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The best entrepreneurial stories rarely start with a grand vision. They start with a rug being pulled out.

That's Ashley's story. A layoff. A pandemic that destroyed her in-person business overnight. So she did what many of us do in crisis—she picked up watercolors and created. A hundred days worth. Except it took two years to finish.

When Ashley came to me, I saw what she couldn't see herself: a hundred pieces of unique, marketable content in a space flooded with generic coaches. She resisted. Hard. Tears and all.

But here's what changed everything: clarity isn't something you force. It's something you create conditions for. Once Ashley stopped waiting for perfection and started building in public, the momentum came fast. Seven months from a wine bar idea to four finished books.

If you've got something incomplete sitting in your files, or you're wondering if your "weird" skill could be your real differentiator—listen in.

On this episode of Promote Yourself to CEO:

• The accidental entrepreneur — Ashley's family had three generations of business owners. She wanted nothing to do with it until a layoff left her no choice.
• When crisis creates clarity — A pandemic wiped out her revenue overnight. She started painting. Two years later, she had 100 finished watercolors and no plan.
• What I saw that she couldn't — A hundred pieces of unique, ready-made content. Ashley saw uncertainty. I saw her competitive advantage.
• The two-year gap between finishing and knowing — Completed the paintings in 2022, knew her path in 2024. Here's what she learned about waiting for clarity.
• Building in public before you're ready — Ashley announced her journal plan on LinkedIn, tagged 200 people, took pre-orders before writing a word.
• Why smaller commitments actually work — Instead of writing all four at once, she took pre-orders for volume one, wrote it, then repeated. The structure got it done.
• Your market is telling you something — People kept asking about her art, not her coaching. She listened to that signal instead of resisting it.

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

Send us a text

Your revenue is down. Sales have slowed. And every time you log into social media, you're hit with another wave of news that makes you want to throw your entire business plan out the window and start over.

But here's what most business owners don't realize: when things slow down, the problem is rarely everything. It's usually just one or two key levers that need your attention. The CEOs who come out stronger on the other side? They're the ones who can diagnose the real issue instead of burning it all down in a panic.

In this episode, I'm walking you through the exact framework I use with my CEO Collective clients to figure out what actually needs fixing in your business. We're talking about the four levers that directly impact your revenue, how to identify which one is causing your slowdown, and why changing everything at once is the worst move you can make right now.

This isn't about working harder or doing more. It's about working smarter and focusing your energy where it will actually move the needle. Because sales slowdowns don't mean your business is broken. They mean it's time to make a strategic CEO-level decision.

On this episode of Promote Yourself to CEO:

• The leaky bucket problem - Why you might be bringing in new clients but still losing revenue (and the one metric that will tell you if this is happening in your business)
  
  
• Product-market fit in uncertain times - The three scenarios where adjusting your offers makes sense, and when a "bite-sized" entry point could be the bridge between hesitant buyers and long-term clients
  
  
• The messaging shift nobody's talking about - Why aspirational content stops converting when the economy gets shaky, and what your audience is actually searching for right now
  
  
• The visibility dilemma - How to stay visible when you're burned out on social media, plus the "Follow-Up Friday" strategy that's working for service-based business owners right now
  
  
• The science experiment approach - Why changing one variable at a time is the only way to actually know what's working (and what's not) in your business
  
  
• Client retention as your secret weapon - The case study of a CEO Collective member whose revenue dropped even though new client numbers stayed the same, and what we discovered when we looked under the hood

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

Send us a text

You know that feeling when you open your closet and somehow have nothing to wear—even though it's packed full? That's what running your business feels like right now. Not because you lack options, but because you have too many of them.

Fresh off our CEO Retreats, I've been hearing the same thing from small business owners across the country: they're stuck. Not on client work—they're confident there. But on the CEO-level decisions that could make or break their next year. The ones about pricing, team, strategy. The decisions they keep putting off because "what if I'm wrong?"

Here's what nobody talks about: this isn't a confidence problem. It's not an effort problem. It's decision fatigue, and it's eating up your cognitive capacity before you even get to the decisions that matter. Every morning you're starting with a tank of mental fuel, and by the time you need to make the big call, you're running on empty.

In this episode, I'm breaking down why wait-and-see mode is costing you more than you realize, what Steve Jobs and Barack Obama understood about preserving brain power, and the one tool that's going to help you cut through the noise: your CEO decision matrix. If you've been spinning your wheels on a decision you know you need to make, this one's for you.

In This Episode:

• Why small business owners feel economic shifts first—and what that reality means for the decisions sitting on your desk right now that you've been avoiding
• The cognitive capacity trap: I'm breaking down how your morning routine, chronic illness, or last night's sleep actually determines how much decision-making power you have today (and why this changes everything)
• What prolific leaders do differently when it comes to preserving mental energy for strategic decisions—it's not about working harder, and the examples might surprise you
• The real cost of "wait and see" mode—I'm sharing what I've witnessed happen when small business owners delay tough conversations about team, pricing, or strategy, and why your options shrink instead of expand
• How too many options create paralysis—your packed closet explains exactly what's happening in your business, and once you see this pattern, you can't unsee it
• The CEO Decision Matrix framework: I'm walking you through the filtering system that uses your vision and values to help you make tough calls faster and with more confidence

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!