We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jessica Lackey a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jessica, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s talk about keeping costs under control when growing. How have you managed to keep costs from getting out of control?

I keep my costs under control by setting clear targets for both revenue and costs and having a regular practice of financial forecasting. It was a skill I developed in my prior career, as every month I was responsible for projecting the amount of sales we would do and the total costs we’d incur for those sales. And then we had clear indicators about if sales and costs were coming in on target – we didn’t wait until the end of the month to see what happened! Most entrepreneurs don’t have a forward looking forecast for revenue, profit, and cash – at least, they don’t until they work with me and we dial that in together.

Jessica, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I help expertise-based businesses implement the strategies, systems, and structures for growth and scale.

I trained as a consultant at McKinsey, got my Harvard MBA, and spent a decade working in Fortune 500 strategy and operations at big-name companies like Nike. I was steadily rising in the ranks, working hard for those next promotions, with my income and impact growing accordingly, even though I was perpetually on the edge of burnout.

Looks good on paper, right? Until it wasn’t.

I had a few wakeup calls in my early 30s. But after spending a decade mitigating the hole in my soul from overworking with food and alcohol, I hit a wall.

I felt the impact of putting profit over people. I started to have some health issues and saw that something needed to change. I no longer wanted the next rung on the ladder and needed to look deeply inward first.

Once I’d hit that crisis point, I knew I needed to forge a different path for myself, a path that would let me bring these business skills I’d learned to small businesses who strengthened the ecosystem, not extracted from it. I leapt out on my own to start my own consulting firm during the pandemic, once virtual and fractional consulting work became mainstream.

But, I saw these same surface-level status games replicated in the entrepreneurship space. I saw too many business-building programs or coaches that take your time, energy, and money without equipping you with the right support to succeed in the long term. Tactics over fundamentals, communities where you get lost instead of deep mentorship, or short-term bootcamps over long-term sustainable support.

I actively choose business-building activities that don’t scale so I can appropriately serve my clients at their stage of business. I’m committed to making foundational knowledge accessible for businesses at the startup and seed stages. And for businesses on the cusp of growth and scale, I actually get my hands in their businesses and helping them design and implement business systems. Because too much of the online business space is designed for the coach or the teacher to make money, at the expense of their clients and students.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Every month, I teach a free business building class called the Deeper Business Dialogues. This isn’t a webinar designed to lead to a sales funnel, or a 55-minute sales pitch. This is a class where I’m truly doing research, exploring a question on my own mind and for my clients, and distilling everything I’m learning into clear frameworks and actionable insights. This is in addition to a weekly newsletter that is equally in-depth. My clients know that what they see is what they get, and the Dialogue attendees appreciate how I break down complicated topics into a digestible format. My clients don’t feel “sold to”, they feel like they know me and they know the level of clarity I’ll bring to their business.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Early on in my entrepreneurial journey, I hid my corporate background and my ties to big business, business school, and my engineering background. I was spending time in some spaces where being associated with capitalism and industrial efficiency was a liability, not a positive. Too many of my peers had been squeezed out of their companies due to harsh layoffs or efficiency standards that weren’t reasonable.

But hiding my background, hiding the fact that I think in systems, understand financials, and have unique skills from my consulting days meant I was just another face in the crowd. Regardless of what cases McKinsey and Company takes on and the ills caused in society, they had an incredible development program for new analysts that taught me how to diagnose problems and structure arguments. While Lean Thinking and productivity can be taken too far, it’s an effective way to look at business and focus your time and energy.

I had to unlearn hiding my credentials, my expertise, and my ambition in order to fit in, and embraced my corporate business background as a way to stand out.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jessicalackey.com/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-lackey/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jessicalackey

Image Credits

Danielle Cohen