The unsurprising way I’m growing my biz

Happy, happy new year! We’re kicking-off 2025 with the next edition of my ‘building in public’ mini-series. 

I’m taking you deep into the next phase of my business - how I’m using the same tools I use daily with clients and how you can apply them to your own career. 

A few months ago, I started chatting about the next stage of my business with friends, loved ones and peers in the industry. Naturally they all had ideas about offering extensions and partnerships I should pursue based on what they had seen work for others. 

I valued their opinions, but worried that if I listened to them too much, I would build a business that I didn’t actually enjoy running. 

I had an ‘aha’ moment and realized I have a framework for this! 

In fact, a framework that has been so important to both me and my clients in helping us design professional lives we love. 

Yes, you guessed it. 

I needed to define the Operating Principles for my business. 

Operating Principles are the professional and personal values, priorities and anchors that - when we intentionally design our career around them - make us feel aligned, whole and grounded. 

As soon as I sat down to write my Operating Principles, they flowed: 

Me + Family First: Build a business that gives me ample time to care for myself, spend time with my family and invest in my personal interests, while reminding me that if there’s ever a choice, it is my family first. 

Clients First: Prioritize supporting my clients over other activities (i.e., business building, marketing). Be generous with clients - surprise, delight and satisfy them - within reason while building a sustainable business. 

Note: both of these are extremely important to me as they signify building a career that works for me – so different than being a consultant earlier in my career. 

Quality, Over Quantity: Craft a business model that prioritizes deep, long-term relationships over more shallow, lower-touch interactions (even if more scalable), being true to my personal OP of Intentionality and Relator Strength. 

Significance + Platform: Seek and embrace opportunities to share my expertise with larger audiences “on stage” so I can increase my impact (empowering millennial women) and use my Significance Strength, while honoring my ‘Quality, Over Quantity’ principle. 

Stillness + Spaciousness: Ensure that I maintain time for reflection and hold myself accountable to being still (or at least phone-free) to allow my creativity, energy and inspiration for my clients to flow. 

Note: probably the hardest for me to follow, but sooo necessary. 

Abundance: Trust that if I continue to lean into my business and coach, share and create fully and wholeheartedly, success will continue to flow and grow. 

Whew! 

Writing these down on paper immediately started to show me the shape of what business model is right for me, while crossing off other options. 

I’ll share more about what that business model is in a few weeks, but as a preview, these Principles gave me the conviction to say no to…

• Creating a low-dollar, high-volume membership (‘Quantity’ instead of ‘Quality’)

• Building a digital course or product with a mostly anonymous customer basis (no Quality long-term relationships at all!)

• Pursuing a keynote speaking business that requires frequent travel (likely not enough Stillness)

You can apply this to your career in two ways…

If you already know your Operating Principles, wonderful! 

Keep using them, adapting them, or create new shared principles to guide you through new transitions or tough decisions. 

For instance, building a team? Create Operating Principles to shape how you and your team want to work together. 

Trying to decide where to move? Craft Operating Principles with your Partner to align on what’s most important. 

Ramping up in a fast-paced role? Pick a handful of Principles that are non-negotiables to stay grounded and deprioritize the others for now. 

If you don't know your Operating Principles yet, also wonderful. 

This means with a little focused exploration, guidance and support, you'll be well on your way to shaping a career that aligns with what matters to you most. 

In fact, I just launched a new program – The Aligned + Ambitious Career Accelerator – to help you do exactly this…to define your Operating Principles and use them to identify and go after a role that lights you up 👇.

✨The Aligned + Ambitious Career Accelerator✨

Defining and following my Operating Principles continues to be one of the best, most impactful tools I - and my clients - use to ensure our career and lives are aligned with what matters and who we are at our core. 

Stay tuned next week for how I'm revisiting my Strengths – and what it means for my business and your career.