Make Calm your new KPI // Host, Beyond Margins Podcast // I help business owners build calmer businesses with comfortable margins // Speaker, CFO + COO, Consultant

Susan Boles

Everyone tells creators the same thing when safety or privacy comes up: just go private. 

Lock your accounts, stop sharing so much... pull back. 

That advice makes sense if your job doesn't 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘥 on being visible. But for creators? Your platform IS your business. Going private isn't a safety strategy - it's a career ender. 

And "stay public and hope for the best" isn't' a strategy either. 

But there's a third option. 

𝗨𝗻𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰: Visible where it matters, invisible where it counts. 

It means showing up fully in your public work while choosing exactly what stays private - and making sure it actually is. 

Your content? Discoverable. 
Your home address? Gone. 
Your platform? Growing.
Your family? Unfindable. 

You don't have to choose between your career and your safety. You just have to stop thinking in terms of public vs. private. 

Go Unpublic.

Stay safe when you show up online// Founder at Unpublic & Beyond Margins // I help creators stay safe when they show up online // Make Calm Your New KPI

If you're interested in the behind-the-scenes of building Unpublic... check out this series from Jay Acunzo. 

Or... if you're not interested in the BTS... just check it out to see how many weird faces I make 😆

I help experts become stronger speakers & storytellers. Trusted by authors, coaches, creators, and brands like Salesforce, Mailchimp, & Wistia. Believer in resonance over reach.

If you’re ready to experience greater momentum & clarity as a speaker, coach, or consultant, this behind-the-scenes series is for you.

This year, two clients have given me permission to publish details from my 1:1 advisory engagements publicly with you, so you can see what it takes to refine a mountain of expertise into 1 signature idea, powerful IP, and signature speeches and stories.

In this series, you’ll learn to diagnose why you might feel scattered in your messaging, why your ideas or posts aren’t creating passionate fans, and what it really takes to earn bigger and better stages, both literally and figuratively.

These individuals arrive with plenty of competence. The goal is to help them achieve greater resonance. Like you, they are genuine experts in their industries. Also like you, they’re realizing it’s possible to be deeply respected in your field but still feel replaceable or constantly stuck reacting and chasing. There’s a big difference between being great at Your Thing and being a trusted voice who shapes how people think about the very same topic. 

These clients are...

Kevin Leahy, founder of the podcast strategy and production firm Podcast Pointman. He’s a former producer for Guy Raz (the famous ex-NPR host who created the shows How I Built This and The Great Creators). Kevin previously helped Guy build his production company before he started Podcast Pointman, and today he has achieved real revenue and built a small team. 

Susan Boles, a former COO and CFO who then spent several years running her first business, a consulting and education firm called Beyond Margins, helping entrepreneurs run calm companies through their finance & ops systems. In 2026 however, she moved beyond Beyond Margins (heh…) to start a new business, Unpublic, offering services and education to help creators stay safe online as they get more visible.

I wrote a primer going into more detail about this behind-the-scenes journey. You can read it here, and if you sign up for my newsletter, you'll get 1 edition of this series per month: https://lnkd.in/eFCDk6Ec

Not every parasocial relationship stays parasocial.
 
Sometimes someone in your audience becomes a mutual. A collaborator. An actual friend.

The one-way relationship becomes two-way. You know them back.
 
That's the healthy offramp on the Parasocial Spectrum.
 
The problem is when someone keeps moving down the spectrum 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 that reciprocity. They're not looking for a relationship. They're looking for access.
 
And they don't need your permission to keep going.

For those of you who love "Calm is the New KPI"... you should consider working with Natalia (because she's the one who actually came up with it 😁)

Humanity-first marketer helping you sound like yourself, sell like hell, and harm less.

I'm looking for 4 founders who have a proven offering that is not selling as easily as it should.

By "proven" I mean two things:
1) You've managed to sell it before
2) It's gotten results

I can help you sell more of it by upgrading your messaging, aka the strategy that informs what you say, why they should buy, what makes your offering the obvious choice, the narratives that build trust...etc.

Because if you've tried selling with no messaging, you're doing random acts of marketing.

If you've tried selling with weak messaging, you've got an ignorable offering.

Gimme one week and I'll give you a messaging makeover that brings in more buyers.

This is best for:
coaches
consultants
service providers
creatives
digital product/program entrepreneurs

...who have at least 1K followers or, better yet, a few hundred good-fit subscribers. 


Full details: https://lnkd.in/gENgCvUS
Feel free to DM me with your questions.

workstrat

Where human-centered organizations go for best-in-class people practices, hiring, and leadership development. workstrat: make your people your competitive advantage. 

We serve as trusted advisors, fractional partners, battle-tested leaders, and change agents. Ready to plug into your team with unmatched rigor and care for your people and business. When your organization’s success relies on the success of your people, you partner with workstrat.

What's your strategy? Let's chat workstrat: https://www.workstrat.co/

Founder • Fractional People/Talent Partner

Divvy Homes

• HR Business Partner (HRBP) for 10+ business units, supporting a team of 50+ managers. Focused on driving performance via management coaching and resource development. Also led sensitive employee relations matters.
• Developed an organization-wide leveling guide with 5 anchors spanning 3 employee tracks (14 levels total). Created content to clearly define expectations and evolution through levels, while placing company values at core of framework.
• Supported VP in compensation strategy implementation. Responsible for building scalable compensation grids across all business units and access levels.
• Built a 90-day onboarding program. Created content to define the employer brand voice and executed via Asana. Program tailored to drive accelerated on-ramp via education and alignment across: mission/vision/values, business goals, performance expectations, individual/collective impact, and building community.
• Refreshed the Performance Improvement Plan and partnered with management on PIPs. Coached leaders on setting clear expectations and navigating tough performance conversations. 
• Coached managers on performance review delivery. Calibrated 40+ reviews, ensuring alignment across numeric score, supporting context, and performance.
• Built manager expectations guide to embed high-impact management practices across the organization. Created process for bridging performance gaps via ongoing performance management.
• Partnered with Design on written content for holiday materials, shaped brand voice across audiences (team, agents, and customers).
• Reconfigured HR information architecture in Confluence for greater accessibility.

HR Business Partner

Seer Interactive

• Leadership team member, influencing and driving organization-wide change, growth, and communication.
• HR Business Partner (HRBP) for 5 business units and 75+ team members spanning VPs through entry-level. Focused on strategy, change management, performance, operations, workforce planning, leadership coaching, and employee relations.
• Oversaw Talent Acquisition for a 200+ person digital agency, accountable for the success and evolution of this business function. Managed a high-performing Talent team of 7 reports: 4 direct reports and 3 indirect reports (former directs).
• Owned People Analytics and Center of Excellence (CoE) program development across team growth, retention, and talent acquisition.
• Worked alongside VP and PeopleOps Lead to stand up a market-driven compensation strategy for remote work in 2021 and beyond. Defined competitive sets and compensation grids to scale geographies across a hybrid team of 200+. Supported implementation of compensation technology, PayScale.
• Led an agency-wide resource management discovery exercise. Consulted with Finance, Sales, and divisional leaders to uncover gaps and propose scalable solutions for organizational success. Ran an all-day Executive offsite to present insights and drive alignment on next steps.

People Operations, Associate Director

• Human Resources Business Partner (HRBP) for 5 business units spanning VPs through entry-level; focused on strategy, change management, performance, operations, workforce planning, leadership coaching, and employee relations.
• Managed Talent Acquisition for a 200+ person digital marketing agency, growing and developing a team of 3+ Recruiters in addition to contractors and 3rd party agencies.
• Owned People Analytics and Center of Excellence (CoE) programs across team growth, retention, and talent acquisition.
• Developed a recruiting capacity model, operating at 80%+ accuracy. This enabled us to align recruitment and new business needs via tested, data-driven metrics.
• Launched a new framework for giving and receiving feedback across the organization. Increased feedback delivery by 500% in month one.

People Operations, Lead/Sr Lead

• Introduced People Analytics to the organization, creating 5+ Power BI dashboards that bridge employee, performance, compensation, engagement, and recruiting data to enable data-driven decision making.
• Transformed our internship program into a talent pipeline, driving a 200% increase in Intern to full-time hires year 1 and increasing our app-to-hire conversion rate by 700%.
• Hired 30+ candidates across 5+ divisions. This includes carrying net-new roles from ideation and development through full-cycle recruitment.
• Launched structured interviews across our 3 largest divisions. Connected our performance management framework and interviewing practices via consistent performance tenants.
• Led our Inclusion & Diversity (I&D) Group, rallying a taskforce of 10+ team members in crafting Seer's I&D roadmap. Presented to Exec Team and developed a business proposal for I&D Training.

People Operations, Manager/Sr Manager

• Hired 10 candidates in first 90 days, 80% proactively sourced. Introduced automation to outbound recruiting, rolling out multi-touchpoint nurture campaigns with an average response rate of 49%.

People Operations, Sr Associate

Hero Digital, LLC

• Owned full life cycle recruiting with a strong focus on the candidate journey and employee experience. Managed requirements gathering through recruiting and onboarding for 16+ hires.
• Acted as a strategic business partner to hiring managers and senior leadership. Consulted on hiring needs, providing recruiting data and industry trends to guide our strategy.
• Established and nurtured candidate pipelines across all role levels for 8+ departments. Grew our talent CRM from 0 to 2K+ qualified leads with tailored outreach driven by automation.
• Launched structured interviews, enabling data-driven hiring while promoting diverse and inclusive interview practices. Developed all content, training, and rolled out across 4+ divisions.
• Crafted all job descriptions with brand voice consistency, leveraging Texio for inclusivity.
• Managed our monthly career newsletter for ongoing engagement with our talent community. Developed all recruitment-based content and curated industry content relevant for readers.
• Attended career fairs, networking events, and industry meet-ups to deepen community relationships. Made 2 hires from industry networking events.
• Supported business units: Project Management, Client Services, Web Development, Creative, UX Design & Research, Digital Marketing, Analytics, & Operations

Talent Acquisition Specialist

Lyneer Search Group

• Grew from Researcher to Full-Desk Recruiter, responsible for high-touch candidate and client relationships in a full-time direct search capacity.
• Placed 12+ candidates in first year, from entry-level through senior management.
• Industry Focus: Accounting, Finance, Tax, Investment Management, & Advertising

Recruiter

People have always been my thing. As the youngest of four, I was battle-tested in navigating complex dynamics, personalities, and a house full of chaos. Fast-forward a lifetime, I built a career on what I know and love most: people.

Today, I'm a strategist living in the world of people and talent. Building, retaining, and growing great teams across a portfolio of incredible clients. I’m results-oriented, analytical, and relentless – leading with a strong balance of logic and heart.

As CEO/Founder of workstrat– I'm your go-to advisor, the fractional ace up your sleeve, and the strategic consultant running alongside you. I partner with businesses smart enough to get that when their people win, they win. And together we stack Ws.

Let’s chat workstrat: https://workstrat.co

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⚡️ Functional Expertise: People Operations • Talent Acquisition • HR Business Partnership (HRBP) • People Analytics & Insights • DEI&B • Organizational Design • Employee Experience • Leadership Development • Performance Management • Compensation Design • Change Management • Learning & Development (L&D)

⚡️ Tech Stack: BambooHR • Justworks • Sequoia • Ashby • Greenhouse ATS • Lever ATS • Lever Nurture • Gem • Teamable • Leapsome • Small Improvements • Lattice • Power BI • Excel • Monday.com • Asana • Guru • Confluence • Slack

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The Battle

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Emily Meekins, SPHR, PHR

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Likes

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