Scaling for Freedom, Not Burnout: Jessica Marx's Strategies for Sustainable Success

Hey, thank you for being here. I've got some good news for you. I've been excited to share with you. The Unstoppable Success Summit is happening in Irving, Texas, April 30th, 2026. And I want to see you in the room because I know one room can change everything. I just feel like you're one room, one conversation, one connection, one collaboration away from everything shifting in your business. Your mindset and your future, and so get in the right room. Join us in Irving and learn insider knowledge from top business owners. We got 12 amazing speakers. You'll network with people who will elevate you and learn proven strategies to eliminate guesswork. You don't have to do it alone. So join us in in Irving, and you know what? It's for a good cause because proceeds are going to be donated to Call to Freedom. So this won't just be impacting your lives; it will be helping so many women who have been surviving. survivors of human trafficking. So let's be unstoppable together. This isn't just another event. It's an opportunity to change everything and really have unstoppable success. So go to go.amberlylago.com/uss2026 and I will see you in the room. You can also find that link at Amberly Lago Motivation on Instagram. And in the show notes. Okay, I will see you in Irving. Welcome to the Amberly Lago Show, where grit, grace, and joy connect you to unstoppable success. Thank you for tuning in today. Oh my goodness, I have someone on the show who has just inspired and impacted me. And I was telling her before we recorded, every time she talks, I want to take notes. And so grab your pen and your pads because you are going to want to take some notes. I guarantee that, especially if you're a business owner, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're a coach, um, and you feel like you're hustling and hustling and hustling. I am so excited for you to hear today's powerhouse. Um, I have with us Jessica Marks, and it's not just what she has built, but how intentionally she helps other women build businesses that support the life that they actually want to live. You know what? She is a— her list of achievements, it goes on and on and on. But I will just tell you, she's a Forbes-featured business strategist, 5-time Forbes business advisor, podcast host, and the founder of Tailored Premier. And she's known for helping 7- and 8-figure female entrepreneurs build scalable and sellable businesses that offer Freedom, not just more hustle. Um, she, I had the honor of being on her podcast called the host of, I mean, she's the host of Millions Were Made. And I am just so excited to, for you to learn about her work. And she doesn't just teach growth. She teaches sustainability, if I can talk, financial literacy, and how to build something that lasts. So Jessica, thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you for having me. I'm excited. I know if you have listeners that are soaking up your information, that they're just going to love today's episode where we can really dive in and make an impact.

Oh my goodness. Yeah. Well, we had one, well, I think it was the first, maybe the first or second phone call we talked and I was like, oh, I, your brain just thinks Differently. Like you just, I can tell just by talking with you that the minute I was telling you about my business, you were like, oh, I hope that's okay that I shared that with you. I was like, oh no, share away. Because I'm taking notes as you're telling me how to do things more efficiently so I don't get burnt out. I mean, because I think so many of us, especially females, where, you know, if we've got a spouse, if we have kids and we're trying to build— a lot of my listeners are trying to build side hustles while they're working another job. And so it's just never ending. And so I'm just curious, I mean, you've led billion-dollar sales divisions and now help these 7 and 8-figure women build businesses that Don't rely solely on them. So what point was it that you personally knew that, um, success without sustainability isn't actually success? Was there a moment in time that you were like, it just clicked and you're like, hey, this isn't working?

Yes. So I did the traditional American dream climbing the corporate ladder. Um, I was involved in a healthcare startup from 2009 to 2017. We grew it to be a multi-billion-dollar organization, and I was working well over 100 hours a week, well over. And I'll be honest, I didn't mind it at the time. I didn't have my kids yet. I didn't have kids until I was in my 30s. And to me, that was success, the promotions, the traveling, the accolades, the—

Mm-hmm.

The deals, all of that, that really was success. And I knew I was burning out, but I also thought if I just keep pushing harder or I just keep doing a little bit more, I'll be fine. I've done it before. I can do it again. But I was actually really struggling at that time to get pregnant. So I was going through IVF while working 100 hours a week while traveling all over the United I was on a plane every week, and I started to realize that that wasn't what I was going to want once I became a mother. And so, uh, I got pregnant with my twins finally on my 6th round of IVF and, um, decided post-maternity leave that one of the things I was noticing in the small business sector is that it really was no different than running this billion-dollar organization with thousands of employees. It was just on a smaller scale. And what they didn't have is they didn't have the understanding of how to really build beyond those first few hundred thousands and create an asset along the way. And so I started consulting with 8-week-old twins because I'm ambitious like that. But I decided, okay, I know that I don't need to, nor do I want to get back into that cycle that I was previously in. And if I did, I could go and get a job for any type of big pharma or healthcare company out there as a CSO or Um, and, and I would be jumping right back into what I started. So I decided that as I was building this and I created a proprietary process of where we go in and do full due diligence on 7 and 8-figure companies to help them grow and scale without the founder, that I really had to lead by example. So over the last 8 years, I've built, uh, 3 really strong companies, and I've done this working probably 20 to 25 hours at most. A week. I do every drop-off, every school pickup. I'm at every sporting event. I have a son with special needs, so all of the appointments that come with that. And so, not only am I able to practice what I preach, but I'm also able to say, I get if you're listening to this right now and you're that 60-hour-a-week, 70-hour-a-week founder, and you don't possibly understand how you could ever get out of that. I've also been there too. And I tell you that I am far more successful now than I ever was in corporate working 100 hours a week because I understand how to leverage my time. I understand boundaries, and I am fully capable of putting the right people in the right seats and the right processes in place in order to build companies that scale. Without needing more of the founder. And that's ultimately why we all become entrepreneurs is we want freedom with time and we want freedom with financials. Yet only 1% of founders ever achieve that.

I believe it. I mean, as you're talking, you, you kind of said something and skimmed over something. You were like, business run without the founder. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Business run without the founder. I mean, that's huge. But also when we, one of the times when we talked, you were like, well, tell me a little bit about, like, for instance, how your mastermind runs. And you were like, oh, and I keep it real on the show. I tell everyone, I keep it real. So I'm just going to share what you were telling me about my business. You were like, oh, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.

No.

You mean they have your phone number? You mean they text you? You mean You're constantly at like, and I was like, yeah. And you're like, you mean they have one-on-one coaching sessions with you? I was like, yeah. You're like, no, we gotta, we gotta do something different here. Because you, you said, because you're going to burn out. You're like, how many women are in your group? And I was like, wow. And I started to look at the hours and it, and what you said earlier, uh, that you didn't mind it. You loved it. And I do, I love what I do. But at the same time, looking at the whole picture of, are you able to take care of your health? Are you able to spend quality time with your family or even friends? And so I think that's important. And you are queen of leveraging your time. Here I was all, I told you before we started, I was like, you've really inspired me. I'm taking some time off. Over the holidays. And you were like, you were like, yeah, oh, I'm taking up until like the, you know, the first or second week of January. And I was like, wow, okay. Learn once again, learning, like leveraging that time. But for those people who are out there listening, going, well, I want to be able to do that, but I don't know how, how do they start?

Yes. And I will say, um, so a couple of things that are important because we talked about Businesses running without a founder, that is earned at a certain point in the growth of the business if it's built right. So I want to be clear about that and I'll cover it more. And I also want to be clear too that I think that there's some false realities on social media of, you know, I laid on a beach 360 days a year and my business made $20 million. And that's actually not the case. Right? And so I'm never gonna come in and say anyone's company can run without them and it's gonna run every single day without them, right? There's seasons. Um, so personally for me, it's, I take most of December off and I take all of July off, and that requires work on the front end and it requires systems and talent and people and, and a sales cycle in the companies that allows me to do that. So it's not like I just decide on July 1st, All right, I'm taking the whole month off to go be with my kids. A lot of planning and strategy goes into that. And so I think that's important that for most of your listeners to say, okay, great, starting next week, I'm going to cut my hours in half. That's actually not doable unless the business model supports that. So what do we do to build a business model that supports that? Well, as you experience, because I can't, it's a blessing and a curse. If you sit next to me on an airplane and you're a business owner, you're, you're getting stuck with me for 3 to 4 hours and me restructuring your entire company. Um, because I just, it's, uh, I don't have a lot of skill sets, but when it comes to business strategy, that is one that I do have. And I can see where you're at, where you should be, and then how do we close that gap? How do we get there? Right?

Mm-hmm.

And so for you, it was that you are very inundated. You're very available to your clients. And when that happens, it gives you very little time or bandwidth to focus on the future, to focus on Where's the company going next? How do we, you know, become better as an organization? How do we deliver more impact? And so what we always tell our clients is that when we go through and we restructure offers and we restructure deliverables, we are not restructuring your impact or your results. And if we are, it's to get something better for your clients or customers.

Mm-hmm.

And I think a lot of times people think, if I'm less available, Or I don't include 87 deliverables in my offer stack, that no one's going to hire me because they don't get the result. When in all reality, out of that 87, there's probably only 2 to 3 deliverables in there that are truly needle movers for your client, customer, patient, whoever it is that you serve. And so how do we lean into those? And how do we make the experience systematized and scalable so that they can be really successful? They tell all of their friends, your referrals increase, and that you as the founder can be thinking 6, 9, 12 months in advance. And so I do think it's important that if you're somebody right now that's buried in the weeds, one, you need the clarity. So you need time and space away from the business, even if it's like one night in a hotel where you can just really white paper everything. But what is everything that you're doing right now? And if you were to develop a job description of a CEO and founder, would that list mirror what an actual founder of a company is supposed to be doing? And chances are it's not. And so then we take that other list of all the tasks and items and filler that's in your day and figure out, okay, Let's break those into containers. What of that is marketing? What of that is operations? What of that is client deliverables? And let's separate them into buckets and containers. And the one with the longest items in it is probably the first area that we need to look at hiring because it's going to remove the most amount of time off of your plate to then free up to really focus on larger-scale initiatives that are going to increase revenue. That's going to allow you then to, um, reinvest those profits and hire more.

That's so good. I mean, little things like that make a big difference that, that take a lot of time. This year I actually did inventory about, you know, I looked at, um, how many in-person events that I spoke at, how many hours, how many podcast interviews that I did. I did like 96 podcast interviews this past year. How many episodes I did on my own show, and then the amount of time that I spent on thousands of hours of creating content and putting posts out there and that sort of thing. And I speak at these big events where, you know what, I'm the only one that's doing my social media. These other big speakers, they're not running their social media. And so that That was like first on the list of, I remember, you know, being backstage with a really well-known speaker and he was like, oh yeah, I don't do any of my social media. I've got a team that does that. I, half the time I don't even know what they post. And I'm like, that takes hiring someone that really knows your brand, that really knows your message, that really knows what kind of impact you want to make. It takes a lot of trust. To do those sort of things. What would you say to the person who's like, but okay, a couple of questions. Oh, this is what I hear a lot. A lot of times people say, well, I don't have the money to hire anybody. What do you say to that person?

Yeah. So I want to back up real quick, kind of to your social media analogy, because it actually doesn't take somebody that knows you, that knows your brand, that knows all of that, right? That is something that can be taught. and trained through a really great onboarding process. What we need is somebody that is phenomenal at personal brands, that is phenomenal at social media, that knows the trends, that knows how to pull analytics and data and see what's working and be able to measure ROI so that they can come to you and say, you know, I wouldn't do this event again next year. I wouldn't speak at it, or I wouldn't invest in being there. Like this podcast that I know you did 96 podcasts this year, out of those 96, I would say only 20 of them really delivered an impact through more followers or through people signing up or whatever it may be, because then you're able to understand, where do I invest my time? I say no to probably 95% of the things that come my way, and that's okay. That's the season of life I'm in, and I am unapologetic for it. I know that I have to preserve my time and that the 5% that I do say yes to, either I, A, want to do it, or B, I know that there's going to be a substantial ROI on that time that I'm delivering and dedicating to whatever that engagement might be. So you want to hire the talent for the role. You want to build a business that has really strong culture, that has really strong SOPs and a brand and a mission, and that anybody that gets plugged into that could understand it in the first 5 days that they're working there. And so that's one of the big mistakes that I do see a lot of people make is like, they need to understand our brand. No, they need to understand their role and they need to have that experience to bring that value that they have from working from maybe somebody else that's also a really great, well-known speaker to say, we're not going to keep doing things the way that you did it. Yes, it's working, Amberly, but like, I have experience that I can bring to the table where I'm going to 10x what you're currently doing because there's another way that we could do it that's quicker, easier, faster, better, whatever it may be. So that is—

That is so good.

So that's one really important thing that I just want to touch base on. But for the person that says, I don't have money to invest into hiring, you're going to stay exactly where you are. Forever, right? Um, if you look at a million-dollar company, a billion-dollar company, a 9-figure, whatever, whatever company ahead of you that you want to compare yourself to, they are not doing it alone.

Mm-hmm.

There is no such thing as a one-person million-dollar brand. There just isn't. As you start to scale into multiple 6 figures, that's where you have to reinvest profits is into team. Because most people think you have to reinvest it into marketing. But if you are investing it all into marketing and then everything's coming into you and then you're drowning, you're eventually going to either burn out or burn the company down. It's like one or two. It's, that's just what happens. And so what you need to do is you need to figure out how do I become more profitable with my offers? So kind of like we talked about when I looked at your offers, I was like, we're leaving a lot of profitability here on the table. Mm-hmm. Because we are overdelivering. We have too many of your hours going into this or whatever it may be. It could be your cost per acquisition. There's a lot of things where we see there's profitability everywhere that is untapped in companies because they haven't had the time to sit down and really look at it and strategically identify how do we go from 23% to 45% profitability. When you start to increase profits, you then can reinvest that additional margin into headcount that's ultimately going to allow the revenue to grow. And if the revenue's growing and you've figured out the profit issue, then as the revenue grows, the profitability is also going to sustain.

So good. See, do you understand why I'm telling you, you wanted to grab your pad and pen and take notes to everything that she's saying? That's so good though. So some, what really struck a chord with me is to hire somebody who's really good at not your brand necessarily, but their role. They know their role and they're really good at what they do.

Yes. And the thing is too, where, um, we're very fortunate is that there's so many different ways we can hire. It doesn't necessarily mean you're bringing on a W-2 at $100K salary. Maybe you can only afford a contractor right now, and it's 10 hours a week, 15 hours a week. As long as you take those 10 or 15 hours that are being removed from your plate and you strategically invest them somewhere that is going to grow and scale the profitability of the company, then you'll be able to eventually bring somebody on full-time, or you'll be able to increase their hours to 20 hours or 25 hours. And so there's a lot of different ways through 1099 or through incentive comp plans, commissions. I mean, we set up different infrastructures for every single company that we work with, but we always have one thing in mind, and that is how scalable is this strategy going to be and what is the impact that this person is going to have in this role in order for us to achieve that next Oh, that's so good.

Well, so some listeners, you might be sitting there going, well, I don't know if my company depends or relies on me too much. What is a warning sign that a business is too dependent on its founder, even if the revenue looks good on paper? Is there, are there any signs?

Yes. So revenue is a participation trophy. I tell everybody that. Everybody, if you show up in business, you're going to get revenue, right? I could care less. I don't care if you have a $5 million, $50 million company. I want to know what's your profitability and how much are you as a business owner actually personally making from the company that's pulling to your personal wealth, which will ultimately is the only thing that's ever going to get you wealthy, right? Is like what you are able to extract from the business to then put into your personal wealth bucket that then, then is going to allow you to have those major investments that are going to have longevity of return on them. While you build this asset that you could eventually sell, which is your business. So that to me is like, that's how I gauge success is like, what are you making and what is the company actually making at the end of the day from a profitability perspective? Because there are $400,000 founders that are taking home $200 grand a year, and there's million-dollar founders that are taking $20 grand home a year. So I, revenue means nothing to me. I will say we audit. about 3 multimillion-dollar companies per month. We've been doing this for almost 8 years now, and I have yet, and we're doing roughly, our companies are $2 million to $20 million that are coming to us. I have yet to have a single person come to us where we say, you have nailed it. As the founder, you are exactly in the seat you need to be in. You are working the amount of hours we would want you to work. You're taking the personal wealth structure that we think you should be taking. It has never happened. And maybe—

What are some of the patterns that you see that even that these, because I know you've audited like hundreds of companies, or do you see the same patterns in the, yeah. What are the patterns?

And we have never, and I say never gone in and not restructured an offer suite. So we, especially this year in 2025, we are seeing a lot of issues with the way offers have been structured. They either have too many offers, not enough offers. They have too many deliverables in their offers. The pricing is not correct. They're leveraging, maybe they hired a business coach in 2020, 2021 when we were in a different economic cycle and a different consumer psychology cycle, and they're still trying to sell what they were selling in that COVID era, post-COVID era, and it is no longer working. And so I will say the number one thing that like bullseye in the middle that is drowning business owners right now is the infrastructure in which they have set up their offers. And then the way that you set up your offers determines the size of the team and the infrastructure of the organization. And because the offer suite is off, we then find that they are bleeding money in their headcount and their organizational— because they just keep throwing people at a problem that people are not going to be able to fix.

Oh, I've definitely been there. I remember, oh my goodness, there was one year that I I had someone who was really good at tech, techie stuff. And that's something I said in 2026, I'm going to get better at tech, all things tech. And I had a guy who was like, oh, well, I just need to build this system for you and it's going to run like blah, blah, blah. All you have to do is you record 45 videos and I will plug that into a system and that's going to lead into Your evergreen course, and then that's going to lead into your mastermind, and that's going to lead into, like, it was this whole, it was a mess. It was a mess. And the ROI was like zero or in the red because I was paying him so much every month to build it and then kind of run it. even if I did make any money on it, it all went to him. And I was like, wait a minute, he's smart. He's got me working my butt off and he's making all the money. You know what I mean? And so I've definitely learned a lot of lessons and I find that if it does not bring me joy, if I don't love it, I'm not going to stick to it. So, so many people can tell me, oh, well, you need to have This evergreen course and this and this and this. I really feel like getting your offer, the thing that you love dialed in. To me, that's kind of where I'm going in 2026. Tell me about that. Like, do you feel that every, let's take, I got a lot of coaches that listen.

Okay.

So let's, let's take somebody, um, that's a coach. For instance, can you give us an example of what a coach could do? Because I know you say sellable. How does a coach sell their business? And give me some examples of some things that they could do to start building out systems that they could sell.

Yes. Okay. So I do want to back up real quick because I do think this will be really valuable to your listeners is using your example of like this video production, this tech guy. So, this happens all the time and it happens in all different parts of the business, right? So, a business owner thinks, if I hire a social media manager, that's going to fix the whole company. And then what happens is they put and apply all the pressure on that social media manager to fix an entire organization or to redirect the business. And it's like turning a cruise ship, right? And so, where we see a lot of issues happen is the business owner doesn't actually understand the full model and they don't have full clarity of what they're wanting and where they're looking to go and how they're gonna have that greatest impact. So what happens is noise comes in, right? Or the glittery object and they go after it because they think that's gonna be the thing that fixes it. That funnel is gonna be the thing that works this whole thing out. I will tell you right now, because when we go in and we do 3 rounds of due diligence, as if I was buying the company, like there is no stone left unturned. There is like every skeleton comes out of the closet. We see it all and we have to, and here's why. Business advice can be good or bad depending on who's giving it and who's listening to it. And I will always say, I can give you a little bit of advice. I can give you some generalized advice. But a lot of times people ask me questions, like even you and I, and I'm like, can you send me the whole working document and then let me go in and look through it? Because it's not enough for me to just see your sales page and say, okay, you should fix this and add to this and restructure this. There's a lot of data and information that we take into consideration when writing strategy of like, where does this company go next? And this is why I'm not concerned whatsoever about AI taking over our audits or my job, because what AI is pulling from is historical data. What we're doing for our clients is we're structuring how do they be first to market, how do they dominate their industries, what do they need to do and shift and change to be that trailblazer, and then how do they do it in a way that's so swift and nimble and economical that They, it's going to take somebody a lot longer to catch up to them because that person is trying to find that thing that's going to work, but we've seen the whole picture and then here's how we're going to move them forward. So I do think that's important is that if you're somebody who's made these mistakes of investing, we all do it, but if you don't want to do it again and you don't want to get yourself in that pattern of not seeing—

Oh, I don't want to do it ever again.

Yeah.

But thanks for making me feel better by saying we all do it.

Yes. Yes. I mean, and we've seen it at very large scale. I mean, we've seen clients come to us after investing hundreds of thousands of dollars into something they thought was going to be, you know, the fix and it just wasn't. And we can easily say, here's why. And sometimes it's a harsh conversation of like, You as the business owner didn't even understand what the result was that you were looking for. And so this person thought that they were getting you closer to the goal. However, because you couldn't articulate— articulately communicate what the company's vision actually was and where you needed to be a year to 18 months from today, they were working in a totally different direction from where the business is actually going to be most lucrative. So all that to say that like we as founders have to be thinking months ahead. Like I'm never working in the day-to-day. I'm always working in our private clients. We bring them together twice a year. So when we brought them, flew them in in September, they were finalizing their 2026 annual business plans. They now are working into Q3 and we bring them back in July, or I'm sorry, in February. And in February, we're gonna be focused on like, okay, what needs to be done in Q3, Q4? So we're working way in advance, and that's one of the mistakes that we see a lot of founders make. So if we're thinking about coaches and how do coaches have a sellable product, um, coaches are one of the top fastest growing industries. And the problem with the coaching space is it's a game of follow the leader. And so everybody that is newer or that's doing $50,000, $100,000, $200,000, what they're doing is they're replicating somebody that's doing $10 million or $20 million a year. And you are basically swimming upstream trying to do that.

Mm-hmm.

What you need to do is you need to create your own IP. You need to create your own methodology. You need to create why your result, why your impact is so different from everybody else. And I'll give a personal example of that. When I got into this advisory space in 2017, a lot of the industry leaders were doing mass programs, group programs, hundreds of members. thousands of members doing these large in-person events. And that was like what you needed to do, right? To be scalable. That's what you needed to do to have major impact. So when everybody was going right, I decided, nope, I'm going to take a hard left. I'm not going to have a $900 program. I'm not even going to have a $5,000 program. I am going to be boutique. We are going to be very highly custom tailored personalized we're going to be for the founder that's gone through all those programs and says, I didn't get any result. I felt like another number. I didn't even have access to the creator. I had access to co-coaches or whatever it was. And now I'm realizing I need somebody to come in that really understands businesses and I'm willing to pay top dollar for that type of support. And that type of structure because I am burnt out, I am overwhelmed, and I know I have a really great product or service, but I can't scale it. And so I think that there's 2 things can be true, right? Those people had success for a very short period of time and now they're really struggling because the volume game is very difficult.

Mm-hmm.

Where we're just cruising along like we've always done. We're waitlisted like we've always been. Um, we have one, we have one offer, one. It's the audit. You come in through the audit. That is the only forward-facing offer. We have backend support. We have private advisory. We have things like that, but you cannot get that until you go through the offer. We have the most simplistic business model there is, and it's been extremely successful, and my team is phenomenal. And so why does that work? I, own the methodology. I have copywritten our assessment. We are very well known for our business performance audit. We are the only one that does an audit like this, that you are not actually going through the process to sell your company. So before you would get an audit done like this, or during the valuation process, we're doing it 3 to 5 years in advance so that female founders can go in really successful to the sales process years from now and get top dollar, trade at the highest multiple, or keep the company, name a new CEO if they want, and pull from it financially into their personal wealth portfolio and start other companies. My messaging is so clear because of that IP and because of all the data we're housing from all these companies that it creates this sellable asset where Somebody one day, if I decide to sell, would buy the firm because they're buying all of the processes, all of the, um, proprietary methods that we have that nobody else can do because I own it. It's trademarked, it's copywritten, um, and it's very well protected.

Oh, that's so good. You know, I'm all about keep it simple. You know, it's like, just keep it simple and I can't tell you how many people that I have, you know, brought in or worked with, or, you know, um, that want to say, oh, well, no, you need this system and you need this system, systems, but no, like assets, things to do. And I did try some things and afterwards I was like, I won't do that again. I'm, it's spreading myself way too thin to be doing this coaching program and this coaching program and this mastermind and these personal, you know, one-on-one co— uh, coaching. For my individual clients. It was just like all over the place. And then, um, wanting me to do like, um, a community where it was like, and it's like, oh, it'll just be an hour a week. And it's like, no, I don't. I want to keep it simple. I want one thing. So this really just confirms so much. So thank you for just, just listening to you share. That's what my gut has been telling me for a long time, and I'm just going to start listening to my gut. But I love everything that you've shared. You are so brilliant in how you think that, I mean, every time I listen to you, I just feel like it's such a privilege to get to learn from you. And you took the time to kind of look over a lot of my business stuff. I think you were even getting on a plane and you're like, oh, just send it to me. I'll take a look. I was like, oh my gosh, thank you.

Yes.

Um, so for women, and I know we're running short on time, but I just wanted to ask for women out there who might struggle with not being the face of their company or, you know, the fixer or the driver of the business. And maybe that is kind of, I like ego, you know, but how would you suggest they get through that and kind of let go of the reins a little bit?

Yes. And we have a lot of experience with this. Um, we work with very well-known names. We work celebrity clientele, and you can imagine that transition. I mean, we work with individuals that have hundreds of thousands, over half a million followers on social media. They've become famous through building their brands. They weren't influencers that built a brand. They were business owners that became famous because of their brands. And so there's always going to be that element. I always say it's like the Sara Blakely of Spanx or the Bethenny Frankel of Skinnygirl. Like, they're always going to be the founders, but they're not the ones that are at these grassroots events. They're not the ones in every single campaign. Well, especially Sara now that she's sold, but, um, or even Allison. Did she sell?

I didn't even know that.

Did she? Right. Over a billion. Same with Allison from Poppy, right? So like, Most people didn't even know who Allison was that sold Poppi, the beverage company.

Oh, my daughter loves that beverage company.

Now she's really famous because she did a billion-dollar acquisition with PepsiCo. And so she's still very involved from a brand perspective. She's no longer the owner. She's no longer the founder, but she's now able to take that accolade of selling that brand and leverage it in a multitude of ways. And so that's what we want for our founders as well. You still can be the founder. You still can be the creative director or the one that's, you know, creating the IP or the processes, or, you know, some of our clients are well-known physicians. And so they're spending their days doing the things that they originally started their business for, writing the white papers or creating the new programs. They're just no longer the ones delivering it because that they've hired a really strong team. I mean, I'll even tell you, like in 2024, I had 20 private clients. In 2025, I had 10 private clients. Going into 2026, I have 5 private clients personally.

Wow.

I have advisors on my team that have all gone through acquisitions. They're all female founders that have sold companies. I have an advisor on my team that's currently running a $14 million annual portfolio in her brick-and-mortar locations. That's an advisor. And so because I've built that trust, because I've nurtured them in, my clients now feel comfortable working with advisors on my team and understand that I no longer have the bandwidth to do that. I'm running 3 very successful companies and I have to preserve my time, and it would be unfair in 2026 For me to still take 10 clients. I don't have that type of time anymore. And so, let me back that up. I have the time. I'm choosing not to because it would take time away from my family, my time from my kids, and other things that I want to work on. And so, I think that the female founders listening have to decide, if time was a bank, where are they willing to invest it and where are they willing to pull from?

Mm-hmm.

In order to make sure that they, at the end of the day, don't just feel successful as a founder, but as a mom, as a wife, as a friend, as a daughter, as a sister, whatever it may be, um, because that's where we're going to leave our biggest legacy.

Oh my gosh, Jessica, this is hitting home like you have no idea. I mean, like, right before I came in my office to record, My husband was like, well, how you feeling? How you doing? What's going on? You know? And I said, oh, I'm good. I feel good. I said, well, I gotta, I'm gonna go record. And he's like, oh my gosh, you almost died on me. And now you're already back at it running 100 miles an hour. And I'm like, oh, because I just got out of the hospital. Well, it's been a while. It's been a couple of weeks, but I'm, I am feeling good. But it's like just you saying. The time looking, and I actually did look at that, especially after this last trip to the hospital, like what brings me joy, what moves the needle on my business, and what is not in alignment with me. And I'm starting to say no more because I, and I measure things actually in energy, um, because of, you know, I live with this complex regional pain. Um, nerve disease that takes a lot of energy out of you. So I measure everything in energy and I love doing charity work. And I flew more this past year than I ever have in my life. And my husband was like, okay, Amberly, that's it. Like no more like running all over the country. Like, and so I thought, okay, I can pick one. charity event that I will fly to and go speak at their event. So I'm starting to get more intentional, but everything that you're sharing, I am soaking it in like a sponge because it is so needed. And I think it's so needed by so many women that I speak to that they, they have these companies, they're tired, they're exhausted.

Yeah.

But they also don't want to let go of that control. Is there anything that you could say, if you could just give them one little piece of advice to let them, you know, let go of the control and trust, what would that be?

Yes. So I do want to say, you, for all the women listening, you have to understand too, we're the first generation of women to run 7, 8, 9-figure companies, even 10-figure companies. We have a lot of women crossing that billion-dollar mark. We are the first generation. So one, we're trailblazing, but two, we're also, we're trying to do both. We're trying to be the stay-at-home mom and run the companies. And we're in a very fast-paced evolution right now of just time and chaos and all the things. And our natural go-to as women is, I can handle it, I can do it, I can take it on. And we'll go, go, go, go, go until we end up in the hospital or until we get divorced or until we burn out. And so I think it's really important. You said you measure success by your energy. I measure my daily success by how calm I am, right? So like, if I'm not calm, something's off. Either I'm doing something I don't wanna be doing, I'm being pulled in directions I don't wanna be pulled in. And so when you learn For all the women listening, when you really understand how you're, and really listen to your nervous system, your nervous system is telling you. So if you are listening to this right now and you're thinking about the 87 other things that you need to be doing, I would challenge you to pause this episode and just sit for 5 minutes and really ask yourself, Is this the life that I would choose if I had a choice? And if it's not, what are you going to do differently? How can we change it? What decisions need to be made in order for you to even just get one baby step closer to the life that you would choose? Because I will tell you, I am surrounded by very, very successful women on a daily basis.

Mm-hmm.

And the reason I'm able to take so much time off is because our clients also are taking so much time off and they're running $12 million, $20 million, $30 million companies. They're taking 2 weeks off at the holidays. They're taking summer vacations. They're not messaging me at 9 o'clock at night because they're not working at 9 o'clock at night. And so what you're doing is getting you further from success. And you need to make a decision today on what direction you need to go in to get you closer to whatever success looks like Oh, so important.

I mean, just so important for, because I know so many women that are just, they're exhausted, their health is suffering or their marriages. Um, and so this is just really important. So yeah, take a 5-minute pause and then come back to the show. No, that's so good. So good. Um, Well, what are you working on next? I know we've, this is going to, this is going to air after the holidays, but when the holidays come back, I know you've got your one-on-one clients that you're going to work with, or what did you say? 3? It's down to 3?

5? Yes. 5 phenomenal women.

That's amazing. Um, do you do any kind of events? Um, or is it primarily just for those 5 people that you work with?

Just for those 5. And it goes back to what I was saying, right? So when we do behind the scenes of our private client retreats, our inbox gets flooded. We don't show who's there, um, but we show kind of the behind the scenes, what the, you know, the estate looks like, things like that. And everyone messages us, how can I attend one of these? Will you host a retreat? Can I? I could, right? Do I want to? No, I don't want to. I love being able to walk into that home with the 5 to 8 women that I know, I know their companies inside and out. I operate as their board of directors. They know each other as a 5 and their business models. So they're able to also do a ton of business exchange and advice. And to me, I walk into that with so much excitement and it's just so laid back and, um, such a great 3 days that I don't want to be an event company. And so I think that's really important is like, Could we make a ton of money off of that? We probably could, but I don't want to and I don't need to. And so that's one of the things that I really want the women listening is like, as you're in this new year, you could do a lot of things. It doesn't mean you should. And so really identifying, and where that comes from is that clarity. I keep going back to clarity, but it's so important. I have such crystal clear visions of what I want for each one of my companies and what that requires and what that will need of me, that it allows me to either be an absolute yes or no when something comes our way.

I think that's so important. That's so great. It is clarity. And I think that taking some time to actually write down what you want, to write down what is the vision that you want for your company. Makes a difference. If you don't know where you want to go or what you want it to look like, how are you going to take the right steps to get there? And so that's so important. And I love that you said just because, you know, just because you can or just because doesn't mean that you should, you know, because so many people say, oh, well, you should do this and you should do that. And it's like, no, just know what you really want to do.

And I, I told you this earlier, but I just thought of it. We have a phenomenal 2026 business planner where I walk you through in a masterclass how to take all of your data from 2025, all of your marketing insights, all of your sales insights, your, like, your org chart, everything. I walk you through, like, for the first half of the planner, you pull everything from 2025. Then the second half of the planner is then how do you take all that information And then strategically make decisions for 2026. So I'll have my team send you that link so you can include it in the show notes.

Okay.

And we'll give your listeners a discount off of it. Um, but that is, I am essentially helping you audit your company's performance in 2025 and then actually use data to get clarity and look at those numbers. Because it'll paint a picture of where you should go in this coming year. So I'll have my team send you all of that because I do think that would be really beneficial. And it, you don't need to be a multimillion dollar company. We created this masterclass and planner so that even a new business owner could go through it and then have that confidence to know what are the next steps.

Oh, thank you so much, Jessica. Well, what's the best way for people to find you? And I'll make sure that link is in the show notes as well.

Yes. So I always say I'm not very active on social media, um, but I'm on there at The Jessica Marx, M-A-R-X. But the best place is Millions Are Made Podcast. We have incredible guests like Amberly, but I also do weekly episodes where I'm giving actual business advice that you can apply right now into your companies based off of the markets, based off of economy, based off of buyer Um, habits that we're seeing. And so that is my passion project where it allows me to get as much information out to the listeners. So it's Millions Were Made, um, and you can find it on Apple or Spotify.

Okay. And I will have that link in the show notes, but y'all, since you're going, you're listening right now, go ahead and go subscribe to Millions Were Made podcast. And I just feel honored that I got to be on your show. So thank you. Thank you so much for being here. I mean, oh, this has just been such a powerful reminder that success, it's not just about how much money that you make. It's really about what your business gives back to your life, the freedom that it gives you, what your vision is, what, you know, what your big dreams are. And I always say the joy that you have in life. So, um, if you take nothing else from this episode, just let it be this, that the goal isn't to build a business that needs you to survive. It's to build a business that supports the life You're called to live. So thank you for tuning into the show. Jessica, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you. And you know what? Share this with your friends. Take a screenshot, share the link with your friends. Let's grow together, be unstoppable together, and all have that success that we so deserve. So until next time, Keep choosing joy, keep leading with intention. And when you share this, tag me and tag Jessica too, because when I see that, I share it on my story as well. But keep becoming unstoppable. Thanks for tuning into the show, and we'll see you next week.