PODCAST · business
The Mark Butler Show
by Mark Butler
Solopreneurship by the numbers.
Episodes
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EP63: You'd have to work hard to kill this business.
Businesses have inertia. That means they're hard to get moving, but it also means it's hard to stop them once they're rolling.
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EP62: A message to the spouses and partners of aspiring entrepreneurs.
I've had multiple conversations with new business owners whose spouses are worried (and occasionally antagonistic) about the time and money they're investing in the new venture. This episode is a note just for that concerned spouse.
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EP61: "I made this for you. Do you want it?"
I stole that line from Seth Godin's new book, "This is Marketing." That one phrase -- "I made this for you. Do you want it?" -- captures so much about what it takes for new (and established) business owners to get out of their heads and into the real work of marketing. Episode 61 talks through…
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EP60: A class for new coaches -- when to hire someone to do work for you, when to do it yourself, and when to hire a coach to guide you.
I've been teaching some class to new (and new-ish) life coaches. In this episode of the show I pulled a 15-minute segment out of one of the classes where I talked about how new coaches should think about spending time versus spending money versus hiring coaches as they get their business off the...
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EP59: Discounts? Bonuses? None of the above?
Let's talk about the psychology offering discounts, bonuses, or neither in our sales process.
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EP58: Two kinds of goals, two kinds of goal tracking.
How to use goals whose outcome you can control completely to achieve goals you can only influence with your effort.
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EP57: The market isn't saturated. There isn't too much competition. You're not behind. It's not "too late."
This is your reminder to ignore anyone (including yourself) who might say "It's too late. The market is saturated. There's too much competition. Everyone who is going to succeed already succeeded."
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EP56: Beware of false financial finish lines.
Some of your long term income and savings goals may be false financial finish lines. Episode 56 talks about making sure you're on the right track for the right reasons.
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EP55: I hired three new people. It's going great. So why am I so anxious?
I've hired three new team members and they're doing a great job. This is great news, so why am I so anxious?
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EP54: The numbers are neutral. Our thoughts about the numbers are not neutral.
If you show ten different business owners the same set of financials, you'll get ten different opinions about what the numbers mean. This is proof that the numbers are neutral -- they only get their meaning from us. Episode 54 explains why this is such a crucial insight.
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EP53: Go where your people are.
I went to a six-day life coach training this week. The content was amazing, the connections and conversations were even better. There's nothing like getting into the same physical space as your ideal clients, spending quality time, and building relationships.
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EP52: A specialization lesson from my double root canal.
This week I had the pleasure of a double root canal. During the procedure -- under the influence of all the drugs -- my mind naturally turned to marketing.
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EP51: Why you should challenge your basic assumptions for the sake of improved client experience.
Last week I told you to set rules and guidelines for how you deliver your service. This week's message is to keep your mind open and change those rules when you realize they're built on faulty assumptions.
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EP50: Why the rules and boundaries you put in place for client work protect your clients more than you (and that's a good thing).
I have a few rules (maybe more like best practices) I use in my service to ensure high quality and limit mistakes. On occasion I've broken those rules with the idea that I'm helping the client out. The reality is when you break the rules that protect the quality of your work, it's the client that...
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EP49: If you're struggling in your expertise-driven business (ie coaching or consulting), it's probably because you don't have expensive products and services.
If you're a coach or consultant you need to have a high-four or low-five figure offering for your clients to buy. If you don't, you'll struggle to create sustainable cash flow. Episode 49 explains why.
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EP48: Action, Observation, Simplification, Documentation, Delegation
This week I've been listening to a book called 'Work the Process' that reminded me that our lives and businesses are a system of systems. In this episode I share the system I've used to delegate some of the most complicated tasks in my business without any loss of quality or consistency.
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EP47: Service, specialization, and pushy upsells: a sprinkler repair story.
This is the story of two sprinkler repair guys named Carl and Tyler. Each takes a very different approach to selling, and they get drastically different results.
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EP46: Would you be willing to do 274 grunt-work projects for the chance to work on one dream project?
This week I met a film maker who described is career to me as "roughly 800 projects I wasn't very excited about and three dream feature films." That's approximately 274 projects he wasn't excited about for the chance to work on three he loved. Would you be willing to work that kind of ratio in…
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EP45: Why it's so important to understand your entrepreneurial personality type.
This week I found out I'm not a Visionary, and that's okay.
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EP44: How to re-focus on the small set of activities that drive the majority of your success.
It's way too easy to lose sight of (or just plain forget) the few strategies, tactics, and activities that have created disproportionate results in our business. Episode 44 helps us remember and re-focus on what really matters.
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EP43: Why you should be skeptical of claims that it doesn't work anymore (whatever it is).
Sometimes clients tell me they've heard something "isn't working anymore." "People are tired of courses." "Email marketing doesn't work." Episode 43 explains why you need to maintain healthy skepticism when anyone is telling you something does or doesn't work.
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EP42: The CFO's perspective on why, when, and how to raise your coaching prices.
A friend of mine has been under-pricing his coaching. Instead of just repeating the easiest business advice there is ("Raise your rates!"), we talked through the psychology of under-pricing and the way to right-price his services. Episode 42 recaps that conversation.
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EP41: How to figure out how much you can afford to spend on marketing.
Your goal (and mine) should be to steadily and profitably increase the amount we spend on marketing. But there's no simple calculation that will tell you exactly what you can afford to spend. Episode 41 talks about how you can use quantitative and qualitative analysis to set your marketing budget...
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EP40: How niche selection shows up in your business financials.
Usually marketing and business coaches are the ones talking about niche selection, but today it's the CFO who has a few things to say about why pursuing the right niche is so important.
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EP39: Why bank balances do and don't matter to your cash flow management.
Your bank balances give you some important information about your business finances, but they're just a small part of the true picture.
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EP38: How to identify and improve the most important numbers in your business.
Revenue and profit goals set the vision for our businesses, but the key to achieving that vision is identifying and executing your most important daily and weekly inputs. Episode 38 explains how.
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EP37: Why you will probably overpay your first significant hire, and how to avoid it.
We're all looking to pay the right person the amount that gets the work done without draining the business's cash. Most of us (me included) overpay our first significant hire. Episode 37 explains why we do this and how to avoid it.
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EP36: The most important question to ask the person who wants to be your business coach.
Hint: The question is not "who did the amazing photography on your website?"
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EP35: Bookkeeping 101: Understanding the difference between bookkeepers, CPAs, CFOs, financial advisors, and money coaches.
Episode 35 walks you through all the different financial service providers that can help you in your business, how they want to help you, and when it's the right time to work with each of them. In this episode I also explain exactly how I benefit my clients and when it might be the right time to...
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EP34: Bookkeeping 101: Let's talk about contractors vs employees and the what, how, why, and when of 1099 forms.
Does the government consider your virtual assistant an employee or a contractor? Why does it matter? And what's the deal with 1099 forms, anyway? Episode 34 has the answers.
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EP33: Bookkeeping 101: My surprising criteria for picking accounting software.
People usually want to talk about whether bookkeeping software has good invoicing or pretty reports, but those aren't the features that will make or break your bookkeeping habit. After thousands of hours of bookkeeping, here are the criteria I use for evaluating financial software.
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EP32: Bookkeeping 101: How your Balance Sheet gives you a snapshot of your business's financial health.
Your balance sheet showcases financial strength and exposes financial cracks in your business. Episode 32 walks you through how your balance sheet works and how it helps you.
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EP31: Bookkeeping 101: How your Profit & Loss statement helps you helps you make financial decisions in your business.
The Profit & Loss statement (aka P&L, aka Income Statement) is the first of two key financial reports that help you stay in touch with the financial health of your business.
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EP30: Bookkeeping 101: A simple daily bookkeeping workflow.
Daily bookkeeping will a) keep your financials perfectly accurate and current, b) help you develop fluency in the language of business quickly, and c) maintain your financial stress at an all-time low. And it only take 5-10 minutes per day.
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EP29: Bookkeeping 101: How to track loans and loan payments in your business.
When I borrow money to fund my business, how do I track the money into my business? How do I track the payments to the loan? Are the payments a business expense? Let's clear all that up for you.
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EP28: Bookkeeping 101: How to track money into, out of, and inside your business.
Not all the money that flows into your business is 'revenue,' and not all the money that flows back out is an 'expense.' In this episode I explain the different types of inflows and outflows. Oh, and we also need to cover what happens in your books when money moves around inside the business.
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EP27: Bookkeeping 101: The Transactions are the Truth
This is the first in a multi-part series where I'll teach the fundamentals of bookkeeping with the goal of persuading you that you can (and want to be) your own bookkeeper. In this episode I start with the basic unit of all bookkeeping: a single transaction.
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EP26: Choose to be profitable.
Your business is a creative outlet, a passion project...maybe even your life's work. That's why it has to be profitable, and profit is a choice.
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EP25: Forget the finish line, let's chase the freedom line.
I've watched my friend Phil grow a company that carried him across the financial finish line. Turns out being 'finished' isn't all it's cracked up to be. Episode 25 talks about crossing the 'freedom line' instead of the 'finish line.'
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EP24: How I used simple, friendly outreach to connect with three influential people online.
It's too easy to forget how important and value one-on-one connections are in online business. Here are three stories of how I became friends with "powerful online influencers." (Spoiler: everyone is a powerful online influencer.)
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EP23: Targeting a hyper-specific customer profile in my marketing.
I thought my target customer for Let's Do the Books was already hyper-specific, but this week I decided to take it even narrower. Makes me a little nervous, but episode 23 explains why I think it'll work out.
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EP22: How to recognize important 'signs of life' in your new business or project.
We all want the big dollars and the big, engaged email lists. We can have them...if let early, important signs of life help us through the lonely, quiet slog of the first few months/years of a project.
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EP21: What if there's just too much competition?
Have all the products been created? All the newsletters written? All the clients sold? Is there just too much competition?
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EP20: What does it mean to 'outsource' your marketing? And does it even work?
It's possible to effectively outsource certain aspects of your marketing...under the right circumstances.
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EP19: How a prospect helped me out by rejecting my offer.
I had two conversations about my new software product this week. One prospect was a "probably" and the other was a "no." This episode explains why I'm so grateful for the "no."
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EP18: The power of serving one market for years.
Sticking with one market/set of problems for the long haul allows you to build assets that will pay you over and over for years to come.
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EP17: What if your project isn't risky enough?
A few thoughts on how increasing the risk in a project could be its only real chance of success.
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EP16: Why 'Asks' are the key to success in a product business.
I've successfully launched my product, but if I want to reach my revenue goals I'll have to shift my focus.
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EP15: How to figure out what you really want to do.
I used to freeze up when people asked me what I really wanted to do in my life and business. Then I used this exercise to help me come up with an answer I trust.
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EP14: Why we need to think differently about using debt to start and accelerate a business.
I don't borrow for consumption, but I'm not anti-debt. There's too much debt around dogma; borrowing isn't inherently right or wrong. Sometimes NOT borrowing is the least rational thing you can do. Episode 14 explains why.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Mark Butler Show have?
The Mark Butler Show currently has 63 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Mark Butler Show about?
Solopreneurship by the numbers.
How often does The Mark Butler Show release new episodes?
The Mark Butler Show has 63 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to The Mark Butler Show?
You can listen to The Mark Butler Show on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Mark Butler Show?
The Mark Butler Show is created and hosted by Mark Butler.
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