The Sustainable Creator

"We are so starved for connection that everyone is trying to almost make up for lost time".

You’ve built a business, but right now, it might feel more like a cage of high overhead, constant team management, and endless client calls. It is incredibly easy to feel isolated at the top when you are carrying the weight of a team and watching your profit margins shrink. Sometimes, the bravest and most profitable thing you can do is cut your losses, rethink your structure, and lean into the very things that bring you peace and connection.

Tatiana Forbes spent years coaching entrepreneurs in leadership, operations, and team development before navigating burnout, scaling back her company, and founding the Best for Last Run Club. In this episode, she breaks down exactly how she transitioned from a high-stress coaching model to a highly profitable creator business. She shares the exact business systems she uses to organize her in-person community and how you can leverage your CEO skills to secure massive brand deals.

🔥 Get The Worksheet: Stop craving connection and start creating it. If you want to build a deeply loyal, highly engaged local community but don't know where to begin, you need this. Download the free worksheet to design your in-person community: https://joandlyndon.kit.com/026b16d424

Inside this episode, we cover:

• [07:22] The Sunk Cost Fallacy in Business: Why forcing a bloated business model to work will drain you, and how to use data and intuition to make a pivot.
• [11:57] Redefining Leadership and Team Size: Why hiring based on temporary feelings or convenience can lead to a bloated team, and how to build a streamlined infrastructure without shrinking your income goals.
• [24:37] Engineering the Perfect Member Experience: The exact operational systems used to make every new attendee feel seen, from digital QR code sign-ins to dedicated pace group leaders.
• [30:42] Monetizing Free Communities: How to leverage a highly engaged niche audience to secure multi-thousand-dollar brand partnerships instead of charging members an entry fee.
• [40:30] The Entrepreneur's Unfair Influencer Advantage: Why former and current business owners have a massive competitive edge in influencer marketing due to their deep understanding of strategy and the client journey.

Connect with Tatiana Forbes:

• Website: bestforlastrunclub.com
• Instagram/TikTok: @_tatianaforbes / @bestforlastrunclub
• Strava: Best for Last Run Club

Connect with Us:

• 1:1 Coaching: https://www.joandlyndon.com/coaching
• The Breakroom: Build your biz with other creatives: https://www.joandlyndon.com/the-breakroom
• Instagram: Come say hi and send us a DM! https://www.instagram.com/joandlyndon/ & https://www.instagram.com/thesustainablecreator/
• Interview Us: We love talking about pivoting, working with a partner, and building community. DM us on IG to connect!

Stop obsessing over viral metrics and start looking for the actual human beings engaging with your content. If you are a creative entrepreneur struggling with inconsistent revenue, it is easy to assume you just need more marketing. But in reality, you probably already have "buried leads" hiding in plain sight. You just lack the structure to track and manage those relationships so that you don't feel isolated in your business.

Enter Alyssa Moorhead. As a sales expert who has been in the game for over 11 years, Alyssa runs a "Done For You Leads" agency that manages lead generation directly in the Instagram inbox.

In this episode, Alyssa breaks down her highly tactical 30-minute daily sales routine. You will learn how to turn casual chats about coffee into ethical business conversations that convert. She also reveals how to build a simple lead tracker and what you should really be looking for in your Instagram Stories viewers.

🔥 Get The Worksheet: Stop guessing what content will actually drive sales. Grab the exclusive workbook breaking down Alyssa’s highly-converting Content Recipe framework. This tool will help you know exactly what to post to lead to conversations and conversions. Download the free worksheet here: https://joandlyndon.kit.com/ca1d171954

Inside this episode, we cover:

• Defining & Tracking Leads (02:40): Alyssa defines potential, warm, and hot leads. She shares the bare minimum fields you need to track in a simple digital spreadsheet.
• Setting Ethical Follow-up Boundaries (10:52): Learn why you must set agreed-upon timelines for follow-ups. This strategy helps protect your sanity and weed out non-ideal clients.
• The 30-Minute Daily Sales Routine (16:01): Discover how to prioritize checking your Instagram Stories viewers first. This allows you to capture new potential buyers before the stories expire.
• The 8-Ingredient Sales Content Recipe (30:16): Find out the top three pieces of content you need pinned to your feed right now. Alyssa explains how to structure an FAQ carousel that does the heavy lifting for you.
• The 5-Step Ethical DM Sales Process (37:26): Master the transition from building rapport to seamlessly asking for consent to share your offer. You will learn how to turn casual chats about coffee into actual business conversations. 

Connect with Alyssa Moorhead:

• Instagram: @alyssalmoorhead

Connect with Us:

• 1:1 Coaching: Ready to step out of isolation and scale your business?
• The Breakroom: Find your people. Join our community of creative entrepreneurs: Step into The Breakroom.
• Instagram: Come say hi and send us a DM! @joandlyndon, & @thesustainablecreator
• Interview Us: We love talking about pivoting, working with a partner, and building community. DM us on IG to connect!

Today, we are joined by Belle Grubb, an author, podcast host, and Salt Lake City-based content creator. After recently moving across the country, Belle intentionally embedded herself into her new city by rapidly collaborating with local brands and small businesses. This episode is a must-listen for anyone curious about what it looks like to start pitching and working with local businesses to secure brand partnerships and build genuine community.

In this episode:

• Belle shares her exact methods for finding and pitching local businesses, which includes driving around to spot mom-and-pop shops, making in-person connections, having her husband call on the phone, or sending a short, sweet DM.
• You will learn how to build "relational equity" by vision casting and serving the business first, allowing you to snowball free initial videos into paid, month-long user-generated content (UGC) contracts.
• We break down the step-by-step process of fulfilling a local partnership, including why Belle avoids using a media kit in her initial pitch and how she streamlines her workflow using the Edits app.

Free Companion Workbook Download the companion workbook based on this interview to plan out your first local business pitch: https://joandlyndon.kit.com/05e6c232eb

Connect with Belle

• Follow Belle on social media: @bellgrub
• Listen to her podcast: @madetodwellpodcast

Connect with Us

• Website: joandlyndon.com
• Instagram: @joandlyndon, @thesustainablecreator

Feature Us on Your Show! Interview us on your podcast: We speak on pivoting as a creative entrepreneur, working with a partner, and building communities - shoot us a DM on IG we'd love to chat!

Hannah has built a business model around running a rental photo studio to create time freedom so she can be more present as a mom. From renting her first space just two years ago to recently opening her second physical location, Hannah breaks down what it takes to own and operate a highly versatile, profitable studio. We talk about the importance of market research, creating seamless systems, and how to successfully market your physical business to a diverse clientele.

In this episode:

• Hannah explains the diverse ways a studio generates revenue. She lists hourly rentals, memberships, add-ons, seasonal setups, and content days as key income streams.
• We explore the difference in marketing strategies between online and local businesses. Hannah emphasizes the value of in-person connections, physical signage, and SEO to drive traffic to her spaces.
• Hannah reveals her strategies for managing two distinct studio locations. She achieves this by using automated booking systems, clear rules, and separated social media accounts.

Join The Breakroom! Ready to build a sustainable business alongside a supportive community of like-minded creative entrepreneurs? Join us inside The Breakroom! Head over to joandlyndon.com/the-breakroom to learn more, get access to our Friday Peer Masterminds, and become a member today.

Connect with Hannah:

• Follow Hannah on Instagram & TikTok: @alwaysflourishingphotography.
• Check out her studios on Instagram: @thestudioonsampson & @thestudioatgrandprairie.

Connect with Jo & Lyndon:

• Website: joandlyndon.com
• Instagram: @joandlyndon
• Podcast Instagram: @thesustainablecreator

Interview Jo & Lyndon on Your Podcast! Looking for guests for your show? We'd love to speak to your audience! We speak on pivoting as a creative entrepreneur, working with a partner, and building communities. Send us a DM we'd love to chat!

Ever wonder what it’s actually like to share a stage with MrBeast and Will Smith? In this episode, we chat with Kahlea Wade, founder of the influencer management agency Alora Society, about her incredible experience MCing the 1 Billion Followers Summit in Dubai.

Who is this episode for? This conversation is a must-listen for creative service providers who are feeling stuck, looking to scale, or trying to figure out how to step fully into a position of authority. If you are navigating a major business transition or want to know how to position yourself for massive global opportunities, press play.

We love bringing you these conversations, but we also know that building a creative business can feel incredibly isolating. If you're an entrepreneur who spends most of your time building other people’s businesses and you need a space to focus on your own, come join us inside The Break Room. Surround yourself with peers who are solving the same problems, hyping you up, and holding you accountable.

Kahlea shares the raw, behind-the-scenes truth about making the difficult choice to shut down a highly successful course business when she started to resent the work and feel out of alignment. She breaks down the strategic difference between showing up online as a helpful "how-to" educator versus an industry authority, and how making that mindset and content shift is what ultimately put her in rooms with top global creators.

Quick-Hitting Highlights:

• The Dubai Experience: The palpable energy shift when MrBeast's entourage walked in, and the 10-11 hours of sleep Kahlea survived on over four intense days of speaking.
• Social Strategy: How Kahlea intentionally splits her strategy, using Instagram to attract creators and LinkedIn to secure massive speaking gigs and brand decision-makers.
• Next-Level Networking: A genius tip for conference networking—taking selfies with new connections to help them put a face to the name later.

Quote of the Episode:

"If you're going to give up, it has to be when it's the best day for you. Give up then. And I never allowed myself to quit on a hard day." — Kahlea Wade 

Kahlea's Reading & Learning List:

• 10x is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan 
• The Blue Book (Devotional) 
• Made to Stick by Chip Heath & Dan Heath 
• Allie K. Miller's AI Mastermind

Ready to level up your creative business? Don't wait for the perfect moment to start treating your business like the priority it is. Come join us inside The Break Room today to get the accountability and community you need to reach your next milestone!

Connect with Us!

• Kahlea Wade: Connect with Kahlea on LinkedIn or slide into her Instagram DMs at @kahleanicolee.
• Jo & Lyndon: Share that you listened to this episode on Instagram and tag us at @JoandLyndon and the podcast at @thesustainablecreator.

Today, we are sitting down with Chenell Basilio, a newsletter growth strategist who helps creators cut through the hacks and grow their email lists sustainably. Chenell shares her entrepreneurial journey, transitioning from experiencing intense burnout doing client ads to building a thriving email list that sits at around 40,000 subscribers today. We dive deep into the mechanics of her "30 Days of Growth" email sequence and nerd out on the marketing strategies you need to grow your own audience effectively.

• The Power of Deep Research: For her first email, Chenell spent 40 to 50 hours reverse-engineering how top creators built their newsletters. Creating insanely valuable, deeply researched content acts as a powerful flywheel, naturally encouraging people to share your work.
• Redefining Subscriber Quality: You cannot rely on open rates these days because platforms like Apple will automatically open almost every email. Instead, a high-quality email list is defined by the actual humans who actively reply to your emails, share your work without being prompted, or buy your products.
• The "Hidden Genius" Concept: Many creators pour time into an incredible project but never share it out of fear of posting on social media. However, sharing personal stories and leaning into transparency often generates the most replies and creates the deepest audience connection.
• Mastering Cross-Promotions: When collaborating, the size of a partner's email list matters far less than the engagement of their audience. A dedicated email from a smaller creator with raving fans will often yield leaps and bounds more subscribers than a quick shoutout in a massive newsletter.
• Be Shameless and Keep Going: The biggest piece of advice from successful people in the creator space is simply not to quit, because everyone else eventually will. Don't be afraid to be a little more shameless when asking for collaborations, and never take a "no" personally!

• Follow us on Instagram: @joandlyndon
• Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thesustainablecreator

• Listen to her co-host the Growth in Reverse podcast, where she breaks down how top creators grew from zero to 50,000+ subscribers.
• Check out her 30 Days of Growth sequence and join her newsletter at 30daysofgrowth.co.

Ready to build a sustainable business alongside a supportive community of like-minded creators? Join us inside The Breakroom! Head over to joandlyndon.com/the-breakroom to learn more, get access to our Friday Peer Masterminds, and become a member today.

If you’ve ever dreamed of seeing your book on a Barnes & Noble shelf, you need to hear this episode.

Today, we are joined by the amazing Sam VanderWielen, an attorney-turned-entrepreneur who scaled her digital product business to over $10 million using just two products. We're celebrating the one-year anniversary of her incredible book, When I Start My Business, I'll Be Happy!

Most people think getting a book deal means instant wealth and a massive team doing all the heavy lifting. Sam is pulling back the curtain on the grueling 4-year process of getting a Big Five book deal. She shares why an advance doesn't actually pay the bills, and how she managed to grow her business by several hundreds of thousands of dollars while writing a manuscript and navigating profound personal grief.

In this episode, we cover:

• The actual timeline and steps of traditional publishing (hint: for non-fiction, you write a proposal, not a manuscript!).
• Why 100% of the book marketing falls on the author, and Sam’s genius "B-roll by month" evergreen content strategy.
• How to keep your creative business afloat using established email marketing and ads when your capacity is completely maxed out.
• Navigating the emotional toll of writing a book while experiencing loss, and learning to give yourself permission to let your work just be "good enough".
• What to include in influencer marketing boxes to make sharing your work foolproof.

You don't have to navigate the marathon of entrepreneurship alone! Come join us inside The Breakroom, our membership community for creative service providers who crave honest conversations, actionable strategy, and real support. We actually read Sam's book together in our book club (and she even showed up to our call!). 👉 Click here to join The Break Room today!

Connect with Sam VanderWielen:

• Grab her book: When I Start My Business, I'll Be Happy
• Instagram: @SamVanderWielen
• Newsletter: Subscribe to Sam's Sidebar 
• Podcast: Listen to On Your Terms

Connect with Jo & Lyndon:

• Website: joandlyndon.com
• Instagram: @joandlyndon 
• Podcast Instagram: @thesustainablecreator 

If you enjoyed this episode, please do us a favor and share it on socials (tag us and Sam!), and leave a review to help other creators find the show. We appreciate you!

In this episode of the Sustainable Creator podcast , we get the absolute pleasure of talking with Aashima Verma, the brilliant founder of the ad agency AV Marketing. Aashima shares her powerful story of leaving her corporate marketing job at just 26 years old to bet on herself, landing a $30,000 first month right out of the gate. Today, she runs a multinational agency that specializes in scaling seven-figure education companies and coaches using paid ads.

Whether you're a creative solopreneur currently eyeing the agency route or an established service provider looking to streamline your operations and team, Aashima's insights are a masterclass in sustainable business growth.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The power of niching: Why focusing your services on a specific industry makes messaging, selling, and delivery significantly easier.
• The truth about follower counts: How Aashima generated over $2 million in agency revenue while maintaining an audience of less than 4,000 followers.
• Hiring like a pro: Why she prefers to "date" new team members by hiring them as contractors first , and how she uses paid test projects based on real client scenarios to assess talent .
• The CEO identity shift: The challenging but necessary mental transition from being a "smart marketing specialist" to stepping fully into the CEO seat.

Connect with Aashima Verma:

• Instagram: @theaashimaverma
• You can also find her sharing her expertise on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Connect with Jo & Lyndon:

• Ready to scale sustainably? Join our dedicated community for creative service providers, The Breakroom. Come pull up a chair to get peer mastermind support, honest feedback, and the tactical frameworks you need to grow your business without losing your mind.
• Follow us on Instagram: @joandlyndon & @thesustainablecreator
• Support the show: If you enjoyed today’s episode, please do us a huge favor and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or drop a comment on our YouTube channel! 

Have you ever tried to write your brand story and ended up staring at a blank page? Or maybe you know your story, but the thought of sharing it online puts your nervous system straight into fight or flight?

This week on The Sustainable Creator podcast, we are so excited to welcome Larissa Riley, a messaging strategist and brand story architect! Larissa shares why storytelling is so essential for your business and explains why massive corporate brands actually struggle to do it authentically. She also breaks down her incredible cinematic storytelling framework and teaches us how to find our "Page 86", the pivotal, rock-bottom moment that connects us deeply with our ideal clients.

If you've been wanting to show up more authentically but aren't sure how to do it without oversharing, this episode is exactly what you need.

In this episode, we cover:

• The critical difference between messaging (what you say) and copy (how you say it)
• Why your lived experience is your biggest advantage over corporate brands.
• How to uncover your "Page 86" moment and connect it to the people you serve today.
• Strategies to safely share your story without triggering a vulnerability hangover, like testing stories with "loose connections" and choosing the right platforms.
• A simple, three-step journaling framework to help you map out the cinematic elements of your life.

Connect with Larissa:

• Follow her on Instagram: @sunscribe.creative
• Visit her website: thesunscribe.com

Connect with Jo & Lyndon:

• Ready to get off the income roller coaster? Join us inside The Breakroom, our membership community for female creative service providers who want to build sustainable businesses that support their dream lives.
• Looking for customized support? Learn more about our 1:1 Coaching to dig deep into your unique business model, messaging, and offers.
• If you enjoyed this conversation, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, it means the absolute world to us! We drop new episodes every Tuesday.

Today on the Sustainable Creator podcast, we are chatting with Saba, the founder of Her Support System and In Demand VA. Saba is a systems genius who supports female founders with their team systems and projects, and coaches women to become highly profitable virtual assistants.

In this episode, Saba breaks down how to build adaptable service provider business systems that can free up at least 10 hours of your week. We discuss everything from the "first 100 days" blueprint for onboarding new systems to simple hacks like Google Chrome group tabs and why ClickUp is her absolute source of truth. Whether your system is a simple notebook or a robust project management platform, Saba shares exactly how to eliminate friction and get your time back.

Connect with Saba:

• Website: hersupportsystem.com 
• Instagram: @hersupportsystem_

Connect with Jo & Lyndon:

• Instagram: Come hang out with us at @joandlyndon and @thesustainablecreator!
• Join The Break Room: Need a space to step away from client work, connect with other service providers, and build your business foundation? Join us inside The Break Room: https://www.joandlyndon.com/the-breakroom
• Free Resources: Grab our list of 80 Ways to Make Your Business More Profitable: https://joandlyndon.kit.com/c1ee5a2d0e