When did you last raise your prices? If you have to think about it, that's your answer.

In this episode of the Opt In Podcast, Melissa Franks tackles one of the most avoided conversations in small business: pricing. Not setting prices for the first time, but revisiting them after you've grown, delivered results, and become exponentially more valuable than you were when you first put a number on your work.

If your rates look the same as they did two or three years ago, someone is paying for that gap. Spoiler: it's you.

Melissa breaks down why founders chronically underprice (it's not the market, it's fear dressed up as strategy), walks through the 4-question pricing audit you can run on your business this week, and gives you the exact framework for raising rates without losing the clients you actually want to keep.

In This Episode

• Why founders set prices when they were least confident, and never revisit them
• The three stories you're telling yourself to avoid the conversation (and why none of them are true)
• The math that shows how underpricing compounds over time, and what it's actually costing you per client, per year
• The 4-question pricing gut check to run on every engagement you offer
• How to raise your rates without burning client relationships: the grandfathering window, the 30-60 day notice approach, and how to communicate the change with confidence instead of apology
• Why some clients will leave when you raise prices, and why that's not a loss
• Your homework: one service, one date, one decision

Connect With Melissa

• 🎥 Watch the episodes on YouTube
• 📸 Instagram: @melissa_franks
• 💼 LinkedIn: Melissa Franks
• 🌐 Website: melissafranks.com

Connect with Melissa:

Watch the Episodes on Youtube

Instagram: instagram.com/melissa_franks

Schedule a call: melissafranks.com

You hired the experts. You've got a fractional CFO, a fractional CMO, maybe a part-time ops manager and a media buyer. You did everything right, and yet nothing is moving. Decisions are stalled. Responses take days. You're working more than before. And somehow, you became the glue holding it all together.

You didn't make bad hires. You made a structural mistake, and in this episode, Melissa Franks breaks down exactly what went wrong and how to fix it.

Fractional support is a strategic model, not an operational one. The moment you try to use it for both, the whole thing breaks down. Melissa walks through the two lanes every growing business needs, the strategy lane and the execution lane, and explains why confusing the two is costing founders time, money, and sanity.

Whether you're running an all-contractor team or trying to figure out your next hire, this episode will give you a clear framework for when fractional is your best move — and when it's time to bring someone on full-time.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• The difference between strategy-layer and execution-layer roles — and why mixing them up stalls everything
• The 5 ways an all-fractional team breaks down (and why it's not anyone's fault)
• When fractional support is your highest-leverage move — and when it isn't
• The 48-hour gut check: a simple test to determine whether a role needs to be full-time
• Why a seasoned fractional executive at 15 hours/month can outperform a full-time hire you can't yet afford
• The football coach analogy that explains exactly how fractional executives should function in your business
• How to audit your current team and identify where your next full-time hire should be

Connect with Melissa:

🌐 Website: melissafranks.com 📸 Instagram: @melissafranks 💼 LinkedIn: Melissa Franks

Connect with Melissa:

Watch the Episodes on Youtube

Instagram: instagram.com/melissa_franks

Schedule a call: melissafranks.com

What if the biggest thing holding your business back is you?

In this episode of the Opt In Podcast, Melissa Franks shares the framework she calls "firing yourself first", a counterintuitive approach to growth that she recently delivered to a room of six- and seven-figure entrepreneurs. If your business has plateaued, if every decision routes through you, or if you can't take a real vacation without something breaking, this episode is your wake-up call.

Melissa breaks down exactly why delegation alone doesn't work (and actually creates more work in the short term), and walks you through the decision audit matrix that reveals where you're bleeding time, money, and momentum. You'll learn the three-phase handoff method, from task to process to authority, that's the real key to scaling, plus why "good enough" beats perfect every time when it comes to letting go.

You'll also hear the story of a former client, a 12-person business whose revenue had been stuck at the same level for three years, and how getting the right people in the right chairs with real authority unlocked her growth and a fully unplugged three-week vacation to the Amalfi Coast.

In this episode:

• Why you — not your strategy — are the bottleneck
• The math that proves decision-making is costing you a full quarter of your year
• How to use the 2x2 decision audit to find what to hand off now
• The 3-phase authority handoff (and why most founders stop at phase one)
• The 70% rule that will finally let you delegate without guilt

Your homework: pick one recurring decision from your danger zone and hand it off — with full authority — this week.

Connect with Melissa:

Watch the Episodes on Youtube

Instagram: instagram.com/melissa_franks

Schedule a call: melissafranks.com