She's Built Like a CEO

With Brooke

She has the vision, the clients, and the revenue. What she needs now is the business systems that finally match the CEO she's becoming. She's Built Like a CEO is for women who are ready to stop running their business and start leading it. Hosted by With Brooke, operations strategist with 20 years of experience.

  1. MAY 12

    What Is a Business Backend? And Why It's the Key to Sustainable Growth for Female Founders | Ep. 28

    If you've ever heard the words "systems," "automations," or "backend" and thought , "what does that actually mean for my business?" This episode is for you. Brooke breaks down exactly what a business backend is, why it matters, and what happens when the backend hasn't kept up with the business. Whether you're just starting to notice the cracks or you've been holding everything together manually for years, this episode will help you see your business backend clearly — and understand what needs to happen next. What You'll Learn in This Episode What a business backend actually is and what lives inside itWhy most female founders build their backend pieced together — and why that's completely normalWhy one-size-fits-all backend systems don't work — and what to do insteadHow to know when your backend needs professional attentionThe difference between hiring help and fixing your systems firstWhy a clean, sustainable backend is the foundation for business growth Your business backend is everything happening behind the scenes that your clients never see — your tech stack, your systems, your automations, your processes, and the way everything connects. Or doesn't. Most female founders build their backend as they go. A calendar tool here, an email platform there, a Zapier connection holding it all together. That works until it doesn't. And at some point — usually right when growth is within reach — the backend becomes the thing standing between where the business is and where it's going. The backend that got you here will not get you to the next level. But fixing it doesn't have to mean burning everything down and starting over. It means knowing what to look at, what to fix first, and what to build next. A business backend built for you — not borrowed from someone else's business — is what makes growth sustainable, scalable, and something you can actually show up for long term. 🔗 Free Backend Self Audit: https://withbrooke.myflodesk.com/self-audit 🔗 The Backend Business Audit: https://stan.store/withbrooke/p/backend-business-audit Work With Brooke Brooke is a backend strategist for female founders who know their tech and systems are holding them back — and have zero interest in being the one to fix it. Connect With Brooke 📱 Instagram: @with.brooke 🌐 Website: withbrooke.com 🎙️ Subscribe to She's Built Like a CEO wherever you listen to podcasts If this episode resonated with you: Leave a review, share it with a female founder who needs to hear it, and hit follow so you never miss an episode. She's Built Like a CEO is a podcast for female founders who are done being the employee of their own business. New episodes every Tuesday.

    15 min
  2. APR 28

    Your Online Service Business Is Working. So Why Are You So Tired? | Ep. 27

    You did everything right. You built your business, you brought in clients, you figured out the tech. And somehow you are more exhausted than you have ever been in your life... even though this business was supposed to be the thing that gave you more freedom. It all makes complete sense once you understand what's actually happening inside your business right now. What This Episode Holds Why the tech stack you built wasn't wrong — it was built for a version of your business that no longer existsWhat's really happening when your tools don't talk to each other and you become the translator filling every gap manually, every single dayThe truth about businesses that look effortless from the outside — and what's actually making them runWhy growing revenue without growing infrastructure creates the kind of exhaustion that doesn't go away with a rest weekendWhat it means that your business is ready for something different, and why that's not a failure — it's momentumWhat has to change if you want to keep going without burning down Who This Episode Is For The woman whose business is generating income and clients, but she's somehow more depleted than when she startedThe woman who has bought the tools, set up the systems, and still ends every week buried in manual tasks she can't seem to get ahead ofThe woman who looks at other businesses running smoothly and quietly wonders what she's missingThe woman who is starting to wonder if this is just what running a business feels like — and who needs someone to tell her it doesn't have to be Key Quote "The business that looks effortless from the outside? It's not. They're supported, not effortless. And that support is invisible because it's working the way it's supposed to." Resources and Next Steps If you recognized your business in this episode and you're ready to understand exactly what needs to change and in what order — that conversation is available to you. Let's book your Backend Audit Here: https://stan.store/withbrooke/p/backend-business-audit And if you want to start auditing your own backend, I have a free resource that walks you through what needs to exist inside your business right now. Click here: https://withbrooke.myflodesk.com/self-audit You've built something incredible. The exhaustion you're carrying isn't proof that you can't do it. It's a signal that what you built is ready for more support underneath it. I'm here to help.

    7 min
  3. APR 17

    Why Your Business Feels Like the Corporate Job You Left | Ep. 26

    You left corporate to build something different. Something that felt like yours. And somewhere along the way the thing you built started feeling a little too much like the thing you left. In this episode I talk about why that happens and what actually changes it. Including the moment in my own business where I realized I had left corporate but brought the corporate blueprint with me. We Discuss: The corporate blueprint and how it shows up in an online business without you realizing it. Trading time for money. Measuring success by a full calendar. Being available all the time. Doing everything yourself because that is the only model you were ever taught.The moment I recognized it in my own business. I was charging hourly and trying to fill a forty hour work week because that was the only definition of a real income I had ever been given. By the time I got to twenty five or thirty billable hours I was already feeling it. The freedom I had left corporate to find was getting further away not closer.The shift that changed everything. Stopping asking how do I fill my calendar and starting to ask what kind of life do I actually want to build and what does my business need to look like to support that.What that shift actually required. Getting honest about what requires me and what does not. Looking at what my technology should be handling. Asking what my systems should be holding. Designing the work to fit the life instead of fitting the life around the work.What becomes possible when you stop building on the corporate blueprint. A business that actually feels sustainable. Work that requires you doing the work that actually requires you. And the freedom you kept pushing to someday starting to show up in the actual texture of your days.CONNECT WITH BROOKE Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/with.brooke/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withbrookfb   WORK WITH BROOKE Book your Backend Business Audit: https://stan.store/withbrooke/p/backend-business-audit

    12 min
  4. APR 10

    The Real Reason Hiring a VA Did Not Give You Relief | Ep. 25

    If you have hired a VA and it did not work out, or if you keep telling yourself you will hire one as soon as you get your backend cleaned up first, this episode is for you. The problem is almost never the VA. And it's almost never you. It's the setup. And the setup has a fix. In this episode I walk through exactly what needs to exist before you bring someone in, why the tasks living in your head are the real bottleneck, and what a VA hire actually feels like when everything is in place. What I Cover Why the VA hire keeps not working, and why it is almost never the VA's fault or yours.The one question that tells you whether you are actually ready to hire: what are the things in your business that happen regularly and predictably that do not require you to do them?What an SOP actually is, why it does not have to be complicated, and why it is the thing that changes everything about whether your VA hire gives you real relief.What it actually looks like when a VA hire is working. She comes in, reads the documentation, asks a handful of questions in the first week, and then gets the work done. You get your time back quickly.Why you do not need to build your entire SOP library before you bring someone in. You just need to start with the most recurring tasks and build from there.The honest truth about getting to that setup when you are already overwhelmed. Sometimes it is not something you can do alone.And something I did not want to leave out. Sometimes when we look at your backend together, we can automate so much that you do not even need to hire someone right now. But you are set up to do it when the time is right.Key Takeaways You do not need to clean the house before the maid comes over. The tasks living in your head are the bottleneck, not your VA. An SOP is just a document clear enough that someone who has never done the task before can follow it and get it right. You do not need everything figured out before you ask for support. You just need someone to come in and look at what is actually there. CONNECT WITH BROOKE Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/with.brooke/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withbrookfb   WORK WITH BROOKE Book your Backend Business Audit: https://stan.store/withbrooke/p/backend-business-audit

    9 min
  5. APR 3

    What I Actually See When I Step Into Your Business | Ep. 24

    Every time I get on a call with someone new, I ask the same question: What is the single most frustrating thing about your business right now? The answer tells me everything. Not just what she thinks is wrong, but where I need to start looking and what questions I need to ask next. In this episode I walk through four of the most common answers I hear and exactly what I see and do when someone gives me each one. If you know what your problem is but cannot find a solution that is actually working, this episode is for you. What We Cover ➡️ Unpredictable revenue. What it actually tells me about a business when income looks different every single month, and what I look for first when I hear it. ➡️ An email list that is not converting. Why a healthy list with consistent content can still produce crickets at launch, and what the technical structure underneath it is usually missing. ➡️ Doing everything by hand. Where the manual labor is hiding in most online businesses, why it compounds over time, and how connectivity between platforms changes everything. ➡️ Hiring a VA who is not giving you relief. Why the problem is almost never the VA, what questions I ask when I hear this, and what needs to exist before someone else can actually take things off your plate. CONNECT WITH BROOKE Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/with.brooke/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withbrookfb   WORK WITH BROOKE Book your Backend Business Audit: https://stan.store/withbrooke/p/backend-business-audit

    9 min
  6. MAR 20

    Why Multi-Passionate Entrepreneurs Keep Starting Over (And What It's Actually Telling You) | Ep. 23

    Most of us carry the list around like evidence. The package that quietly disappeared. The course that launched once and never again. The coaching program that felt right until it didn't. The rebrand that eventually needed its own rebrand. We call it a graveyard. We carry it as shame. In this episode, Brooke reframes the whole thing. Because the women with the longest offer graveyards? They're often the most capable, the most skilled, the most creative, and the most driven. The graveyard isn't a failure report. It's the most honest map you've ever made of yourself. In This Episode Why every offer you've ever built was part of your identity trying to express itselfThe three questions that help you read your graveyard as a map instead of a mistakeWhat the through line in your offer history is actually telling you about yourselfHow the thing that "killed" each offer is often the most important data point of allWhat it looks like when a business finally holds all of you, and what that actually takes When you look back at any offer you've built and abandoned, Brooke invites you to sit with these three powerful questions: What part of me was trying to show up here?What did I actually love inside of that offer?What felt confining?The answers start to reveal a thread. A real through line running underneath everything you've built. That thread is what Brooke calls your Living Axis. "You've never been scattered. You've been circling something you just haven't named yet." Ready to name your Living Axis? If this episode landed and you're ready to actually do the work of naming your Living Axis, the Living Axis Intensive is a 1:1 experience designed to do exactly that. You and Brooke, going deep, naming your through line, and what you're meant to build your business around. CONNECT WITH BROOKE Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/with.brooke/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withbrookfb   WORK WITH BROOKE Book your Backend Business Audit: https://stan.store/withbrooke/p/backend-business-audit

    9 min
  7. MAR 13

    The Mask Came Off and I Called It a Breakdown | Ep. 22

    For most of her life, Brooke was really, really good at performing. She knew exactly what every room expected of her, and she delivered. Until the season after having her daughter, when her body simply stopped cooperating with the performance, and she found herself under her desk at work having panic attacks, convinced she was broken. She wasn't broken. The mask was. In this episode, Brooke shares the postpartum season she never talked about, what it revealed about a lifetime of masking, and how the thing that felt like a breakdown was actually the first step toward building a life that actually fits her. If you've ever felt like your brain won't cooperate the way the world needs it to, this one is for you. IN THIS EPISODE Going back to work after a difficult pregnancy and postpartum depression she kept entirely to herself. The version of her that existed before: a lifelong people pleaser and expert mask-wearer who could walk into any room and become exactly what it needed her to be. The moment the performance stopped being sustainable, and what was actually underneath it. Recognizing a lifetime of neurodivergence, without a diagnosis, and without needing one. Why the breakdown that felt like the end was actually the beginning of the life she was always supposed to build. A MOMENT TO REMEMBER FROM THIS EPISODE "I didn't break. The mask broke." THIS EPISODE IS FOR YOU IF... You've spent years performing a version of yourself that the world approved of, and you're exhausted. You went through something hard and stayed silent about it because you thought you weren't supposed to struggle. You've wondered if your brain is wired differently and haven't known what to do with that. You're in a season that feels like falling apart and you need someone to tell you it might be something else entirely. If this episode hit, share it with the woman in your life who needs to hear it. CONNECT WITH BROOKE Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/with.brooke/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withbrookfb   WORK WITH BROOKE Book your Backend Business Audit: https://stan.store/withbrooke/p/backend-business-audit

    9 min

About

She has the vision, the clients, and the revenue. What she needs now is the business systems that finally match the CEO she's becoming. She's Built Like a CEO is for women who are ready to stop running their business and start leading it. Hosted by With Brooke, operations strategist with 20 years of experience.