Send a question or message to Kate & Sam

Welcome to Episode 8 of the Roadmap to Business Success series!

If you're only using AI for content creation, you're leaving the biggest gains on the table. In this episode, Kate and Sam dive into the AI tools they actually use in their businesses every day, and discuss how to shift from using AI to do more, to using AI to work less.

"AI should handle the 80% of grunt work while you handle the 20% that requires judgment, relationships, and nuance."

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why you shouldn't be loyal to just one AI tool: Different AI platforms have different strengths, and the smartest business owners use multiple tools for different jobs.
• Claude: Why it's Kate's go-to for content creation, critical analysis, data analysis, book writing, and coding tasks, including how she saved $10,000 in website costs by using Claude to write code herself.
• Claude Cowork: Sam's introduction to the agentic side of Claude, how it can organise your entire filing system, build sales pages, and execute complex multi-step tasks on your behalf while you step away.
• Gemini: How Sam uses Google's AI to automate payroll calculations, organise her inbox, add tasks to her calendar, and manage the chaos of a busy brain, all through its deep integration with Google apps.
• Notebook LM: The hosts personal favourite for repurposing content. How to upload a podcast transcript or YouTube link and turn it into blog posts, infographics, slide decks, or even a new podcast episode, in your own voice.
• REVE AI: The free image generation tool Sam uses to create AI-generated images of herself and Kate for podcast thumbnails and social media.
• AI for website SEO: How to enter your URL into an AI and instantly get a plain-English audit of what's missing: H1 tags, meta descriptions, ALT tags and more.
• The tells of AI-generated content: The words, phrases and structural patterns that immediately give away AI-generated copy.
• Automation vs productivity: Why the real opportunity isn't doing more in the same time, it's doing the same in less time.
• How to use AI to figure out what to automate: Why asking AI to review your regular tasks and identify what can be automated is one of the highest-value conversations you can have.

Kate and Sam also discuss the evolution of AI since their first conversation about it in September 2023, why ChatGPT is no longer the only game in town, the rise of agentic AI, and how they've used AI to almost fully automate the production of this very podcast.

Join the Workshop:

Kate and Sam are hosting Profit Unlocked on Wednesday 20 May, 9–10:30am AWST | 11am–12:30pm AEST.

What is it? A LIVE 90-minute coaching session where you can bring your questions on AI systems, profitability, pricing and more.

🐦 Early bird tickets available until Sunday 10 May for just $49 (live attendance)

🎟️ Attend LIVE: $89

🎧 Replay only: $49

Grab your early bird ticket now!

👉 Register here

Connect with Your Hosts:

Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business 🌐 Website: https://katedejong.com/ 📱 Instagram: @katedejong.inspiredbusiness ✉️ Email: kate@katedejong.com

Sam Morris | The O8 🌐 Website: https://www.theo8.com/ 📱 Instagram: @the_o8crew ✉️ Email: sam@theo8.com

Thriving Business Podcast 🌐Website: https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/

Send a question or message to Kate & Sam

Welcome to Episode 7 of the Roadmap to Business Success series, our second episode in Quadrant 2 of the Thriving Business Wheel: Keep More | Profitable Operations.

Pricing is one of the most emotionally loaded topics in business. Many business owners, particularly women, are significantly undercharging, and it's costing them not just money, but credibility and energy.

"Being the cheapest in the market doesn't make you attractive. It makes you look desperate."

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why under-pricing harms your profits and reputation: Charging too little signals a lack of confidence, and buyers trust you less when your prices are too low.
• The hourly rate trap: Why trading time for money is a burnout trap, and why breaking free is one of the most important shifts you'll ever make.
• How to price based on outcomes: What is the problem costing your client? What is solving it worth to them? These two questions reframe everything.
• The mindset piece: Why so many business owners habitually undervalue their skills, and what it takes to price with genuine confidence.
• Why discounting is rarely the answer: How habitual discounting erodes perceived value and attracts the wrong clients.
• What to do instead: How tiered pricing lets clients at different budget levels access your services, without slashing your rates.
• Reverse-engineering your revenue goals: Start with the income you want and work backwards to what you need to charge.

Coming Up Next: Episode 8 on AI systems for maximum efficiency. How to work smarter, not harder, using the tools available to you right now.

Join the Workshop: Kate and Sam are hosting Profit Unlocked on Wednesday 20 May, 9–10:30am AWST | 11am–12:30pm AEST

You'll get 90 minutes of live profitability coaching.

🎟️ Attend LIVE: $89 | 🎧 Replay only: $49

👉 Register here

Connect with Your Hosts:

Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business 🌐 Website: https://katedejong.com/ 📱 Instagram: @katedejong.inspiredbusiness ✉️ Email: kate@katedejong.com

Sam Morris | The O8 🌐 Website: https://www.theo8.com/ 📱 Instagram: @the_o8crew ✉️ Email: sam@theo8.com

Thriving Business Podcast 🌐Website: https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/

Send a question or message to Kate & Sam

Welcome to Episode 6 of the Roadmap to Business Success series, and the first episode of Quadrant 2: Keep More | Profitable Operations!

You've done the work to generate revenue. Now it's time to talk about the part most business owners avoid until it's too late: keeping it.

In this episode, Sam takes the lead on one of her favourite topics: money. Not the fluffy version, but the practical, roll-up-your-sleeves kind that actually changes how your business feels to run day to day.

"Most business owners know what they're earning. Very few know what they're actually keeping."

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why traditional accounting often fails business owners: How accounting is largely historical and tax-focused, and rarely designed to help you make better day-to-day decisions.
• Markup vs margin: One of the most common and costly mistakes small business owners make, explained clearly and simply.
• How to make your chart of accounts work for you: Why restructuring how you categorise income and expenses gives you far greater clarity over where your money is going.
• Cost of goods sold vs operating expenses: Why separating these properly is essential for accurate forecasting and understanding your true profitability.
• The Profit First method: How splitting income across separate bank accounts for profit, tax, operating expenses and owner pay creates automatic financial discipline.
• How to build a cash buffer: Why a financial cushion isn't a luxury, it's a necessity, and how to start building one even when cash feels tight.
• Adjusting your Profit First percentages by business stage: Why the right allocation for a startup looks very different to an established business.
• Why you must never "steal" from your profit account: The habit that keeps business owners stuck in financial stress, and how to break it.

Sam and Kate also discuss why money slips through fingers even when revenue is strong, and why the solution isn't always earning more, it's managing better.

Recommended Reading: Profit First by Mike Michalowicz, the book that underpins Sam's entire approach to profitability.

Join the Workshop: Kate and Sam are hosting Profit Unlocked on Wednesday 20 May, 9–10:30am AWST | 11am–12:30pm AEST

You'll get 90 minutes of live profitability coaching.

🎟️ Attend LIVE: $110 | 🎧 Replay only: $50

👉 Register here

Coming Up Next: Episode 7 — pricing for profit, why you're leaving money on the table, and how to price based on value rather than time.

Connect with Your Hosts:

Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business 🌐 Website: https://katedejong.com/ 📱 Instagram: @katedejong.inspiredbusiness ✉️ Email: kate@katedejong.com

Sam Morris | The O8 🌐 Website: https://www.theo8.com/ 📱 Instagram: @the_o8crew ✉️ Email: sam@theo8.com

Thriving Business Podcast 🌐Website: https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/

Send a question or message to Kate & Sam

Welcome to Episode 5 of the Roadmap to Business Success series, and the final episode of Quadrant 1: Revenue Generation!

If the word "selling" makes you cringe, you're not alone. In this episode, Kate and Sam get honest about their complicated relationships with sales and how reframing selling as serving completely changes the game.

"People don't mind being sold to, they just don't like being sold to poorly."

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why selling is actually serving: How shifting your mindset from "closing a deal" to "solving a problem" transforms every sales conversation — and why curiosity is the only attitude you need to bring.
• Emotional intelligence in sales: Why active listening and reading the room matters far more than any sales tactic or script.
• Why non-attachment is your secret weapon: The less attached you are to the outcome, the more people want to work with you.
• How your foundations do the heavy lifting: When your identity, offer and marketing are aligned, sales becomes a natural conversation. Low conversion rates are feedback that something earlier in the process needs attention.
• The golden rule: Follow up. Why so many sales are lost simply because people don't follow up, and why you should always leave a voicemail.
• How to handle ghosting and "no" professionally: Why your reaction to rejection tells potential clients more about your character than almost anything else.
• The power of post-purchase nurturing: Why what happens immediately after someone pays you is just as important as everything that came before.
• Retention over acquisition: Why a repeat customer is far more profitable than constantly winning new ones.

This episode wraps up Quadrant 1: Revenue Generation.

Next up, we'll be entering Quadrant 2 of the Thriving Business Wheel: Keep More | Profitability.

JOIN OUR UPCOMING WORKSHOPS and get all your questions answered LIVE 👉 thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/workshops

Connect with Your Hosts:

Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business 🌐 Website: https://katedejong.com/ 📱 Instagram: @katedejong.inspiredbusiness ✉️ Email: kate@katedejong.com

Sam Morris | The O8 🌐 Website: https://www.theo8.com/ 📱 Instagram: @the_o8crew ✉️ Email: sam@theo8.com

Thriving Business Podcast 🌐Website: https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/

Send a question or message to Kate & Sam

"Marketing is the communication bridge between your business and your potential customers."

In this fourth episode of the Roadmap to Business Success series, hosts Kate and Sam explore the next layer in the Revenue Generation quadrant of the Thriving Business Wheel: Marketing Strategy.

Now that you've nailed your business identity and crafted your irresistible offer, it's time to take it to market. But marketing is one of the most misunderstood, and misused, areas of business. In this episode, Kate and Sam cut through the noise and give you a practical, grounded framework for marketing your business without burning out or burning through your budget.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why foundations come first: If you haven't nailed your business identity and your irresistible offer, your marketing will struggle, no matter how much you spend. Kate shares the story of a client who spent $60,000 on a failed marketing campaign without a single sale, and exactly what went wrong.
• The three channels of marketing: Traditional (TV, print, letterbox drops), relational (networking, referrals, strategic partnerships), and digital (social media, SEO, email), and why you should never rely on just one.
• The truth about social media: Why organic social media posting builds visibility and brand awareness but rarely converts to sales on its own, and what to do instead.
• How to choose the right platform for your business: LinkedIn for B2B and professional services, Instagram for visual brands, Facebook for community-based businesses, and TikTok for reaching younger audiences. Sam shares a practical tip: start with the platforms you already use and understand.
• Inbound vs outbound marketing: The difference between pushing your message out (social media, ads) and drawing customers in (SEO, Google Business Profile, AI search), and why both matter.
• Getting found by AI: Why SEO is still the foundation of AI search, and how Sam's brand-new business was recommended by AI simply by being specific and optimising the basics.
• The power of email marketing: Why the money is still in the list, why you own your email list in a way you'll never own your social media following, and how to build a list that actually converts.
• Lead magnets and list building: How a free quiz, ebook or guide can bring in new subscribers consistently, even years after you create it.
• Email open rates and list hygiene: What good open rates look like, when to clean your list, and why you should never be offended by an unsubscribe.
• Sam's closing framework: Why marketing must be a multi-pronged approach. Choose one channel from each of the three categories and build from there.

Kate and Sam also discuss the rapidly changing landscape of AI search, why "AI junk" is flooding social media and how to stand out, and why just having the tools (AI, Canva) doesn't mean you know how to use them effectively.

Join the Workshop: Kate and Sam are hosting their Revenue Breakthrough Workshop on Wednesday 15 April — a live Zoom session where you c

Connect with Your Hosts:

Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business 🌐 Website: https://katedejong.com/ 📱 Instagram: @katedejong.inspiredbusiness ✉️ Email: kate@katedejong.com

Sam Morris | The O8 🌐 Website: https://www.theo8.com/ 📱 Instagram: @the_o8crew ✉️ Email: sam@theo8.com

Thriving Business Podcast 🌐Website: https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/

Send a question or message to Kate & Sam

In this third episode of the Roadmap to Business Success series, hosts Kate and Sam explore the second part of the revenue quadrant: how to craft an irresistible offer. Described as the "engine" of your revenue generation model, an irresistible offer is about providing a compelling solution to a problem that people feel compelled to say "yes" to.

In this episode, you will learn:

• The Power of Specificity: Why your offer must solve a very specific problem for a very specific person to be effective.
• Selling the Transformation: Shifting your focus from "what you do" to the result the client achieves at the end of the process.
• Establishing Bulletproof Credibility: How to use social proof, Google reviews, and even "borrowed credibility" from mentors to build trust with sceptical buyers.
• Pricing for Value, Not Time: Why slashing prices is often the wrong move and how to price based on the emotional and financial value of the outcome.
• Risk Reversal: Using guarantees to shift the responsibility from the customer to the business owner, making the purchase a "no-brainer".
• Productisation and the Rule of Three: How to bundle services into three tiers to suit different needs and budgets without causing "choice paralysis".
• Genuine Scarcity and Urgency: How to use limited numbers or real deadlines to motivate potential clients to act now.

Kate and Sam also share their philosophy of "selling before you build," explaining how delivering a service as you develop it allows for vital market feedback and prevents the heartbreak of a "flat" launch.

Join the Workshop: If you need expert eyes on your offer, Kate and Sam are hosting a workshop on the 15th of April to help you tweak and optimise your strategy for maximum impact.

To learn more about our workshop and retreat dates, go here: https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/workshops

Next Week: Tune in for the next episode where the discussion moves to taking your offer to market and the mechanics of marketing and sales.

Connect with Your Hosts:

Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business 🌐 Website: https://katedejong.com/ 📱 Instagram: @katedejong.inspiredbusiness ✉️ Email: kate@katedejong.com

Sam Morris | The O8 🌐 Website: https://www.theo8.com/ 📱 Instagram: @the_o8crew ✉️ Email: sam@theo8.com

Thriving Business Podcast 🌐Website: https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/

Send a question or message to Kate & Sam

Welcome to Season 2, Episode 2 of the Thriving Business Podcast!

Over the next 18 episodes, we're walking you through all the essential elements of business building in a structured way, based on our Thriving Business Wheel, with the following four quadrants:

Quadrant 1: Earn (Revenue Generation)

Quadrant 2: Keep (Profitability)

Quadrant 3: Grow (Capacity and Scaling)

Quadrant 4: Lead (Lead with Impact)

Today's episode begins in quadrant one (revenue generation) by covering the foundational topic of Business Identity.

"Marketing fails when a business doesn’t know its own soul."

You'll discover why it's essential to clarify your brand values, mission, vision, and “why”, even if you've been in business for a while now. These foundational elements flow into your branding, marketing and sales, which all create your ability to bring in the money.

Tune in as Sam and Kate help you strengthen your business identity, the engine of your revenue generation machine.

00:00 Revenue Generation Kickoff
00:51 Business Identity Matters
02:57 Branding Foundations
04:17 Personal vs Brand Persona
05:36 The Oh Eight Story
07:31 Brand Vision Board Exercises
09:30 Audience First Branding
11:42 Start With Why
16:27 Because Taglines Work
17:59 Premium Branding and Design
22:11 Messaging From Your Why
23:31 Vision Mission Values Framework
25:17 Values as Verbs
26:41 Clarity Before AI Messaging
27:51 One Clear Offer
28:56 Market Research Mindset
31:54 AI and Competitor Gaps
33:02 Ads as Research Tools
35:09 Specificity Wins Clients
37:40 Brand Bar Exercise
41:30 Identity Evolves Over Time
46:40 Final Wrap and Next Episode

Connect with Your Hosts:

Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business 🌐 Website: https://katedejong.com/ 📱 Instagram: @katedejong.inspiredbusiness ✉️ Email: kate@katedejong.com

Sam Morris | The O8 🌐 Website: https://www.theo8.com/ 📱 Instagram: @the_o8crew ✉️ Email: sam@theo8.com

Thriving Business Podcast 🌐Website: https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/

Send a question or message to Kate & Sam

Introducing the Thriving Business Wheel: An 18-Episode Framework for Growth Without Burnout

Hosts Kate De Jong and Sam Morris share a new 18-episode plan for the Thriving Business Podcast built around the “Thriving Business Wheel,” a four-quadrant framework that encompasses:

1. Earn (revenue generation)
2. Keep (profitability)
3. Grow (capacity and scaling)
4. Lead (leadership).

In this episode, Kate and Sam excitedly talk through the preview of their upcoming curriculum and why business owners need an all-encompassing framework like this.

Over the next 4-5 months, Kate and Sam will be sharing everything they've learned in their combined 30+ years of business experience on the topics outlined below.

QUADRANT 1: REVENUE

Earn Money | Market & Sell Powerfully

• Business identity
• Craft an Irresistible Offer
• Everything you need to know about Marketing
• How to become great at Selling

QUADRANT 2: PROFITABILITY

Keep More | Operate Efficiently

• Money mastery
• Charge what you're worth
• AI systems for maximum efficiency
• When to outsource and delegate

QUADRANT 3: CAPACITY

Grow Smart | Powerful Business Model

• Your business model: Plan strategically
• To hire or not to hire? Build a strong team
• Deliver a remarkable client experience every time
• Design a business that doesn't break you

QUADRANT 4: LEADERSHIP

Lead with Impact

• Getting up when you're knocked down
• Self-awareness, the most underrated business skill
• Emotional Intelligence: The missing piece in most business leaders
• Lead from your values: Align your business with you who you are

SERIES FINALE

Your Thriving Business: The Full Picture

At the end of each quadrant they will run a live workshop, culminating in an August 2026 BALI RETREAT, with details to be shared on their website.

Episode Timeline:

00:00 Podcast Relaunch Plan

01:23 Thriving Business Wheel

04:02 Live Workshops and Retreat

07:29 Quadrant One Earn

07:49 Business Identity Basics

10:26 Branding That Builds Trust

12:04 Irresistible Offer Design

14:05 Marketing Channels Made Simple

17:15 Sales Without the Ick

19:05 Quadrant Two Profitability

19:20 Money Mastery and Profit First

21:39 Pricing for Profit

23:16 AI Systems for Efficiency

25:35 Outsource and Delegate Right

25:57 Hiring Before You’re Ready

26:51 Delegation Ego and Talent

27:59 Outsourcing Virtual Assistants

28:52 Capacity Quadrant Overview

29:16 Business Model and Scaling

31:13 Building a Strong Team

32:41 Remarkable Client Experience

33:25 Social Proof and Reviews

35:26 Business That Doesn’t Break You

37:38 Leadership Quadrant Begins

38:02 Resilience Through Setbacks

41:14 Self Awareness and Feedback

45:23 Emotional Intelligence in Leadership

46:21 Leading From Your Values

48:37 Thriving Wheel Wrap

Connect with Your Hosts:

Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business 🌐 Website: https://katedejong.com/ 📱 Instagram: @katedejong.inspiredbusiness ✉️ Email: kate@katedejong.com

Sam Morris | The O8 🌐 Website: https://www.theo8.com/ 📱 Instagram: @the_o8crew ✉️ Email: sam@theo8.com

Thriving Business Podcast 🌐Website: https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/