Hi, Reader!
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I just got back from a week in Maine, a little rental on Norton Pond, right next door to a kids' sailing school. Most afternoons we'd sit on the dock and watch the lessons, and one thing kept happening: the boats would capsize. Some kid would lean too far, a gust would hit wrong, and suddenly there's a hull sideways in the water and a very startled 9-year-old bailing out with a bucket.

What got me was the counselors. Every single time, they were completely calm. They'd drive their small power boats over, walk the kid through flipping the boat back upright, bail it out, get them back in, and send them off again. Like it was nothing, because to them, it was. I figure they'd drilled it, they knew exactly what to do when things went sideways, so when it actually happened, there was no crisis. Just a process to follow.

That's the whole thing I try to build for people in my Strategy Sessions.

Most businesses don't capsize because something catastrophic happened. It’s usually that a lead falls through the cracks, an onboarding step gets skipped, or there’s a system nobody remembers how to use anymore. And when it happens, most people panic, because they don't have a counselor standing by who's calm about it, who already knows the flip-and-bail sequence.

That's what an hour with me is for. It's to make sure that when it happens, you already know exactly what to do, instead of treading water wondering how you got there.

And while we're on the topic of things that need a steady foundation before you build on top of them: if it's not your backend that's wobbly but your brand, if you're not sure who you actually are before you try to market it, my friend Meg Joyce is who I send people to. She doesn't start with logos and colors. She starts with identity, who you actually are, before any of the rest gets built on top of it. Same instinct as what I do, just pointed at a different part of the boat. Check out her work here.​

If your business could use its own version of a calm counselor showing you exactly what to do next, let's talk.

To not-so-stormy seas,
Liz