A recent conversation prompted me to revisit the topic of deal killers when negotiating client services agreements.

We obsess about short-term deal killers—Will negotiating the contract tank the deal? We don’t obsess enough about the long-term downside of ignoring the details.

Let’s get in the weeds about contracts, particularly service agreements. As an expert, these are arguably the most important documents in your business.

I’m busy working on my vow to “Do Less Better” in 2023. A big part of that will be streamlining my content generation—as they say “renew, recycle, reuse.”

As an expertise-based service provider, I am right beside my clients in the process of building and scaling my business with an eye to an eventual sale. It’s no surprise that I get inspired by my Hourly to Exit podcast guests, and the many people I hear from on LinkedIn and other public forms. This has led me to rethink my business, and I am excited to share a new approach to getting more wealth into the hands of more women.

Did you know that trade secrets are intellectual property, just like copyrights and trademarks, and patents?

We think of trade secrets as being confidential information, but we don't think about them as being intellectual property. This is probably because, unlike copyrights and trademarks and patents, we protect them not by registering them – there is no registration process for trade secrets -- but by keeping them secret.

By the time most expertise-based service providers strike out on their own, they have achieved mastery of their subject matter. This mastery is more than the moving pieces that make up the subject, it also includes the years of trial and error, repeated exposure, and range of contexts in which the services are provided.

To wrap up this year of many changes and experiments along with assorted hits and misses, I am heading into a month of deep work to focus on what I’ve learned, what I still need to learn and how best to use both to serve you.

It is that time of year again. When the excitement—both good and bad—of growing a business catches up with us. Combine that with heading into the holiday season, where our thoughts naturally become reflective.

During a meeting with my brilliant mastermind yesterday, we answered the question: What will you be working on for the rest of 2022 to set yourself up for success in 2023?