with Suzanne PoolThe Model
Revenue is your calendar times your rate, and the calendar is full.
For founders who built something real
Successful women
plateau for
five reasons.
One is yours.
I'm Suzanne Pool. I work with women whose businesses grew, then stopped. The cause is rarely effort or strategy. It's one of five patterns, and once you can see yours, it can be moved.
Ten minutes. Your result arrives on screen and by email.
Founders come to me stuck. They leave charging more, working less, and wanting it again.
The five plateau patterns
Five patterns. Not fifty.
I've watched them in rooms of founders for years. Only the disguise changes. Most women recognise one straight away, and it's often not the one they expected.
The Money
You raised your prices, then added something extra to make them feel fair. The margin stayed where it was.
The Machine
A capable team, and every decision still lands on your desk.
The Mind
You built this to prove something. It's proved, and you're still running that playbook.
The Body
Ambition intact, appetite quieter. You can push. You'd rather want it again.
Results clients have reached
Sales tripledin 90 days
Seven figuresin investment secured
Teams grown fivefoldin under a year
How we begin
Three ways in
Read the book
DISCIPLINE sets out the thinking behind everything I do, in fourteen chapters.
About the bookTake the Diagnostic
Ten minutes to find which of the five patterns is holding your business, and what yours is costing you.
Start the DiagnosticHave a conversation
If your result points to working together, a short application leads to a 45-minute call with me.
How we work together
The method
Discipline here means restraint as power and choice, never deprivation. Ten letters, ten keys, worked in order. Each one unlocks part of the plateau and then takes you past where the old business could go.
The ten keys
Liberate. Elevate. Celebrate.
Liberate, Elevate, Celebrate is what happens to you. The ten keys are what we do to get there. The Diagnostic shows where you start, and most work begins with one or two keys rather than all ten.
Liberate
From constructed to uneditedD
Desire
Name what you actually want, not the palatable version.
I
Identity
Retire the woman who built the last level.
S
Strip
Take the business back to the offer that scales.
C
Charge
Price for the transformation, and say the number with ease.
Elevate
From willpower to desireI
Ignite
Switch desire back on as the engine, not the reward.
P
Pleasure
Build pleasure into the operating model, not the holidays.
L
Leverage
Let the business run on systems and ownership, not your calendar.
Celebrate
From striving to arrivedI
Intimacy
Full contact with clients, partners and yourself.
N
Nerve
Make the ask you've been circling.
E
Expand
Hold the bigger life without shrinking back.
The book
Where the code began
DISCIPLINE – A Secret Code for Women in the Bedroom, Boardroom and Beyond (Panoma Press, 2020).
Fourteen chapters, written as an enquiry. Every key in the code has a chapter behind it, from You Can Have Anything You Want to You Must Pay Attention to What You Say. If you'd like to understand how I think before we ever speak, start here.
Raid the Cupboard
One result. Eight weeks.
Everyone has a cupboard. It's where the price rise you never made lives, along with the offer you keep meaning to retire and the proposal still sitting in drafts. Together we open it, take one thing out, and deal with it properly.
Four more weeks, at no charge. I don't refund. I finish.
How the eight weeks run
A contract, a deadline, a witness
Week 1
The result contract
We sit with your Diagnostic and write down one result: specific, measurable and dated. A rate card rebuilt and your longest-standing client paying it. An offer range trimmed to the one that scales. A significant proposal finally sent. We both sign it.
Weeks 2 to 7
Live work
Fortnightly sessions with me, live, and access between them for the moment the pattern shows up on a real call. It usually does, and that call becomes the work.
Week 8
The review
We put the result next to the contract. If it has landed, you're done. If it hasn't, we carry on for four more weeks until it does.
Who it's for
Built for one woman
This is for you if
- Your business is past $250K a year and growth has stalled
- You can name the result you want in one sentence
- You're ready to act on it, not study it
It isn't the right fit if
- You're pre-revenue or in your first business
- You'd like to learn more about the problem first
- You need clinical support rather than commercial work
If that's you, I'll point you towards someone who's right for where you are.
How to start
From Diagnostic to conversation
Take the Diagnostic first, so we both know your pattern. Then a short application: eight questions, about six minutes. If it fits, we book 45 minutes and decide together in one conversation. If it doesn't, I'll tell you plainly and suggest a better next step.
After the eight weeks
Some clients continue into longer work with me: a year-long room of ten women, and private advisory for a small number of founders. Both are by invitation, and both begin with a result you've already landed.
On air · Wednesdays, 3pm UK
Badly Behaved with Suzanne Pool
Candid conversations about female power, leadership and ambition, streamed live on YouTube every Wednesday. Real opinions, said plainly.
Start with these
Recent episodes
- The Mind
The Only Woman in the Room
- The Machine
Why Hiring Help Didn't Fix Your Burnout
- The Machine
Your Team Isn't Lazy, It's Lost
About Suzanne
The lawyer who learned to want things
I read History at Cambridge, then spent two decades as a lawyer and Business Affairs Manager in games, television, music and film, negotiating growth for some of the largest and smallest rights owners in the UK and beyond.
Today I'm a business strategist and executive coach to women founders. My clients have tripled sales in 90 days, raised seven figures and grown their teams fivefold within a year. I wrote DISCIPLINE because the commercial work and the personal work turned out to be the same work, and I wanted a code that held both. I'm based in London, and I'm known to my clients as the Mistress of Scale.
Speaking and press
Bring the conversation to your stage
I speak and guest on podcasts about why successful women plateau, pricing with confidence, and the life-stage shifts that most business advice leaves out. For bookings and press, contact suzanne@suzannepool.com.
The letter
A fortnightly letter from me
One idea worth acting on, every other week.
The Plateau Diagnostic
Ten minutes to find your pattern
Six questions about your business, twenty-five statements you rate from one to five, and a clear explanation of what your pattern is costing you. Your answers are yours, held securely and never shared.