Welcome to Issue 20 of A Good Reputation, a newsletter about a good brand move that helped grow a small business. (Did someone send you? Subscribe here.)

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Hello Reader,

Be honest: How obsessed are you with efficiency?

I get it. We have an obnoxiously small amount of time on this earth, and we’re afraid to waste it.

In our work, efficiency is the driving force to automate anything and everything so that we can get back to the things we care about.

But what if we turned our focus to caring more about the business we’re running and the people behind the problems we’re solving?
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As business owners and entrepreneurs, I’m starting to wonder if maybe our greatest advantage isn’t figuring out how to automate—it’s carving out more time to care.

We keep hearing that the most pressing problem of our time isn’t that robots are becoming more human-like—it’s that humans are becoming more like robots.

It’s true, isn’t it?

Our hyper-focus on speed, efficiency, and productivity is pushing us to prioritize faster over thoughtful.

As customers, we feel it. But what about as business owners?

How much are we hurting ourselves by not keeping human connection at the forefront of our operations?

According to April MacLean, potentially a lot. A former dance studio owner turned strategist ​running communities​ behind some of today’s biggest brands (including Nike and Starbucks), April’s success didn’t come from automation or efficiency hacks—it came from giving a damn about the people she serves.
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I’ve been following April for over a year and devouring all of her content. She’s the person I think of when I think of community. She’s the one I recommend when someone is seeking to start a community.

An amazing human with a powerful (yet heartbreaking) story, April has grown her business in a way that feels unscalable, but deeply impactful.

It’s a look at what you build when you lean into what can’t be optimized.

A Good Story

*Trigger warning: Assault. If you’re sensitive to this, skip to a good approach.*

When April was 8 years old, her mom married a man who would become her abuser. At 13, she confronted him. Her mother did nothing.

A year later, she ran away from home and became part of the foster care system.

Over the next three years, April moved through 22 homes, dragging a black trash bag of belongings from stranger to stranger, “feeling like a parasite,” as she puts it. By the age of 15, she was pregnant. By 16, a mother.

By 17 she was emancipated and living in her car.

With the odds stacked against her and no consistent figure to rely on, April was forced to create her own sense of belonging wherever she could find it.

In other words: She had to find community to survive. And she found it through dance.

What started as a way to check off a PE requirement turned into a revelation. In dance, April experienced an unspoken form of connection—a way to communicate through movement.

It wasn’t just about the technique—it was about showing up, being seen, and sharing something unfiltered with others. It was this sense of shared purpose and belonging that sparked something in her.

A few years later, April opened her own dance studio in Southern California, which became much more than a place to learn choreography. It became a safe space for her students—many of whom were dealing with personal struggles like death, divorce, or illness—to heal and find community.

While running the business, April realized that what made her studio so successful wasn’t only the service she provided, but the experience she created.

After 11 good years, April sold the studio and moved across the country.

In an effort to figure out her next move, April joined Trends, an online community for entrepreneurs, run by a little business known as the Hustle, which was acquired by HubSpot. (You may have heard of it.)

April showed so much talent for creating and running connected communities that she was asked to run the one at Trends.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

The relationships April built at Trends became the foundation of her next (and current) business, Wondry, a boutique community-building agency.

In four years, April has built Wondry into a pretty big-deal operation, with clients that include Starbucks, Nike, and Lululemon.

How?

By hyper-focusing on people first—systems last.

A Good Approach

While most founders talk about scalability and automation, April has fully leaned into the unscalable.

She gives her phone number away to community members, schedules one-on-one meetings without a screening process, and spends hours writing her newsletter.

She even sends handwritten postcards—which she puts in the mail herself—to all new members of her communities.

To make sure she’s not missing anything, she regularly conducts a “give a damn audit,” as she calls it, which involves looking at every step of her customer journey and asking:

Where can I make this experience feel more human?

With every step of her marketing and sales process, the goal isn’t to create efficiency—it’s to create connection. And that can’t always be hacked.

While I believe this approach can work for any business at certain levels, it particularly works for April’s model, which relies on long-term relationships.

Her biggest accounts have been with her since the beginning, and she’s scaled her income by offering more services to those core accounts.

April takes a similarly slow, relationship-first approach to her marketing.

She has a popular newsletter and uses social media—particularly LinkedIn—to distribute her ideas, personal stories, and helpful content about building more impactful communities.

But instead of just sharing “how-to’s” on how to build a thriving community (which she does), she takes a more personalized storytelling approach. (Can you see why we’re friends?)

So much so that her newsletter welcome series is a tell-all on what she’s been through to get to this point and why she became a community builder in the first place.

If you’ve read her stuff, you see why she’s so magnetic.

And that’s what makes her marketing—or any good marketing—so powerful: People either love her depth or are turned off by it.

What she’s managed to do with all of it is this:

Instead of building a business around systems that could run without her or always optimizing for net-new business to scale, she built one that kept clients around and growing with her—one that people wanted her to be a part of.

But, there’s a caveat…

A Good Lesson

In a huge and unfortunate twist of fate, the best part of April’s business is now her biggest challenge.

As she openly shared, April was recently diagnosed with advanced-stage cancer and has to take a massive step back.

Of course, she doesn’t have the time or mental capacity to keep up with everything it takes to run her business—especially the marketing piece.

So far, she’s tried outsourcing her newsletter writing to a colleague who offered. But that was a short-term solution, and she's decided to put it on pause.

Ultimately, while the community-building tips can be replicated, that “Aprilness” can't.

While the lesson here is still unfolding for April and how—if at all—she’ll change elements of her business model moving forward, the takeaway for me is clear.

Building touchpoints for human connection is a huge business advantage as we hurl our way through this post-AI world—especially as more people are happy to take the human element out of their work.

But a business that’s entirely reliant on you and your "youness" is inherently risky.

A Good Takeaway

The upshot? We need to find ways to optimize for a bit of both.

The problem, as April’s story highlights, is that we’re over-indexing on:

Efficiency
Productivity
Volume
Audience
Growth
Scalability
Systems

All. the. damn. time.

Gah. I get tired just looking at that list—do you?

Sure, we need those things. But, when was the last time you asked yourself: How are my customers?

I love meeting people like April who—in addition to challenging the status quo on nearly everything—reminds us that a successful business can be built by focusing on the human side of things.

No matter what you sell, customer service is everything.

And it's those small, meaningful gestures—the ones that make people feel seen, heard, and valued—that build lasting relationships and loyalty.

If you already think you’re doing a great job, why not audit every stage of your customer’s journey and see if there are ways to make it better?

Building an extra delightful human touch into your operations might not be the fastest or most efficient thing you do. But, it could be the most meaningful.

Looking back at past newsletters, I've noticed all the people I’ve interviewed have created a system for adding a personal touch to delight their clients or customers.

Here are a few things that have worked for others that could work for you, too:

1. Thoughtful follow-ups after discovery calls: If part of your sales process requires a discovery call, take lots of notes (or better yet—record it). Then type it all up in a neat and organized way along with your thorough recommendations. Even if the prospect doesn’t turn into a client immediately, you’ve demonstrated that you listen carefully and will take time to help.

2. Handwritten thank-you notes: You could send these either after onboarding a new client or completing a project. It’s a simple gesture that stands out and leaves a lasting impression because it’s one of the few things that’s actually done by hand.

3. Toss in “surprise” extras: One freelance designer I talked to includes a "bonus round" in her design packages, where she offers extra design variations or alternate color palettes—something that’s not in the initial contract. Clients love the unexpected value, which turns one-time projects into repeat business.

4. Personalized client check-ins: An executive coach I once talked to takes the time to research her clients’ industries and sends them relevant articles, insights, or events they might find useful. It’s not part of her formal service, but by showing that she cares about their growth beyond their sessions, she’s strengthened those relationships and earned client referrals.

5. Proactive problem-solving: A SaaS founder I profiled offers free quarterly check-ins with her customers, where she reviews their accounts and suggests ways to optimize their use of the software. By proactively solving problems, rather than waiting for support tickets, she reduces churn and increases customer satisfaction.

6. More impactful networking: Instead of just sending a standard follow-up email after a networking event, one founder I met goes the extra mile by making thoughtful introductions between people she meets. These personalized connections have helped her build a trusted network, and many of those contacts have turned into business opportunities down the road.

Ultimately, the key is to think about the little things that can make a big difference.

It’s about taking the time to care—genuinely care—and making sure your clients or customers feel that care through every interaction.

Can you imagine if everyone worried less about efficiency and more about connection?

The robots wouldn’t have anything on us.

A Few Good Resources

1. April credits Daniel Priestley for the "Giving a Damn" audit. In this interview, he talks about that and all the other ways to get people lining up to do business with you.
2. In practice: My buddy Stacey gave a glowing shoutout on LinkedIn to a freelancer who took the time to add a personalized touch.
3. I'm hosting a class on storytelling to connect with your customers next week. See you there?

Hope you have a good one,
Renee