August 15, 2023 • 19 mins
To scale or not to scale? Not gonna lie -- too many people confuse scaling with growth and vice versa.
Brace yourselves as we break down the reality that only a minority -- a mere 22% of small businesses launched in the past decade -- have succeeded in doing: scaling.
In this week's episode we take a look at how scaling a business differs from growing a business and what it actually requires planning for as a CEO/Founder.
Then, we flip the script...
As a solopreneur, have you pondered the perks of running a sustainable business as opposed to scaling up? We give solopreneurs a little love by sharing the things that make being a solo entrepreneur the absolute bees knees.
Regardless of what path you decide is for you, this episode gives you a dose of loving reality about the ins and outs of business, both big and small.
Love what you heard? Let’s stay connected!
Subscribe to my newsletter for bold insights on leadership, strategy, and building your legacy — straight to your inbox every week.
Follow me on LinkedIn for more no-nonsense advice on leading with power and purpose.
And if you’re ready to dive even deeper, grab a copy of my book Bite-Sized Blasphemy and ignite your inner fire to do life and business your way.
The Business Blasphemy Podcast is sponsored by Corporate Rehab® Strategic Consulting.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, this is a really quick ad break because I got to
pay the bills.
The Business Blast for Mepodcast is sponsored by
Corporate Rehab StrategicConsulting.
Corporate Rehab providesstrategy operations and
leadership growth support.
So if you're ready to clearlyidentify what you and your
business need to move to thenext stage of growth, book a
call, head to the show notes andclick that link.
That wasn't so bad, was it?
Welcome to the Business Blastfor Me podcast, where we
(00:25):
question the sacred truths ofthe online business space and
the reverence with which they'reheld.
I'm your host, sarah Kahnspeaker, strategic consultant
and BS busting badass.
Join me each week as wechallenge the norms, trends and
overall bullshit status quo ofentrepreneurship to uncover what
it really takes to build thebusiness that you want to build
in a way that honors you, yourlife and your vision for what's
(00:46):
possible, and maybe piss off afew gurus along the way.
So if you're ready to commitBusiness Blast for Me, let's do
it.
Hello, hello, blasphemers.
Okay, jump in right in.
Recently, I asked on my Facebookpage whether scaling their
business was a goal of myfollowers.
Now, most of the answers wereyes and the reasons were
(01:08):
beautiful more freedom, beingable to step away from the
business without it, you know,falling apart or without
impacting revenue too much,having more consistent income,
having more income period and tohelp as many people as they
could.
Fantastic.
Now, some of the answers wereno, they don't want to scale
their business.
In fact, my favorite no wasphrased thusly absa, fucking
(01:32):
luteley, not 100% my kind ofhuman being.
The reason they valued personalrelationships and they wanted,
you know, to prioritize deepconnection Again, beautiful.
Now here's the thing None ofthose answers were wrong.
It was kind of a trick question.
There's no right or wronganswer when it comes down to
whether or not you want to scaleyour business, obviously, but
(01:53):
there's a segment of the smallbusiness, online business space
that looks at it a little bitdifferently.
It's not about whether you wantto scale your business, it's
whether you should scale yourbusiness, and there are a lot of
people who say that unless youscale your business, you're
doing it wrong.
But the reality of scaling abusiness is very different for a
lot of different people.
(02:14):
Now here's the caveat with allof this.
A lot of my friends andfollowers have been in business
long enough to really understandwhat scaling actually is like,
what it truly means, and thereare a lot of people who don't.
And, weirdly, a lot of peoplewho tell you that scaling is the
only way to find success in abusiness really don't understand
what scaling means or they havea very high level, simple
(02:36):
understanding of it.
To scale my business means togrow my business, and that's not
accurate and that's what I wantto talk about today.
That's not technically whatscaling is.
So what is scaling?
Scaling a business is actuallystrategically growing the
business to keep up with marketdemand while improving
(02:57):
efficiency and increasing profitmargins.
So what does that mean in realperson talk?
It's not just about growth.
To just say growth is to reallyignore the reality of what
scaling sustainably takes,because fun fact you can grow
your business and not scale.
Growth means adding resources toyour business at the same rate,
(03:21):
you're adding revenue.
So if you get more clients,that means more revenue.
So you hire more people to helpserve those clients.
You add more tech.
You add more capital.
It's about acquiring andallocating resources.
Now, this tends to be the moretypical way that a service
driven business model grows.
Scaling is about adding revenueto your business quickly
(03:43):
without adding resources asquickly.
So you're adding your resourcesmore incrementally.
You're growing your business,which means increasing your
resources and your investmentswithout necessarily increasing
your overheads and expenses atthe same rate.
You're finding ways to growmore efficiently, and the result
of that result of scaling ismore money without an increase
(04:07):
in revenue that matches it, soit's basically doing more with
less.
Here are the stats, though, onscaling businesses.
According to data from McKinsey, only around 22% of small
businesses that have beenlaunched in the last 10 years
have successfully scaled Scaled,not grown.
(04:28):
I'm not here to be a DebbieDowner.
If you want to scale cool beans, let's get you set up for
success, because there are clearsteps you need to take in order
to successfully scale abusiness sustainably and not
just grow it.
All right, you with me?
Okay, if not, scrub back,listen to that again and then
(04:48):
meet me here, all right?
First of all, where dobusinesses go wrong when they
try to scale?
It's the usual culprits.
They try to do it too fast orthey focus on short-term goals
instead of looking at thelonger-term picture and having
it planned out.
They get bored.
They hire for quantity overquality.
(05:09):
They never change theiraudience and expand to newer
environments.
They're always trying to sellbigger and better to the same
people they were selling to whenthey were doing more personal
and intimate experiences.
And then the big two they don'tpay attention to the processes
and systems that are going tohelp them stay efficient as they
scale, so they ignoreoperations and they don't remain
(05:32):
flexible or open to well, theinevitable evolution that comes
with scaling.
So what do you need to look at?
If you really do truly honestlydesire to scale your business,
the biggest advice I can giveyou have a fucking plan.
I'm not joking when I say thatI've seen people put more
(05:52):
thought into their holidayplanning than they do into their
business growth planning.
If you really do want to scaleand you want it to be
sustainable, which means lasts along time, you need a plan.
So, yeah, things like doing aSWOT analysis super basic, very
important, but very, very basic.
You need to actually have agrowth plan in all seven
(06:13):
categories of your business.
Didn't know there were sevencategories of your business.
Surprise, there are sevencategories of your business and
because I know you're curious,here's what they are.
There's the financial and legalside of your business.
There's the visibility andmarketing side of your business.
There's customer experience.
What does that look like?
There's your innovation or youroffers.
(06:35):
What are they going to looklike as you scale?
There's team growth.
There's personal development,because you have to improve as a
leader as you grow yourbusiness and scale your business
.
And then, finally, operationsthe one piece that is always an
afterthought for a lot of peoplebecause it's not sexy and, as
an aside, this is what I supportbusinesses with in my growth
(06:55):
navigator intensive.
If you're curious, head to mywebsite, getcorporaterehabcom,
for more information.
You need to understand thestrategy required to grow all
seven areas of your business,including, like I said, your
growth, right, like what you aregoing to need to learn and
embody from a leadershipperspective as you grow and all
(07:16):
seven areas of the businesscannot grow at the same time.
You have to have a plan foreach of them.
You have to time it out, youhave to have a timeline.
It's really, really importantto understand that.
So that's really the firstthing have a fucking plan.
The plan doesn't stop there,though.
It includes having a clearunderstanding of your cash flow
and what sort of financialinvestments you're going to need
to make over the next howeverlong you plan to execute the
(07:39):
scale.
And then this speaks totimeframes.
You don't want to scale toofast.
So having a realistic idea andunderstanding of how long it's
going to take you, based on yourbusiness model, your resources,
your capacity and the maturityof your business as it stands
right now.
Sometimes I work with people andI'm like you know what.
You didn't do XYZ before yougot to this point, so we got to
(08:00):
go in backfill.
So you've really got to be veryclear on what the timeframe
looks like.
You've got to have a plan foryour team.
You've got to know who to bringon and when.
It's not just about I'm justgoing to hire a VA or an OBM and
they'll fix everything.
No, they're not.
And please don't look for afucking unicorn.
The number of people who arelike I'm going to grow my
business, I'm going to hire afucking unicorn.
(08:20):
Stop looking for and hiringfucking unicorns.
They don't exist.
You also have to be very clearand very intentional about what
role these people are going toplay and at what points in the
growth of the business, in thescaling of the business, their
role becomes crucial, and whatexperience or expertise they're
going to need to have.
And yes, I realize I've beeninterchangeably using the term
(08:42):
growth and scaling and that'swhy it tends to be something
that people get wrong, becausethey are used interchangeably,
but I'm talking about growththat leads to scaling, just to
make sure we're on the same pagehere.
Then there's the whole thingabout not paying attention to
the operations right, thesystems and the processes that
are essentially holding up yourbusiness.
(09:03):
This is, I think, where a lotof entrepreneurs get caught,
because the bigger the businessgets, the more processes it
requires and the less innovation.
So if you're a visionaryentrepreneur, this may be
something that you resist.
This may be something that isreally uncomfortable for you or
you don't like the idea ofbecause you get bored easily,
(09:24):
but the reality is having a planthat you follow ruthlessly is
critical.
That doesn't mean that youcan't be innovative.
It just means that you can'tcontinue to prioritize
innovation like constantinnovation if you want to scale
in an effective way and asustainable way.
You can't.
(09:45):
I'm sorry to be the bearer ofbad news Hashtag sorry, not
sorry.
Do people still say that?
I still say that it's fine.
This includes communicationchannels.
If you sucked at communicatingwith your clients and team
members before scaling withoutaddressing that problem or that
bottleneck is just going to makeit worse.
By you I mean the business, notjust you you, although
(10:06):
sometimes it is a founder thing.
There are some telltale signs ofbusinesses that are growing but
not scaling.
They want to scale, but they'reactually just growing.
Just in a nutshell, it includesthings like your profit margin
starts to shrink or the qualityof your output starts to take a
(10:28):
hit.
You find that your customersare less and less satisfied.
Your team is overworked,feeling overwhelmed, generally
unhappy.
Communication starts to suffer.
This means that you've grownquickly, but you haven't scaled.
Still not sure what I'm talkingabout?
Hit, rewind, wait, it's notcalled rewinding.
Scrub this episode back to thestart or book a call and talk to
(10:50):
me.
That's also a way that you cando this.
Hopefully, that gives you areally quick and dirty primer on
what it actually means to scalea business.
Here's what I really wanted totouch on today before I went off
on that tangent Scaling abusiness does not have to be the
only goal in order to grow asuccessful business.
(11:10):
There is absolutely nothingwrong with staying small.
There's nothing wrong withstaying a solopreneur or running
a lean business.
There is a lot of shit in theonline business space that makes
you think, if you aren't in itto scale, you're somehow doing
it wrong.
If you're not in it to growexponentially and have a big
(11:33):
team, you're somehow not cut outto be an entrepreneur.
You know that's not how we rollhere.
You get to decide what asuccessful business looks like
for you, and I'm here to helpyou understand your options and
to see what it takesrealistically.
Now, being a solopreneur allowsfor sustainability way more
(11:54):
easily than a scaling business,for obvious reasons.
The business model for a startis a hell of a lot simpler.
Take me as an example.
I'm a solopreneur.
I've been a solopreneur fromthe very start.
I do not have a team.
I do sometimes hire contractorson a project basis when I need
support in certain areas, or Ifind the simplest way to do
(12:15):
something, including thispodcast.
I have figured out ways tostreamline my activity so that
everything gets done.
I'm not overworked andoverwhelmed and, as a result, I
take home a lot more of myincome than some of my
counterparts who have largerbusinesses with bigger expenses
and overheads, and I'm notworking nearly as hard or as
long as people think.
(12:36):
So lower overhead, higherprofit margins that's one really
great reason to stay asolopreneur.
Some people will tell you that,as a solopreneur, your income is
capped because you, as abusiness owner, only have so
many hours in the day.
That's 100% true and it's nodifferent than if you have a
team.
Your income is still cappedbecause your team only has so
(12:57):
many hours in a day.
And if you think you're goingto be making more money because
you have more people on the team, yes and no Again.
Because you still have to paythe team you got to pay
overheads.
Your expenses increase, soyou're still not taking home as
much as a solopreneur.
And the truth is, as asolopreneur, you have way more
options for flexibility, pricingwhat you sell.
(13:19):
You can pivot, you can changeyour target audience and your
ideal client much more quicklythan if you were a bigger-scaled
business.
They're just less moving partsas a solopreneur.
I've heard people use the excusethat if you don't have a team,
you're going to end upoverwhelmed, and that's the
reason a lot of people hire teammembers.
I've done two episodes on whythis is a dumb reason to hire.
Go back and listen to them ifyou don't believe me.
(13:41):
If you're a solopreneur, theway you avoid this is
understanding exactly what youshould be working on every
single day and then stay focused, and if you can't do that on
your own, you get to hire acoach or you get to bring on
accountability partners or a bizbestie to help you not be
overwhelmed, to stick to thatplan.
My experience has been that alot of entrepreneurs who feel
(14:04):
overwhelmed are honestly justdoing too much, and a lot of it
doesn't even need to be done.
They're doing it becausethey've been told they need to
Right.
So they're doing a whole bunchof busy work and keeping
themselves caught up in a hustleand in the belief that
productivity and Busyness arethe same thing.
They're not so getting reallyclear on what are the actual
(14:27):
activities I need to do as anentrepreneur solo entrepreneur
every single day, every singleweek, every single month.
You can streamline those downso that you're still moving your
business forward, but you arenot overwhelmed and you can have
much simpler processes.
You get to have a higher-touchbusiness model if that's what
you want, which, if done right,means you can charge a little
(14:49):
bit more.
By the way, you know things getdone more quickly.
There are fewer roadblocks andred tape and hierarchy and
bullshit.
All right, let's be honest, andwork overall just feels less
complicated and mistakes can befixed more quickly.
Decision making is quicker andeasier.
Now, this one's a bit more of aselfish reason, but as a
(15:10):
solopreneur, you get to makedecisions for yourself and not
with a lot of other input or inwhat I call in committee.
When you scale your business,you likely start to have, you
know, a leadership team of somekind.
So maybe you have a COO or aDOO, a marketing manager, an OBM
, and I know you're sittingthere thinking, yeah, but I'm
still the boss.
(15:30):
I get to make the decisions inthe business, yes and no.
You can run a dictatorshipabsolutely but you're not going
to have a loyal and happy teamfor long if you're always going
rogue and making decisions abouttheir input.
The bigger you get.
This is just one of therealities of how the business is
going to evolve and that's justhow these things work.
Another benefit to being asolopreneur you get to decide
(15:52):
which contracts you continue.
I have a bunch of friends whorun agencies and bigger-scaled
businesses and sometimes theygot to keep working with certain
clients because they need theincome to pay their teams.
They're offering services thatno longer light them up.
For the same reason, they'reout there marketing all the time
.
I mean, we all should bemarketing all the time, but
they're like doing double andtriple time because they've got
(16:15):
to pay for their teams.
As a solopreneur, this is lessof a problem.
I'm not going to say it's nevera problem, but it's less of a
problem.
You get to decide who youcontinue working with and it
doesn't impact a whole bunch ofpeople who rely on you making
money.
Look, at the end of the day,bigger isn't always better and
smaller isn't for everyone.
(16:35):
I understand that some people dowant to build an empire and I'm
here for it.
I'm here for all of it.
The bottom line is this Knowwhat the fuck you're getting
into.
Know what it takes and what youhave to give up or gain in
order to make it work.
Do the research and make ityour business to know what kind
of business will make you happyand if you are happy right now
(16:59):
or forever being a solopreneurand want to make sure you've got
processes and systems thatsupport you in maintaining that
status, or if you do want togrow your business or eventually
scale your business.
On August 22nd 2023, which isthe year we're in right now Next
Tuesday, if you're listening tothis.
On the day this episode drops,I'm running a two and a half
(17:20):
hour workshop all about makingsure you have a solid foundation
for all of it.
Smooth operations is a donewith you hands on experience,
where we're going to look atfive operational pillars the
foundational pillars of yourbusiness, and what you need to
prioritize, depending on whatyour plan is for the future.
If you're interested, head tothe show notes to register.
(17:42):
There is a cost to attend it's$247 US and there is a replay
available if you can't attendlive.
That is all for this week.
You get to decide whether youwant to grow, scale or stay a
solo act.
It's entirely up to you and youget to have success without the
BS.
(18:02):
You just got to know whatsuccess means to you.
All right, I'll talk to yousoon.
Hey, this is a really quick ad break because I got to
pay the bills.
The Business Blast for Mepodcast is sponsored by
Corporate Rehab StrategicConsulting.
Corporate Rehab providesstrategy operations and
leadership growth support.
So if you're ready to clearlyidentify what you and your
business need to move to thenext stage of growth, book a
call, head to the show notes andclick that link.
That wasn't so bad, was it?
Welcome to the Business Blastfor Me podcast, where we
(00:25):
question the sacred truths ofthe online business space and
the reverence with which they'reheld.
I'm your host, sarah Kahnspeaker, strategic consultant
and BS busting badass.
Join me each week as wechallenge the norms, trends and
overall bullshit status quo ofentrepreneurship to uncover what
it really takes to build thebusiness that you want to build
in a way that honors you, yourlife and your vision for what's
(00:46):
possible, and maybe piss off afew gurus along the way.
So if you're ready to commitBusiness Blast for Me, let's do
it.
Hello, hello, blasphemers.
Okay, jump in right in.
Recently, I asked on my Facebookpage whether scaling their
business was a goal of myfollowers.
Now, most of the answers wereyes and the reasons were
(01:08):
beautiful more freedom, beingable to step away from the
business without it, you know,falling apart or without
impacting revenue too much,having more consistent income,
having more income period and tohelp as many people as they
could.
Fantastic.
Now, some of the answers wereno, they don't want to scale
their business.
In fact, my favorite no wasphrased thusly absa, fucking
(01:32):
luteley, not 100% my kind ofhuman being.
The reason they valued personalrelationships and they wanted,
you know, to prioritize deepconnection Again, beautiful.
Now here's the thing None ofthose answers were wrong.
It was kind of a trick question.
There's no right or wronganswer when it comes down to
whether or not you want to scaleyour business, obviously, but
(01:53):
there's a segment of the smallbusiness, online business space
that looks at it a little bitdifferently.
It's not about whether you wantto scale your business, it's
whether you should scale yourbusiness, and there are a lot of
people who say that unless youscale your business, you're
doing it wrong.
But the reality of scaling abusiness is very different for a
lot of different people.
(02:14):
Now here's the caveat with allof this.
A lot of my friends andfollowers have been in business
long enough to really understandwhat scaling actually is like,
what it truly means, and thereare a lot of people who don't.
And, weirdly, a lot of peoplewho tell you that scaling is the
only way to find success in abusiness really don't understand
what scaling means or they havea very high level, simple
(02:36):
understanding of it.
To scale my business means togrow my business, and that's not
accurate and that's what I wantto talk about today.
That's not technically whatscaling is.
So what is scaling?
Scaling a business is actuallystrategically growing the
business to keep up with marketdemand while improving
(02:57):
efficiency and increasing profitmargins.
So what does that mean in realperson talk?
It's not just about growth.
To just say growth is to reallyignore the reality of what
scaling sustainably takes,because fun fact you can grow
your business and not scale.
Growth means adding resources toyour business at the same rate,
(03:21):
you're adding revenue.
So if you get more clients,that means more revenue.
So you hire more people to helpserve those clients.
You add more tech.
You add more capital.
It's about acquiring andallocating resources.
Now, this tends to be the moretypical way that a service
driven business model grows.
Scaling is about adding revenueto your business quickly
(03:43):
without adding resources asquickly.
So you're adding your resourcesmore incrementally.
You're growing your business,which means increasing your
resources and your investmentswithout necessarily increasing
your overheads and expenses atthe same rate.
You're finding ways to growmore efficiently, and the result
of that result of scaling ismore money without an increase
(04:07):
in revenue that matches it, soit's basically doing more with
less.
Here are the stats, though, onscaling businesses.
According to data from McKinsey, only around 22% of small
businesses that have beenlaunched in the last 10 years
have successfully scaled Scaled,not grown.
(04:28):
I'm not here to be a DebbieDowner.
If you want to scale cool beans, let's get you set up for
success, because there are clearsteps you need to take in order
to successfully scale abusiness sustainably and not
just grow it.
All right, you with me?
Okay, if not, scrub back,listen to that again and then
(04:48):
meet me here, all right?
First of all, where dobusinesses go wrong when they
try to scale?
It's the usual culprits.
They try to do it too fast orthey focus on short-term goals
instead of looking at thelonger-term picture and having
it planned out.
They get bored.
They hire for quantity overquality.
(05:09):
They never change theiraudience and expand to newer
environments.
They're always trying to sellbigger and better to the same
people they were selling to whenthey were doing more personal
and intimate experiences.
And then the big two they don'tpay attention to the processes
and systems that are going tohelp them stay efficient as they
scale, so they ignoreoperations and they don't remain
(05:32):
flexible or open to well, theinevitable evolution that comes
with scaling.
So what do you need to look at?
If you really do truly honestlydesire to scale your business,
the biggest advice I can giveyou have a fucking plan.
I'm not joking when I say thatI've seen people put more
(05:52):
thought into their holidayplanning than they do into their
business growth planning.
If you really do want to scaleand you want it to be
sustainable, which means lasts along time, you need a plan.
So, yeah, things like doing aSWOT analysis super basic, very
important, but very, very basic.
You need to actually have agrowth plan in all seven
(06:13):
categories of your business.
Didn't know there were sevencategories of your business.
Surprise, there are sevencategories of your business and
because I know you're curious,here's what they are.
There's the financial and legalside of your business.
There's the visibility andmarketing side of your business.
There's customer experience.
What does that look like?
There's your innovation or youroffers.
(06:35):
What are they going to looklike as you scale?
There's team growth.
There's personal development,because you have to improve as a
leader as you grow yourbusiness and scale your business
.
And then, finally, operationsthe one piece that is always an
afterthought for a lot of peoplebecause it's not sexy and, as
an aside, this is what I supportbusinesses with in my growth
(06:55):
navigator intensive.
If you're curious, head to mywebsite, getcorporaterehabcom,
for more information.
You need to understand thestrategy required to grow all
seven areas of your business,including, like I said, your
growth, right, like what you aregoing to need to learn and
embody from a leadershipperspective as you grow and all
(07:16):
seven areas of the businesscannot grow at the same time.
You have to have a plan foreach of them.
You have to time it out, youhave to have a timeline.
It's really, really importantto understand that.
So that's really the firstthing have a fucking plan.
The plan doesn't stop there,though.
It includes having a clearunderstanding of your cash flow
and what sort of financialinvestments you're going to need
to make over the next howeverlong you plan to execute the
(07:39):
scale.
And then this speaks totimeframes.
You don't want to scale toofast.
So having a realistic idea andunderstanding of how long it's
going to take you, based on yourbusiness model, your resources,
your capacity and the maturityof your business as it stands
right now.
Sometimes I work with people andI'm like you know what.
You didn't do XYZ before yougot to this point, so we got to
(08:00):
go in backfill.
So you've really got to be veryclear on what the timeframe
looks like.
You've got to have a plan foryour team.
You've got to know who to bringon and when.
It's not just about I'm justgoing to hire a VA or an OBM and
they'll fix everything.
No, they're not.
And please don't look for afucking unicorn.
The number of people who arelike I'm going to grow my
business, I'm going to hire afucking unicorn.
(08:20):
Stop looking for and hiringfucking unicorns.
They don't exist.
You also have to be very clearand very intentional about what
role these people are going toplay and at what points in the
growth of the business, in thescaling of the business, their
role becomes crucial, and whatexperience or expertise they're
going to need to have.
And yes, I realize I've beeninterchangeably using the term
(08:42):
growth and scaling and that'swhy it tends to be something
that people get wrong, becausethey are used interchangeably,
but I'm talking about growththat leads to scaling, just to
make sure we're on the same pagehere.
Then there's the whole thingabout not paying attention to
the operations right, thesystems and the processes that
are essentially holding up yourbusiness.
(09:03):
This is, I think, where a lotof entrepreneurs get caught,
because the bigger the businessgets, the more processes it
requires and the less innovation.
So if you're a visionaryentrepreneur, this may be
something that you resist.
This may be something that isreally uncomfortable for you or
you don't like the idea ofbecause you get bored easily,
(09:24):
but the reality is having a planthat you follow ruthlessly is
critical.
That doesn't mean that youcan't be innovative.
It just means that you can'tcontinue to prioritize
innovation like constantinnovation if you want to scale
in an effective way and asustainable way.
You can't.
(09:45):
I'm sorry to be the bearer ofbad news Hashtag sorry, not
sorry.
Do people still say that?
I still say that it's fine.
This includes communicationchannels.
If you sucked at communicatingwith your clients and team
members before scaling withoutaddressing that problem or that
bottleneck is just going to makeit worse.
By you I mean the business, notjust you you, although
(10:06):
sometimes it is a founder thing.
There are some telltale signs ofbusinesses that are growing but
not scaling.
They want to scale, but they'reactually just growing.
Just in a nutshell, it includesthings like your profit margin
starts to shrink or the qualityof your output starts to take a
(10:28):
hit.
You find that your customersare less and less satisfied.
Your team is overworked,feeling overwhelmed, generally
unhappy.
Communication starts to suffer.
This means that you've grownquickly, but you haven't scaled.
Still not sure what I'm talkingabout?
Hit, rewind, wait, it's notcalled rewinding.
Scrub this episode back to thestart or book a call and talk to
(10:50):
me.
That's also a way that you cando this.
Hopefully, that gives you areally quick and dirty primer on
what it actually means to scalea business.
Here's what I really wanted totouch on today before I went off
on that tangent Scaling abusiness does not have to be the
only goal in order to grow asuccessful business.
(11:10):
There is absolutely nothingwrong with staying small.
There's nothing wrong withstaying a solopreneur or running
a lean business.
There is a lot of shit in theonline business space that makes
you think, if you aren't in itto scale, you're somehow doing
it wrong.
If you're not in it to growexponentially and have a big
(11:33):
team, you're somehow not cut outto be an entrepreneur.
You know that's not how we rollhere.
You get to decide what asuccessful business looks like
for you, and I'm here to helpyou understand your options and
to see what it takesrealistically.
Now, being a solopreneur allowsfor sustainability way more
(11:54):
easily than a scaling business,for obvious reasons.
The business model for a startis a hell of a lot simpler.
Take me as an example.
I'm a solopreneur.
I've been a solopreneur fromthe very start.
I do not have a team.
I do sometimes hire contractorson a project basis when I need
support in certain areas, or Ifind the simplest way to do
(12:15):
something, including thispodcast.
I have figured out ways tostreamline my activity so that
everything gets done.
I'm not overworked andoverwhelmed and, as a result, I
take home a lot more of myincome than some of my
counterparts who have largerbusinesses with bigger expenses
and overheads, and I'm notworking nearly as hard or as
long as people think.
(12:36):
So lower overhead, higherprofit margins that's one really
great reason to stay asolopreneur.
Some people will tell you that,as a solopreneur, your income is
capped because you, as abusiness owner, only have so
many hours in the day.
That's 100% true and it's nodifferent than if you have a
team.
Your income is still cappedbecause your team only has so
(12:57):
many hours in a day.
And if you think you're goingto be making more money because
you have more people on the team, yes and no Again.
Because you still have to paythe team you got to pay
overheads.
Your expenses increase, soyou're still not taking home as
much as a solopreneur.
And the truth is, as asolopreneur, you have way more
options for flexibility, pricingwhat you sell.
(13:19):
You can pivot, you can changeyour target audience and your
ideal client much more quicklythan if you were a bigger-scaled
business.
They're just less moving partsas a solopreneur.
I've heard people use the excusethat if you don't have a team,
you're going to end upoverwhelmed, and that's the
reason a lot of people hire teammembers.
I've done two episodes on whythis is a dumb reason to hire.
Go back and listen to them ifyou don't believe me.
(13:41):
If you're a solopreneur, theway you avoid this is
understanding exactly what youshould be working on every
single day and then stay focused, and if you can't do that on
your own, you get to hire acoach or you get to bring on
accountability partners or a bizbestie to help you not be
overwhelmed, to stick to thatplan.
My experience has been that alot of entrepreneurs who feel
(14:04):
overwhelmed are honestly justdoing too much, and a lot of it
doesn't even need to be done.
They're doing it becausethey've been told they need to
Right.
So they're doing a whole bunchof busy work and keeping
themselves caught up in a hustleand in the belief that
productivity and Busyness arethe same thing.
They're not so getting reallyclear on what are the actual
(14:27):
activities I need to do as anentrepreneur solo entrepreneur
every single day, every singleweek, every single month.
You can streamline those downso that you're still moving your
business forward, but you arenot overwhelmed and you can have
much simpler processes.
You get to have a higher-touchbusiness model if that's what
you want, which, if done right,means you can charge a little
(14:49):
bit more.
By the way, you know things getdone more quickly.
There are fewer roadblocks andred tape and hierarchy and
bullshit.
All right, let's be honest, andwork overall just feels less
complicated and mistakes can befixed more quickly.
Decision making is quicker andeasier.
Now, this one's a bit more of aselfish reason, but as a
(15:10):
solopreneur, you get to makedecisions for yourself and not
with a lot of other input or inwhat I call in committee.
When you scale your business,you likely start to have, you
know, a leadership team of somekind.
So maybe you have a COO or aDOO, a marketing manager, an OBM
, and I know you're sittingthere thinking, yeah, but I'm
still the boss.
(15:30):
I get to make the decisions inthe business, yes and no.
You can run a dictatorshipabsolutely but you're not going
to have a loyal and happy teamfor long if you're always going
rogue and making decisions abouttheir input.
The bigger you get.
This is just one of therealities of how the business is
going to evolve and that's justhow these things work.
Another benefit to being asolopreneur you get to decide
(15:52):
which contracts you continue.
I have a bunch of friends whorun agencies and bigger-scaled
businesses and sometimes theygot to keep working with certain
clients because they need theincome to pay their teams.
They're offering services thatno longer light them up.
For the same reason, they'reout there marketing all the time
.
I mean, we all should bemarketing all the time, but
they're like doing double andtriple time because they've got
(16:15):
to pay for their teams.
As a solopreneur, this is lessof a problem.
I'm not going to say it's nevera problem, but it's less of a
problem.
You get to decide who youcontinue working with and it
doesn't impact a whole bunch ofpeople who rely on you making
money.
Look, at the end of the day,bigger isn't always better and
smaller isn't for everyone.
(16:35):
I understand that some people dowant to build an empire and I'm
here for it.
I'm here for all of it.
The bottom line is this Knowwhat the fuck you're getting
into.
Know what it takes and what youhave to give up or gain in
order to make it work.
Do the research and make ityour business to know what kind
of business will make you happyand if you are happy right now
(16:59):
or forever being a solopreneurand want to make sure you've got
processes and systems thatsupport you in maintaining that
status, or if you do want togrow your business or eventually
scale your business.
On August 22nd 2023, which isthe year we're in right now Next
Tuesday, if you're listening tothis.
On the day this episode drops,I'm running a two and a half
(17:20):
hour workshop all about makingsure you have a solid foundation
for all of it.
Smooth operations is a donewith you hands on experience,
where we're going to look atfive operational pillars the
foundational pillars of yourbusiness, and what you need to
prioritize, depending on whatyour plan is for the future.
If you're interested, head tothe show notes to register.
(17:42):
There is a cost to attend it's$247 US and there is a replay
available if you can't attendlive.
That is all for this week.
You get to decide whether youwant to grow, scale or stay a
solo act.
It's entirely up to you and youget to have success without the
BS.
(18:02):
You just got to know whatsuccess means to you.
All right, I'll talk to yousoon.
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