The Nitty-Gritty

* The many ways Tara McMullin’s business and brand has changed over the years* Why she finally feels able to be 100% honest with her brand and content* How to nurture community culture that affirms the contribution of every member* Why CoCommercial has become The What Works Network

At the end of 2016, I decided I wanted to do business differently.

I wanted more for our customers, our followers, and our listeners than talking heads and internet business celebrities.

I wanted to honor the unusual, unconventional, and diverse ways that small business owners like you make things work.

I wanted to affirm your resourcefulness and problem-solving skills.

I wanted to leave plenty of room for “it depends” and “this might sound weird, but here’s what works for me.”

Most of all, I wanted to make sure that more small business owners had access to the kind of insider information that gave me the info I needed to make important decisions about how I did business myself.

In other words: I wanted to put you in the driver’s seat when it came to gathering information and ideas for your business. I didn’t want you to be at the mercy of someone’s sales funnel or course catalog.

That’s why we built our small business owner community.

I envisioned our community growing into a hub where small business owners from all different industries came together to talk shop, get real, and support each other.

And… I knew I couldn’t do it under the brands that I’d been known for up until that point: Tara Gentile & Quiet Power Strategy.

This community was more than me. It was more than a particular framework or methodology. It stood for a bigger mission.

So I dusted off a dream that I had started working on a few years prior to this pivot: a coworking space that brought freelancers and small business owners together in community.

And I called our community the name of that coworking space…

CoCommercial.

To me, the name had meaning. It had an origin story.

But, in all honesty, we’ve been fighting this name since Day 1.

Please hold your “I told you so’s” for later!

For every person who got excited about what we were creating together, 3 other people just got confused about the name!

Now, fast forward a bit to another naming opportunity.

Back in April 2018, we ended our podcasting partnership with CreativeLive, who had helped us produce and edit this podcast since 2015. They graciously allowed us to take full control of the existing show.

With this big opportunity, we had the chance to make a statement. We wanted to imbue the podcast with the mission of our company and community. We wanted to have a public version of the private conversations we were having inside of CoCommercial.

Above all, we wanted to produce something that would give you an inside look on the nitty-gritty details of how others run their businesses–just like we do inside our community.

We had a show all about what was really working for small business owners–regardless of the current hype–and we wanted the name to reflect that.

And then it hit us: the show should be called “What Works.”

★ Support this podcast ★