Serve Scale Soar®

8 YEARS, 8 LESSONS: WHAT I'D TELL YOU IF YOU WERE SITTING ACROSS FROM ME

• Brandi Mowles • Episode 292

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Eight years ago this month, I was sitting on my bathroom floor, five months postpartum, crying, googling "legit work from home jobs" so I could pay a bankruptcy attorney and still buy formula and diapers.

That was rock bottom. It was also the decision that changed my entire life.

This week is my eight-year business anniversary, and instead of a "look how far I've come" celebration post, I'm doing something different. I'm pulling you up a chair like we're sitting in my favorite coffee shop and giving you the 8 biggest lessons from 8 years of building this thing. Some are about how you build the business. Some are about how you have to show up. And the last one changes everything.


IN THIS EPISODE, YOU'LL LEARN:

  • Why a boring business is actually the best business (and the coach line that woke me up)
  • The KISS rule that pulled my revenue back up in 60 days after I overcomplicated everything
  • Why one-on-one is your fastest path to cash and a course is your best path to scale (with Samantha's $500 vs $150K story)
  • How I scaled to multiple seven figures with a team of two, working under 25 hours a week
  • The confidence tax you pay for bargain bin clients that no refund can cover
  • The 5 standards of excellence that took us from $350K back to $675K
  • Why a structured schedule is the thing that actually buys you freedom
  • The mindset shift in Lesson 8 that ties all of it together


MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:


READY TO SCALE PAST $10K MONTHS?

If Lessons 3 and 4 lit something up in you and you're ready to scale toward consistent $30K months with a lean team, simple offers, and real structure, that is exactly what we build inside Strategist Society. Come see if it's your room: https://thestrategistsociety.com


LOVED THIS EPISODE?

Take a screenshot, share it to your stories, and tag me @brandimowles so I can celebrate eight years with you. It genuinely helps more service providers find the show.

Now go do the dang thing.


Follow the Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/serve-scale-soar/id1477998650

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8 YEARS, 8 LESSONS: WHAT I'D TELL YOU IF YOU WERE SITTING ACROSS FROM ME

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Brandi: [00:00:00] Eight years ago this month, I was sitting on the bathroom floor, five months postpartum, crying, googling legit work from home jobs with a pile of bills that I couldn't pay, and trying to find a way where I could work from home with my daughter and pay for a bankruptcy attorney, and buy formula and diapers, all at the same time.


It was my rock bottom moment that propelled me to one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life.


And today, your girl runs a multi-seven-figure business in under 25 hours a week while homeschooling two kids and helping over 3,000 women start an ad management business in the last eight years. And it blows my freaking mind what can happen in what feels like such a blip of time. So today, I'm sharing with you the h- eight biggest lessons


that got me off the floor, paid off $100,000 in student loans, [00:01:00] brought my husband home full time, helped us build our dream home, sell our dream home, and now actually buy our lifetime forever home. so much has changed and i'm living a life that I could have never actually believed was possible for me eight years ago. And this isn't to be like, "Oh, look at me." This is to show you that no matter where you are right now, it is just where you are right now, and it can change so quickly, but you're the only one that can make that change.


You are in full control over your life. And so it may not happen on the terms and the timing that you want, but you are in full control. So today, I'm gonna break down the eight lessons that I've taken away, and I've taken away so many more. And so as I was recording getting ready for this, it was so hard to pick eight.


But I wanna give them to you, so hopefully it helps you get to where you wanna go [00:02:00] quicker. So let's jump on in. Welcome back, my friends, to the Serve Scale Soar podcast. My name is Brandi Mowles, and I am so excited you're here. And if you are first time, oh my goodness, I'm just beyond excited that you found the podcast and that this is your first episode because it's gonna be a good one.


I'm giving you my eight lessons that have changed my life. So pull up your chair, put your headphones in, let all the distractions go. This show is where I help you build one-on-one service-based business that actually pays you big girl money without you having to burn your whole life down to get it.


No hustle co- culture, no manifest it from a hammock, no rainbows and butterfly fake promises. Just the real truth of what it looks like to run a business


So as this is coming out, this is my eight-year anniversary in business. Eight years, y'all. I wanted to do something a little bit different than just "Woo-hoo, a celebration post.


Look how far I've come." And honestly, I'm really bad [00:03:00] about recognizing this stuff. It's like holidays. I'm really bad with holidays too. And sometimes we just need to sit and think about where we've come. I think a lot of times we don't take that reflection, and I'm so guilty of that. And so I really wanted to sit and reflect on what's happened in the last eight years and where we've come and the lessons I've learned.


And then of course, 'cause I'm an open book, I wanted to share them with you


And I wanted this to be like we're sitting in my favorite coffee shop across the table from each other and you're asking me, "Brandi, if you could do it all over again, what would you want to know?" So I narrowed it down to eight years into eight lessons. Some are about how you build the business. Some are about how you have to show up.


And the last one, the last one's the whole thing. It's the one that changes everything. So stick with me till the end. It's gonna be worth it. So let's jump on in


Okay, so lesson one. This one's gonna feel a bit backwards, but stay with me. A [00:04:00] boring business is the best business. Here's the thing, when I started, I thought it had to be exciting. I thought I needed to work with the most chaotic clients, the ones that were launching. I thought that I had to be go, go, go all the time


I thought I had to be doing all the things. Really that dopamine hit, that's what I was always looking for. It's "What's next? What's next? What can I be doing?" And some of us are currently living in that, that you're hearing this. You think more is better. The more services I offer, the better.


The more clients I have, the better. I gotta be always changing things. You get bored with your business, and you burn it down. But here's the thing, your business is not there to entertain you. I had a coach that said this once. " Your business is not there to entertain you, and if you're bored, get a hobby."


And I was like, "Oh, that's so true." Our business should fulfill us. We should get something from our business, but entertainment isn't it, right? [00:05:00] It should fulfill us. Are we hitting our goals? Are we creating a better life for our family? Is it bringing us in money to be able to afford our bills?


Are we fulfilled with the clients that we're working with? But being bored is okay. And honestly, y'all, a boring business is the best business


You want a quiet, repeatable, predictable model with everything. I don't care if you're doing six figures a year, seven figures a year, I've learned that boring is best. Some of you are looking for clients that are always launching in stress and everything, and I've been there. I worked with those. And some of you are like, "Oh my gosh, I'm working with these local businesses and they're paying me, but I don't feel like I'm doing anything.


It's so boring." Awesome. You just hit the jackpot when it comes to business. Your business, the more boring it is, the better


And I will say when people ask me how business is going, I always say, "Same old, same old. Boring as always." And it's true. [00:06:00] I do the same thing every dang day, week, month, year. And when my bookkeeper said, "Brandi, you are one of my most consistent clients with your revenue and with what you're doing." She knows, like, all the offers that people have.


And she said, "Why do you think that you've been able to stay successful after all these years when a lot of people they burn out, their business goes away and everything?" And I said, "It's 'cause I've been doing the same thing." Literally. we have had conversions for clients for six years. I've been teaching freelancers for seven years. I have been talking about ads for eight years. Y'all, I'm doing the same thing.


And even when it comes to my launches, we've been doing the boot camp for six years. I don't change it. I'm not flip-flopping around. When it comes to my offer, I've been offering the same consulting packages now for three years. When it comes to what I do each day, my standards of excellence, I've been doing the [00:07:00] same five things for three years every day.


Boring businesses are the businesses that last. They're the ones that stick around. They're ones that are predictable. That is the beauty of boring is it's predictable, and more and more of us are craving predictable revenue, predictable businesses, predictable leads. Predictable is freedom. Predictable has paid for us to travel to seven countries.


Predictable has paid off our student loan debt. Predictable has brought Austin home for the last seven years to be a stay-at-home dad. Predictable is not the consolation prize. Predictable is the freedom. It is the whole dang thing. So let me ask you this. Are you trying to build a business, or are you trying to build something that entertains you, that gives you the dopamine hit?


Because those are not the same thing. [00:08:00] Stop chasing exciting. Build the thing that pays you on repeat. Boring is a flex, my friend, and it is a flex I will continue to flex for the next eight years. And if you're bored, get a hobby. I have lots of hobbies. I have a YouTube channel for my homeschooling that makes me zero money, 'cause hobbies make you zero money.


I have embroidery. I've taken up gardening. I've taken up cut flowers. Get a hobby. If you are bored, your business should not be there to entertain you. A hobby is what that is for. Okay. So the first lesson is boring business is the best business. Lesson number two, grab a sticky note, write this down, and slap it on your monitor. Simple scales, complicated stalls. Every single time I've made my business more complicated, it's got slower. Our revenue has dipped. Not better, worse. The over-engineered funnel, the new offer with 17 moving parts. Let [00:09:00] me add one more bonus, one more tier, one more service, one more offer.


Every time, it has made my business worse. Every time I've stripped it back down to simple, it started, my revenue went up


so an example of this is after we hit 1.2 million, I burned everything down. I complicated our systems. I complicated our offers. I com- created a new program. It was so complicated. Janessa hated me. I hated the business. It wasn't as profitable. It wasn't as successful, and it made everything so complicated.


Last year, we had such a fantastic year of growth, and then in the beginning of this year, I started complicating things again, and I should know this. Simple scales, complicated stalls. And so I went... I'm... We went back to the basics, and the last 60 days have been so beautiful. I have had a whole weight lifted off of me, and [00:10:00] guess what?


Revenue went up. So I have a whole philosophy that I've been teaching for seven years, and sometimes I need to even rehear it myself, and it's KISS. Keep it simple, sweetie. Because here's what I know. Complicated isn't usually a strategy. Complicated is fear wearing a costume. What do they say? You're putting lipstick on a pig.


That's what it is. You make it complicated because complicated feels safe. It feels like it's working, but actually, it's just holding you back from whatever your next level is. So let me give you a gut check real quick. If you cannot explain your service, your offer in one sentence, this is not a leads problem.


This is not a discovery call problem. This is a clarity problem, and no amount of new leads is gonna fix if no one knows what you do. People need to know what you do and have a simple plan. The other day, I saw someone's offer [00:11:00] in conversions for clients, her packages, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is so complicated."


Just make it basic. One offer, one thing. We don't need to make it over complicated. But as humans, it's our default to make things complicated, and I have been 100% guilty of this. Simple is sexy, my friend, so keep it simple. Lesson three, and this one will save you from really expensive mistakes. One-on-one services are your fastest path to cash. A signature course is the best path to scale, and those are not the same business And here's what I see all the time. Somebody six months in, barely landing clients, and you're already trying to build a digital product or a course.


They want the passive thing that everyone online is promising. They wanna skip ahead and start making money while they sleep, but what they don't understand is it actually costs money to do that, right? And at the end of the day, nothing is passive. Absolutely [00:12:00] nothing. We have, and we've successfully built multiple six-figure and seven-figure programs.


So in the last eight years, I've had several low-ticket digital products. None of them make me any money to talk about, right? They do. I don't... They've... Honeybook in a Hurry and Delighted with Dubsado have done six figures in themselves in their $34 programs. However, we spend money on them, and we actually break even.


I'm not quitting my job, right? Because no one talks about how you need traffic to sell these things, and to get enough traffic, you either have to go viral on Instagram or you have to spend money on ads. And so you're either paying with money or time, but those aren't meant to actually make you a living.


Those are front-end offers to acquire customers to then sell them something on the back. So everyone's selling this passive dream. And we've had courses They are not [00:13:00] passive. We have had memberships. They are not passive. We have had group coaching programs. They are not passive. We have had masterminds.


They are not passive. If there is a type of program, we have probably done it. And so right now, I will tell you that if you want cash, you want one-on-one services, and you wanna build that up to a really, really nice stable floor. And then you can take money from your one-on-one service business and put it to fuel a signature program or a digital course.


And if you were doing it, I wouldn't start low ticket, I would start with a signature course. Memberships suck. We've had them. Memberships are not a great front end 'cause they're usually less than $97 a month, and so you need the masses. Signature programs, like courses and things, can be really nice 'cause they're anywhere between 1,000 to $3,000, right?


And so you don't need the masses. [00:14:00] And so when you create something, it still takes money or time. So either you can say, "I'm gonna spend a lot of time building up an email list, a Instagram, blah, blah, and have enough people to sell to," or you can use ads. But what people don't tell you is it's not just running ads to a sales page.


You need to have a webinar or a challenge or whatever else you decide. And usually you can't... You can, but you're not gonna get the same results if it's on-demand versus live, right? So there's so many elements that go into building a digital product that a lot of people aren't talking about, that do take a lot of time And money, and you wanna stay committed to it.


And one thing we see is when people go and they try to do this, they realize "Oh, I need money now, at now, and this isn't giving me that. It's actually costing." We've had Samantha on the podcast, I think her episode's come out, and she spent a year trying to launch. And she's a marketing [00:15:00] person.


She's not someone who didn't know marketing. She has worked with some of the biggest brands in the, on, in the world, like Coca-Cola, Lysol, big brands. She knows marketing. And she kept on trying to get her course off the ground. $500 is how much she made in one year. She comes and restarts her ad management business and did over 150,000 in 12 months.


The fastest path to cash is one-on-one services. After Bodhi was born, we had a massive dip in our revenue. I thought my whole business was falling apart. We will link to the Bounce Back episode where I talk about this. And you know what I did? I went and got one-on-one clients, consulting clients at 30,000 for three months, so it was 10,000 a month.


The fastest path to cash will always be your one-on-one service space. Once you've established a consistent base, you have your floor, your family's being met, and you have some left over, then, yes, start building out a signature program because that's something that you can scale. It's not one or the [00:16:00] other, it's a both in the right season, right?


And you have to be committed to it. So one-on-one service, fastest path to cash. Signature course is the best path for scale. Okay, lesson four. This is one of my favorite to say out loud because nobody wants to believe it. Big girl money does not require a big girl team. I've scaled my business to multiple seven figures without building an agency, without having a team.


It has been Janessa and I for the last seven years. Janessa's been with me for seven years, and it's been us two rocking it together and doing a million dollars a year, and running it with all of us working less than 25 hours a week. Now, there are times where we have to work 30 hours a week in a launch season or something, but for the most part, we're working less than 25 hours a week.


Big girl money doesn't require big girl team, but this also goes back to how simple is sexy and scales. We have [00:17:00] simple offers, simple funnels, simple deliverables. I'm not always on Instagram. We have simple marketing, right? Big girl money doesn't require a big girl team, and I've been teaching this for seven years.


But here's what's so crazy, is now, today, 2026, it's even easier to scale your business, have high profit margins without having a team because of AI So stop, like in 2020 everyone was hiring, 2021 everyone was hiring, and then most of those people come 2022, everything went back, and I call it the Peloton effect.


Everything went back to normal, and they had to lay off all these people. Their business wasn't doing what it was in 2020, 2021, and a lot of those people are no longer on the internet. I think one of the reasons why we've also been so successful is I've kept a lean team, we keep it simple, and also because we watch our profit margins.[00:18:00] 


I look at my money every single week, every single month, every single quarter, every single year. And so big girl money doesn't require a big girl team, and I believe that's even more true now than it was when I started eight years ago. Okay, lesson five. And this one I wish someone had grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me and told me year one.


There's a confidence tax when you work with bargain bin clients, and it is real. Now, I know I talk about champagne clients versus bargain bin all the time, and I usually talk about the money. The bargain bin clients pay you less, sure, but that's not the real cost of working with them. The real cost is what it does to your belief in yourself.


Let me tell you


And a lot of you, and me included, have worked with probably bargain bin clients. And you know what I'm talking about 'cause they're the ones that second-guess everything you do. They're the ones that take what you've done and put it in ChatGPT or Claude [00:19:00] and says, "But wait, this AI told me this, so are you not right?"


And they are always questioning your strategy. They question what you do. They nitpick. They go in and rewrite everything that you've done. They ping you on the weekends. Everything is a disaster. They are chaotic, which makes you feel like you're not doing your job, and that's the confidence tax you will pay for working with bargain bin clients.


And that confidence tax is so detrimental to not only your business but your own mental health


And you can't get a refund for that So here's the flip side of that. Champagne clients trust you, and when clients trust you, you do better work, which makes you more confident, which makes you do better work. It compounds in the right direction So when I tell you to raise your rates, I'm not just talking about your bank account.


I'm telling you that to protect your belief in yourself because your belief, your confidence, is actually the asset that you wanna guard more than [00:20:00] anything. Because if you don't, you'll start questioning, "Am I even cut out for this?" And you are. You are cut out for this, but when you have bargain bin clients that you are paying the confidence tax for, you will be so burned out and doubting yourself that you will not last.


You will not last at all


And lesson six, and I would almost say this is the most important lesson, is your standards of excellent is the only thing that matters at the end of the day when it comes to your business. Let me clarify that. When it comes to your business, your standards of lex- excellence are your North Star. They are your everything.


Anybody can run ads. Anyone can write copy. Anyone can build a funnel, manage a product. The skill is not that rare anymore, y'all. What is rare is the person who refuses to lower their standards on the day that it's hard, on the day that they're tired, on the day nobody would even notice if they phoned it in


And here's what I know to be true. The standards of excellence, which are [00:21:00] five things that I teach inside of Strategist Society, we've had podcasts on it, but it is get up and get ready, move your body, fuel your brain, your marketing minutes, and share a win. Those five things, if you only focused on those five things, it doesn't matter what life throws at you, what business throws on you, your business will still continue to work.


And not only that, it can continue to thrive. Here's one of our Strategist Society members has had a heck of a year. A heck of a year. She had a bunch of family stuff happen at the beginning, and then she had to have surgery. She was out of commission, had to heal and everything. But through that whole time, she really focused on her standards of excellence.


And one of the major standards of excellence that she never let slip was her marketing minutes. Never. Through everything going on, she still tried to get her five touch points in every single day. And sometimes she got them, sometimes she didn't, but she was so consistent. She did her marketing Monday through Friday.


She had her touch points, and we tracked this inside of [00:22:00] Strategist Society, so I know. And even when she felt like she wasn't doing anything, I was like, "Oh my gosh, my friend, you are on top of your touch points, and that's, at the end of the day, that's all that matters." And you know what? She landed two clients just recently during one of the hardest seasons of her life in business.


That's the power of standards of excellence. I created the standards of excellence after having Bodhi, and I felt like everything was going wrong. Everything. And you know what? That built us up from going from a million dollar a year to a $350,000 a year. Once I implemented the standards of excellence and followed them, we went from a $350,000 a year to a $675,000 a year.


That's the power of the standards of excellence. So if you don't take anything away from this, take lesson six, that your standards of excellence are the only thing that matters when it comes to your business. And if you want a business to last, start honing in on those five things


And here's the deal. Having standards is not a personality trait. it's not something [00:23:00] you either have or you don't. It's a decision, a decision you make over and over each day. It's boring, but you do it even the days you don't feel like it. You hold your standard. It's the one thing that you have 100% control over in life.


And it goes back to the other lessons. Simple scales. Boring is the best business. This is simple, and it's boring, and this is what will scale your business more than anything, no matter what season of life or in business you're in


Lesson seven, and this one is the one that a lot of you are missing. A structured schedule is exactly what gives you flexibility and freedom that you're looking for in your life. Everybody thinks freedom means no schedule, no alarm, no calendar, no to-do list, work whenever you feel like it, and it sounds dreamy.


But here's what actually happens with people with no schedule, no to-do list, no rhythm [00:24:00] or routine. They work all day long and never feel like they clocked out. The laptop's always open. The business follows them to dinner and into bed. They're free and somehow working consistently. Does that sound familiar?


I work under 25 hours a week, and the only reason that's possible is because I have structure. I set up a boring schedule. I have very focused work time. I protect the time that isn't work time, and I protect my work time


I have theme days that I've been doing for seven years. I don't have a to-do list a mile long. I have a to-do list with three highly important things on it and the standards of excellence, and I protect my boundaries. And listen, it's not that every day is perfect, right? But I try to get 80% of my days as close to this as possible.


And I am someone who loves to be spontaneous, who loves freedom and [00:25:00] flexibility.


I am go where the wind blows me type. But I know that it, when I don't have a schedule, and I'm not a time blocker. You did not hear me say time blocking. But I know that when my schedule and my calendar and my to-do list are a free-for-all, life becomes a free-for-all, and I feel like I have no flexibility. I feel like I have zero time to do the things that I want.


But when I have structure first, the structure is what sets me free. It's what gives me flexibility to do what I want. I was just telling our students the other day, I was like, the other day I got... I had my list of three things. I got homeschooling done like we do. We're very protective of our homeschooling time.


7:30 to 9:00, I'm homeschooling. My phone's up, none of that. Then I get in my office at 9:00. Then I got all three things on my list done, my checklist, 'cause it always has the three main things. I had two in my, if I get it done, that's nice. And then I got my standards of [00:26:00] excellence done, and I was out of my office by 12 o'clock, y'all, and had the rest of the day.


And I went outside, and I laid on the couch, and the kids played outside for an hour, and it was beautiful, and I gotta be there for them." And so the thing is, because I have structure, I had a lot of freedom, right? So if you're feeling like you're working all the time, it's probably because you're letting everything flow into each other, and that's easy to do when we work from home.


So if you want more freedom, create more structure. Lesson eight. This one is a big one. This one ties it all together. I cannot believe we're at lesson eight already. I could go on with so many lessons, but lesson eight, no one and nothing is going to save you or your business. Only you can do that.


So let me say that again. No one and nothing is going to save you or your business. Only you can do that. There's no big break coming, my friend. There's no viral post that fixes everything. There's no perfect client that falls out of [00:27:00] the sky, no guru walking you through the door with a m- magic wand, no course you can buy that does the work for you.


I know that because no one saved me off the bathroom floor. Remember where we started this episode? Five months postpartum, googling for formula, diaper money to pay a bankruptcy attorney. No one came. There was no rescue. I decided, and when I did the dang thing one rep at a time for eight years.


I need you to hear me, because this is not a harsh thing as it sounds. It is the most freeing thing you will ever accept, because the day you stop waiting to be saved is the exact day it finally lands in your own two hands. The waiting is the trap. when you make the decision, that's where the freedom comes.


So stop waiting. The person you've been waiting for, it's you. It's always been you, and you [00:28:00] have everything it takes to do the dang thing, but you have to make the decision, and you have to commit to that decision every single day, even when it feels hard, even when it's not on your timeline, even when you get the client that fires you.


All of that will happen. Remember, I'm not giving you the rainbows and butterflies. I've had it all. We've had attorneys involved. We've had chargebacks. I've been fired. Heck, my first ad client ever fired me. I've made dumb decisions. I've had a baby and lost half my, over half my revenue in one year. I've built it back because I continue to save myself, and you have that choice every single day.


Are you waiting for someone to save you? Are you making the decisions each day to save yourself? All right, my friends. That is the eight things that I really thought about that have made the biggest difference in my business and honestly, in my life. [00:29:00] And eight years ago, I was at rock bottom, and now I can sit here today and be like, "I am so freaking grateful."


I'm so grateful for the wins. I'm so grateful for the lessons learned. I'm so grateful for the clients who fired me. I'm so grateful for the ads that bombed. I'm so grateful for the chances I took. I'm so grateful for a boring business. Oh my gosh, I'm so grateful that my husband is home full-time and has been for seven years.


And even the days that it's hard, I'm grateful that I get to make the decision to show up and do this for my family, for myself, and for each and every single one of you listening. This is so much bigger than me and my family because it impacts you and your family. So my friend, do this, if not for yourself, for your family and for everyone that's watching, because there's always others [00:30:00] watching, even when you don't realize it, And you could inspire them to go do bigger and better things


So my friends, I'm not gonna give you any call to action today. You know where to find all the information. But I just wanted to share this journey with you and show you I started literally on the floor with tears, rock bottom, Googling, and we just don't know what's coming, but you have to save yourself.


Eight years, eight lessons, and here's the through line for every single one. You put in the reps, you keep it simple, and you do not wait around to be saved. I'm so stinking grateful you've been part of this ride. Here's to the next eight plus years. Now go out there, serve your clients, scale your business, and soar into the life you deserve