10 Years In: Lessons in Starting and Leading a Business

This week, three different people asked me for advice on starting a consulting or coaching business. The timing wasn’t lost on me since Strengths Now just hit its 10-year anniversary.

I didn’t get here alone. Thank you to the clients, colleagues, and family who pushed me, supported me, and helped build what we have today. In honor of the milestone, I wanted to share what I’ve learned, not just for other potential founders, but for the clients and partners who’ve been part of the journey with us.

Find a Differentiator

In 2011, I left a secure job with an idea but no safety net. I wanted to take the parts of my job that I knew I was good at — solving organizational problems, developing strong teams and leaders, and building things that made a difference — and open a consulting business.  The original business name was Common Focus Consulting. At that time, I was stepping into a crowded market, and I knew I’d need a differentiator.

It took a few years and honest reflection about what I actually wanted to be known for, before I doubled down on CliftonStrengths and renamed the business Strengths Now to match. (And maybe get an SEO bump too!) My first exposure to CliftonStrengths had actually come years earlier, as a leader myself, and it clicked. It’s still like opening a present every time I see a team’s unique strengths profile. I find that the strengths framework sparks understanding more quickly and with less resistance. I’ve come to consider it both the diagnosis and the cure. It’s a throughline in how we help teams move from friction to function because most organizational problems start with people not understanding how they, or their colleagues, actually work best.

Hold Your Business Plan Lightly

I was advised early on to have a solid, defined 3-5 year business plan. I read the startup books and sought advice from experts, but my instinct said: just start. That’s easier advice to follow if you’re not raising capital — but it’s still what I tell people today. Find a first client. This allows you to refine your methodology and build testimonials along the way. You just need to start somewhere.

Even with a strong foundation today, our business plan is always evolving. A program I was excited to launch sometimes fell flat, or worked but took a heavy lift for too small an impact. I’ve come to rely on Eric Ries’s Lean Startup mentality: what’s the fastest way to test something with the least capital? Some ideas have taken root and flourished from that approach. Others haven’t, and I’ve learned to assess honestly and be willing to let those go. I used to worry that made me fickle or undisciplined. Now I see it as good practice that ensures you stay relevant and in business.

Learn it First. Then Delegate.

As a startup, I felt it was important to learn the business from A to Z, so I made myself dig into everything that was new to me.  I didn’t have the luxury of hiring a CIO, CFO, or CMO, so I became all three, at least for a while. I don’t regret it. I came out the other side with a real understanding of the unglamorous back end of running a company: the website security, financial systems, insurance audits and legal documents. Things that few people see but can’t be overlooked. Over time, I’ve been able to outsource much of this work, but I’m glad I put in the time to learn it myself first.

Strengths philosophy guides what I outsource or delegate: if a task drains me or I find myself procrastinating on it, that’s a signal it’s not in my sweet spot. Today, I’m fortunate that very few things on my to-do list fall into that category. This frees me up to stay in my strengths zone, where I can listen deeply to what a client needs, design the right strategy or content, and guide leaders and teams to have conversations that improve how they function going forward.

Hire Well

I often remind leaders that the most important thing they can do is hire well, and I’ve built a team of rockstars who are exceptionally talented. As we’ve grown, I play the role of matchmaker more often — figuring out which coach is a good fit for a client, or which facilitator will help a team best navigate sensitive dynamics.

A few years ago, I had to fully rely on our bench strength unexpectedly when my husband received a serious medical diagnosis and I had to step away from the business for several months. The team didn’t just manage all our client work and business operations without missing a beat — they brought food to our house, organized a yard cleanup, and helped with dog care. They’re not just excellent at the work. They’re excellent people. I can’t emphasize it enough… hire well.

What’s in the Best Interest of the Client? Do That. Always.

There are hundreds of choice points every day as a business leader; I have found that identifying what is in the best interest of the client is our clarifying north star. To me, it means truly listening to the problem they’re bringing you and spending whatever time it takes to build the right pathway from where they are to where they want to be. This has become a core value of our firm.

That’s what it looked like when a client called the night before a retreat to share that a former colleague had died unexpectedly. We reworked the agenda overnight to make space for people to process together, not push through a content plan that no longer fit the moment. Or when an incoming CFO was hired just days before an offsite and wanted to attend before their official start date. We got them a CliftonStrengths code and prepped materials so they could walk in ready, not on the sidelines. The situations change. The core value doesn’t: if it’s right for the client, we find a way to make it happen.

Protect Your Time to Think
Most leaders I work with are frustrated by meeting-heavy agendas that leave little time for thinking. Yet ideas are often born in quiet times when you can step back and look at familiar problems from a different perspective. I generate far more ideas than are realistic (or valuable) myself, which is no surprise since some of my dominant CliftonStrengths include Strategic, Ideation and Futuristic. But the discipline isn’t generating ideas, it’s protecting the space to notice which ones keep resurfacing. Those are the ones worth leaning into, and a few of them have solved real problems for clients.  One idea that has made a strong impact is our Strengths Boost® Reinforcement Series  designed to help teams sustain their learning and momentum after a workshop. Simply put, if you can’t find time to think, you can’t innovate. Psst…I have a book idea that keeps coming back, so who knows. Stay tuned!

Keep a Client vs. Find a Client

A quick scan of our active client list in 2026 shows that 78% are returning clients, and we’re hopeful the new ones will become repeat clients too. Word of mouth referrals beat advertising dollars every day. I’m not sure that I fully understand the secret sauce, but perhaps it is a culmination of what I’ve shared so far — hire well, do what is in the best interest of the client, find a differentiator, etc. We are honored to have earned the trust of so many clients who seek our support with sensitive and mission-critical dynamics and challenges. To every client, past and present: your success is our success.

Some of our clients have been with us since the very beginning. Thank you, thank you!!  There is nothing more rewarding than seeing the change in culture, leadership capacity and the bottom line.

Find Your People

Entrepreneurship can be lonely. The periods of most focused, intentional growth for our company have come when I’ve been part of a community of other business leaders who meet regularly to support one another and talk through the challenges of leading a business, not just doing the work itself.

There are plenty more lessons I’ve learned along the way, some through trial and error, some from wise mentors, and some by simply taking a leap of faith.

I wish my father were still alive to celebrate this milestone with me. He was a brilliant man who was the president of a business college, a man who quizzed me on math facts at the dinner table and trusted me to help balance the checkbook. He would have been proud to see me as a business owner.

I hope that some of my lessons resonate whether you’re just starting out, or celebrating your own milestone as a business leader.  Here’s to the next ten years!