Not Oprah’s “Favorite Things”

I recently realized that Oprah’s annual favorite things are still a “thing”. I know you might think it is a stretch of how that became a theme for this article, but it is what popped into my mind when I approached this topic.

While I may not quite have the size of personal brand that Oprah does, I do have some favorite things that I want to share and not keep a secret. If we have sat down to talk shop personally in the past year, you’ve probably heard me mention at least one of these.

I realized though, that I could publicly share my favorites in hopes that they might help you in your business or agency. If you’re still reading, welcome and hopefully you’re not let down by the fact that none of these are home furnishings or apparel, but could be powerful for you like they are for me in my business and day-to-day.

Please note that I do not receive compensation, a commission, or referral fee from any of these companies.

Niching & Focus

If you are an SMB or agency and feel like you could be further specialized or niched, then please check out Predictive ROI. They are super generous with sharing content, helping without selling, and are crazy smart.

They help with identifying your “right fit” client, authority position, sales operation, and more–they are great. Stephen Woessner’s book with Drew McLellan, Sell With Authority, was the jumpstart for me in my niching journey at VOLTAGE a few years ago.

Strategic Gifting

This is a category that colleagues in a sales-focused mastermind group introduced me to a few years ago. They shared examples of how this worked in their outbound and outreach strategies and referenced the book Giftology.

After picking up the book, I was fortunate to be introduced to Jamie Shibley and her fantastic company, The Expressory. We are in our second year of an ongoing agreement with them and they are amazing at unique gift ideas, strategy, sourcing, and implementation. Right now we’re working through even deeper marketing and outreach strategies that I’m excited about for 2025.

Operations

No matter the subject matter of business conferences and events on topics other than operations I have attended over the years, it is without fail that topics come back to operations at some point. Service delivery can be complex, overly complicated, and hard to change.

A resource in this space that I have utilized and continue to learn from is Parakeeto. Marcel and team are great at taking complicated data sets and things in our companies, categorizing them, and helping us get a handle on them in meaningful ways–if we’re willing to take the next step.

HR Software

Over the years we have used a variety of solutions ranging from home made documents and sheets to enterprise level software solutions to manage HR in our business. We ultimately landed on a software platform (which came highly recommended by colleagues) that has been great for a couple years now and at the right price. That solution for us is OfficeVibe.

It has a lot of great templates, resources, structure, and management for everything from 1:1s to reviews and more. It is great having all documentation in one place and systems that we can use consistently.

AI

I’m not here to share any shiny new AI tools with you. This is in here as I have been using ChatGPT for things that a couple years ago I was considering hiring a virtual assistant for or seeking out software and other resources to solve. I’m going to use this space to give you a gentle nudge to start testing and experimenting with AI if you aren’t already. Create structure with the intention to test as I don’t want to see any colleagues and friends left behind or to keep doing things the hard way like I was for a while until I took a deeper dive myself.

Book Publishing

If you subscribe to this newsletter, then you likely already know that my first book was published in mid-2024. By still being here, I didn’t burn you out last year with the promotion of it–thanks for sticking around!. (If you joined the party since then, check out The Digital Marketing Success Plan)

I researched a range including traditional publishers, consultants that help with self-publishing, as well as independent publishers. I landed with Indie Books International. It ended up being a perfect scenario for me as I didn’t have to wait 2 years for a traditional publishing window, but had the consulting and coaching I needed along with the services to get the book published and distributed (which ended up achieving Amazon Best Seller status!).

Indie Books has a range of ways they can help to tailor a plan for you if you’re considering a book for your “cornerstone content” in your authority positioning strategy.

Community

I feel strongly not just in business, but in life that we all need community and are wired for it. I noted earlier that I was part of a mastermind group previously. That was such a great experience and I still talk regularly with colleagues who became friends through it.

Additionally, I’m currently part of a peer group through Agency Management Institute and highly recommend the AMI community if anyone is seeking one out. They have a number of options including an annual conference, workshops, podcast, Facebook group, and peer groups.

Even if you do it informally, find your tribe and trusted resources. Whether you’re an agency owner, business executive, or early career employee, you need people around you that you trust and can problem solve with.

Accounting

It never fails that when I’m in rooms (live and virtual) with other agencies, that at least a couple people in the room ask about accountants and CPAs and for referrals. I find myself often referring to my CPA firm who specializes in agencies–Craig Cody & Co.

Regardless if you work with Craig and his team or someone else, a lesson I learned the hard way over the years is how hard it is if your CPA doesn’t understand your industry.

I won’t go into details on things that had to be fixed later, but will tell you that you need someone who understands your business, how you want to look at your financials and KPIs, and who can take a holistic approach to your accounting and tax strategy and not just check the boxes on tax forms (which can be done wrong no matter how simple it seems).

Debt “Shredding”

Through some of the communities I mentioned above, I have had the pleasure of getting introduced to Adam Carroll who created The Shred Method. I’m a marketer and not a finance guru so I won’t try to explain compounding interest. However, I will encourage you to check out The Shred Method and see if your mortgage, business, or other debts can benefit from their platform and advice. The case studies are impressive and I use it personally as well to accelerate debt payment while maximizing cashflow.

Legal

I never thought there would be any categories of legal that I’d “like” doing or recommend to others. However, I have a couple firms that I recommend in this category.

For agencies specifically, Legal+Creative is a great resource. Sharon shares great wisdom openly and understands the nuances of agency operations.

I also recommend the firm that I have partnered with for the past several years, Conroy Baran. They have helped me spin up both of my LLCs, go through the trademark process, update my will & trust, draft real estate documents, and more. I highly recommend them for business matters.

Putting a Bow on This List

There are definitely more partners, tools, and resources that I can recommend (please don’t be offended if I possibly missed you and note that there are many great strategic partners that I’m not listing here as I’m saving for a dedicated list).

I’d love to hear about your “favorite things” as well so feel free to share back with me!