How to Run Your Biz Without Hating Your Boss

“What should I charge for piano and voice lessons?” “What should I charge for my services?”

Pricing questions come up constantly in the creative and arts community. But figuring out what to charge takes a lot more than checking what other people charge or deciding what you’re “worth.”

In this episode, Sara and Michelle dig into some of the most common pricing pitfalls: pulling a number out of thin air, copying a mentor’s rates, leaning too heavily on “market rates,” and using high-pressure sales tactics to justify higher prices.

Then they take on one of the most common pieces of advice in the coaching world: “charge what you’re worth.” This phrase is bad business advice, and it can also tie your personal worth to the financial value of your services in ways that aren’t healthy.

Instead, they introduce a different approach: Pricing for Generosity. This framework starts with the real numbers behind a sustainable business, including what the business needs to earn and how that breaks down into billable units. Along the way, they get into the math connecting annual revenue goals to what you charge per session.

And because this is Sara and Michelle, expect plenty of talk about ramen, “I’m so awesome” bucks, and why your electric company refuses to accept personal fabulosity as payment.

How to Run Your Biz Without Hating Your Boss is the podcast for creative entrepreneurs and service-based business owners who want to thrive professionally without sacrificing their values, peace, or creative integrity. Michelle and Sara share the hard-won wisdom you won’t find in generic business coaching or “just follow my simple formula” advice.

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Something in your business breaks. The website goes down, a client's confused, enrollment's dragging, or a piece of software decides today's the day it stops cooperating.

Ten minutes later you've gone from "this one thing isn't working" to "everything's on fire and I have no idea what I'm doing."

In this episode, we’re talking about troubleshooting — what it means, why it’s such an essential business skill, and how to approach problems without immediately spiraling.

We talk about:

Troubleshooting is a skill worth learning, because every time you work through a problem instead of catastrophizing about it, you give yourself another piece of evidence that you’re capable of running this business.

(Oh — and sometimes, yes, you really should just turn it off and turn it back on again!)

How to Run Your Biz Without Hating Your Boss is the podcast for creative entrepreneurs and service-based business owners who want to thrive professionally without sacrificing their values, peace, or creative integrity. Michelle and Sara share the hard-won wisdom you won’t find in generic business coaching or “just follow my simple formula” advice.

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What do you do when you have a pile of things to accomplish but absolutely no motivation to do any of them?

In this episode, we dig into what motivation actually is, why creative entrepreneurs can struggle with it, and why waiting to feel motivated may be keeping us stuck.

We talk about the connection between motivation, procrastination, neurodivergence, urgency, and those dreaded “important but not urgent” tasks that eventually become emergencies.

And most importantly, we talk about practical ways to get things done when the motivation just isn't there — including changing your environment, reducing friction, using timers, breaking tasks down, and learning to act without waiting for the right feeling.

How to Run Your Biz Without Hating Your Boss is the podcast for creative entrepreneurs and service-based business owners who want to thrive professionally without sacrificing their values, peace, or creative integrity.

Michelle and Sara share the hard-won wisdom you won’t find in generic business coaching or “just follow my simple formula” advice.

➡️ Join SECO

📖 The Disorganized Mind: Coaching Your ADHD Brain to Take Control of Your Time, Tasks, and Talents

📖 Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

📖 The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

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After nine episodes of talking business, creativity, leadership, and all the ways we accidentally make our own lives harder, we realized something important:

We never properly introduced ourselves.

In this episode, Michelle and Sara pull back the curtain and share the stories behind their businesses, their careers, and their partnership. You'll learn how a vocal performance major and a director/educator ended up becoming business coaches and consultants, why collaboration beats competition, and how their work helps artists and creative entrepreneurs build sustainable businesses without sacrificing their values. This is their origin story.

How to Run Your Biz Without Hating Your Boss is the podcast for creative entrepreneurs and service-based business owners who want to thrive professionally without sacrificing their values, peace, or creative integrity. Michelle and Sara share the hard-won wisdom you won't find in generic business coaching or "just follow my simple formula" advice.

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What happens when two business coaches attend a major national music conference?

In this episode, Michelle and Sara share their experience from the 2026 Music Teachers National Association conference in Chicago. From the fun and energizing moments to the deeper patterns they observed in how musicians approach business, money, and growth.

They go beyond the highlight reel to unpack the mindset shifts required to move from “artist” to confident business owner.

You don’t just have a business – you need to learn how to run one.

How to Run Your Biz Without Hating Your Boss is the podcast for creative entrepreneurs and service-based business owners who want to thrive professionally without sacrificing their values, peace, or creative integrity. Michelle and Sara share the hard-won wisdom you won’t find in generic business coaching or “just follow my simple formula” advice.

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🎙️ Episode 8: Is Your Business Eating You Alive?

The problem isn’t your workload. It’s who’s in charge.

In this solo episode, Michelle gets real about what it feels like when the business you built starts running you. Not always in dramatic, burnout fashion, but in the quieter, more dangerous ways: constant mental load, reactive decisions, and the slow erosion of your time, energy, and identity.

Including one very real moment: trying to take a break over Christmas, visiting family, intentionally leaving the laptop behind… and coming back to a messy business. When your business is running you, it follows you, quietly taking up space in your mind no matter where you are.

If you’ve ever felt like your business owns you, like you can’t step away, can’t think clearly, and definitely can’t “just take a break” this episode is for you.

In This Episode, We Explore:

This is about taking back control. Because the truth is, most business owners were never taught how to run a business. You were handed a machine with no manual and expected to figure it out while also doing the work itself.

Grab your notebook and pencil, grab your coffee, your tea, or whatever else helps you cope with your business-induced anxiety… and let’s get started!

🎧 About the Podcast

How to Run Your Biz Without Hating Your Boss is the podcast for creative entrepreneurs and service-based business owners who want to thrive professionally without sacrificing their values, peace, or creative integrity. Michelle and Sara share the hard-won wisdom you won’t find in generic business coaching or “just follow my simple formula” advice.

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Boa Constrictor by Shel Silverstein

Oh, I'm being eaten

Well, what do you know?

🎙️Episode 7: Getting Off the Hobby Horse (and Building Something Stable)

At some point, every self-employed creative has to decide: Is this a hobby… or is this a business?

In this episode, Michelle and Sara unpack what really happens when you treat your business like a side project instead of the legitimate, revenue-generating entity it actually is. From loosey-goosey bookkeeping to guessing at pricing, ignoring legal responsibilities, and hoping taxes will magically sort themselves out, these “little” habits can quietly sabotage your success.

And if you’ve ever had someone imply your work isn’t a “real job”? Yeah. We’re talking about that too.

This episode is a loving but firm wake-up call, as well as practical, no-nonsense steps to move from “holy crap, what have I done?” to “I am an official badass business owner!”

In This Episode, We Talk About:

If you want sustainability, respect, and actual profit, you have to act like a business owner. It’s time to step out of “hobby land” and into real ownership. Grab your notebook and pencil, grab your coffee, your tea, or whatever else helps you cope with your business-induced anxiety… and let’s get started!

🎧 About the Podcast

How to Run Your Biz Without Hating Your Boss is the podcast for creative entrepreneurs and service-based business owners who want to thrive professionally without sacrificing their values, peace, or creative integrity. Michelle and Sara share the hard-won wisdom you won’t find in generic business coaching or “just follow my simple formula” advice.

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🎙️ Episode 6: Ideal Clients or Endless Hustle

“Ideal client” is one of the most talked about (and most avoided) concepts in small business. In this episode, Michelle and Sara dig into what an ideal client truly is, why the idea makes so many business owners uncomfortable, and how skipping this work quietly leads to burnout, resentment, and hating your own business.

An ideal client isn’t a perfect unicorn or your new best friend. It’s a tool — a made-up but intentional construct that gives you clarity, language, and boundaries so you can call in the people you serve best and stop saying yes out of fear, ego, or exhaustion.

This is unsexy, foundational work, and it affects everything: marketing, pricing, boundaries, emotional energy, and how you feel when you open your calendar.

In This Episode, We Talk About:

The new year is a powerful time to reassess relationships, energy, and how you want your business — and your life — to feel.

Getting honest about your ideal client is one of the most effective ways to build a business that’s sustainable, ethical, and doesn’t make you dread showing up.

🎧 About the Podcast

How to Run Your Biz Without Hating Your Boss is the podcast for creative entrepreneurs and service-based business owners who want to thrive professionally without sacrificing their values, peace, or creative integrity. Michelle and Sara share the hard-won wisdom you won’t find in generic business coaching or “just follow my simple formula” advice.

⭐ Support the Show

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The Art of the Inquiry – Michelle Markwart Deveaux

ICA as “best case scenario” – Minal Sampat

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In this episode of How to Run Your Biz Without Hating Your Boss, Michelle and Sara do something a little different: they open the mailbag.

If you’ve ever reread an email five times before hitting send, replayed an awkward conversation in the shower, or laid awake wondering whether you handled a business situation wrong — this one’s for you.

Drawing on years of experience helping hundreds of performing arts entrepreneurs thrive professionally without sacrificing their values, peace, or creative integrity, Michelle and Sara tackle real-world scenarios that keep coaches, teachers, and performing artists up at night.

No gimmicks. No “just follow my simple formula.” Just grounded, hard-won insight from people who refuse to hang out on business-coach island.

Key Topics:

Perfect for:

If you’ve ever wished for a trusted sounding board when business gets messy, this episode delivers exactly that.

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Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High

Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

Have you ever asked the question “Why the Hell Would I Need a Business Coach Anyway?” In this episode of How to Run Your Biz Without Hating Your Boss, Michelle and Sara tackle the question many creative entrepreneurs secretly ask but rarely say out loud.

Whether you’re coach-curious, coach-skeptical, or convinced you’re doing just fine on your own (…maybe), this episode is for you. With their signature mix of humor, honesty, and hard-earned expertise, Michelle and Sara break down what coaching actually is, who it helps, how to know if you’re ready, and why it’s one of the most transformational relationships a business owner can invest in.

-Why creative entrepreneurs often avoid coaching (and what they’re missing)

Perfect for: creative entrepreneurs, business owners, and performing arts professionals who know they need support but (maybe) don’t want to admit it.

So, if you’ve ever stared into the mirror at the “boss” making all these decisions and wished you had some support, guidance, or just someone to help you stop self-sabotaging — grab your coffee, tea, or whatever helps you deal with your business-induced anxiety and settle in.

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Joe Rohde (Wikipedia)