Most business owners hit a wall somewhere between “this is working” and “I don’t know what I’m building this for anymore.”
The revenue is there. The clients are there. But the life it was supposed to create? Still on the other side of the next thing you haven’t gotten to yet.
Laurie Hollinger has seen this pattern hundreds of times. As a fractional strategy advisor and coach, she works with established business owners who’ve achieved a real level of success and are now asking a harder question: what’s next, and how do I design it instead of stumbling into it?
Her answer is a framework she calls Design Your Decade.
From Saks Fifth Avenue to Solopreneur
Laurie didn’t take a straight line to coaching. Few people do.
She grew up in a town of 900 in North Dakota, paging through the Sears catalog, knowing she wanted more than what was around her. At 15, she told her mother she was going to live somewhere she could actually touch the clothes she saw in magazines.
She got there. North Dakota State had a visiting student program with the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. She got in. And eventually she landed one of the most coveted positions in retail: designer sportswear buyer at Saks Fifth Avenue.
“We were trained that we were serving the top percent of people interested in this level of fashion — pretty much in the country, if not in the world. We had a very important job, and that was to stay on top of trend and to serve those guests.”
Six years in New York. Then a move back to the Midwest to work in the department store division of Target Corporation. Then 2003, when department stores were declining and the work stopped feeling like work.
“The one thing I did promise myself, even little tiny Laurie — I promised myself that whatever I did, it would have to be something I enjoyed.”
She found an opportunity with a small entrepreneur with a big idea: get a product development business from zero to $10 million. She spent the next decade-plus doing it, building marketing merchandise for major consumer brands and eventually creating proprietary products for accounts like Ulta, Sephora, and Nordstrom.
Then she woke up and was almost 50.
“I realized I probably have one more rodeo, and I don’t know exactly what I want that to be, but I know it’s not this.”
Designing the Framework She Needed Herself
The inflection point didn’t just produce a pivot. It produced a program.
After a lot of reflection, Laurie realized the work she loved most was mentoring and building the people on her team. Rallying them around what was possible. Helping them grow.
She became a coach. And then she built the 10-week mastermind she wishes she’d had when she was staring at her own crossroads.
Design Your Decade takes established business owners through a structured process that starts not with goals, but with values.
“Our values do change over time. In our twenties and thirties, it’s about establishing ourselves. As we get into our forties, those values shift. You do that because your calendar is really a journal of your values.”
The program moves through three foundational phases:
| Phase | Tool | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Values Audit | Values assessment | Surface what actually matters to you right now |
| 2. Life Inventory | Wheel of life | Identify which areas are thriving and which need work |
| 3. Working Genius | Lencioni’s 6 genius types | Understand the work that energizes vs. drains you |
Once the foundation is clear, the program turns forward-facing. What does life look like in 10 years? In five? In three? What needs to happen this year to be on track for three?
One of the more unusual exercises: writing your eulogy.
“When I say I started with the end in mind, writing my eulogy was a big piece of it. What impact do we want to leave in the world?”
She calls it a Living Legacy exercise for those who find the word eulogy too much. The intent is the same: get clear on what matters before you fill the next decade with whatever shows up.
Three Pillars to Grow With Ease
Once the vision is defined, Laurie’s coaching turns to the business itself. She works with owners who’ve found success but are still doing too much of the wrong work.
Her framework is direct: to grow your business with ease, you need three things.
| Pillar | What It Means | Common Failure Mode |
|---|---|---|
| Clear Vision | You know where the business is going in 1, 3, and 10 years | Reacting to opportunity instead of steering toward outcomes |
| Empowered Team | Fractional or full-time people who own their results, not their tasks | Micromanaging instead of delegating outcomes |
| Great Systems | Documented processes that run without you | Mental load and single points of failure (you) |
“I tell my clients to give their people the outcome, not exactly how to get there. Allow them to get the rest of the way.”
She applies this to herself. She has a writer who handles her newsletter (four issues at a time). She plans to add a VA to schedule and post to LinkedIn. She leads a peer group community. She does Working Genius workshops.
And she’s honest that it’s still evolving.
“I am honest to a fault. It is still a work in progress.”
The Vacation Litmus Test
Laurie has a simple diagnostic for whether a business has real systems or just the appearance of them.
“What would happen if I was gone for two weeks? If the answer is no, there’s probably an opportunity for you to work on your systems.”
The test applies regardless of company size. A $50 million business and a solopreneur coaching practice face the same question: could this keep running without you?
If the answer is no, the business doesn’t own you. You own the business, and you’re not allowed to leave.
The goal isn’t passive income or automating everything. The goal is a business where your presence is a choice, not a requirement for survival.
Building to that point takes time. The flywheel doesn’t spin on day one.
“You just gotta stick with it. It’s gonna be a little, a little, a little. And it’ll catch.”
On Marketing When the Brand Is You
Laurie spent her entire corporate career in marketing. She understands campaigns, positioning, and brand-building at scale.
But when she became a solopreneur, the brand was her. And that changed everything.
“There was always a brand — and the brand was not me. Now that the brand is me, that ups the ‘I’ factor.”
The discomfort is real. Most coaches and service providers feel it. The answer, she says, is the same as every other discomfort in business: you get through it by going through it.
Her practical marketing stack at this stage:
- Newsletter sent to her list (written in batches, with writer support)
- LinkedIn posts derived from newsletter content
- Podcast guesting as a visibility and relationship strategy
- Peer group facilitation to reach a broader community
“As far as a system, that’s it.” She’s not pretending to have a 12-channel machine. She has a flywheel she’s building, and she’s building it with intention rather than urgency.
The Client Who Found His Way Back
Laurie told one story from her coaching work that illustrated the stakes better than any framework could.
A wealth manager. Defined niche in the sports world. Business slowing. His wife had a new opportunity that required him to pivot to a different audience. Tween-age kids. Pressure at home, pressure at work, mid-career reinvention.
They worked together for 24 sessions over the course of a year. He came out the other side with a new client base, a full pipeline, and a renewed sense of direction.
“Six months ago I didn’t know what I was gonna do. I felt like everything I knew had been changing. And now I feel renewed. I’m back in the game.”
That’s the return on Design Your Decade. Not just a better strategy. A person who knows what they’re building toward again.
The Real North Star
When asked what drives her, Laurie goes back to one image.
Rushing to pick up her kid from daycare. Finally getting there. Getting them buckled in. And then, on the drive home, her mind snapping right back to the problem she had to abandon when she left work.
“I just kept thinking: we can do better. Owners don’t have to have that pressure. The people on their teams should have an environment where they can pause, change gears, and then have a conversation with that little person in the back seat on the way home.”
Better daycare pickups.
That’s the business case. That’s the outcome. Not a revenue number. Not an exit multiple. A version of work that doesn’t bleed into the rest of life.
Laurie Hollinger appeared on Episode 28 of Coach as Entrepreneur. Connect with her at hollingerco.com or on LinkedIn. Subscribe to her newsletter, Untapped, at hollingerco.com.