Sales numbers can look fine on the surface and still leave you feeling uneasy.

For experienced entrepreneurs, sales and profit are not just outcomes. They are signals — indicators of alignment, capacity, sustainability, and decision quality over time.

In this episode of The Experienced Entrepreneur, Marissa Lawton breaks down how to think about sales and profit metrics beyond "did it work or not." Instead of treating revenue as a scorecard, this conversation reframes sales data as information that helps you lead your business more intentionally.

You'll hear why many seasoned business owners feel confused or reactive around sales even when they are making good money, and how tracking sales and profit in isolation creates unnecessary pressure. Marissa shares exactly what she tracks inside the Decision Dashboard, why profit margin matters just as much as revenue, and how sales metrics reveal patterns long before something feels wrong.

This episode is especially for business owners who:

• Are making sales but feel unsure about sustainability

• Want clearer insight into what is actually driving revenue

• Feel tension between growth and capacity

• Are ready to move past hustle-based sales thinking

Inside this episode, we explore:

• Which sales and profit metrics actually matter in a mature business

• Why profit margin is a leadership metric, not a bonus

• How sales patterns reveal alignment issues early

• What happens when you do not track sales intentionally

• How a centralized metrics system supports calmer decisions

This conversation is part of a January series exploring the four core categories of the Decision Dashboard: Lead Acquisition, Lead Nurture, Sales & Profit, and Lifestyle & Energy.

If you want your sales numbers to support steadier growth instead of emotional whiplash, this episode will help you see them differently.

Download the Decision Dashboard at marissalawton.com/dashboard

Lead nurture is not about posting more, emailing more, or staying visible at all costs.

For experienced entrepreneurs, lead nurture is about trust, continuity, and relationship — and when it's working, it should feel steady, not exhausting.

In this episode of The Experienced Entrepreneur, Marissa Lawton explores what lead nurture really looks like once your business has matured past hustle-based marketing. Rather than focusing on engagement hacks or content volume, this conversation reframes lead nurture as a signal-based system that helps you understand how your audience is actually responding over time.

You'll hear why inconsistent engagement is rarely a motivation problem and more often a visibility and interpretation problem, especially when metrics are scattered or tracked in isolation. Marissa shares what she personally tracks inside the Decision Dashboard, how those metrics reveal trust patterns long before sales are made, and why nurture should support your energy instead of draining it.

This episode is especially for business owners who:

• Feel like they are "showing up" but unsure what's landing

• Want to build trust without performing online

• Are tired of chasing engagement without context

• Want a calmer, more sustainable way to nurture leads over time

Inside this episode, we explore:

• What lead nurture actually measures in a mature business

• Why engagement metrics only make sense when viewed longitudinally

• How nurture metrics reveal readiness, trust, and timing

• What happens when you don't intentionally track nurture signals

• How a centralized metrics system changes how you show up

This conversation is part of a January series breaking down the four core categories of the Decision Dashboard: Lead Acquisition, Lead Nurture, Sales & Profit, and Lifestyle & Energy.

If you want to build trust without burning yourself out — and understand what your audience is telling you before they ever buy — this episode will meet you right where you are.

Download the Decision Dashboard at marissalawton.com/dashboard

Bonus Episode: The Market Shift, "Dead" Business Models, and What's Actually Changing

In this spontaneous bonus episode of The Experienced Entrepreneur, Marissa Lawton shares an unscripted, candid reflection on the current market shift and the growing narrative that "courses are dead," "podcasts are dead," or that entire business models are suddenly no longer viable.

Drawing on more than a decade of experience in online business, formal business education, and firsthand work across industries like real estate and mental health, Marissa brings much-needed context, nuance, and perspective to a conversation that's often dominated by fear-based headlines and clickbait marketing.

This episode is not about declaring what's over. It's about naming what has actually changed.

Marissa speaks directly to the wave of commentary circulating around well-known educators and creators like Amy Porterfield and Jenna Kutcher, whose long-standing business models are often used as "proof" that courses, podcasts, or education-based businesses no longer work. Instead of participating in takedown culture or oversimplified conclusions, Marissa invites listeners to look more closely at what's really happening beneath the surface.

She explains why the last few years felt unusually easy for many business owners, how the economic expansion of 2020–2022 distorted expectations, and why today's contraction is exposing gaps in sales skill, business acumen, and strategic discernment. The issue is not that trusted educators or proven models suddenly failed. The issue is that the ease with which people used to buy has changed.

As purchasing power tightens and buyers become more thoughtful, success now requires stronger positioning, deeper trust, clearer leadership, and a willingness to re-engage with the fundamentals of running a business rather than relying on momentum alone. Businesses built during or optimized for an anomalous market are now being asked to mature.

Throughout the episode, Marissa draws parallels between the online business space and more established industries like real estate and therapy, showing how cyclical markets, regional differences, and skill development play out across sectors. She reframes today's challenges not as a collapse, but as a return to reality — one where staying power matters more than trends.

The takeaway is clear: courses aren't dead, podcasts aren't dead, and education-based businesses aren't disappearing. What is fading is the era of passive promises, thin differentiation, and selling without depth.

This conversation is especially relevant for experienced business owners who feel unsettled by slower sales, longer decision cycles, or shifting buyer behavior and are questioning whether the problem is their offer or something larger at play.

In this episode, Marissa explores:

• Why calling entire business models "dead" oversimplifies a much larger market shift

• How well-known educators are often unfairly used as symbols for broader industry fear

• What's actually disappearing in the online business space and why it feels destabilizing

• How economic contraction and headline culture are influencing buyer behavior

• Why sales skill and business acumen matter more now than ever

• How to stop personalizing market shifts and start responding strategically

• What it really takes to build staying power in this season of business

If you've felt shaken by recent changes or tempted to believe that the path forward has vanished, this episode offers clarity, reassurance, and a grounded reframe of what's actually being asked of experienced entrepreneurs now.

Your next chapter doesn't demand panic or reinvention. It asks for discernment, skill, and leadership rooted in reality.

Your business is steadier than the hustle, wiser than the hacks, and clearer than the guesswork.

Since you've been in business for a while, you already know that "getting more leads" isn't the be-all-end-all solution some coaches say it is.

The real challenge is knowing what kind of leads you're attracting, where they're coming from, and whether your lead flow is actually supporting sustainable business growth — or quietly working against it.

In this episode of The Experienced Entrepreneur, I kick off a four-part January series about making better business decisions starting with Lead Acquisition. This conversation is for seasoned online business owners who are tired of guessing, reacting, or chasing visibility trends — and want a calmer, more intentional way to understand what's driving growth in their business.

Rather than tracking vanity metrics or obsessing over algorithms, I share what I actually measures inside my metrics tracker Decision Dashboard, why those metrics matter, and how they reveal early signals about what's working and what's not, before things feel urgent.

Inside this episode, you'll learn:

• What lead acquisition really means at this stage of business

• Which lead metrics Marissa tracks — and why she chose them

• How tracking lead sources over time changes your marketing decisions

• The early indicators that show whether growth is sustainable or shaky

• What happens when you don't track lead acquisition intentionally

• How the Decision Dashboard acts as a monthly business hub you can return to again and again

This episode isn't about doing more marketing. It's about seeing clearly, so you can grow your business with steadiness instead of scramble.

If you've been craving a grounded way to understand your numbers without pressure, this episode will help you orient yourself and show you how metrics can become a tool for clarity, not judgment.

Listen now and learn how lead acquisition metrics support long-term business growth.

Want your own clear, centralized way to track these metrics month after month?

You can explore and download your free copy of the Decision Dashboard at marissalawton.com/dashboard.

It's designed to help experienced entrepreneurs see what's actually happening inside their business, calmly and clearly.

Before you rush into goal-setting, optimization, or "what's next," there's something more important to do: integrate the year you just lived.

In this reflective year-end episode of The Experienced Entrepreneur, Marissa Lawton guides seasoned business owners through 10 powerful questions designed to help you make sense of 2025 and move into 2026 with more clarity, steadiness, and intention.

This is not a productivity episode. It's an integration episode — created for entrepreneurs who have been in business long enough to know that insight doesn't come from moving faster, but from listening more closely.

Through a series of thoughtful prompts, Marissa invites you to reflect on the ways your business grew beyond revenue, the patterns that repeated themselves throughout the year, and the moments that revealed how much your capacity and maturity have expanded.

You'll explore:

• Where your business quietly grew in resilience, boundaries, and self-trust

• Patterns in your metrics, energy, or decision-making that shaped your year

• Wobbles you moved through with more steadiness than in past seasons

• What you released in 2025 — and how letting go created space for something truer

• How aligned your business felt with the life you're trying to build

• What steady growth could look like in 2026

• Which parts of your business are asking to be tended to before your next step

• How you want decision-making to feel in the year ahead

• What kind of rhythms, boundaries, or structures will support the version of you you're becoming

• Which wobble you want to catch earlier next year — and what will help you steady it

Marissa also shares an invitation to a live, waitlist-only focus group for The Monday Meeting, a new mentorship space designed for experienced entrepreneurs who want a steadier relationship with their business and clearer signals for navigating the year ahead.

If you're craving reflection without pressure — and clarity without hustle — this episode offers a grounded place to pause before stepping forward.

As an experienced entrepreneur, the most powerful decisions you make aren't about doing more — they're about choosing what actually deserves to come with you into the next chapter.

In this reflective year-end episode of The Experienced Entrepreneur, Marissa Lawton invites seasoned business owners to pause, integrate what 2025 revealed, and practice CEO-level discernment as they step into 2026.

This episode isn't about setting aggressive goals or forcing clarity before it's ready. It's about learning how to decide — calmly, intentionally, and with maturity — what stays in your business and what gets released.

Inside this conversation, Marissa guides listeners through thoughtful reflection questions designed specifically for entrepreneurs who have been in business long enough to know that growth without discernment creates chaos, not stability.

You'll explore:

• Where your business grew in meaningful but often invisible ways in 2025

• Patterns in your metrics, energy, or decisions that are asking for your attention

• Moments where you moved through wobbles with more steadiness and self-trust

• What you released this year — and how letting go created space for something truer

• What steady growth can look like in 2026 without defaulting to hustle

• How to strengthen your decision-making so you're not carrying outdated strategies forward

Marissa also shares details about her upcoming live, waitlist-only focus group for The Monday Meeting — a space designed to help experienced entrepreneurs reconnect with the signals inside their business and build a steadier operating rhythm for the year ahead.

If you're ready to move into 2026 with clarity instead of confusion, and intention instead of reaction, this episode will meet you right where you are.

As online business owners head into a new year, most look only at the traditional metrics — revenue, growth, conversions, launches. But seasoned entrepreneurs know those numbers don't tell the full story. The real signals that predict stability, sustainability, and success are often intangible: energy, capacity, creative bandwidth, emotional resilience, and decision fatigue.

In this episode of The Experienced Entrepreneur, Marissa breaks down the concept of energy accounting — the year-end audit that mature entrepreneurs use to evaluate the health of their business, not just the output. You'll learn why intangible metrics matter just as much (if not more) than the numbers on your spreadsheet, and how these internal signals often forecast your revenue, your consistency, and your ability to grow without burning out.

If 2025 felt unpredictable, exhausting, or inconsistent, this episode will help you understand why. And more importantly, it will show you how to stabilize your business in 2026 by tracking the metrics most entrepreneurs overlook.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why intangible metrics like energy, clarity, and emotional bandwidth are leading indicators of success

• The difference between energy drains, energy returns, and energy investments

• How to measure subjective metrics in a real, non-fluffy way

• Why capacity always wobbles before revenue does

• How to spot early signals of burnout, resistance, and overextension

• Why traditional planning fails seasoned entrepreneurs — and what to use instead

• How energy accounting strengthens your decision-making, your creativity, and your staying power

If you've ever wondered why your business feels harder than it should — even when the numbers "look fine" — this episode is your guide to understanding what's actually happening underneath the surface.

👉 Ready to steady your business for 2026? Join the waitlist for The Monday Meeting and get invited to the private January 6th focus group: marissalawton.com/waitlist

Should We Be Planning 2026? (How to Lead Your Business in an Unpredictable Market)

If you've been wondering whether it even makes sense to plan for 2026 with the market shifting under our feet — this episode is going to feel like a deep exhale.

In today's solo episode, we're talking about what mature entrepreneurs already know: Annual planning isn't about predicting the year. It's about directing it. It's about creating a structure sturdy enough to hold you, even when the market doesn't cooperate.

I'm walking you through the exact framework I use — the Rocks, Pebbles, and Sand method — and how seasoned business owners can use it to build a grounded yet flexible plan for the year ahead.

Here's what we explore:

Why Annual Planning Still Matters (Even in an Unstable Market)

Market instability doesn't make planning irrelevant. It makes planning essential — especially for long-term business owners who need clarity, direction, and steadiness to lead well.

The Rocks, Pebbles, and Sand Framework for 2026

• Rocks → your major anchors: launches, revenue cycles, time off • Pebbles → your marketing rhythms, content cadence, CEO time • Sand → everything else that fills in around the bigger pieces This is the flexible, mature CEO approach to annual planning.

Why the Market Makes 12-Month Planning Hard (and What to Do Instead)

Sales cycles are longer. Trust is slower. Forecasting feels impossible. So instead of forcing a rigid plan, I break down how to build: • an annual vision, • a quarterly strategy, • and monthly goals that respond to real data.

Why Monthly Metrics Are Your True North for 2026

Annual planning gives you direction. Monthly metrics give you staying power. I'll share how a monthly relationship with your numbers helps you: • spot micro-trends before they become problems • correct course quickly • make decisions you actually trust • stay grounded through market uncertainty

This is how experienced entrepreneurs lead with clarity instead of reactiveness.

Ready for More Clarity in 2026?

If this episode speaks to you, you'll want to join my live, waitlist-only Focus Group for my new offer, The Monday Meeting — a space designed for seasoned entrepreneurs who are craving steadiness and clearer decision-making in the year ahead.

Join the waitlist to get your invite: marissalawton.com/waitlist

Being in business long enough, you've faced this question: "Do I stay the course… or am I self-sabotaging?"

In this week's solo episode of The Experienced Entrepreneur, we unravel one of the most complex challenges seasoned business owners face — knowing when something in your business still has staying power, and when your desire to quit is actually coming from fear, fatigue, or avoidance.

This is not a beginner conversation. This is a maturity conversation — one that honors both your intuition and your data.

For years, the online business world taught us that ease equals alignment, that discomfort signals misalignment, and that the moment something feels hard we should pivot. But the truth is far more nuanced for entrepreneurs who have been in business 5, 8, 10+ years.

In this episode, we explore:

How to distinguish intuitive guidance from self-sabotage

Not all discomfort is misalignment — some of it is growth. Not all fear is a sign to stop — sometimes it's a sign you're on the edge of something important.

The difference between "bad vibes" and genuine misalignment

Most experienced entrepreneurs are either intuition-led or data-led — but neither alone is enough in your second decade of business.

How intuition + data work together to reveal the truth

We talk through the real interplay between gut instinct, metrics, and emotional maturity… and how blending these two creates the clearest decision-making you've ever had.

Why self-sabotage often appears right before a breakthrough

We break down the subtle forms self-sabotage can take — from calling fear "intuition" to reinventing instead of refining.

What staying power feels like inside your body and inside your business

This is the wisdom piece no one teaches: how the work that is still yours will continue to pull you forward even when it's challenging.

How to avoid burning down something that still belongs to you

You'll learn the signals of a wobble vs a warning — and how to see your business clearly again.

This episode is for you if:

• You're an established entrepreneur craving clarity in your next chapter

• You've questioned whether you're meant to stay or pivot

• You've felt discomfort and weren't sure if it meant misalignment or growth

• You want to make decisions from wisdom, not fear or exhaustion

• You're ready to rebuild a steadier, more grounded relationship with your business

And if this episode illuminated something for you — if it helped you see where you've been wobbling, or where you've been tempted to burn down something that still has staying power — I would love for you to join me for the focus group for my brand new offer The Monday Meeting.

It's live. It's intimate. It's waitlist-only.

And it's designed specifically for long-term entrepreneurs who lived through the unpredictability of 2025 and are craving a steadier, clearer, more grounded way to run their business in 2026.

We'll talk honestly about what's been missing from your business, what's working, what's not, and what kind of support actually feels nourishing in this season of your journey. You'll also get a first look at how The Monday Meeting is being built for entrepreneurs who aren't newbies anymore — the ones who are ready for less chaos and more clarity.

Get on the waitlist at marissalawton.com/waitlist.

What if the real measure of a healthy business isn't how much you make—but how much you keep?

In this episode of The Experienced Entrepreneur, Marissa Lawton shares why she's shifting her focus to profit margin and what that means for seasoned business owners who are ready to step off the "scale at all costs" treadmill.

After more than a decade in business, Marissa has seen every iteration of the CEO era—the endless hiring, the tech subscriptions, the outsourcing, the pressure to look like you're growing faster than you actually are. But now, the most experienced entrepreneurs are craving something different: stability, discernment, and financial breathing room.

Inside this episode, you'll learn:

• What profit margin actually means and how to calculate it.

• Why mature entrepreneurs are prioritizing profit over growth.

• The difference between smart and wasteful investments (and how to know which is which).

• How to simplify your tech stack, trim recurring expenses, and build true financial resilience.

• Why keeping more money isn't about scarcity—it's about sovereignty.

If you've been feeling the weight of too many expenses, too many tools, and too little clarity, this conversation will help you get back to what matters: a business that's efficient, steady, and deeply sustainable.

Listen to Episode 10: Why I'm Focusing on Profit Margin Right Now