The Slowdown

"Good afternoon, Ms. Laird!" I accidentally picked up a sales call from my cellphone provider. The agent thanked me for 21 years of patronage, then rattled off a list of special offers – each one raising my already astronomical monthly bill. I didn’t need a second line or home security system. What I – a loyal customer of more than two decades – wanted was to pay less; especially after I discovered my brother in law was paying less than half of what I did for the same plan. Would they price...

✨ Grab a spot at the free Just Enough Session on July 21! My beloved Toronto Blue Jays are in a slump. Like nearly 30 consecutive innings without a run kind of slump. And it seems like the harder they try… the worse they get. Until last week, when the dry spell was broken. Jonatan Clase – in his major league debut game no less! – hit a homer and when he got back to the dugout, donning the infamous home run jacket, he mugged to the camera with… a stuffed dragon? This is the shit that I love...

Just Enough Sessions return July 21! Save your seat → It's been too hot to do anything other than sitting directly under the A/C vent with an iced coffee binging Friday Night Lights so today I'm re-sharing this essay from the archives. -- My journey from Director of Communications and Marketing to Founder and Principal Growth Strategist at Slow & Steady included a stop-over in wellness (I’ll say it - it was the goop-y kind). And while my time as a holistic nutritionist was brief - it took me...

✨ Get support to stay IN your business, even when it feels hard Out on my working walk last week a book in my neighbourhood’s Little Free Library caught my eye. What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School: Notes from a Street-Smart Executive. pulled the book out and briefly thumbed through the pages of generic advice about sales (and rturning phone calls in a timely manner (Pit as published in 1984) afterall and surrounding yourself with people who can make you look good. The book...

A snapshot of the simple strategy roadmap I drew for three different clients over the past week! Your marketing could be this simple, too. ✨ Stop guessing, start growing with a Strategy Roadmap → I drew three different versions of this diagram last week. Each time I got out my Sharpie Fine Point because my client was feeling stuck spinning their wheels in the mud. Making endless tweaks to their website or boosting a social post in hopes of getting in front of new people, fast. Their actions...

✨ Trust, not trends, is the only currency that matters in 2026. Get clear on your next 90 days with a Strategy Roadmap! Remember in January when the Internet proclaimed that online courses were DEAD because Amy Porterfield retired her online course academy? That was the first thing that came to my mind when the chatter about @jessijeanhome’s $1.2 million – yes, million as in a one and six zeroes – course launch crossed my feed this week. Could this mean that… courses are so back? Not even six...

What was on the hearts and minds of Slow & Steady clients this week A word cloud from this week’s client sessions would look something like this 👆. Whether it was finding the motivation to get started, even when you know what you need or want to do. Or sticking to a plan when things start to feel hard or like you’re screaming into the void. Motivation and consistency was on the hearts and minds of many Slow & Steady clients this past week. Maybe you too? Every time when we pulled at the...

I probably couldn’t plan it this way if I tried, but there always seems to be a common theme that emerges with Slow & Steady clients at the same time. Which is to say, you’re probably not the only having those thoughts or feelings about your business. This week, it was all about building authority. The conversation started with social media – and the belief that in order to be successful, they had to use Instagram even though they didn’t really want to. “If I could just get back to posting...

“What is the Decelerator again?” Dear sweet Heather asked me this yesterday – mid-feedback on some launch materials. And I realized… if she’s wondering, you might be too. So here’s the elevator pitch, Reader: The Decelerator is a 10-week, guided growth marketing program for solo business who are putting a lot of effort into their marketing – but not seeing consistent sales from it. By the end you’ll know: ✴️ What’s actually driving sales in your business ✴️ What’s wasting precious time +...

The Creative Small Business Survey results are in! Get the full report right this way → One thing about me: I freaking love marketing metrics. The only thing better than you handing me the keys to your email dashboard or Google Search Console is the thrill of uncovering a hidden gem in the data that can change everything. Like discovering that your newsletter is driving way more sales than you thought (true story, happened in the last cohort of the Decelerator). Or that organic search is...