What if the thing standing between you and your best business year has nothing to do with your strategy, your niche, or your packages?
What if it’s five simple daily habits that take less than an hour total, and most service providers are skipping them completely?
I ran a 30-day Standards of Excellence Challenge inside Strategist Society at the start of 2026, and y’all, the results completely blew my mind. Students went from zero clients to three clients in 30 days. Others booked their first VIP days. Some revived contracts they thought were dead in the water. And all of it came from five non-negotiable daily habits.
I’ve been doing these habits for two years. I know the Strategist Society members who do them consistently get the best results. But this was the first time we’d ever run a 30-day challenge around them, and now I’m taking you behind the scenes so you can implement them too.
These are the Standards of Excellence, and today I’m breaking down all five.
What Are the Standards of Excellence (And Why They Work for Service Providers)?
You’ve probably heard of 75 Hard. It’s that brutal fitness challenge where you drink a gallon of water, work out twice a day, follow a strict diet, read 10 pages, and take progress photos every single day for 75 days with zero compromises. I respect the commitment, I do. But for most of us, especially moms running businesses from home with little ones, clients to manage, and a life? 75 Hard is not the vibe.
I liked the concept of going all in on habits, though. So I created what I call the business cozy version.
The Standards of Excellence are five daily non-negotiables that fuel your mindset, your body, your relationships, and your business without burning you out. And here’s what makes them different from every other habit challenge you’ve tried: there are no prescribed times or amounts. I don’t tell you how many steps to take or how much time to read or what “getting ready” looks like for you. You set your own standards because you know your life, and sustainability builds momentum.
This is not about getting it perfect every day. It’s about having your minimums, the baseline you can commit to daily.
Here’s why these work specifically for service providers: our business lives on relationships, and more relationships mean more revenue. It’s as simple as that. If you’re sluggish, disconnected, or not fueling your brain, you’re not showing up with energy. Your clients feel it. Your prospects feel it. And you definitely feel it.
I’ve seen so many people swinging for these big strategic moves to take their business to the next level, then burning themselves out trying to post three times a day for 30 days. They don’t see results because it wasn’t sustainable. And I’ve seen students try to hustle their way to $10K months without these habits and run themselves into the ground.
Burnout is real. These habits are the foundation that makes every other strategy actually work.
The 5 Standards of Excellence
Standard 1: Get Up and Get Ready
Okay, I know. This sounds like the most basic thing I could possibly tell you. But I promise you, it is the most transformative.
Getting up and getting ready means you get out of your PJs. You put yourself together to the standard you set. For me personally, that means mascara, brows, lip gloss, and brushed hair. That’s my bare minimum. When I do that, I can jump on a discovery call. I can show up on Instagram. I’m ready.
Here’s the thing: when we stay in our PJs, we are too cozy to perform. We’re also not prepared to show up if an opportunity comes knocking. And if you haven’t done the bare minimum to feel confident, you’re not going to put yourself out there.
Some people just need to change out of their loungewear. Others need a full face and a blowout. You get to decide what your standard is. But ask yourself this right now: are you showing up like the business owner who charges $3,000, $4,000, or $5,000 per month for their services? Or are you showing up in sweats and skipping Instagram altogether?
I’m not judging, I’ve been there. This is exactly why I created the Standards of Excellence. After my son Bodhi was born, I was sitting around in nursing bras with spit-up all over me, feeling gross constantly. I decided something had to change. I got out of my PJs. I started getting ready. And I started showing up in a completely different way.
One of our Strategist Society members was going through something similar after having her baby. By doing this habit every single day for 30 days, she said it helped her show up and be present. She booked a haircut, got her nails done, and said this one standard changed her mindset both personally and in business. Something as simple as getting up and getting ready.
How you show up for yourself is how you show up for your clients. Period.
Standard 2: Your Daily Touchpoints (This Is the Big One)
I’m going to argue this is the most important standard of the five. If you don’t do any of the others but you still want to grow your business, this is the one you need to focus on.
Your daily touchpoints are your intentional conversations and outreaches to potential clients, follow-ups, referral partners, and warm connections. Doing a networking event, showing up on a sales call, sliding into DMs with a genuine message. This is your marketing. Not posting on Instagram hoping someone finds you, but actually having real human conversations.
This can happen in Instagram DMs, cold emails, cold calls, in-person networking, or on LinkedIn. But we’re having conversations, not just posting.
For me, my standard is five daily conversations. Because I know when I’m consistently having five conversations a day, that’s 25 conversations a week, and my business grows. Plain and simple.
However many you choose is completely up to you. If five feels scary, start with one. Your business will still grow because you’re building consistency, and consistency beats sporadic effort every single time. You can always build up from there.
Here’s what happens when you don’t have a touchpoint commitment: you tell yourself you’ll do it when you have time. And that time never comes because you’re focused on client work, kids, housework, and all the other things. Touchpoints are usually the one thing you don’t want to do, so you keep pushing them off.
During the 30-day challenge, one of our Strategist Society members said that before the challenge, her consistency with touchpoints was “non-existent.” After 30 days, she said the challenge showed her how easy touchpoints actually are and how not scary they really are. One conversation she started ended up being the person who emailed her, saying they wanted to work together and signed a done-with-you VIP day contract. One conversation. One habit. One client.
Another member, LaShall, has already scaled her business past $20K months. She said the challenge fundamentally shifted when she does her touchpoints. She was treating them as an afterthought at the end of the day, which meant they often didn’t get done. Now they’re the first thing she does every morning, and she’s building a real pipeline of momentum.
Move your touchpoints to the beginning of your day. That was the single biggest insight our Strategist Society members shared across the board. The touchpoints are your needle mover. This is how you make money. If nothing else gets done today, this should be the standard you start with.
Ready to build your touchpoint strategy, but not sure where to start? DM me on Instagram @brandimowles and let’s talk about it.
Standard 3: Fuel Your Brain
Here’s the thing: our job as service providers is to be the smartest person in the room when it comes to our area of expertise. Our clients are paying us for our brains. And if you’re not actively feeding your brain, you get stale. You stop growing. You start feeling like an imposter.
For me, my standard is reading a minimum of 10 pages a day. Not 50 pages. Not a full chapter. Ten pages, because 10 pages is sustainable, and sustainability wins.
You could listen to a podcast, read a book, take a training, or watch something educational in your field. The point is intentionality: you are actively and deliberately learning something every single day.
But here’s the distinction I want to make: there is a difference between fueling your brain and just consuming content. You, listening to a podcast or reading a book, do nothing for you unless you actually apply what you learn. Fueling your brain means taking in information and then going and doing something with it.
One of our Strategist Society members set a goal to read five books in January during the challenge. She said it helped her have more clarity in her priorities, more confidence in her role, and more follow-through. Another member realized during the challenge that she was already doing a great job feeding her brain, but she needed to give herself credit for it.
So yes, listen to this podcast. But then take one thing I share and go apply it to your business. That’s the difference.
Standard 4: Move Your Body
I am not telling you to train for a marathon. I’m a 7,000-steps-a-day girl. Not even 10,000. Seven thousand. That’s my standard.
I was trying to hit 10,000 for the longest time and I kept beating myself up when I couldn’t get there. So I dropped it to 7,000, got a walking pad, and created a rule: if I’m responding to Voxer messages (which I do for 30 minutes twice a day for Strategist Society members), I have to be walking. And y’all, I’m hitting 7,000 steps pretty much every single day now.
If you’re stretching for a goal that’s not working and you keep missing it, you’re going to get frustrated and quit. Drop the number. Find a sustainable standard. Then find a way to weave it in.
Some days, I’m walking while I’m on Voxer. Some days, I’m chasing my kids around the backyard. Some days, I set a timer and do laps around my office. The point is I’m moving.
Here’s why this matters for your business: your body is your most important business asset. Most of us are sitting at our desks for hours, wondering why we feel unmotivated, anxious, foggy, and stiff. Movement changes your brain chemistry. It reduces anxiety. It builds the kind of quiet confidence that makes you better on discovery calls, better with your clients, and better in your own head.
During the challenge, one of our Strategist Society members exercised every single day, even during one of her hardest weeks when she was sick and dealing with personal challenges and barely keeping it together. But she still moved her body. She said it felt good to be able to do that.
That’s exactly the point. The habit holds even when life doesn’t, because we’re not building 75 Hard, we’re building something sustainable.
Standard 5: Share a Win
Y’all, this one right here might be my favorite.
I share wins every single day. In my journal, in the Strategist Society community on Voxer, even at dinner as a family. We sit around the table, and everyone shares a win. Sharing your wins does something amazing for your brain, and I know some of you are rolling your eyes thinking, “Brandi, that’s so fluffy.” But hear me out.
Service providers are wired to minimize their success. We hit a revenue goal and immediately move on to the next one. We sign a client and spend three minutes celebrating before we panic about delivering. We close a discovery call, and instead of sitting in that win for five seconds, we’re already worried about something else.
The daily win practice rewires the thought patterns that keep us small. It helps you notice that you are freaking awesome even when you don’t feel like it.
One of our Strategist Society members said the habit made her rethink what she even considers to be a win. Things that previously felt too small, she now recognizes as legitimate progress. Another said sharing a win each day became a great toolkit for her emotional well-being and helped her reframe the rough days.
This is not a small thing. Do not dismiss this habit. If you sit down to share a win and think, “I don’t have one,” that’s not acceptable. You did win today. You just have to find it. And when you make that a daily practice, it rewires your brain.
Real Results from the 30-Day Standards of Excellence Challenge
At the start of 2026, Strategist Society members tracked all five habits every single day for 30 days. Here’s what happened:
One member committed to all five standards, five days a week, for the entire month. She said before that she would have let outside forces dictate her days instead of leading from intention. She came away with new habits she plans to carry through all of 2026, and said her biggest surprise was how much having a backup plan helped. A backup book in case she needed a break from the one she was reading. A backup movement option if walking didn’t work out. Little tweaks made a huge difference.
Another member said January was slower than she expected, but the Standards of Excellence challenge is the reason January didn’t derail her. She said, “I proved to myself that taking 30 minutes to send 10 touchpoints isn’t actually as big a deal as I thought it was.” She stayed consistent through a slow month, and now she’s having a fantastic February. She’s been putting off selling in the DMs for a while. Now she’s going all in on it and doing incredibly well.
One more member said her biggest win from the 30 days wasn’t a new client or a revenue milestone. It was a mindset shift. She said she’s now more aware of when she’s not completing her standards and more aware of her weak spots. The challenge reminded her that you need 30 days of consistency to actually establish a habit.
None of these results were about a perfect strategy. All of them were about consistency and making an identity shift.
When you do these five things every day, you stop feeling like someone who’s trying to build a business, and you start feeling like someone who already has one.
How to Start Your Own Standards of Excellence Practice
Here’s what I want you to do right now. Pick your standards. Not mine. Not your Strategist Society member’s. Yours.
- What does getting up and getting ready look like for you?
- What is your touchpoint goal?
- How are you going to fuel your brain?
- How are you going to move your body?
- How are you going to share your win?
Write those down. Put them somewhere you can see them. And start tomorrow. Actually, start today.
You don’t need a perfect plan. You don’t need to feel ready. You just need to do the dang thing, one day and five habits at a time, consistently.
If you’re already past $3K months and you want to push past $10K, $20K, or $30K months with a full support system, community, weekly coaching calls, and real accountability, that’s what Strategist Society is. A group of seriously incredible service providers building real businesses, making big girl money, and doing the dang thing together. Head to thestrategistsociety.com to fill out a form, and we’ll have a quick conversation to see if it’s the right fit.
If you’re just getting started and don’t have clients yet, head to conversionsforclients.com. That’s where you’ll learn the number one highest-paying skill that lets you find clients and build a successful service business from the ground up.
And no matter where you are, one day, five habits, done consistently will change everything.
This post was adapted from the Serve Scale Soar podcast. If you loved this episode, search “Serve Scale Soar” on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and subscribe so you never miss a week of actionable strategies for one-on-one service providers who are ready to build real, consistent $10K-$30K+ months.
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** This post may contain affiliate links which means I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you if you use one of the links to purchase. This helps keep the podcast going and I only share products I have used, tested and love.”
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Meet Brandi
Brandi Mowles is the host of the Serve Scale Soar® podcast which is a podcast dedicated to helping service-based entrepreneurs scale their online business to five-figure months so they can soar into six-figure years. Brandi is a wife, mom and in less than one year, created a six-figure business. Now she is spilling all her secrets so you can too.
