What’s working for my clients right now

In the April 2026 edition:

• Strategies that are working for my solo small business owner clients right now

• A new report on how US small businesses are really thinking about & using AI

• Good news! Indie bookstores are growing across the US 📚

SOMETHING USEFUL

What’s working for my clients right now

Do you ever wish you could see what’s happening inside other small businesses, especially what other owners are doing that’s really working well for them? This article is for you.

I’ve built a highly diverse client base, so it’s likely that the strategies I mention below are being used by someone in your industry right now.

Retail and wholesale product sellers; service providers in the medical, wellness, creative, educational, and professional services industries; food & hospitality; agriculture; artists & craftspeople. I’ve supported them all, and I’ve seen what works.

Let’s take a look at three things my most successful clients are doing now to grow their revenue, make their businesses more sustainable, and get stuff done fast.

Creating opportunities for themselves

Owning a business isn’t an “if you build it, they will come” situation. It’s wonderful to have a solid base of regulars and a trickle of new customers, but real revenue growth comes from proactively pursuing opportunities that will bring in a steady flow of new customers (AKA business development).

You can do this by reaching out directly to prospective customers, or pitching potential partners to collaborate on a mutually beneficial project. The direct outreach element is what differentiates business development from traditional marketing.

There is a right way and a wrong way; here are some tips on how to do it the right way:

Most of your work should happen before you reach out. First, you need to reflect on what you have to offer and how to make it appealing to a prospect. What can you do for them? Then, you need to research and identify specific prospects/partners to reach out to, and further refine your pitch based on the actual recipients.

Recognize that AI has irreversibly changed the cold pitch game. Now anyone can “write” (ugh) a polished, coherent pitch email and send it to as many folks as they like. To stand out, you need to write a specific, concise, and compelling message that speaks directly to your recipient. Something so targeted and personal, it couldn’t be AI.

Be prepared to follow up. Everyone’s busy, and even the most enticing message quickly gets buried. Have you ever been grateful that someone followed up to remind you of something you were interested in, but forgot about? If you haven’t gotten responses, always follow up. I promise 1-2 follow ups will benefit you without annoying your recipients.

Opportunities my clients have been pitching for lately: Sponsors for events they’re hosting, social media marketing collaborations with industry partners, wholesale partnerships with retailers, contracts with mission-aligned (and well-funded) non-profits, referral partnerships with industry peers or institutions, event production partnerships, and more.

What opportunities could you gain if you were willing to ask? Reach out if you want to chat with me about what this would look like specifically for you.

Protecting themselves and their businesses

Choosing to be a solo business owner means choosing to have limited bandwidth. Pretending otherwise will burn you out and harm both you and your business.

Staying healthy and engaged as a solo owner requires mindfulness around how you spend your time and energy, and keeping your business healthy requires prioritizing work that’s aligned and profitable.

This balance of owner health and business health is something I discuss with all of my clients. How the balance is achieved looks different for everyone, but the need to focus on it is universal.

Think of it as having three key resources to manage: time, energy, and money. For every business activity or commitment you take on, you’re spending one or more of these resources. Ideally, you’re also getting one or more of them back (if not, that activity isn’t worth the investment).

My clients who are working to improve their well-being evaluate every opportunity and activity through this lens: what is the time/energy/money investment required, and what do I expect to receive back in the form of time/energy/money? If the math isn’t mathing, they decline the opportunity or stop doing that activity.

Is this harder than it sounds? Yes, I’ve seen clients turn away or wind down projects and partnerships that they truly hated to let go of. But the resource investment and return just weren’t lining up. And when that happens, it’s best to make space for a better opportunity.

Action planning to get stuff done

Many of us, myself included, struggle with task initiation. Whether it’s due to overwhelm, ADHD, or competing priorities, sometimes the hardest part of the day is knowing where to start.

When my clients are feeling stuck or overwhelmed, I always suggest an action planning session. It’s exactly what it sounds like: we go project by project and talk through exactly what the specific, granular next steps are to make progress on getting it done. Breaking a big goal into manageable steps is incredibly common advice, but making time to actually do it is the difficult part.

During an action planning session I act as a sounding board and advisor, but I also type up the action list so my client can focus on getting stuff done instead of making a to-do list. They also know I’m going to check in on their progress, and a little bit of accountability goes a long way.

Small steps build momentum, and sustained momentum achieves big goals. This is why I action plan with clients so often, and why action planning is at the core of all of my services. Nothing brings an idea to life and makes it feel doable like action planning.

Projects my clients have been action planning for lately: launching new offers, researching and pitching new opportunities (see the first section of this article), making staffing/team changes, changing business models, growing existing revenue streams, marketing events, reducing expenses, and more.

Which of these three strategies could you start working on this week?

SOMETHING NEAT

Staying on the topic of what’s working for other business owners, I just saw a new report from the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council titled “The Digital State of Small Business” about how US small business owners are using digital and AI tools in their businesses.

A related article focused specifically on AI usage shares details about how many business owners say they’re using AI, how many AI tools they’re using, which tools they’re using, and what they’re using them for. No matter how you feel about AI, I think it’s important to understand how it’s being used in a small business context.

A LITTLE TREAT

This past Saturday was Independent Bookstore Day, and with it came a flurry of articles proclaiming that independent bookstores are on the rise in the US! This is no small feat, given the competition from huge retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

What an inspiring story of resilience, and what it really means to create businesses that nourish communities. Celebrate by visiting your local bookstore this weekend!

Read more here:

• The Guardian: Independent bookstores make quiet comeback as big chains dominate retail

• Fast Company: How American independent bookstores made a massive comeback [video]

• Good Good Good: 400+ independent bookstores opened in 2025, triumphing against big business

WORK WITH ME

This newsletter is for everyone, but a one-on-one consulting engagement is tailored to you and your business. Here’s how I can support you:

• Strategic Action Planning—For solo business owners with a lot to do, and never enough time. We’ll refine, prioritize, and organize your goals, and I’ll create a road map for you to get them done. (My most popular service.)

• Resilience Jumpstart—Turn analysis paralysis into decisive action with affordable 1:1 support to get you moving in the right direction fast.

• Operations Analysis—Is your business built on a strong foundation? An operations deep dive will tell you exactly what to do to make your business work better from the inside out.

• General Consulting—Get expert support with business challenges like workload sustainability, financial fundamentals, pricing, client communication, and more.

When you’re ready, schedule a free 30 minute intro call with me.

Thanks for reading—see you next month. If you have a business owner friend who would find this newsletter useful, please share it with them!