If you’ve been in business for more than five minutes, you already know—what worked yesterday might not work tomorrow.

Whether it’s evolving client expectations, shifting economic trends, or the ever-changing nature of hiring, staying sharp isn’t optional in our field; it’s essential.

We all live in a world of professional development, so when we think of skill development, our minds automatically go to knowledge gain, technology adoption, or a certification that will give us a new credential. However, skill building for career coaches and resume writers is a different animal than for our clients. 

For us, growing our skillset is a business asset that keeps our expertise relevant, business competitive, and opportunities growing.

It’s easy to de-prioritize your development when you’re running a business (let alone one focused on upskilling other people!)., but the best business owners and coaches don’t just work in their businesses; they work on their skills.

So, as we head into THRIVE—where the learning opportunities are stacked, and yours truly will be there, ready to give you a hug! —it’s the perfect time to talk about how investing in your skills is one of the smartest moves you can make for your business and career.

Skills Require Maintenance

It’s tempting to think of expertise as a milestone—something you achieve once and simply have. But skills need maintenance. They evolve. They require refinement

Take marketing, lead generation, and sales—one of the topics I’ll be covering during my half-day bootcamp at THRIVE (#shamelessplug). The strategies that worked five years ago (or even last year!) might not be as effective today because buyer behaviors shift, platforms change, and little things like AI come into our worlds. 

You could be missing major opportunities if you’re still using outdated tactics.

The same goes for salary negotiation—another topic I’ll be teaching at Thrive (see what I’m doing here? 😉). The economy is in flux; it’s a heavily employer-favored market, and companies are adjusting compensation structures. Knowing how to negotiate isn’t enough—you have to understand how to assess an offer based on current market trends.

The best professionals—whether they’re career coaches, stylists, or drywall installers—don’t just learn once and call it a day. They stay engaged, adapt, and refine their expertise to match the current climate and newly available resources. 

If you want to stay ahead, ask yourself: What’s changed in my industry? Where do I need to refresh my skills?

Learning is Only the First Step

Have you ever walked out of a conference session pumped up with new insights… only to get home and promptly forget to implement any of them?

We’ve all been there.

The problem isn’t the lack of information—it’s the lack of application.

Whether you’re learning about salary negotiations, marketing, or economic insights (which I’ll also be covering at THRIVE – like how I snuck the trifecta in here!?), the key isn’t just hearing the information, it’s integrating it into your work.

Here’s how to bridge the gap between learning and doing:

Pick Three Takeaways – After any learning session, whether it’s one class in a certification series or a session at a conference, identify three actions you can apply immediately. Do them.

Set a Timeline. Decide when you’ll implement each takeaway so it doesn’t get overlooked.

Teach It to Someone Else – The best way to retain information? Share it! Whether it’s clients, colleagues, or a LinkedIn post, passing along what you’ve learned helps solidify it in your mind.

Staying Competitive

Skill development isn’t just about personal growth. It’s a business strategy. When you’re consistently refining and adding to your expertise, you: 

 ✔ Differentiate yourself in a crowded market.
✔ Deliver better results for your clients.
✔ Stay ahead of industry changes instead of scrambling to catch up.

And here’s the kicker: your competition is learning, too. If you’re not investing in your skills, someone else is, and that’s who clients will trust.

So, the smartest investment you can make in your business is YOU, whether it’s attending THRIVE, joining a mastermind, or blocking time for self-education.

Just like any professional, your business (and career) will evolve. The question is: will your skills evolve with it?

If you’re looking for a way to stay sharp, keep growing, and make sure your expertise remains relevant, the opportunities are there—you just have to take them.

What’s your plan for professional growth this year?

Your Friend and Coach,
Angie Callen, CPRW, CPCC

PS: Hope to see you at THRIVE!

If there’s one thing I know about business, it’s that nothing stays the same.

Whether external factors force you to adapt or your need for growth pushes the business to evolve, what we start with is rarely what we end up with. 

The important thing to know is that it isn’t a sign of failure—it’s the natural progress of you and your business.

When I launched my business, I had one core service, one primary audience, and a fairly straightforward vision of how it would all unfold. But as I gained experience, listened to my clients, and experimented with new offerings, I realized there were new, exciting, and more unique ways to serve coaches and clients. 

Sound familiar? That’s because it’s not so different from career exploration. Just like professionals explore industries, roles, and skills to find the right fit, business owners test services, refine offerings, and pivot as they uncover what works best.

Here is some food for thought on how to dive into your career exploration – as an entrepreneur. 

1. Lean into the Evolution

Most entrepreneurs start with a single focus—a core service that feels like a natural extension of their expertise, and as time goes on, we often realize we’re capable of more! 

→ What was once a zone of genius has become a zone of competence, so we seek new zones of genius. 

Maybe your clients start asking for services you hadn’t considered, or you see a gap in the market. Maybe you get bored with what you’ve been doing and need a challenge. Whatever the reason, business evolution is natural and necessary, but the key is to evolve intentionally rather than reactively.

Here are a few ways you can be in tune without jumping the gun:

• Listen to patterns in client feedback. What are people consistently asking for that you don’t currently offer?
• Assess your interests. What do you enjoy doing the most, and what could you see yourself leaning into more?
• Check the market. Just because you can offer something doesn’t mean you should. Does the demand justify the effort? Will you enjoy providing such a service?

When done strategically, adding new services expands your reach, increases revenue, and keeps you engaged in your work.

2. The Experimentation Mindset

Ever had an idea that sounded amazing in theory but flopped in execution? You’re not alone.

That’s why the best business owners approach new offerings with an experimentation mindset—testing before investing too much time, energy, or money.

→ WARNING: put your perfectionist hat away for this one, y’all! 

To test new services, you must be willing to launch them before they’re ready. Otherwise, you’ll waste too much time developing them before knowing how your audience will react. 

Instead of launching big, try:

• Pilot programs → Run a small test group before a full-scale launch.
• Beta offerings → Offer a service at a discounted rate in exchange for feedback; this works best when focused on exciting clients or an inner circle you trust to test the product. 
• Time-bound experiments → Try something for three months before deciding if it’s a long-term fit.

Treat new ideas like prototypes that need to exist outside your head. Refine them based on real-world feedback before fully committing. (It’s called risk mitigation, friends!). 

3. When to Pivot, Expand, or Double Down

Not every idea is a winner. And that’s okay. Knowing when to release, pivot, expand, or double down is the trick.

Here are some signs it’s time to release or pivot:
❌ Your current offers aren’t selling despite strong marketing efforts.
❌ You’ve lost passion for your work, which feels like a grind.
❌ The market has shifted, and your services are no longer relevant.

If you’re seeing demand grow steadily, with repeat clients and referrals, it might be time to expand.
✅ Consider adding complementary services.
✅ Build out scalable offerings, like courses or memberships.
✅ Look for strategic partnerships to widen your reach.

And if something is working exceptionally well? Double down.
✔ Raise prices to reflect demand.
✔ Reinforce your expertise in that area.

The magic of business exploration and solo-preneurship is that it’s okay to change your mind: try things, fail, succeed wildly, and use that knowledge to your advantage! 

4. Finding the Right Offer Mix

Once you’ve tested an idea and know it works, the next step is turning that experiment into a core offering.

How do you go from “Let’s see if this works” to “This is what I do now”?

• Refine the process. Can you create a repeatable framework that makes selling and delivering this service easier?
• Develop supporting assets. Marketing materials make it feel official, and evergreen materials used within the program will add value to the client while helping you work more efficiently. 
• Position it within your brand. Where does this fit into your larger business identity? How does it complement your existing services? 
• Don’t be afraid. Adding new services may mean sunsetting old ones, but that doesn’t mean you have to start telling clients, “No.” It may, however, mean you need to build a strong referral network so you can say, “Not me!” 

Not every experiment needs to become a long-term fixture, but when you embrace the exploration, you will inevitably find new opportunities to serve while building toward your next big thing. Your business will evolve.

The best businesses aren’t built overnight; they’re discovered, tested, and refined over time, so as you navigate your journey, I challenge you to ask yourself:

🔹 What’s one new idea you’ve been considering but haven’t tested yet?
🔹 Is there an existing service that needs a refresh—or a retirement?
🔹 Where is your business naturally pulling you next?

Give yourself permission to explore – it is the best way to build a business (and career) that lasts. Here’s to the next phase of your journey—wherever it leads!

Your Friend and Coach,
Angie Callen, CPRW, CPCC

There is always a pile of books on management and entrepreneurship to choose from, and although I don’t find grand revelations in every book I pick up, I do like the search. Recently I discovered a new book, and what has stuck with me is the author’s description of catastrophic thinking, or catastrophizing.

The author presented this as a pattern that he noticed in himself. As he explained it, he had recently started a new enterprise and it was moving along in fits and starts, as a new business is wont to do. And he noticed that at every downturn or bad week, he found himself projecting one negative event to the nth degree.

“Okay, I got half as many orders as I normally do. That means I’m not going to be able to cover some bills — what if it happens again? I won’t be able to pay this month’s rent!” By the end of this thought exercise, he was living on the streets and had lost the majority of his teeth.

The author’s assertion was that moments like these are a lesson for entrepreneurs to know when to get out of their own way, because that thinking doesn’t stop at logical points. It spirals indefinitely until you’ve convinced yourself that you’re in some dark, awful pit with no means of egress.

I’d like to think that I am not the only person who saw themselves reflected in the author’s panic and “what if” response. In business, emotional swings are to be expected. When you run your own business, whether it’s a growing startup or a plateaued mature business, you’re simply going to have to ride the emotional rollercoaster.

As I considered the familiarity of this pattern, though, I developed a question. If it’s easy for owners to ride the emotional rollercoaster down, why can’t we ride it back up to the top? The fantasy of slipping ever downward is a compelling one, but if we’re really going to consider this as a rollercoaster, then you should be able to use that downward force to ride back up the other side to new heights.

When you’re riding the rollercoaster down, you’re projecting a fantasy of scarcity. “What if I don’t sell as much as I need to? What if I come in under the line?” While this fear is certainly compelling, that doesn’t change its unreal nature. So if we’re going to indulge ourselves in fantasies anyway, why not make them ones of abundance? “What if I sell an extra ten units? How would I handle it if I sold a hundred more, how would I manage that kind of rampant growth?”

In response to that question, I would point out that there are more than a few books that give guidance on how to scale up your business. Which can lead to interesting hypotheticals and planning scenarios, although the advice is somewhat limited by the refrain of, “Just ask somebody to loan you $100 million so you can afford to annually lose $10 million for 10 years.” While I have no doubt that that plan of attack is effective, it’s not something that most people can even conceive of, let alone enact.

If you’re an average human being without access to near-limitless capital and looking to advance your business, I’d recommend that you invest the time planning for your business’ success instead of dreading its downfall. Take some time and paint the picture of what a little more success looks like, and then a lot more. 

From there, start backing into scenarios like, “Well if I did this and got 1, how could I do that again and get 2? What behaviors got me there, what did I do that generated success, and how do I do it again, and bigger?” 

There will always be strong positive and negative emotions that come with owning and operating a business. But just like you ride the rollercoaster down with alarming speed, you can use that same energy to propel yourself upward and create a vision of where you’d like your business to be. Once you can see it, you’ll be able to start taking concrete steps to make that goal a reality.