What Works

EP 285: Going All In With Strategist Marie Poulin

06.16.2020 - By Tara McMullinPlay

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In This Episode:

* The webinar that changed everything for strategist Marie Poulin* Why she decided to go “all in” on creating content about Notion and how YouTube has impacted her bottom line* How she developed and sold an in-progress online course about Notion * The process she’s using to create additional leverage in her business even when clients coming asking about 1:1 services

The path to building a business that works is not mysterious.

Sure, there is always some luck involved. Timing, connections, and how you show up can play a big role in whether or not you feel traction early.

But the nuts and bolts of it? It’s really not up for debate.

You create a product or service that people want because it is going to solve a problem or improve their lives.

And then you find enough people who want it and are willing to pay the right amount for it to offset the costs of doing business.

Then, you make the methods and costs of doing business efficient, effective, and humane.

Okay, sure, that’s pretty reductive—but it’s also true. That’s how you build a business that works.

The problem is that we have a tendency to fight one or more of those steps.

We resist the process.

We resist building the right product or service for our people. We resist going out and finding customers or clients. We resist putting an appropriate price on the work. We resist making our business operations more efficient or humane.

And so things get sticky—or worse.

I’ve gone through the push & pull of resisting the process of building a business that works many times.

I notice it every time I feel like it’s hard to make money.

It’s in these times that I have to look at what part of the process I’m resisting and why I’m resisting it. And it almost always comes down to feeling like I don’t wan to go all in on what I’m working at.

Maybe I don’t want to go all in on the product I’m working on.

Maybe I don’t want to go all in on the way I’m building a customer base.

Maybe I don’t want to go all in on how we’re operating or the systems we’re using to do business.

The problem is that not wanting to go all in on any single part of the process creates friction and makes it harder to make money.

This week, we’re taking a look at what happens when you’re able to go all in on every aspect of building your business—product, marketing, and operations—and how that impacts how money flows through your business.

To do that, I talked with Marie Poulin.

Now, Marie has been on the podcast several times now. Most recently, I spoke with her about her decision to not build a business that scales. Funnily enough, at just about the time that interview aired, things started to change for Marie.

Marie found something she could go all in on.

And suddenly her path to the right product, the right marketing, and the right operations became clear—as did the path to making money with ease.

In this conversation, Marie and I talk about how she transformed her business when she stopped resisting and found the thing she could go all in on.

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