SmartgirlsBusiness on your own terms
01 · You know there’s more
Your business is growing, or you want it to. You have plenty of ideas and plenty of ambition. And still you’ve known for a while that there is more in there than what comes out.
You want a grip on your numbers and a brand that matches who you have become. People around you who take work off your hands, so that more is left at the bottom of the page and the business starts feeling like yours again.
To take that step you need direction. Where do you want to go, and what do you need to get there.
At your pace, on your terms.
Too good to leave. Too small to stay.
Ellen Joosten · founder
02 · Growth asks different questions
Solid revenue. A name you built.
And still you feel it: the way I got here is not automatically the way I want to keep going.
And perhaps the most important question of all:
How do I actually want to do business?
That is where Smartgirls begins.
03 · The Smartgirls method
Which is why at Smartgirls we look at the whole picture.
Annemarie van Gaal
Revenue says very little, because what matters is what is left. Annemarie works out where you actually earn, where it leaks away, and which part of your business you keep alive out of habit.
Wait until you see what happens when the numbers start working for you.
Marlies Dekkers
Does what the world sees still match where you and your business are going?
Your website and your offer are allowed to grow with who you have become, so that people understand in one go what you stand for.
Marlies Dekkers · Unlock Your Potential
What does the next phase of your business ask of you?
You make calls that not everyone will be happy about, and you bring your people along in a way that keeps things running when you are not there.
Ellen Joosten · Heart to Heart
Does the business you are building still fit the life you want?
Next to revenue you also want time, energy and freedom left over. A business that looks fine on paper while you no longer want to work in it: that wasn’t the assignment.
Not one road.your road.That’s Your Way.
No formula. Business on your own terms.
04 · These are Smartgirls
They have a business, staff and clients. Often children at home too. Plenty of plans, plenty of nerve. And every so often a day where you think: what the fuck am I doing.
01She had been shooting with love and quality for years, but stayed modest about her own work.
“I kept myself smaller than I needed to be, and I found it hard to really stand up for what I am worth.”
“What they do so well is see what you cannot see yourself yet. Not superficially, but honestly and sharply.”
After the year with Annemarie and the sessions with Marlies she stands behind her prices and the level of her work.
“Smartgirls really set my fire going again. I started thinking bigger. I am only now realising there are photographers who look up to me and would want to learn from me.”
It started as a bold dream, buying a farm. It grew into a concept that helps people transform their health in a holistic way.
“The programme is far more than coaching. It is a real journey in which you get support to reach your goals, even when the challenges are very big.”
“With vision, perseverance and passion, everything really is possible.”
Smart Girl
Scaling was her biggest challenge. A team arrived, revenue grew and she worked harder than ever. The business was thriving. She was not.
She learned to keep up with the growth phases of her business without spending herself in the process. Where she used to work in it, she now leads it.
“I realised I had created a job, not a business. Now the business grows faster than my place in it, and that was exactly the point.”
04b · Ten in short
Not only for the good days.
Also for the moments when you have a hard decision to make and nobody around you will tell you straight.
“I should have done this five years ago.”
“I stopped explaining. I know where my gold is now.”
“I realised I had created a job, not a business.”
“I know what I am worth now. And I feel it too.”
“For the first time I dare to look at what is actually left.”
“I let go of the offer that only cost me energy.”
“My team knows what to do without me in the middle of it.”
“In one morning we built a website I had been putting off for two years.”
“I started my exit plan while there is no buyer in sight.”
“My diary finally looks like the life I started this for.”
“I was in the middle of a bankruptcy and could not tell anyone. At this table I could.”
“Home and business fell apart at the same time. Here I did not have to pretend.”
We have your back.Also when things get tough.
05 · Welcome to Smartgirls
Google. Podcasts. Books. Masterclasses. Coaches. AI. We could hand you 147 ways to grow your business in ten minutes.
But that is not the question.
The question is which of them is right for you.
We look at you. At your business. Your numbers. Your brand. Your ambition. Your leadership. And yes, also at what you have been avoiding for a while.
Not to tell you how it should be done. To work out together what your next move is.
Your business. Your ambition. Your way.
Ellen Joosten · founder06 · Not one road. Your road.
Maybe your next step is in Money. Maybe in Brand. Maybe it is finally time to lead.
And sometimes your numbers, strategy and positioning are not the problem at all. Then it is you.
Ouch.
Also good news, though. Because the moment you can see what actually stands between you and that next step, you can do something about it.
Your business doesn’t exist in modules. Neither do you.
Smartgirls07 · You don’t need another guru
If your numbers are off, you need a finance expert. If your brand no longer fits, you want someone who knows how a strong brand is built. If you are raising money or selling, you need someone who knows the world of contracts and capital.
And if you know exactly what to do but something in you keeps holding back? Then a new strategy is not what you are missing.
Which is why you will not find a guru at Smartgirls who claims to know everything.
The right expertise, at the right moment, for your next step.
01Money & Strategy
“I don’t even switch my brain on if I don’t know what the numbers are.”
For the numbers you would rather not open, and the decisions that get a lot easier once you do.
In her own words: “First and foremost I am an entrepreneur to the core. In the late eighties I moved to Russia with my then six-year-old son, and two years later set up my own media company there. An exciting and adventurous time, in a country in a permanent state of crisis. Every single day I had to come up with unconventional solutions to the many challenges I ran into.”
“Countless international media companies tried and failed to get a foothold in Russia. We managed it.”
Independent Media grew into the largest independent publisher in Russia, with seven hundred staff and twenty titles. She sold her stake in 2000 and started again in the Netherlands, with companies in media, retail and property.
She advised corporate finance firms such as CVC and BC Capital Partners on acquisitions and served on the supervisory board of the AFM, the Dutch financial markets authority. That is where her exit plan questions come from.
She sits on several supervisory boards, on the advisory council of DUO and on the board of Start Foundation, which works to open up the labour market to people currently shut out of it. Most people know her from Dragons’ Den.
At the table it is about your revenue model, about which part of your business you only keep alive out of habit, and about your exit plan. That last one is a standard part of the work, long before a buyer is at the door.
02Brand & Leadership
“What is your gold? Let’s find out together.”
For when your business is allowed to become bigger than your current story. And you along with it. She starts every trajectory with the question of where your gold is, before anything about your brand or offer changes.
Started in 1993 in an attic room. Stood in New York. Knows better than anyone how you build a brand that speaks rather than whispers.
Graduated from art school with distinction in 1991 and launched her own collection two years later. She broke with lace and ribbon and designed graphically, with strap lattices and cutouts. A lingerie revolution that went from the Netherlands out into the world. She designs from her own view of life, to make women more confident.
On being original she puts it like this: having an original personality means you do not do what everyone else does. And you dare to show your original version, once you let a lot of copying behaviour fall away from you.
Her motto: dare to dream, dare to grow, dare to be.
03Contracts & Capital
“For God’s sake, try doing it without financiers.”
For when you are seriously thinking about funding, investors or an exit. Real talk about contracts, banks, shares and what is left once you sell.
She built Sportsworld: sports shops and department stores across the Netherlands. In 1996 she opened her first out-of-town megastore, a concept of large shops on business parks and along exit roads. She financed the growth largely herself, without outside investors and without bank funding. She was listed in the Quote 500 and brought her own label, Circle of Gentlemen, to market.
Then came the world of contracts, banks and a worsening economy, and a bankruptcy. During the negotiations it turned out there was asbestos in properties in Groningen and Nijmegen, which she had not been told about. She opened stores that were not fit to trade and watched the start-up costs run away from her.
“Trust is good, control is better.”
That is why she is at this table. Exactly the knowledge you need before you sign.
04Heart to Heart
“You know there’s more.”
For the part that is not in your business plan. What happens to you while your business grows?
Ellen is not a coach and not an expert in numbers, brands or contracts. That is what Annemarie, Marlies and Inge are at the table for. She sees what is going on with you, says it out loud and sits you down with the right person.
She lives the programme herself. Her own numbers, her own brand and her own choices are on the same table as yours.
Founder of Smartgirls and of Meet More Minds. She also runs Swiss Alp Chalets in the Swiss Alps.
05Smart Tech
“Die gedachte geeft verantwoording. Ook als het gaat om AI.”
Because working smarter is sometimes simply working smarter. AI is changing how we run businesses. The question is not whether you will work with it, but how you use it without losing what makes you you.
Participants built websites, a CRM and new brand documents in a single morning.
Every Wednesday and Friday, 9 to 10.
Both entrepreneurs. Together they run Workmode. They build with AI themselves, every day, inside their own company. That is a different conversation than with someone who reads about it.
Derek Lomas is co-founder of Playpower Labs, NeuroUX and Smart Paper, and founder and director of Source Library. He is also a cognitive scientist and designer, attached to TU Delft where he works on Positive AI. He designed more than thirty-five educational games, awarded by Sesame Street, the White House, the MacArthur Foundation and DARPA. His work has reached over three million learners.
Emma Furia studied Design for Interaction at TU Delft, where she works on AI in Architecture.
06Personal Growth
“Growth is sometimes getting closer to yourself.”
For when you know exactly what you should be doing but something in you keeps holding back. She coaches on the layer underneath entrepreneurship, where patterns, beliefs and personal growth touch your next step.
She is first of all an entrepreneur in healthcare. She qualified as a speech therapist in 2001 and started her own practice in 2004: Logomedia in Dordrecht, where children and adults are helped with language, reading and spelling, dyslexia, voice and breathing, speech and swallowing.
Out of that practice grew the Groeischool, with training courses and its own podcast for teachers and parents. Over twenty years of experience, specialised in language development disorders and dyslexia, with one aim: that a child does not get stuck in language but gains a grip on their own development.
She also founded Maison Mailly, where she works systemically with family constellations, hypnotherapy, regression therapy and inner child work.
08 · So. What’s your next move?
The only question left is what fits you, now.
Your Way module
€1,500
You know where it chafes. Money, Brand, Lead or Live.
One expert, one subject, a whole year. You pick what is most urgent right now. By the end of the year you know what your next step is, and which direction it takes you.
Smart Tech
from €697
Every Wednesday and Friday from 9 to 10 with Derek and Emma. You build your own dashboard, your management team and your AI way of working. Step by step, inside your own business.
Not learning about AI. Building with it.
Your Way annual programme
€5,000 or €7,000
Two separate modules already cost you €3,000. Your Way gives you all four, plus Annemarie, Marlies and Ellen, three sessions a month, community and hot seats.
For €5,000 a year. Or €7,000 with a personal kick-off with Marlies.
Your business doesn’t exist in modules. Neither do you.
Book a SmartCall with Ellen or Chantal. €222, one hour, your question on the table.
Annemarie’s small mastermind and one-on-one trajectories with Annemarie or Marlies are by selection, through a conversation, because this only works when it fits.
09 · The woman behind Smartgirls
Entrepreneurs get advice everywhere about what they should do. One question is rarely asked: what do you actually want to build? And then: what is actually possible, as big as Annemarie can see it for you.
At eleven Ellen already knew she would have a house in Switzerland one day. Two years ago she left behind everything that worked, with no plan and no proof.
She learned to find her gut, to hear it and to follow it. What moves her is desire, and the fire that comes with it.
I risked it all on a feeling. And here we are.
my inner knowing I can trust blindly.
After a brilliant day together she asked Annemarie what she thought of it. Fantastic, Annemarie said. In that same second Ellen asked her whether she would stay for a year. She wanted to, and she never left.
A networking club was never the plan. She wanted to build the place where you become the best at what you do, good enough that they come asking for you.
That’s Smartgirls.
10 · Maybe this is your next move
Order another book. Write out your strategy again. Or spend another three months thinking about the decision you already know you have to make.
We won’t stop you.
But if you feel that more is possible, in the end there is only one interesting question:
What is your next step?
Not ours. Not anyone else’s. Yours.
Do it your way.
Make it happen and let your heart be your compass always.
Smartguys
Send us a message for your options in this team and in your business.