The One Thing You're Avoiding While AI Keeps You Busy

I recently walked through a house that was way outside my budget, and I immediately started talking myself out of it. Then my friend Amber McCue asked me for my average cart value and what it costs me to get a customer, and pointed out that my dream home was only 20,000 customers away. In this episode I'm sharing the part where I'm deciding to get my hopes up. I talk about growing a $7 million business, hitting a $315K month at the start of COVID and then letting myself shrink back to what felt safe, why wanting a beautiful house doesn't have to be a character flaw, and how working backwards from the math ($30 in ads to get a $120 cart value) turns a dream into a daily plan. Plus the all caps text from my ad friend Tara Zirker that gave this episode its name. Come do the math with me inside Tiny Offer® HQ: https://www.skool.com/tinyofferhq/about

Last week was the most productive week of my life. With Claude, I built a local community resource website during a PTO meeting, finally put a 365-day devotional of sorts called Dang Good Days on Amazon, rebuilt both of my websites, researched 37 competitors, and built software on a Sunday morning that tracks every buyer back to the ad that brought them in. My revenue still went down a little, my ads slowly stopped performing, and I went to bed every night with a bajillion tabs open in my brain. In this episode, I talk about AI busywork as the new version of spamming Facebook groups, why more output still has to run through one human brain, and the one thing I was avoiding the entire time: recording video ads. I also share how 30 coffee chats I desperately wanted to cancel back in 2013 turned into my biggest source of referrals, and I ask you to find the one thing you're building around instead of doing. Join me inside Tiny Offer HQ (starts at $33/month with a 7-day free trial): https://www.skool.com/tinyofferhq/ 

Last week, something in my business brought up a fear I hadn't felt this strongly since 2020. It was the same protective, territorial feeling that showed up during one of my biggest growth periods, right before I pulled back and made my business smaller. Then one weekend handed me a string of moments I couldn't control: a woman from my college dorm running an open house, two off-leash dogs going after my Aussie, Griffin, a brand-new neighbor in tears, my high school crush at Starbucks, and a client booking a $5,000 VIP day on a Sunday night. In this episode, I talk about control as a quieter form of scarcity, why I kept replaying my own reaction after the dog attack, the completely opposite advice Frank Kern and Todd Herman* gave me about copycats, and the new definition of safety I'm practicing as I scale: I'll be okay even when I'm not in control. *In the episode I say Todd Brown, but I meant Todd Herman.

I got an email from my payroll provider saying I owed them $11,000 for a mistake from three years ago, and they were going to debit it from my account in a couple of weeks. A decade ago that would have wrecked my entire week. This time I spent an afternoon tracking it down, stayed calm and moved on with my day. In this episode I'm talking about capacity, meaning how much can happen around you without it hijacking you and how quickly you can find your way back to neutral. I share what I learned staying with my friend Bill Allen while he ran a $25 million business, the networking event where a guy laughed at my $1,200 website price, and the small resets I use to get back to baseline. If you want a bigger business, this is the skill that lets you hold it.

All week, one phrase kept looping in my head: "the call is coming from inside the house." So I followed it. In this episode, I share where it led me. Earlier this year, I hit a real funk in my business. I didn't reach for another strategy book when I was burned out. I went looking for podcasts about nervous systems, self-belief, and the felt side of running a business. I also share the conversation with my dad that cracked open my belief that what I do "isn't enough." We get into why Tiny Offers work (you change while they're working), what your eye-rolls at other entrepreneurs reveal about your own rules, and how to start noticing the stories that keep you stuck. Plus, where I want to take this podcast next. Send me a DM and tell me what you want to hear.

Sometimes fear doesn't feel like fear. It looks like needing more clarity. Moving the same task to tomorrow. Waiting until the kids are older. Avoiding raising your prices. Or convincing yourself that if your business really grows, you'll have less time, more responsibility and an entirely different life to manage. In this episode of The Start Tiny Show, Allie Bjerk digs into the stories we create about what success might cost us, including relationships, family, freedom and even our sense of who we are. She also shares why business owners sometimes resist making more money when their current business model makes growth synonymous with more work, plus how creating a scalable offer can change that equation. The question to ask yourself this week: What am I predicting will happen if this works? Read the full episode notes: https://tinyoffer.com/what-are-you-afraid-will-happen-if-it-works/ Want help designing an offer that allows you to serve more people without simply creating more work for yourself? Learn more about Allie's $27 Scalable Offer Workshop at tinyoffer.com/class.

What would you change if starting over were off the table and you had to make the business you already have work? I love ideas. I once started a cleaning company on a Wednesday. But I also know how much time I can spend considering every possible option without making a decision I'll actually follow through on. In this episode of Start Tiny, I'm sharing the conversation with my friend Tara that left three words living rent-free in my head: "Just handle it." We're getting into the camera-confidence struggle I spent two years circling, my personal experience with a GLP-1, and the giant cake-shaped chair I built in college that taught me something uncomfortable about giving myself an out. I'm also talking about what this looks like in business: unfinished launches, constantly changing plans, and strategy sessions that feel productive while the actual work stays unfinished. Plus, how repotting my plants became a very convenient reason to skip recording this podcast. Read the full episode notes: https://tinyoffer.com/just-handle-it-how-to-stop-overthinking-your-business/

How much should you charge for your offer? Before you pick a number, you probably need to decide what kind of business you actually want to run. In this episode of Start Tiny, I walk through what tends to change as you move from Tiny Offers and $497–$697 courses into $2K programs, $5K implementation offers, memberships, $8K+ coaching, and masterminds. We're talking sales calls, evergreen funnels, coaching, fulfillment, customer acquisition costs, team size, margins, founder access, and why adding another 50 videos probably isn't making your offer more valuable. I also share why I once paid $150,000 to join a mastermind where some of the material being taught was literally already sitting in a book on my shelf, and why I still don't think that made the investment pointless. If you've been asking, "What should I charge?" this episode will help you ask a much more useful question: What kind of company am I building around this offer?

What if abundance has less to do with finding your next opportunity and more to do with trusting the one you've already chosen? In this episode of Start Tiny, Allie Bjerk talks about money, abundance, ADHD, shiny-object syndrome, and the surprising ways entrepreneurs can sabotage themselves when something actually starts working. Allie shares some of her own money-mindset moments, from discounting an offer while she was on the sales call to getting annoyed by too many sale notifications during a launch, and what those reactions taught her about her own capacity to receive. She also digs into the business side of abundance: narrowing your focus, allowing yourself to get paid for expertise that comes naturally to you, setting better boundaries with clients, staying with an offer long enough to optimize it, and learning to fall in love with the reps instead of constantly starting over. Plus, Allie shares why she's entering this next season of business without a big revenue goal and focusing instead on consistency and process. You'll leave this episode asking: Where am I already seeing evidence that something is working? What would happen if I gave it my full attention for a year? Do I actually enjoy the work required to become great at this? There will always be another idea, offer, business, or opportunity. You don't have to catch them all. Pick something. Get really good at it. And stay with it long enough to see where it goes.