Every business has moments that change its direction. This episode of The Breakout Moment explores the decisions and shifts that created real momentum in 2025.
Christina sits down with Stacey Holsinger to break down how AI, cohorts, and evolving service offerings created real momentum. The conversation also covers salary transparency and what it takes to move forward in that messy middle stage of business growth.
Stacey Holsinger: 2025, our breakout moments to kick off the show. For our businesses.
Christina May: For the Breakout Moment podcast.
SH: Yeah.
CM: I love it.
SH: Mine would be three main ones: joining cohorts, getting into AI, specifically ChatGPT, and utilizing it every single day in my business. Salary transparency for recruiting.
CM: Oh, that's a big one. People need to learn. Yes. All three of those. I share one with you. So, how we have leveraged AI and ChatGPT. And just to be clear, I think most people need to understand this. AI is not new. Okay. We've had AI in our lives for a really long time.
It's just. And especially both of us being in the marketing industry. With your business, My business. We've had tools that have had advanced automation, AI, etc. for a while. We just didn't have access to a tool that allowed us to like, talk to it. Right. Right. So yeah, I'm with you. I share that breakout moment with you.
Then our other breakout moment is actually it's a complete I call it a breakout moment. But it's also like a tipping point for us. So, our business has changed drastically.
SH: From what? To what?
CM: When I started our firm, it was really focused on marketing. So full transparency, because this is like a confessional kind of situation. When I, like, I fell into marketing. I did not wake up and go, “I want to be a marketer one day”. I knew I wanted to be in like, business. I've always loved business, but I love all of it. And then when it came down to like, what part of business do you like or not like?
SH: Except for tax season.
CM: Oh, well, no business person likes taxes. Let's, let's just be real honest. Sorry, CPAs not my thing. You don't like taxes in either. Let's no tax person likes tax season. But I didn't like statistics. I mean, I like numbers.
SH: Don't get me started there.
CM: I love numbers, but yeah, I got through math because my mom put dollar signs in front of equations. And that's how it made it real for me, because I was like, why am I doing theorems? This isn't real. This is a waste of my time. See, there's the realist and it just comes out no matter what. But for me, I just knew that I wanted to be in business and I just didn't know what. So I'm also super creative.
So I was like, I'm creative. So, therefore, a marketer. Yeah. Just how I felt. So when I started, that's what I did for years before I started my company. And then I saw my company was like, oh well this is my skill. So therefore that's what we do right. And the now that is not what we do.
We still do marketing. Don't get me wrong, we still do marketing. Yeah. It is a still very significant part of what we do because we've done it for, you know, 12 years. Year 13, it flipped from marketing to revenue operations as our main point of business.
SH: Can you explain that for those that don't know what RevOps are.
CM: For the for the people in the back. So revenue operations really focuses on, siloing different departments within a company. So even if you're a small business and you're all the departments. Yeah, it doesn't matter. It's siloing that data so that it can be leveraged across the entire company.
SH: So many people need help with that.
CM: Oh my gosh. And so we do a lot of what we do now is very technical, but it starts with marketing. Because as a marketer and as a small business owner, you're like, I know I need to market. What's the number one question you get asked? Probably more than anything else when it comes to marketing?
SH: Leads.
CM: And then what generated my leads?
SH: Yes. Right.
CM: I spent x number of dollars. Therefore, I should have x number of. It's not like that, okay, guys. Right. And so when we then what ends up happening is marketers are responsible or your marketing firm or whatever small business, you're doing it yourself. You're trying to generate leads. You're trying to figure out why what works and what doesn't work. And what usually happens is that slightly smaller businesses get passed off to a sales team.
Sales team. First thing they do is either everything's great, but as soon as everything's not, what do they do? They blame the leads. Yeah, they blame the marketing team. But there's no transparency between the two departments. Same thing when it comes to customer service sales. Hands it off. Done. Whatever. And then the service team is the one that's on the front lines that either actually execute the thing that you do right, or follow up on the warranty or whatever else.
And these poor folks don't know what was sold. Right. They have no source of truth as to what was said to the customer, what was promised to the customer. How long has this conversation been? When a person interacts with your company, it should feel like one nice long conversation, right?
SH: A nice trail that you can come back to.
CM: It should be a great experience all the way through. And then you, Mr. or Mrs. /Founder Owner, we can actually answer the question of what's going on with your customer. Where did they come from? Where did you lose them? But unless we un-silo each one of those departments and actually, you know, you can tie that into ops, you can tie that, you know, in your operations, if you're a manufacturer, you can tie that into your ERP, whatever.
We can really start to unlock some big findings in the data, and then it becomes kind of this engine that moves forward together. So suddenly, instead of the people that working from you blaming each other, they're actually focusing that blame on where the problem lies. And we can use data points across the entire organization as opposed to just in departments.
SH: You can all work together
CM: We all work together and figure it out. And if your forecasting becomes more accurate. Your customer retention jumps. It just it's huge. It's powerful. It's a big thing. You can tell I get really excited about it. But we pitched Rev-Ops. I pitched RevOps actually, as an additional growth segment, a new top-line revenue segment to what we did in 2018.
We're coming up on 2026. It has taken a while and a Covid for the world to catch up. So our tipping point is actually my lesson learned. One of the big ones is from 2025 is this is the first year all of our new sales opportunities almost all of them, almost all of them have been RevOps, opportunities, not marketing opportunities. So that for us, that's a breakthrough moment for us for sure.
SH: Interesting.
CM: Let's get to the bottom one first. That one I think, is really intriguing.
SH: Cohorts?
CM: No. Let's talk about salary.
SH: I have a channel that I start at called Chat_CTE, and we had a million and a half views in the first year. 10,000 followers on TikTok. TikTok has great organic reach, even with the ups and downs. Is TikTok staying? Is it going?
CM: What's the legislation and what's going on?
SH: We were going to put money behind ad campaigns, but because we didn't know what was going to happen, we just were like, let's just wait and see. So it did really well with just organic.
But any time we talk about salary, that's when, and we're transparent about it. That's when, you know, our views go up, and there's a channel called Salary Transparent Street was where we got our idea, but we niched it down to the trades only. She talks about her, her platform skyrocketed her whole business model, and it's doing great.
Everyone's talking about salary transparency now, like they want to know. I mean it's been a topic forever, but there's so many people that are still listing job descriptions as competitive pay. Like, stop with that because people aren't taking you serious. They're not even going to look at you or apply. You're wasting people's time here. Just at least give us a range so I know if my skills even match the job. This is the way things are moving in this world. Time is very important to everybody. You know, I'm not going to waste my time setting up a call in an interview with you if things don't even, like, match up and fit. That's been a really hot topic.
CM: I think, where we are in Maryland,
SH: Yeah, October 1st, 2024. You have to list a range. That was one of the breakout moments. So anytime I'm working with my clients, because finding talent is a huge problem with a lot of these B2B companies. I have to remind them, guys, we have to list the salary if you want people to click.
CM: So that would be your takeaway, always list a salary. Lead with it.
SH: Get rid of competitive benefits. No one knows what that means. Like, spell that out. Spell it out, please. Like, do you have top-of-the-line training? Do you have in-house training, or do you have a certain stipend where I can go somewhere and get professional development? Like, really? You're missing the specifics and the details. That is going to sell someone to come and work for you.
CM: 100%.
SH: Don't be afraid that your competition's going to see it.
CM: I think that's probably what holds a lot of small businesses back. I think that's one of the things they didn't like about the legislation. I think it's actually the opposite that it actually is good for small business to be able to. And you can I think that's a misnomer. You can tell me what you think. You can compete with other things that larger businesses can't.
SH: Oh, definitely. I've seen people that worked at really large organizations and then scale back and say, I want the small business deal, and you can play it like there's so much benefit to working for a smaller business. It's a lot of pressure off you, like the corporate type. There's benefits to both. I've been in both environments.
CM: Me too.
SH: When I was younger. I definitely like the corporate. But then, as I got older, I'm like, I really like the small type.
CM: The larger corporate, obviously, as a business owner, entrepreneur, I ran up against that. We already defined that, you know, early on. But I think, you know, if I think there's this misconception that small business, one we can't compete on salary, but two that benefits cost money. And I think there are a lot of benefits that we can give that don't cost money at all. Like, I think if I could think about that, we have at our company is flexible scheduling. That's that doesn't cost me anything, right. As a business owner, what are some of the things that you've seen?
SH: Well, just even like you have, you could say like downtown Frederick, feel like close to shops and like there's so much things like if you just look at your location, professional development, you can send somebody away for a conference. They really appreciate that. When I used to work for a mechanical contractor, I planned on working there for three years. What got me to stay was they kept investing in me. So they would say, oh, we'll send you here for this program or there. I was constantly learning something new, and then eventually they paid or tuition reimbursement to get my master's, which I didn't even want to get my master's. But I'm like, well, why wouldn't I?
CM: Why wouldn't I?
SH: I think you can do a lot of things to keep people to stay longer, as long as you keep them engaged and you have a plan. So education, and like it doesn't have to be, a master's degree by any means. If you're a small business, you can just do a conference here and there. So send them to some training. It's going to keep them longer because you're investing in them.
CM: I think to going back to your breakout moment with the advertising, the salary. I think the thing as an employer, we spend so much time screening, at least I don't let I do it. I screen my candidate issues with that.
SH: There’s too many issues with that right now.
CM: Right. Oh, awful. Yeah. And if I'm putting the salary out there and you're putting in that, you want X, and I advertised you know A to B. You're not wasting my time. That's an embrace it. Don't hate it. Don't yuck the sum. Talk to me about cohorts.
SH: Oh god. So cohorts, for me, I didn't even know what a cohort was.
CM: Yeah, I was going to start there. Tell people what a cohort is because, like, when I think about a cohort, I only think about, our experience in, the Goldman Sachs program, or like a training thing, like I don't think a lot of people really understand what a cohort means.
SH: So the way I would define it is, you can pay to be in a cohort, or you can be invited to join a cohort, or you can ask to join a cohort.
CM: Always ask what's the worst they're going to say, guys? No. We get that every day.
SH: So they're popping up like crazy. And I really feel like that's the new thing that's happening. Cohorts are usually smaller groups. It could be I think the smallest group I was in was maybe like 15 to like 30 people usually. And you meet over a centralized topic. So the first cohort I joined was Harbor Freight's Leadership Lab. And what we all had in common is that we were advocates of skilled trades.
We were educators, marketers, business owners, union, merit. It didn't matter. We all had the common ground of skilled trades. You meet regularly over a certain period of time, and then you usually have an alumni group afterwards. So there are cohorts each year, and then you just keep building upon that. So my first cohort experience was great.
We all got to develop our own pilot program, and then we got to pitch the pilot program, and then they decided whether to fund it or not, which was awesome. I still am in touch with everybody, pretty much all around the United States. The second cohort I was in was, I think, Goldman Sachs, which is what you were in huge network, free to join, kind of lengthy application process.
CM: Yeah, but it's so worth it. It's free.
SH: You want people in the cohort that are going to actually do the work and show up and help you. That one's for small business owners. I think the cap is that you have to make at least 75,000 from here. But then, how long was that for? Eight months?
CM: Oh, gosh, I did it in 18. And that's when that's when they had different, criteria the, the entrance limit was higher and you had to have employees. They've changed it since then.
SH: Yeah. Always look at the criteria.
CM: Yeah. It changes all the time.
SH: This one you can apply to online at Goldman Sachs. Then they interview you to make sure that you're the right fit because you're not just there to grow your business, you're there to help everybody else, too. And it's very transparent. I mean, you're sharing your financial numbers like all your woes of your business.
CM: Oh, it's like therapy.
SH: It is. It's great. You have a business advisor. You have the best resources for every topic you can think of to help you run your business. It's good for people that just started out, but people that have been in business forever, like I said before, just the network is so large.
So the third experience was, the Journey Alliance, the black Belt program. This was an online cohort free of charge. We met monthly for an hour, I believe, and they took us through different trainings.
So it was instructor-led, and then we had to complete the homework. And now that moved on to an alumni group where we meet once a month. It's like masterminds of AI, and we have to share how we're actually implementing AI within our businesses.
CM: That's cool.
SH: Again, completely transparent, you know, behind-the-scenes stuff. But these cohorts have been such a game-changer.
I feel like, you know, if you have the chance to join like a networking association type thing or these cohorts, do both of them, or definitely do a cohort. I mean, I've had such a great experience with them.
CM: I've always had better experiences in a learning environment than I have in a networking environment. And the reason being, there's a lot of times in the networking environment, everybody's there and it just feels like, you know, that scene in Harry Potter, I can't remember what those little ghosty things are called, it like, suck your soul out of you. That's what a networking event feels like to me, you know?
SH: Are you an introvert?
CM: I'm an introverted extrovert.
SH: Yeah, I am too.
CM: The thought of working in a room. But also, these individuals are not looking for the same thing that I'm looking for. And it's just not worth the time and trouble. That's a good point.
The difference between a shotgun and a rifle, you know, I mean, little pond, big pond. Pick your metaphor. Whereas, like a cohort experience. Now here's this. Interesting though I can compare and contrast with you. I had a wonderful cohort experience with the Goldman Sachs program, which we've both been a part of. I've actually not had good cohort experiences.
So this past year, and it is partly the format is I think, and that's why I find it very interesting that the online one worked well for you. I was part of a cohort this year that, you know, had a mastermind component, and maybe it's just that the way it was run did not work for me at all.
First off, the whole, you know, we're all dialing in online and that the awkwardness of not being really connected, you can't connect. They had these weekly office hours. You were to come with a question. Well it's like I don't have any questions. You're on, and it's like an hour, and you're listening to everybody else's questions.
And every once in a while you pick up something from it. But more times than not I would sit there and go, I could have used this hour in a better way. So I think, when you're looking at it, also be really honest with yourself. How do I learn best. You know, how do I interact with people.
I do much better in like small groups. Small groups are my jam.
SH: What was the topic? The main topic for that cohort?
CM: It was all about they're all business owners, which is fantastic. But they were all talking about productization. Everybody was in a different place, and there wasn't like a curriculum structure that I found that worked. I think cohorts have to have a curriculum structure to work.
SH: Definitely.
CM: Do's and don'ts here to learn from. But I agree with you. I think cohorts are much more successful and a better use of your time because also you're coming out of it with something that you learn, not just networking with people.
SH: Right. So what would be your :tips what would they ask about the cohort before joining? Other than I agree with you, it has to have an in-person element?
CM: In-person element. Somehow it doesn't all have to be in person, but there has to be something. Otherwise, you're never going to have, like, an honest conversation or connect with somebody so hard to connect.
SH: It’s so hard to connect.
CM: You can't connect through the screen. I'm sorry we learned this during Covid. You're too distracted by what else is going on. It doesn't work. Tips wise, I would find something. Where if you're not going to find customers, you're going to find adjacent opportunities. And what I mean by that is people that you're going to be able to partner with in some way, shape or form, Goldman Sachs program that we talk so much about.
But because we were both in it, has this like fantastic statistic about how many alumni do business with each other. That's really never been the case for me, but I have a lot of people I can call and ask questions on, or connections that I don't do business with, or even us, you know, doing a project together.
I sit on a board with somebody who was in my cohort. You have to reset your expectation for ROI. If you're joining a cohort or you're joining anything like this where you're giving up your time. That would be the other thing I would say, calculate as a business owner, your time.
Give it a value. Even if you're in the early stages and you're not paying yourself enough, give yourself an hourly rate because that is time that you're taking away from your business. And as time you're taking away from your family. Quite frankly, my advice is that time is the only thing you can't get back. I really quantify things that I sign up for, whether it's a board, whether it's a volunteer thing, whether it's a thing at my business, or a client meeting, by my time.
SH: Making sure that other people are committed. We talked about that. Because if they're not committed,
CM: Forget it.
SH: You just got to move on. That's a hard one for me. You're better at that. And I got to get better at that. Because I'm such a people pleaser.
CM: I’m a recovered people pleaser. I used to be a horrible people pleaser, but I think that comes from what we do. We're all in the service industry. And because we're in the service industry, we have this predisposition to really people, please, I want you to like me. And I think there's just I don't know, maybe it's because I've just hit a certain age, or just like, you know what?
SH: No, no, I'm getting there too, because it's not serving you for me to just tell you what you want to hear. You know what I mean? It's just you hired me to do a certain job, and I have to do it. Whether or not you like it. But the same works for cohorts, like. If they're not committed, I'm not going to show up every month. It’s not my job to motivate everybody in this group not to like participate so.
CM: Also the the leader of the cohort isn't doing a good job of following up with the people that aren't raising their hand. No. Add that with the little structure also size a cohort I think really matters. So that would be another tip.
Again, know thyself know. If you work well in a large group, you're social. Butterfly. I have so jealous of you. But are you are you more like me? Where? It's just like I can turn it on when I need to. There's a mic in my face. I could do it. But, you know, on a personal level, like I always tell people I do, speaking engagements.
I love the speaking engagement. The meet and greet afterwards. So difficult for me. Like, there's this little girl inside that is so awkward.
SH: This next generation, too, the Gen Z’s coming up. They are not going to feel comfortable going in a room full of a sea of like 400 people at an event now, like, I still don't feel 100%.
I mean, like, I can do it, we do it, but you've just got to walk up to strangers and just talk about, I think people are getting over that, you know?
CM: The last event I was at, people seemed to be coming out of it. But we're still in an awkward spot for sure. I think it's just going to be one of those blips on the map that never really it's just going to move with time. It's not going to smooth out. So, all right. You said ChatGPT was a game-changer for you. That was our shared one. ChatGPT is a game-changer for me as well. And just AI in general gives some like actionables. What have you implemented in your business in 25, specifically? You don't have to give away the prompt.
SH: I'm working right now on building out my digital shop to help mostly construction businesses, but I can help any B2B firm really. So I've noticed a lot of people don't know the difference between the chats, which are short term conversation, and that's what everyone is using. Then you have the projects area, which you can set up like short projects, whether it's setting up a construction project and the submittals and the RFIs and all that, or your GPT, which everyone's excited about, is kind of like your chatbot or your agent.
That's when you have a task that you do over and over and over. So in the class I taught yesterday, I was talking to two girls that do a lot of award entries year after year, and that is the perfect way to set up your GPT. So when you're talking to, say, an electrical contractor, because they only apply once a year, and then they might change staff all the time.
What project? What project category did we apply to? Like just the questions. And it's usually the same criteria year after year. So plugging that all into your GPT, and then it doesn't matter who's on board. Now, someone experienced has to set up the GPT. That's what I was trying to tell my class yesterday. Anyone technically can set up a GPT.
CM: Everyone can technically do a lot of things.
SH: They shouldn't.
CM: Have you ever drove on a road around here? A lot of people shouldn't have drivers licence.
SH: I probably shouldn't have my first, because I was coming from the city and then just like whipping up and down these hills. But that's another story, though.
CM: I drive it like I stole it.
SH: The GPT is if you're going to set that up, that has to be someone that has been doing that task over and over and over for years and years and years, or at your organization for a long time, because you can't have an intern setting up a GPT.
CM: Thank you for saying that out loud.
SH: You can't have an admin or a receptionist or even an APM if you're in construction, setting up a GPT, maybe a project, I'll give you that. But a GPT? No, because they don't know your processes and everything like that.
CM: They're learning your process. I think that's the biggest mistake that I see is that it's just like marketing or other things that they think are highly commoditized, specialized skills.
News flash, they're highly specialized skills. It takes an incredible amount of experience to actually be able to do the higher-level stuff. You can't start out as a strategist.
SH: Impossible.
CM: Impossible. And it's the same thing with the GPTs you actually have to understand the AI. It's always strategy before software. That's what we teach customers. That's what we preach. In my company, it is we always lay out the business rules side first and then we apply the tech. If you can't explain it to me, just 1 to 1 for darn sure you're not going to be able to get the right output out of AI. For darn sure. So, you know, I mean, our game changer, it's very similar.
I ended up getting lucky enough to have a cohort experience at the end of 24 at Johns Hopkins on AI, and it was a game-changer at the time. So that was like October - November timeframe. So I really started building out our own agents at the beginning of 25 and implementing them in the business.
SH: Can you share any examples of agents?
CM: Oh yeah, I'll tell you about one. We build agents out, for things that are repeatable. But I think the thing that makes what we do, what we use them for, more proprietary and what I explain to customers who are like, oh, geez, I, one the output that you get is reviewed by a human. It's never just straight from AI to the customer.
It always has a level of human QA on it that the AI is going to get it to about 80%. But for us, it's built on our frameworks, on our strategies that were already in place of how we do our work. And so our agents are built out. We're also with specific client brand voices. So I have different agents for different clients that we work with constantly.
SH: Same.
CM: And that enables us to, you know, we work with some highly technical companies. I am not, for example, I am not a subject matter expert on threaded inserts. I'm not a subject matter expert on, milling doors. Sorry. But to be able to take what I am an expert in and marry it with all of that technical data, it just really speeds up the process.
I think the game-changing agent for me, actually, is the one that I built for myself. As I mentioned, I'm a prolific writer, so I've written over 450 pieces of content in the last 13 years. It has multiple frameworks. Multiple SOPs basically Christina Brain and I have fed it into a custom agent.
SH: Nice.
CM: That I called James. James is like mini Christina. So when I need a blueprint done and by blueprint that doesn't mean like a house blueprint, like we do digital blueprinting, you know, done, or I need stuff drafted up, and I don't have the bandwidth to do it. So again, I'm high level the fly girl. I don't like execution land.
I use my agent to help get me there faster. And you know, if it's inaccurate, I only have myself to yell at because it's based on my own source. But sometimes I'll tell you, it's a little scary. James knows me better sometimes than I know myself.
SH: He's sassy?
CM: No, he’s a good boy.
CM: All right, so we've got we've got our, our 2025 breakout moments. It's been it's been a year. It's been a minute.
SH: This is the type of stuff that we're looking to interview people on. Because every business has different breakout moments from, like opening up a new office or they just onboard a new tech or hired a bunch of people this year or whatever it is.
CM: Whatever it is. Your breakout moment could be a mistake. Some of my best breakout moments have been failures. I'm looking forward to taking what ‘25 and pushing that momentum into ‘26 and having a few new breakout moments. All right. We'll see you next time!