131: How to grow your business in a changing market (and why B-School could help)
Is the secret to growing your business actually going back to basics?
With AI tools, algorithm changes, and skeptical consumers, keeping up with online business trends can feel exhausting. But what if the real key to success isn’t about chasing the latest hacks—but instead, focusing on timeless, proven business foundations?
In this episode, I’m sharing my personal experience with B-School, Marie Forleo’s renowned online business and marketing program, and why it was one of the best investments I ever made. I’ll walk you through the strategies that helped me build a thriving, flexible business and why getting back to marketing fundamentals—like email, content, and real human connection—can help you stand out in today’s unpredictable landscape.
If you’re a Gen X woman looking for structure, clarity, and a supportive community to help you grow your business, this episode is for you. Plus, I’m revealing the exclusive bonuses I’ve created to help you implement what you learn and build a business that fits your lifestyle. Ready to find out if B-School is right for you? Hit play now!
Topics We Cover in This Episode:
The mindset shift that changed my entire business trajectory
Why “old-school” marketing strategies are making a major comeback
The biggest mistake I made before joining B-School—and how you can avoid it
What makes B-School different from free business advice online
The one thing that will help you gain traction faster than anything else
My exclusive B-School bonus suite designed for Gen X women in business
Get your business and marketing fundamentals dialed in. To register for the free Business Bootcamp and find out about my bonus suite for Gen X business owners, visit kimkiel.com/bschool.
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Welcome to ill communication, copywriting tips and sales strategies for small business. I'm your host, Kim Keel. I'm a copy coach, sales strategist, and direct response copywriter. It's my mission to help women leaders and changemakers amplify their voices through copy. It's why I'm dishing out all the juicy tips, writing prompts, and sales formulas to help you generate more leads, book more calls, and get more high value clients on repeat. Sounds pretty good. It's time to ditch the overwhelm you might be feeling and find confidence in your copywriting so you can get your message out there and attract more soul mate clients. Let's get started. Well, hey there and welcome to episode 131 of the Ill Communication Podcast. At the time of recording it, it feels like we've lived several years in this one month alone in January. We've all collectively witnessed heartbreaking scenes of wildfires in California, peace treaties and prisoner hostage exchanges in Palestine and Israel. We've seen Donald Trump make sweeping changes to programs and legislation in the US, and his appointed oligarchs making Nazi salutes in Canada. Our prime minister is stepping down, kicking off a heated leadership race. A new Chinese AI tool, Deep Sea, just tanked the stock market and the social media circus continues. From the masculine, energy loving meta and X and blue sky and brief TikTok bans and Instagram changing its grid layout. It is freaking hard to keep up.
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It's tough to know what to focus on and what to let go of or ignore. And as a business owner, it's easy to get caught up in the hype of all these new AI tools, new platforms, and changes to the algorithm. Consumers are skeptical and mistrustful of marketing, and they're taking longer to make buying decisions. Sometimes it feels like we have no control over our business and marketing. But the truth is, we do have control. When times feel turbulent, the best thing we can do is simplify and get back to the foundations of old school, tried and true business and marketing strategies. Now, I talked a little bit about this in episode 128 seven Marketing and Copywriting Trends to Boost Sales in 2025, and shared how old school strategies like long form blogging and podcasting, investing in email marketing, live in-person events or virtual events, building person to person connection and focusing on human first marketing are going to stabilize your business and help you stand out in 2025. Now, these are not new strategies. They are foundational business practices that have been used for decades and decades and in some cases centuries. And I believe right now more than ever in the past five years, getting back to basics, focusing on those core principles of business and marketing are going to help you win the day. And if you're feeling a little fuzzy on those business and marketing fundamentals and you want to dial that in, I want you to hear my story and experience of B-School.
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Now, this is an online business and marketing program created by Marie Forleo, who has been running an online business. Forget this almost 25 years, 25 years. B-school gives you these fundamentals to help you start or refine and grow your online business. The principles Marie Forleo teaches are timeless and also so timely given today's skeptical, uncertain, and ever changing marketplace. That's why I'm going to rerelease a previous episode I shared where you'll hear about my personal experience with B-School and why I recommend it to women, and especially midlife women who want to launch or dial in your business basics and build a solid foundation that's scalable and profitable, no matter what the heck is going on in the world. Now, the dates you'll hear in the recording are from several years ago, so here are the dates you need to pay attention to this year. In 2025, Marie is hosting a free three day business bootcamp February 11th, 12th and 13th. It's simple to watch video trainings that break down her blueprint for business success. If you're interested in joining B-School, enrollment closes February 27th and the six week program kicks off March 3rd. As a partner, I have put together a B-School bonus suite perfect for Gen X women in business. I invite you to check out B-School for all of the details and links to register for Marie's boot camp and find out more about B-School.
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And I share more about all of this in the episode you're about to hear. So without further ado, here's my experience with B-School and why it was one of the best investments I made in myself and my business, and why I think it could be a great investment in your business in 2025. So let's get into it. If you're newer to online business, or maybe you've only been listening to me for a short while, you might be wondering what B-School even is. In fact, B-School is two things. Number one, it's an abbreviation for a business school and is most commonly associated with MBA programs or business schools within a university or post-secondary institution. And secondly, B-School is also the name of an online learning program created by Marie Forleo, who is a very successful serial entrepreneur, public speaker and author. Marie launched B-School in 2010, and has since gone on to train a whopping 80,000 entrepreneurs across 650 industries around the globe. It's a six week online course that gives new entrepreneurs and more seasoned ones a roadmap to starting and scaling your business. I joined back in 2018, but I have to admit, I followed Marie for over a year before I joined the program. I think I discovered B-School and Marie Forleo in late 2016 actually.
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I watched as she promoted B-School in 2017 and I thought, all this stuff is available for free. I don't need to join this program. I can find everything I need on the internet. But when I got to the end of 2017. Womp womp. I was no further along in launching my business. I knew then that I needed to follow a curriculum. I needed some accountability, and I wanted a community because I knew very few people in online business or entrepreneurship. So in So in 2018, when Marie Forleo's annual B-School promo came around, I jumped. And when I say jumped, it was really me talking to my husband about why I thought this was a good opportunity. At the time, it felt like a very big investment and in fact it still does. I had fortunately, a little bit of money set aside in a personal savings account that I put towards the program, but it was scary because suddenly exchanging money for this little dream of mine made it very real. And as I've said before, it was one of the smartest investments I have ever made. As soon as I joined, I was impressed with the course platform. It was beautiful, it was organized and it was intuitive. I could easily find my way around and before the full six week course even began, there were some quick start bonuses that I used immediately.
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In particular, I loved a special bonus training called Start the Right Business. It was perfect for me at me at that stage. Here I was, a 40 something woman with no business experience trying to become a freelancer or a consultant or a writer or a wordsmith. I didn't even know what to call myself. I didn't know the first thing about what kind of business to even start. And I didn't know what I didn't know. And this program provided a beautifully simple process for me to think about my lifestyle and work goals and understand different business models. At the time, I decided I wanted to build a microbusiness and become a solo entrepreneur. I still refer back to start the right business anytime I'm feeling a little uncertain about my path forward. As my business continues to grow and evolve, B-School is delivered in six weeks with six modules designed to give you a blueprint for building your business. It provides foundational curriculum to help you fast track your growth and avoid the endless hamster wheel of trial and error and going down the Google rabbit hole. There are so many steps and things you need to do when you're starting or running a business, and it is so easy to get overwhelmed. So I loved how B-School drips out the content and information week by week in a step by step process.
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As a B-School alum, I have lifetime access and I frequently go back into the course portal when I need a refresher or if I'm trying something new and I need a little tutorial. What's exciting is that this year, and if you're listening in real time, it's 2023. B-school has been totally revamped and updated. There are new videos and worksheets and curriculum, and it's been updated for what's working now in today's online marketplace. I cannot wait to see what's included and incorporate some new tools into my business. I just checked the curriculum and these are the six core learning modules for each week of the program. Week one your profit plan and business vision. Week two. Creating offers that sell. Week three. Timeless marketing strategies. Week four. Easy content creation. Week five. Email marketing and list building. And week six. Creating a website that sells and converts. B-school is very, very tactical. It gives you the strategy, the reasons why it's a good strategy, and then the steps to implement those strategies, which worked so well for me. But let me be totally honest with you. While I followed a lot of the steps, I was far from perfect. I took my time to consume the lessons and sometimes I didn't even follow the right order. As a Gen Xer with young kids and a busy life and a day job, I had to pick and choose what I had the bandwidth for at the time.
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I was maybe a little slower to implement and launch, but I got there and there are some things I still haven't even done yet. And that's okay. I've built a beautiful, pretty chill, multi-six figure business because of the foundations and strategies I learned from B-School. Now, maybe you're asking who is B-School for and wondering if it's the right investment for you. B-school is designed for product based businesses, so if you sell a physical product like candles or soap or even a digital product like a course, it's for brick and mortar businesses. And I think what it really does well is it helps you develop an online presence to support your brick and mortar business. And it's great for service based businesses like bookkeepers, designers, financial planners and yes, even copywriters and more. So it's for people who are creative and driven. I've discovered that the people who are the most successful are willing to take action, and they're okay to take calculated risks. In B-School, as in entrepreneurship, you have to be willing to experiment your way forward. Perfection will slow you down or even prevent you from fully launching. And B-School is not for anyone who's expecting to get rich quick. This is not a system you buy into and start selling like a pyramid scheme. It's a curriculum and training to provide you with guidance on how to grow your own business.
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If you're looking for 1 to 1 business coaching, this ain't it. It's an online training program, but if you're looking for some 1 to 1 support, keep listening because I'm going to share how I can support you if you choose to join B-School. But I think B-School is a brilliant program for Gen X women who want to start or grow their businesses. Marie Forleo is a Gen Xer, so you'll get a lot of her references and jokes. She's mature, and she understands how important it is to build a
business that supports your life and not the other way around. B-school also really clearly explains a lot of the technology and systems and strategy you need to build an build an online business. And for Gen Xers like me, we're probably a little more analog and a lot of the online stuff might feel a little overwhelming. But B-School breaks it down very beautifully. Now, if you're listening to this in real time, B-School is just about to open its doors and welcome new students in. Doors will open on February 9th and close February 23rd, and the program kicks off February 27th. If you're interested in learning more about what's included in B-School when it starts and all the dates the investment, please visit Camille B-School. That page will give you a little more information, including some frequently asked questions and a link to join Marie's program.
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And if you use my link to join, I may receive a referral fee from Marie's company. And if you choose to join using my affiliate link, I have a beautiful bonus suite that I'm including to you at no extra cost. Here's why. There are two really big challenges when you run a small business. One is that there is a crap ton of copy you need to write, and I've got some great bonuses to help you write faster and more effectively. And two starting a small business, especially when you're a Gen Xer, is scary AF and a bit of a mindbender. So I want to provide a community and a safe space for other women who are going through B-School together to give you support, community, and a few laughs. So if you join B-School through my affiliate link, you'll receive my Build a Chill Business bundle. This will give you a step by step checklist of all the tools and tech I used to set up my business. This will help cut down on the mental fatigue of decision making, and allow you to jump start your business faster, and especially if you're looking to grow a very low key, low tech chill business. This bonus is for you. You'll also get my quick Start copy collection. This is a collection of copy templates to help you write the foundational pieces you need for your business.
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Things like writing your homepage and your about page. You'll get the beloved dinner party framework for writing an email welcome sequence, and you'll get my low key launch formula for when you're ready to promote your services or have a sale. I'm also going to gift you one month inside the Joy of Copy Club, which is my premier copy coaching program. So as you continue to move forward with growing your business, you have some ongoing support and coaching to help you write your copy. And lastly, you'll join the exclusive Gen Xers B-School Breakfast Club. This is a special community I'm launching just for new B-School students. We'll meet once a week in the morning for a group call where you can ask any questions and get help, and just be in community with other women going through the program with you. The Breakfast Club will start when B-School begins and run for four months to give you the you the community and support you need to build a chill business. I'm so excited to launch The Breakfast Club. Let me just tell you that you can get all the details about what's included in B-School and the investment, the timelines, and the bonuses when you visit B-School. Now. Hey, if you have any questions at all, please reach out to me. As I've said many, many times, B-School was one of the best investments I've made.
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It's the reason I have a business at all. It's the reason I can work and make a really good income doing something I genuinely enjoy with clients I absolutely love, while still having the flexibility to be there for my kids or my mom and my in-laws when they need. And it's given me a sense of purpose and pride in my life for the kind of impact I'm having to amplify the voices of Gen X women in business. And all of those things are absolutely priceless. My friend. Thank you so much for listening today. If you want more information about B-School and how to join my exclusive bonus offer suite, please reach out to me or visit B-School. And on next week's episode, I'll share a writing prompt to help you grab your audience's attention and position you as an authority in your field. So make sure you're subscribed and following this podcast so you don't miss it. Thanks again for joining me. I'll see you next week. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Ill Communication. Hey, if you enjoy these snack sized strategies and tips, you'll want to join my VIP Coffee and Cocktails Club. It's my email newsletter where I share more copy tips, sales strategies, and the occasional recipe for my favorite beverage or appetizer de jour. To subscribe, visit. Newsletter. Thanks for tuning in.
Resources Mentioned:
Find out more about the bootcamp, B-School and the EXTRA SPECIAL ways I’ll support you as you go through the program
Episode 26: The X Factor - Why Gen X women are an untapped market
Episode 27: 5 things I wish I knew before I started a small business
Episode 128: 7 Marketing and copywriting trends to boost sales in 2025
Additional Resources
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