What if the most human decision in your business is your offer structure?

In this episode, Jessica and Meg are joined by Nick Bennett and Erica Schneider, the duo behind Duo Consulting, for a conversation about business models, burnout, and what’s really behind scale. They trace their journey from the course boom and “productized” advice back toward deeply human, high-touch service work—and the freedom that came with doing less, but better.

They talk about what happens when you stop selling one-time solutions and solve recurring problems, how to rethink retainers, and why “selling like a human” is still the most powerful business strategy. The group also digs into the false hierarchy between consulting, coaching, and implementation—and how being hands-on can actually create more impact, more fulfillment, and better outcomes for clients.

Tired of the “retainers” vs. “courses” vs. “productized services” debates on LinkedIn about the best business model? Learn how we’re all building the kind of business that fits our energy, our brains, and our lives.

* Nick and Erica’s evolution from solo operators to partners at Duo Consulting

* Why they retired their successful course and community in favor of 1:1 work

* Why most “passive income” models still require constant marketing

* How to match recurring problems with recurring offers

* The debate between retainers, projects, and sprints—and why none are one-size-fits-all

* How to sell like a human instead of hiding behind funnels and scripts

* Why client success—not volume—is the real measure of scale

* The false hierarchy between coaching, consulting, and done-for-you work

* How standardization, automation, and selective delegation create sustainable growth

The reason we’re so passionate about helping our clients move to solving an ongoing problem is that in that retainer model you get to drag your clients to glory. Because then you can say, “look at all of this awesome success that my clients have working with me”. I would rather my clients work with five people a year and have those five people be massively successful than work with 50 people a year and have no clue or help them achieve nothing.” - Nick Bennett

About our Guests

Duo Consulting

Nick Bennett

Erica Schneider

How Solos Scale

The Recognition Gap

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Jessica Lackey

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After years of focusing on podcasts, teaching, and newsletters, Meg just released her first blog in three years. In this episode, Meg and Jessica talk about why it’s time to come (back) to blogging—and why it matters more than ever in a world of shifting platforms and AI-driven search results.

They share the practical and philosophical reasons behind the shift: protecting your intellectual property, proving you got there first, and creating a timestamped body of work that can be found, cited, and built upon. It’s how you build a business on rock instead of the sand of social media and shifting algorithms.

From domain authority and discoverability to Substack cross-posting and AI parsing, they look at what it means to write for durability, not trends. They also explore how written assets double as onboarding tools, teaching material, and long-lasting content that can be reused across your ecosystem—bricks in a foundation that lasts.

(Plus, hear Meg sing a song that totally relates!).

* Why Meg is returning to blogging after three years focused on other platforms

* The “sandy land” metaphor and what it means to build your house on a rock

* How blogging establishes topical authority and protects your IP

* Why timestamps matter: AI can’t cite a TikTok, but it can cite a post with a publication date

* The danger of building on rented land (Substack, LinkedIn, social media)

* How written work creates a paper trail for your thought leadership

* Blogging as both visibility strategy and proof of ownership

* How AI and search engines reward structured, linked, human-written content

* Turning blog posts into reusable assets for onboarding and education

* Why a durable body of work outlasts any short-form content trend

“If you build your house on sand, you’ll have to build it twice.” - Meg

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Love at First Search Blog

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Jessica Lackey

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The platforms we built our businesses on are breaking down—and not by accident. In this episode, Jessica and Meg take on ensh*ttification, the term coined by Cory Doctorow to describe how digital platforms inevitably decay over time. From Facebook and LinkedIn to Substack and AI, they discuss the predictable four-phase cycle that turns once-useful tools into algorithmic wastelands.

Book released October 2025

Jessica walks through what that cycle looks like for LinkedIn and Substack, while Meg connects it to the decay of creative platforms like Medium and Kindle publishing. Together, they explore what creators and experts can do when every channel feels rigged—and what it means to build on digital “rented land.”

It’s part diagnosis, part “what now”: a conversation about recognizing when the rules have changed, when to adjust your strategy, and how to build resilient foundations that outlast the next platform crash.

* The origin of the term “enshittification” and how Cory Doctorow describes the four-stage cycle

* What Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Substack teach us about platform decay

* How AI tools are repeating the same subsidized-growth pattern as social media

* The false nostalgia for “when it worked” and how fast cycles now move

* What to do when the strategy you learned in phase one stops working in phase three

* How to spot market arbitrage opportunities before they close

* Why foundations, relationships, and your body of work are the only real insurance

* How to keep your business discoverable without chasing every new trend

Additional Resources

Podcast | The Gray Area

Why is the Internet bad now? | Evan Armstrong/The Leverage

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Jessica Lackey

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While AI still can’t fold your laundry, it can help you build a business that runs smarter—and a life that runs smoother. In this episode, Jessica and Meg talk with Mary Williams, the librarian-turned-tech director behind Sensible Woo and the new Sasquatch Media Grounds studio in Portland. From haunted recording spaces and tarot cards to spreadsheets and AI bots, Mary shows what it looks like to blend intuition with technology.

She shares how she built her “AI team”—including Remy, the snarky Gen Z assistant who filters her inbox and protects her calendar—and why she treats her chatbots like departments inside her business. They talk about how AI can help reduce emotional labor, from grocery budgets to health tracking, and what it means to build systems that keep the human at the center.

This conversation is filled with practical ways to make AI feel less robotic (and maybe a little more like a helpful intern who swears), while lightening your load with technology that actually serves you.

* Mary’s path from librarian and tarot reader to tech director and business coach

* How she organizes AI “staff” into departments—finance, operations, marketing, and more

* The surprising power of giving your bots names and personalities

* Why AI reveals more about your delegation habits than you think

* How to build an AI “board of advisors” with personas like Mark Cuban or Reese Witherspoon

* Emotional patterns people bring to technology (and what that says about leadership)

* Creative personal uses for AI—from meal-planning and purchasing decisions to health tracking

“I would argue if you had an intern, if you had a Gen Z Remy with you, you’d still fact check them because they’re young, they’re learning. I need to make sure that everything’s right. And in that sense, you’re still doing the same functions, you’re not doing less, you’re really not doing more. It’s just moving along faster.” - Mary

About our Guest

Mary Williams: Sensible Woo | Sasquatch Media Grounds

You, Me ChatGPT Workshop

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Jessica Lackey

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aggressivelyhuman.substack.com

What happens when every business book tells you what to think—but never explains what or how to do it?

In this episode, Meg interviews Jessica about her new book, Leaving the Casino: Stop Betting on Tactics and Start Building a Business That Works. The conversation traces how the book came to life—from frustration with hollow business advice to the creation of a grounded, systems-based framework for experts who want to stay small, sustainable, and sovereign.

Jessica shares how she read her way through the entire business section—books that were motivational but hollow, all premise and no practice. Some were thinly veiled sales funnels; others were memoirs pretending to be manuals. None answered the questions solo business owners actually ask: How do I make better decisions? What kind of business am I running? What’s enough? And how do I make this sustainable?

They explore what’s missing from most business books, the trap of “CEO-energy” culture, and the myth that scaling is the only path forward. Jessica shares how years of client work, research, and teaching evolved into a practical field guide for soloists who want to build differently—without gambling their time or integrity.

Get the details behind Leaving the Casino!

* Why Jessica wrote Leaving the Casino after realizing most advice ignores context

* How the online business world sells tactics that don’t fit most experts

* Why many books are either memoirs or funnels to a paid program

* How Jessica went from consulting to creating and publishing the book

* The limits of frameworks like Profit First, Traction, and Essentialism

* The risks of outsourcing sales, marketing, and finance too early

* Responsibility, enoughness, and right-sized growth as operating principles

* How privilege and life circumstances affect what “success” looks like

* Why the book blends manifesto and textbook—both call-to-arms and manual

* Jessica’s hope that it becomes a long-term reference for expert entrepreneurs

Resources

Leaving the Casino: Stop Betting on Tactics and Start Building a Business That Works

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Meg Casebolt

Jessica Lackey

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aggressivelyhuman.substack.com

What happens when our usual ways of dealing with conflict stop working (if they ever worked)?

In this episode, Shivani Mehta Bhatia joins Aggressively Human to talk about the changing nature of conflict—especially in a world shaped by grief, uncertainty, and fraying trust.

We explore how conflict has shifted post-2020, how our nervous systems are adapting (or not), and why repair feels harder than ever. We talk about Shivani’s approach of “conflict midwifery,” destructive versus generative conflict, and what it means to build and lead with more care in increasingly reactive times.

Whether you’re navigating tension in your team, your audience, or your closest relationships, this conversation offers a more humane way through.

* What conflict looks like now—and why it feels more brittle

* The 5 parts of Shivani’s “prism of conflict”

* What “conflict midwifery” means and how it changes the repair process

* What ChatGPT says are the fixes of our current polycrisis

* What it takes to repair when there’s no shared script

* What’s the smallest possible actions we can take in conflict

* Leading and relating in a time of collective dysregulation

* How we can prepare—not avoid—hard conversations

About our Guest

Shivani Mehta Bhatia

Monthly Conflict Clinic

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Meg Casebolt

Jessica Lackey

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aggressivelyhuman.substack.com

What happens when your content calendar makes you want to set your business on fire?

In this episode, Megan Dowd joins Aggressively Human to talk about what it actually looks like to build a business that respects your creative cycles—and what happens when you don’t. From the pressure to always be visible to the collapse that can follow, we explore what it’s like to build a business while also being a human with a nervous system.

We talk about the performance trap of “consistent content,” what to do when you’re no longer interested in your own work, and when and how to use data and systems to support you.

This is a conversation about honoring your capacity without disappearing, how to say no to content you resent, and why creative rest is not a threat to your business—but often the reason you stay in it at all.

* What it really means to have a “human-first” business (hint: it’s not about the right font)

* The burnout that comes from forcing content for the algorithm

* Navigating visibility after a performance hangover

* When to blow up your content calendar for the thing you’re excited about — and when not to

* Choosing the work that feels good, even when it doesn’t scale

* The myth of “consistency” and what your audience actually needs from you

* The identity whiplash of letting go of “known” offers to create something new

* How Megan is reshaping what success looks like in her next chapter

About our Guest

Megan Dowd

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Jessica Lackey

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aggressivelyhuman.substack.com

We often talk about launches as big, flashy events. But what happens behind the scenes when you’re not just releasing something new—but becoming someone new in the process?

In this episode, Meg takes us inside the creation and launch of Findable Everywhere—not as a polished “launch debrief,” but as a real-time reflection on what it means to declare a new chapter in your work. We dig into the decisions along the way: how a paused summit talk became a test run, how she built a course that worked for beginners and advanced folks (and the complications that come with that), and how teaching this material sharpened her clarity and authority. Plus: the real numbers, the behind-the-scenes updates, and the emotional roller coaster of launching while also changing.

But even more, Jessica and Meg get into the behind-the-scenes decisions, pivots, and identity upgrades that can only come from publicly claiming your voice—even if you’re still figuring out what it sounds like now.

* Why this angle simmered for over a year before it became an offer

* How a “focus group” (aka an old summit talk) helped clarify the direction

* What shifted in Meg’s identity and voice as shifted from AI as separate to AI as integral to client results

* Why Meg built Findable Everywhere for both beginners and seasoned marketers—and what that complicated

* The emotional roller coaster of launching something that feels deeply personal

* The real numbers, real process, and real moments of “do I even want to do this?”

* Why launches aren’t just marketing events—they’re identity markers

* How teaching the material shaped Meg’s own authority

* The difference between planning a pivot and living one in real time

Want to get access to the challenge and a YEAR of implementation support?

Join the Content Love Lab and be on your way to be Findable Everywhere.

Live Trainings begin October 7, and you can get twice a month check-in on your content!

Join the Content Love Lab

Content Love Lab

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aggressivelyhuman.substack.com

Let’s be honest, we started this podcast as AI skeptics — skeptical of AI to write and sound like us without falling into language homogeny, AI pitch slaps in the DMs, and using AI to replace our thinking.

But how are business owners using AI in creative ways that honor the voice of our businesses while being more effective?

Enter Prerna Malik and Content Bistro. Prerna caught our eye with the Skeptic Buyer Bot—a tool that actually helps creators pressure-test their sales pages and offers through an AI-powered lens. (Yes, Jessica used it. Yes, she has thoughts.)

We dig into how Prerna is using AI to amplify human work, not replace it. How her agency turns real voice-of-customer data into conversion gold. And why the best sales copy isn’t about cleverness—it’s about clarity, empathy, and making decisions easier for your buyer.

* What makes a good AI tool (hint: it’s not a clone of you)

* How Prerna uses the frameworks behind the Skeptic Buyer Bot to improve sales pages (because not every buyer is the same)

* Why real customer data is your best copy asset

* What makes a good voice-of-customer process (and what doesn’t)

* Why AI should make your thinking better—not do it for you

* When to not listen to best practices and trust your voice instead

* Why thoughtful critique is one of the most valuable services you can sell

“You need to remember, you are the superior brain. You need to look at the facts. You need to check everything. You just cannot ever take what. LLM chat, Claude or anyone else is giving you as the truth.” - Prerna

About our Guest

Content Bistro

Skeptic Buyer Bot

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Meg Casebolt

Jessica Lackey

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What happens after you leave a business you built? How do you relate to work, money, systems, and your nervous system when your entire identity has changed?

In Part 2 of our conversation with Erika Tebbens, we go deeper—into the murky middle of business ethics, entrepreneurship under capitalism, and how we’re operating in the political climate of 2025.

We talk about the ethics of selling transformation, why systems don’t always equal support, and what Erika has learned about nervous system safety outside the online business bubble. This episode is full of those “I’ve been thinking this but no one’s saying it” moments, plus a little bit of righteous rage and some gentle reminders that you’re allowed to do things differently.

Whether you’re reimagining your business, your systems, or your relationship to capitalism itself, this episode will give you plenty to think about—and maybe even a little relief.

In this episode:

* What happens to your identity after entrepreneurship

* How to design systems that support your actual nervous system (not just your productivity)

* The uncomfortable truth about selling transformation online

* Why the ethics of business can’t be separated from capitalism

* What real resourcing looks like—beyond time freedom or self-employment

* Why Erika feels more supported working in an organization than she did solo

About our Guest

Erika Tebbens | Book — You've Got This: A Counterintuitive Guide to Powerful Inevitable Change-Making

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aggressivelyhuman.substack.com