Private advisory for established women business owners
You built something real. Now make it work for the life you want next.
I work privately with a very small number of women who own established service businesses and are quietly asking, what now?
30 years
building service businesses
1st woman
franchise partner at 1-800-GOT-JUNK?
Multiple
businesses built and sold
3,000+
women in the communities I’ve built since 2002
Who this is for
From the outside, it all looks like it’s working. And it is.
You’ve been at this for years. You have a team, clients who trust you, and a business people respect. You’re the one everyone turns to.
But something has shifted. What worked for the last ten or twenty years may not be what you want for the next ten or twenty. You’re not in crisis. You just don’t have anywhere to think it through with someone who has actually sat in your chair.
The questions you may be asking privately:
- Do I still want to run this business the way I’ve been running it?
- What needs to change, and who on my team needs to grow?
- Should I eventually sell? How do I prepare the business for that?
- Who am I when this business isn’t at the centre of my life anymore?
How we work
The woman comes first. Then the business.
Your business exists inside your life, not the other way around. So we don’t start with how to grow it. We start with what you want your life to look like, and then we make the business support that.
01
Reconnect
We look honestly at where you are now: what’s working, what you’ve been tolerating, and who you are underneath the roles.
02
Rekindle
We go back to what drew you to this work in the first place, and what you want to carry forward into your next chapter.
03
Reimagine
We decide what’s next and build the roadmap together, one step at a time. You don’t need to see the whole journey to begin.
Then we get into the business itself, wherever it actually needs attention.
- Leadership, team and culture
- Clients and customer experience
- Revenue, profit and the numbers
- Systems, processes and training
- Brand, sales and marketing
- Legal, accounting and compliance
- Succession, exit or sale
- You, and what this costs you
Why work with me
I’ve sat in your chair.
Most advisors have studied businesses like yours. Very few have built one, led it through a recession and a pandemic, and sold it.
I’ve been her. I started my first business in 1996, pregnant with my daughter, and raised my children while I built and led businesses. Today they have families of their own, and I’m a grandmother. I know what it is to be the mother, the wife, the business owner and the leader all at once.
In 30 years I became the first woman franchise partner at 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, led the Ottawa and Gatineau business through the 2008 financial crisis and COVID to its sale, built and sold Moving Forward Matters, and built communities of thousands of women.
What you’ll learn from me
- Build a team that runs without you
- Read your numbers for profit, not just revenue
- Prepare your business to sell, now or in ten years
- Stay whole while you do it
The operator
Scaling, hiring, culture, customer experience, P&L strategy, selling a business
The human side
Psychology, NLP, coaching, bereavement and palliative care, 20+ years guiding women through transition
I hold the business and the woman at the same time, because your business and your life were never separate.
Recognition and leadership
Recognized for the businesses and communities I’ve built.
Leading Women Building Communities Award
Province of Ontario
Forty Under 40
Recipient
Business Woman of the Year
Distinctive Women
Forbes Coaches Council
Former member
OutCare Foundation
Former board member
altMBA
Alumna, Seth Godin’s altMBA
Working together
Only a few women at a time. On purpose.
I work with a very small number of women each year. This work asks for real attention, and you deserve all of mine. There’s no program everyone gets the same version of. Once your priorities are clear, I stay alongside you as advisor, mentor and sounding board while you work toward your own goals.
1
Apply
A short application about you, your business and what’s on your mind.
2
A real conversation
Not a sales call. We talk, and we both get a sense of whether this is the right fit.
3
Work shaped around you
If it’s a yes, we design the engagement around your goals, in person or on Zoom.
Author
Four books. One woman at the heart of it all.
Every book I’ve written comes back to the same place: the woman at the heart of it all. Her self, her life, her business and her community. They were never separate stories.
- Women Moving Forward Community
- Take Time to Reflect Self
- Ferrari, Food or Family? Life
- The Art of Downsizing Transitions
In progress
It Was Never About the Junk
The story of building, leading and selling 1-800-GOT-JUNK? Ottawa and Gatineau, and what it was really about all along.
If you’ve been asking what’s next, let’s talk.
I take on only a few women at a time. If this sounds like you, start with a short application.
Based in Ottawa. Working with women across Canada and beyond, in person and on Zoom.