You’ve hired an assistant before. It didn’t stick. And if you’re honest, you’re not totally sure why.Host Samantha C. Prestidge of Auxo Business Services breaks down the three areas of clarity founders need to have in place before they bring on an assistant — and why skipping them is almost always what tanks the working relationship.This solo episode gets into why even strong assistants fail when founders aren’t ready, the difference between delegating tasks and delegating outcomes, and the Map It → Keep It → Delegate It framework Sam uses with her own clients.Topic BulletsWhy building SOPs before you hire is the wrong starting point — and what to do insteadThe “cart before the horse” pattern that ends most assistant relationships earlyWhat “how you want to play in your business” actually means — and why founders who skip it become micromanagersHow to write a value statement that ties your assistant’s work to real business outcomes, not just your to-do listWhen “I can’t grow because I’m at capacity” is actually a clarity problem, not a bandwidth oneThe Map It, Keep It, Delegate It frameworkBook a delegation strategy session: auxosvs.com/strategyTimestamps00:00 Hidden Expectations00:21 Podcast Mission01:49 Delegation Failures03:31 Skip The SOP Trap04:52 Three Clarity Areas05:08 Map What Youre Building07:18 Keep Your Founder Role09:13 Delegate Outcomes Not Tasks11:49 Map Keep Delegate Framework12:27 Book A Strategy Session

Hiring operations help for your small business is harder than it should be — and most founders are looking at the wrong things when they do it.Ashley Connell, CEO of Prowess Project, has spent seven years matching small business owners with operations partners. She's learned that the skills on a resume tell you almost nothing about whether someone can actually run your business alongside you.In this episode:Why hiring for tech stack and job titles fails service-based business ownersHow to find the right operations partner for your small businessThe four-step framework Ashley's ops partners use from day oneWhy delegating outcomes doesn't work — and what to communicate insteadHow to know if you need an operations partner or if your processes need fixing firstWhat a two-week time study reveals that no hiring process can00:00 The Need for Management00:41 Welcome to Can We Not01:41 Meet Ashley Connell02:22 What is an Ops Partner04:46 Meeting Leah05:42 Flexible and Fulfilling Careers06:59 The 97 Percent Statistic07:38 The Matching Algorithm10:47 Proven Results and Success Stories13:14 Overcomplicating the Journey15:38 Niching Down to Accounting Firms17:22 Testing and Experimentation19:22 Naming the Ops Partner21:20 Experimentation With Intent22:35 Accountability and Feedback26:06 Four Step Delivery Method29:03 Setting Clear Expectations32:24 Behaviors Over Outcomes34:28 Practical AI Integration36:29 Time Study to Simplify38:40 Closing Thoughts

Most sales training teaches you to push harder when a prospect hesitates. Aleasha Bahr teaches you to get curious instead — and the results are hard to argue with.Host Samantha C. Prestidge chats with Aleasha Bahr, author of Black Sheep Sales and founder of a sales coaching practice that helps service business owners build strategies designed around how they actually think and communicate — not a pushy script that never fit them in the first place.They dig into what it looks like to simplify your message down to outcomes people actually want (hint: it's not your list of deliverables), why defining your anti-audience is as important as defining your ICP, and how knowing when to walk away from a sale is the thing that actually brings clients chasing you.LINKSAleasha Bahr on LinkedIn Black Sheep Sales bookAleasha's websiteCatch more episodes: canwenotpodcast.comApply to be a guestHave Sam as a guest on your podcast: info@auxosvs.com

You're not running seven apps because you're disorganized. You're running seven apps because each one solved a real problem at the time and nobody ever stopped to ask if the pile still made sense.Host Samantha C. Prestidge chats with Bryant Solomon, co-founder of ControlQore, who did something most founders skip — he went and worked inside his customer's business before building anything. What he found was a back office held together with workarounds, and a team trained on tools that were never designed for them.They get into how chasing the wrong kind of growth poisons an entire industry's relationship with technology, and why the founders who build slow and stay profitable are the ones still standing when the VC-fueled competitors burn out.Links:Bryant Solomon on LinkedIn ControlQore website Converge Summit Josh Luebker (fractional CFO mentioned) on LinkedInMore episodes at canwenotpodcast.comApply to be a guestHave Sam on your podcast: info@auxosvs.com

Feeling overworked, overloaded, or like you’re the only one holding everything together in your business?You might be stuck in the trap that catches so many founders and high performers: confusing self-sufficiency with strength.In this episode of Strategy, Solutions, and Sanity, Samantha shares the one mindset shift that helps founders stop being the bottleneck in their own business. Through personal stories, real-life examples, and practical delegation insights, you’ll learn:why asking for help feels uncomfortablehow over-functioning secretly drains your time and energythe difference between being capable and overcompensatinghow to make delegation simple (and not feel like letting go of control)why receiving support is the unlock for scaling without burnoutIf you’re an overwhelmed founder or small business owner trying to grow without losing your sanity, this episode gives you the clarity and permission you didn’t know you needed.00:00 Mom’s lesson that sparked the mindset shift00:58 Why asking for help feels so hard02:32 What happened when Samantha tested “helping”04:15 The hidden plague of over-self-sufficiency07:17 How to stop being the bottleneck in your business09:52 The mindset shift that makes delegation simple