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A service professional I know had just finished building out her Google Business Profile. Every section filled in, photos uploaded, services listed, the whole thing. She looked at the "Posts" tab, the little corner where you can share quick updates, and asked me the question I get all the time. "Does anyone actually read these?" Not many. Google Posts sit in a small, easy-to-miss spot on your profile, and one industry benchmark from WebFX puts the average engagement rate on t

Recently, I sat down with two different clients, two days apart, in two completely different practices. One is building her Facebook page pretty much from scratch. The other has been posting on LinkedIn for a while but wasn't seeing much come of it. And yet I gave them almost the exact same homework. Engage before you pitch. That's the whole idea. Comment on other people's stuff, genuinely, with nothing to sell. The mistake that's easy to fall into When business feels slow, t

I had the same conversation three times recently. Three different coaching sessions, three different platforms, two different industries. A health and wellness practitioner whose directory listing hadn't been touched since she signed up for it. Another practitioner in the same boat on a completely different platform. And an insurance agent whose profile had stopped pulling its weight, the kind of stall you only catch when you look at the numbers year over year instead of week

In the fall of 2025, I opened my health insurance renewal notice and just about fell out of my chair. My premium was set to jump to almost $1,200 a month. I was already paying close to $900 a month, and that was WITH help from the ACA. As a solo business owner, that isn't a line item you can shuffle around, so my plan was to go without insurance and pay cash for everything. It felt terrible, but I didn't see another option. If open enrollment season has you dreading your own

I've used Constant Contact since 2005, and I have been a Certified Partner since 2015. In all those years, one of the things I hear most from business owners is some version of "I haven't sent a newsletter in forever, and now I feel awkward starting again." Sometimes it's been three months, and sometimes it's been three years! The longer the gap gets, the bigger that next email starts to feel, until hitting send seems like making a public announcement that you disappeared. If

I've used Constant Contact since 2005. I joined their Partner Program in 2014, became a Certified Partner in 2015, and earned my Master Certification in 2016. Since then, I have helped hundreds of small business owners get their email marketing started and keep it running. The thing about list growth is this: it is not sexy. It is not a hack. It is a handful of unglamorous tasks most business owners know about but never quite get around to doing. If your list has been sitting

Last month, I was in a coaching session with a client, digging through her Meta Business Suite numbers, when something jumped out at me. Her reels were outperforming her link posts and photo posts by a mile. Not a little bit better. A mile. That's not unusual. That's just what reels do right now. But when we watched a few of her videos back to back, I noticed the same thing happening at the start of almost every one: "Hi, I'm [Name], and I do [thing]." If that opening sounds

I had the same conversation twice in one week, twenty-four hours apart, with two different clients. Both had teams. Both had budgets for design. Both had feeds full of clean, on-brand, graphic-heavy posts, the kind with matching fonts, matching color palettes, and a logo tucked neatly in the corner of every single tile. And both were genuinely surprised to hear why it wasn't converting the way they hoped, because on paper, everything looked right. Same pattern both times. Sam

I had two coaching calls recently that had nothing to do with each other on paper. One client sells real estate. The other runs a tutoring business. Different industries, different clients, different problems. But they actually had the same problem: an unfinished Google Business Profile. A half-baked description. A service-area setting that didn't match what they actually wanted to happen. A services section that was either empty or listed with no descriptions. Both of them h

Heads up: I'm an affiliate for QuickBooks Online. If you sign up through my link, I earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. I only recommend tools I actually use, and I've been running my own books through QuickBooks for years. If you've been on the fence about getting your business finances into a dedicated accounting platform, here's your sign, and your savings. QuickBooks Online is running a Summer Savings promotion through August 27th, and it's a good one. It's

Here's the short version: every content format on social media has a different job. Reels are built to find you new people. Carousels and photos are built to deepen your relationship with the people who already know you. Plain text posts on Facebook do something different again. If you're only posting one or two of these and judging all of them by the same yardstick, you're leaving results on the table without realizing it. I saw this play out in real time recently, with two

One small business owner found out ChatGPT had been steering a customer wrong about her. Here's the free 1-hour habit that fixes it before it costs you sales.

Every so often, a client asks me some version of the same question: "Tracey, what tools do you actually use to run your own business?" It's a fair question. As a social media coach and email marketing manager, I've tried a lot of tools over the years. Some were great. Some were not. The ones below have earned a permanent spot in my workflow, and I think they can do the same for you. This isn't a generic 'best tools of 2026' list. These are business tools for service-based bus

Picture this. A reel I posted on my personal Instagram for fun, expecting maybe a few of my friends to chuckle, has now been seen almost 20 million times*. Over 11 million accounts reached. More than 2,000 brand-new followers. Likes in the seven figures. And here is the punchline that nobody who dreams about going viral ever expects to hear: it changed absolutely nothing about my business. Not one thing. So let me tell you what really happens when a regular person accidentall

Summer has a way of sneaking up on you. One minute you're thinking "I have plenty of time before Q3," and the next you're looking at a pile of untracked receipts and a checking account you haven't reconciled since April. I've been there. Most of us have. If you're a solo business owner (or close to it), keeping your finances tidy during the busiest months of the year can feel like one more thing on an already impossible list. That's exactly why I love QuickBooks Online. It do

Let's be real: social media can feel like a full-time job when you're already running a business. But here's the thing, it doesn't have to be overwhelming. When you approach it with a clear strategy, the right platforms, and a little consistency, social media becomes one of the most powerful (and affordable) tools in your marketing toolkit. Start with a Strategy, Not a Scroll Before you post anything, get clear on what you want social media to actually do for your business. D

January is the perfect time to take a fresh look at what is working in your business and what is not. When you are looking at your marketing, before you jump into creating new content or trying the latest marketing tactic, review the marketing assets you already have. A little attention now can make the rest of the year feel clearer, calmer, and more intentional. Think of this as a refresh, not a teardown. Why January Is the Best Time to Review Marketing Assets A new year cre

Is your content finding its way to your whole audience? Even though you have a thorough content marketing plan, you may actually be missing some people simply because of the format you’re presenting. Scientists and psychologists have studied how people learn for decades. They have documented four types of learning: visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic. Each brain works differently. Some people will identify strongly with one learning type, while others will say

Are you a naturally organized person? Did you get that special organizing gene at birth? I’m jealous! Keeping all the aspects of a business organized and running smoothly is difficult at best, especially if you don’t have a system or a plan of what to do and when. Even if you have a big-picture plan for where you want to be in five years, you need a daily plan to complete your admin tasks, along with your marketing and content creation. It’s enough to make your head spin, isn

When crafting the perfect Instagram post or putting together an email newsletter, visuals play a huge role in how you connect with your...