Episode #182 Say Yes on Purpose

Overview

Saying yes to everything is how you got your business off the ground, but protecting your time and energy is what keeps you growing. In this episode of Public Health Entrepreneurs, Dr. Charlotte Huntley dives into why scaling a sustainable business requires making deliberate choices about where your capacity goes. As your venture matures, knowing what to say no to becomes just as vital as knowing what to accept. Tune in to discover practical strategies for updating your decision criteria, avoiding the trap of being stretched thin, and actively managing your professional capacity like a budget.

Takeaways

• Your Business Has Evolved—Your "Yes" Should Too: In the early stages, accepting nearly every project helps build vital experience, revenue, and professional relationships. As your business matures, revisit what you agreed to in the past to ensure current projects align with where your business is actually headed.

• Energy as an Alignment Filter: Pay close attention to the projects and missions that genuinely energize you versus those that merely feel familiar. Give yourself permission to update what earns your commitment as your interests and goals shift.

• Shift Focus by Saying No Early: Huntley shares the journey of a consultant who started with grant writing, data analysis, and strategic planning, but later phased out other services to focus strictly on high-alignment strategic planning.

• Establish Clear Decision Criteria in Advance: Every commitment consumes your strictly limited resources of time, energy, and focus. Developing a written checklist of criteria allows you to filter incoming requests quickly rather than letting unaligned proposals linger.

• Deliver Simple, Direct Responses: Declining misaligned opportunities with clean, direct communication eliminates unnecessary drama and preserves your professional energy.

• Protect Capacity to Welcome Better Opportunities: Turning down work that lies outside your core focus preserves availability for ideal clients. Huntley highlights an entrepreneur who declined a calendar-filling project and, two months later, secured a long-term, recurring client because she had protected her capacity.

• Treat Capacity Like a Budget: Actively manage your availability with the same diligence applied to a financial budget or calendar.
  

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Whether you’re just getting started or you’ve been in public health consulting or other type of business for a while, we provide support for public health entrepreneurs through our podcast and mastermind group program. We serve public health entrepreneurs in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and California as well as other parts of the United States and worldwide.