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  • An Holistic Framework for Shared Design Leadership

    An Holistic Framework for Shared Design Leadership

    Picture this: You’re in a meeting room at your tech company, and two people are having what looks like the same conversation about the same design problem. One is talking about whether the team has the right skills to tackle it. The other is diving deep into whether the solution actually solves the user’s problem. Same room, same problem, completely different lenses.

    This is the beautiful, sometimes messy reality of having both a Design Manager and a Lead Designer on the same team. And if you’re wondering how to make this work without creating confusion, overlap, or the dreaded “too many cooks” scenario, you’re asking the right question.

    The traditional answer has been to draw clean lines on an org chart. The Design Manager handles people, the Lead Designer handles craft. Problem solved, right? Except clean org charts are fantasy. In reality, both roles care deeply about team health, design quality, and shipping great work. 

    The magic happens when you embrace the overlap instead of fighting it—when you start thinking of your design org as a design organism.

    The Anatomy of a Healthy Design Team

    Here’s what I’ve learned from years of being on both sides of this equation: think of your design team as a living organism. The Design Manager tends to the mind (the psychological safety, the career growth, the team dynamics). The Lead Designer tends to the body (the craft skills, the design standards, the hands-on work that ships to users).

    But just like mind and body aren’t completely separate systems, so, too, do these roles overlap in important ways. You can’t have a healthy person without both working in harmony. The trick is knowing where those overlaps are and how to navigate them gracefully.

    When we look at how healthy teams actually function, three critical systems emerge. Each requires both roles to work together, but with one taking primary responsibility for keeping that system strong.

    The Nervous System: People & Psychology

    Primary caretaker: Design Manager
    Supporting role: Lead Designer

    The nervous system is all about signals, feedback, and psychological safety. When this system is healthy, information flows freely, people feel safe to take risks, and the team can adapt quickly to new challenges.

    The Design Manager is the primary caretaker here. They’re monitoring the team’s psychological pulse, ensuring feedback loops are healthy, and creating the conditions for people to grow. They’re hosting career conversations, managing workload, and making sure no one burns out.

    But the Lead Designer plays a crucial supporting role. They’re providing sensory input about craft development needs, spotting when someone’s design skills are stagnating, and helping identify growth opportunities that the Design Manager might miss.

    Design Manager tends to:

    • Career conversations and growth planning
    • Team psychological safety and dynamics
    • Workload management and resource allocation
    • Performance reviews and feedback systems
    • Creating learning opportunities

    Lead Designer supports by:

    • Providing craft-specific feedback on team member development
    • Identifying design skill gaps and growth opportunities
    • Offering design mentorship and guidance
    • Signaling when team members are ready for more complex challenges

    The Muscular System: Craft & Execution

    Primary caretaker: Lead Designer
    Supporting role: Design Manager

    The muscular system is about strength, coordination, and skill development. When this system is healthy, the team can execute complex design work with precision, maintain consistent quality, and adapt their craft to new challenges.

    The Lead Designer is the primary caretaker here. They’re setting design standards, providing craft coaching, and ensuring that shipping work meets the quality bar. They’re the ones who can tell you if a design decision is sound or if we’re solving the right problem.

    But the Design Manager plays a crucial supporting role. They’re ensuring the team has the resources and support to do their best craft work, like proper nutrition and recovery time for an athlete.

    Lead Designer tends to:

    • Definition of design standards and system usage
    • Feedback on what design work meets the standard
    • Experience direction for the product
    • Design decisions and product-wide alignment
    • Innovation and craft advancement

    Design Manager supports by:

    • Ensuring design standards are understood and adopted across the team
    • Confirming experience direction is being followed
    • Supporting practices and systems that scale without bottlenecking
    • Facilitating design alignment across teams
    • Providing resources and removing obstacles to great craft work

    The Circulatory System: Strategy & Flow

    Shared caretakers: Both Design Manager and Lead Designer

    The circulatory system is about how information, decisions, and energy flow through the team. When this system is healthy, strategic direction is clear, priorities are aligned, and the team can respond quickly to new opportunities or challenges.

    This is where true partnership happens. Both roles are responsible for keeping the circulation strong, but they’re bringing different perspectives to the table.

    Lead Designer contributes:

    • User needs are met by the product
    • Overall product quality and experience
    • Strategic design initiatives
    • Research-based user needs for each initiative

    Design Manager contributes:

    • Communication to team and stakeholders
    • Stakeholder management and alignment
    • Cross-functional team accountability
    • Strategic business initiatives

    Both collaborate on:

    • Co-creation of strategy with leadership
    • Team goals and prioritization approach
    • Organizational structure decisions
    • Success measures and frameworks

    Keeping the Organism Healthy

    The key to making this partnership sing is understanding that all three systems need to work together. A team with great craft skills but poor psychological safety will burn out. A team with great culture but weak craft execution will ship mediocre work. A team with both but poor strategic circulation will work hard on the wrong things.

    Be Explicit About Which System You’re Tending

    When you’re in a meeting about a design problem, it helps to acknowledge which system you’re primarily focused on. “I’m thinking about this from a team capacity perspective” (nervous system) or “I’m looking at this through the lens of user needs” (muscular system) gives everyone context for your input.

    This isn’t about staying in your lane. It’s about being transparent as to which lens you’re using, so the other person knows how to best add their perspective.

    Create Healthy Feedback Loops

    The most successful partnerships I’ve seen establish clear feedback loops between the systems:

    Nervous system signals to muscular system: “The team is struggling with confidence in their design skills” → Lead Designer provides more craft coaching and clearer standards.

    Muscular system signals to nervous system: “The team’s craft skills are advancing faster than their project complexity” → Design Manager finds more challenging growth opportunities.

    Both systems signal to circulatory system: “We’re seeing patterns in team health and craft development that suggest we need to adjust our strategic priorities.”

    Handle Handoffs Gracefully

    The most critical moments in this partnership are when something moves from one system to another. This might be when a design standard (muscular system) needs to be rolled out across the team (nervous system), or when a strategic initiative (circulatory system) needs specific craft execution (muscular system).

    Make these transitions explicit. “I’ve defined the new component standards. Can you help me think through how to get the team up to speed?” or “We’ve agreed on this strategic direction. I’m going to focus on the specific user experience approach from here.”

    Stay Curious, Not Territorial

    The Design Manager who never thinks about craft, or the Lead Designer who never considers team dynamics, is like a doctor who only looks at one body system. Great design leadership requires both people to care about the whole organism, even when they’re not the primary caretaker.

    This means asking questions rather than making assumptions. “What do you think about the team’s craft development in this area?” or “How do you see this impacting team morale and workload?” keeps both perspectives active in every decision.

    When the Organism Gets Sick

    Even with clear roles, this partnership can go sideways. Here are the most common failure modes I’ve seen:

    System Isolation

    The Design Manager focuses only on the nervous system and ignores craft development. The Lead Designer focuses only on the muscular system and ignores team dynamics. Both people retreat to their comfort zones and stop collaborating.

    The symptoms: Team members get mixed messages, work quality suffers, morale drops.

    The treatment: Reconnect around shared outcomes. What are you both trying to achieve? Usually it’s great design work that ships on time from a healthy team. Figure out how both systems serve that goal.

    Poor Circulation

    Strategic direction is unclear, priorities keep shifting, and neither role is taking responsibility for keeping information flowing.

    The symptoms: Team members are confused about priorities, work gets duplicated or dropped, deadlines are missed.

    The treatment: Explicitly assign responsibility for circulation. Who’s communicating what to whom? How often? What’s the feedback loop?

    Autoimmune Response

    One person feels threatened by the other’s expertise. The Design Manager thinks the Lead Designer is undermining their authority. The Lead Designer thinks the Design Manager doesn’t understand craft.

    The symptoms: Defensive behavior, territorial disputes, team members caught in the middle.

    The treatment: Remember that you’re both caretakers of the same organism. When one system fails, the whole team suffers. When both systems are healthy, the team thrives.

    The Payoff

    Yes, this model requires more communication. Yes, it requires both people to be secure enough to share responsibility for team health. But the payoff is worth it: better decisions, stronger teams, and design work that’s both excellent and sustainable.

    When both roles are healthy and working well together, you get the best of both worlds: deep craft expertise and strong people leadership. When one person is out sick, on vacation, or overwhelmed, the other can help maintain the team’s health. When a decision requires both the people perspective and the craft perspective, you’ve got both right there in the room.

    Most importantly, the framework scales. As your team grows, you can apply the same system thinking to new challenges. Need to launch a design system? Lead Designer tends to the muscular system (standards and implementation), Design Manager tends to the nervous system (team adoption and change management), and both tend to circulation (communication and stakeholder alignment).

    The Bottom Line

    The relationship between a Design Manager and Lead Designer isn’t about dividing territories. It’s about multiplying impact. When both roles understand they’re tending to different aspects of the same healthy organism, magic happens.

    The mind and body work together. The team gets both the strategic thinking and the craft excellence they need. And most importantly, the work that ships to users benefits from both perspectives.

    So the next time you’re in that meeting room, wondering why two people are talking about the same problem from different angles, remember: you’re watching shared leadership in action. And if it’s working well, both the mind and body of your design team are getting stronger.

  • From Beta to Bedrock: Build Products that Stick.

    From Beta to Bedrock: Build Products that Stick.

    As a product builder over too many years to mention, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen promising ideas go from zero to hero in a few weeks, only to fizzle out within months.

    Financial products, which is the field I work in, are no exception. With people’s real hard-earned money on the line, user expectations running high, and a crowded market, it’s tempting to throw as many features at the wall as possible and hope something sticks. But this approach is a recipe for disaster. Here’s why:

    The pitfalls of feature-first development

    When you start building a financial product from the ground up, or are migrating existing customer journeys from paper or telephony channels onto online banking or mobile apps, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of creating new features. You might think, “If I can just add one more thing that solves this particular user problem, they’ll love me!” But what happens when you inevitably hit a roadblock because the narcs (your security team!) don’t like it? When a hard-fought feature isn’t as popular as you thought, or it breaks due to unforeseen complexity?

    This is where the concept of Minimum Viable Product (MVP) comes in. Jason Fried’s book Getting Real and his podcast Rework often touch on this idea, even if he doesn’t always call it that. An MVP is a product that provides just enough value to your users to keep them engaged, but not so much that it becomes overwhelming or difficult to maintain. It sounds like an easy concept but it requires a razor sharp eye, a ruthless edge and having the courage to stick by your opinion because it is easy to be seduced by “the Columbo Effect”… when there’s always “just one more thing…” that someone wants to add.

    The problem with most finance apps, however, is that they often become a reflection of the internal politics of the business rather than an experience solely designed around the customer. This means that the focus is on delivering as many features and functionalities as possible to satisfy the needs and desires of competing internal departments, rather than providing a clear value proposition that is focused on what the people out there in the real world want. As a result, these products can very easily bloat to become a mixed bag of confusing, unrelated and ultimately unlovable customer experiences—a feature salad, you might say.

    The importance of bedrock

    So what’s a better approach? How can we build products that are stable, user-friendly, and—most importantly—stick?

    That’s where the concept of “bedrock” comes in. Bedrock is the core element of your product that truly matters to users. It’s the fundamental building block that provides value and stays relevant over time.

    In the world of retail banking, which is where I work, the bedrock has got to be in and around the regular servicing journeys. People open their current account once in a blue moon but they look at it every day. They sign up for a credit card every year or two, but they check their balance and pay their bill at least once a month.

    Identifying the core tasks that people want to do and then relentlessly striving to make them easy to do, dependable, and trustworthy is where the gravy’s at.

    But how do you get to bedrock? By focusing on the “MVP” approach, prioritizing simplicity, and iterating towards a clear value proposition. This means cutting out unnecessary features and focusing on delivering real value to your users.

    It also means having some guts, because your colleagues might not always instantly share your vision to start with. And controversially, sometimes it can even mean making it clear to customers that you’re not going to come to their house and make their dinner. The occasional “opinionated user interface design” (i.e. clunky workaround for edge cases) might sometimes be what you need to use to test a concept or buy you space to work on something more important.

    Practical strategies for building financial products that stick

    So what are the key strategies I’ve learned from my own experience and research?

    1. Start with a clear “why”: What problem are you trying to solve? For whom? Make sure your mission is crystal clear before building anything. Make sure it aligns with your company’s objectives, too.
    2. Focus on a single, core feature and obsess on getting that right before moving on to something else: Resist the temptation to add too many features at once. Instead, choose one that delivers real value and iterate from there.
    3. Prioritize simplicity over complexity: Less is often more when it comes to financial products. Cut out unnecessary bells and whistles and keep the focus on what matters most.
    4. Embrace continuous iteration: Bedrock isn’t a fixed destination—it’s a dynamic process. Continuously gather user feedback, refine your product, and iterate towards that bedrock state.
    5. Stop, look and listen: Don’t just test your product as part of your delivery process—test it repeatedly in the field. Use it yourself. Run A/B tests. Gather user feedback. Talk to people who use it, and refine accordingly.

    The bedrock paradox

    There’s an interesting paradox at play here: building towards bedrock means sacrificing some short-term growth potential in favour of long-term stability. But the payoff is worth it—products built with a focus on bedrock will outlast and outperform their competitors, and deliver sustained value to users over time.

    So, how do you start your journey towards bedrock? Take it one step at a time. Start by identifying those core elements that truly matter to your users. Focus on building and refining a single, powerful feature that delivers real value. And above all, test obsessively—for, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, Alan Kay, or Peter Drucker (whomever you believe!!), “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

  • Building a Referral Network With Strategic Partners

    Building a Referral Network With Strategic Partners

    Building a Referral Network With Strategic Partners written by Alex McQueen read more at Duct Tape Marketing

    Catch the Full Episode: Overview John Jantsch sits down with Jermane Cheathem for a live coaching session. Cheathem built his referral business around a handful of aligned partners instead of a long prospect list, and he uses the conversation to map out a partner strategy for Duct Tape Marketing’s fractional CMO service in real time. […]

    How to Build a Business That Can Grow Without You written by Alex McQueen read more at Duct Tape Marketing

    Catch the Full Episode:

    Overview

    Duct Tape Marketing Podcast cover featuring host John Jantsch, with guests Victoria Sivrais and Beth Mazza, for the episode How to Build a Business That Can Grow Without YouVictoria Sivrais and Beth Mazza join John Jantsch on the show to explain how they built a service firm designed to sell from the start. They dig into why so many consultants slide into a job instead of a company, and what changes once selling the business becomes part of the plan from day one.

    The conversation covers Sivrais and Mazza’s Kitchen Cabinet framework (a champion, a compensator, and a connector who cover the ground a co-founder would normally handle), the shift from an expertise-dependent business to a system-dependent one, and the cash discipline that let their firm invest in growth without taking on debt.

    This episode is for solo consultants, fractional CMOs, and service business owners who want a business that doesn’t depend on them for every deal, whether or not a sale is the end goal. Sivrais and Mazza also explain why they put money into cold outreach when most advisory firms lean on referrals alone, including the 10% of revenue they invested in sales and marketing from their earliest days as a two-person shop.

    Guest Bio

    Victoria Sivrais and Beth Mazza co-founded Clermont Partners, an ESG and investor relations firm, in 2015. The two advised S&P 500 boards through high-stakes decisions and grew the firm to profitability before selling it to Riveron Consulting in 2022. Sivrais and Mazza are also co-founders of Female Mavericks and co-authors of the new book Entrepreneur Like a Mother: Build a Company That Buys You Freedom, Not One That Owns Your Life, out September 22 from Wiley.

    Key Takeaways

    • Make sales the priority from day one. Building something you can eventually sell means chasing growth and brand-building early, not settling into a slower, lifestyle pace.
    • Build a Kitchen Cabinet even if you’re working alone. A champion, a compensator, and a connector can fill the gaps a co-founder would normally cover.
    • Track your margin as closely as your revenue. Sivrais and Mazza targeted a 30% margin, paid vendors at net 45, and collected from clients at net 30 to keep a cash cushion.
    • Shift from an expertise-dependent business to a system-dependent one. Training a team to do what you do is what lets a service business scale past what one person can sell or deliver.
    • Put money behind sales and marketing before the returns show up. Mazza and Sivrais invested 10% of revenue into sales and marketing when they were just two people, and paired cold outreach with thought leadership that built their SEO ranking and got prospects to pick up the phone.

    Great Moments

    • [04:44] – John asks whether one person can be the champion, compensator, and connector at once. Sivrais and Mazza explain why they built the roles out with different people over several years.
    • [09:22] – Sivrais walks through all five Power Moves in the book, from sizing a total addressable market to scaling, and notes you can start wherever your business happens to be.
    • [11:15] – John asks, half-joking, whether men can read a book called Entrepreneur Like a Mother. Mazza points out how many of their Female Mavericks community members are men.
    • [15:05] – John and Sivrais unpack the case for cold outreach, a channel most advisory firms avoid, and how thought leadership made those calls land.
    • [18:22] – Sivrais and Mazza trace their fast-decide-then-correct instincts back to their entrepreneurial fathers, and in Sivrais’s case, a grandfather she never met.

    Memorable Quotes

    • “Side hustles don’t give you financial freedom. They don’t pay for your kids’ college, they don’t pay for your house, and they don’t pay for you to retire early.” – Beth Mazza
    • “As a small firm, we ran up some big marketing bills investing in thought leadership early on, but by the time we sold Clermont Partners, half of our business was coming from that effort.” – Beth Mazza
    • “Unless you can put your expertise into a system, and then hire, train, and support a team that can do almost what you can do, you cannot scale.” – Beth Mazza
    • “At Clermont Partners, we paid vendors at net 45 but collected from clients at net 30, so we always had a cash cushion in between.” – Victoria Sivrais
    • “The point is, you can be both a business owner and a mother. We’re sick of the myth that says you have to choose, and we’re trying to break it.” – Victoria Sivrais

    Resources

    • Entrepreneur Like a Mother: Build a Company That Buys You Freedom, Not One That Owns Your Life (Book on Amazon)
    • Female Mavericks (Website)

     

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    John Jantsch (00:01.122)

    So most consultants build a business around what they’re good at. A smaller number build one that they can actually sell. The difference between those two paths shows up probably pretty quickly, long before anyone’s shopping for a buyer, that is. And usually it’s invisible to the person living it. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch, my guest today. I have two guests: Beth.

    Mazza and Victoria Sivrais. They’re serial entrepreneurs, collective moms of nine, who built and exited two successful professional service firms that advise SP leaders through make or break decisions, equal parts, boardroom powerhouses, and chaos managers. They’re now on a mission to help 10,000 women build seven-figure businesses. So, Beth and Victoria, welcome to the show.

    Beth (00:50.765)

    Thanks. We’re happy to be here, John. Thank you. No.

    Victoria Sivrais (00:51.513)

    Thanks so much.

    John Jantsch (00:52.834)

    Did did I butcher either one of your names? I ch I I hopefully not. Good, good, good. Awesome. Well, so I have to start by telling you that I have nine siblings, if that counts for anything. So so so I do I do have a sense of and there was only f 14 years between the ten of us, so I do have a sense of a little bit of what you guys are going through. Right. I only have four kids of my own, but but the the ten ten f

    Victoria Sivrais (00:56.239)

    You got it. I’m impressed.

    Beth (01:03.416)

    Hmm.

    Victoria Sivrais (01:04.303)

    Really?

    Beth (01:12.05)

    Whoa. So you kept chaos.

    Victoria Sivrais (01:13.187)

    That’s incredible.

    Beth (01:19.289)

    So do I.

    John Jantsch (01:21.304)

    10 member family was quite something. So let’s jump into I I want to start with this may feel like a challenge, but I I know you guys have the answer to this. but I want to start with this sort of disconnect for me. As I read your bio and you know, S P five hundred, you know, make or break decisions. and then I look at the the title of the book, which I actually I forgot I forgot wasn’t in the in the bio, so I’ll

    Beth (01:25.293)

    Yeah.

    John Jantsch (01:50.999)

    Read it out right now. entrepreneur like a mother. Build a company that buys your freedom and not one that owns your life. And, you know, that sounds a little more like a lifestyle business book that maybe is different from you know what what I read in your bios. So help our listeners understand where where where I’m getting that wrong.

    Beth (02:13.767)

    yeah, that no, that’s a fair question. So two things. One is side hustles don’t give you financial freedom. They don’t pay for your kids’ college. They don’t pay for your house. They don’t pay for you to retire at the age as we did. So our number one premise behind this book is you gotta build a business where you get financial freedom. And you can do that if you choose the right business model and you set some of the right barriers from day one of your business. And

    John Jantsch (02:22.221)

    Right.

    Beth (02:40.801)

    Literally the entire book is about when we did that successfully, which we did a lot, and when we did that unsuccessfully, which also was a lot.

    John Jantsch (02:48.44)

    Sure, sure. Well, that’s the only way you learn one from the other, right? so so a lot of what you talk about is the idea of of building your your first business, planning to sell it. and I think a lot of people, I I I can’t imagine there are too many people that that’s not the dream. however, you know, you get sort of stuck in the day-to-day and it’s like, no, I’m just trying to pay the bills or pay myself, and it turns into a job, not a business even. So how did you

    How did you make that decision? What did you do that changed, you know, how you went to business that that you know, in into business that that really made that happen for you?

    Victoria Sivrais (03:26.979)

    Yeah. So I I think from our perspective, sales became the center of everything we did from day one. So I think when you are trying to create a lifestyle business or one that just kind of is a replacement to your corporate salary, I think there is a a slowness of it sometimes. Maybe take your time. It was never our mentality. From day one, it is

    How can you get more clients? How can you build our brand? And how can you expand to a point where you have a scalable business that then becomes attractive to a buyer? So I think that that was number one. Now, where I what I personally fell short, somewhere in the middle of that, was I couldn’t give up control about some of the more mundane tasks that were necessary to run the b business forward. So I was lucky enough to have a business partner.

    John Jantsch (04:13.133)

    Mm.

    Victoria Sivrais (04:20.205)

    That was, hey, it’s time to, it’s time to take invoicing off your plate. It’s time to take HR. It’s time to hire the HR manager. It’s time to hire someone that can actually run the office on a day to day basis. And that is, I think, what became the difference of we were creating a lifestyle business to a scalable business that that we could sell one day.

    John Jantsch (04:44.782)

    Well, and I think you aptly refer to that as a kitchen cabinet idea, or at least that that to have like, you know, a champion, a compensator, and a connector. is that something that can be one person that has three personalities? Does that definitely need to be outside people? you know, that like I have this skill set, you have that skill set. is that something you decide from day really early on? Or when you decided you wanted to change this business at least?

    Beth (05:07.971)

    Yeah, I think

    I think there’s no way we as moms, unless we had a cabinet, could do this, right? Cause we needed cheerleading, we needed like people to pick up our kids when we were our flight was delayed. But then we also needed really, really big thinkers. We built a software product. Like we needed a big software guy that we didn’t know anything about. So we did it very methodically, which is how we’ve we’ve written it in Hunterprel Like a Mother. Three types, champions, connectors, compensators, and we built it.

    Over a few years, and we did as much asking of favors as we did giving of favors, and we paid it as much for it as possible. But I mean, two members of our kitchen cabinet, one saved us from signing a very bad deal to sell our company, two did. And at least two to three of them made the introductions for the clients that paid us a lot of money, especially in a post-COVID world where those were not coming very quickly.

    John Jantsch (05:43.053)

    Mm-hmm.

    Beth (06:09.781)

    So it’s it is a long term, it is many people that you keep up with, that you spend twenty minutes a day with with, but it’s also what you do from day one of the business. You’re always thinking about building that.

    John Jantsch (06:23.446)

    D do you think that that you had or do you think that it takes a different sort of investment mindset in in the business than most people have? Cause again, a lot of people get in, they get a client and then they want the next client and then it’s like, you know, we’re we’re just trying to keep this thing going, you know, hustle work. Did did you have a different investment mentality than that?

    Victoria Sivrais (06:45.019)

    a hundred percent we did. So, like, I mean, yes, it was about building clients in and building revenues in the early days. but it then became how are we gonna have an expense structure? Cause our our goal from the get-go was to run 30% margins, which is very attractive in a professional services business. And so our investments what were centered around

    not only driving growth at the top line, but maintaining and expanding that margin that was, you know, break even in the early days to to the the goal of the 30% margin. So like as a result, like our power move three is make the money moves that matter. And that is all about the financial non negotiables, not only personally as a as a woman raising a family and building a business, but also within the business, what are you willing to do?

    John Jantsch (07:24.567)

    Yeah.

    Victoria Sivrais (07:36.586)

    Achieve your goals. So, like a couple of our goals were we only paid out at net 45 to our vendors, but we were pretty slavish to collecting it net 30. So we had a nice cash cushion in between. You know, we never had our expense line go above our retained revenues because half of our business was project revenues, but we never took that expense structure over our retained revenues. So we knew we had the flexibility for investment in later, and we only took on debt.

    John Jantsch (07:57.654)

    Mm.

    Victoria Sivrais (08:05.291)

    if we knew we had an identif identifiable return on that investment. It was just those were three of our non-negotiables that we always had.

    Beth (08:14.423)

    And the one other thing we did is we invested in sales and marketing. When we were two people, we were putting 10% of what we made into sales and marketing. We put out really good thought leadership that we wanted SP 500, 1,000 CEOs to read. We figured out real early we could not get it read if we just sent them emails. And we invested in marketing. We were very early on SEO. We did all that to get the marketing out to make sure that.

    the influencer to the CEO or the CEO himself saw our thought leadership, which as a really small firm, we had some really big bills, but that was a total investment. And we by the time we sold 50% of our business came from that effort. Come there were calls in from that effort.

    John Jantsch (08:59.172)

    Okay.

    S so so in the eight minutes and or nine minutes now and four seconds we’ve been talking, you’ve actually demonstrated more business savvy than most people have, let’s face it. So what how do you translate that in your book to somebody who maybe hasn’t you know, really some of the things you’re throwing out hasn’t even considered?

    Victoria Sivrais (09:22.509)

    You you know, we we put it in the framework of these five power moves. And honestly, we really, we really, I people would say we dumbed it down. We didn’t. We actually brought it down to a level that we needed when we were learning ourselves. And we tried to be as explicit and as prescriptive as we possibly can. So, like power move one is all about whether or not it’s a passion project or actually a really viable business idea. So we start with what is your total addressable math.

    Market, how do you figure out what your total addressable market is? And how do you figure out how you’re going to capture a portion of that that makes it a seven-figure business? Then we start to talk about, you know, build the network with your kitchen cabinet. Like where, you know, most entrepreneurs tend to be control freaks, a, you know, type A people that think they’re great at everything. The skinny is you’re not. So like figure out what you’re not good at and figure out where you can kind of support that.

    John Jantsch (10:09.646)

    Sure.

    Victoria Sivrais (10:18.713)

    Then we talk about the money moves that matter. Then we talk about, which is honestly a favorite of both of ours, is respect the pivot. Like understand that when things aren’t going the right way, you gotta be able to dodge and weave as quickly as you possibly can. And then the last piece is really once you have a business that is moving, now how do you scale it? And I think that those are the pieces. And again, depending on where you’re at in your business, you can pick up in any one of those places.

    And I think that that is the beauty of this framework that we’ve created, is that you can jump in wherever you’re at with your business.

    Beth (10:52.621)

    I mean, this this book is intentionally so prescriptive. You literally have your pen and you’re writing this stuff down. There are worksheets, there are questions. We give our real world examples. Times we did great things and terrible things, and it’s all in there so that not only do you know what to do, but you can also feel better that two idiots figured out a way to make it work too.

    John Jantsch (11:15.98)

    All right, so you can smack me for this question if you want, later at least. is could can men read this book.

    Beth (11:24.397)

    My God. Do you know how many female mavericks are men? Like we never talk about that. So many of them are men.

    Victoria Sivrais (11:24.409)

    Hundred percent. I mean a hundred percent. I mean

    Victoria Sivrais (11:32.976)

    Can we also talk about that between the two of us, we have six brothers? Like we are the two women and a lot of men in our life. And so like it’s not meant. We wrote it in the idea, because I think a lot of times women, particularly women who want to be mothers, are told that they can either be a business owner or they can be a mother. And the point is, is you can do both. Like we’re sick of that myth and we’re trying to break the break the glass on that myth.

    John Jantsch (11:38.131)

    Ha ha

    Beth (11:39.811)

    Yeah.

    John Jantsch (11:50.304)

    Mm-hmm. Right.

    Victoria Sivrais (11:59.746)

    Men doing the same thing, and especially now, men versus like when my parents were growing up and you know there was no mom out in the workplace, like dads are just as involved with the kids versus where they used to be. And so, like, my husband is a hundred percent partner of mine. He is, I mean, we were just negotiating who’s picking up kids this afternoon because I had this podcast. So, like, I mean, those business owners, well, and even honestly.

    John Jantsch (12:08.579)

    Yeah.

    John Jantsch (12:17.411)

    Yeah. Right.

    Victoria Sivrais (12:26.667)

    ambitious men and women within corporate America. I think there’s a lot of pieces that you can take out of this, particularly around the the building of the kitchen cabin and respecting a pivot. Like those are just clear things that help you drive your business forward, whether or not corporate or entrepreneur.

    Beth (12:44.771)

    But men should pay full price for it. Women think it’s just men should pay just for everything you put us through through the generations.

    John Jantsch (12:45.197)

    So yeah. Hey, I think it’s fair. so there one concept you talk about is expertise dependent businesses versus system dependent businesses. talk a little bit about what that looks like and why that’s an important concept.

    Victoria Sivrais (12:46.873)

    For sure. We’ll give the ladies a discount. Yeah.

    Beth (12:54.819)

    Ha ha.

    Beth (13:10.029)

    Yeah, I think this is a big one. We as women, we only want to do the things that we’re best at. So we tend to, I think, begin expertise driven businesses, which is what Victoria and I did as well. But expertise driven businesses, unless you are in like some amazing area where you can charge 50,000 an hour, you are maxed, right? You are maxed how much you can make. And and you’re you’re also giving up like so much of your life in in being the go to person.

    What we learned, because we scaled twice, right? And so we we learned a lot, is unless you can put your expertise into some kind of a system, and then you can hire, retain, train, support, empower a team of people that can do almost what you can do, you can’t scale. It doesn’t matter if you have AI, it doesn’t matter what you have, you cannot scale. You have high-profile people that want to talk to a human being that’s competent. So

    We really learned in that second business. And some of that was driven by our own employees saying, You’re not even giving us a shot on goal. You’re not even letting us get a shot to talk to a CEO. You haven’t trained us. And we both really stepped back and we really invested there. And we turned out selling the company with seven or eight people that could do what we did. They all got a small piece of the business. They all have great careers. But I mean, that was a big investment from us. So, like if you want to be bigger, you want

    John Jantsch (14:17.439)

    Yeah.

    John Jantsch (14:30.819)

    Yeah. Yeah.

    Beth (14:34.273)

    Your kids not to have college debt, you’ve got to figure out a system driven business.

    John Jantsch (14:38.967)

    Yeah, I am. you know, I w we work with a lot of business owners and I mean the the one thing I counsel them on all the time is, you know, until you’re no longer the rainmaker, you know, you’re stuck. And I think that’s really to me, that’s the really the big one. If you know if that’s if you’re the only person that can sell the big deal, then you’re you’re never gonna get out of this thing. So what one of the things that I read that

    Victoria Sivrais (14:44.319)

    Mm.

    Victoria Sivrais (14:50.115)

    No

    Victoria Sivrais (15:00.367)

    Agreed.

    John Jantsch (15:05.495)

    the seventy-five percent of your cash w went into cold outreach from day one. that’s almost taboo for like consulting, you know, type businesses. It’s like, no, you build your network of trust and you get referrals. And so so talk a little bit about that math for a high touch advisory firm.

    Victoria Sivrais (15:24.023)

    I mean, you d we call it in the book, we call it caveman marketing. Cause I mean, it really was. I mean, it was a numbers game in the beginning, in terms of the cold outreach. For every ten calls we made, we got one meeting, you know, or every a hundred calls we made, we got 10 meetings, we got one close. Like it just it was what it was. What I think we did very interestingly to support that was not just the cold calling. It was up front, we made a ton of investment in that thought leadership that Beth talked about a little bit ago, which was

    John Jantsch (15:28.099)

    Yeah.

    Victoria Sivrais (15:53.302)

    Not cold emails selling our services. It was it was expanding and sharing our expertise around areas that mattered to the C-suite and the board of directors of these large public companies. And we never asked for anything from it. We honestly just would share as much as they listen to it. And honestly, in in COVID is where it really, really took off because you know, that March date, March 16th.

    All of our public companies just stopped paying us. All of our huge pipeline just stopped responding to us. No one knew. We were working a hundred hours a week trying to assuage all the concerns on Wall Street that every public company was going belly up. Like we didn’t have anything to do except for just kind of maintain our client base. So in our spare time, which we had so much of it, we just wrote about what was happening out in the market. And we just kept on sending out

    John Jantsch (16:24.319)

    Mm-hmm. Right.

    John Jantsch (16:44.046)

    Mm.

    John Jantsch (16:48.771)

    Yeah.

    Victoria Sivrais (16:49.775)

    Thought leadership after thought leadership, we did really basic roundups of by industry, how people are talking about financial position, cash on hand, investments, all of those things. And that drove our SEO, which became us the number one ranking in both our core business, which was investor relations, and our growth business, which was ESG communications consulting. And so when the world started to slowly open back up that summer.

    John Jantsch (17:04.441)

    Yeah.

    Victoria Sivrais (17:17.827)

    They said, okay, there’s all these mandates that we have to do. Who should we call? you know, those ladies that never stop emailing us about all the things that are happening. And it opened the floodgates. And so it didn’t stop us from our cold outreach. We still did that. But when we got there, we had built such great brand recognition that they picked up the phone when we called.

    John Jantsch (17:24.431)

    Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    John Jantsch (17:36.11)

    Yeah.

    All while homeschooling at the same time, right?

    Victoria Sivrais (17:41.347)

    For sure. For sure. My

    Beth (17:42.027)

    okay, we can’t. We’re like BTSD. I mean. But I mean, the one thing I want to add on to that is that SEO was super expensive. We invested a lot. AI is not the ability to be found on AI is a different game. And we always talk about, my God, how much higher would our margins have been if we have AI and figured it out?

    Victoria Sivrais (17:48.868)

    Bye.

    John Jantsch (17:54.201)

    Yeah.

    John Jantsch (18:07.874)

    Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no question. Did

    Victoria Sivrais (18:09.081)

    Totally.

    Beth (18:11.021)

    And you can be so super localized with AI too that it’s for smaller or very localized businesses too.

    John Jantsch (18:15.616)

    Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I’m curious, did either one of you have entrepreneurial upbringings?

    Beth (18:22.393)

    We both did. My we both did. My my dad is a serial entrepreneur, my biggest supporter. Both my brothers are entrepreneurs, Victoria.

    Victoria Sivrais (18:23.855)

    You got.

    John Jantsch (18:24.97)

    Yeah.

    Victoria Sivrais (18:34.425)

    Yep, my dad’s an entrepreneur and and his dad, who I actually never had the luxury of meeting, had I can’t even count the number of businesses that they’ve told me he’s had. And my brothers followed in the same footstep too. So like it it is there. So maybe it is a little bit in our blood.

    Beth (18:50.719)

    And like at my family dinner is if you had to admit that you worked for someone else, everyone was like, For shame, you know, so you didn’t have that.

    John Jantsch (18:56.586)

    Yeah. So I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by and and share some of the insights here. But if somebody’s listening runs a business whether alone or they have a team, what would be the first thing you call them power moves? What would be maybe the first power move you would say? Obviously you don’t know who these businesses are or what they’re doing, but but what do you typically find like this is the first hole to plug?

    Beth (19:23.223)

    It’s always the money moves. It’s always that we look at the PL and go, what are you paying an executive coach for? Or if you increased your prices five percent, my God, this would change your take. So we want it to be softer than that, but God, it’s always that make the money moves that matter.

    Victoria Sivrais (19:24.918)

    Always.

    Victoria Sivrais (19:41.027)

    I mean, we talk to business owners all the time, and almost I would say one out of every four, they’re telling me, yeah, we’re I’m making a ton of money. Like blah, blah, blah. Okay. So less your expenses, how much are you taking home? well, nothing. And okay. So you’re not actually making money. Like, I mean, it is pretty basic like that, I think. And honest to God, like in the early days of Claremont.

    John Jantsch (19:58.499)

    Yeah.

    John Jantsch (20:02.606)

    Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    Victoria Sivrais (20:09.943)

    it was something that I didn’t know. Like it like pure cash I knew a profit and loss statement, but pure cash management about paying a vendor after you’ve been paid by your clients. It never had occurred to me, to be honest. Like I I figured I just want to stay on top of my bills. Like there are real basics of of building Yeah, totally.

    John Jantsch (20:22.478)

    Right.

    John Jantsch (20:28.354)

    Yeah, it’s it’s check checkbook finance. Right. Yeah, that’s funny.

    Beth (20:32.899)

    Yeah.

    Victoria Sivrais (20:35.011)

    So I mean it’s so I I go back to the that the money moves that matter every day of the week. And I think secondarily the building the kitchen cabinet, knowing what you’re good at and what you’re not, and how to supplement where your weakness is is critically important too.

    John Jantsch (20:39.822)

    Yeah, yeah, awesome.

    John Jantsch (20:51.232)

    Awesome. Well again, Beth Victoria, I appreciate you stopping by and talking about Entrepreneur Like a Mother. is there anywhere you would invite people to connect with you, find out more about the book?

    Beth (21:02.583)

    Yeah, for sure. So it is available for pre order on Amazon. But if you go through female mavericks dot com, you actually get the course as well, which is pretty cool. And if you only have ten minute increments or ten minutes of tolerance for us a day, that’s another way to do it.

    John Jantsch (21:15.246)

    Mm-hmm.

    Victoria Sivrais (21:17.325)

    And we’ll share a code for a ten percent discount on the book as well as the code through our website.

    John Jantsch (21:22.158)

    Okay, awesome. We’ll do that quickly ’cause we’re gonna publish the show and it within gosh to get it out around launch time, depending upon when you guys are listening to this show. It comes out in September, but it will be available after September twenty second. We’ll have a link in the show notes as well. So again, appreciate it and hopefully we’ll run into you one or both of you somewhere out there on the road.

    Victoria Sivrais (21:30.884)

    Yeah.

    Beth (21:44.675)

    Thanks, John. Bye.

    Victoria Sivrais (21:44.717)

    Awesome. Thank you so much, John.

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  • How to Build a Business That Can Grow Without You

    How to Build a Business That Can Grow Without You

    How to Build a Business That Can Grow Without You written by Alex McQueen read more at Duct Tape Marketing

    Catch the Full Episode: Overview Victoria Sivrais and Beth Mazza join John Jantsch on the show to explain how they built a service firm designed to sell from the start. They dig into why so many consultants slide into a job instead of a company, and what changes once selling the business becomes part of […]

    How to Build a Business That Can Grow Without You written by Alex McQueen read more at Duct Tape Marketing

    Catch the Full Episode:

    Overview

    Duct Tape Marketing Podcast cover featuring host John Jantsch, with guests Victoria Sivrais and Beth Mazza, for the episode How to Build a Business That Can Grow Without YouVictoria Sivrais and Beth Mazza join John Jantsch on the show to explain how they built a service firm designed to sell from the start. They dig into why so many consultants slide into a job instead of a company, and what changes once selling the business becomes part of the plan from day one.

    The conversation covers Sivrais and Mazza’s Kitchen Cabinet framework (a champion, a compensator, and a connector who cover the ground a co-founder would normally handle), the shift from an expertise-dependent business to a system-dependent one, and the cash discipline that let their firm invest in growth without taking on debt.

    This episode is for solo consultants, fractional CMOs, and service business owners who want a business that doesn’t depend on them for every deal, whether or not a sale is the end goal. Sivrais and Mazza also explain why they put money into cold outreach when most advisory firms lean on referrals alone, including the 10% of revenue they invested in sales and marketing from their earliest days as a two-person shop.

    Guest Bio

    Victoria Sivrais and Beth Mazza co-founded Clermont Partners, an ESG and investor relations firm, in 2015. The two advised S&P 500 boards through high-stakes decisions and grew the firm to profitability before selling it to Riveron Consulting in 2022. Sivrais and Mazza are also co-founders of Female Mavericks and co-authors of the new book Entrepreneur Like a Mother: Build a Company That Buys You Freedom, Not One That Owns Your Life, out September 22 from Wiley.

    Key Takeaways

    • Make sales the priority from day one. Building something you can eventually sell means chasing growth and brand-building early, not settling into a slower, lifestyle pace.
    • Build a Kitchen Cabinet even if you’re working alone. A champion, a compensator, and a connector can fill the gaps a co-founder would normally cover.
    • Track your margin as closely as your revenue. Sivrais and Mazza targeted a 30% margin, paid vendors at net 45, and collected from clients at net 30 to keep a cash cushion.
    • Shift from an expertise-dependent business to a system-dependent one. Training a team to do what you do is what lets a service business scale past what one person can sell or deliver.
    • Put money behind sales and marketing before the returns show up. Mazza and Sivrais invested 10% of revenue into sales and marketing when they were just two people, and paired cold outreach with thought leadership that built their SEO ranking and got prospects to pick up the phone.

    Great Moments

    • [04:44] – John asks whether one person can be the champion, compensator, and connector at once. Sivrais and Mazza explain why they built the roles out with different people over several years.
    • [09:22] – Sivrais walks through all five Power Moves in the book, from sizing a total addressable market to scaling, and notes you can start wherever your business happens to be.
    • [11:15] – John asks, half-joking, whether men can read a book called Entrepreneur Like a Mother. Mazza points out how many of their Female Mavericks community members are men.
    • [15:05] – John and Sivrais unpack the case for cold outreach, a channel most advisory firms avoid, and how thought leadership made those calls land.
    • [18:22] – Sivrais and Mazza trace their fast-decide-then-correct instincts back to their entrepreneurial fathers, and in Sivrais’s case, a grandfather she never met.

    Memorable Quotes

    • “Side hustles don’t give you financial freedom. They don’t pay for your kids’ college, they don’t pay for your house, and they don’t pay for you to retire early.” – Beth Mazza
    • “As a small firm, we ran up some big marketing bills investing in thought leadership early on, but by the time we sold Clermont Partners, half of our business was coming from that effort.” – Beth Mazza
    • “Unless you can put your expertise into a system, and then hire, train, and support a team that can do almost what you can do, you cannot scale.” – Beth Mazza
    • “At Clermont Partners, we paid vendors at net 45 but collected from clients at net 30, so we always had a cash cushion in between.” – Victoria Sivrais
    • “The point is, you can be both a business owner and a mother. We’re sick of the myth that says you have to choose, and we’re trying to break it.” – Victoria Sivrais

    Resources

    • Entrepreneur Like a Mother: Build a Company That Buys You Freedom, Not One That Owns Your Life (Book on Amazon)
    • Female Mavericks (Website)

     

    Email

    Download

    New Tab

    John Jantsch (00:01.122)

    So most consultants build a business around what they’re good at. A smaller number build one that they can actually sell. The difference between those two paths shows up probably pretty quickly, long before anyone’s shopping for a buyer, that is. And usually it’s invisible to the person living it. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch, my guest today. I have two guests: Beth.

    Mazza and Victoria Sivrais. They’re serial entrepreneurs, collective moms of nine, who built and exited two successful professional service firms that advise SP leaders through make or break decisions, equal parts, boardroom powerhouses, and chaos managers. They’re now on a mission to help 10,000 women build seven-figure businesses. So, Beth and Victoria, welcome to the show.

    Beth (00:50.765)

    Thanks. We’re happy to be here, John. Thank you. No.

    Victoria Sivrais (00:51.513)

    Thanks so much.

    John Jantsch (00:52.834)

    Did did I butcher either one of your names? I ch I I hopefully not. Good, good, good. Awesome. Well, so I have to start by telling you that I have nine siblings, if that counts for anything. So so so I do I do have a sense of and there was only f 14 years between the ten of us, so I do have a sense of a little bit of what you guys are going through. Right. I only have four kids of my own, but but the the ten ten f

    Victoria Sivrais (00:56.239)

    You got it. I’m impressed.

    Beth (01:03.416)

    Hmm.

    Victoria Sivrais (01:04.303)

    Really?

    Beth (01:12.05)

    Whoa. So you kept chaos.

    Victoria Sivrais (01:13.187)

    That’s incredible.

    Beth (01:19.289)

    So do I.

    John Jantsch (01:21.304)

    10 member family was quite something. So let’s jump into I I want to start with this may feel like a challenge, but I I know you guys have the answer to this. but I want to start with this sort of disconnect for me. As I read your bio and you know, S P five hundred, you know, make or break decisions. and then I look at the the title of the book, which I actually I forgot I forgot wasn’t in the in the bio, so I’ll

    Beth (01:25.293)

    Yeah.

    John Jantsch (01:50.999)

    Read it out right now. entrepreneur like a mother. Build a company that buys your freedom and not one that owns your life. And, you know, that sounds a little more like a lifestyle business book that maybe is different from you know what what I read in your bios. So help our listeners understand where where where I’m getting that wrong.

    Beth (02:13.767)

    yeah, that no, that’s a fair question. So two things. One is side hustles don’t give you financial freedom. They don’t pay for your kids’ college. They don’t pay for your house. They don’t pay for you to retire at the age as we did. So our number one premise behind this book is you gotta build a business where you get financial freedom. And you can do that if you choose the right business model and you set some of the right barriers from day one of your business. And

    John Jantsch (02:22.221)

    Right.

    Beth (02:40.801)

    Literally the entire book is about when we did that successfully, which we did a lot, and when we did that unsuccessfully, which also was a lot.

    John Jantsch (02:48.44)

    Sure, sure. Well, that’s the only way you learn one from the other, right? so so a lot of what you talk about is the idea of of building your your first business, planning to sell it. and I think a lot of people, I I I can’t imagine there are too many people that that’s not the dream. however, you know, you get sort of stuck in the day-to-day and it’s like, no, I’m just trying to pay the bills or pay myself, and it turns into a job, not a business even. So how did you

    How did you make that decision? What did you do that changed, you know, how you went to business that that you know, in into business that that really made that happen for you?

    Victoria Sivrais (03:26.979)

    Yeah. So I I think from our perspective, sales became the center of everything we did from day one. So I think when you are trying to create a lifestyle business or one that just kind of is a replacement to your corporate salary, I think there is a a slowness of it sometimes. Maybe take your time. It was never our mentality. From day one, it is

    How can you get more clients? How can you build our brand? And how can you expand to a point where you have a scalable business that then becomes attractive to a buyer? So I think that that was number one. Now, where I what I personally fell short, somewhere in the middle of that, was I couldn’t give up control about some of the more mundane tasks that were necessary to run the b business forward. So I was lucky enough to have a business partner.

    John Jantsch (04:13.133)

    Mm.

    Victoria Sivrais (04:20.205)

    That was, hey, it’s time to, it’s time to take invoicing off your plate. It’s time to take HR. It’s time to hire the HR manager. It’s time to hire someone that can actually run the office on a day to day basis. And that is, I think, what became the difference of we were creating a lifestyle business to a scalable business that that we could sell one day.

    John Jantsch (04:44.782)

    Well, and I think you aptly refer to that as a kitchen cabinet idea, or at least that that to have like, you know, a champion, a compensator, and a connector. is that something that can be one person that has three personalities? Does that definitely need to be outside people? you know, that like I have this skill set, you have that skill set. is that something you decide from day really early on? Or when you decided you wanted to change this business at least?

    Beth (05:07.971)

    Yeah, I think

    I think there’s no way we as moms, unless we had a cabinet, could do this, right? Cause we needed cheerleading, we needed like people to pick up our kids when we were our flight was delayed. But then we also needed really, really big thinkers. We built a software product. Like we needed a big software guy that we didn’t know anything about. So we did it very methodically, which is how we’ve we’ve written it in Hunterprel Like a Mother. Three types, champions, connectors, compensators, and we built it.

    Over a few years, and we did as much asking of favors as we did giving of favors, and we paid it as much for it as possible. But I mean, two members of our kitchen cabinet, one saved us from signing a very bad deal to sell our company, two did. And at least two to three of them made the introductions for the clients that paid us a lot of money, especially in a post-COVID world where those were not coming very quickly.

    John Jantsch (05:43.053)

    Mm-hmm.

    Beth (06:09.781)

    So it’s it is a long term, it is many people that you keep up with, that you spend twenty minutes a day with with, but it’s also what you do from day one of the business. You’re always thinking about building that.

    John Jantsch (06:23.446)

    D do you think that that you had or do you think that it takes a different sort of investment mindset in in the business than most people have? Cause again, a lot of people get in, they get a client and then they want the next client and then it’s like, you know, we’re we’re just trying to keep this thing going, you know, hustle work. Did did you have a different investment mentality than that?

    Victoria Sivrais (06:45.019)

    a hundred percent we did. So, like, I mean, yes, it was about building clients in and building revenues in the early days. but it then became how are we gonna have an expense structure? Cause our our goal from the get-go was to run 30% margins, which is very attractive in a professional services business. And so our investments what were centered around

    not only driving growth at the top line, but maintaining and expanding that margin that was, you know, break even in the early days to to the the goal of the 30% margin. So like as a result, like our power move three is make the money moves that matter. And that is all about the financial non negotiables, not only personally as a as a woman raising a family and building a business, but also within the business, what are you willing to do?

    John Jantsch (07:24.567)

    Yeah.

    Victoria Sivrais (07:36.586)

    Achieve your goals. So, like a couple of our goals were we only paid out at net 45 to our vendors, but we were pretty slavish to collecting it net 30. So we had a nice cash cushion in between. You know, we never had our expense line go above our retained revenues because half of our business was project revenues, but we never took that expense structure over our retained revenues. So we knew we had the flexibility for investment in later, and we only took on debt.

    John Jantsch (07:57.654)

    Mm.

    Victoria Sivrais (08:05.291)

    if we knew we had an identif identifiable return on that investment. It was just those were three of our non-negotiables that we always had.

    Beth (08:14.423)

    And the one other thing we did is we invested in sales and marketing. When we were two people, we were putting 10% of what we made into sales and marketing. We put out really good thought leadership that we wanted SP 500, 1,000 CEOs to read. We figured out real early we could not get it read if we just sent them emails. And we invested in marketing. We were very early on SEO. We did all that to get the marketing out to make sure that.

    the influencer to the CEO or the CEO himself saw our thought leadership, which as a really small firm, we had some really big bills, but that was a total investment. And we by the time we sold 50% of our business came from that effort. Come there were calls in from that effort.

    John Jantsch (08:59.172)

    Okay.

    S so so in the eight minutes and or nine minutes now and four seconds we’ve been talking, you’ve actually demonstrated more business savvy than most people have, let’s face it. So what how do you translate that in your book to somebody who maybe hasn’t you know, really some of the things you’re throwing out hasn’t even considered?

    Victoria Sivrais (09:22.509)

    You you know, we we put it in the framework of these five power moves. And honestly, we really, we really, I people would say we dumbed it down. We didn’t. We actually brought it down to a level that we needed when we were learning ourselves. And we tried to be as explicit and as prescriptive as we possibly can. So, like power move one is all about whether or not it’s a passion project or actually a really viable business idea. So we start with what is your total addressable math.

    Market, how do you figure out what your total addressable market is? And how do you figure out how you’re going to capture a portion of that that makes it a seven-figure business? Then we start to talk about, you know, build the network with your kitchen cabinet. Like where, you know, most entrepreneurs tend to be control freaks, a, you know, type A people that think they’re great at everything. The skinny is you’re not. So like figure out what you’re not good at and figure out where you can kind of support that.

    John Jantsch (10:09.646)

    Sure.

    Victoria Sivrais (10:18.713)

    Then we talk about the money moves that matter. Then we talk about, which is honestly a favorite of both of ours, is respect the pivot. Like understand that when things aren’t going the right way, you gotta be able to dodge and weave as quickly as you possibly can. And then the last piece is really once you have a business that is moving, now how do you scale it? And I think that those are the pieces. And again, depending on where you’re at in your business, you can pick up in any one of those places.

    And I think that that is the beauty of this framework that we’ve created, is that you can jump in wherever you’re at with your business.

    Beth (10:52.621)

    I mean, this this book is intentionally so prescriptive. You literally have your pen and you’re writing this stuff down. There are worksheets, there are questions. We give our real world examples. Times we did great things and terrible things, and it’s all in there so that not only do you know what to do, but you can also feel better that two idiots figured out a way to make it work too.

    John Jantsch (11:15.98)

    All right, so you can smack me for this question if you want, later at least. is could can men read this book.

    Beth (11:24.397)

    My God. Do you know how many female mavericks are men? Like we never talk about that. So many of them are men.

    Victoria Sivrais (11:24.409)

    Hundred percent. I mean a hundred percent. I mean

    Victoria Sivrais (11:32.976)

    Can we also talk about that between the two of us, we have six brothers? Like we are the two women and a lot of men in our life. And so like it’s not meant. We wrote it in the idea, because I think a lot of times women, particularly women who want to be mothers, are told that they can either be a business owner or they can be a mother. And the point is, is you can do both. Like we’re sick of that myth and we’re trying to break the break the glass on that myth.

    John Jantsch (11:38.131)

    Ha ha

    Beth (11:39.811)

    Yeah.

    John Jantsch (11:50.304)

    Mm-hmm. Right.

    Victoria Sivrais (11:59.746)

    Men doing the same thing, and especially now, men versus like when my parents were growing up and you know there was no mom out in the workplace, like dads are just as involved with the kids versus where they used to be. And so, like, my husband is a hundred percent partner of mine. He is, I mean, we were just negotiating who’s picking up kids this afternoon because I had this podcast. So, like, I mean, those business owners, well, and even honestly.

    John Jantsch (12:08.579)

    Yeah.

    John Jantsch (12:17.411)

    Yeah. Right.

    Victoria Sivrais (12:26.667)

    ambitious men and women within corporate America. I think there’s a lot of pieces that you can take out of this, particularly around the the building of the kitchen cabin and respecting a pivot. Like those are just clear things that help you drive your business forward, whether or not corporate or entrepreneur.

    Beth (12:44.771)

    But men should pay full price for it. Women think it’s just men should pay just for everything you put us through through the generations.

    John Jantsch (12:45.197)

    So yeah. Hey, I think it’s fair. so there one concept you talk about is expertise dependent businesses versus system dependent businesses. talk a little bit about what that looks like and why that’s an important concept.

    Victoria Sivrais (12:46.873)

    For sure. We’ll give the ladies a discount. Yeah.

    Beth (12:54.819)

    Ha ha.

    Beth (13:10.029)

    Yeah, I think this is a big one. We as women, we only want to do the things that we’re best at. So we tend to, I think, begin expertise driven businesses, which is what Victoria and I did as well. But expertise driven businesses, unless you are in like some amazing area where you can charge 50,000 an hour, you are maxed, right? You are maxed how much you can make. And and you’re you’re also giving up like so much of your life in in being the go to person.

    What we learned, because we scaled twice, right? And so we we learned a lot, is unless you can put your expertise into some kind of a system, and then you can hire, retain, train, support, empower a team of people that can do almost what you can do, you can’t scale. It doesn’t matter if you have AI, it doesn’t matter what you have, you cannot scale. You have high-profile people that want to talk to a human being that’s competent. So

    We really learned in that second business. And some of that was driven by our own employees saying, You’re not even giving us a shot on goal. You’re not even letting us get a shot to talk to a CEO. You haven’t trained us. And we both really stepped back and we really invested there. And we turned out selling the company with seven or eight people that could do what we did. They all got a small piece of the business. They all have great careers. But I mean, that was a big investment from us. So, like if you want to be bigger, you want

    John Jantsch (14:17.439)

    Yeah.

    John Jantsch (14:30.819)

    Yeah. Yeah.

    Beth (14:34.273)

    Your kids not to have college debt, you’ve got to figure out a system driven business.

    John Jantsch (14:38.967)

    Yeah, I am. you know, I w we work with a lot of business owners and I mean the the one thing I counsel them on all the time is, you know, until you’re no longer the rainmaker, you know, you’re stuck. And I think that’s really to me, that’s the really the big one. If you know if that’s if you’re the only person that can sell the big deal, then you’re you’re never gonna get out of this thing. So what one of the things that I read that

    Victoria Sivrais (14:44.319)

    Mm.

    Victoria Sivrais (14:50.115)

    No

    Victoria Sivrais (15:00.367)

    Agreed.

    John Jantsch (15:05.495)

    the seventy-five percent of your cash w went into cold outreach from day one. that’s almost taboo for like consulting, you know, type businesses. It’s like, no, you build your network of trust and you get referrals. And so so talk a little bit about that math for a high touch advisory firm.

    Victoria Sivrais (15:24.023)

    I mean, you d we call it in the book, we call it caveman marketing. Cause I mean, it really was. I mean, it was a numbers game in the beginning, in terms of the cold outreach. For every ten calls we made, we got one meeting, you know, or every a hundred calls we made, we got 10 meetings, we got one close. Like it just it was what it was. What I think we did very interestingly to support that was not just the cold calling. It was up front, we made a ton of investment in that thought leadership that Beth talked about a little bit ago, which was

    John Jantsch (15:28.099)

    Yeah.

    Victoria Sivrais (15:53.302)

    Not cold emails selling our services. It was it was expanding and sharing our expertise around areas that mattered to the C-suite and the board of directors of these large public companies. And we never asked for anything from it. We honestly just would share as much as they listen to it. And honestly, in in COVID is where it really, really took off because you know, that March date, March 16th.

    All of our public companies just stopped paying us. All of our huge pipeline just stopped responding to us. No one knew. We were working a hundred hours a week trying to assuage all the concerns on Wall Street that every public company was going belly up. Like we didn’t have anything to do except for just kind of maintain our client base. So in our spare time, which we had so much of it, we just wrote about what was happening out in the market. And we just kept on sending out

    John Jantsch (16:24.319)

    Mm-hmm. Right.

    John Jantsch (16:44.046)

    Mm.

    John Jantsch (16:48.771)

    Yeah.

    Victoria Sivrais (16:49.775)

    Thought leadership after thought leadership, we did really basic roundups of by industry, how people are talking about financial position, cash on hand, investments, all of those things. And that drove our SEO, which became us the number one ranking in both our core business, which was investor relations, and our growth business, which was ESG communications consulting. And so when the world started to slowly open back up that summer.

    John Jantsch (17:04.441)

    Yeah.

    Victoria Sivrais (17:17.827)

    They said, okay, there’s all these mandates that we have to do. Who should we call? you know, those ladies that never stop emailing us about all the things that are happening. And it opened the floodgates. And so it didn’t stop us from our cold outreach. We still did that. But when we got there, we had built such great brand recognition that they picked up the phone when we called.

    John Jantsch (17:24.431)

    Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    John Jantsch (17:36.11)

    Yeah.

    All while homeschooling at the same time, right?

    Victoria Sivrais (17:41.347)

    For sure. For sure. My

    Beth (17:42.027)

    okay, we can’t. We’re like BTSD. I mean. But I mean, the one thing I want to add on to that is that SEO was super expensive. We invested a lot. AI is not the ability to be found on AI is a different game. And we always talk about, my God, how much higher would our margins have been if we have AI and figured it out?

    Victoria Sivrais (17:48.868)

    Bye.

    John Jantsch (17:54.201)

    Yeah.

    John Jantsch (18:07.874)

    Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no question. Did

    Victoria Sivrais (18:09.081)

    Totally.

    Beth (18:11.021)

    And you can be so super localized with AI too that it’s for smaller or very localized businesses too.

    John Jantsch (18:15.616)

    Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I’m curious, did either one of you have entrepreneurial upbringings?

    Beth (18:22.393)

    We both did. My we both did. My my dad is a serial entrepreneur, my biggest supporter. Both my brothers are entrepreneurs, Victoria.

    Victoria Sivrais (18:23.855)

    You got.

    John Jantsch (18:24.97)

    Yeah.

    Victoria Sivrais (18:34.425)

    Yep, my dad’s an entrepreneur and and his dad, who I actually never had the luxury of meeting, had I can’t even count the number of businesses that they’ve told me he’s had. And my brothers followed in the same footstep too. So like it it is there. So maybe it is a little bit in our blood.

    Beth (18:50.719)

    And like at my family dinner is if you had to admit that you worked for someone else, everyone was like, For shame, you know, so you didn’t have that.

    John Jantsch (18:56.586)

    Yeah. So I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by and and share some of the insights here. But if somebody’s listening runs a business whether alone or they have a team, what would be the first thing you call them power moves? What would be maybe the first power move you would say? Obviously you don’t know who these businesses are or what they’re doing, but but what do you typically find like this is the first hole to plug?

    Beth (19:23.223)

    It’s always the money moves. It’s always that we look at the PL and go, what are you paying an executive coach for? Or if you increased your prices five percent, my God, this would change your take. So we want it to be softer than that, but God, it’s always that make the money moves that matter.

    Victoria Sivrais (19:24.918)

    Always.

    Victoria Sivrais (19:41.027)

    I mean, we talk to business owners all the time, and almost I would say one out of every four, they’re telling me, yeah, we’re I’m making a ton of money. Like blah, blah, blah. Okay. So less your expenses, how much are you taking home? well, nothing. And okay. So you’re not actually making money. Like, I mean, it is pretty basic like that, I think. And honest to God, like in the early days of Claremont.

    John Jantsch (19:58.499)

    Yeah.

    John Jantsch (20:02.606)

    Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    Victoria Sivrais (20:09.943)

    it was something that I didn’t know. Like it like pure cash I knew a profit and loss statement, but pure cash management about paying a vendor after you’ve been paid by your clients. It never had occurred to me, to be honest. Like I I figured I just want to stay on top of my bills. Like there are real basics of of building Yeah, totally.

    John Jantsch (20:22.478)

    Right.

    John Jantsch (20:28.354)

    Yeah, it’s it’s check checkbook finance. Right. Yeah, that’s funny.

    Beth (20:32.899)

    Yeah.

    Victoria Sivrais (20:35.011)

    So I mean it’s so I I go back to the that the money moves that matter every day of the week. And I think secondarily the building the kitchen cabinet, knowing what you’re good at and what you’re not, and how to supplement where your weakness is is critically important too.

    John Jantsch (20:39.822)

    Yeah, yeah, awesome.

    John Jantsch (20:51.232)

    Awesome. Well again, Beth Victoria, I appreciate you stopping by and talking about Entrepreneur Like a Mother. is there anywhere you would invite people to connect with you, find out more about the book?

    Beth (21:02.583)

    Yeah, for sure. So it is available for pre order on Amazon. But if you go through female mavericks dot com, you actually get the course as well, which is pretty cool. And if you only have ten minute increments or ten minutes of tolerance for us a day, that’s another way to do it.

    John Jantsch (21:15.246)

    Mm-hmm.

    Victoria Sivrais (21:17.325)

    And we’ll share a code for a ten percent discount on the book as well as the code through our website.

    John Jantsch (21:22.158)

    Okay, awesome. We’ll do that quickly ’cause we’re gonna publish the show and it within gosh to get it out around launch time, depending upon when you guys are listening to this show. It comes out in September, but it will be available after September twenty second. We’ll have a link in the show notes as well. So again, appreciate it and hopefully we’ll run into you one or both of you somewhere out there on the road.

    Victoria Sivrais (21:30.884)

    Yeah.

    Beth (21:44.675)

    Thanks, John. Bye.

    Victoria Sivrais (21:44.717)

    Awesome. Thank you so much, John.

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  • 15 Things We Can No Longer Imagine Without Our Smart Phones

    15 Things We Can No Longer Imagine Without Our Smart Phones

    Smartphones have become so deeply woven into everyday life that it is easy to forget how many separate tasks they quietly took over. Getting somewhere unfamiliar once meant printing directions or unfolding a map, taking photos required remembering a camera, and hearing a song outside the house meant carrying an entirely different device. Now we barely think twice before reaching into our pockets to solve all of those problems in seconds. Even small conveniences, like checking the weather or calculating a tip, can suddenly feel surprisingly difficult when our phones are dead or missing. One little screen has essentially become a camera, map, wallet, planner, encyclopedia, and much more. Here are 15 things we can no longer imagine without our smartphones.

    The post 15 Things We Can No Longer Imagine Without Our Smart Phones appeared first on Den of Geek.

    There are many shows that are set in the past, either distant or recent, using what we know of that era to shape their stories. It can be used as a colorful background, or as a key aspect of the story due to historical events or limitations of the era. If your audience has nostalgia about it, all the better, and a great deal of nostalgia is saved for the 1970s.

    The best examples don’t simply throw some bell-bottoms and carpeting onto a modern script, they make it part of their identity. From fictional families and ambitious musicians to real-life criminals and historical scandals, these shows offer very different windows into a fascinating decade.

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    That ’70s Show

    Eric Forman and his friends navigate adolescence in Point Place, Wisconsin, beginning in 1976 and eventually reaching New Year’s Eve 1979. The sitcom uses teenage misadventures to explore the decade’s music, fashion, drugs, relationships, and generational conflicts.

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    The Deuce

    Set primarily in 1970s New York, The Deuce follows the interconnected worlds of prostitution, organized crime, and the emerging adult industry around Times Square. Its first season begins in 1971, offering a gritty portrait of the city’s changing sexual economy.

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    Mindhunter

    Netflix’s Mindhunter begins in 1977, following FBI agents Holden Ford and Bill Tench as they interview imprisoned murderers to develop a new approach to criminal psychology. The series blends fictionalized investigations with real serial killers and late-1970s atmosphere.

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    Vinyl

    Vinyl drops viewers into New York’s music industry in 1973, following record executive Richie Finestra as he struggles to keep his company alive. Created by Mick Jagger, Martin Scorsese, Rich Cohen, and Terence Winter, the series captures rock’s chaotic business culture.

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    Daisy Jones & The Six

    Daisy Jones & The Six chronicles a fictional rock band’s rise during the 1970s, following its journey from Los Angeles clubs to international stardom. The story moves through years including 1975, 1976, and 1977, immersing viewers in rock’s golden age.

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    Mrs. America

    Mrs. America dramatizes the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment during the 1970s, focusing on conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly and the feminist movement opposing her. The miniseries turns a major political and cultural conflict into an intimate ensemble drama.

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    Gaslit

    Gaslit revisits the Watergate scandal beginning in 1972, but approaches the familiar story through figures surrounding Richard Nixon rather than concentrating exclusively on the president. Martha Mitchell becomes central to the drama, giving the political scandal a distinctly personal perspective.

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    The Offer

    The Offer recreates the turbulent production of The Godfather, taking viewers into 1970s Hollywood as producer Albert S. Ruddy battles studio executives, political pressure, and organized-crime concerns. The series provides a behind-the-scenes look at one of cinema’s landmark productions.

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    Minx

    Set in 1970s Los Angeles, Minx follows earnest feminist Joyce Prigger as she teams with unconventional publisher Doug Renetti to create an adult magazine aimed at women. The comedy uses the magazine business to explore changing attitudes toward sexuality and feminism.

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    The Serpent

    The Serpent dramatizes the crimes of Charles Sobhraj across Asia’s hippie trail during 1975 and 1976. The limited series follows Sobhraj, his accomplices, and diplomat Herman Knippenberg as investigators attempt to connect a string of murders involving young Western travelers.

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    The Get Down

    Set in New York’s South Bronx, The Get Down begins in 1977 and follows teenagers witnessing the emergence of hip-hop and disco. Baz Luhrmann’s musical drama combines fictional characters with real historical footage and recreates the city’s rapidly changing music culture.

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    Endeavour

    Endeavour spent most of its run in the 1960s, but its seventh season deliberately crosses into the 1970s. The season opens in 1970, with young Detective Constable Morse investigating murders while Oxford experiences political tensions and social change.

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    A Friend of the Family

    This true-crime miniseries takes place during the 1970s and dramatizes the Broberg family’s horrifying encounters with Robert Berchtold, who repeatedly kidnapped their daughter Jan. The series explores how manipulation and misplaced trust allowed the abuse to continue.

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    Good Girls Revolt

    Good Girls Revolt begins in 1969 and continues into the early 1970s, following young female researchers at a fictional news magazine who challenge workplace discrimination. The series explores the professional inequalities that helped fuel the women’s liberation movement.

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    Life on Mars

    In Life on Mars, modern police detective Sam Tyler wakes after an accident and finds himself apparently transported to 1973 Manchester. The series uses its strange premise to combine police procedural storytelling with a sharply contrasting vision of early-1970s policing.

    The post 15 of the Best Shows Set In The 1970s appeared first on Den of Geek.

  • 15 Movie Details That Were Never Explained, and Still Drive Us Crazy

    15 Movie Details That Were Never Explained, and Still Drive Us Crazy

    Some movies leave you with questions that never quite go away. A character notices something strange, a mysterious object appears for a moment, or a seemingly important detail gets introduced without ever receiving an explanation. Sometimes it feels intentional, sometimes it seems like something the filmmakers simply forgot, but either way, viewers are left filling in the blanks themselves. Years later, fans are still debating what certain moments were supposed to mean, why a character behaved that way, or what happened to something the movie quietly abandoned. Here are fifteen movie details that were never properly explained and still drive audiences crazy.

    The post 15 Movie Details That Were Never Explained, and Still Drive Us Crazy appeared first on Den of Geek.

    There are many shows that are set in the past, either distant or recent, using what we know of that era to shape their stories. It can be used as a colorful background, or as a key aspect of the story due to historical events or limitations of the era. If your audience has nostalgia about it, all the better, and a great deal of nostalgia is saved for the 1970s.

    The best examples don’t simply throw some bell-bottoms and carpeting onto a modern script, they make it part of their identity. From fictional families and ambitious musicians to real-life criminals and historical scandals, these shows offer very different windows into a fascinating decade.

    cnx.cmd.push(function() {
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    That ’70s Show

    Eric Forman and his friends navigate adolescence in Point Place, Wisconsin, beginning in 1976 and eventually reaching New Year’s Eve 1979. The sitcom uses teenage misadventures to explore the decade’s music, fashion, drugs, relationships, and generational conflicts.

    IMDb

    The Deuce

    Set primarily in 1970s New York, The Deuce follows the interconnected worlds of prostitution, organized crime, and the emerging adult industry around Times Square. Its first season begins in 1971, offering a gritty portrait of the city’s changing sexual economy.

    IMDb

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    Netflix’s Mindhunter begins in 1977, following FBI agents Holden Ford and Bill Tench as they interview imprisoned murderers to develop a new approach to criminal psychology. The series blends fictionalized investigations with real serial killers and late-1970s atmosphere.

    IMDb

    Vinyl

    Vinyl drops viewers into New York’s music industry in 1973, following record executive Richie Finestra as he struggles to keep his company alive. Created by Mick Jagger, Martin Scorsese, Rich Cohen, and Terence Winter, the series captures rock’s chaotic business culture.

    IMDb

    Daisy Jones & The Six

    Daisy Jones & The Six chronicles a fictional rock band’s rise during the 1970s, following its journey from Los Angeles clubs to international stardom. The story moves through years including 1975, 1976, and 1977, immersing viewers in rock’s golden age.

    IMDb

    Mrs. America

    Mrs. America dramatizes the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment during the 1970s, focusing on conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly and the feminist movement opposing her. The miniseries turns a major political and cultural conflict into an intimate ensemble drama.

    IMDb

    Gaslit

    Gaslit revisits the Watergate scandal beginning in 1972, but approaches the familiar story through figures surrounding Richard Nixon rather than concentrating exclusively on the president. Martha Mitchell becomes central to the drama, giving the political scandal a distinctly personal perspective.

    IMDb

    The Offer

    The Offer recreates the turbulent production of The Godfather, taking viewers into 1970s Hollywood as producer Albert S. Ruddy battles studio executives, political pressure, and organized-crime concerns. The series provides a behind-the-scenes look at one of cinema’s landmark productions.

    IMDb

    Minx

    Set in 1970s Los Angeles, Minx follows earnest feminist Joyce Prigger as she teams with unconventional publisher Doug Renetti to create an adult magazine aimed at women. The comedy uses the magazine business to explore changing attitudes toward sexuality and feminism.

    IMDb

    The Serpent

    The Serpent dramatizes the crimes of Charles Sobhraj across Asia’s hippie trail during 1975 and 1976. The limited series follows Sobhraj, his accomplices, and diplomat Herman Knippenberg as investigators attempt to connect a string of murders involving young Western travelers.

    IMDb

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    IMDb

    Endeavour

    Endeavour spent most of its run in the 1960s, but its seventh season deliberately crosses into the 1970s. The season opens in 1970, with young Detective Constable Morse investigating murders while Oxford experiences political tensions and social change.

    IMDb

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    This true-crime miniseries takes place during the 1970s and dramatizes the Broberg family’s horrifying encounters with Robert Berchtold, who repeatedly kidnapped their daughter Jan. The series explores how manipulation and misplaced trust allowed the abuse to continue.

    IMDb

    Good Girls Revolt

    Good Girls Revolt begins in 1969 and continues into the early 1970s, following young female researchers at a fictional news magazine who challenge workplace discrimination. The series explores the professional inequalities that helped fuel the women’s liberation movement.

    IMDb

    Life on Mars

    In Life on Mars, modern police detective Sam Tyler wakes after an accident and finds himself apparently transported to 1973 Manchester. The series uses its strange premise to combine police procedural storytelling with a sharply contrasting vision of early-1970s policing.

    The post 15 of the Best Shows Set In The 1970s appeared first on Den of Geek.

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    There are many shows that are set in the past, either distant or recent, using what we know of that era to shape their stories. It can be used as a colorful background, or as a key aspect of the story due to historical events or limitations of the era. If your audience has nostalgia about it, all the better, and a great deal of nostalgia is saved for the 1970s.

    The best examples don’t simply throw some bell-bottoms and carpeting onto a modern script, they make it part of their identity. From fictional families and ambitious musicians to real-life criminals and historical scandals, these shows offer very different windows into a fascinating decade.

    cnx.cmd.push(function() {
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    IMDb

    That ’70s Show

    Eric Forman and his friends navigate adolescence in Point Place, Wisconsin, beginning in 1976 and eventually reaching New Year’s Eve 1979. The sitcom uses teenage misadventures to explore the decade’s music, fashion, drugs, relationships, and generational conflicts.

    IMDb

    The Deuce

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    IMDb

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    IMDb

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    IMDb

    Daisy Jones & The Six

    Daisy Jones & The Six chronicles a fictional rock band’s rise during the 1970s, following its journey from Los Angeles clubs to international stardom. The story moves through years including 1975, 1976, and 1977, immersing viewers in rock’s golden age.

    IMDb

    Mrs. America

    Mrs. America dramatizes the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment during the 1970s, focusing on conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly and the feminist movement opposing her. The miniseries turns a major political and cultural conflict into an intimate ensemble drama.

    IMDb

    Gaslit

    Gaslit revisits the Watergate scandal beginning in 1972, but approaches the familiar story through figures surrounding Richard Nixon rather than concentrating exclusively on the president. Martha Mitchell becomes central to the drama, giving the political scandal a distinctly personal perspective.

    IMDb

    The Offer

    The Offer recreates the turbulent production of The Godfather, taking viewers into 1970s Hollywood as producer Albert S. Ruddy battles studio executives, political pressure, and organized-crime concerns. The series provides a behind-the-scenes look at one of cinema’s landmark productions.

    IMDb

    Minx

    Set in 1970s Los Angeles, Minx follows earnest feminist Joyce Prigger as she teams with unconventional publisher Doug Renetti to create an adult magazine aimed at women. The comedy uses the magazine business to explore changing attitudes toward sexuality and feminism.

    IMDb

    The Serpent

    The Serpent dramatizes the crimes of Charles Sobhraj across Asia’s hippie trail during 1975 and 1976. The limited series follows Sobhraj, his accomplices, and diplomat Herman Knippenberg as investigators attempt to connect a string of murders involving young Western travelers.

    IMDb

    The Get Down

    Set in New York’s South Bronx, The Get Down begins in 1977 and follows teenagers witnessing the emergence of hip-hop and disco. Baz Luhrmann’s musical drama combines fictional characters with real historical footage and recreates the city’s rapidly changing music culture.

    IMDb

    Endeavour

    Endeavour spent most of its run in the 1960s, but its seventh season deliberately crosses into the 1970s. The season opens in 1970, with young Detective Constable Morse investigating murders while Oxford experiences political tensions and social change.

    IMDb

    A Friend of the Family

    This true-crime miniseries takes place during the 1970s and dramatizes the Broberg family’s horrifying encounters with Robert Berchtold, who repeatedly kidnapped their daughter Jan. The series explores how manipulation and misplaced trust allowed the abuse to continue.

    IMDb

    Good Girls Revolt

    Good Girls Revolt begins in 1969 and continues into the early 1970s, following young female researchers at a fictional news magazine who challenge workplace discrimination. The series explores the professional inequalities that helped fuel the women’s liberation movement.

    IMDb

    Life on Mars

    In Life on Mars, modern police detective Sam Tyler wakes after an accident and finds himself apparently transported to 1973 Manchester. The series uses its strange premise to combine police procedural storytelling with a sharply contrasting vision of early-1970s policing.

    The post 15 of the Best Shows Set In The 1970s appeared first on Den of Geek.

  • 13 Doctors Share the Things That Patients Are Most Likely to Lie About

    13 Doctors Share the Things That Patients Are Most Likely to Lie About

    Doctors hear all kinds of answers when they start asking questions that patients would rather avoid. People may forget a few details, minimize a habit, or confidently insist they follow every medical recommendation to the letter. Sometimes the lie is obvious, while other times it takes a test, an examination, or a few follow up questions to reveal what is really going on. It is rarely about patients trying to deceive their doctors for no reason. Embarrassment, fear of judgment, and anxiety about what comes next can all play a role. Here are fifteen things doctors say patients are most likely to lie about.

    The post 13 Doctors Share the Things That Patients Are Most Likely to Lie About appeared first on Den of Geek.

    There are many shows that are set in the past, either distant or recent, using what we know of that era to shape their stories. It can be used as a colorful background, or as a key aspect of the story due to historical events or limitations of the era. If your audience has nostalgia about it, all the better, and a great deal of nostalgia is saved for the 1970s.

    The best examples don’t simply throw some bell-bottoms and carpeting onto a modern script, they make it part of their identity. From fictional families and ambitious musicians to real-life criminals and historical scandals, these shows offer very different windows into a fascinating decade.

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    IMDb

    That ’70s Show

    Eric Forman and his friends navigate adolescence in Point Place, Wisconsin, beginning in 1976 and eventually reaching New Year’s Eve 1979. The sitcom uses teenage misadventures to explore the decade’s music, fashion, drugs, relationships, and generational conflicts.

    IMDb

    The Deuce

    Set primarily in 1970s New York, The Deuce follows the interconnected worlds of prostitution, organized crime, and the emerging adult industry around Times Square. Its first season begins in 1971, offering a gritty portrait of the city’s changing sexual economy.

    IMDb

    Mindhunter

    Netflix’s Mindhunter begins in 1977, following FBI agents Holden Ford and Bill Tench as they interview imprisoned murderers to develop a new approach to criminal psychology. The series blends fictionalized investigations with real serial killers and late-1970s atmosphere.

    IMDb

    Vinyl

    Vinyl drops viewers into New York’s music industry in 1973, following record executive Richie Finestra as he struggles to keep his company alive. Created by Mick Jagger, Martin Scorsese, Rich Cohen, and Terence Winter, the series captures rock’s chaotic business culture.

    IMDb

    Daisy Jones & The Six

    Daisy Jones & The Six chronicles a fictional rock band’s rise during the 1970s, following its journey from Los Angeles clubs to international stardom. The story moves through years including 1975, 1976, and 1977, immersing viewers in rock’s golden age.

    IMDb

    Mrs. America

    Mrs. America dramatizes the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment during the 1970s, focusing on conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly and the feminist movement opposing her. The miniseries turns a major political and cultural conflict into an intimate ensemble drama.

    IMDb

    Gaslit

    Gaslit revisits the Watergate scandal beginning in 1972, but approaches the familiar story through figures surrounding Richard Nixon rather than concentrating exclusively on the president. Martha Mitchell becomes central to the drama, giving the political scandal a distinctly personal perspective.

    IMDb

    The Offer

    The Offer recreates the turbulent production of The Godfather, taking viewers into 1970s Hollywood as producer Albert S. Ruddy battles studio executives, political pressure, and organized-crime concerns. The series provides a behind-the-scenes look at one of cinema’s landmark productions.

    IMDb

    Minx

    Set in 1970s Los Angeles, Minx follows earnest feminist Joyce Prigger as she teams with unconventional publisher Doug Renetti to create an adult magazine aimed at women. The comedy uses the magazine business to explore changing attitudes toward sexuality and feminism.

    IMDb

    The Serpent

    The Serpent dramatizes the crimes of Charles Sobhraj across Asia’s hippie trail during 1975 and 1976. The limited series follows Sobhraj, his accomplices, and diplomat Herman Knippenberg as investigators attempt to connect a string of murders involving young Western travelers.

    IMDb

    The Get Down

    Set in New York’s South Bronx, The Get Down begins in 1977 and follows teenagers witnessing the emergence of hip-hop and disco. Baz Luhrmann’s musical drama combines fictional characters with real historical footage and recreates the city’s rapidly changing music culture.

    IMDb

    Endeavour

    Endeavour spent most of its run in the 1960s, but its seventh season deliberately crosses into the 1970s. The season opens in 1970, with young Detective Constable Morse investigating murders while Oxford experiences political tensions and social change.

    IMDb

    A Friend of the Family

    This true-crime miniseries takes place during the 1970s and dramatizes the Broberg family’s horrifying encounters with Robert Berchtold, who repeatedly kidnapped their daughter Jan. The series explores how manipulation and misplaced trust allowed the abuse to continue.

    IMDb

    Good Girls Revolt

    Good Girls Revolt begins in 1969 and continues into the early 1970s, following young female researchers at a fictional news magazine who challenge workplace discrimination. The series explores the professional inequalities that helped fuel the women’s liberation movement.

    IMDb

    Life on Mars

    In Life on Mars, modern police detective Sam Tyler wakes after an accident and finds himself apparently transported to 1973 Manchester. The series uses its strange premise to combine police procedural storytelling with a sharply contrasting vision of early-1970s policing.

    The post 15 of the Best Shows Set In The 1970s appeared first on Den of Geek.

  • 15 Viral Movie Star Performances Before Anyone Had Social Media

    15 Viral Movie Star Performances Before Anyone Had Social Media

    There was a time when becoming a movie star meant being seen everywhere without ever posting a single thing yourself. Their faces appeared on magazine covers, billboards, television interviews and theater marquees, and fans had to wait for the next movie to see them again. Some stars became household names long before the internet became part of everyday life, building careers through unforgettable performances and carefully guarded personal lives. Their fame traveled through newspapers, fan clubs, talk shows and word of mouth, creating a very different kind of celebrity culture. These stars were already impossible to miss long before anyone could follow them online.

    The post 15 Viral Movie Star Performances Before Anyone Had Social Media appeared first on Den of Geek.

    There are many shows that are set in the past, either distant or recent, using what we know of that era to shape their stories. It can be used as a colorful background, or as a key aspect of the story due to historical events or limitations of the era. If your audience has nostalgia about it, all the better, and a great deal of nostalgia is saved for the 1970s.

    The best examples don’t simply throw some bell-bottoms and carpeting onto a modern script, they make it part of their identity. From fictional families and ambitious musicians to real-life criminals and historical scandals, these shows offer very different windows into a fascinating decade.

    cnx.cmd.push(function() {
    cnx({
    playerId: “106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530”,

    }).render(“0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796”);
    });

    IMDb

    That ’70s Show

    Eric Forman and his friends navigate adolescence in Point Place, Wisconsin, beginning in 1976 and eventually reaching New Year’s Eve 1979. The sitcom uses teenage misadventures to explore the decade’s music, fashion, drugs, relationships, and generational conflicts.

    IMDb

    The Deuce

    Set primarily in 1970s New York, The Deuce follows the interconnected worlds of prostitution, organized crime, and the emerging adult industry around Times Square. Its first season begins in 1971, offering a gritty portrait of the city’s changing sexual economy.

    IMDb

    Mindhunter

    Netflix’s Mindhunter begins in 1977, following FBI agents Holden Ford and Bill Tench as they interview imprisoned murderers to develop a new approach to criminal psychology. The series blends fictionalized investigations with real serial killers and late-1970s atmosphere.

    IMDb

    Vinyl

    Vinyl drops viewers into New York’s music industry in 1973, following record executive Richie Finestra as he struggles to keep his company alive. Created by Mick Jagger, Martin Scorsese, Rich Cohen, and Terence Winter, the series captures rock’s chaotic business culture.

    IMDb

    Daisy Jones & The Six

    Daisy Jones & The Six chronicles a fictional rock band’s rise during the 1970s, following its journey from Los Angeles clubs to international stardom. The story moves through years including 1975, 1976, and 1977, immersing viewers in rock’s golden age.

    IMDb

    Mrs. America

    Mrs. America dramatizes the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment during the 1970s, focusing on conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly and the feminist movement opposing her. The miniseries turns a major political and cultural conflict into an intimate ensemble drama.

    IMDb

    Gaslit

    Gaslit revisits the Watergate scandal beginning in 1972, but approaches the familiar story through figures surrounding Richard Nixon rather than concentrating exclusively on the president. Martha Mitchell becomes central to the drama, giving the political scandal a distinctly personal perspective.

    IMDb

    The Offer

    The Offer recreates the turbulent production of The Godfather, taking viewers into 1970s Hollywood as producer Albert S. Ruddy battles studio executives, political pressure, and organized-crime concerns. The series provides a behind-the-scenes look at one of cinema’s landmark productions.

    IMDb

    Minx

    Set in 1970s Los Angeles, Minx follows earnest feminist Joyce Prigger as she teams with unconventional publisher Doug Renetti to create an adult magazine aimed at women. The comedy uses the magazine business to explore changing attitudes toward sexuality and feminism.

    IMDb

    The Serpent

    The Serpent dramatizes the crimes of Charles Sobhraj across Asia’s hippie trail during 1975 and 1976. The limited series follows Sobhraj, his accomplices, and diplomat Herman Knippenberg as investigators attempt to connect a string of murders involving young Western travelers.

    IMDb

    The Get Down

    Set in New York’s South Bronx, The Get Down begins in 1977 and follows teenagers witnessing the emergence of hip-hop and disco. Baz Luhrmann’s musical drama combines fictional characters with real historical footage and recreates the city’s rapidly changing music culture.

    IMDb

    Endeavour

    Endeavour spent most of its run in the 1960s, but its seventh season deliberately crosses into the 1970s. The season opens in 1970, with young Detective Constable Morse investigating murders while Oxford experiences political tensions and social change.

    IMDb

    A Friend of the Family

    This true-crime miniseries takes place during the 1970s and dramatizes the Broberg family’s horrifying encounters with Robert Berchtold, who repeatedly kidnapped their daughter Jan. The series explores how manipulation and misplaced trust allowed the abuse to continue.

    IMDb

    Good Girls Revolt

    Good Girls Revolt begins in 1969 and continues into the early 1970s, following young female researchers at a fictional news magazine who challenge workplace discrimination. The series explores the professional inequalities that helped fuel the women’s liberation movement.

    IMDb

    Life on Mars

    In Life on Mars, modern police detective Sam Tyler wakes after an accident and finds himself apparently transported to 1973 Manchester. The series uses its strange premise to combine police procedural storytelling with a sharply contrasting vision of early-1970s policing.

    The post 15 of the Best Shows Set In The 1970s appeared first on Den of Geek.

  • 15 TV Shows That Somehow Got Away With the Weirdest Storylines

    15 TV Shows That Somehow Got Away With the Weirdest Storylines

    Television has always been willing to take a strange turn, but some shows pushed their stories into territory nobody could have predicted. A perfectly normal episode could suddenly involve a bizarre disappearance, an unbelievable secret, a character making an absolutely wild decision, or an entire plot built around an idea that sounds ridiculous when explained out loud. Somehow, viewers kept watching, and the story moved forward as if nothing unusual had happened. These moments are especially fun to revisit because they remind us just how much television can get away with when the characters are compelling enough. Here are 15 storylines that still make viewers wonder how they actually made it to television.

    The post 15 TV Shows That Somehow Got Away With the Weirdest Storylines appeared first on Den of Geek.

    There are many shows that are set in the past, either distant or recent, using what we know of that era to shape their stories. It can be used as a colorful background, or as a key aspect of the story due to historical events or limitations of the era. If your audience has nostalgia about it, all the better, and a great deal of nostalgia is saved for the 1970s.

    The best examples don’t simply throw some bell-bottoms and carpeting onto a modern script, they make it part of their identity. From fictional families and ambitious musicians to real-life criminals and historical scandals, these shows offer very different windows into a fascinating decade.

    cnx.cmd.push(function() {
    cnx({
    playerId: “106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530”,

    }).render(“0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796”);
    });

    IMDb

    That ’70s Show

    Eric Forman and his friends navigate adolescence in Point Place, Wisconsin, beginning in 1976 and eventually reaching New Year’s Eve 1979. The sitcom uses teenage misadventures to explore the decade’s music, fashion, drugs, relationships, and generational conflicts.

    IMDb

    The Deuce

    Set primarily in 1970s New York, The Deuce follows the interconnected worlds of prostitution, organized crime, and the emerging adult industry around Times Square. Its first season begins in 1971, offering a gritty portrait of the city’s changing sexual economy.

    IMDb

    Mindhunter

    Netflix’s Mindhunter begins in 1977, following FBI agents Holden Ford and Bill Tench as they interview imprisoned murderers to develop a new approach to criminal psychology. The series blends fictionalized investigations with real serial killers and late-1970s atmosphere.

    IMDb

    Vinyl

    Vinyl drops viewers into New York’s music industry in 1973, following record executive Richie Finestra as he struggles to keep his company alive. Created by Mick Jagger, Martin Scorsese, Rich Cohen, and Terence Winter, the series captures rock’s chaotic business culture.

    IMDb

    Daisy Jones & The Six

    Daisy Jones & The Six chronicles a fictional rock band’s rise during the 1970s, following its journey from Los Angeles clubs to international stardom. The story moves through years including 1975, 1976, and 1977, immersing viewers in rock’s golden age.

    IMDb

    Mrs. America

    Mrs. America dramatizes the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment during the 1970s, focusing on conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly and the feminist movement opposing her. The miniseries turns a major political and cultural conflict into an intimate ensemble drama.

    IMDb

    Gaslit

    Gaslit revisits the Watergate scandal beginning in 1972, but approaches the familiar story through figures surrounding Richard Nixon rather than concentrating exclusively on the president. Martha Mitchell becomes central to the drama, giving the political scandal a distinctly personal perspective.

    IMDb

    The Offer

    The Offer recreates the turbulent production of The Godfather, taking viewers into 1970s Hollywood as producer Albert S. Ruddy battles studio executives, political pressure, and organized-crime concerns. The series provides a behind-the-scenes look at one of cinema’s landmark productions.

    IMDb

    Minx

    Set in 1970s Los Angeles, Minx follows earnest feminist Joyce Prigger as she teams with unconventional publisher Doug Renetti to create an adult magazine aimed at women. The comedy uses the magazine business to explore changing attitudes toward sexuality and feminism.

    IMDb

    The Serpent

    The Serpent dramatizes the crimes of Charles Sobhraj across Asia’s hippie trail during 1975 and 1976. The limited series follows Sobhraj, his accomplices, and diplomat Herman Knippenberg as investigators attempt to connect a string of murders involving young Western travelers.

    IMDb

    The Get Down

    Set in New York’s South Bronx, The Get Down begins in 1977 and follows teenagers witnessing the emergence of hip-hop and disco. Baz Luhrmann’s musical drama combines fictional characters with real historical footage and recreates the city’s rapidly changing music culture.

    IMDb

    Endeavour

    Endeavour spent most of its run in the 1960s, but its seventh season deliberately crosses into the 1970s. The season opens in 1970, with young Detective Constable Morse investigating murders while Oxford experiences political tensions and social change.

    IMDb

    A Friend of the Family

    This true-crime miniseries takes place during the 1970s and dramatizes the Broberg family’s horrifying encounters with Robert Berchtold, who repeatedly kidnapped their daughter Jan. The series explores how manipulation and misplaced trust allowed the abuse to continue.

    IMDb

    Good Girls Revolt

    Good Girls Revolt begins in 1969 and continues into the early 1970s, following young female researchers at a fictional news magazine who challenge workplace discrimination. The series explores the professional inequalities that helped fuel the women’s liberation movement.

    IMDb

    Life on Mars

    In Life on Mars, modern police detective Sam Tyler wakes after an accident and finds himself apparently transported to 1973 Manchester. The series uses its strange premise to combine police procedural storytelling with a sharply contrasting vision of early-1970s policing.

    The post 15 of the Best Shows Set In The 1970s appeared first on Den of Geek.