s something like. Only 11% of women owned businesses actually ever cross the six figure mark. And that’s not to say you can’t do it, but I always like to give people that perspective and like in the us. 80% of the businesses are one person businesses. Yet, when we talk about entrepreneurship, we talk about owning a business.

It’s always big teams. It’s like the Shark Tank. We’ve got a product, we’re doing all the things. And the reality is, is entrepreneurship is generally one person. Businesses who are making less than six figures. And yet we all compare ourselves to, oh, I, and I hear this a lot from my clients. I’m only, and I’m like, hold on a second.

What do you mean you’re only. Like you’ve created something out of nothing, and that is something I want people to celebrate and recognize that there’s nothing wrong with you or how you’re doing business.

Colie: Yeah, I can’t remember what episode it is. I think that it’s episode 20. I was talking with my good friend Mickey Wilson, and we were talking about the fact that there is a ceiling at 50 K. Everybody talks about six figures, but, and there was this, there was this number, and I really wish that I could remember what the stat was, but it was like.

Only, I don’t know, I’m gonna throw out a number. Only 40% of women owned businesses ever hit 50 K. And it’s like, we’re always talking about six figures, six figures. But like the, the, the ceiling turns out that it’s much lower than that. And so I feel like there needs to be like a lot more conversation about hitting the smaller goals, the steps that it takes to get to a six figure business, if that is what you really need.

Let’s talk about hitting that. 50 K first, because that is something definitely to celebrate. And we all have our different versions of success or what we specifically need to like function in our life. Because I live in Colorado and I feel like having a six figure business here is very different than having a six figure business in say, rural Missouri.

Like your money goes further.

Maggie: Yeah. I always used to joke, like with people, I’m like, I’m Canadian. So I don’t have a health premium, thank goodness. Like I have a, you know, I have a partner with benefits, so my life situation dictates a certain financial requirement. Like I’m just finishing up putting my kid through college. So that has been very resource intensive.

Now I get to be like, okay, maybe we can make a little less money. ’cause I’ve done that. I could check that off my list. And I think. Recognizing like what is true for you and what enough looks like for you. I think we start the business and we get seduced by these things. And going back to what you were saying about the $50,000, when I was writing my books called Staying Solo, I did so much research and one of the stats, like I just keep repeating over and over is the average one person business in the United States makes an average of $46,000. That is like small business administration. And yet when you get into the online world, it’s six figure multi, six figure, seven figure. Now it’s this constantly moving the goalposts and it really makes people feel like they’re doing something wrong, they’re missing something, or just wanna hear a lot. I don’t have a real business ’cause I don’t have employees, or I don’t, I don’t have this, you know, totally irrelevant number.

And the reality is, is are you making money? Do you have a business? Yes. Yes. Like stop looking outside to these people who are literally trying to make you feel bad to sell you something.

Colie: I feel like we don’t actually get a lot of education. I mean, let, let’s actually take a step back. I started my business as a photographer and there is no degree, there is no training that I needed in order to be a photographer or to start a business Like that is just not something that exists. The entry point is very low.

I don’t know if it’s this low everywhere, but, you know, in the United States, I mean, I could pay $50 for my LLC and you know, in Colorado and have a fully functioning business, but. I feel like a lot more of us need like some kind of education on the business side, not just in how to run a business, but how to actually figure out what it is that you want for your business.

And so if we come back to the money.

Maggie: Yeah.

Colie: I already gave the example of I live in Colorado, which is one of the most expensive states, in the United States to live in. But my like resources, what I need to live comfortably is very different than other places. It’s also very different because of my household.

Like you already mentioned, you have a partner with benefits. I often joke around, that’s my favorite part of my husband, is that I never have to worry about my healthcare because i’m not a very unhealthy person, but when I’m not healthy, oh it, it costs a lot of money. And even with our insurance, I recently just paid off a hospital bill in which I think it was in the span of 15 months.

I went to the emergency room twice and after insurance with like my deductibles and my max out of pocket, I still walked away with $9,000. I owed the hospitals. And so I mean, that’s a huge chunk of money for anybody and specifically for self-employed people who don’t actually have a partner with benefits where you’re paying way more for your healthcare.

But I’m sorry, I don’t really mean to go in the weeds, but let’s take a step back. What are the steps that someone needs to take to make a reasonable monetary revenue goal for their business?

Maggie: So I really encourage people to set their salary goal first, because the revenue goal, so many times, you know, we pick an arbitrary number, $50,000, but then we don’t account for all the, you know, costs of running the business. Oh, I’ve gotta pay a lawyer for this. Oh, I have a bookkeeper. And even if you’re running really lean, you do have expenses.

So. You know, $50,000 and you’re like, but I wanna pay myself $50,000. The math is not math. So really starting with on a personal level, what, how much money do I need to be bringing in every single month? And then doing a reverse salary calculation saying, this is what I need to be taking outta the business every month.

These are my expenses, these are my taxes. Oh, look, now if it’s maybe $5,000 I wanna bring out every month. I actually need to be making $8,000 in my business and then figuring it out from there because so many times what I see is people really overspending in their businesses, and that is to their personal detriment, and that is the hill I will 100% die on.

I want people to get paid because doing business where you’re like just eking out a little, tiny, small amount and paying yourself last is a recipe for frustration and resentment.

Colie: And I will say, I don’t think. Like, you know, we set a reasonable salary for ourselves, and then there are some non-negotiables like taxes. Everybody pays taxes and everybody dies. That are the only two things that are guaranteed in life. So you have to account for that. Then when we talk about outsourcing, ’cause you already mentioned, you know, maybe you need to hire a lawyer for this, maybe you have bookkeepers, maybe in the case of photographers, you’re paying for editing.

Like there end up being a lot of expenses on top of that. But some of those are not as necessary as we lead ourselves to believe. And so if we make our salary. That non-negotiable first rung, and then we build on top of that, that is gonna help you figure out what your revenue goals are to make sure that at the end of the year you haven’t run like a hobby, like you actually have a business and you have paid yourself, and you have been able to pay for the expenses that are actually necessary for you to deliver the service that you do.

Maggie: Yeah, and I’m so much, I encourage my clients like create a budget at the beginning of the year, decide, you know, where do I need upskilling for, you know. My design or whatever my services are, what subscriptions do I need, really plan ahead so that we’re not having these emotional reactions when we see something on the internet and we’re like, I feel kind of bad about myself today.

Yeah, I think I need a new coach. And they have a sale on like a three pack. Like, do you really need that? And it’s not that I don’t want people to invest in their business. I want them to invest in a really strategic and intentional way.

Colie: Yeah, and I, I think that a lot of us don’t talk about the fact that it’s okay, at least in my opinion. It’s okay if you don’t pay yourself what you need in the beginning. Like there are stuff, you know, you have to grow into the business that you want, but if you’ve set your salary goal. You’re still four years in and you are nowhere near your salary goal.

You are not running the profitable business that is actually going to be sustainable in the long run. And you know, I, I was talking to you today. I really should have like written these stats out. At least for photographers three, three years in is a major milestone and it is for a lot of other entrepreneurs.

But in particular, I have just found through all of the women photographers that I have coached that at three years is when everybody kind of runs out of steam. They all of a sudden realize, okay, I can’t keep this as an expensive hobby. Forever. Like I either need to do this or the quote that I hate is I need to go get a real job like that.

That really hurts my feelings when I hear people say it. But it is also that point where a lot of people have to make a decision. You’re either going to go all in. You’ve now realized that going at the speed that you’re at with the salary goal that you had, and the revenue and the pricing that you currently have, it’s not gonna get you where you need to go, and you need to kind of have a reality check of, okay, I really want my business to work.

What is it going to take to actually get to the salary that I.

Maggie: And I love that you’re, you know, the way you’re talking through it is like asking yourself that set of very strategic questions to plan and not just do kind of wishful revenue planning. Like, oh, it’ll all work. Yes. Sometimes we have to leave some room for some magic. We have all experienced that in our business, but we also need a plan for like, you know, if we look at a photographer or your wedding photographer, you know, there’s X number of weekends in a year. That you can actually work. You can’t book more than that. Like it just doesn’t exist. So what it, what levers do you have at that price? You know, is it a different clientele? Is it a different type of service? Is it your pricing? Like you’ve gotta look at all those potentials available to you because you can’t just create more weekends for you to shoot weddings.

Colie: Time is the one thing in particular, depending on what your service is, that you cannot create more of. You can, in some cases lower your expenses. You can, in some cases, increase your revenue by raising your prices. You can, in some cases, outsource. Some of the things that you don’t need to do so that you have more time to do the actual revenue generating activities in your business, but you cannot increase your capacity if you’re already at capacity other than perhaps, you know, hiring some associates or, you know, becoming an agency.

But that’s an entirely different model. You and I today are talking about, you know, mostly solopreneurs running your, you know, one-to-one service business. Like once you hit your capacity. There is nowhere else to go. And so if your salary needs and your overall revenue goals are not being met, you have some strategic decisions to make.

Maggie: And a lot of times what I find is those strategic decisions, and I see people resist this a lot. Those strategic decisions often go mean. Going back to the very beginning, figuring out who you’re serving, how am I positioning things, how am I packaging things, how. How am I marketing myself? And a, like, I, I’ve had this conversation so many times, especially in last year with the market changing so much and spending habits changing and I’m like, I hate to tell you, you’re gonna keep going back to this in your business.

And the fundamentals never go out of style. So like if you are really struggling with those things, go back and revisit all those foundations you built your business on.

Colie: Yeah, I recently did a webinar, it was called Untapped Revenue, and what I was trying to bring to the surface is ’cause I am in a position right now where I just, I just hate marketing. I hate that all of us feel like we’re on this constant hamster wheel of creating content to bring in new leads. And a lot of people are not looking at the leads that already exist inside their CRM to make sure that you are maximizing your revenue there.

And so one of the things that I’ve been talking about over and over again is looking at the leads that you got that didn’t actually book you, and also looking at the clients that have already paid you money to see. What else you could potentially offer them, because like that cost of acquisition, we all have an amount of money.

Even if you’re not doing ads, a lot of people are like, oh, Colie, I’m not running ads. Yeah, that’s not what I’m talking about. Like the amount of time that you spend marketing your business is a cost for each lead and each booked client that you bring into your business. And so again, it’s the whole time thing.

We only have so much time to service our clients. We also. Only have so much time to market our business. And you cannot run a business without doing both. You just can’t. Even if you are doing a retainer business and you are full, eventually one of those retainer clients are gonna leave and you’re gonna have to have some form of marketing to fill their spot.

And so I just feel like I’ve been talking about this so much because you know, at the end of the day, if you aren’t hitting your revenue goals, we can all raise our prices. That is always an option that you have, but. Typically, and I would say a good amount of the time, that’s not the most strategic decision that you can make.

Raising your prices lowers the number of people that could come into your business, and if you are actually profitable for the service that you’re. Currently providing at that price point, yes, raising your prices will bring in more revenue, but you might actually price yourself out of the current clients that you love working with and all these things.

I mean, I, I know people hearing me right now are like, oh, Colie, but you tell everybody to raise their prices. I sure do. But I actually want you to look at the revenue inside your business before you do that. And so looking at the revenue again, is like all the things that Maggie and I have been talking about today.

Not just how much money is coming in, but where is it going and is a big chunk of it going to yourself. Because I feel real sad if I hear that you are paying your contractors more than you are paying yourself, like.

Maggie: oh, and, and this is the one that gets me a lot of times, like someone will be, and they’re like, you need to hire a project manager, a va, you know, fill in the blank, whatever it is, uh, photo editor. And what people don’t realize is. They’ve now are responsible for that person they are now. And, and a lot of times I’ll hear from people like, I don’t even really know what I’m supposed to do with them.

And I’m like, Ooh, you’re paying for them and you’re feeling like unsupported and under, like they’re underutilized. That’s not a good use of your money. And I think we’ve been conditioned to think of hiring as this, like kind of, I made it moment like, look at me, I’m legit now. I got a contractor. If you need help, please get it, but be very clear on why you’re getting it.

Don’t just do it because you think that it’s like a checkbox or the natural next step. Some of the most successful solo service business owners I have had, you know, time to work with or just know through different friends. They are very much a one person show, and they have, like you said, made a series of very strategic decisions.

Around all aspects of their business. They’ve gone and looked for, how can I increase revenue per client? They’ve done all those things. They’re really thinking about every little bit of the business and trying to maximize the potential of it.

Colie: I’ve had a couple episodes on this podcast where we talk about hiring, and just to kind of put things out there for you, I went from really only having bookkeepers and, you know, photo editing, but I didn’t have a contractor that was doing that for years. You know, I only paid when I needed the photos to be edited.

I was using a bigger company, actually they were in Canada. And then eventually I had an individual contractor that I would send my sessions to, but. That wasn’t an expense that I was really responsible for every single month because it was totally driven by the actual clients that I was working with.

I shoot a session I need to send it to, to an editor, so that aside, uh, September, 2023, no. September, 2022. I actually went from no contractors to two contractors in a single week. I hired my podcast manager and I hired my va. My VA is someone who was knowledgeable enough in Dubsado from the beginning to where I could actually hand her revenue generating, um, activities where she was helping me with my Dubsado builds.

Like eventually we had like this really well oiled machine where I would do the strategy call. I would kind of gather all the information and do the plan, and then she could actually go in there the day before I did the VIP day and prep everything. She would add all the email templates. She would make sure that, you know, the proposal templates were in there and that my client’s information was in.

I mean, it saved so much time, but I know lots of people don’t use their VA in that way. So I often kid that, you know, Sarah paid for herself from the beginning. Now my podcast manager, on the other hand, I feel like, and, and I, I say this to her and I, you know, I publicly say it. Hey, Hailey, you’re listening.

I love you. Um, she did not pay for herself for a really long time, but now in the year of 2025, in my new signature offer, systems and session, every single person who has entered this container has quoted the podcast as the reason that they joined. So I can now, like with my full chest, say my podcast manager fully pays for herself.

Maggie: But, and I think, you know, this is, I’m always like, if you’re a writer and you need help with writing, please hire someone who’s doing actual client work. That is always, that is what I did in the beginning and it was the best thing I could have done because. I didn’t have to figure, I didn’t have to train someone on something I don’t really understand in the first place.

Right. And I mean, it’s almost, it’s easier to be like, oh yeah, they’re making money. It’s good. Not every role that you might need support for is going to make money. But also sometimes it’s gonna be like, I just need to get this off my plate. Like I, I start off doing my own bookkeeping. That was a very bad idea.

Colie: The funny thing is I love doing my books. I only hired bookkeepers because I myself, like I was thinking the number of hours that I spend to actually do my own books. Oh no. I could make way more money if I just worked with more clients, and plus, I was one of those people. I didn’t avoid my books because I have a phobia of numbers.

I just avoided my books because I didn’t wanna do it. Like I’m one of those people right before taxes. I tell this, I would lock myself in my office for three days straight, barely eating, so that I could then categorize every expense that I’d had for the whole year. I’m looking at every single time I drove to a client’s house to do my mileage, and this is like, you know, 15 months later

Maggie: Yep.

Colie: I don’t do

Maggie: very familiar. Yeah. This is why I just, no, we just don’t do that anymore.

Colie: Yeah. So I mean, when it comes to hiring, because again, you do work with a lot of people who are staying small and staying solo, but what is the typical first hire that people that you are working with end up doing? Because I assume they’re trying to stay small as long as possible, but like what ends up being.

That role for most of your clients where they really do see that it is helping them grow their business or it’s, you know, giving back their sanity, if you will.

Maggie: So outside of like those kind of professional service providers like that you’re gonna use periodically, like an accountant or a bookkeeper? Generally, because I work with creatives or consultants, they’re getting someone who can help them very specifically with. The thing they do. So the copywriters are hiring a copywriter or an editor or researcher.

The designers are, you know, getting someone who could do the brand logo concepts. They’re hiring people who generally do what they do, and it’s. A lot of time for them, it’s about a collaboration and really helping them deliver better client work and taking some stress off their plate versus being like, I wanna be it.

I wanna have a giant team. A lot of them are just like, yeah, I’m a little overburdened right now. I need to bring some people in on some projects that I trust and that will make everything better for me and for the end client.

Colie: Yeah, so how is it that someone goes about making the decision on whether or not that is a good hire or not? Because we’ve already talked kind of like number wise when it comes to setting your revenue goals. Salary comes first. Is there a metric that people should consider before they’re going to make their first hire?

Especially if it is kind of like hiring a body, double hiring somebody that does the same thing that you do.

Maggie: You know, I wish I had, like I. There’s lots of metrics I’ve seen lots of people use. For me, it comes down to are you hiring them ongoing? And if you’re hiring them ongoing, like do you have the ability to withstand the ups and downs? Like let’s say you’re hiring them as a part-time employee. Can you withstand the ups and downs?

Cash flow in your business so that you know you can pay that salary consistently. Because the last thing anyone wants to do is like, Hey, come for for me part-time. And then be like two months later, oh, the client rosters drop peace out. So that’s the first thing to really consider. And the second thing is like do, if you’re bringing ’em in a project basis is have you budgeted and priced this project for your client in a way that you have the layers you need?

The profit you need to actually pay this person, because where I see this really go wrong is people will book a bunch of projects. They’re freaking out, they’re running around, and then they’re like, oh, I need help. And then the person they actually want is like the same rate as them. Then it’s like there is no profit to be had.

Like yes, it’s removing some stress, but it’s not actually generating any money for the business. So making sure that you’re having, you know, your business season is like March. Have the conversations with those collaborators, find out their rates, price those projects with those people in mind.

Colie: Yeah. It’s funny that you mentioned that. ’cause one of the, one of the pieces of advice that I give photographers is, um, August and September is not the time for you to find an editor. I mean, they’re feeling overwhelmed with the number of galleries on their computer, and then they’re like, oh, I need to hire somebody to help me.

Yeah. Then you don’t have any wiggle room to go back and forth with them and make sure that you’ve kind of gotten the editing down and that what they’re gonna give you is not gonna end up costing you more time. In fixing it, you wanna make sure that you’ve got that relationship and what you’re saying is totally true for whatever your service is.

If you’re gonna hire somebody in that capacity, you need it a few months before your busy season to make sure that you’ve worked out all the kinks to make sure that the people that you are presenting proposals to, to hire you, that you have already. I mean, I don’t know if there’s a better word to say than Pat, but you need to add that layer. Of what it’s going to cost you to bring on this person on a project basis to make sure that you yourself are not, I mean, you might get paid less, but you certainly don’t want your hourly rate to drop. There is a difference. There is a difference between you making less on a project because you did less work versus you making less, and it’s actually like not meeting the hourly salary that you have already established for yourself.

Maggie: Yeah, and like, here’s the thing, Colie, like i’ve never seen a reactive emergency level, you know, high drama. I’m very stressed. Hiring decision, work out really well. Because people are just like, I need a body who can do this. I’m gonna throw money at the problem, and I get the impulse to throw money at the problem.

But you’re already in a heightened state. You’re, you know, you’re probably over your capacity, your nervous system is shot, you’re probably not gonna be very helpful or communicating well with that person. And I think. We have to think like when we are bringing people into our business, like how do we wanna be leading them?

How do we wanna be communicating with them like there are hidden costs in that, beyond actually doing the work.

Colie: And it’s so funny that you mention that and I, I don’t think that I had like this epiphany, I just did it once and then I was like, oh my God. That is brilliant. Some of the people in systems in session, when we’re doing your systems, your client experience systems, and we’ve been doing to do tasks. One of the first people to go through the program when he was writing his to do test, I was like, no, wait, like you need more detail there.

I was like, I understand that. You know what that means, but in the future, if you ever decide to hire a virtual assistant or you need somebody to come behind you because you’re incapacitated or something, like you need SOPs, and if you’re not gonna write SOPs separately, then they need to be built into like your workflow so that when there is a to do task, it doesn’t just say.

Send reminder, it has the client’s name. It has what kind of reminder it is, it has which template you’re using, and how you actually send that form, that reminder inside of the to-do task, so that if you are not the person looking at it. The person looking at it is able to follow it. And so I’ve actually had a couple people who came back and hiring a virtual assistant wasn’t even on their radar, but like I think three of my clients now have hired a virtual assistant about six weeks after leaving my program, and they’re like, oh my gosh, like you were right on with those to-do tasks.

And I’m like, yeah, I didn’t do that for myself. So I’m glad I was able to help you with that.

Maggie: And here’s the thing, even if you are never gonna hire someone like the systems thing, even as a solo business owner, you can’t rely a hundred percent on your brain. ’cause you set up that system six months ago. However long ago when you come back and you’re like, what did I even mean? So, and you don’t have to over-engineer your systems, but you know, do I have templates?

Do I have tools? Do I have some documented process? Do I understand the workflow? Instead of doing this, like I haven’t had a new client in a while, what do I do again?

Colie: What do I do? I don’t remember.

Maggie: yeah. Or like, how do I even do that X, Y, Z? And like it seems really. Onerous. ’cause you’re like, oh, I got it. And it’s like, think of how much time you waste trying to figure things out because you just could have done your, created a loom, ran it through AI, and documented the process.

It would’ve been super simple.

Colie: Okay. Maggie. I feel like we’ve talked about a lot of concrete things like, you know, make sure that you’re setting, you know, realistic revenue goals. Make sure that you’re starting with your salary. You know, be very careful and strategic when you go to hire. I feel like now I kind of wanna turn the conversation to like mindset because comparison is the thief of everything.

I even find myself on social media, on threads, and I haven’t been on Instagram in a while because I do really feel like I get on there and you see how well in quotes everybody is doing, and you start to think to yourself, am I doing enough? Like if I did this, would this be happening to me? And so. Do you ever coach people on like that mindset and like, what advice do you give to people so that they really do stay in their lane and they keep their eyes on their own paper?

Maggie: Yeah, it’s funny ’cause I always say to people like, don’t come to me as a consultant to like do mindset work with you. But I end, you know, you invariably end up doing it. ’cause they’ll say like, oh, this makes me feel bad. And honestly like. Let’s get to the root of the problem, and I very am very clear with people like what you see on the internet is not true.

I host an entire second podcast about the duped, the dark side of online business. That’s like talking about this from a consumer perspective, things are not what they seem. So I think a healthy dose of skepticism as you are. Doing your doom scroll and maybe start limiting that time. The other thing is too, recognizing that everyone is in a different season.

Everyone has different resources, different privileges, and like when you go, oh, I’m like looking up this person. Maybe they started their business 15 years ago, maybe they had a trust fund. You don’t have the full story and people, so rarely that I find people look at you for aspiration. Are actually candid about all the advantages they had and everything that’s gone into their business.

We get the, we either get the sob story and like how they’ve overcome everything, or we get the shiny version, right? Like there is no in-between. They’re not keeping it real at all. So I think being very careful about who you follow, whose podcasts you listen to, I think it’s so much more productive to listen to people who are more like you in.

Their worldview, their stage of business, the season of business. It’s like, you know, if you’re the mom of a toddler, you probably want, and you’re really trying to figure out your time management. You probably don’t wanna be listening to a podcast from a 20-year-old dude who’s totally clueless.

Colie: Yes. It’s funny, I, I don’t actually, I mean, I talk about how I grew my business a lot on other people’s podcasts, but then you really don’t do it on your own podcast. Right. But every time I get people that drop into my Instagram and they’re like, okay, Colie, like I just, you seem to do everything, everything seems to be, you know, in order.

I have to say, you realize I just celebrated 13 years of business. You realize that I didn’t really get like really going until I was almost eight years in because my kid was at home with me. I literally grew my business and increased my capacity and those kinds of things. Every time my kid went to another day of school, like I started my business with two days a week.

Two and a half hours on each of those days. That’s all I had. And then, you know, she went three half days and then she went three half days at, or three full days and an afternoon, and then she went five full days. And then when she went to elementary school and she went to full-time kindergarten, y’all, I thought I had made it.

And then I joined the PTA.

Maggie: Yeah,

Colie: so then I was volunteering twice a week. Yeah, I mean, so you know, I still didn’t have all this time, and when we talk about like the six figures, I am more than happy to share with anybody who wants to know. I didn’t hit six figures until I was eight years in business. I came really close one year, and then I went blind.

Literally went

Maggie: Oh my gosh. Okay. Yeah.

Colie: yeah, I mean, you know, and then it set me back like eight months, but like I didn’t really, you know, I’ve never really, until the last few years had a full like school day or a full business day in order to work. And so I don’t want you looking at what I’m doing right now in 2025.

13 years in with only one kid who’s 15 and can do anything that I need her to do on her own. She walks back and forth from school, she’ll cook her own dinner. I mean, you know, my husband helps too, but you know, whatever. The kid is self-sufficient now. But like, don’t look at me and be like, oh, but this is what I want.

When you still have two toddlers running around, like we don’t have the same life now. If you wanna have a conversation with me about what it was like when my kid was strapped to my back and I was editing photos, that’s a conversation that’s a little bit more realistic for us to have.

Maggie: And I think being realistic about the capacity you have as an individual, whether that be. Due to like aging parents, kids, neurodivergence, mental health, physical, like we’ve all got different conditions at different times going on. Like, you know, I got to the teen years and then I started dealing with aging parents.

I was like, okay, we’re gonna switch gears and focus on that. Like there’s been so many phases over my. 20 plus years being in business and like looking at where I am today, it’s like, I don’t, I’m not dealing with any of that right now. So of course I have more time and energy to invest in the business and that’s okay.

And I think one thing I always will really wanna remind people of is hire people or work with people because you respect them and you know, you feel like they’ve, they’re very honest and forthcoming about their business journey. Don’t hire them because you want their business.

Colie: Yes. But you know, I mean, let’s talk about it though, because that’s the advice that people give you. Oh, you need somebody to be, you know, in order to help somebody, you only have to be 10% ahead of them. Or, you know, when you’re looking for a business coach, hire somebody who’s doing the thing that you want to do, and that’s not always the best fit.

So, I agree with you, but that is the advice that these newbie business owners get 24 7.

Maggie: Yeah, and it’s always usually tied to money. Like you want a six figure business, then you go work with the, you know, business coach six figure extravaganza program or whatever it is, right? Like there’s always those people. But I think also slow down, watch people for a while, like watch for the income claims, watch for the stories that don’t quite add up.

Look for those things and be like, okay, wait. What is their motivation here? Because the best coaches, the best consultants I have ever worked with, and that I know personally, they are not flashy on the internet. They are too busy serving their clients. They’re excellent at their craft, and they are the people that are gonna show up for you in ways that you could not expect.

Colie: I feel like you and I would get along so well. ’cause I’m that person that’s very skeptical. I personally do not react well to money marketing. And what I mean by that is, you know, people telling me if I do this, I can just make this amount of money because then in my head I cannot turn. The skepticism off.

I’m like, okay, but no. Now I wanna see like, what are your expenses and how long did it take you to get there, and like, how much helped you? Like I wanna know all of the questions and I, I just, I can’t turn that part of my brain off, you know, to save my life. But then when I’m looking at like, what it is that I do, like, I like people who are giving me like concrete things that I will get.

But that aren’t money related. And so there was this trend, I wanna say it was like two, three months ago. People were like, giving people time is not what you’re selling, so stop talking about it. And I wrote this really long rant. I’m like, no. Time is what I’m selling. My people. Yes, they all feel better about their business.

They feel more confident. Most of my people raise their prices, which then gives them more money. They create these proposals that people are actually booking them faster than ever, which means more money. But like, that’s not what I wanna promise you. I wanna promise you that what I’m giving you is going to give you 10 extra hours a week.

Now, whether you choose to remarket your business. Take on more clients or just have a freaking day of self-care and take your family on a vacation, that’s totally up to you. But I am selling you time and I’m not shy about telling you this is the result that I want you to come for me for. You will end up with more money, but I can force myself to like write a sales page that’s like, work with me and I’ll increase your booking rate by 30%.

Like I just, I can’t do it. I can’t do it.

Maggie: Yeah, and I think it comes down to me as like what I like from a copywriting perspective. What is the strongest, believable claim? Like I know in general, my clients make more money. I don’t say you’re gonna two x or 10 x or whatever, but more importantly, I know like the time thing, I saw that conversation and it really irked me.

So I’m glad you brought it up because here’s the thing, my clients are very capacity conscious. They very much want their life to be their priority, and at the end of the day, getting some time back is the most important thing to most of them at this point. So please don’t tell me it’s not time. And I, I, you know, the income claim marketing, I just, it’s tired.

It’s played out. Everyone, please be skeptical about it.

Colie: But it’s so shiny, Maggie. It’s so like, oh my gosh, I really want this, and if I don’t have this right now, I must be doing something wrong. Even if you don’t need it. Like again, this brings us back to the very beginning of our conversation. Do you actually know what you need? Have you worked with a money coach or a business coach in general that actually sat your ass down and told you, can you tell me what your home expenses are?

Can you tell me what portion you need to pay? I mean, that is where we’re starting to get a realistic idea of your salary. I mean, ’cause you can always just try to replace the salary that you, if you had a nine to five, let me say that. If you had a nine to five. Do you wanna replace it? And I’ve never been shy about saying, that was literally never my goal because I made so much money before I opened my business.

Like, if that was my, I, I would’ve quit a long time ago. Do you know what I mean? So my salary goal in the beginning was I looked at what my husband was making like annually, and I divided it by how many hours he was going to work. And I’m like, I just wanna make sure that every hour that I am putting into this business, that I am making the same amount of money that my husband was.

And I mean, you know, like. If he was making a hundred dollars an hour, I’m not saying that I wanted to make a hundred dollars in revenue an hour. I’m saying after I paid my taxes, after I paid my expenses, I wanna make sure that for every hour that I’m spending, I am making at least as much as my husband.

And that was my standard. For years, I mean, almost a decade of owning my own business. That was, that was the goal. I just wanna make sure that my time is as valued as my partner because we’re bringing different things to the table. I was a stay at home mom for a very long time, plus running my business.

But like my husband went to work at his nine to five, and as we both said, partner with benefits. He gave us the health insurance and he was paying the mortgage and all of these things, and at the end of the day, I just wanted to make sure that he could never say. He was actually making more than me based on the time that each of us were putting into our jobs.

Maggie: And I think what you said about having a standard is you need some sort of standard, like I remember when I started my business, the conversation we had at my house was, I need to make $4,000 a month clear. And I did it very quickly. I, but I mean, I literally was like, I have four months, and if I’m not making $4,000 a month clear, I’m going back to my very well paying corporate job because.

Colie: job because you know what? There is stress when you work at a corporate job, but there is not the same kind of stress that there is when you own your own business. And I feel like a lot of people don’t understand that when you switch one for the other, it’s really not that you’re eliminating the stress, it’s just a different kind of stress.

So make sure that whichever one you do, it’s worth it.

Maggie: Well, I mean, I would say choose your heart. So many of my friends that I like kind of came up with early in my career that have stayed in corporate. They’re like, they literally like, look at me at dinner or whatever, and they’re like, I could never do what you do. And I’m like, I could never go to the office and put on real pants.

Colie: I mean, but see that’s what they value and that’s what you value. And I feel like at the end of the day, like there are a lot of people that would rather, I guess le make less money, sounds judgmental. And that’s not even what I mean, but like there is comfort in knowing that your paycheck is steady. There is comfort in knowing.

For most people, you don’t have to bring your work home. Like when my husband comes home recently, he’s been like sending a few emails, but in general, when he leaves his lab and he comes home. He’s not working into the night like most of us entrepreneurs have done at some point in owning our business.

And so it is really, we do sacrifice to own our own businesses, but I think you have to make sure that at the end of the day that the sacrifice is worth it and that you are not sacrificing your peace of mind to grow. Just because you have felt some kind of pull to do so because of external forces and not an internal need to actually grow your business, which I feel like brings us around full circle to what we were talking about

Maggie: it comes back to like what is the underlying motivation? Like some people really want the team, they want that bigger business, but I think. Is that something you truly want? Or are you doing it because you can? And we’ve seen so many examples of this in the online world where people just grew, grew, grew, grew, grew, and then they got to the top and they, they’re what they thought they wanted.

They completely crashed out because they’re just like, I, I hate this. This is awful. Or they have a few bad months. And it’s like, I think especially know, knowing the economic instability right now, like moving very, very methodically and being extra. Thoughtful about what you actually want and you know I’m all for it.

You go, you go ahead and chase it. But recognize, like it is a very different business model to have a team and be generating that revenue in that way, and a lot more responsibility. And not everyone has the, grit and the patience and the, drive for that.

Colie: Yeah, and I feel like we, I mean we kind of skirted around this, but neither one of us said it out loud. And that’s that, you know, it’s okay if your season of life dictates your season of business. And I think you should be constantly checking in with yourself to make sure that the season of business and the season of life are aligned.

And when they’re not aligned, you have to do something about it. And you have to do something about it quickly. ’cause I feel like lots of people recognize. They’re not aligned, but they just think it will work itself out, and then six months down the line, they’re still in a place where the season of life doesn’t match the season of business and like it’s just, it’s destroying one or the other.

Your business is suffering. Your personal life is suffering or both. Mm-hmm.

Maggie: Yeah, and I feel like in the last 18 months I’ve seen more and more and more of this because, you know, maybe things aren’t working the same way they were in the business. Maybe something has changed in your personal life and. I think a lot of times what happens is if something has worked well for a while or it’s worked for you, or whatever the case is, we wanna cling to it because it feels safe when really the smartest thing for us to do is be like, okay, great.

That’s great. That serve me. Maybe you need to switch up your packages, maybe your clientele needs to shift, maybe you need to work with a different contractor, or whatever the case is. Don’t be afraid to make those changes. ’cause you’re gonna make changes constantly in your business. And I’m not saying like you need to drop everything really quickly, but I think if you’re like, oh, I’ll just wait it out.

I see a lot of people waiting it out right now and I’m like, oh, maybe you do need to change your marketing. You keep telling me your lead pipeline is really slow.

Colie: I do feel like if anybody ever asked me what makes somebody most successful in business, I do think, and I, I don’t even know that I would actually like call it risk in this conversation, but it is being able to like recognize that something needs to change and actually making the change, not sitting in the indecision for a quarter.

For six months, for an entire year before you try something new. Like, you know, those of us that are willing to make changes and then even like, turn it off if it doesn’t suit us like this, this summer, I, I tell this story of I got this brilliant idea in less than 36 hours, I had the offer mapped out. I had the GPT completely created and I made a full sales page.

I sold it. I, I marketed it for three days. I sold it for three days and I was like, no, this is not a good, uh, forward facing offer. This is not something that I want someone off the street to buy, and I completely turned it off. Now, it ended up becoming the first thing that I do in my signature offer now.

So, I mean, all of that was not for naught, but I realized pretty quickly. Oh no. Like this is not something that I wanna publicly sell. And a different version of me might have been like, oh, but what will people think if I just talked about it nonstop and now I don’t wanna sell it anymore? Nope, I don’t care.

I turned it off and did a podcast episode about it,

Maggie: And that’s, that’s part of like the more. Seasoned you are in your business. The more experienced you’re in the, the more you get to know that. But I think if you’re constantly having the, oh, it’s just not working, it just doesn’t feel right. That is information and that’s information you need to act on. I mean, a few months ago I was planning out a private podcast.

I wrote the first, I was gonna have five episodes. I wrote the first two episodes and I was like, I, I kept putting off recording it. I was like, it doesn’t, something is wrong. And then I was like, yeah, this is a stupid idea.

Colie: And isn’t it good that you can tell yourself though that, and that you don’t feel like you wasted the time thinking about it, writing the first two episodes, or that you wasted the time, you know, like dragging your feet in order to start recording like you have recognized? You know what? That was my gut telling me this is not the right move and now we can just shelve it and move on.

Or maybe it comes back in a different capacity. Maybe, you know, you will end up having an idea on something that would make it not a stupid idea going forward.

Maggie: I was just like, no wrong. And I think that the, having the wisdom to be like, this is not it. This is not working. Like that is an underrated skill. As a business owner

Colie: Maggie, I feel like we have talked about like, everything related to staying small except for like where people can find out more information about you. I mean, I, I love the name of her business. It’s gonna be in the show notes guys, but, do you have any closing thoughts or any, like, you want people to think about this before they make their next move or before they consider growing their business?

Maggie: When you think about growing your business, like we were talking about a few minutes ago, understand the underlying motivations and like what is it you’re trying to solve? A lot of times I find people wanna do it to just prove something to everybody and it’s like, you don’t have anything to prove, knock that off.

But the other part of it is, is recognizing that. There are lots of ways to grow that don’t involve hiring, that don’t involve all these kind of traditional things. You could shift the types of services you offer to make more money. Like I think defining what growth actually looks like for you in this season is the most important part.

And so many times we. Just wanna like, we want someone to hold, hire, you know, hand us a little roadmap to say, it should look like this. And actually the best things are gonna be things you’re actually figuring out based on what your clients want and what you want.

Colie: Everything is individual. None of us are running the same business no matter what the business coach gurus tell you.

Maggie: no. Not even a little bit.

Colie: Maggie, you’re gonna come join me again, right? Because I feel like I’m cutting you off because you and I could just go on about this forever. Okay. So at the end of the day. My goal for every single listener is to be running a business that brings you joy and a paycheck. It is literally the tagline for this podcast, and I really mean it. And so I feel like all of us, on an annual basis, every six months, every quarter, you should be making sure that your current season of bus.

Is aligned with your current season of life and that before you make any major changes in your business, particularly in the area of growing it, make sure that you have thought about what it is that you wanna do and why. Alright, that’s it for this episode. See you next time,