Nic the PM

08/06/2026

08/05/2026

If you are needing to create business systems hit me up. You’re likely doing most of the work manually when you can take 80% of that work and systems it. Then you’ll manually do the 20% and have more time back in your schedule.

07/19/2026

Let nothing stop you from being your best self. You can chance the trajectory of your future by doing ONE thing. So do that thing.

07/09/2026

If you need to buy or sell you home and have questions that need answers, Marlon should be your go to person. Many times realtors are just looking to make the sell. Marlon works to understand what obstacles you’re facing to help you make the best decision the results in the best outcome for you. It’s not always about making a sell. Sometimes it’s about putting you on to information you simply didn’t know. No pressure. No obligation. Contact him today!

07/07/2026

The first cold email I sent as "Nicole Urban, Founder" hit differently than every email I'd sent for twenty years as "Nicole Urban, Director." 📧
Same person. Same expertise. Same twenty years of Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 experience behind it.
But the credibility I'd built didn't pack up and move with me. It stayed attached to the org chart I'd left.
Nobody tells you that part. You assume the trust travels. You do all you can to convey it in your business’ Capabilities Statement. Sometimes and with some people, that credibility just doesn't translate the same. Not automatically, and not immediately.
What travels is the work. The judgment. The actual skill. But the instant validation of a recognizable title on an email signature? That's gone the day you go independent, and you have to rebuild it from zero, one real result at a time. Brick by brick, as the girlies say.
It's humbling in a way I genuinely wasn't prepared for, certification, degrees and experience aside.
If you've made this transition, how long did it take before your new title actually felt like enough on its own?

07/07/2026

A few weeks ago, I sat in a room with small business owners I'd met through networking, and one story stuck with me.

A business owner runs two organizations at once ➡️ a retail business and a nonprofit. 2️⃣ sets of obligations, 2️⃣ sets of deadlines, one brain 🧠 trying to hold it all.

We built a simple AI prompt together that sorts tasks by entity and urgency, so every Monday morning he gets a clear two-column digest instead of a tangled mental list. 🤖

It took fifteen minutes to design. Another 35 minutes to refine. It's already saving him 6 hours every week.

This is the work I love most. I love taking something chaotic and giving it just enough structure to breathe. Clarity from chaos is my ISH!!

07/06/2026

A hammer doesn't swing itself.
That's the simplest way I can explain the difference between using AI and having AI actually work for you.
Most business owners I talk to are using AI like a hammer — pick it up, ask a question, get an answer, put it down. That's a tool.
An AI agent is more like hiring a contractor. You describe what you want done, when, and how — then you walk away. The work happens without you.
The shift from tool to agent is the single biggest unlock I've seen for time-strapped business owners this year.

07/04/2026

Last month I decided to run a focus group on a Tuesday, drafted product content at midnight, booked the space at the library and personally scheduled invitations to the 12 people who expressed interest in attending with messages tailored to what our individual discussions. I got it all done by 2am.

Founder. Marketer. Customer service. Scheduler who apparently works when she can’t sleep. 😴

In a corporate role, there was always someone whose job it actually was. In solopreneurship, you know that jobs belong to you and there’s no delegation.

As an independent consultant, every department lives within the same person, often in the same hour, occasionally doing two of them at once. And sometimes at 2am. 🕑

The skill nobody tells you you'll need most isn't strategy. It's context-switching fast enough that none of the five jobs notices you were just doing a different one ten minutes ago.

If you've made this jump, which "department" did you discover you were worst at on day one? 👀 🧐