This week on The Queen of Automation, I sat down with Charlotte Lloyd, and if you’ve ever felt uncertain or uncomfortable about selling your services, this is the episode you need to hear.

Charlotte has spent over two decades in B2B sales, working with global giants like Danone, PepsiCo, and the World Bank. But what sets her apart is how she has translated that big-brand experience into simple, effective strategies for coaches, consultants, and solopreneurs who are navigating sales on their own.

We got into her journey from commission-only consulting with clients like the Financial Times to building a thriving business helping others master client acquisition. She shared how she moved to Spain, weathered the COVID lockdowns, and unintentionally went viral on LinkedIn by sharing real, relatable sales advice that people actually wanted. That momentum turned into her full-time business, Charlotte Lloyd Consulting, and the launch of her Client Acquisition Club.

We unpacked the difference between marketing and sales and why most business owners lean too heavily on content instead of conversations. Charlotte made a powerful case for why automation can't replace genuine human connection and how being good at sales doesn't mean being pushy or slick. It means knowing how to listen, respond, and build trust.

She also answered the question most founders are afraid to ask: how many people really follow through when they're told to do outreach? Her answer might not surprise you, but the insight that followed will.

This conversation is full of clarity, nuance, and actual strategy. If you're tired of the noise around “just create content and wait,” Charlotte offers a more grounded, actionable path forward.

And if you missed last week’s episode with Tim Jones, we went deep into digital storytelling, systems, and how creativity fits into automation. It’s a strong companion to this one.

If you're a founder, coach, or small business owner who wants a sales process that feels good and actually works, this conversation with Charlotte Lloyd is a must-listen.

Connect with Charlotte on LinkedIn or head to charlottelloyd.com to learn more about her work and the Client Acquisition Club.

This episode might be one of my favorite conversations yet, because we dive headfirst into something every entrepreneur has dealt with: building something amazing, only to want to burn it all down three months later. Sound familiar? Yeah. You’re not alone. I’ve done it. Anthony’s done it. You’ve probably done it too. But here’s the thing, I don’t think that’s sabotage. I think that’s evolution.

I kick things off with a hilarious (and strangely relevant) story about my youngest son becoming the number one ranked professional air hockey player in Wisconsin. Yup. That’s a thing. And while it started off as just a funny mom moment, it quickly turned into a metaphor for entrepreneurship: you can turn anything into a money-making opportunity if you love it enough. But... it might not pay the bills. Passion projects are beautiful, but not everything we love will feed us, and that’s okay. You still need them. They’re fuel.

Then, Anthony and I get into the nitty gritty of what it really means to "burn it all down." The truth is, sometimes starting over is not sabotage. It’s a pivot. It’s iteration. It’s reinvention. If you’re like me, and you need stimulation and momentum to stay motivated, blowing things up might not be destruction. It might be clarity in motion.

We also get real about timelines. How long do you let something sit before you decide it’s not working? 30 days? 90 days? A year? And what if the thing that feels like a failure was just ahead of its time? I share my experience with “Neighborbee,” and how shutting it down wasn’t a failure, it just wasn’t the right time or built the right way. But the idea? Still fire. Still necessary. Still coming back.

This is the episode for you if you’ve ever second-guessed blowing up your business, questioned your need to change direction, or felt like maybe your pattern of reinvention was just self-sabotage. Spoiler: it’s probably not.

We talk dopamine, creative energy, how some of us need newness to stay engaged, and why the messiness of entrepreneurship is where the real magic lives.

If you’ve ever felt like you were the only one who kept wanting to throw the match on your own worK, you’re going to feel very seen in this one.

In this episode of The Queen of Automation, I got raw and honest about something that doesn’t get talked about enough, what happens when you screw up. After three solid years with a client I truly admired, I dropped the ball. We missed things, and they decided to move on. It stung hard, not just because they were paying clients, but because they’d become friends. Watching the brand we’d built together start to fall apart under bad automation and worse AI content was painful.

So I opened up about what to do when that happens, when you’re the problem. It’s easy to say “move on” or “put your big girl pants on,” but that doesn’t touch the part where your confidence takes a hit. I kept working, stayed professional, even helped them with tech stuff afterward just to make things right. And then, out of nowhere, they reached out saying it’s been terrible working with their new team. That moment gave me the chance to respond with honesty, not sales, to own the mistake, say I was sorry, and leave the door open.

This episode is for anyone who’s ever dropped the ball and felt that pit in their stomach afterward. I share how I handled it, what I learned, and why owning your mistakes is one of the strongest things you can do as a leader. Because being great at business isn’t about being perfect, it’s about how you handle it when you’re not.

At the end of the day, operations are only good when they work, and sometimes, they don’t work because of you. When that happens, own it, fix it, grow from it, and keep going.

We’re back, finally, and if I’m being honest, I forgot we were recording today until Anthony reminded me. It’s been a few weeks, and my brain’s been sprinting in a thousand directions as usual. But the second we hit record, it all came rushing back in the best possible way. This episode was one of those unfiltered conversations that starts off feeling casual and ends up hitting harder than you expected.

Anthony and I got deep into the disconnect between how fast our brains move and how painfully slow and linear the world around us expects us to be. If you’re neurodivergent, ADHD, autistic, overwhelmed, overstimulated, or all of the above, you already know what I’m talking about. That constant tension between how you think and how you’re expected to function. It’s exhausting, not because we’re incapable, but because the system we’re operating in wasn’t built for brains like ours.

What came out of this conversation was something I think a lot of us need to hear right now. It’s not about slowing down your brain. It’s about learning how to work with it instead of constantly fighting it. For me, that means surrounding myself with people who challenge me and support me, using things like vitamin patches to keep my dopamine where it needs to be, and leaning all the way into the power of focus, not fake productivity, not multitasking, but actual, intentional deep focus. One thing at a time. Not because I’m bad at multitasking, but because it’s a lie. And it’s breaking our brains.

We also touched on something that doesn’t get talked about enough, the way most tools and systems are designed to flatten thought complexity. They try to make everything so simple that it strips away the nuance. But the truth is, our complexity is where the brilliance lives. We’re not trying to reduce it, we’re trying to support it.

There were moments where I found myself saying things I didn’t even know I needed to hear. This one reminded me that just because I need to approach things differently doesn’t mean I’m doing it wrong. And if you’re navigating a world that constantly tries to compress your creativity into boxes that don’t fit, you’re not doing it wrong either.

It felt good to sit in that space with Anthony and just say it out loud, no script, no filters, just the truth.

Let me know what hit home for you. I think this one’s going to stick with a lot of people.

This episode is for every founder who thinks automation is the shortcut to scaling. Spoiler alert: it’s not.

I’ve spent the last 20+ years building systems, real ones. I’ve tested every tool, seen the hype cycles, and cleaned up more broken automation than I can count. So when I say most people are automating chaos and calling it “growth,” I say that with love… and receipts.

Automation isn’t some shiny magic wand. It’s a system. And systems don’t work when the foundation is trash.

Inside this episode, I get real about what automation can actually do for you, and where it’ll burn you if you’re not careful. This isn’t me bashing tech. I love automation. I built a business on it. But I also know how dangerous it is when people start automating just to feel productive. Automating bad data, broken customer journeys, or slapping together tools with zero strategy? That’s not efficiency. That’s digital quicksand.

I’m not here to sell you another AI tool. I’m here to help you think like a systems leader, because that’s what it actually takes to reclaim your time, streamline your ops, and scale without chaos.

If you’re automating just to keep up with what everyone else is doing, you’re already behind. But if you’re ready to use automation to build something intentional, sustainable, and smart?

Then you’re exactly where you need to be.

In this episode of The Queen of Automation, I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with executive leadership coach Becky Henderson. If you know me, you know I spend a lot of time in the weeds of operations, systems, automation, and all the tangible pieces of a business. But Becky works on the most important system of all: your brain.

We dove headfirst into what it really means to reprogram your internal operating system. Not the software kind, but the belief systems, the mindset patterns, and the stories we’ve been carrying since we were kids. Becky’s whole philosophy is that being drives doing. You can’t hustle or hack your way into the kind of leadership that feels aligned, calm, and powerful if you’re operating from old programming that doesn’t serve you anymore.

What struck me the most was how Becky makes these intangible things feel so practical. She talked about how high-achieving founders often hit a wall, not because they’re not capable, but because they’re still running on beliefs that are no longer true. Maybe they never were. And when she said, what feels familiar isn’t necessarily true, it landed hard.

Things got personal, too. I didn’t expect to, but I ended up getting real about my own ADHD diagnosis and how that shaped the way I saw myself, especially in my 20s and 30s when I was trying to climb the corporate ladder, raise kids, and prove that I was normal enough to keep up. Becky flipped that narrative on its head in real time and gave me a powerful reframe that I know will stay with me and hopefully with you too.

This conversation wasn’t about productivity hacks or quick wins. It was about reclaiming your energy, your focus, and your identity so that your systems, internal and external, work better. If you’ve ever found yourself burning out while chasing success, or wondering why nothing ever feels quite enough, you’ll feel seen in this episode.

Becky’s work is that rare blend of truth-telling, emotional intelligence, and strategy that every founder needs in their back pocket. It’s not therapy. It’s not coaching in the traditional sense. It’s a total recalibration.

If you’re a founder or executive and you’ve been feeling like something’s off, even though everything on paper looks great, this is the episode you didn’t know you needed.

To learn more about Becky’s work, connect with her on LinkedIn, She’s someone you’ll want in your corner if you’re ready to build from a place of alignment, vitality, and clarity. Her book, The Art of Becoming, is one to watch. It's all about reprogramming the inner operating system that drives your leadership and your life.

In the latest episode of The Queen of Automation, I got to sit down and chat with Jacob Pegs, a conversation two years in the making. We’ve been orbiting each other online, commenting, sharing, and supporting each other's content on LinkedIn, but this was our first real face-to-face (well, Zoom-to-Zoom) chat, and it did not disappoint.

Jacob is one of those rare operators who actually lives what he preaches. He walked away from a half-million-dollar agency not because it wasn’t working, but because it wasn’t working for him. We got real about what burnout really looks like, and how building something successful doesn’t mean it’s sustainable, especially when you’re doing it at the expense of your creativity, your energy, and your identity.

He shared his journey of moving from proposal-writing and endless calls to something radically simple and sustainable: one offer, one post, one email. That’s the Modern Maker model, and let me tell you, it just works. His systems are elegant, simple, and human. They reflect a founder who actually wants to live the life he’s building. And now with a daughter in the picture, Jacob’s “Dad Funnel” concept hits even harder.

We talked about designing a lifestyle-first business, and what it actually takes to unlearn the toxic hustle narrative that keeps founders locked in cages of their own creation. I opened up about my own experiences too, working in SaaS, running ops for multiple companies, managing my own tech business, and how even with 20+ years of experience, you still need people in your corner to bounce ideas off of and keep you grounded.

This episode is for every founder, ops nerd, and tech-savvy entrepreneur who’s wondering if there’s a simpler way. Spoiler alert: there is. And Jacob’s doing it brilliantly.

If you’re building your own thing and feel like you're drowning in complexity, you're going to love this episode. You’ll walk away with a permission slip to make your business boring, in the best possible way.

Connect with Jacob Pegs on LinkedIn to see exactly how he’s rewriting the rules of simplicity, systems, and showing up fully as yourself.

In this episode of Chronically Automated, Anthony and I dive deep into how nonlinear minds (like mine) are shaping the future of systems, tech, and workflow design, and let me tell you, it's a ride.

This one was personal. We expanded on last week’s episode, where we talked about my habit of spotting patterns and thinking ten steps ahead (even if those ten steps don’t always happen in a straight line). I opened up about how my brain doesn’t operate in a linear way, it time-hops. I jump from today to five years ago to three days from now, and somehow it all ties together when I’m building systems, mapping workflows, or implementing tech. I call it “non-chronological bursts of processing,” and if you’ve ever experienced hyperfocus followed by complete apathy, you’ll get it.

Anthony challenged me in the best way. He asked how I manage to be strategic and systems-driven while operating in such a chaotic creative flow. Spoiler alert: it is chaotic, but it works. We talked about ADHD, parenting neurodiverse kids, and how understanding your brain's operating system changes the game, especially when building a business that doesn’t follow the traditional playbook.

We also got into the difference between order and productivity. Just because something is in order doesn’t mean it’s actually moving the needle. I shared how I attack my daily task list based on ROI, not in the monetary sense, but in terms of what’s going to move me closer to my big three goals. The task list always ends up rearranged, and that’s intentional. Because linear productivity is a myth for most of us. And trying to force your brain into that mold? Wasted energy.

This episode is for the builders who think sideways. The ones who feel like they’re operating in chaos, but are actually ahead of their time. If that’s you, you’re not broken, you’re just not wired like the old system. And maybe that’s exactly what makes you the one who’s going to change it.