Why You Can't Stay Above $20K/Month (Even When Your Work Is Good)

Here's the pattern I watched repeat itself for 20 years inside agencies and consulting businesses:

A consultant lands a strong client. Does great work. Closes another one. Has a genuinely good month — $18K, $22K, maybe a stretch to $25K. Then the next month arrives and they're back at $8K, scrambling for the next project. So they hustle, land something, have another good month. Then it drops again.

Up. Down. Up. Down.

They assume the problem is marketing. Or pricing. Or that they need a better offer. So they fix those things — and the same pattern continues at a slightly higher level.

The ceiling isn't your offer. It's your architecture.

The Real Reason Revenue Resets Every Month

Most consultants build their business around custom proposals. A prospect shows up with a problem, the consultant shapes their work around that specific problem, delivers it well, and moves on to the next one.

This feels like great service. And it is. The problem is what happens when the engagement ends: nothing. There's no natural next step, no reason for the client to stay, and no system that turns one good client into compounding revenue. Every month starts at zero.

The consultants I've watched get stuck at this ceiling are almost always the most talented ones. They're too good at adapting. They can solve almost any client problem — which means they never stop writing custom proposals long enough to build something that compounds.

What Gets You to $20K Months (And Why It Stops Working)

To get to $20K months, most consultants get good at three things:

Landing the right clients. They figure out who they work best with, sharpen their positioning, and start attracting better-fit work.

Delivering strong projects. The work is genuinely good. Clients refer them. Reputation builds.

Staying in motion. They hustle between projects — networking, posting, following up — and keep the pipeline from going cold.

These three things will get you to $20K months. They will not keep you there consistently, because all three depend on you being in active selling mode at all times. The moment you slow down to focus on delivery, the pipeline dries up. And when the project ends, you're back to zero.

The structure is built around projects, not compounding relationships.

The Architecture That Breaks the Ceiling

Breaking through $20K consistently isn't about doing more of what got you there. It requires building something structurally different: a 3-offer stack where one client can move through multiple stages — and pay you at each one.

Here's what that looks like:

1. A front door offer. A defined, productized entry point — typically $500 to $2,500 — that solves one specific problem and puts the right clients into your world without a custom sales cycle. This offer does two things: it generates revenue on its own, and it pre-sells your core offer before a sales call ever happens.

2. A core offer. Your primary engagement — the thing you're best known for. The difference is that now it has a defined scope, a fixed price, and a clear path forward. It doesn't end. It leads somewhere.

3. A growth offer. A retainer, a membership, an ongoing advisory relationship — something clients move into after the core engagement and stay in month after month. This is where predictable recurring revenue lives.

When these three offers are sequenced correctly, a client who buys the front door offer naturally becomes a candidate for the core offer. A client who finishes the core offer has a clear reason to stay in the growth offer. The sales cycle compresses because trust is already built at each stage. Revenue compounds because clients don't leave — they move forward.

The Difference Between a Good Month and a Consistent Business

A consultant with a great offer but no architecture will have good months. Sometimes great months. But every month starts with the same question: where is the next project coming from?

A consultant with a 3-offer stack has a different question: how do I keep moving clients through the system I've already built?

One of those questions scales. The other one doesn't.

The $20K ceiling isn't a marketing problem. It's a structure problem. And structure is something you can build.

Start Here

If you want to see exactly how the 3-offer stack works — and walk away with a clear picture of what yours could look like — I put together a free 3-part mini course that covers it.

Lesson 1 breaks down why custom proposals are keeping you stuck. Lesson 2 walks through the full stack framework. Lesson 3 helps you name, price, and sequence your own version.

Three short videos. No fluff. You can start watching in the next five minutes.

Stop chasing everyone

Thoughts on focusing:

Stop chasing everyone.

Trying to please everyone often leaves you feeling stretched thin and unrecognized.

The reality is that when your business targets too broad an audience, you dilute your message.

Narrowing your focus may seem counterintuitive, but it’s the pathway to being seen.

You don’t want a bullhorn 📢

You want a dog whistle 🐶

When you tailor your message and offer to a specific group:
‣ You speak their language
‣ You understand their pain points
‣ You provide exactly what they need

This sharp focus doesn’t limit you; instead, it amplifies your message.

Like your favorite songs; they resonate because something in the lyrics speaks directly to you.

Your offer should do the same.

By honing in on your dream client, you position yourself as the go-to expert. Your cultivate more trust and loyalty that’s invaluable.

People don’t just hear you—they listen.

Searching in a backpack of skills

I had a conversation this morning with a creative director who’s facing challenges in refining his business focus and workflow.

Seth has a wealth of experience and skills but lacks direction on where to apply them effectively. He’s been working as a consultant and freelancers for over 10 years.

The challenge is he’s a marketer….

So he’s stuck in his head about how to pick and focus. He thinks he needs a funnel, but can’t figure out how to narrow it down so it actually will work.

This makes him feel like a fraud because he doesn’t practice what he preaches to large corporations that hire him.

Plus, he’s stuffed in his backpack of skillz with all sorts of design, branding, and creative direction experience.

His backpack of skillz is ripping at the seams.

But despite his extensive background, Seth is been stuck with the same homepage and status quo message for over 4 years.

He’s got notebooks full of ideas and scribbled launch plans.

Like many solo experts, he struggles with focusing his business direction. His marketing is all based on referrals and relationships, so in many areas he’s feeling like a Swiss army knife with lots of dull blades. He can do the work, but he doesn’t know what to tools to ditch and what blades to sharpen.

We talked through the right next steps.

Seth knows he wants to “productize” his business and create a consistent incoming flow of clients. But picking a niche is downright terrifying for him.

That’s why Seth was reaching out.

Over the next 3 months, I’ll be walking alongside him to help him identify his core strengths and align them with the right market.

We’ll revamp his core WHY and focus on creating a clear brand direction. Then he can take his huge menu of custom services and start to systematize and create products for his services.

By the end of the call Seth was already seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. Soon he’ll have a roadmap to:

• Productized business offerings
• Have a clear brand direction
• Systematize his creative workflow
• Use a simple, consistent client acquisition process
But most of all - bring his backpack of skills together for more strategic and focused work.

Niching isn’t the only way to get clear on who you help. There’s a simple path that isn’t obvious until you see it. Now the real work begins of clearly define his brand and testing and systematize his workflow.

I’ll let you know how it goes and share more of what Seth learns along the way.

Superpower

I joined a training recently that sparked new thoughts about how we should approach picking our ideal client.

I typically took a nuts and bolts approach.

“What value do you provide? What gap does the customer/business need to fill?”

I helped people find a big, expensive or nagging pain and find a way to fill it.

When you find a match, you’re off to the races. It’s a match made in business.

This approach was very different.

It starts on helping the expert really dial in on things they feel are easy, yet valuable.

They called it finding your ‘superpower’.

We all have these things. Some skill that feels so natural and easy, it’s just second nature.

Superpowers feel very uncomplicated for us, so we downplay their value. That’s why they can be tricky to find in our own toolkit.

But to the right client, what’s easy for you is super-duper painful to them.

So much so; they avoid it at all costs.

Maybe even run away from it, and avoid it for years.

So the process here is to look for the gap between 2 things:

1) Your superpower that’s easy, value and you like doing.

2) Potential clients for who that exact thing is painful and they avoid it.

When you consider your ideal client this way, things change.

Because they aren’t buying just a nuts and bolts, logical solution.

They are buying to stop the pain. It’s deep and filled with emotion.

They buy to reduce their stress and avoid stuff they dread.

And that, is how you get recurring clients.

Because if they dread something deeply enough - they will gladly pay an expert to take it off their plate forever.

Creating cash flow

Problem #1: Creating cash flow today.

Yesterday, we talked about creating your Revenue Roadmap. The first goal of the roadmap is to get you paid sooner than later.

This means picking something you offer, taking it out into the world and offering it to a hungry audience.

It also means sticking with your decision and continuing to offer it again and again until you get results (aka: cash).

Most businesses don’t get results simply because they change their minds.

They pick something, give it a few weeks and then give up.

They change their minds and pick something else.

Everything in life has friction. We do better when we realize friction is part of the process.

You will hear ‘nos’ and ‘not right nows’ when you take your offer to the market. You will get feedback and fresh ideas that you can consider later.

Your revenue roadmap gives you a timeline to follow. 90 days to be exact.

Getting cashflow today means taking a short chunk of time–90 days–and testing one tactic. Because it’s important that you don’t give up too early, or at the first sign of resistance.

As you create roadmap, you need to make some choices and figure out who is scouring the internet in search of your expertise and help–today.

Because getting cashflow fast means requires finding a target market that’s hungry for your solution.

More on that tomorrow…

You’ve got it

I’m on a mission to help more marketer and creatives avoid the same mistakes and build a business that they actually want to run.

Whether you are a marketer, consultant, or creative – what you bring to the table is valuable. The sooner we can translate that value into a revenue generating brand story, the better. 

First, let’s get a few things on the record. 

• You have what it takes. 

• You are already an expert. 

• You deserve to be paid for your expertise today. 

• You deserve room to explore what you want your expertise to be tomorrow. 

I believe you have what it takes. And I want to show you the fact that you have something to offer.

I believe you can earn a living today, based on being able to prioritize your opportunities, know your biggest priority, and create predictable revenue.

But I want to go beyond cash flow. 

I want to give you back time. Why? Because time gives you room to create the life you are looking for. It’s how we make work fun again. 

Because creating is the thing you want to do anyway, right? 

You love to create. You have ideas and want to bring them to life.

You want to put something new into the world. You want to offer services and products–but you may not know how to price them, position them, or package them.

Over the next days, I want to walk through a process to get you paid today, while you build the business you want in the future.

I want to help you close the gaps in your offers and message so you can have more joy in running your business.

So you can deliver consistent and predictable results. Oh, and I make sure you’re having fun in the process!

Together, we will  help you to unlock your brand’s revenue-generating potential by discovering your unique strategy and story. That’s what I call your Revenue Roadmap.

Book preview

Hey there! Thanks for joining me on this email adventure.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing excerpts from my upcoming ebook about building a creative business.

It’s about the struggles and creative lessons I learned building my agency, and how you can avoid some of the roadblocks.

As I share, please hit reply and let me know what sticks out to you.

Good, bad, insightful? Let me know. Seriously.

I can’t wait to share and see how it helps other creatives and marketers.

—

Hey marketers, creatives, and consultants. It’s high time you made good money for your creative work.

But for many creative entrepreneurs, that’s an itch that’s tough to scratch.

You want to make a difference, do good work, and get paid well in the process.

Because building a creative business that’s profitable, fun, and impactful isn’t easy. 

Maybe you’ve tried to solve it. To scratch the itch. So you hired coaches. Or took another course. You may even have a few certifications under your belt.

But no matter how you slice it, you don’t feel aligned with your offerings and audience. No matter what you’ve tried, something feels…. off. 

That’s because starting and growing a creative service business is totally different from a traditional business. 

It actually matters how you show up and how you feel about the work you do each day. 

Because, at the core of it, there’s a whole lot of you underneath everything your business does and how you impact clients. And that means how you show up and how aligned you are with your business is critically important.

Because if you aren’t aligned with your core business, you’ll end up hiding on the sidelines and sabotaging your success. This book is a short introduction to how I discovered this challenge, how it crushed my business, and what I learned in the process.

And I’m sharing it with you, so you can avoid the same mistakes.

Let’s dive in tomorrow.

Grab a bucket

“Stop trying to boil the ocean.”

You know how sometimes we want to do everything? It's like trying to heat up the entire ocean with a tiny matchstick.

Sounds impossible, right?

But many creatives try to boil the ocean and become experts at top many things.

We get excited and attempt to take on the world, to achieve everything, to become a master of all.

But let’s be honest, how practical is it to even try to boil the ocean?

It's vast, deep, and wet. Just like the world of business.

Instead, grab a bucket.

Picture this.

You stand beside an infinite ocean, holding a bucket. The vastness of the ocean is overwhelming, unpredictable, and uncontrollable.

But your bucket? It’s manageable. It's focused. It's specific.

Instead, imagine just filling a bucket with water and trying to boil that. Way easier, huh?

That's how we should think about our work, especially if we’re on our own in business.

The temptation is there to dive headfirst into every opportunity that presents itself.

But true mastery and differentiation is found in the bucket. Picking that specific area of expertise – and filling it to the brim.

When you choose to focus on a specific tightly focused skill, not only do you set yourself apart as an expert, but you also ensure that your energy, resources time aren't spread thin.

Your bucket becomes your strength, your Unique Selling Proposition, your brand.

Instead of trying to be good at everything, why not be amazing at just one thing?

Think about it. If you were really good at one special thing, people would come to you just for that.

You'd be the go-to person.

You won’t be juggling a million things and running around exhausted.

So, pick a bucket and fill it with a skill you love and are good at.

And if problems come? You'll handle them because you're the expert in that one thing.

Remember, it's okay not to do everything. Doing one thing really well can be even better.

Stay awesome and keep focused on finding your superpower.

Robbing Peter

Many of us rely on a morning cup of coffee to kickstart our day.

It's become a ritual. And a way to summon energy from thin air.

But my caffeine-fueled boost often comes with a hidden cost.

Brain chemistry tells us that sipping that coffee first thing in the morning can block the sleepy feels. But the chemicals it’s blocking don’t go away.

The sleepies show up with a vengeance in that afternoon slump that hits later in the day. We are robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Here’s what a real neuroscientist, Dr Andrew Huberman says:

“The longer we are awake the more the molecule adenosine builds up in our brain and body, the result of which is to make us sleepy.

Drinking caffeine right after waking, people feel a lift and energy, but then often feel very sleepy in the afternoon. Then they drink more caffeine in the afternoon which disrupts sleep. This whole scenarios has to do with interactions between caffeine, cortisol, and adenosine.”

That morning coffee works in the moment, but can leave your drained and out of sync later in the day. (PS: the answer is to wait about 90 mins so you can get all the sleepy juice out of your system before you summon your coffee genie).

At work, the same thing happens when we spend too much time working outside of our strengths.

We face an urgent situation and need to roll up our sleeves, dig in, and solve it.

We pour a cup of weakness and guzzle it right down. And then it hits us later when we need to tap the creative juices.

I get it. Everyone has to do routine and non-inspiring stuff. But if we operate outside of our strengths for too long, we “rob" our future creative energy to pay for an immediate fix. Working on an empty tank too often hinders our impact.

Plus, we only have so much willpower in each day. And we need sustained energy for focused work or we find ourselves depleted.

Long term this leads to burn out. I know because I lived this cycle for 10+ years.

Instead of squandering energy on every urgent task, creatives need to focus on high-impact work first. Even though it’s hard.

Do the boring stuff (insert your non-favorite time here), and save your best energy for working in your strengths.

PS: Circadian rhythms are personal, so timeshift this advice to fit your schedule. TLDR; Honor your energy, folks.

Symptoms

"I need more leads." It's a common issue for creatives. But it's not the real problem.

Good leads. Bad leads. No leads. Too many of the wrong leads.

How many and what kind of leads you attract is just a symptom of the problem. Leads tell you how well your audience understands you and what you do.

"I need help distilling down the essence of what I provide and giving me words to communicate that to potential clients."

Bingo. That's the way a new client phrased it today.

They are asking the right questions. Because they realized that what they do (high end family portraits) and how they do it (high-touch customer experience) aren't connecting with the right audience. They aren't getting the right leads anymore. Something needs to shift.

So before you turn on ads, rewrite your website, build another funnel, or cold DM a zillion people... Stop and ask the hard questions:

• What's in this for my customer? What do they want out of this?

• What better reality do I give to my customers?

• What tangible problems are they facing in their current situation? And how can I meet them there?

• What emotional challenges can we solve for?

Don't chase leads. Distill your brand essence into a tangible story that you can invite customers into.

The right customers are out there. Invite them into the story.

Boring Brian

I recently did a survey to better understand the challenges people are facing in building a profitable creative businesses. Got a min to share your thoughts? I’d love to hear them.

One question that came back was:
“How can I consistently earn about the same amount each month?”

I struggled with this for 7 years and know the road well. The answer is way less complicated than I expected:

If you want consistent monthly revenue, build your business around solving a problem that doesn’t go away.

Bonus points: Find the overlap of something that’s valuable to your client’s business, easy for you, and extra annoying for them to do themselves.

Think about recurring service products like bookkeeping, planning and paying your taxes, cleaning your house, mowing the yard, managing social media, writing blogs, sending weekly emails.

Getting consistent revenue in your business isn’t that complicated. Keeping the revenue is hard for creatives. Because as creatives…

• We love to explore.

• We like learning and trying new things

• We get tired of working with the same clients over and over again.

• We need variety to stay inspired.

If we are honest, boredom is the reason creatives don’t have recurring revenue.

Plus, “finding inspiration” is an acceptable excuse to spread our wings and fly away when we get bored and itchy. (Been there, done that.)

So every few months we shift our focus and step on the garden hose of “consistent revenue”.

Sales crawl to a trickle. We wonder why people don’t “see our value”. We take another course.

We stand on our own dry, crunchy brown patch of business and wonder why the grass looks greener over at Boring Brian’s house down the street. Pssst: it’s because Brian keeps doing the same (boring) things that his customer’s need again and again.

For creatives, the key to consistent revenue that doesn’t drain you is building your business around your superpower. More on that tomorrow.

Avoid it

I joined a training this week that sparked new thoughts about how we should approach picking our ideal client.

I typically took a nuts and bolts approach.

“What value do you provide? What gap does the customer/business need to fill?”

I helped people find a big, expensive or nagging pain and find a way to fill it.

When you find a match, you’re off to the races. It’s a match made in business.

This approach was very different.

It starts on helping the expert really dial in on things they feel are easy, yet valuable.

They called it finding your ‘superpower’.

We all have these things. Some skill that feels so natural and easy, it’s just second nature.

Superpowers feel very uncomplicated for us, so we downplay their value. That’s why they can be tricky to find in our own toolkit.

But to the right client, what’s easy for you is super-duper painful to them.

So much so; they avoid it at all costs.

Maybe even run away from it, and avoid it for years.

So the process here is to look for the gap between 2 things:

1) Your superpower that’s easy, value and you like doing.

2) Potential clients for who that exact thing is painful and they avoid it.

When you consider your ideal client this way, things change.

Because they aren’t buying just a nuts and bolts, logical solution. They are buying to stop the pain. It’s deep and filled with emotion. They buy to reduce their stress and avoid stuff they dread.

And that, is how you get recurring clients.

Because if you dread something deeply enough - You’ll gladly pay an expert to take it off your plate forever.

Less, better

"Do less, better." ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Marcus Aurelius understood the modern world. There's a natural draw for us to add more, do more, be more.

"Most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, “Is this necessary?” But we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well. To eliminate the unnecessary actions that follow.”

Leaders need to question what assumptions and best-practices we need to drop so we can focus on doing less, better.

Our jobs as leaders require us to focus resources, so our teams can do less, better.

For me - I'm on a mission to help B2B service companies slim down their business to a core few products.

Less products, less options. Less, better marketing.

Less mass market, and better niche outcomes.

Less hope and pray marketing, better strategy for impacting your top 100 ideal clients.

Less, but better sales conversations.

Less, but better options, with less complications in delivering on the promise.

Let's do less, better.

Why case studies?

Why should you share success stories from happy clients? Why does writing case studies even matter?

Here's 6 reasons:

• It helps people trust you: When you show that other people are happy with your work, more folks will believe you.

• You really are good: Sharing real stories proves that you know what you're doing and can solve problems.

• Feelings matter: Sharing feelings helps potential clients relate. Success stories are great at this when they share two types of feelings: How clients felt before they worked with you and how they feel after you solve their problems.

• Builds confidence: If others like you have done well, new customers will feel more sure about hiring you. You remove doubt when you show results.

• You stand out: Case studies pass along your point of view and what makes your business special. Maybe you do things in a different way or help in specific situations that feel aligned with new customers.

• Share the lessons: These stories teach people something. They help folks understand and break down complex ideas that might seem tricky to explain.

Sharing stories about happy customers and writing about your successes can break down the walls that stop more people from working with you.

Let's make working with you easier,

PS: ​Need a copy of the transcript and training? Grab it here.​

Case study cure

Case studies are the cure for skeptical clients.

But most creatives skip past creating and sharing success stories. They do great work, create a happy client, and move right along to their next project.

Case studies feel too hard.

You’re never sure what to write, or feel like you have the time to stop and make them.

I want to share a free training about how I learned to take the hassle out of case studies.

TLDR; This training shares the simplest method I’ve found to create case studies - by doing it while you work on projects.

So today, let’s do something different.

Grab the free training and our templates and let's get going. Here's getting more referrals and clients for your business.

3 elements of productivity

When I stepped into managing projects at my first agency, I often felt like I was spinning my wheels and wasting time on endless tasks.

I didn’t understand the dynamics of how productivity really worked in a creative agency.

These three elements showed up again and again, giving me a better handle on my work and life.

Plus, it made me a much better manager for the Creatives I partnered with.

1. Removing Friction:

As a ADDer, I struggle when there is unnecessary friction in my daily routines. Small obstacles seem like mountains, and I spend too much time on tedious tasks.

Friction sucks your momentum.

Instead of working endlessly on a huge checklist, I found that slowing down and spending time identifying and eliminating sources of friction pays back 5x-10x.

You get a few important tasks done. But slowing down helps you clear the path and remove friction from your routine.

2. Clarity Leads to Action:

Most of us grapple with uncertainty and indecision when things don’t feel clear.

And it gets worse when your job is to be creative and you don’t have an idea of what the end of the road looks like.

(This is one way revisions suck the profit out of projects. We keep shooting arrows without knowing where the target is.)

Without a clear result in my mind, I find myself lost in a sea of tasks.

Instead of endless lists, seek to capture a snapshot of the final scene of completing a task.

Tell yourself how that epic victory scene actually looks and feels.

How will you know you’ve hit “done”?

This newfound clarity has become my guiding light, helping me focus on the tasks and actions that truly matter.

3. Unlocking Motivation:

Lack of motivation was my constant companion before. Friction and indecision would zap my mojo and leave me staring at an overwhelming list of stuff.

I struggled to find the drive to tackle important projects.

For me, motivation shows up when the path is clear and the vision is clear.

My motivation bucket refills when there less Friction and more Clarity.

The good news is that even if you’re not feeling motivated - you can still push though.

Once you’ve reduced Friction and Confusion, pushing through when you don’t feel like it is much easier.

Addressing these elements—Friction, Clarity, and Motivation—has been a game-changer.

Have you experienced the power of these productivity elements in your life?

Hit reply and share your thoughts.

Silver bullets

Looking for ways to attract high-ticket clients?

There's not a silver bullet. No one-size-fits all tactic.

To attract more clients, you need to shift your approach.

Consistent action is the real method behind 100s of “proven tactics”.

It’s about connecting multiple dots consistently for months on end. Taking little steps every day to show up in the same way, so people memorize what you want them to think about you.

It’s repeating the same things until you are so tired of doing the things that they start to work.

Here are some dots that must connect for people to remember and refer you.

1. Craft a compelling brand story.

2. Showcase your expertise consistently.

3. Highlight client success stories.

4. Offer valuable resources that solve real problems, real fast, for free.

5. Network strategically with people who know your ideal clients.

Lots of dots, connected over and over again so the pattern is clear.

What's on your list of ways you connect and attract ideal clients?

PS: I’m building a community to help creatives build predictable and consistent businesses. Before we launch it, I’d love your input.

If you are looking for a simple plan to make your business more predictable - Hit reply and let’s chat. I’d love to customize it to help where you need it most.

Snowman

Selling projects is like building a snowman.

The weather must be perfect. And the snow is out of your control.

Right about the time you finish the job, you step back to admire your handiwork for a few minutes.

Then without warning the sun comes out, the snow melts and the project disappears right in front of you.

You can feel left out in the cold, looking for your next project.

brrrrr…

It’s common for creatives to park their business in the project zone. Because building a snowman is fun, hard work.

But rellying on projects as your main source of income is dangerous territory. Because selling projects can feel largely out of your control.

Customers buy projects in their timeline. They like to determine the timing, how much they want to spend, or what how many buttons and length of carrot they want in their design.

Projects go slow and end abruptly. But they are fun while they last.

Just like a snowman.

Sure building a snowman will keep you busy, but it also keeps you working just hard enough to not worry about the next project. And the next.

Pick Two

Is having it all ever possible?

At my local Panera cafe, they offer a lunch special called You Pick 2. It’s a good idea when you can’t commit yourself fully to just one option on the menu. Or if you agree with me that soup is in fact a beverage and not a full fledged member of the entree cast.

Whether you frequent this famous sandwich shop or not, their lunch special offers a compelling parallel that every creative entrepreneur can learn from.

In any scenario, there are 3 primary options you can choose from.

• Fast

• Cheap

• Good

At Panera, you can choose to pair up two options for your lunch, but picking 3 options will cost you the price of 2 full meals. And the same principle often applies to the projects and products you sell in your business.

Customers can’t have it all, unless they want to pay way more.

Let’s take a closer look at the trade-offs we help our customers make.

1. Good and Cheap won’t be Fast: If you want high-quality results at an affordable price, it may take more time to achieve them. Quality work often requires careful planning and meticulous execution.

2. Fast and Good won’t be Cheap: When speed and quality are the driving factors, it usually means investing more resources. Expedited timelines may require additional costs to meet the desired level of quality.

3. Cheap and Fast won’t be Good: If you’re looking for a quick and cost-effective solution, compromises on quality may be necessary. Rapid turnarounds typically don’t allow for the same attention to detail.

Understanding these trade-offs will help you set realistic expectations and help your customers make informed decisions about the ways you can help their business.

Our goal as creatives, is to help customers align their priorities with their project’s requirements.

Remember, it’s about finding the right balance for your desired outcomes.

If we embrace the principles of trade-offs, we’ll be ready to help customers navigate the complexities of business with confidence.

Have you encountered trade-offs between good, cheap, and fast in your industry? Do you typically lean one way as a buyer, or seller?

Hit reply and share your insights.

The sinks

Do you ever feel like you're chasing your next project or client and don't have time to slow down?

If you do, I’ve got worksheet you should check out. But first, a story about hiking.

This summer my family visited the Smokey Mountain National Forest. We got a recommendation from another agency owner to stop by The Sinks to see the amazing man-made waterfall.

The Sinks is the most visited waterfall in the park and was created when loggers dynamited the river, due to a huge log jam.

Dynamite? Waterfall? I had to see that.

We got there and looked over the edge to sneak a peek at the amazing rapids. But what we saw was underwhelming, to say the least.

Recent weather had made water levels too low (and way less impressive).

That's ok. We'll live to hike another day.

But the low water and trickling waterfall got me thinking.

When service providers rush off after their next project, it can leave you running dry on success stories.

Do you wish you had a stack of success stories to share with new clients?

​Got crusty old case studies gathering dust on your website?

Feel like you're missing out on bigger opportunities to put your best foot forward?

I feel your pain, now let's plan your escape.

Last month I hosted a workshop to share my 3-step process for gathering and publishing case studies in record time. I’m looking for a few people to help me refine the templates + fill-in-the-blank checklists for to include in an upcoming course.

My goal is to put your case studies on auto-pilot and say hello to more referrals, revenue, and repeat business.

If you’re interested in trying out the worksheets, hit reply and I’ll send over the details.