FIVE PATTERNS I’VE HEARD FROM ALL CORNERS THIS QUARTER

It’s been a busy Q2 over here at Empower. Lots of events, travel, meetings, and, most exciting of all, a wave of new partners with whom we’ve hit the ground running. I’ve had the opportunity to operate through the lens of an entrepreneur, investor, advisor, and service provider, giving me a front-row seat to a range of topics currently circling the thoughts of all these stakeholders.

While the conversations vary, I’ve observed commonalities in what’s on the minds of many emerging business leaders—whether they're solopreneurs, brick-and-mortar small business owners or technology startup founders.

THREE MONTHS OF INTEL DISTILLED TO FIVE THEMES

Here’s a rundown of what I’ve discussed most over the past three months: the patterns, business challenges and Empower’s quick take on shifting the trajectory.

Theme #1: Founder bottlenecks & too many hats

• Pattern: Earlier-stage founders and business owners juggle approvals, firefighting and general business operations out of necessity, then crave a partner who can own several of those lanes so they can go back to actually steering the ship.

• Challenge: Momentum stalls, milestones get missed, overwhelm sets in, teams feel scattered and the weight of day-to-day activity inhibits the leader from driving strategy forward.

• Empower’s quick take: Be ruthless and brutally honest about your time. Write down how you should spend it, then track your actual activity for the next week. Analyze the gap and build a delegation plan.

Theme #2: Aligning the team from strategy to execution

• Pattern: In today’s market, teams sprint, but the connection between strategy and execution often snaps. Tactical busywork gets prioritized over needle-movers.

• Challenge: People log hours, but core metrics stay flat and progress zigs when it should zag. Leaders discover the gap late and burn budget on rework.

• Empower’s quick take: Confirm everyone on your team understands the strategy. Once that’s locked, set focused objectives that tie directly to it, then have each person craft goals that ladder up. When the through-line is visible, progress follows.

Theme #3: Process inefficiencies & lack of documented workflows

• Pattern: “Ways of working” are ill-defined; critical knowledge lives in someone’s brain. Then, the unexpected hits.

• Challenge: Inconsistent quality, a single vacation can halt delivery or a surprise resignation leaves the business exposed.

• Empower’s quick take: Start recording key repeatable tasks and workflows (videos, voice notes, digital writing, ChatGPT) and then drop these artifacts in a centralized repository. Ask each team member to capture one process per week for a month; refine later.

Theme #4: The customer experience upgrade

• Pattern: Businesses are under pressure in 2025, leading leaders to hunt for differentiation through service quality and personalization at scale.

• Challenge: Gaps create friction, a sub-optimal interaction and potentially churn.

• Empower’s quick take: Map your full customer journey. Instead of trying to change everything at once, pick one sticky moment that also presents a meaningful opportunity. Fix it, measure the impact, iterate, then move on to the next.

Theme #5: Human-AI Collaboration

• Pattern: Pretty much everyone is assessing how to build better, faster, stronger with AI (and, as you know, I believe this is the right approach). It’s a hearty helping of curiosity mixed with caution, hype and fear.

• Challenge: Teams either under-utilize AI and stay manual or over-rotate the other direction and miss ROI.

• Empower’s quick take: Return to first principles. Clarify the outcome, map the workflow, label each step Human / AI / Human + AI, then assess which mix best delivers the goal.

Where Empower fits

These topics aren’t coming up once. I hear them over and over again.

The good news? They’re all the challenges I envisioned solving for entrepreneurs when I launched Empower.

If you’re reading this and something hits home, let’s unpack it together. Grab 30 minutes on my calendar and we’ll talk it through.

MEET GABRIELLA CAROTA, CO-FOUNDER & CEO OF ISLE OF MONDAY

THE POWER OF MEETING BUFFERS

Feel like you’re constantly rushing from one meeting to the next?

Or that every meeting runs 5-10 minutes over, and makes you late for the next one?

If you answered ‘yes’ to either, you may consider trying different meeting intervals. Instead of sticking with the standard 30-minute or 60-minute meeting, try 25 and 50, respectively.

Those buffer windows allow you to:

• Reduce the chances of being late for your next meeting.

• Reflect on the meeting and jot down / voice note key takeaways.

• Reset your brain and prepare for the next topic.

• Maybe even take a bathroom break? 🤷‍♀️

We all know what an in-person and virtual meeting drain looks like. This one move might help reduce the load.

If you use a calendar app, like Calendly, you can also build in buffer times automatically, reducing manual overhead.

SMALL BUSINESSES PLAN TO GROW DESPITE CAPITAL, TAX, AND TRADE UNCERTAINTY FROM GOLDMAN SACHS

TL;DR

Earlier this month, Goldman Sachs released a report on the state of small business sentiment, based on responses from 10,000 business owners.

The TL;DR takeaways:

• 72% of the small businesses expected to grow in 2025.

• While optimism persists, it’s somewhat clouded by challenges with capital, tax policy and other policy uncertainty (e.g., tariffs).

• 81% of owners say they don’t believe small business is a priority for Washington right now.

There were more nuggets as well. Read the full article for the rest.

A QUICK JAUNT TO PARIS

For…

As someone born in the 80s, but truly a kid of the 90s, Beyonce has been in my cultural lexicon for many years, starting with her Destiny’s Child era and songs like “No, No, No,” “Survivor” and “Independent Women.”

I’ve never seen her in concert, but this weekend will change that. I’m (presently) in Paris for a very, very short trip to experience the Cowboy Carter tour.

I hear it’s a show for the books, so I can’t wait for the marathon on Saturday night.

Have you been to a live show recently that really impressed you? Reply and let me know what it was!

LOOKING FOR MORE EMPOWERMENT?

You’ve worked hard to build your business. Let’s work together to make it last. We want to be your partner in the journey to develop the business that lives into your vision.

There are four primary ways Empower can partner with you to support getting your business to the next level. Click the image below to learn more about our core offerings.

If you’re ready to take the step, reach out to discuss how we can support your goals. 

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