September 3, 2024 • 33 mins
Feeling overwhelmed, juggling a million things, and wondering if it’s time to ask for help? Or maybe you’re spotting some exciting opportunities but can’t decide if they’re worth the leap?
In this episode of The Business Bible, we’re tackling one of the biggest questions every entrepreneur faces—when is it time to scale? Whether you’re running a full-fledged business, hustling on the side, or just curious about what it takes to grow something from the ground up, this conversation is for you.
Join your business besties, Victoria Devine, and Jessica Ricci, as they share insider tips, personal stories, and practical advice on scaling smartly without burning out.
Acknowledgement of Country By Natarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements.
The advice shared on She's On The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's On The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN - 321649 27708, AFSL - 451289.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
My name is Santasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud or
the Order Kerni Whalbury and a waddery woman. And before
we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I
would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
of which this podcast is recorded on a wondery country,
acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming
(00:22):
through as this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing
and the storytelling of you to make a difference for
today and lasting impactful tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Let's get into it.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Hello and welcome to the business Bible. Are you noticing
some burnout signs, juggling moltible hats and wondering if it's
time to bring more hands on deck. Maybe you're seeing
some bright opportunities on the horizon, but you're not sure
if they're worth chasing. Well, today we're diving into one
of the most crucial questions for any business, and that's
(01:07):
when is it time to scale? I'm Victoria Devine, your
business bff, and I'm here with our side hustle superstar
is Jess Gocci.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Jess, Hello, welcome back, to another episode of The Business Bible,
Happy to be here.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
I love the business episode. They're so fun and I'm
so excited today because I feel like you hear the
word scale a lot in the business world. People are
always saying things like scale to ten k in one month.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Oh my gosh, it's crazy, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Yeah, people just popping off using the word left frat center.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
And it took me like six years.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
It sounds great in theory, but like, what does it
actually mean to scaling business?
Speaker 1 (01:45):
It's a good question and probably the best place to start.
So from the start, scaling your business is kind of
like adding the perfect accessory to your favorite outfit. It's
all about enhancing what you already have without losing your
unique style, which is harder done and said in business terms,
scaling means growing your operations, increasing your reach, and boosting
(02:05):
your revenue, all while maintaining the quality and essence that
makes your brand so special. It's not just about doing more.
It's about doing more smartly with the right systems, team
and strategies in place that support your growth. It's exciting,
it is challenging, and if it's done right, it's really rewarding.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Is scaling something that we should all be just like
diving straight into the second that we.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Start, or just go hard or go home. Jess, No,
I'm joking. Definitely do not go hard and do not
go home. Timing is absolutely everything. Scaling your business is
kind of like tending to a garden. I can't keep
a garden alive. So maybe this is a really bad analogy,
but you need to plant the seeds at the right
moments to let them grow. If you try and scale
too early, your roots might not actually be deep enough
(02:52):
to support new growth. And things could with a really
fast like my actual garden. But if you wait too long, jests,
you could actually miss out on a prime season for expansion.
It's all about finding that sweet spot where your business
is ready to thrive without getting tangled in the weeds
of let's call it unpreparedness.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Okay, now, you obviously as someone who's scaled multiple businesses
with a lot of success, but did you run into
any problems kind of along the way of that journey?
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, one hundred percent. And then I cried a lot,
But I think that's really normal. I feel like I've
gotten so much wrong, and I mean, scaling is really hard.
Knowing when to scale is also equally hard, because I
think so many of us see that as like a
really shiny next step. But as someone who has scaled,
sold and now is going through I would say your
(03:41):
scale process. At the moment, I am recruiting left, right,
and center. But I'm also finding it very different this
time because I've realized that scaling is not necessarily always
the goal I need at this point in my business
to scale because right now, the demand we have outweigh
the staff that we have. Like we are overworked at
(04:03):
the moment. We're not able to service as many clients
as we would love to, so I know that we
need more hands on deck. But on the flip side,
I have run a bigger business before and I haven't
enjoyed it, and it has you know, I wouldn't say
gone to shit, but like I wasn't loving at my
mental health, wasn't there, nothing really worked, And I think
that there are so many bumps along the way right Like,
(04:23):
it's not something that is super shiny, and you do
need to really work out what that looks like. And
with scale comes in increased cost as well, and that
can be really overwhelming, Like at some point you go,
is this actually worth it? So there's I guess a
lot of moving parts when it comes to scaling, and
it doesn't necessarily mean that it might be right for you,
(04:45):
Like if you love your lifestyle right now, scaling might
mean that you are working another forty hours a week.
Is that actually for you?
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Crazy? How did you know that the right time to
scale was when you decided to do so well?
Speaker 1 (04:59):
The first time we scaled was when I scaled my
financial advice firm. The first time this is like when
she's on the money, was just starting. And if we're
being really honest, I think that scale to me was
a lot about ego. I wanted a big business. I
felt like a big business was reflective of how good
I was at my work, and we all know now
(05:19):
that that is absolutely not the case. So I scaled,
and I feel like I was making decisions because a
lot of the time they looked like the right decisions.
Having a good financial advice business to me meant having
a lot of financial advisors. It didn't actually end up
breaking even in the way that you would expect it to,
because with increased headcount, your entire business model needs to
(05:40):
change to make sure that the profitability is still being maintained,
and my profitability was being eaten into significantly, which is
absolutely fine, because often when you scale, there's a number
of investments you need to make in the short term
to get there. It eats away at your profitability and
then over time it starts to come back up. I
(06:01):
didn't like it, I didn't enjoy it. It wasn't nourishing
to me, and we ended up selling that business. So
in September twenty twenty two, I officially sold out of
being a financial advisor. I went back into mortgage broking
decided to start that from scratch. I've recently had the
other business partner in that business, Leaf, and we're currently
(06:21):
in the process of scaling the business now, but more
so that we can properly resource the team so that
we can have a really good time. And I mean
right now, I currently run Cheese on the Money and
Zella Money the mortgage broking business, and we have so
many beautiful clients coming from Shees on the Money and
I want to be able to service more of them.
So the reason for scaling at the moment is purely
(06:43):
because I'm like, I want more people to come to
my business because I'm enjoying this, not because of an
ego thing. And as you know, Jess, a lot of
this is taking us a long time because I'm trying
so hard to find the right mortgage brokers to hire.
My last mortgage brow took four months to hire because
I had not found the right person yet and I
(07:04):
wasn't willing to compromise in order to say that my
team was growing. So I definitely have a different hat
on this time, and it is a little bit more complex,
but I think it'll be for the better.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Yeah, So scaling isn't necessarily just about adding in voll
you more quantity of people, or you know, outsourcing more
and more people. It's about finding the right people to
support that growth exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
And I think that there's a very big misconception that
the bigger you scale, the bigger profit margin there will be.
And someone who's really good at this is Iris Smith
from the quick Flick. So she's on TikTok and she
shares a lot about how her business has scaled, and
she went from a small business where she was packing
her own orders in her launder room, which was really cute.
I feel like I've followed her since then and now
(07:47):
her products are available in price line. But what you
guys probably don't know is that if you get to
that stage with a cosmetics company, you are not only
paying for mass amounts of products to supply to these
big companies. You're paying for the display stands, you're paying
for the marketing, You're paying for the branding and arguably
the spot inside the store to begin with that, and
(08:10):
you're sharing your profit margin with somebody else because they're
stocking it. They're not going to want to stock your product,
jess if it's not financially beneficial for them to do so.
So it's all about is that even worth it? And
it's about weighing up do I actually want to scale
or do I want to stay small and maybe keep
a higher percentage of my profit margin. There's a lot
to take into consideration.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Okay, well, I feel like after the break we should
talk about maybe some indicators for people on how they
can know whether or not scaling is the right choice
for them. But let's go take a really quick break
and come backtually. Welcome back everybody, now, VD I know
(08:57):
a lot of our listeners are eager to learn a
little bit more about whether or not scaling is the
right choice for them, because it feels a little bit
like a gut decision. But is it really just about
your intuition and what you think, or are there things
that we can look out for that let us know
that it might be the right choice.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
It's definitely not a gut thing. I mean at the moment,
I know in my gut that I really want to
scale Zella money because I just know that that's going
to nourish my soul, having more brokers that can support
more folst home by it, Like, I just love it, right,
So in my gut that's what I want. So it
feels really positive, but I have a number of tools
that I need to implement because just because it feels
(09:32):
right doesn't mean it's going to be financially viable. And
if we go down that route just based on gut feeling,
I could end up in a lot of trouble, Jess,
because more money, more problems, right, Yeah, So there are
some key indicators that I want you to keep an
eye on. So firstly, if you or your team at
the moment are completely swamped, they're working additional hours, and
you're still feeling like you're drowning in tasks. I would
(09:54):
say that's a red flag. You might need to hire
some more hands and delegate some tasks off. Or we'll
ask yourself if there are tasks that you do all
the time that you might be able to automate or
get someone else to do next up. If you're selling
out regularly, that's usually not just luck. I think lots
of us, especially small business owners, they're like, I am
so lucky, and you're like, no, you are so talented.
(10:18):
That's demand telling you that maybe it's time to level up.
And lastly, if your current tools, space or tech setup
just isn't cutting it anymore, to me, that's a sign
that your infrastructure needs an upgrade to keep up with
your growing business. Now, it's something when we're looking at
key indicators. If I sit down and look at it, right,
I have a team of mortgage brokers. You don't need
(10:39):
to know what they do. At the end of the day.
They see clients, right, and I know that at this
point in time, my mortgage brokers can see two clients
a day, and I go, wow, I'd really like more
clients to get through my door. The first thing I
might think is that means we need more brokers, yess,
But in reality, we actually need to look at the
back end processes. Are we whipping them with enough admin
(11:01):
staff to get their job done? Are we automating enough processes?
Is there anything that I could do to mean that
my mortgage brokers do less admin work and get to
see more clients? Is there a way that I could
scale my pre existing team from seeing two clients a
day to being able to say three. What would that
actually look like? What would I have to alleviate from them?
(11:23):
And I think that we need to look at our
businesses this way first, because if you're just going, okay,
well I need another Jess like Jess, you and I
both know in she's on the money. If scaling she's
on the money was the plan, and we go, actually,
Jess is really productive. She's running all the partnerships. Maybe
we need to double that. Maybe we need another partnerships manager.
You and I both know that's not the answer. The
(11:45):
answer would be to alleviate all of the things that
you personally are doing that could be done by somebody else,
so that then you can scale that. Because from my perspective,
you'd be the right person for that. So I think
we need to take a step back and pragmatically look
at our businessiness says before we actually pull the trigger
or immediately think Okay, well I want X, so I
(12:06):
need y. Yeah, that could mean that you're seeing more people,
but is that the most cost effective decision? Are you
effectively outsourcing things? Are there things on your team that
you are doing that you don't really need to be doing. Recently,
I've re reviewed all of the financials that I'm doing.
You guys know, I have a bookkeeper and I adore her.
Hi Helen and Carmen love you, they do so much.
(12:30):
But when I went back to the drawing board, I
was like, oh my gosh, every single month, I'm generating
all these reports and I'm doing this, and I'm doing
that in addition to their bookkeeping. I could actually get
them to do that, pop it into my emails. I
can still do the review, but I'm saving at least
another five hours a month by not doing it myself.
And I think that that is really important. But as
(12:51):
business owners, Jess, we don't like to let go totally.
And you've probably seen this, but for me, letting go
has been a really big part of it. I don't
really want people to come in and do it for
me because I feel like I'm good at it and
I want to still feel involved. But at the same time,
sometimes you turn around to me and go, they I
can actually do that, Yeah, and we both know I'm
(13:11):
better at it. Yeah, I know, I know. So I
think it's really important to step back and go, what
is the actual logical answer here because it might not
look the way that you think it looks. Because for
me to scale my business right now, if I looked
at it at surface level, it's high more mortgage brokers,
I actually need a lot more ADMIN. So that's going
to look different. There's going to be different costs associated,
(13:33):
different resources associated, And I just think it's really important
to have a look at the indicators and go, are
we even ready for this? Is this even something I want?
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (13:43):
It sounds like you need to have a really in
depth understanding of like, ah, you back in your processes.
It's not just a quick snap decision if someone is
feeling the pinge in those places. Scaling is a very
abstract word. I feel like, what do we do?
Speaker 1 (13:56):
It's a bit different to scaling a fish.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Don't I a sry about that?
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Abstruct scaling, and I was like, okay, let's go completely rogue.
When we're talking about scaling, you should always start with
a financial health check. I bet none of you saw
that coming from me assessing your financial situation. It's going
to ensure that you're ready for the financial investment that
scaling actually requires. First, I want you to look at
your cash flow before scaling. You need to make sure
(14:21):
that your cash flow is positive and consistent. You need
to be able to cover the costs of scaling without
jeopardizing your financial stability. Then I want you to have
a look at your profit margins. We spoke about this
before the break. Your profit margins should be strong enough
to support the additional cost of scaling, like hiring and
marketing and production increases. Like, for example, if you're taking
(14:42):
a product into a different store that you don't run,
what percentage of that profit margin are you going to
end up having to share? What does that look like?
And how does that eat into your ability to put
that product on the table. How does that work? And
don't forget we all need a financial buffer. I jump
up and down on on the money about making sure
that we have an emergency fund. Where's your business emergency fund, Jess.
(15:06):
We need one of those two. This is going to
be your safety net to cover any unexpected costs. Like
what if growth is slower than expected during this process
of scaling. What if you've done all of your numbers
and you've dot it all your eyes and crossed all
your te's and then all of a sudden, it's just
not working the way that you thought it was going
to work. But you know it's going to work long term.
Can you get through that period? We don't want to
(15:27):
be under significant financial stress so that we're forced to
make a decision we don't want to have to make.
And that's a risk, right with scaling nas sive risk.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
You know, ultimately, in an ideal world it works exactly
like you said. You add in a new team member
or a new piece of machinery or a new factory
or whatever, and it improves your profitability. But that isn't
always how it works.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Right Like you and I, Jess, we could sit down
and I'm clearly just using my businesses because it makes
the most sense to me, and both you and I
understand it, and I think that they are simple enough
when we distill them down, so I have this mortgage
broking bieceusiness right and right now. It's going well and
I adore it. If I sat there and said, Jess,
we want to scale, let's make a plan. What could
we do? We could do more mortgages or yes, we
(16:10):
could add another stream of income to that business. What
if I go back to financial advice? So maybe I'm
not the advisor. Maybe Jess, we do the numbers and
we realize we've got the demand. I reckon, we could
get clients for this. Let's hire a couple of financial advisors.
That's significant in our head. It makes a lot of
sense because you know, mortgage broking and financial advice go
(16:33):
together really nicely. And arguably I've done this before. But
is that worth it? Yeah? Like the amount of money
to hire financial advisors, pay them properly, get them off
of space. Is that something I even want to engage in.
I know it's scaling. I know it's going to ultimately
add profit to my business, But at what cost? Am
(16:55):
I going to have the same time, energy and effort
to focus on my mortgage broking business? Have I thought
about what the mortgage broking business will lose because I'm
investing my time energy and effort into something else, like
what effort needs to go into that to maintain it.
I think we need to talk about all of these
other things because financially, on paper, we could distill it
(17:15):
down and go, okay, Jess, we know that a third
of the income that is generated from hiring a new
financial advisor is going to go to the overhead costs,
a third is going to go to paying their wage,
and a third is going to go to profitability. I
can make a beautiful spreadsheet, so the financials checkout, but
that's not all we have to consider.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
Yeah, apart from the financials, what other things should people
be looking at?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
All?
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Right?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
So I have a framework for you. I love a framework.
You love a little bits hold the three piece framework,
and it's all about making sure that your people, process
and product are set up for growth. First, you're going
to look at your team. Do you have the right
jesses in place in your team? And can they handle
more work? Of course, that might be just you at
the moment. Let's be honest. Let's go back to our
(17:58):
candle example that I using on their business Bible could
just be you. Are you just looking at your process,
your person and your product? So could you handle this
on your own or do you need to look at
getting some help or outsourcing some of your tasks. You
need to ensure that you are scaling but not burning out.
I've done that. Do not do that. It impacts your
(18:21):
business more than you know.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Yeah, are you staying up until five in the morning
pouring candles, go in a bed for three hours and
then getting up to take all the candles out of
the molts.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yeah, and you're just having the worst time ever, Like
one out of ten cannot recommend. Next, we want to
look in and have a bit of a check in
with our processes. Are your systems for things like production
and customer service and management working efficiently? And are they scalable?
You want to make sure that everything is running as
smoothly as possible for scaling. So a good example of
(18:48):
this right now is just I'm going through everything in
our business right now, and we're really good at customer service,
Like that's my favorite part, and I want every single
person that comes through my doors to be like, Wow,
working with Zela Money was incredible, Like I loved that.
I'm going to recommend them to a friend because that's
going to grow my business. Right, but when I review it,
it's so manual at the moment, Like in the background,
(19:11):
my team are doing an incredible job at it, but
everything is manual, Like they are writing out birthday emails
and letters to clients on a monthly basis, Like, none
of that is automated. They are you making sure that
every client email is going out when in reality, I
could probably automate some of that to take the pressure
off my team. One to make sure it's consistent. But
(19:34):
also if we take on more clients, Jess, we wouldn't
be able to maintain that same level of customer service.
So right now we're small and it's really easy to
pick up the phone and talk to us. But like,
if I'm scaling, how do I make sure that the
client experience of a client joining us in twelve months,
when hopefully we have a bigger team is exactly the
same as it is today. What does that look like?
(19:56):
So then the final thing I want you to look
at is your product, Jess, is your offering consistently meeting
customer needs and getting positive feedback. Your product needs to
be ready to meet the demands of a larger market.
So you might have a really small business and it's
really niche and they like really like your candles, and
maybe you have like a run of candles and it's
like the Seconds, like you sell the ones that have
(20:17):
the bubbles in it for a discounted price. Is that
actually scalable? Like it might be a really good business
right now, But like if one of the most profitable
things is your seconds candles because like maybe you're not
so good at it, but your current community absolutely adores it,
is that something that's going to work long term because
I can almost guarantee that it's not going to be
(20:37):
picked up by a commercial store, like they're going to go, well,
we don't really want to sell your Seconds candles, So
we need to look at it pretty pragmatically and as
business owners. Yes, that's really hard. Yeah, I've had to
do that a number of times and be like, maybe
I'm not doing my best here, And that's okay, because
if you can identify that you're not doing your best,
we can change it and we can be better. But
(20:59):
it is really fronting when your business is your baby
and your life and your soul and then all of
a sudden you're like, I'm not really good at that.
I'm going to need some help here. Yeah, that can
be really confronting. Yeah, it's all right to look at
things with a critical eye. That's how we all grow
and develop and change. I guess you have to sometimes
face those hard things because better to address it now
than before you put all this money into scaling and go,
(21:20):
oh my god, it's a flop and I'm now oh no,
and I'm also sad. Yeah, and that sad piece is
really important because now my goal we need to scale
to have the business I want to have. But it's
not about scaling so that we can be the biggest.
Like I say this all the time. Internally, I do
not want the biggest team, but I want the best team.
(21:40):
Like I want people to want to work with us,
and it might be hard long term. We don't want
to have to have long wait lists. But I also
want to maintain that consistency, in that quality so that
our customers and our clients are obsessed with us. I
love that part of the business. I love getting dms.
I got one this morning, Jess. It was from girl
who was like, oh my gosh, I just had the
(22:02):
best meeting with Tari yesterday. She was an incredible broker,
like you should be so proud of the business that
you run. Girl, I am. That's the grit that I
want to keep. So I think you also need to
ask yourself do I want to be the biggest or
do I want to be the best? Or do I
want to increase my profit margin?
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Like?
Speaker 1 (22:18):
What are your lifestyle goals? There's so much to talk.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
About here, Yeah, and scaling can totally help you achieve
them if you have a good understanding. So we've got
the financial sorted, the three p's are all checked off.
How do we make sure, I ask, scaling plans align
with the overall business vision that we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
So that's literally what I'm talking about now, So good segue.
So this is where a visions and goal checking happens.
Start by getting crystal clear on your business vision. This
can be as personal as you want it to be.
Like just some of my business goals are actually really personal.
They are around me feeling really fulfilled. They're around financial
targets for me, the lifestyle I want to lead. Because
(22:58):
let's be honest, if your are the business owner listening
to this, your business is meant to be setting up
the lifestyle you want to live. Like I know it
can sound selfish, and I feel like historically I felt
quite selfish saying that. But I want to have a
business that provides me with the lifestyle that I want
to live. I don't want to get to sixty five
(23:19):
and retire and go well, I should have just had
a salary and way journing job and not done this
whole business thing, because I would have been in a
better position. I would have cared about my superannuation and
had more to fall back on in retirement. Like I
want to get to retirement and be super proud of
the journey. I want to do so much, and my
vision and my goals for my business are very different
to what someone else's might be. Like I get a
(23:41):
lot out of making sure that my team can achieve
their goals as well. Like get crystal clear on these
things about where you want to be in the next
three to five years business and personally, do you see
this brand expanding internationally or maybe you want to become
the go to expert in your niche. I do it's finance.
I want to be the go to expert scaling efforts.
I think they should directly support that vision to make
(24:04):
sure that you're always moving in the right direction, because
as someone who's gone off the cliff in terms of
going in the right direction to support my goals and
my lifestyle and who I want to be, it's just
not worth it, Jess. Yeah, like it sucks and it's
not fun. Then we want to break that down into smaller, specific,
really measurable goals. Let's say your vision includes launching a
(24:26):
brand new product line. Maybe let's set a timeline, so
we want to have in that timeline some time for
research and development and then launch. Or if you're aiming
to grow your customer base, I want you to decide
on how many new clients you want to attract each quarter,
and then outline the marketing strategies that are goin to
get you there. By setting these really tangible goals, you're
(24:47):
going to ensure that every step in your scaling journey
is really aligned with that big picture and keep you
on track. And I feel like so many times when
people talk about scaling, Jess, they're not talking about that.
They're talking about get your processes in place, you know,
do your profitability margins, like organize all of this, you know,
start recruiting, you know, even get funding right. But they're
(25:09):
not talking about, well, how are you going to feel
when you've scaled? What's that going to look like for
your lifestyle? What's that going to look like for your
fulfillment out of the job that you do every single day?
Because I promise once you get there, if it's the
wrong type of scaling, it's a massive regret.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
Well, you've said before on the show, and even just
to echo what you said before, you don't want to
have the biggest team. There's a point at which you go,
I would be really happy here.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
That your tipping point.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
Yeah, you would hit your tipping point. So what if
somebody else is listening to this episode and they're just thinking,
I'm so busy, I've got a full time job, I've
got a side hustle, I've got all of these personal commitments.
Scaling that up making it bigger seems really overwhelming and
like a weight that maybe they just don't want to
carry right now.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
They're not going to like this, Jess. You cannot have
your cake and eat it too. There is always going
to be compromise along this journey. I feel like we
talk about it in terms of like work life balance,
and you know, even for example, me, I knew that
at some point when I had scaled my financial advice business,
I had shees on the money. I was doing broking
(26:13):
as well. I knew that with everything that I was doing,
starting to write books, it was not going to all
be able to continually be successful like me. Diluting myself
across all of those things meant that I was going
to become not good at all of them. I could
already see cracks in things starting to appear, you know,
(26:33):
emails slipping through the cracks and not being addressed in
the you know, timely manner that I expected from myself.
And I had to choose a plate that was spinning
to push off myself, because otherwise a plate was going
to fall, and it was going to be one that
I didn't choose, and I didn't want that to happen.
I didn't want to see she's on the money falling
when in reality, I just wanted to pull the trigger
(26:56):
on the financial advice stuff. And it was heartbreaking time.
And you were here for this journey of me coming
to the realization that selling the practice was the best
thing for me. But it was sad because a lot
of that practice was tied to my self identity, Like
I saw myself as a financial advisor, and I knew
(27:16):
that by stepping out of that, what would I become
a retired financial advisor. I didn't want to be seen
only as a finance influencer, like I always saw myself
doing more than that, and you know, having a gritty
business in the background, because that's what nourishes me. So
it was about finding my place in the world again.
And I'm not saying that you need to get rid
(27:37):
of something, but you do need to look at your
goals and what's achievable, and your values and your vision
for what your life looks like. Because at the moment,
if you have a million plates spinning, more often than not,
you haven't taken the time to step back and go, well,
what is the big picture? What am I looking at?
Like I'm just treading water at the moment, Like, oh,
I do really want to focus on my business? What's
(27:57):
that going to look like? So if you're scale doesn't
fit with your vision, it's actually really okay to hit
the pause button. Pushing for growth just because you feel
like it's the next step can lead to burnout and
take you off track from your true mission. And I
think that that's what we want to be looking at.
So taking a step back and revisiting your long term
goals is something that you should be doing. Sometimes the
(28:20):
best move actually isn't expanding, it's refining what you've already
built so it's more streamlined. So focus on streamlining your
processes and strengthening your relationships with your current customers and
enhance what's already working. And remember, growth isn't always about
getting bigger. Sometimes it's about getting better and more efficient
and going through that. And that's where I'm at now.
(28:42):
But if you want to scale and take over the
entire world, like girl, I have your back, Like I
want that for you too, but I want it to
be really crystal clear and part of the vision, not
just what you thought was the logical next step. Because
this is going to be hard to swallow for a
lot of people. But sometimes that next step is there
and you see it, but it's actually really ego driven.
(29:04):
You want to be bigger because you want to be
the biggest and you want to be the best. But
why do you want that?
Speaker 4 (29:09):
Yeah, And if you're standing on the edge of that
cliff and you're like, wow, I'm so overwhelmed, and I've
got all of these things going on. That is kind
of the choices in it. It's like, okay, either we
jump in both feet and we scale and that takes,
as we've discussed in this episode, a lot of commitment
in terms of finances, in terms of processes, in terms
of bringing in team members, or you go, okay, maybe
I take a step back and maybe I scale in
(29:31):
the other direction. Maybe I pull back a little bit
to get a really solid foundation so that I can
either then grow on top of that, build on top
of that, or maybe I'm happy being small and like
there's something in that too, in acknowledging that it's okay
to stay small. You don't have to want to grow
to be the biggest, and you can have a really successful,
awesome business that is just small, that is just you
(29:52):
or maybe one other person.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
And I think so often as business owners, we tie
our self perception to the sex of our business, and
often that success looks like bigger is better, right, so
we go, I haven't really made it. I mean, all
of us were just making it up as we go.
Like if you haven't run a business before, I've been
in that position, you just make it up as you go,
you're like, oh, next thing, Oh, I need to work
(30:15):
out that process the things I google sometimes, yes, how
do you CRM like, it's not embarrassing. We're all there,
but we're the ones with the grit to get it done.
But we also just tie our self worth often too
closely to our business and assume, well, when my business
is better, I'm going to feel better about myself. When
(30:36):
my business is you know, the biggest in my niche,
I'm going to feel finely confident. That's not going to happen.
I'm really sorry, but that's not the reality. In fact,
the more you bite off, the deeper you're going to feel,
and the deeper you feel, the more overwhelming it's going
to be. So we need to kind of also this
is fluffy, but work on ourselves and why we're doing
these things in the first place. Because then once we've
(30:59):
worked that out, we can scale, and it's going to
be a healthy scale as opposed to one that maybe
isn't sustainable long term.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
That's such a good point. It's all about finding the balance,
making sure you're growing in the best way possible.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
I agree, and I mean, we're running out of time,
so don't forget. Growth is going to look very different
for everyone, whether you're scaling up or simply you just
want to get better at what you do. It's all
about making sure that aligns with your personal vision and
your goals, not someone else's. That's what makes it.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
Exciting, you know. No, it's different, and it's personally going
to be exactly what's good for you. And I think
after Jay, I'm definitely going to go home, dive into
my own business plan, dive too.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Deeply, because I don't really want to lose you. No, no,
I mean if you did, actually, you can just stay
on the Business Bible slaves.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
Perfect nothing to worry about here, all right.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Well, I hope that you all are feeling really motivated
after that and you're ready to reflect on your own
business goals. There's some really important work ahead to make
sure that you're growing in the right direction. And if
you're not even planning on growing, these are just like
nice seeds to plant. This topic comes up in the future,
So guess what, guys. This is the end of another
Business Bible episode. We'll cut you next month for another episode.
(32:07):
Mister Scrucci.
Speaker 4 (32:08):
As always, it has been a pleasure, Thank you, Thank guys.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
The advice shared on She's on the Money is general
in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's
on the Money exists purely for educational purposes and should
not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision.
If you do choose to buy a financial product, read
the PDS TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards
(32:37):
your needs. Victoria Divine and She's on the Money are
authorized representatives of money. Sheper pty Ltd ABN three two
one IS six four nine two seven seven zero eight
AFSL four five one two eight nine
Hello.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
My name is Santasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud or
the Order Kerni Whalbury and a waddery woman. And before
we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I
would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
of which this podcast is recorded on a wondery country,
acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming
(00:22):
through as this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing
and the storytelling of you to make a difference for
today and lasting impactful tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Let's get into it.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Hello and welcome to the business Bible. Are you noticing
some burnout signs, juggling moltible hats and wondering if it's
time to bring more hands on deck. Maybe you're seeing
some bright opportunities on the horizon, but you're not sure
if they're worth chasing. Well, today we're diving into one
of the most crucial questions for any business, and that's
(01:07):
when is it time to scale? I'm Victoria Devine, your
business bff, and I'm here with our side hustle superstar
is Jess Gocci.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Jess, Hello, welcome back, to another episode of The Business Bible,
Happy to be here.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
I love the business episode. They're so fun and I'm
so excited today because I feel like you hear the
word scale a lot in the business world. People are
always saying things like scale to ten k in one month.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Oh my gosh, it's crazy, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Yeah, people just popping off using the word left frat center.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
And it took me like six years.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
It sounds great in theory, but like, what does it
actually mean to scaling business?
Speaker 1 (01:45):
It's a good question and probably the best place to start.
So from the start, scaling your business is kind of
like adding the perfect accessory to your favorite outfit. It's
all about enhancing what you already have without losing your
unique style, which is harder done and said in business terms,
scaling means growing your operations, increasing your reach, and boosting
(02:05):
your revenue, all while maintaining the quality and essence that
makes your brand so special. It's not just about doing more.
It's about doing more smartly with the right systems, team
and strategies in place that support your growth. It's exciting,
it is challenging, and if it's done right, it's really rewarding.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Is scaling something that we should all be just like
diving straight into the second that we.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Start, or just go hard or go home. Jess, No,
I'm joking. Definitely do not go hard and do not
go home. Timing is absolutely everything. Scaling your business is
kind of like tending to a garden. I can't keep
a garden alive. So maybe this is a really bad analogy,
but you need to plant the seeds at the right
moments to let them grow. If you try and scale
too early, your roots might not actually be deep enough
(02:52):
to support new growth. And things could with a really
fast like my actual garden. But if you wait too long, jests,
you could actually miss out on a prime season for expansion.
It's all about finding that sweet spot where your business
is ready to thrive without getting tangled in the weeds
of let's call it unpreparedness.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Okay, now, you obviously as someone who's scaled multiple businesses
with a lot of success, but did you run into
any problems kind of along the way of that journey?
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, one hundred percent. And then I cried a lot,
But I think that's really normal. I feel like I've
gotten so much wrong, and I mean, scaling is really hard.
Knowing when to scale is also equally hard, because I
think so many of us see that as like a
really shiny next step. But as someone who has scaled,
sold and now is going through I would say your
(03:41):
scale process. At the moment, I am recruiting left, right,
and center. But I'm also finding it very different this
time because I've realized that scaling is not necessarily always
the goal I need at this point in my business
to scale because right now, the demand we have outweigh
the staff that we have. Like we are overworked at
(04:03):
the moment. We're not able to service as many clients
as we would love to, so I know that we
need more hands on deck. But on the flip side,
I have run a bigger business before and I haven't
enjoyed it, and it has you know, I wouldn't say
gone to shit, but like I wasn't loving at my
mental health, wasn't there, nothing really worked, And I think
that there are so many bumps along the way right Like,
(04:23):
it's not something that is super shiny, and you do
need to really work out what that looks like. And
with scale comes in increased cost as well, and that
can be really overwhelming, Like at some point you go,
is this actually worth it? So there's I guess a
lot of moving parts when it comes to scaling, and
it doesn't necessarily mean that it might be right for you,
(04:45):
Like if you love your lifestyle right now, scaling might
mean that you are working another forty hours a week.
Is that actually for you?
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Crazy? How did you know that the right time to
scale was when you decided to do so well?
Speaker 1 (04:59):
The first time we scaled was when I scaled my
financial advice firm. The first time this is like when
she's on the money, was just starting. And if we're
being really honest, I think that scale to me was
a lot about ego. I wanted a big business. I
felt like a big business was reflective of how good
I was at my work, and we all know now
(05:19):
that that is absolutely not the case. So I scaled,
and I feel like I was making decisions because a
lot of the time they looked like the right decisions.
Having a good financial advice business to me meant having
a lot of financial advisors. It didn't actually end up
breaking even in the way that you would expect it to,
because with increased headcount, your entire business model needs to
(05:40):
change to make sure that the profitability is still being maintained,
and my profitability was being eaten into significantly, which is
absolutely fine, because often when you scale, there's a number
of investments you need to make in the short term
to get there. It eats away at your profitability and
then over time it starts to come back up. I
(06:01):
didn't like it, I didn't enjoy it. It wasn't nourishing
to me, and we ended up selling that business. So
in September twenty twenty two, I officially sold out of
being a financial advisor. I went back into mortgage broking
decided to start that from scratch. I've recently had the
other business partner in that business, Leaf, and we're currently
(06:21):
in the process of scaling the business now, but more
so that we can properly resource the team so that
we can have a really good time. And I mean
right now, I currently run Cheese on the Money and
Zella Money the mortgage broking business, and we have so
many beautiful clients coming from Shees on the Money and
I want to be able to service more of them.
So the reason for scaling at the moment is purely
(06:43):
because I'm like, I want more people to come to
my business because I'm enjoying this, not because of an
ego thing. And as you know, Jess, a lot of
this is taking us a long time because I'm trying
so hard to find the right mortgage brokers to hire.
My last mortgage brow took four months to hire because
I had not found the right person yet and I
(07:04):
wasn't willing to compromise in order to say that my
team was growing. So I definitely have a different hat
on this time, and it is a little bit more complex,
but I think it'll be for the better.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Yeah, So scaling isn't necessarily just about adding in voll
you more quantity of people, or you know, outsourcing more
and more people. It's about finding the right people to
support that growth exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
And I think that there's a very big misconception that
the bigger you scale, the bigger profit margin there will be.
And someone who's really good at this is Iris Smith
from the quick Flick. So she's on TikTok and she
shares a lot about how her business has scaled, and
she went from a small business where she was packing
her own orders in her launder room, which was really cute.
I feel like I've followed her since then and now
(07:47):
her products are available in price line. But what you
guys probably don't know is that if you get to
that stage with a cosmetics company, you are not only
paying for mass amounts of products to supply to these
big companies. You're paying for the display stands, you're paying
for the marketing, You're paying for the branding and arguably
the spot inside the store to begin with that, and
(08:10):
you're sharing your profit margin with somebody else because they're
stocking it. They're not going to want to stock your product,
jess if it's not financially beneficial for them to do so.
So it's all about is that even worth it? And
it's about weighing up do I actually want to scale
or do I want to stay small and maybe keep
a higher percentage of my profit margin. There's a lot
to take into consideration.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Okay, well, I feel like after the break we should
talk about maybe some indicators for people on how they
can know whether or not scaling is the right choice
for them. But let's go take a really quick break
and come backtually. Welcome back everybody, now, VD I know
(08:57):
a lot of our listeners are eager to learn a
little bit more about whether or not scaling is the
right choice for them, because it feels a little bit
like a gut decision. But is it really just about
your intuition and what you think, or are there things
that we can look out for that let us know
that it might be the right choice.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
It's definitely not a gut thing. I mean at the moment,
I know in my gut that I really want to
scale Zella money because I just know that that's going
to nourish my soul, having more brokers that can support
more folst home by it, Like, I just love it, right,
So in my gut that's what I want. So it
feels really positive, but I have a number of tools
that I need to implement because just because it feels
(09:32):
right doesn't mean it's going to be financially viable. And
if we go down that route just based on gut feeling,
I could end up in a lot of trouble, Jess,
because more money, more problems, right, Yeah, So there are
some key indicators that I want you to keep an
eye on. So firstly, if you or your team at
the moment are completely swamped, they're working additional hours, and
you're still feeling like you're drowning in tasks. I would
(09:54):
say that's a red flag. You might need to hire
some more hands and delegate some tasks off. Or we'll
ask yourself if there are tasks that you do all
the time that you might be able to automate or
get someone else to do next up. If you're selling
out regularly, that's usually not just luck. I think lots
of us, especially small business owners, they're like, I am
so lucky, and you're like, no, you are so talented.
(10:18):
That's demand telling you that maybe it's time to level up.
And lastly, if your current tools, space or tech setup
just isn't cutting it anymore, to me, that's a sign
that your infrastructure needs an upgrade to keep up with
your growing business. Now, it's something when we're looking at
key indicators. If I sit down and look at it, right,
I have a team of mortgage brokers. You don't need
(10:39):
to know what they do. At the end of the day.
They see clients, right, and I know that at this
point in time, my mortgage brokers can see two clients
a day, and I go, wow, I'd really like more
clients to get through my door. The first thing I
might think is that means we need more brokers, yess,
But in reality, we actually need to look at the
back end processes. Are we whipping them with enough admin
(11:01):
staff to get their job done? Are we automating enough processes?
Is there anything that I could do to mean that
my mortgage brokers do less admin work and get to
see more clients? Is there a way that I could
scale my pre existing team from seeing two clients a
day to being able to say three. What would that
actually look like? What would I have to alleviate from them?
(11:23):
And I think that we need to look at our
businesses this way first, because if you're just going, okay,
well I need another Jess like Jess, you and I
both know in she's on the money. If scaling she's
on the money was the plan, and we go, actually,
Jess is really productive. She's running all the partnerships. Maybe
we need to double that. Maybe we need another partnerships manager.
You and I both know that's not the answer. The
(11:45):
answer would be to alleviate all of the things that
you personally are doing that could be done by somebody else,
so that then you can scale that. Because from my perspective,
you'd be the right person for that. So I think
we need to take a step back and pragmatically look
at our businessiness says before we actually pull the trigger
or immediately think Okay, well I want X, so I
(12:06):
need y. Yeah, that could mean that you're seeing more people,
but is that the most cost effective decision? Are you
effectively outsourcing things? Are there things on your team that
you are doing that you don't really need to be doing. Recently,
I've re reviewed all of the financials that I'm doing.
You guys know, I have a bookkeeper and I adore her.
Hi Helen and Carmen love you, they do so much.
(12:30):
But when I went back to the drawing board, I
was like, oh my gosh, every single month, I'm generating
all these reports and I'm doing this, and I'm doing
that in addition to their bookkeeping. I could actually get
them to do that, pop it into my emails. I
can still do the review, but I'm saving at least
another five hours a month by not doing it myself.
And I think that that is really important. But as
(12:51):
business owners, Jess, we don't like to let go totally.
And you've probably seen this, but for me, letting go
has been a really big part of it. I don't
really want people to come in and do it for
me because I feel like I'm good at it and
I want to still feel involved. But at the same time,
sometimes you turn around to me and go, they I
can actually do that, Yeah, and we both know I'm
(13:11):
better at it. Yeah, I know, I know. So I
think it's really important to step back and go, what
is the actual logical answer here because it might not
look the way that you think it looks. Because for
me to scale my business right now, if I looked
at it at surface level, it's high more mortgage brokers,
I actually need a lot more ADMIN. So that's going
to look different. There's going to be different costs associated,
(13:33):
different resources associated, And I just think it's really important
to have a look at the indicators and go, are
we even ready for this? Is this even something I want?
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (13:43):
It sounds like you need to have a really in
depth understanding of like, ah, you back in your processes.
It's not just a quick snap decision if someone is
feeling the pinge in those places. Scaling is a very
abstract word. I feel like, what do we do?
Speaker 1 (13:56):
It's a bit different to scaling a fish.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Don't I a sry about that?
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Abstruct scaling, and I was like, okay, let's go completely rogue.
When we're talking about scaling, you should always start with
a financial health check. I bet none of you saw
that coming from me assessing your financial situation. It's going
to ensure that you're ready for the financial investment that
scaling actually requires. First, I want you to look at
your cash flow before scaling. You need to make sure
(14:21):
that your cash flow is positive and consistent. You need
to be able to cover the costs of scaling without
jeopardizing your financial stability. Then I want you to have
a look at your profit margins. We spoke about this
before the break. Your profit margins should be strong enough
to support the additional cost of scaling, like hiring and
marketing and production increases. Like, for example, if you're taking
(14:42):
a product into a different store that you don't run,
what percentage of that profit margin are you going to
end up having to share? What does that look like?
And how does that eat into your ability to put
that product on the table. How does that work? And
don't forget we all need a financial buffer. I jump
up and down on on the money about making sure
that we have an emergency fund. Where's your business emergency fund, Jess.
(15:06):
We need one of those two. This is going to
be your safety net to cover any unexpected costs. Like
what if growth is slower than expected during this process
of scaling. What if you've done all of your numbers
and you've dot it all your eyes and crossed all
your te's and then all of a sudden, it's just
not working the way that you thought it was going
to work. But you know it's going to work long term.
Can you get through that period? We don't want to
(15:27):
be under significant financial stress so that we're forced to
make a decision we don't want to have to make.
And that's a risk, right with scaling nas sive risk.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
You know, ultimately, in an ideal world it works exactly
like you said. You add in a new team member
or a new piece of machinery or a new factory
or whatever, and it improves your profitability. But that isn't
always how it works.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Right Like you and I, Jess, we could sit down
and I'm clearly just using my businesses because it makes
the most sense to me, and both you and I
understand it, and I think that they are simple enough
when we distill them down, so I have this mortgage
broking bieceusiness right and right now. It's going well and
I adore it. If I sat there and said, Jess,
we want to scale, let's make a plan. What could
we do? We could do more mortgages or yes, we
(16:10):
could add another stream of income to that business. What
if I go back to financial advice? So maybe I'm
not the advisor. Maybe Jess, we do the numbers and
we realize we've got the demand. I reckon, we could
get clients for this. Let's hire a couple of financial advisors.
That's significant in our head. It makes a lot of
sense because you know, mortgage broking and financial advice go
(16:33):
together really nicely. And arguably I've done this before. But
is that worth it? Yeah? Like the amount of money
to hire financial advisors, pay them properly, get them off
of space. Is that something I even want to engage in.
I know it's scaling. I know it's going to ultimately
add profit to my business, But at what cost? Am
(16:55):
I going to have the same time, energy and effort
to focus on my mortgage broking business? Have I thought
about what the mortgage broking business will lose because I'm
investing my time energy and effort into something else, like
what effort needs to go into that to maintain it.
I think we need to talk about all of these
other things because financially, on paper, we could distill it
(17:15):
down and go, okay, Jess, we know that a third
of the income that is generated from hiring a new
financial advisor is going to go to the overhead costs,
a third is going to go to paying their wage,
and a third is going to go to profitability. I
can make a beautiful spreadsheet, so the financials checkout, but
that's not all we have to consider.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
Yeah, apart from the financials, what other things should people
be looking at?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
All?
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Right?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
So I have a framework for you. I love a framework.
You love a little bits hold the three piece framework,
and it's all about making sure that your people, process
and product are set up for growth. First, you're going
to look at your team. Do you have the right
jesses in place in your team? And can they handle
more work? Of course, that might be just you at
the moment. Let's be honest. Let's go back to our
(17:58):
candle example that I using on their business Bible could
just be you. Are you just looking at your process,
your person and your product? So could you handle this
on your own or do you need to look at
getting some help or outsourcing some of your tasks. You
need to ensure that you are scaling but not burning out.
I've done that. Do not do that. It impacts your
(18:21):
business more than you know.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Yeah, are you staying up until five in the morning
pouring candles, go in a bed for three hours and
then getting up to take all the candles out of
the molts.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yeah, and you're just having the worst time ever, Like
one out of ten cannot recommend. Next, we want to
look in and have a bit of a check in
with our processes. Are your systems for things like production
and customer service and management working efficiently? And are they scalable?
You want to make sure that everything is running as
smoothly as possible for scaling. So a good example of
(18:48):
this right now is just I'm going through everything in
our business right now, and we're really good at customer service,
Like that's my favorite part, and I want every single
person that comes through my doors to be like, Wow,
working with Zela Money was incredible, Like I loved that.
I'm going to recommend them to a friend because that's
going to grow my business. Right, but when I review it,
it's so manual at the moment, Like in the background,
(19:11):
my team are doing an incredible job at it, but
everything is manual, Like they are writing out birthday emails
and letters to clients on a monthly basis, Like, none
of that is automated. They are you making sure that
every client email is going out when in reality, I
could probably automate some of that to take the pressure
off my team. One to make sure it's consistent. But
(19:34):
also if we take on more clients, Jess, we wouldn't
be able to maintain that same level of customer service.
So right now we're small and it's really easy to
pick up the phone and talk to us. But like,
if I'm scaling, how do I make sure that the
client experience of a client joining us in twelve months,
when hopefully we have a bigger team is exactly the
same as it is today. What does that look like?
(19:56):
So then the final thing I want you to look
at is your product, Jess, is your offering consistently meeting
customer needs and getting positive feedback. Your product needs to
be ready to meet the demands of a larger market.
So you might have a really small business and it's
really niche and they like really like your candles, and
maybe you have like a run of candles and it's
like the Seconds, like you sell the ones that have
(20:17):
the bubbles in it for a discounted price. Is that
actually scalable? Like it might be a really good business
right now, But like if one of the most profitable
things is your seconds candles because like maybe you're not
so good at it, but your current community absolutely adores it,
is that something that's going to work long term because
I can almost guarantee that it's not going to be
(20:37):
picked up by a commercial store, like they're going to go, well,
we don't really want to sell your Seconds candles, So
we need to look at it pretty pragmatically and as
business owners. Yes, that's really hard. Yeah, I've had to
do that a number of times and be like, maybe
I'm not doing my best here, And that's okay, because
if you can identify that you're not doing your best,
we can change it and we can be better. But
(20:59):
it is really fronting when your business is your baby
and your life and your soul and then all of
a sudden you're like, I'm not really good at that.
I'm going to need some help here. Yeah, that can
be really confronting. Yeah, it's all right to look at
things with a critical eye. That's how we all grow
and develop and change. I guess you have to sometimes
face those hard things because better to address it now
than before you put all this money into scaling and go,
(21:20):
oh my god, it's a flop and I'm now oh no,
and I'm also sad. Yeah, and that sad piece is
really important because now my goal we need to scale
to have the business I want to have. But it's
not about scaling so that we can be the biggest.
Like I say this all the time. Internally, I do
not want the biggest team, but I want the best team.
(21:40):
Like I want people to want to work with us,
and it might be hard long term. We don't want
to have to have long wait lists. But I also
want to maintain that consistency, in that quality so that
our customers and our clients are obsessed with us. I
love that part of the business. I love getting dms.
I got one this morning, Jess. It was from girl
who was like, oh my gosh, I just had the
(22:02):
best meeting with Tari yesterday. She was an incredible broker,
like you should be so proud of the business that
you run. Girl, I am. That's the grit that I
want to keep. So I think you also need to
ask yourself do I want to be the biggest or
do I want to be the best? Or do I
want to increase my profit margin?
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Like?
Speaker 1 (22:18):
What are your lifestyle goals? There's so much to talk.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
About here, Yeah, and scaling can totally help you achieve
them if you have a good understanding. So we've got
the financial sorted, the three p's are all checked off.
How do we make sure, I ask, scaling plans align
with the overall business vision that we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
So that's literally what I'm talking about now, So good segue.
So this is where a visions and goal checking happens.
Start by getting crystal clear on your business vision. This
can be as personal as you want it to be.
Like just some of my business goals are actually really personal.
They are around me feeling really fulfilled. They're around financial
targets for me, the lifestyle I want to lead. Because
(22:58):
let's be honest, if your are the business owner listening
to this, your business is meant to be setting up
the lifestyle you want to live. Like I know it
can sound selfish, and I feel like historically I felt
quite selfish saying that. But I want to have a
business that provides me with the lifestyle that I want
to live. I don't want to get to sixty five
(23:19):
and retire and go well, I should have just had
a salary and way journing job and not done this
whole business thing, because I would have been in a
better position. I would have cared about my superannuation and
had more to fall back on in retirement. Like I
want to get to retirement and be super proud of
the journey. I want to do so much, and my
vision and my goals for my business are very different
to what someone else's might be. Like I get a
(23:41):
lot out of making sure that my team can achieve
their goals as well. Like get crystal clear on these
things about where you want to be in the next
three to five years business and personally, do you see
this brand expanding internationally or maybe you want to become
the go to expert in your niche. I do it's finance.
I want to be the go to expert scaling efforts.
I think they should directly support that vision to make
(24:04):
sure that you're always moving in the right direction, because
as someone who's gone off the cliff in terms of
going in the right direction to support my goals and
my lifestyle and who I want to be, it's just
not worth it, Jess. Yeah, like it sucks and it's
not fun. Then we want to break that down into smaller, specific,
really measurable goals. Let's say your vision includes launching a
(24:26):
brand new product line. Maybe let's set a timeline, so
we want to have in that timeline some time for
research and development and then launch. Or if you're aiming
to grow your customer base, I want you to decide
on how many new clients you want to attract each quarter,
and then outline the marketing strategies that are goin to
get you there. By setting these really tangible goals, you're
(24:47):
going to ensure that every step in your scaling journey
is really aligned with that big picture and keep you
on track. And I feel like so many times when
people talk about scaling, Jess, they're not talking about that.
They're talking about get your processes in place, you know,
do your profitability margins, like organize all of this, you know,
start recruiting, you know, even get funding right. But they're
(25:09):
not talking about, well, how are you going to feel
when you've scaled? What's that going to look like for
your lifestyle? What's that going to look like for your
fulfillment out of the job that you do every single day?
Because I promise once you get there, if it's the
wrong type of scaling, it's a massive regret.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
Well, you've said before on the show, and even just
to echo what you said before, you don't want to
have the biggest team. There's a point at which you go,
I would be really happy here.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
That your tipping point.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
Yeah, you would hit your tipping point. So what if
somebody else is listening to this episode and they're just thinking,
I'm so busy, I've got a full time job, I've
got a side hustle, I've got all of these personal commitments.
Scaling that up making it bigger seems really overwhelming and
like a weight that maybe they just don't want to
carry right now.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
They're not going to like this, Jess. You cannot have
your cake and eat it too. There is always going
to be compromise along this journey. I feel like we
talk about it in terms of like work life balance,
and you know, even for example, me, I knew that
at some point when I had scaled my financial advice business,
I had shees on the money. I was doing broking
(26:13):
as well. I knew that with everything that I was doing,
starting to write books, it was not going to all
be able to continually be successful like me. Diluting myself
across all of those things meant that I was going
to become not good at all of them. I could
already see cracks in things starting to appear, you know,
(26:33):
emails slipping through the cracks and not being addressed in
the you know, timely manner that I expected from myself.
And I had to choose a plate that was spinning
to push off myself, because otherwise a plate was going
to fall, and it was going to be one that
I didn't choose, and I didn't want that to happen.
I didn't want to see she's on the money falling
when in reality, I just wanted to pull the trigger
(26:56):
on the financial advice stuff. And it was heartbreaking time.
And you were here for this journey of me coming
to the realization that selling the practice was the best
thing for me. But it was sad because a lot
of that practice was tied to my self identity, Like
I saw myself as a financial advisor, and I knew
(27:16):
that by stepping out of that, what would I become
a retired financial advisor. I didn't want to be seen
only as a finance influencer, like I always saw myself
doing more than that, and you know, having a gritty
business in the background, because that's what nourishes me. So
it was about finding my place in the world again.
And I'm not saying that you need to get rid
(27:37):
of something, but you do need to look at your
goals and what's achievable, and your values and your vision
for what your life looks like. Because at the moment,
if you have a million plates spinning, more often than not,
you haven't taken the time to step back and go, well,
what is the big picture? What am I looking at?
Like I'm just treading water at the moment, Like, oh,
I do really want to focus on my business? What's
(27:57):
that going to look like? So if you're scale doesn't
fit with your vision, it's actually really okay to hit
the pause button. Pushing for growth just because you feel
like it's the next step can lead to burnout and
take you off track from your true mission. And I
think that that's what we want to be looking at.
So taking a step back and revisiting your long term
goals is something that you should be doing. Sometimes the
(28:20):
best move actually isn't expanding, it's refining what you've already
built so it's more streamlined. So focus on streamlining your
processes and strengthening your relationships with your current customers and
enhance what's already working. And remember, growth isn't always about
getting bigger. Sometimes it's about getting better and more efficient
and going through that. And that's where I'm at now.
(28:42):
But if you want to scale and take over the
entire world, like girl, I have your back, Like I
want that for you too, but I want it to
be really crystal clear and part of the vision, not
just what you thought was the logical next step. Because
this is going to be hard to swallow for a
lot of people. But sometimes that next step is there
and you see it, but it's actually really ego driven.
(29:04):
You want to be bigger because you want to be
the biggest and you want to be the best. But
why do you want that?
Speaker 4 (29:09):
Yeah, And if you're standing on the edge of that
cliff and you're like, wow, I'm so overwhelmed, and I've
got all of these things going on. That is kind
of the choices in it. It's like, okay, either we
jump in both feet and we scale and that takes,
as we've discussed in this episode, a lot of commitment
in terms of finances, in terms of processes, in terms
of bringing in team members, or you go, okay, maybe
I take a step back and maybe I scale in
(29:31):
the other direction. Maybe I pull back a little bit
to get a really solid foundation so that I can
either then grow on top of that, build on top
of that, or maybe I'm happy being small and like
there's something in that too, in acknowledging that it's okay
to stay small. You don't have to want to grow
to be the biggest, and you can have a really successful,
awesome business that is just small, that is just you
(29:52):
or maybe one other person.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
And I think so often as business owners, we tie
our self perception to the sex of our business, and
often that success looks like bigger is better, right, so
we go, I haven't really made it. I mean, all
of us were just making it up as we go.
Like if you haven't run a business before, I've been
in that position, you just make it up as you go,
you're like, oh, next thing, Oh, I need to work
(30:15):
out that process the things I google sometimes, yes, how
do you CRM like, it's not embarrassing. We're all there,
but we're the ones with the grit to get it done.
But we also just tie our self worth often too
closely to our business and assume, well, when my business
is better, I'm going to feel better about myself. When
(30:36):
my business is you know, the biggest in my niche,
I'm going to feel finely confident. That's not going to happen.
I'm really sorry, but that's not the reality. In fact,
the more you bite off, the deeper you're going to feel,
and the deeper you feel, the more overwhelming it's going
to be. So we need to kind of also this
is fluffy, but work on ourselves and why we're doing
these things in the first place. Because then once we've
(30:59):
worked that out, we can scale, and it's going to
be a healthy scale as opposed to one that maybe
isn't sustainable long term.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
That's such a good point. It's all about finding the balance,
making sure you're growing in the best way possible.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
I agree, and I mean, we're running out of time,
so don't forget. Growth is going to look very different
for everyone, whether you're scaling up or simply you just
want to get better at what you do. It's all
about making sure that aligns with your personal vision and
your goals, not someone else's. That's what makes it.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
Exciting, you know. No, it's different, and it's personally going
to be exactly what's good for you. And I think
after Jay, I'm definitely going to go home, dive into
my own business plan, dive too.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Deeply, because I don't really want to lose you. No, no,
I mean if you did, actually, you can just stay
on the Business Bible slaves.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
Perfect nothing to worry about here, all right.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Well, I hope that you all are feeling really motivated
after that and you're ready to reflect on your own
business goals. There's some really important work ahead to make
sure that you're growing in the right direction. And if
you're not even planning on growing, these are just like
nice seeds to plant. This topic comes up in the future,
So guess what, guys. This is the end of another
Business Bible episode. We'll cut you next month for another episode.
(32:07):
Mister Scrucci.
Speaker 4 (32:08):
As always, it has been a pleasure, Thank you, Thank guys.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
The advice shared on She's on the Money is general
in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's
on the Money exists purely for educational purposes and should
not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision.
If you do choose to buy a financial product, read
the PDS TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards
(32:37):
your needs. Victoria Divine and She's on the Money are
authorized representatives of money. Sheper pty Ltd ABN three two
one IS six four nine two seven seven zero eight
AFSL four five one two eight nine
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