The question she couldn’t have asked a year ago

Most of us agree a business gets stronger and healthier with great people on the team. What we talk about less is what makes that possible.

Yes, it takes money, or at least a clear line of sight to it. But when you do project-based creative work, it goes deeper than that.

When you can see multiple projects ahead of you, you stop operating from survival.

I watched this happen recently with a fellow business owner. Less than a year ago, she was completely burned out and ready to burn her business to the ground. Everything was tied to her, and there wasn’t enough revenue coming in to support her, let alone anyone else. The word “pipeline” had never crossed her mind. There was no flow, just the next project, if it came.

Over the last several months, she made some changes, the right ones, at the right time, in the right order. I got to hear about it along the way, including the day she first started dreaming up a subscription-based service. Now she has line of sight to regular revenue, and she sounds like a different person. She told me she barely recognized herself.

Then she asked me something that wasn’t even possible a year ago:

So out came the calculator, and we ran the percentages. Sometimes that math says not yet. Sometimes it says yes. That wasn’t the point.

The point is she was finally in a position to ask.

That’s what a healthy pipeline gives you. It’s the energy, and the options, to build something bigger than yourself, and to be part of another person’s story while you do it.

If you’re still in survival mode, I’d love to talk about what could change for you.