Meet Michele
I ran a business without systems for nineteen years.
Ask me how that went. I’m not a coach who read a book about this — I’m the one who carried the loans.
Ask me how that went. I’m not a coach who read a book about this — I’m the one who carried the loans.
Biotech at sixteen. The EPA at seventeen. Wastewater treatment at eighteen. Making medicine at Bayer HealthCare at nineteen.
You cannot make medicine on vibes. Every single thing runs on a procedure that works the same way every time, no matter who is standing at the bench that day. That is the only reason the medicine is safe.
Nobody told me a business was supposed to have procedures too. So I did what most owners do: I became the system. Everything ran through me, and the business could only ever be as big as my week.
In 2019 my partner and I started Find Dental Providers. A $50,000 business loan, plus years out of pocket. Door-to-door into dental offices was the entire strategy — and COVID hit the month we launched.
Three thousand dollars in jingle commercials that never aired. Thousands more to contractors who took the money and left. Then AI came along and hit the model a second time.
We didn’t quit. And one night at nine o’clock, I sat down and described what we wanted. Three minutes later I had it.
That’s my partner, watching over my shoulder. Three nights of nine to midnight rebuilt the whole thing. The site I could not finish in seven years, I built in three minutes — and it earns now.
I’m not telling business owners to pivot from a comfortable chair. I got hit twice and I’m still carrying the paper.
Because the unicorn is the joke. It’s the fantasy that the business runs itself while you lie back and float — and floating is exactly what it feels like right up until you notice you haven’t moved.
I’m a licensed life insurance and annuity agent, and I’m a stand-up comedian — the Finance Comedian, because ain’t nothing funny about not having no money.
The humor isn’t a gimmick. It’s the door. I’m the fool in my own stories and never anybody else’s, which is what makes a room safe enough for a grown business owner to say “I don’t actually know how any of this works.” That sentence is where every fix starts.
I run The Small Business Finance Hub at 501 Railroad Avenue in Pittsburg, and I teach financial curriculum through the Women in Finance Institute. Same work, different room: get people out from underneath the thing that’s been carrying them.
Ninety minutes, live. Somebody in the room watches me build their thing. It might as well be yours.
Save my seat