Three Secrets No One Tells You About Scaling Your Business

Lauren: This is The Biz Doctor Podcast, and I’m your host, Lauren Goldstein.

Welcome back to. In today’s episode, I’m gonna dive into three secrets that I wish someone had told me when I was growing my business, which now I make sure my clients know upfront. Let me tell you, I could have saved a lot of time, money, and energy if I’d known these things upfront. All right, So the first secret is it’s a slog at the beginning.

I know, I know. I can actually feel you rolling your eyes with this one, but bear. Most of us started our business to create freedom, financial freedom, time freedom, freedom to be who we are and not get in trouble for being outside the mold. However, I also think that oftentimes that urge sets us up for misaligned expectations in the beginning.

This is actually why I love the book, The EMyth. If you haven’t read this book and own a small business, please go read it this weekend. You’ll thank me. The reality is, In the beginning, you’re kind of a chief everything officer, and it sucks, and you’re kind of wondering if you’re ever going to get out from underneath it.

But generally, if you do it proactively and you have a plan and you’re not just throwing spaghetti at the wall, you’re gonna break through of that eventually. But it is kind of an uphill battle in those first year, two years, maybe even three years, where you feel like you’re just doing a lot of work for not a lot of gang.

So hang in there. The second secret is as you scale, it should get more simple, not more complicated. This one is probably my favorite, so let me set the stage. You’ve bootstrapped your business together through blood, sweat, tears, and some duct tape. There were many times where you were chief everything officer, like I said, and chances are a lot of your business is organized chaos.

And there’s even probably some business barnacles that have started to. You with me still? Great. So let’s start with simplicity and business barnacles First, what I call business barnacles. These are items or processes or even lack of processes that are the culmination of getting the business off the ground, and a lot of trial and error.

Examples are the graveyard of half finished SOPs, quarterly plans that are gathering dust, spaghetti thrown on onboarding process, marketing plans that were secretly launched. You get the. The point is that as your business has grown, it started collecting things and many of these things are no longer necessary, needed, or what leads me to point number two in desperate need of simplification.

One of my very favorite parts about the consulting and advising work that I do is that I get the great honor of simplifying businesses so they can be leaner, more efficient, more profitable, and get you the business owner out of the trenches faster. So now that you know what a business barnacle is and that things should get more simple, as you grow, it’s time to do the hard part.

Take a look at your business. This is where I recommend you go through and audit your systems, your team, your processes, your marketing, your customer journey, et cetera, and see what is still being done manually that can be automated or systematized. What has five steps when it can be three? And see if getting to A to C really requires.

Now this is gonna take some time and it won’t be fun, but trust me, your business, your team, and yourself will thank me because this leads me to the third secret. It should be boring. You heard me? Boring. Boring. Your business should be boring as all get out as you scale, but before you get all at Ben ATARs and start picturing leather bound books and falling asleep in your chair, let me explain what boring actually.

Boring in this context means three things, consistent, predictable, and repeatable. Consistent. We know that during X months this happens. For example, I know that September tends to be a down month for our other business because of four shows starting up again. So when we know that we can be proactive, another example, if we have this many clients, we have this kind of revenue and profitability.

So consistency is knowing the rhythms of your business and seeing it repeat itself over and over. Predictable. If I do X, then Y happens. So if we launch this marketing campaign, we get X amount of new customers. If we partner with this business, we get X amount of roi. Again, you’re looking at consistent and predictable, which is boring, but very, very helpful in business because when you have something that’s predictable and consistent, it makes scaling and planning a whole lot easier.

And then repeat. This is really where scaling comes up. If we follow this plan, we can get this outcome. Boring doesn’t mean that you’re like bored to tears. It really just means that your business is starting to be consistent, predictable, and repeatable so that you know when you take some action, you’re gonna get some result.

And it’s not a lot of trial and error, it’s not a lot of throwing spaghetti at the wall, but it’s more of you’ve got a good picture of what works and you’re doing more of it, and you’ve got a good picture of what doesn’t work and you’re cutting. And the reason your business should be boring is because when it’s running like a well-oiled machine like this, it becomes very easy to extricate yourself from it.

The end goal should be to get you out of the trenches as quickly as humanly possible so you can have true entrepreneurial freedom and only need to focus on your big three. Things that you love doing that you’re good at, that move the business vision forward, and chances are those things are also the reason why you started your business that have sadly been neglected since you got stuck in the trench.

So getting you out of the trenches is my primary goal when working with clients, having you get out from underneath the business and creating a business that can run like clockwork without you. The best way to do that is through team and ops, and you guessed it. The first step to having a high performing team is simplicity and being boring.

Oh, and while I have you, one last note about boring, this is not the time to spice things up in your business or set it a flame. Celebrate the calm and use it as a lit test that you have arrived, that you’ve achieved what a small percentage of entrepreneurs do. A boring, consistent, repeatable business that can run without you.

Now go get a new hobby. Go for a date night, take a vacation. But for the love of God, don’t fall into the trap of self-sabotaging your business because things are quote unquote going too well. Maybe that will be one of my next episodes, , How to stop self-sabotaging your Business. But I just wanna like bring it back full circle and talk about the three things about the trajectory of your business.

Again, that activation energy, to get it started, it sucks at the beginning. It’s slow, it’s a slog. It can feel like you’re pushing a boulder up a hill. But eventually, while you’re pushing that boulder up the hill, you’re gonna get to the top of the mountain and then it’s gonna start to collect dirt and moss as it rolls down the hill by itself.

And to that, As you’re pushing that rock up the mountain, ask yourself, How can I make this more simple? Anytime you’re going through a process or going and auditing your business, really have in the back of your mind, How can I make this more simple? How can I make this more efficient? How can I make this process make more sense that if I step out of it, I don’t have to sit here and explain the seven different steps to somebody?

And then of course be really happy when it’s boring. Cuz don’t get me wrong, it’s lovely to like be flying by the seat of your pants and excited about something new. But it’s also really great when you can take a moment, take a breath, and realize that the business is starting to run without you. That you don’t need to be in it all the time.

And that the more you put into the things that are working, the faster the business grow. Now before I close out today’s chapter, I do wanna touch on something that I’m gonna talk about in one of the next episodes, which is burnout around scale. I want this to be the moment of permission for you to have whatever business you wanna have, whether it’s a lifestyle business, or a seven figure business.

There’s no cookie cutter perfect business except the one you want to have. So if you’re slogging it out and asking yourself if it’s all worth it, the answer is it’s 100% worth it. But you need to be crystal clear on the life your business is creating and fitting. We’re not meant to be on this planet just to eat, sleep, work, and die.

We’re here to make an impact and live. So promise me you’ll build a business around your life, not the other way around. Okay, that’s it for this week’s episode. I’d love to hear from you and your biggest takeaways, so make sure you’re following along. Subscribe and don’t forget to tag me on Instagram at it’s Lauren Goldstein or LinkedIn or wherever you hang out on the interweb.

Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll see you next week.

So, which part of your business needs love and attention? You might be wondering that. Hmm. Here are your next steps.

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