Building a Portfolio Career and Future-Proofing Your Work with Suzanne Knight

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast. I’m talking to the CEO of em Bolden, and what she does is she helps organizations and leaders navigate transformation with clarity and confidence. So I’m very excited to be rocking up today with Suzanne Knight. Hey, Suzanne, you ready to rock?

Suzanne Knight: Yes, Tim. I’m so ready.

Tim Melanson: Yay. We always start off when you’re in a good note. Tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

Suzanne Knight: Well, I am so glad to be here. Thank you for having me. So my good note is around a bit of background. I started my business in Bolden two and a half years ago, and I had a long corporate and big firm consulting career before that. And so my good note is to say it is possible to build a business where you work from home, where you build your own client base, you create a portfolio career, and you can actually. Reduce a lot of risk because the thing is that people talk about corporate world as that place where you can have security, stability, a steady paycheck. But the [00:01:00] thing is that for me, I deal with future of work and I have a large network and so many incredible people have been laid off over the past five, six years. And so that old view of being able to come into a company, spend your whole career working hard, adding value. with loyalty and receiving loyalty isn’t necessarily the case now, so I say is good Note. I’ve been able to build a business where the momentum, the client relationships, and the low cost base of not investing in an office outside has created security and stability for myself, my family, and my business.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Congratulations. Big applause for that one. That’s awesome.

Suzanne Knight: have been able to tell you two and a half years ago I had ambition. I wanted it to happen, but like, when you’re doing something for the first time, you don’t know exactly how it’s gonna go. And so I actually had some moments, like probably [00:02:00] December when I was looking back at my year and I was planning out 2026 and I had that moment of. did something good, like I’m actually proud of myself. And often as entrepreneurs we don’t take that moment to stop, think, reflect, ’cause we’re just so busy doing and grinding, which is really how I had been running 2025. But it was that reflection point where I looked and added everything up and like reflected on the incredible clients I worked with and the keynotes I delivered and thought. I did a lot of things and I feel really good about

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome.

Suzanne Knight: and kudos to you for running your podcast now 11 years.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: incredible as well.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks so much. Yeah, it’s uh, it’s interesting that you say though, that the, you know, the days of the steady, stable job are over and because I think like, I mean, I talk to people about this all the time and I think everybody kind of knows that, but. The actions don’t necessarily match [00:03:00] what they already know, right?

Because I mean, I, you know, you, you’ll have someone say, oh, they’ll actually say, well, I can’t quit my, my job. I got that steady paycheck. And then you’re like, you know, that’s not really all that steady, right? They’re like, well, yeah, but like, okay, but you know that it’s not right.

Suzanne Knight: the thing. And I’ll say like there are people who feel like there’s a certain level of security because of employment protections, and if they get laid off, they’ll have some level of severance. But I’m seeing bigger and bigger gaps between people losing their job and finding the next

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: runs out, and I’m seeing that consistently.

And so I don’t think the protections that were there before in an. Active healthy labor market where you are on the bench or you have your open to workup and you’re immediately getting calls. I’m not seeing that happen the way that it happened before. And I’m also seeing it be very selective where some rules, at some levels are very much in demand, many of them are not. And so I think it’s really about people [00:04:00] taking that own risk profile and saying, with the work I do, the education I have, the experience I have, the market I’m located in. Am I in a position where a corporate job gives me stability and security or. Would I actually be more stable? Building a portfolio career, investing in my own learning, being open to gigs or to building even something physical Like I’m very much thinking these days about how people should be building something in the real world.

Tim Melanson: Mm.

Suzanne Knight: AI continues to proliferate, I think about something physical, tangible, whether it’s a product, whether it’s a service like coaching a basketball team, whether it’s something where you are adding value, where people are seeing you and and connecting. That I think will be harder for AI to replace and as people crave community and connection, having offerings that work in that space are beneficial and you can have an incredible portfolio [00:05:00] career where part of your offering is something, even if it’s a side hustle, something in the physical real world that will be future proof.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. And, and I think, uh, it’s so, it’s so interesting ’cause I don’t know what’s gonna happen in the next. Five years, like with this whole AI thing is just so unknown. It’s very, very interesting what’s going on. But you’re right, I, I think that most people are going to end up being like AI trainers or AI users, right?

They’ll, they’ll be doing their work with the help of ai. And so, um, I think that. Uh, I mean, these jobs are not gonna, like, AI can’t just work on its own. Like, it, it needs somebody to be moving it forward, right? And so when people are worried about losing specific jobs, it’s not that those jobs are gonna go away, it’s just that they’re gonna be, the people that are doing them will be far more productive [00:06:00] and there’ll be less of them to go around.

Um, but these big companies that are. Hiring people, they’re, they’re laying people off because of their employees becoming more productive with AI too. So, uh, and, and like what you said earlier about, um, like one of the things about, uh, how do you know whether you are in demand until you go and look for a job, right?

Like, it’s like you find this out when you get laid off. It’s not like, you know, you’re constantly looking around while you have a job because. Most people don’t do that. They, they’re like, oh, no, no. I’ve got my stable paycheck. I’m good to go. And then it’s when they get laid off that they start looking around and realize, oh my, okay, everything’s changed now.

It’s hard to get a job. Right.

Suzanne Knight: a hundred percent. Okay, so here’s the thing. believe that people should think. If I were to get laid off today, what would I do?

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: Then on the other side, say, if I were to [00:07:00] be laid off in one year from now, what would I do today? Knowing that that would happen and to triangulate between the two to say. Maybe I would work on my personal brand. Maybe I would start to invest in attending more events and building relationships. Maybe I would do more favors for people and stock up on some goodwill. Maybe I would take a course or. Just learn more, listen more, read more, spend a bit more time future proofing myself so that I can survive agnostic of a company that I’m employed within, but that I have marketable, transferable skills. And I would also say. If you’re not restricted with your current employment, start that side hustle because you never know when that will actually be a supplement to your income, or it actually gives you something to anchor in on if something major changes, and there’s always that point of being laid off. But [00:08:00] you also might have family circumstances change. Like I have friends who were very happily working in their regular job, and then a loved one got sick and they decided they had to change their lifestyle to be able to spend more time with this person. So having another income source allows you to do that without blowing up your life in the moment that you’re also dealing with maybe an emotional or financially challenging circumstance.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, well one of the really good pieces of advice that I got years and years ago when, uh, so, well, I used to work in high tech and, um, my, the bubble burst right when I graduated. So I had no like, like heyday in, in, in it, like many people in it did. And so, uh, I was always kind of like thinking, okay, this some, something else is gonna happen.

But one of the people that gave advice when I was, uh, going through the layoffs was that. You know, the people that have a lot of success think about their job. They think that they think [00:09:00] about their lives as they’re self-employed. And I’ve got one client, which is my job,

Suzanne Knight: Yes.

Tim Melanson: and, and I thought that’s a really interesting way to think about it, because you know, if you’ve got one client and that’s your job, well what happens if you lose that one client?

Well, now I have to go find another client to replace that client. That’s a lot harder. Well, what if I had two clients or three clients? Because I think that, I think that a lot of people, when they think about starting a business, I think what scares them is they think that it’s gonna have to be like, I’m just have to, I’m gonna have to go find new clients every day and every month, and I’m just gonna be hustling, hustling and hustling.

But that’s not necessarily true. You can have retainer clients, you can have just a, a handful of clients. You can pretty much be working like you have a job. Right.

Suzanne Knight: Yes. You, you totally can. So two things on this. One is you nailed it. Like the reason why I left corporate was exactly that point of one client versus many clients. So the work I do is I go into organizations and I help them execute on [00:10:00] their strategy. Many of my clients already have a beautiful strategy in place.

Maybe they worked with an elite strategy company to do that. Then they have a hard time translating that strategy into business outcomes. So I come in with my firm, EM Bolden, and we help build the governance, the prioritization, help the leaders lead in ways that drive action and mobilize their teams. So I say that because when I was in corporate world, I would do this for about two or two and a half years with one company and set them up for success. And I would almost work my way out of a job because if I was effective, then we would’ve transformed the ways of thinking, working, organization, design, automation. We would’ve made work easier, more seamless. And so then once that’s solved, all that’s left is business as usual, which isn’t really my. S, you know,

Tim Melanson: Forte. Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: to operate.

Yeah. So the thing is that I did it twice in big corporate from the [00:11:00] inside after a long career in a big consulting firm. And then I said, I’m actually tired of having to rebuild from scratch. So it was while I was still in my corporate job that I said, this is the last corporate transformation I’m gonna lead from the inside.

I’m going to build my own firm so that I can transform an organization. I do under that umbrella of my company has actually built and grown momentum brand logos on a page, and then I do the next one and the next one, but it’s additive rather than me building and then starting from scratch with another job hunt.

So that, that is why I made the change and I think for people. I will tell you a bit about my business structure, if that works, and the portfolio career that I’ve created. So one is emboldened and it’s that large company consulting, typically multinationals or major multi-billion dollar entities. That’s my client [00:12:00] base, and I help those clients deliver on their results. But I also do keynote speaking. I get inbound leads from my website or from LinkedIn primarily, or friend or client referrals to come in and speak at their town hall, their manager offsite. Sometimes it might just be their C-suite or board. Group, like I could do a full keynote for eight people, 12 people, and really tailor it to that audience.

So keynotes, I get inbound. I also have a speaking bureau that finds opportunities for me, so, so that’s something where there’s a bit of an engine working, providing inbound and speaking tends to be a lower. Time commitment, lesser time commitment for the client and for me, like I might do one keynote or I might get booked for a couple keynotes in different markets, but it, it might be something like. sessions or five sessions, a consulting gig could be anything from [00:13:00] host my offsite for a couple days, do interviews with the leaders before that, and then provide us with to-dos. it could be six months or two years of hands-on driving implementation and delivery. It’s bigger, it’s meatier, and it’s harder to find the right clients ready to move into that transformation state. At that moment compared to keynotes where everybody needs a keynote all the time, then there’s more. started doing master classes in September of last year. That was because I got so many inbound requests for mentoring and people were asking me the same questions that I thought, let’s actually cluster them, cover the topics that they want.

Make a beautiful in-person experience of that. ’cause you know how I feel about in-person community connection, and that will actually be something that I monetize as part of the business, but I have full control over that. I’m not waiting for a. B2B sale to happen, or for a client to come to me, [00:14:00] advertising an event or an opportunity, and then people individually can sign up and I can scale it up or down.

It could be 12 executives or entrepreneurs in a room. Could be 50. Like I,

Tim Melanson: Hello.

Suzanne Knight: doesn’t matter to me as long as I plan for it.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Okay. That’s a.

Suzanne Knight: I know it, it’s a lot, but you know, I, I want to go into detail because the thing is that when people are looking to start their own thing, I want this to be like a menu for them to know that you can seek out clients, you can also create environments where people can come to you and you can do the long term and the short term in your offering. And it’s kind of a good thing to build something so that you’re never stuck. You always have money coming in, and you always have relationships that you’re building that could lead to the next thing.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I agree. So now, uh, like about the bad note, like I, I mean, you’ve been doing it for a couple years [00:15:00] now. I know that that was for me when things started to go poorly, I just start making decisions. ’cause, you know, things do, do go up and down sometimes in business. Right. And I do like to talk about that.

I’m, I’m wondering has there been any big mistakes or any big things that happened that wasn’t as planned that we can learn from?

Suzanne Knight: Sure. So two things. The first bad note I’ll share is the bigger, more emotional one. When I started the business, I thought that things. Would start up faster than they did. So I started the company nobody knew about. It took me two months to actually get the website up and to start to understand what my own service offerings really would be.

And then it took me another two months before I landed my first client and then another month before I started working with them. all in all, it was about five months from the time I left the corporate world until I started with a client. And in that window. I [00:16:00] was terrified looking down this like long hallway with no light.

There was no light at the end of the tunnel. There were no clients or things that I was waiting for that if I just get to that point, this will happen. There was no certainty that I would ever have a first client and. There was no certainty that I would figure out the business before my finances ran out and that I would have to make a bigger decision around my lifestyle, my home. ’cause the challenge too is when you start a business in your late thirties, or you start a business, when you’re an established adult, you have established adult expenses. It’s not like you’re 18 living in your parents’ house. You know, all good. You just need to get through the day and someone will feed you and you have a warm place to stay.

Like as an adult with three kids, there was real risk, and so I was constantly thinking what needs to be true to be able to make the [00:17:00] money before my savings? Out and I had to make a decision. So that was scary. So what I would say on that is it can take months for people to realize what you’re offering, to even understand that you have made a change and that there is a service that they can procure.

And this is where I had no overlap between my corporate work and my entrepreneurial endeavors. I didn’t start anything until I was fully free and clear. I don’t know. I, I don’t know if that was the right move. Like I could go back, I would’ve had to balance non-competes ethics and compliance issues and be really careful about not crossing that line. But at the same time, if there was a way that I could have gotten an approval to have some non-competitive side hustle, so that at least I wouldn’t have been leaving a comfortable corporate job and salary in the moment to go to that. [00:18:00] Point of having nothing set up.

Tim Melanson: Mm.

Suzanne Knight: think there probably would’ve been some middle ground.

So I would say explore within, if you’re thinking, if you’re in corporate thinking of starting your own thing, explore what is available to you, put it out in the open if you’re comfortable, or look at the rules, like actually look at the policies and say, can I start a non-competitive side hustle? That will give me some level of certainty. And maybe it’s just networking. Maybe you don’t officially start anything, but you start to build your network and your brand such that when you’re ready to start the business, you’ve built an infrastructure and foundation around yourself, even if you haven’t launched the company.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, totally.

Suzanne Knight: That’s the first big one.

Now I’ll share another one. It’s small, but to me it felt very big. So tech issues. I cannot tell you how difficult these little micro problems are and how much they can derail my [00:19:00] days, my weeks, my months. So when I started the business, I had multiple email addresses. I had one from my consulting firm, embolden. I had my personal Gmail that I had for years. I had one for the Women’s network. I had. One for a client, when they brought me on, they wanted me to use an email with their domain. think for email addresses means four calendars that you’re trying to sync up.

It means that you have your inbox where you’re getting constant inflow, but. They don’t all go to one place. I had times where I would have multiple computers beside each other, each with a calendar on it, and I would be manually syncing them all up. And this was before the point that I had an ea. It was all me, and it was incredibly difficult. And the thing is that I tried. Everything I problem solved. I tried Calendly, I tried Zoom. I migrated to Google Workspace. I tried the team suite, [00:20:00] Zapier like everything I could think of, and I had all the phone calls with my domain provider, with Google, with all these companies. Here’s the thing. I ended up finding out that these systems were incompatible.

The private email that I had through my domain was never actually going to sync up with something like Calendly, but there was never anything that told me that that would be the case. So I look back. sounds simple, calendars don’t sync. But the practical reality for an entrepreneur trying to build their brand and their business is that when you have double bookings coming in to multiple calendars and you have missed meetings because somebody puts something in and you don’t get a notification, it can kill your business, your reputation, and it is so incredibly stressful. The time it takes, like I spent so many days, nights, and weekends trying to problem solve an impossible problem. [00:21:00] I’ll tell you what I ended up doing. I ended up moving everything to Google Workspace. I ended up saying to clients that I’m not able to use their email addresses like I have my own. And that also creates separation as a contractor or consultant where it doesn’t look like I’m an employee of the company, which is. Also important. And then the other thing I did is I did get an EA who manages the calendar, and that has been worth its weight in gold. So I would say like an entrepreneur, you may not have the capacity and time allocated to deal with the problems that come up. You may not have started with the skillsets to be able to immediately solve those issues, but you will figure it out.

You will come to a solution. Because you have to, because there’s no one else to do it. You don’t have a tech department, an IT group to do it. You figure it out and while it’s hard, eventually you will.

Tim Melanson: Wow, wow. So much to unpack there.

Suzanne Knight: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: The, the [00:22:00] first part, uh, that you had mentioned, like I, I, I had this, um, this advice once, it said the best time to build your network was before you need it. Right? So, so I think that that is a really great way to do it if you do have some sort of like non-compete because you’re going into a business that’s similar to the business that you’re already in.

Starting to build that network and starting to network online or, or even go to your Chamber of commerce would be a good way to, to start that. But um, but I also have heard that well in my. In my observation that it takes about three months to build that momentum. So that is, you’re right, very stressful if you’ve got like, if you’ve like burned the boats and now you’re off on your own and you’ve got nothing else, and now you have to wait three months for something to start to to catch, right?

Like that’s stressful. How do you know it’s gonna catch? Like it might not.

Suzanne Knight: this is the thing, and it depends what kind of business you’re in. Like for me it took five, six months before I got real traction and you [00:23:00] know, that was a long period of time to be burning through my savings. Other businesses pretend that you’re starting a product. Business and it takes a while to create the design and produce the thing and ship the thing.

There could also be a long timeline, like it’s not just service businesses where you could have a window and like when you’re starting and let’s say you get to that three months or six months. That doesn’t mean that you’re immediately replacing your old income, it just means that traction is starting.

Could take a year or two years. Who knows how long before you’re really feeling that that pull and you know people coming to you for your offerings. For me, I would say it took about. months from the time that I that I was starting this business and left corporate until the point that I thought, oh, this is good, like 14 months before I had the big break, and I had the big clients and the big pull, and it’s not that I didn’t have clients before, but [00:24:00] it was that I still had some level of anxiety about it and I didn’t know where the next client would come from. And then I would be grateful when the next client would come, but it wasn’t with certainty. At 14 months, I was in a position where I was able to rebuild my savings. And that gave me the confidence and stability that also allowed me to invest in more marketing and a better website. And to start exploring SEO and to I’m gonna have a better speaker reel.

I’m going to start to dress the part like. of that takes money and it takes certainty before you’re ready to put money back into the business at that level. So just don’t expect it will be quick, but with determination, with the right product, market fit, with listening to what. The business world and your client base are telling you and pivoting if you have to, you can figure it out and come [00:25:00] up with a thing that people are gonna want.

And it could work and it could be financially beneficial, but just don’t expect that it is guaranteed to happen

Tim Melanson: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now, uh, I mean, having a bit of a roadmap to follow can help as well. And listening to podcasts and getting out there and understanding that there is a bit of a lag behind, but. Uh, I mean, I, I just, you know, I think that, uh, I, I know for me, I, I had a severance when I started my business. I think that it is just smart to have some sort of like backup plan to keep you through because it is gonna take some time to get going, right?

Suzanne Knight: A hundred percent. And the thing about the severance is don’t underestimate when you’re applying for the job and in offer phase of negotiating the severance at that point. Because you

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: the corporate world with optimism saying, this is gonna be great. I’m gonna love it. I’ll be so good. Then maybe it works out [00:26:00] or it doesn’t, and you never know when you’ll be really grateful to have that severance.

You know, when I was in my corporate world, I never negotiated severance and I should have, and I heard from a friend that she ended up getting a very generous severance that she had negotiated upfront because she was employed in an impressive job. She left that job. After being headhunted to this new company and she ended up getting 18 months of fully paid severance that she negotiated in at the beginning, that in no way would’ve been offered to her if she hadn’t pushed for it.

So I say if you’re still in that corporate cycle, that is something you should negotiate and you should do it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Um, now on your tech stuff, so, um, I don’t wanna take too much time to talk about me, but I’m like, one of the things that I do is exactly what you, uh, were experienced. I figure out tech problems, I untangle them and I’m like 90% sure I would’ve been able to figure out your problem.

Suzanne Knight: Well, now I know I’m gonna call [00:27:00] you. You know, even two weeks ago I had the dumbest problem in the world, also tech that you probably could have solved for me.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: a coffee shop and I was working and reviewing some documents, and my laptop ran outta battery. So I plugged it in. It turned back on. But here’s the issue. The keyboard switched to a different language. it was blocked because I had had these key, that was another problem I had to figure out. I, I figured out that you can change the keyboard

Tim Melanson: you can. Yep.

Suzanne Knight: but here was the issue. For some reason, it was stuck, it was blocked. It wouldn’t let me do it.

And so what happened is the keyboard that was on wouldn’t let me put numbers. I have numbers in my password. I have numbers in my apple ID to reset, and I had numbers in my wifi code, so I was literally dealing with this. Block that I didn’t know how to do. I messed around with it for an hour and a half with chat GBT on my phone

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: it out, and I eventually [00:28:00] just went to the Apple store, like the, you know, the neighborhood ones

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Suzanne Knight: Apple certified?

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Suzanne Knight: I just went and handed over the laptop and was like. I don’t care what you have to do. I don’t care if you are charging me for this thing, like please just solve my problem. Like I’ve just wasted an hour and a half and I am now convinced I am not capable of solving this myself. And the woman unlocked it in like 30 seconds.

So

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: Don’t try to figure it out yourself like you are wasting so much more time and money on, on doing something that’s not in your sweet spot. Just call Tim.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and, and I think that that is, I mean, not called Tim, but I think that that particular idea is something that all of us need to take to heart because we spend, especially when you first start your business, you’re a solopreneur. You’re wearing all the hats, you’re doing all the things right. And that’s great.

And I, I think that there’s a certain amount of. Knowing all the parts of your business or, or at [00:29:00] least having an idea of what needs to be done. But then it has to be like really quick to realize that, okay, that area there, Uhuh, I need to find somebody. Because you are gonna spend a, a lot of time on something that you isn’t your gift zone, and that that time is money really, especially when you need to build up momentum in three months.

Right?

Suzanne Knight: Oh my gosh, a hundred percent. And that’s the thing that when you’re in scarcity mindset, it’s really hard to think about delegating or outsourcing. And you’re thinking, I’ll pay a hundred dollars to the Apple store to fix my thing, and that’s a hundred dollars. That could have brought groceries into my household, like it’s so stressful.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: At the same time, how much is an hour and a half of your time worth on client work, business development and the frustration and stress of sitting there dealing with something that didn’t even result in a solve with my case, with this, uh, keyboard issue. And so that’s the thing now where. I’m very clear on [00:30:00] what is in my jo, my zone of genius, what is not, what energizes me and what doesn’t, and I actually follow my energy cycles.

So I wrote a book. I realized for myself with this book, it’s not out yet, but I’ll update you guys maybe if Tim will let me later. Um, but the thing with the book is wrote best. In mornings and early afternoons. By the time it was evening, I was exhausted and if I was trying to write, it took me two or three times longer to produce what was probably subpar delivery.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: it’s the same on the client side where like. I will have times that I am my best self ready to have meetings and engage. And then there will be days where I know I have a big proposal due, or I’m pushing for a delivery date for an actual engagement result. And I know that that is not the time to book unrelated client sessions because my, my [00:31:00] head’s gonna be somewhere else.

So I do time blocking and I try to group like. Work together.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Suzanne Knight: I’ll do a full day of business development or a full day dedicated to a client if I can. And then the other thing is I follow those energy cycles and reflect on it. To sometimes say, here’s what I did today. Which of these things were in the best window for me? Like, which of these felt good to do? And which of these felt exhausting, burdensome. Like they really weren’t. The right fit for the time and place that I was working

Tim Melanson: Yeah. That’s great. That’s, that really is good. And so, okay. So the, the, the benefit that we had by working for ourselves is that we don’t have to work if we don’t want to. Right? We, we can, we can sort, sort of take a day off if we choose to and all that stuff. However, you know, the other part of it is that if you don’t work, you don’t get paid.

So [00:32:00] now when it comes to like, uh, like, uh, doing the things that you don’t feel like doing, right? Like, like, uh, where is that sort of balance where you have to go, you know what, it’s gotta get done, let’s do it anyway. Versus. Let’s not do it right now and let’s wait till the energy is better.

Suzanne Knight: Very good question. So I look at a couple things. So I used to be a solo. Printer at the beginning. Now I have a small team and I also built, this is something I recommend. I built a freelancer network where I pre-screened, pre-interviewed, and did signed NDAs and client agreements so that. My clients are my clients.

If I’m subcontracting to someone, they’re still my clients. So I signed all of those forms after interviewing people So now when I have opportunities and there are things that are ready to be delivered, I have people I can ask. Another is I built systems where, let’s say for marketing, I’m very [00:33:00] happy to manage my own LinkedIn.

I write all the posts myself. I enjoy that process, and then I post them myself. But I find that I’m less willing to do that for video content. So I’m happy to be videoed, but I’m not somebody who’s going to enjoy or be energized by the editing or the music or the captions for the video content. But I’m happy to prepare and show up ready for a filming day and deliver what I have to deliver.

So I outsource that stuff ahead, knowing that it will never. Be the thing that energizes me and there are people way better at at it than I am now. We go to the day to day, there can be a day that I’m sick. This is a hard thing, like I had the flu before holiday season and I still had stuff I was trying to finish before everyone went out, but like I had a flu and it was only stuff that I could do that was really hard because some of it I had to finish before the holidays to [00:34:00] be able to fulfill the contractual agreements.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: I was able to push, but I’ll say whether it’s the textbook best thing to do or not, when it was a contractual, uh, requirement and I truly didn’t have someone else that could do it and it was make or break, I did it and I was sick and I felt like crappy and I was lying on the couch, but I still got the stuff done.

But anything I could push, I pushed. And I have a prioritization. Scheme with my ea. This is something that is separate from the meetings or client work, but it’s actually around when I get inbound leads or when I have opportunities to connect with people, or people ask me for mentoring. We do a prioritization around what this call will be or what it means to the business.

So priority one is existing client. That means that they are actively engaged, paying money for services or [00:35:00] that they recently did and could renew, but it’s, it’s very much tied to active. Client two is like, or priority two is prospect. That means that there is a real potential that they could become clients, but they’re not clients today.

And so that could be an inbound lead where they are very clear on a scope of work that they want with a legitimate organization that could afford my fees. And I need to speak with them to be able to understand the offering versus the need and broker a deal. So that’s priority two. You see that comes after existing clients once some, once someone engages me, they are my world. And then priority two is future prospects. Three is very active. I get a billion threes. This could be friends wanting to reconnect. It could be mentoring requests. It could be people looking for a job. It could [00:36:00] be conferences where they might want me to speak pro bono at a women’s event. It’s not going to be a client.

It’s not going to make money, but there’s a social good associated with it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: It could be people randomly reaching out saying, Hey, I wanna learn about this part of your business, and you don’t really know where it’s gonna go. But all of those are three. So those come after the core that are gonna keep my business moving forward and keep my family and my core safe and secure financially.

So those are threes. I limit threes. I do threes, but I’ll say there’s one day every two weeks that I’ll take on some threes and I’ll stack them in calls. All day, or sometimes there are threes that I do in person and it’ll be a day. And from morning till night, I’m doing straight out coffees and meals the entire day. And I also do threes ad hoc where I actually prefer if I have quiet time on a day to just pick up the phone and call a three and check it off the list rather than booking [00:37:00] and protecting time in the calendar that I might want in the moment to use for different energy.

Tim Melanson: I love that.

Suzanne Knight: four. Priority four is I don’t wanna meet with this person for whatever reason.

It could be that there is. There have been meetings that haven’t gone anywhere. It could be that that meetings suck my energy. It could be that there’s some level of conflict with a person who’s not necessary for me to have in my life. It, it really depends. But fours are the, the do not book list. And so fours my EA knows just they will never get a spot in my calendar.

I’m telling my secrets now, but I, it’s important to have boundaries

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: to say. No, if there’s something that feels uncomfortable or that you know is gonna drain you and the rest of the day, you’re gonna be that little bit worse. Having spent the time having that meeting or with the person. that’s, that’s my prioritization, four point [00:38:00] prioritization, and it works very, very well for me.

Tim Melanson: Wow. So many things to talk about. We’re running outta time. I just wanna make two, two points. The, the first one is you had mentioned that you stack things that are like together, and I think that’s a great idea because I think that. You sort of build momentum and you know how, like, you know, sports players will have like a routine before they go do their event and all that stuff.

It like gets them in the mood, right? And, and like flipping between tasks, task, task and all that stuff, you have to start over again. So I think that that. Is a great idea for actually making yourself in the mood. Because if you have a couple of especially good ones that work out really, really well and like some successes, you check them off the list, now you’re feeling good and like you’ve just created a good feeling.

Right? So I think that that’s a, a really good, uh, thing too. And then the, the second part about your ea about your, the band, the people that you have around you, like I think one of the hard parts. About, [00:39:00] I, I don’t know if everybody’s like it. I think probably a lot of people are feel bad about saying no and about right.

Like someone you know says, Hey, can I pick your brain for a few minutes? And you’re just like, uh, but you do anyway, right? And it takes your time. But having that person or even a system that like. Is in between you and that person now, like, it’s so funny how like you could have a rule say, Hey, I’ll only like you say I, I’m not, the fours are not getting any time.

I would bet you if you were in charge of that instead of your ea, a few of those fours would sneak through, right?

Suzanne Knight: they used to. And so that’s the thing, like I had to make firm boundaries with my EA

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Suzanne Knight: which she manages consistently and manages it better than me. But then I also realized that every, yes. a no to something

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Suzanne Knight: And so every time I said yes to a four, I was saying no to being able to actually do a proposal or [00:40:00] to fix my website or

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Suzanne Knight: go to the gym or make dinner for my kids, and it just wasn’t worth it.

I actually did a TED Talk on this, a TEDx, and it’s called The Myth of Doing It All. What to do instead. And I talk about very specific tactics that I use in my own work and life to maximize productivity and efficiency. So highly recommend for anyone, Suzanne Knight, the myth of doing it all. See TEDx on YouTube.

But that’s where I talk about yes is a no. You need to center yourself, your wellness, your engagement in your own life. ’cause nobody else is gonna do it for you if you don’t put up those boundaries. People will take what they can get. It’s just human nature and, and no one will protect you. Although your EA is a good substitute, but you still have to hold firm to the boundaries.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, I mean a yes. I, I, I think yeah, A yes is like a no to everything else. Like [00:41:00] you’ve made a choice to do this one thing and you can really only do one thing at a time. I mean, hey, some people say that you can do multitask, but it’s really switch tasking. You can only do one thing at a time, right?

Uh, unless you create an AI double and then well, who knows what happens, right?

Suzanne Knight: Why stop at a double?

Tim Melanson: We could create a whole army of mees that would do stuff, but, uh, but, uh, who knows? That’s, that’s down the line. But yeah, like, I, I think that that is really important. And I, I guess maybe the, the finding out the, the wording around it, like, I bet you there’s some really good wording that you use to make sure that those fours don’t get into your schedule.

Right.

Suzanne Knight: A hundred percent, and so I’ll put this offer out to you, Tim, and any listeners here. Send me a note. You can have my contact actually on LinkedIn, Suzanne Knight, and reach out. I will send you my wording. I actually created a document that has the descriptions of each priority and that has a stock [00:42:00] response, email, and protocol for each level that my EA follows. Take it. Like if you message me, I will send it to you, adapt it, make it yours, or just straight copy paste it. But yeah, it’s been working for me for the past, let’s say 18 months, and I’ve gotten progressively more productive as we’ve improved our operating processes.

Tim Melanson: I love that. Okay, well this is a good time to get into your guest solo then. So what’s exciting in your business right now?

Suzanne Knight: So my business right now is pretty hectic in annual planning. I love connecting with leadership teams, and it could be either like the C-suite of an organization or it could be like one vice president in a domain. Looking to figure out how they’re going to deliver over the rest of the year or the quarter and mobilize their team. So those sessions could be a mix of focus on the work. So what are we trying to deliver? How does it align to the strategy? How are we measuring success? Who’s [00:43:00] doing what and where do those dependencies fall and where are the risks that could keep us from being successful? other side of it is often around high performing teams.

So how do we show up as one? How do we keep from having duplication of work or silos, like let’s actually make work fun, interesting, engaging, support each other’s success, and let’s actually contract on that in the room. Focused on the work. So those are things that I’ve loved doing lately, and I would say from November until end of February, those are quite busy.

But then we get to midyear planning around that June point, and you can rotate or move all of this depending on the company’s fiscal year. So that’s a great way to engage me or to just chat if you wanna bounce some ideas about what it could look like. The other is keynotes. I am so enjoying going in front of [00:44:00] whether it’s a manager offsite, whether it’s an enterprise town hall, a leadership meeting, and talking about a couple things. Never waste a good crisis, has been my most popular keynote for a number of years, and it’s about in this context of constant, relentless change, how do we build. path forward when we don’t exactly know where we’re gonna go. for leaders and managers, how do you guide a team and keep them engaged and feeling good and well and productive when you don’t exactly have that path ahead of you? To guide them too. You’re figuring it out along the way. So there’s a certain bit of resilience that I talk about there in growth Mindset. And then over the past six months, a very popular topic I’ve been discussing is a lot of Tim, what we’ve been talking about here. Creating more time, finding ways to be more efficient.

I talk about this in my TEDx, [00:45:00] the myth of doing it all, but I’ve translated it for a corporate or government or conference audience to be able to say, using the best of Lean Agile and the lessons that I learned driving corporate transformations. With 80 clients in 14 countries, here are the specific tactics that you could employ, whether you are a solopreneur, whether you’re trying to live your best life with your family, whether you’re a corporate leader, these are the specific things that anyone can employ for zero cost,

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

Suzanne Knight: just a little bit of willingness to test and learn.

Tim Melanson: Wow, okay. Wow, you got a lot of stuff on the go and you’re a great speaker, so I bet you those tech TEDxs are awesome.

Suzanne Knight: Thanks, Tim.

Tim Melanson: I’m wondering, like, so who would be the person that would get the most out of working with you?

Suzanne Knight: So the person who would get the most out of working with me on the event side, typically I would be booked by a chief people officer, a head of events, [00:46:00] someone in corporate affairs, or even an executive looking to. Buyer and motivate their team. And then on the consulting side, it’s typically corporate.

It’s typically anyone in a large organization looking to live and work better. But if you are a based. Really anywhere and you’re looking to participate in one of the workshops or masterclasses that I host, I do them about four times a year. It’s not something I offer all the time, but I’ll do them some in person in Toronto, some of them virtual, and anyone around the world can participate and uh, that actually gets a lot of entrepreneurs.

So I would love to have any of you there connect with me on LinkedIn, Suzanne Knight, or my website, suzanne knight.com and you can sign up for my email list. hand write all my emails. I do typically one or two a week, and they’re a mix of tips. I’ll do templates. Let’s say I create something for a conference or a keynote, and it’s [00:47:00] something that I think will be useful.

I typically give it out for free on the list, and then sometimes it’s just storytelling, like I might tell. Story of that annoying keyboard lock situation and, you know, I, I just love the community part of it and building a network and connection whether or not we ever work together. I’m so happy for us just to be connected.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Awesome. That’s so cool. I, I was gonna ask you how to get connected, but you’ve already mentioned it. So

Suzanne Knight: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: now hardest question, who’s your favorite rockstar?

Suzanne Knight: Oh my gosh, I, rockstar is a broad.

Tim Melanson: Musician.

Suzanne Knight: musician. I would say Tracy Chapman.

Tim Melanson: Ooh.

Suzanne Knight: a sweet spot. I love Nora Jones. There’s that certain powerful emotive ballad, singer songwriter that just gets me. And I find that like if I’m feeling down, I wanna listen. If I’m feeling up, I wanna listen. But those are the ones that [00:48:00] I go back to over and over.

Tim Melanson: Do you sing along?

Suzanne Knight: Oh my gosh. Oh, so I do, but nobody would wanna hear. Unfortunately. I’m good at some things. That is one that would really feel like a punishment to any of you to have to listen in on. But

Tim Melanson: So,

Suzanne Knight: sing along with it.

Tim Melanson: have you ever gone to karaoke?

Suzanne Knight: I have, and it was so embarrassing. I went to karaoke in Florida with my dad about a decade ago, and I’m not kidding, like we were in some dive bar.

Nobody was there. Maybe like five or six locals. I was the only ones. Singing B 50 two’s Love Shack in the dive bar with my dad. I don’t know. Must have been more than 10 years ago. ’cause that’s horrifying. But yeah, that’s the last karaoke and probably the last one I will ever go to.

Tim Melanson: Well, you know what? It makes a good story, doesn’t it?

Suzanne Knight: Yeah, and I never told it before, so kudos to you, Tim. Forgetting that

Tim Melanson: Awesome.

Suzanne Knight: of me.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. [00:49:00] Maybe it’ll make it into, into one of your tech talk. Uh, your TED Talks at one point.

Suzanne Knight: Let’s, let’s hope not. But yeah, this was enough. I disclosed it once. That’s enough.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for rocking out with me today, Suzanne. This has been a lot of fun.

Suzanne Knight: Well, it was wonderful, Tim. Thank you so much for having me. It was a joy I.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. To the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information and we’ll see you next time on the Work At Home Rockstar Podcast.