How To Scale Your Small Business

1. Introduction: Hey everybody, Tiffany here, the owner of process prowess. I am a business strategists productivity coach, and I specialize in executive functioning. Welcome to break down, to break through, we're going to talk about the difference between scaling your business and growing your business. Mindset, shifts and changes that need to happen so that you could do one or the other, whichever one feels better for you. And we're also going to talk about some tips and tricks. So you can start today to start making some changes so that you can scale your growth. Because I helped fearsome peerless female entrepreneurs create more fun, profitable, dynamic, and sustainable businesses. Have fun and enjoy. 2. Growing Vs Scaling: Hey guys, welcome to break down, to break through. And today we're going to talk about growing versus scaling. I want to start out by saying, no matter if you're just starting your business, if you've been in business a couple of years or if you have been in business for quite some time and seeing a lot of success, scaling can be important for anyone in any step of your business. Now as an entrepreneur, you probably started off in one or two buckets. Either one, you got everything that you thought that you needed from a system process team methodology, strategy standpoint. And then you said, Hey, world, I'm here, or you kinda went with the flow and built as you went. So things might be thrown together. You might have duck tape, some systems together. You might even be finding yourself in a position where you're replicating activities and wasting some time to be honest, doing things in multiple places, then you don't need to write. Scaling is all about taking a step back and determining what is it that you need to streamline, what is it that you need to completely scrap and what is it that you can delegate? The whole purpose of scaling is actually the foundation for growth. And in order to actually experienced sustainable and fun growth in your business, you do need to make sure that you have those rights, strategies, policies, processes, procedures, systems, you name it in place, and essentially find yourself doing more with what you have. So you can step back in your business and you can do the things that you actually enjoy doing because your business is working for you and you're not working for your business. So again, we're going to talk today about the difference between growth and scaling. And most people do confuse the two. And even though they have a same, the same general meaning, expanding your revenue, right? Expanding your profit. There are actually two different things. Now, when your business is growing, you're increasing revenue, you're increasing your market share. You're increasing the people on your team, you're increasing the clients that come in. But meanwhile, your expenses tend to grow at the same rate. Sometimes they can't even more. So that's the external reality. Now the internal reality again is that the stress levels, the drama of your day-to-day operations with your team are also through the roof, right? Because you're growing, you're getting bigger, you're expanding, you're constantly adding on top of things. And this can lead to ultimately less time spent with your family and less time doing things that really matter either to you personally, professionally, or in your business, right? So a lot of the time growing a business can be hard. Nobody said it was gonna be easy. But scaling is a whole different story, right? Not to say that it's not as hard, but it actually is going to allow you to build more of a sustainable foundation so that you can grow on top of it. Now when you're scaling, revenue is growing, but it's growing at a much faster rate than your expenses. And that gives you the cash and the resources to help you fund and support your increased business. You're going to have the opportunity to hire the right team, invest in the right tools and the resources, and you're not gonna be slapping things together like you might have been up to this point. You're gonna be able to afford more than you could before. You're going to reduce that operational drama. And when you're scaling, you can actually do it while still having a life. So those are the main differences between the two. And we're going to dig a little bit deeper on growth and then we're going to talk a little bit more about scale. And then we'll discuss which one might be better for you because every business is different. So a little bit more on growth, right? Nearly every business owner is going to want to see the revenue grow. On the surface, growth indicates that you've built a successful company and that feels amazing, right? However, growing for the sake of growing, is a super small game and it's not gonna be a sustainable business model. And in order to get bigger, you cannot think small. So if the only way that you can make more money is to sell and deliver more of your products or services. And you're eventually going to hit some type of tipping point. You're going to hit your ceiling and you're not going to know how to get past that mark that you've created for yourself. You're essentially going to max out the amount of business that you can accept Given your available resources, there's going to be eventually some type of tipping points, some type of imbalance. When this happens, you're going to find yourself in a position of having two choices. You can stay a small business and you can work insanely crazy hours and potentially sacrificing your mental health, your profits, the quality of service that you deliver, or having to find your self in a position where you're turning customers away. Or you might have to adjust your pricing models or consider hiring more people and investing and other resources that you continue to grow and build on to those resources as your revenue is growing. So that's what I mean. By adding resources. Your costs are going to go up and your profits are going to go down at least temporarily until you ramp up the sales and begin adding revenue to cover those extra costs. Right? Now, sometimes a business owners only motivation is to achieve a certain level of income so that they and their team members can live comfortable lives. And this is perfectly acceptable if you're comfortable repeating the cycle of adding resources at the pace with your growth, totally up to you. But professional services and organizations where the primary resource or primary source of revenue comes from selling, labor, work, service providers, coaching, going out and performing services tasks for people. There are common example of this. If they don't find a way to scale that growth, the only way that they can is to take on more clients so that the cycle continues. But you need to also continue to add to your team. So you're essentially breaking even. Now. Most growth minded entrepreneurs, they have bigger ambitions. They want to build a business that's going to grow in value and then they can eventually, I don't know, cash out and pursue on their, pursue their goals. Some entrepreneurs, they need to understand growth and scaling at adopt growth strategies that are going to result in a successfully scaled business. It's going to improve their ability to earn a profit and command a good price when they're ready to pursue an exit. Now, let's talk a little bit more about scaling though. Now, scaling a business means that you're growing your revenues and increasing your profit margins at the same time by finding ways to be more efficient, which is one of my favorite words. It's essentially doing more with what you have. It's working smarter, not harder. And this empowers you to continue adding customers delivering the same level of services without seeing a lot of undue costs. But like most things that are worth pursuing scaling of business, it's not easy either. The methods of doing this, they're going to really vary from company to company. And you're going to experience some up and downs regardless of which direction you're doing. But if you know what you're doing, this is what, this is the growth curve, right? That has achieved the scale it might look like in comparison to one that is not right. As you earn more revenue, your costs are still gonna go up, but at a slower pace because you're finding the economies of a sale, this leads to a higher profit margin because of course, there's many times that when you make an investment that's going to affect your profit margins for awhile, it's gonna be normal and expected, right? So again, scaling is more about taking what you have. Say it'd be a system that you have that has a really robust platform and foundation and it allows you to do multiple things under the same umbrella. Right now if your business is kinda pieced together, you might be again, doing the same thing in different locations, or you're going here for one piece of information. One thing for here, you're having to connect all of the things that you're putting yourself in a position where your business is more streamlined, but it's still kinda pieced together and that doesn't feel good, right? So let's talk a little bit between the difference of what is better. Because like I said, all businesses are different. So growing versus scaling, what is more desirable to you? Well, by now, you probably know what, that depends on your long-term goals. If you started your company because you love what you do, you enjoy the people you work with, and you just want to make a decent living. Growth without scale is totally fine. If you're wanting to put yourself in a position where you do have to show up every single day. You do get joy out of that. Totally grow without scaling. But there are risks to business. So if you decide to retire or you get ill, or you lose a big customer, or things happen in the market, then your entire company can be at risk. So just keep that in mind. But if you are in a position where you do want to build a long-term, ongoing, thriving organization that's going to provide value to its customers, employ a lot of people and change lives. Change your life enough that you can actually take a step away, take some time off, completely retire, sell your business, whatever you wanna do, you need to see the benefit in actually scaling your business. So if you have a business like this, then you're going to be able to grow, it's going to be sustainable, it's going to be cost-effective, which is bottom line, is what we all care about outside of the services and the clients that we're serving. You're going to have those ups and downs, but having scaled your business, it's going to allow you to kinda whether those inevitable. And it's going to allow you the opportunity to continue to give back, give back, give back, be innovative, be creative. Have more fun on your business and spent a whole lot less time on the backend trying to just make things work for you. So that is it on growth and scale. I would love to know what it is that you got as far as a takeaway in this kind of which direction that you think you're going share with me your long-term goals in the comments and if you have any questions, definitely feel free to reach out to me. As I mentioned, growing and scaling are two different things, but it really depends on who you are, where it is that you want to go. What I do with my clients is help them take that step back, peel back the layers breakdown so that they can find the breakthroughs, find the opportunities and what they can scrap, what they can scream, streamline, what they can delegate out so that they can spend more time working on the things that they want to do versus the things that they feel like they have to do. The things that they have been doing that are taking way too much time. I should take a whole lot less time so that they can actually put themselves out there more, serve more people, increase their revenue and increase their efficiency to provide themselves with a business that works for them instead of them working for their business. So this is very personalized, this is very streamlined. This again, is what I do for my clients. I will give you a road map, a strategy, a game plan, whatever it is that you want to call it an instruction manual for you and your business. And we're going to strip back the layers. Take a look at what it is that you need to be able to do in order to put yourself in a position that you, so that you can build a sustainable foundation and experience that growth. 3. High Level - Action Taking: Hey guys, welcome to day two of breakdown to break through today, we are going to talk at a high level about taking action. So we've already talked about the difference between growing and scaling your business. And hopefully by now based on whatever your short and long-term goals are, you have an idea of what it is that you want to do, either grow or scale your business. But today we are going to start talking about again, at a high level, what it is that you need to do in order to start putting this into action. As we continue to progress, we're going to talk about some real-time quick wins, step-by-step things that you can do within your business to help streamline things, scrap what doesn't work or delegate the stuff that you don't need to be bothered doing. So first, I want to start talking about how in order to take action, you have to stop working. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, it's a physical fact that when you are extremely focused on your thinking, then you're avail, your ability to be creative actually shrinks because all of your energy is going in one direction. And unique creativity, if you want to boost your productivity and figure out ways to do things bigger, better and faster. Now, creativity comes when your brain is relaxed, right? So that is when you can make connections between ideas that you maybe didn't think of before. And that's why so many people get inspiration in the shower. I know I'm one of them. Now, during this time, you're not really thinking about anything specific. So brilliants has room to strike, right? And that's why it's important to stop working. Give yourself some time to relax, let your mind wander and you're gonna be surprised at the insights and solutions that come to life. But the key to making that happen is to make sure that you can truly find a way to do nothing. Now, make an appointment for yourself, a do nothing appointment that never gets bumped. Make this a routine habit whether you want to do a weekly, whatever day of the week that you want to do at whatever time feels good to you. If you don't set time aside to do absolutely nothing with yourself, then you're going to end up being in reactive mode all the time. And it's going to never feel like you're actually getting stuff done, right? It's actually just really slowing down your growth. So lesson number one here, in order to get ahead, you need to learn how to be able to do nothing. So now we've done nothing right? Now, what are we going to do during this time that we're doing nothing and we're thinking of all these creative ideas. Well, you want to take a step back in your business. You really want to retreat because complacency in doubt or two of your biggest challenges as a business owner. And if you're not constantly growing personally and professionally, you're actually falling behind. Guaranteed. Your competitors are not going to be taking a back seat on expanding themselves and their market share. And if you're hesitating, I'm making decisions for yourself because you're not quite sure of the next step or how to accomplish it, then you're going to end up really in the same boat, right? And the status quo is definitely going to create a drag for your business. And again, we don't want to slow it down because what we're really looking for is that sustainability, that growth and profitability. So being able to take a step back and really looking at what is it that I need to do? Where are my opportunities? Where do I want to go? How did I get to where I am right now is really going to be beneficial to you during that do nothing time. So it's really vital again to retreat and just get that mindset reset so that you can regroup. That's going to allow you to make decisions a whole heck of a lot faster than are going to help you really move forward in your business. Now to be at the top of your game and have the ability to really collapse timelines. You have to constantly look for ways to level up your thinking. That also means learning from people who think differently than you and have a different set of experiences, right? So there's nothing wrong with going in and taking a further look at that competition because that kinda learning, it can really improve your decision-making process because you can see new angles that you maybe just couldn't really even see before because you were so stuck in the weeds and you have those business blinders on. So it makes sure that you're dedicating some time to building your network inside and outside your industry as well. Explore with those contacts new ways of getting better at business. Ask them what they do in challenging situations and consider how you can actually apply them to your own business, make it your own, and help you be more productive. Work with coaches, joined masterclasses, or even at the very least, educate yourself in a brand new area. Whenever you have the opportunity to, even if that area is nowhere near what you do, the things that you learn about a new type topic might actually sparked something new in your business, right? As your brain puts together these creative solutions during your do nothing time, you can actually really come up with things that you might not have ever thought of before. So those are the things that are going to improve your impact and help you scale faster, right? Finding different ways to do things, finding different things to do. It's going to help you with your profitability and your growth right along with it. Now. The last thing that I want to talk about here is breaking your system. This is my favorite break. Those patterns, break the way that you think, break the way that they're doing things. Think of different ways that you could do the same thing. Only be more efficient, more beneficial, more impactful, more cost-effective for your business. You constantly are hearing that if you want to scale, then you have to get systems, systems and automation in place. That's super true. But if you really do want to collapse timelines, you have to figure out how to do it better and how to do it faster. And that means breaking the systems that you set up, stripping it down, and finding ways to make them even more effective for you. So when you have this big vision, the only way that you're gonna be able to make that vision come to life is to really enlist others to help you. And if you can do it all on your own, on your own, then maybe your vision isn't big enough. But obviously right now for now you're going to have to think, what is it that you can handle, what can you maintain? But you really want to think big, and that's the only way that you're gonna be able to make the impact that you are really meant to make. All you really do have to do to get started just to be clear on what your end goal is and then allow other people, whether they're members of your team, family members, friends, people that are also in the industry, in the market, let them come in and contribute to it from all different ways, right? You don't have to be. You're by yourself just because you're a solopreneur. Now, it's only with these different perspectives that you're really going to collapse your timelines in a massive way and figure out the systems are tweaks that your current systems can help you actually go about doing it. So be sure to get everybody that you can involved in this process. They're going to see things that you've done. For example, they're going to know where your needlessly losing time. It's easy to take a step back. As a business owner when you're collaborating with other people to kinda see where those bottlenecks are in your Workday. And then you can get some time to brainstorm some solutions to fix these issues and then in turn become more productive. Now, new perspectives bring new possibilities and that's an added bonus if your team or who you're collaborating with is helping you generate solutions and they're going to have a lot more buy-in when it comes to making that change. They're going to have more support. You're going to have more buy-in to. And that means you're gonna be able to get a whole heck of a lot more done in a shorter period of time. So you're essentially more productive from the get-go. So to wrap things up here for today, seemingly counterproductive practices can actually be the gas to your business that you need to rev up and keep going. So once you take that step back and start looking at your business and the tasks that you personally perform within it through a different lens, you're going to start finding ways to improve efficiency by enlisting other people to help you with that fresh set of eyes. You're going to be able to do it even faster, right? Before you know it. You're gonna be making a massive impact on the world because you are the trifecta for productivity, scalability, and profitability. It's all gonna be yours and your business is going to be running like a well oiled machine until you break it again and make it run even bigger and better. So I hope this was helpful for you today. Again, take a timeout, schedule, some time for yourself to do nothing. Take a step back, break your systems, look at your competitors in Titin, incorporate other people's ideas, thoughts and opinions, lay it all out them four out there for them. See how they can contribute to identifying any issues, anything that's broken, anything that's holding you back that you might not realize. And look to them, look within yourself, look at your competitors for different ways to come up with solutions for these problems, processes, issues, whatever it is that you're essentially spending more time on than you really need to, so that you can focus on being more productive, more creative, more skilled in your craft, and you can take on more clients. 4. Finding Inefficiencies: All right guys, Today we are going to talk about finding efficiencies. And of course, there's many ways to find efficiencies in your business. And earlier, I mentioned taking a step back, looking at the competition, looking internally at your systems and processes. But there's plenty of other things that you can do. The first thing that you can do is reduce the cost of your product or service. These are just going to be high level examples are gonna be different for everybody's business because everybody's business is different where you are in your businesses different. But we're going to start with talking about reducing those costs of your product. Now, in addition to reducing the cost of your materials, you could possibly even find cheaper resources for labor, negotiate better shipping rates and things like that. So if you are a product-based business, that's something that you can look into as far as reducing those costs. I know it sounds like a no-brainer and obvious, but it might've been awhile since you've taken a step back. And that's the theme of what we're talking about, is, how are your business efficiencies right now compared to how they were before? Did you just jump on the first supplier and you haven't really talked about renegotiating. You didn't think it was possible to renegotiate some of those costs. And now that you're taking a step back and really looking at everything on your business kinda laid out in front of you. That's something that you can definitely revisit. Now, you can also read or you can invest in the value of your products or services. Now, you can reduce costs, but on the flip side of that, you can also invest in making your products even better or your services even better. If you're service-based business that is solely based on who you are and what it is that you do or help your clients with, then this might not be relevant. So if you're with me, but perhaps you can add more features, more capabilities. You can increase your level of service. You can train any staff that you have to make sure that they're being more efficient. And some of these improvements say that you're a coach and you offer one-on-one services. Well, in those one-on-one services, you can always add some products or programs to already put in place. Because then that's going to allow you to charge more. And then ultimately that's going to boost your bottom line. The whole theme here is doing more with what you already have, right? So try and take a look at that big picture of the offerings that you currently have for your audience or your client base. And see how you can kind of package them up and make them more valuable to them. Now, this one is one of my favorite, building strong and efficient internal processes and procedures. Now, nearly every area, if your business can benefit from establishing those repeatable, repeatable and predictable processes and procedures. For instance, if you're with your bookkeeping or finance and accounting, if you're making sure that you're building your customers automatically, then that can maybe even imposing some penalties for late payments that could ultimately end up saving you money. You're not having to spend an entire day sitting, going around chasing after any invoices. If you have that automated, then that's something that is going to be working for you behind the scenes. Creating those penalties. I know it sounds harsh, but you know what it's like to continue to chase a client for a payment, having something like that. You can always have that working in the backend for you. You can also create an expense reimbursement policy instead of leaving all your spending decisions to your team and things like that. If they purchase something that as long as they follow the guidelines and that's not something you have to be consulted with every single time. Obviously, you're going to want to take a look at month end, quarter end, year end. However, you manage your books and make sure that they are following, following the policy. But that way you can empower and enable your, your team if you have one to go about doing that, that process can become more efficient as well. These are just high level examples just to kinda give you an idea of what it means to look at your business for any inefficiencies and the possibility of making them more efficient. That's the whole concept and the theme here again, everybody's business is different. So how this translates to you might be significantly different or it might just flip a switch and that light bulb moment will come on. Now, you can also invest in productivity enhancing technologies. There's a lot of free platforms out there. I know I said invest, but some of them in order to make them the robust, smooth running machine that you need, you might need to invest in 1020, $30 a month for a membership. But having the right tools can really significantly improve your productivity. For example, with the right technology, you can track your customers throughout their life-cycle with your company, right? And we know that what we measure has to be tracked. And if you're tracking all of those things, then you understand where's the fall off in that in that customer workflow or that buying life cycle, where can you pick them back up? How can you create those efficiencies within your process to make sure that you're turning a lurker into an actual customer or a customer into a repeat customer right? Now, besides making your marketing and sales efforts more effective and efficient. Also, some investments like this, they can allow you to flow through your customer service team that allows them also to understand that present a more unified presence for your customers by improving your reputation throughout that as well. So any knowledge that you get in a team when it comes to looking for these inefficiencies and building more efficient processes for your business. You definitely want to make sure that you communicate, get that feedback back from your team. If you're a solopreneur, talk to a friend, a family member, a fellow entrepreneur and kind of bounce some ideas off of them, or hire a coach. And a coach will really help you be able to take a look back and decipher what it is that needs to be impacted and how you personally can go about doing that. Now, you also want to allow for specialization. If you have within your company either systems are people that are intended to be jack of all trades. It's not very cost-effective because sometimes these types of processes are going to lead to somewhat costly errors and possibly even burnout. If you do hire externally outside, whether they're a team member or whether you're hiring someone to do your social media or something like that. Consider hiring someone that is a specialist that can actually lighten the load and improve the efficiency for you, right? If you can't hire a full-time actual specialists within your business, definitely outsource some work freelancers have VA, That way you're gonna get the expertise that you need at a lower cost and you're not having to take the time to sit back and learn something new and figure it out and delay any progress, success, deficiency, building or progress that it is that you're looking for because you're spending your time on a learning curve with something. Sometimes it's just better to flip a couple of $100, have someone else do it so that you can get those immediate results. Now, like I said, these are just a few ideas when you're serious about exploring the opportunities that you have for growth versus scaling within your business. Make sure that you're developing some type of budget. We talked about growth and scale and grow your revenue, but your expenses balance and they both increase. And the whole process within scaling is to make sure that your revenue is increasing. But your, your cash, your external cash flow going out of your business is really kept at a bare minimum. If you kinda take this exercise and take a step back and look at the efficiencies within your business, the inefficiencies and identify solutions for you to approach these. This is actually going to help you be able to spot quickly and remedy any problem or opportunity that you have to become more efficient within your business. I hope this was helpful and I'll see you on the next one. 5. Breaking it down: Hey guys. So today is the day where it starts getting real good. Today's the day that we're gonna break it down. And I'm just going to get right into it. So the first thing that you want to do is break down on vision. We talked about taking a step back. We talked about looking about at the things that are and are not working. Now, we're going to really look into the future and base the future on where we are in the present and where it is that we want to go, right? We've taken a look at the past and now it's time to sit in this space and make sure that we are creating a business that is more aligned with us, not just who we are today, who we'd become, who we've grown to be, but where it is that we want to go, right? So let's start with that vision. And I know some of you are guilty of it. It's nothing to be ashamed of. But some of you create your business plan, right? You said it onside the side of your shelf, it collects dust and if you're guilty of this now is the perfect time to dust off that business plan and revise it. Once you've formulated what it is that you want to do your high level goals. The first thing is to put that into a business plan. Now whether you send this off to anybody or not, whether you're looking for funding or not, it's always great for you, whether you're a solopreneur or if you have a team to really take a step back and recreate or create for the first time what that business plan looks like. Businesses constantly develop and they change and because your company is ever-changing two, so should your business plan set aside some time to kinda clean that up, right. Reflect on the past year, a couple of years, however long it's been that you've been in business and think about what kind of changes that your business has made over the last span of time, right. Did you add or remove products? Are you targeting a completely different market? Right. Because you completely change your business structure. If you did mention all of these things in the plan. And remember that your business plan is the foundation of your company. So it's really time, It's really important that you spend some time taking that step back to revisit it each year right? Now, if you do want to secure funding when it comes to your business plan, whether you're seeking funding from a venture capitalist or bank, you're going to need to have a business plan. And business plans are the foundation of a business. They obviously tell the parties that you're seeking funding from whether or not you're worth investing in and we all know that you are. So if you need any sort of outside financing, you're going to need a really good business plan to secure it. So you need to make sure that that is keeping up with your business as well. Business plans are also going to help you set and communicate goals. It gives you a tangible way of reviewing your business goals and it revolves around the present, like I said, and the future. When you establish your goals and you put them in writing, you're more likely to reach them. It's all mindset that a strong business plan is going to include these goals and it's going to allow you to communicate them to investors and employees and even just hold yourself accountable as well. Having a business plan is also going to help you improve your viability in the market. While many businesses, as we've talked about, are born from passion, not many are going to last without having an effective plan. While a business concept sound good, things are going to change once you start writing those specifics down. And I'm not just talking about an initial idea, I'm talking about where you are right now, where is it you're going? And often people that want to start a business or re-up their business that don't have a plan, they're going to fail. And this is because they're not taking the time to take into account all of the planning and the funds and the process and things that are needed to get something off the ground. Again, be in a new business or just a new initiative within your existing business. We're talking about taking what you already have and making the most of it. Now, market research also is a large part of your business planning process, right? So it is going to allow you to review who your potential customers are, who your competition is within the marketplace. And by understanding both, That's also going to allow you to set your price points for your products and services. And sometimes it might not make sense to roll something out and new initiative or streamline something based on the existing competition. You want to take a look at who are you going to be competing with? Who are you going to be presenting your new products and services to if you are stepping into a new market completely. Now, other times, market research to other reason why this is so important is that it can guide you to effective marketing strategies that other people might be lacking, right? To have a successful business has gotta be viable. And a business plan is really going to help you determine that. Another important factor feature, what have you of business owner or having a business plan is it helps you to avoid failure, right? We don't want to get stuck in that perfectionism bucket. We want to make sure that we're taking consistent action. But too far and too often small businesses fail, and most of the time it's due to having a lack of a strong plan. There's many reasons, obviously why small businesses fail, but most of those can be avoided by having a solid plan in place. And some mistakes that you can avoid by having an effective business plan and really truly taking that time to step back and taking a look is you might be rolling out a product that nobody wants or needs anymore, right? Anymore or at all. And maybe you didn't take into account the funding or the capital that was needed in order to get something off the ground or to continue something going. Maybe the market is oversaturated and it's time for you to step out of that space and step into a different space that doesn't have so many players in it. Maybe you're setting incorrect prices. Maybe they're too high. And the pushing some potential customers away, or maybe they're too low and you are missing out on that revenue that you could possibly be acquiring. Again, any good business plan is really going to help you avoid these issues right? Now while we're talking about reducing risk. Business plans, they help reduce that risk because it's helping you to make decisions. It's helping you to make informed decisions based on the research that you're actually taking the time to conduct. An any business owner can tell you that the most important part of their job is to make the critical decisions. Write a business plan is going to help factor all of that in to make sure that you're making those right and those educated decisions just by doing that pure research and applying it into your business from where you are today and where you wanna go forward. Luckily, there's plenty of tools available to help you create a business plan. A simple search can lead you to these tools like a template there, kinda filament as you go. But the biggest thing, it doesn't have to be formal. Just make sure that you're hitting on those key points that are necessary that you see that are provided in a business plan. Not going to spend too much time specifically on that because we do have a lot of information to go through and I want you to be able to take some of these ideas and quickly implement them within your business as soon as possible. Now, the next thing that I want to talk about is systems. This is such a robust topic. But we're going to start talking about your website cleanup, Right? This is obviously if you have a website, it's always good to at least have a landing page to direct your clients to other ways that you have set up for them to read to you. It helps with your searchability and we'll talk about stuff like that too. But in reality, when it comes to your website, There's no better or more cost-effective way to advertise your business than on a website. The trick though, isn't just to have a website, It's developing one really to ensure that it is driving your business growth. And this is more for those that do already have a website. Taking the opportunity to step back and look at what your website is doing, we're going to get into the nitty-gritty when it comes to that. If you do not have a website and you just have a landing page or you don't have anything at all. This is definitely some notes that you want to take for moving into the future, whether your business gets to that point. Now, there's gonna be a lot of decisions that go into updating your website. And I've broken them down into four buckets to make it as simple as possible. And those buckets are design, marketing, usability and time. And we're talking about design. When people are visiting your site, they see it as a reflection of your organization. If your site looks professional and it's loaded with tons of useful information than those that are visiting are going to see you more so as an authority or an expert in your industry right? Now, on the flip side, if your website is not designed awesome, and it is not, has no structure, no flow, it's totally out of date. They're gonna make the same assumptions about you and your company, right? So the website is going to, you're going to want that to highlight your products and services and the layout needs to be harmonious and consistent, right? So let's talk a little bit more about what I mean by that. Now. Do you have any content on your website that has specific dates on it, blogposts, out-of-date content, any events that you held in the past that you never took off or that you didn't continually do an update those dates reflecting maybe a program that you had that was a weekly thing and you're no longer doing it. Take a look at those kind of things because as your business grows, then your website needs to mature and grow also. And it really becomes evident that there's certain things that just aren't working well with your business if it's not being reflected in your website, right? There's a couple of things that you want to take a look at with that makes sure not only is it outdated in terms of the obvious when it comes to dates and things like that. But is your mission statement still accurate? Is your products and services, are the prices still reflecting correctly? All of those things you want to make sure are staying and growing and being maintained just as much as you are with your business systems processes and teams, right? So the next piece when it comes to your website that I want to talk about is being responsive and mobile-friendly. We're spending hours online in our smartphones every single day, right? 234 times the amount of time than on your laptop or computer, what have you? But ignoring the mobile market is very, very risky. And it's a common practice to make sure that your website, if not, if nothing else, is mobile friendly, even over the PSD design. And you want it to be something that can. When it comes to mobile-friendly, any platform is going to have the PC option in the mobile friendly option. So when I'm talking about this, it means that obviously the different screen sizes and things like that are gonna be different. So the program and system needs to adapt to that so that you're making sure that your content isn't this wide and being cut off or it's all being jumbled. So I definitely encourage you to take a mobile first approach. I recently just updated my website and meanwhile, I knew that it wasn't mobile-friendly yet. So I just put a little disclaimer at the top because like I said, when people go onto your website and they see something like that to avoid them thinking that I didn't have my stuff together, I wanted to let them know. Yes, I'm aware of this. I'm working on this. Don't expect much when it comes to my mobile site. So that is just another little tidbit that I would throw in there. As you're working on progressing towards things, just makes sure that you put something out there. Big bold red letters call it to their attention so that they know that you know what you're doing. When it comes also to your website, Let's talk a little bit about calls to action. And many websites. I mean, I don't know how many clients that I've talked to that started their business, started their website and never looked back. They never looked back at their website. So what this means is because you're still in that building process, you're gonna be lacking those call to actions that are going to convert your visitors, your users, to actual customers. And we all know that a call to action is a button or a link, something that's on your website that drives your prospective customers to become leads by actually completing an action somewhere on your website, header, landing page, whatever it looks like, right? So you want to make sure that it is clear on every single page that is what I recommend. I have mine in my header that way, no matter where you navigate through my website, you always have a way to contact me. Make sure also that your calls to action are interesting enough to persuade your visitor to actually want to complete that desired action. And we talk about a lot too, about measuring the effectiveness of all of the efforts that were unraveling here today. You're gonna be able to measure the effectiveness of your entire website by making sure that you have mapping tools, conversion tracking. You're looking at your records, you're seeing who's on your site, where are they coming from? Where are they spending the most time? Where's that fall off? Right now, There's so many tools that you can look up. Free tools, ones that you can invest in that can help you measure and see what works and what doesn't work on your website. But again, you cannot measure what you are not tracking. So you want to make sure, and if you have the opportunity, even down to the most minuscule detail, you want to make sure that your website is staying moderate and that you are in tune to what is happening on the website, that it's up-to-date, you have your call to actions. It is visually appealing for your clients that it's leading them through some type of experience. Right? Now, let's talk a little bit more about that experience. And again, we talked about that. We want as far as content goes, that first impression of your website, it's going to be what your customers think of you instantly. And the overall layout is super important, right? It's not just because, you know, people don't visit your website just because they're looking for useful information, right? So even if you do a simple website redesign, that kind of allows you to readdress how you're communicating with your visitors. And just even, just to write a simple on topic, more effective copy. You only have two to four seconds to engage into your new visitors. The new modern way that we function right now is just to go faster and faster. So take off those long paragraphs, get straight to the point, allow those visitors to get the right. I'm real impression of you the second they land on your page, the content of your website, it should be considered the most important thing because again, it helps decide, or it helps you decide or determine how effective even having a website is, right? So if you have fresh and unique content, it's really important to factor in that you're encouraged people to revisit your site more often. Now, another piece when it comes to the website is your SEO and any updates and things like that. So just like a website, your digital marketing, all holistically, and SEO stands for search engine optimization. It could probably need to refresh, especially if you haven't taken a look at your website since you started your business, if you don't update your website, then it's not going to be where you want it to be in those search engine rankings. The search engines, they regard website with the most recent content and the most relevant web users. So your content. It might be awesome, it might be gold, and I'm sure that it is. But if it's the same content that it was five years ago, then that search engine, the crawlers that work through the systems, they're not going to think that it says relevant anymore. So you need to make sure that you are, take you some time to do some type of redesign and it'll give you a chance to rethink those keywords that you are using. And that is going to help you with your overall conversion rate of your website. The way that people search for things now is dramatically changing. And I only want to see year-to-year. It's dramatically changing week-to-week, day to day, month to month, right? Especially now that we're using our smartphones. So we wanna make sure that we are using language that your users are actually looking up when it comes to looking for a product or a service, something like that. They do provide within your business using that same language so that you're brought up in those search engines. Again, plenty of tools that you can use in order to make sure that you are saying hip with the times Google keywords is a great tool. But I want to talk about now next. As far as we kinda talked a little bit about flow on your website. And when we're talking about that, someone coming to your website were truly talking about an experience. The impression that they have of you, the ease of navigation, clear calls to action, refresh, updated current content. But it's also important that your site is easy to use, right? It needs to be fast. It needs to be easy for your potential customers to find information. And it needs to have the least amount of friction between when a user is deciding to take an action and then being able to complete the action, right? So your navigation should be focused on kinda leaning those people towards this must have experience, right? So that is it on website. And now I'm going to talk a little bit about how you can take a step back. And as you're re-evaluating your visions and your goals, how you can take a step back and examine or freshen up your marketing strategies. So we talked about how you're just like your business, your marketing tactics, or they're constantly developing, right? There's a new platform out there that algorithms are changing here, the trends are changing here. There's always something new that's popping up, right? And so it's important for you to spend some time. It's kinda sprucing up those strategies as you're going through this, the scaling process, and some things that you can do, our research, some new marketing trends, maybe even invest in social media. Do not invest if what you're currently posting is not converting because you're just gonna be wasting money, right? Take a look at some of the tasks that you can automate your e-mail marketing or even your posting. There's, there's built-in things in a lot of these platforms that you can utilize to schedule and post date out your content. Maybe go to a conference or a trade show or do some networking. Revisit your brand. Really, you really want to say is what I am putting out there into this world. Is it accurate, Is a consistent, is it aligned with who I am and where I want to go more importantly, right? Analyze also what you've been doing up to this point. See what's working, what's not working if you're trying to be there on every single platform and call it four out of five are not bringing you any leads of traffic, then you're wasting your time on those four and you need to put all of your efforts into that one that is working for you. So when you develop your marketing plan, initially it chances are that you thought about the upcoming year and what you want it to have ready and what you were planning on selling or what your business was going to look like, right. And you set your goals based on what those what you wanted to receive in terms of revenue for your product, the prices that you thought that people were going to pay, and you kinda took an inventory assuming the different tools that would help you choose your goals or choose you're, the best strategy is for you to reach your goals. And at that time, this was all done using the best information available when your plan was put together. But again, the theme of this is information can change over time. And if it's been awhile since you've completed this plan, a lot of other things might have changed, right? In all honesty, there's never a bad time to update your information, but I would recommend doing it monthly. Honestly, it's a good idea even if your updates are relatively minor, because then that way you're not going to find yourself a year from now being completely outdated for the last 12 months and then having to spend a whole nother month, two months trying to catch up on what has changed. Many though, marketing trends, they have staying power, right? But others are going to grow outdated and they're gonna be replaced by other techniques over time, which makes it easy to underestimate the value of the different platforms that we're using. So my point is is that it's going to be more of a detriment to your business if you're actually ignoring what is happening, what are the trends as opposed to staying on top of that? We want to stay on top of trends for some obvious reasons here. It gives you a competitive edge. Obviously, it can reveal some insights that site your business apart. And then that way you can really cater to your new target audience refreshed. Well, however, this is going to look like for you and you can do it better than the competitors, the other competitors that are in your niche, right? You're getting ahead, you're staying in control and you have that advantage to advanced and overcome before your competitors do. It's going to help you forecast your business, right? If you're aware of what trends are going on, It's going to make it easier for you to set goals for the future because you can better predict and plan for what might lie ahead. It improves your spending efficiency. Like I said, if your content is not converting on social media, do not invest in ads on social media. You want to be able to track and measure what is, what is working so you can replicate more of what is working. And that is when you want to start investing, you want to make the most of your money by spending it in areas that are going to give you the most profit, obviously. But by the same token, you can also reduce your spending. Because if it's not driving conversion and you are staying on top of that and you are taking a look at it, you know when to pull the plug and you can save some of that money and invested in things that are working. It's also going to push you to be more innovative. A lot of businesses have failed by not following trends, not changing their business landscape than having you. I mean, this is holistic. This is not just for your marketing, but having that awareness. It, it helps you avoid growing stale. It helps you avoid hitting that plateau where there's nowhere for you to go. You're continuing to spin your wheels and you're not evolving, your business is not evolving, your strategies are not evolving, so you're not going to have that longevity as far as it comes to that forward trajectory and that increased success as you go on and on. As far as marketing trends go to just like we talked about with the website and being kinda hip with the times and understanding what's going on out there, who your customer is, what they want and being able to provide that to them. Sitting on top of these trends and helps improve customer satisfaction because it's going to help you understand what the needs of your customers are, which is going to increase sales. It's going to build customer loyalty and ultimately it's going to boost your bottom line, which is why most of the reason why we're all in business, right? So a couple of things just to stay on top of these trends guys is know your competition. Stay on top of how your competitors are marketing and selling their products and services. They might be onto something that you haven't seen yet. And if the outcome of their method, obviously it's positive. You want to adopt a similar strategy with your own unique twist. So this goes back to taking that step back and looking at your competition setup, trying to alerts google Trends. It helps you watch in search interests about certain topics over time. And it can help you learn different tactics that can help set you apart from any steel ones. You want to read industry reviews. You want to look at journals, magazines, online publications obviously that focus on your business needs because they're often going to be the first in the industry to publish those new trends. You're not paying attention to it. It's going to pass you by. And so our opportunities, like I said to you want to network often a time local conferences, juice and meet and greets with other people within your industry, people outside of your industry that are servicing the same type of customer. You might hear some testimonials, some stories from others that followed a trend and did have success. And like I said, that can give you the confidence that you need to put that in place for your own business as well. Lastly, and possibly most important, to get customer feedback on his customer feedback could reveal the pain points that current trends are not access, they're not addressing, right? So you want to use this feedback to define your own marketing trends and you can really be an example to other businesses. Now to the next one I want to talk about here as far as kinda breaking it down, we've talked about the website, we've talked about you're changing your marketing strategies. Now I want to kind of break it down into what does that look like internally for you, for your business? You cannot, you cannot grow unless you scale and scaling means simplifying and doing more with what you have. That comes also not just for the processes and systems in your business, specifically directly tied to your businesses, that comes with your own internal processes that you have as a business owner. I want to talk about a couple of things that come up quite often that it is really important for you to take that step back and understand what it is that you need to look like, look at internally in order to make those changes so that you do have the opportunity to scale and then eventually grow in your business. Now, one of those things is your calendar. You might not realize it, but your calendar habits can make or break your success when it comes to productivity. And without proper calendar management, you're not able to be focused and productive as you should be, right? So with that in mind, I'm going to go over a couple of ways that you can own your calendar and make sure that it is more efficient and it's more simplified so that you can be more efficient when it comes to showing up for your business. Now, when it comes to our calendars, we all have our own preferences. Some people still rely on the paper agenda. Others make the most of a huge wall calendars, desk calendars. And there are some people that can't live without Online. Me for me personally, I'm a little mixture of everything right, depending on what it is. But there's no right or wrong calendars. As long as it keeps you organized and productive, you're usually going to be able to find one that feels good for you. But it might take a minute, right? So don't get frustrated, don't don't give up on it and don't continue to use a process that's not going to work for you. The posted process does not work for anyone. Now, the problem when you're looking for calendars, it might seem like there's way too many options. And here you've got one appointment jotted down at another one has automatically been added to your calendar. So now you're confused and you start double booking yourself and you're just all over the place, right? So in order to malate, manage your calendar, you want to consolidate as much as you can everything into one. That's why I said I have multiple calendar types that I use, but it depends on what it's for. And one of it is task and the other one's meeting more specifically. So there's no overbooking because I can complete a task whenever I feel like it. But this way, having everything in one location is really going to ease that confusion. It's going to stop that double booking, overbooking herself and things like that. And honestly the same goes with your entire productivity plan, right? The less, the better. Trust me, complexity kills. When it comes to your calendar, you want to create some type of routine right before you go to bed every night, have a clear idea on what your day is going to look like tomorrow, and at least have some type of general understanding about what next week, maybe next month, even next year will look like, right? But the reason that you want to do this is because you use your calendar to create and stick to some type of routine. You have certain blocks of time, certain things that you do, maybe daily, weekly, monthly. And when you're trying to figure out how to spend your time, You already know in advance what that routine looks like and that helps you keep your calendar organized. And it says you're not overlapping any tasks or meanings. And it can almost guarantee that you're more productive. Because if it's not planned, chances are we're not gonna do it, right? So with that being said, managing how you are, not only managing your calendar and managing your time. I'm going to go over a couple of things that you can do as far as that, right? You can group similar activities are in blocks. Because how many times have you been like in the middle of working on a project and you had to stop because you had to go to a meeting or stop and respond to that e-mail that hinders your productivity, right? And that's because we get interrupted. When we get interrupted, it takes about 25 minutes for us to kinda stop, reset and assume the task at hand. And I don't know anyone that blocks interruption time, especially you can't anticipate in your calendar. So you want to kinda put everything all within the same bucket. I personally like to do meeting after meeting, after meeting, after meeting. Because if I'm in my zone, I'm in my flow and not interrupted by tasks or vice versa. Tasks are not interrupted by me having to stop and jump into a meeting so I can kinda stay in that flow. You want to also make sure that you are not trying to multitask, right? If you're scheduling and your grouping, those similar activities together, a batching them, some people like to call, it helps you enter that flow state that I talked about, which is really going to end up ultimately reducing your stress. It's going to save time. It's going to keep you focused. And you're gonna be more energetic because you're not switching back and forth between between task to task to task, right? So like I said, I, I schedule similar meanings on the same day, so I remain in that flow. So I recommend having those blocks of time for when you're meeting is scheduled some rest time in-between there as well. Now, when it comes to the meetings, the default is always an hour or whatever calendar you use. It's always an hour on your calendar. But you don't always have to set that time aside for that much time aside for every meeting. If you just have this quick touch-based or an initial meet and greet, it can be a ten or 15 minute call. You get right to the point and you don't need 60 minutes. Do that. You can do it in ten minutes, right? If you already know the person blackout 45 minutes and then maybe 15 minutes to rest or travel or ketchup or whatever it is that you need to do, right? The idea is that not all meetings require the same amount of time. So just be cognizant of that when you're scheduling a meeting, making sure that you are scheduling the appropriate time for what the type of meeting is. While we're on the subject to of talking about back-to-back meetings. If you're scheduling meetings like a day, say you're Tuesdays is your Tuesday Talk day and that's when you're doing your meetings. You don't want them to be back to back to back to back. Like I said, make sure that you are putting some time in there for you to decompress, for you to take any notes for you to use restaurant, whatever it is that you need to do? I would say 15 to 30 minutes of buffer time in-between meetings is probably ideal. Now, when it comes to your calendar, also, clear the clutter. This goes with your mindset, this goes with your workspace, this goes with your calendar. And if you want to lose complete control over calendar, then let it get full of clutter that's busting out at the scenes. Write this. I mean, you are going to have things for trainings, webinars, meetings that you don't need to attend, things that other people are putting onto your calendar. So if you have a bunch of these standards like check-in meetings or we all say in corporate America, right? Oh, that was a meeting that could have been an e-mail. If you have a meeting that could have been an e-mail that doesn't have an agenda or if it doesn't have a purpose than scrap it, right. If you have these reoccurring commitments or long-term ongoing things that don't fit into your schedule anymore. Take flips off, right. Instead of just ignoring the notification taken completely off, don't fill your calendar with those teeny tiny tasks either. If you're scheduling your activities that are second nature, like walking your dog in the morning, then you don't need to have that on your calendar. It's just want to start to get overwhelming and just by looking at it, you're going to drive yourself crazy. That's why I keep those things separate, things that I still need to do, but they don't have a set specific time that I need to do them within my day. So take a couple minutes and clean the clutter from your calendar. It's going to help you get lean mean, it'll be much more easier for you to manage. And big picture here, what we've talked about here today is making sure that you create yourself the opportunity to take that step back, look at your website, look at your marketing literature, client base, look at your calendar and streamline and simplify and keep everything up-to-date if you are not staying on top of what is happening within your business and outside of your business, you are always going to plateau. So I hope that was helpful and I'll see you on the next one. 6. Wrapping It Up: Okay guys, here we are with the final, final and breakdown and break through and we're going to wrap it all up for you today. First, I want to remind you that there is a difference between scaling your business and growing your business. When you're growing your business, you're expanding. Yes, Your revenue is increasing, but nine times out of ten, So is your cost because you're having to make sure that you have a sustainable growth when it comes to scaling your business, you're actually doing more with what you have. You're setting a stage that is going to able, enable or allow you to support growth in the future. It means having that ability to grow without being hindered, without having to stop and take those steps back and take those looks and reset and repurpose things. I'm scaling a business requires planning, funding, having suitable systems and processes, the right staff in place if you're in a position to do that the right technology, the right partner, partners, and scaling your business is about capacity and capability, right? It's a deliberate process that requires participation and for you to really, really analyze and make sure that you have the right resources in place. Startups typically are more growth fueled by nature, right? So if you're in just the first steps of creating your business, That's okay. If you're going from a product market fit, then scaling might need to be, um, something that you do like sooner than later. And this is why we often hear that, that businesses are built to scale, right? Simply put it, that means that businesses can acquire and service a large number of new customers without really requiring significant structural change. So it all depends on how did you start your business or how are you planning on starting your business, right? This all implies that these individuals that are scaling their business or creating their business with the intent to scale, they expect to experience exponential growth as it continues to invest in systems, hardware, software, things like that. To handle this big rush, an onslaught of customers. Right? Now, it's not the case for many businesses and some are probably going to fumble their way through, learned some hard lessons before successfully expanding. But to avoid any pitfalls and any costly detours, especially, you want to make sure that you are prepared to scale your business, right? So again, scaling your business, it presents a large range of challenges, right? And as your business grows, different problems and opportunities are going to require different types of solutions. And what might work for you a year ago might not be the best approach for how you handle things. Now. Also often mistakes are avoidable through recognizing and overcoming the pot, the common pitfalls that are associated with growth. I'm going to go through a couple of high-level ways that you can prepare your business to scales that you can take everything that you've learned here and you can start applying it in your business sooner than later. So again, you want to make sure that you're staying updated with the market. Business climate changes constantly, right? Margaret, Research is not something that you should do just when you're launching your business. You want to continually do that market research because it allows you to make your decisions based on current information as opposed to what you've learned thus far, right? When you're about to scale understanding where your products are in their actual lifecycles can actually help you determine how to maximize your overall profitability. Right? Now, keeping up with the market is going to help you decide whether or not to innovate a stream of new profitable products for the market. How you're going to angle and position yourself within the market. What types of products, what are you going to price your thing? Makes sure that you do everything that you can, put it in your planner, make it a routine on a monthly basis. Quarterly basis, however, works best for your business and your schedule to take that time to do that market research, right? And you want to always be seeking information when it comes time to scale your business, you do have to build up an in-depth picture of what those customers, why? This comes from market research, but always any type of information that you could find, we always need to be learning so we can always continue to grow as individuals, as business owners and as a business, right? So if you have that in-depth picture of how customers respond, what they want, how they behave, then you're going to really get a really good grasp on what marketing approaches are going to work best for you and your business right away that you can do this is talking to key customers, suppliers, business partners. Again, if you are in a position where you have a team, get them to share what they know about the customers that are in your existing market right now so that you can continue to cater to them, but also have a firm understanding of what it is that they are anticipating from your business, your service, your company, your products, whatever it is. Now, next, when it comes to scaling your business, you always, always want to plan ahead, goes without saying, right? Definitely again, don't get caught in that perfectionism sludge, right? You don't want to put yourself in a position where you're not taking intentional and continuous and consistent action plans should be they should always be updated, right? Like we've talked about, your business. Continuously exposed to constant changes in the market. And every move that you make within your business does need a significant amount of planning. Just as much as you did when you first launched your business. And scaling is one of those important decisions that a business does undertake, right? So planning ahead, understanding your vision, understanding what's your market looks like, the systems processes and people that you have in place is where you're going to start in order to help you make a more informed, more educated decision that you're comfortable and confident with, that you're able to see through to the end. Now, depending on where you do decide to go, right? You do want to make sure that if you are planning to re-invest in your business through this scaling process, you do want to prepare that cash-flow and financial management for a growing business. Good cash-flow and sound financial management is crucial because we don't want those cash restraints that are going to hold you back from growth. And when you're talking about scaling, if you're expanding your business in a way that your revenue increase is significantly higher than the cash output that you're making. It's not going to have that significant limitation on you. So the way that you use your capital, you need to make sure that you are obviously whether you're growing, you're scaling. You need to make sure that you are carefully controlling that so that you can maximize your cash-flow effect of credit management, tight control of overdue debts, all of that is necessary. So if you're in a position to grow your business, you definitely want to make sure that you've checked all the boxes as far as finances go. Scaling kinda gives you a little bit of leverage and leeway as far as that goes, because you're again, you're repurposing and you're making the things that you already have more efficient and flow and run a whole lot better for you. You're increasing prices, you're repurposing products. So you're not really experiencing that additional investment from a financial standpoint. Now, when you're scaling your business, gets your head and problem-solving mode. When you're a new business, it's understandable to kinda act in crisis mode, so to speak. And you're always gonna be troubleshooting. But as you prepare to scale, you want to take a more disciplined approach to how you're going to manage this scaling process. And you want to focus on leading or building your employees, managing the team, building your strategy. And instead of treating each problem as a one-off, you really are taking that step back that we've talked about in your establishing systems and structures that are going to make it easier for you to handle things properly in the future. Now, as we're talking about systems here, as the business continues to grow, whether from a scaling or a growth standpoint, the volume of information, your financial records, your interactions with people, your business contacts, your employees, all of your regular requirements as far as that goes there, going to be way too tiring for you to keep track of without having a suitable system. And eventually be nice to take a day off or an hour off or get some sleep. If you're investing in the right systems, it's going to pay off, not just short-term, but also long-term. Obviously, the business is going to benefit from that every single day because of the level of effectiveness that you have in your operations, it's just going to feel smoother and you're not going to feel like you're forcing things as much. Things are going to start working for you instead of against you or you having to work for them right? Now. Probably the most important aspect of scaling is adopting the skills and the attitude and the mindset, right? Scaling is hard and that is why I do what I do with my clients is I am that second set of eyes. I help them take that step back and look at everything laid out in front of me. We knock things out one thing at a time with this secure, solid plan that is fun, that is flexible. It is easy for you to just take an implement right away, but it kinda takes that emotion out of it. And that's where we kinda get into the mindset. But it also takes the guesswork out of it as well. When it comes to growing your business to you. You don't want to value your abilities to highly, Right? Because sometimes it's nice to have someone throw in that extra piece of something that you might not have been thinking of or that you didn't realize that you haven't encountered yet someone to just continue to challenge you and hold you accountable with the, what if this happens? What about this? Have you thought about this, things like that? So you're going to need to continuously be training, learning new skills, and have the right attitude. That's how you're going to actually lead your growth. Now, also, again, if you are in a position where you either have a team, you're looking for a team, or even if you have just a VA, you want to make sure that you are learning to delegate appropriately and trusting your management team. This is so hard for business owners to give up. Their day-to-day and control of every single detail. But as the business becomes more complex, you have to develop your time management skills and focus on these essentials. You might need to bring insiders or outsiders and for help, you might need to delegate certain pieces of responsibility for certain areas into different specialties or appoint someone on your team to take care of those. But it's also going to be essential for you to make the most of your opportunities. You got into this business so that you could provide a service, so that you could produce a product for people, not to actually just be running your business everything every single day too. It's really important to have that ability to take that step back and look at what your business looks like because there are opportunities that are being missed. There's opportunities in areas where you're missing revenue, where you're missing chances of giving yourself time back in your day. If you can learn to identify everything that you're doing, the amount of time that it's taking, the opportunities for efficiency and then really get skilled at identifying the right team members and delegating out to them the things that you do not need to be working on in your business so that you can continue to be creative, you can continue to be inspired. You can continue to learn and grow and really get out there and make connections and make relationships with people that market research, analyze your data and figure out where it is that you're going to stop and you're gonna shift. Having a team in place and really understanding where you're at is vital to the scaling process. You don't want to find yourself in a position where you're starting. You feel like you're starting over and you don't want to feel like you're in a position of treading water either. That's why scaling businesses is so important. Even if you don't really necessarily want to increase your revenue, which I don't know who does it. But if you don't even want to increase your revenue, at least increase your efficiency and get some time back in your lives so you can eventually step back. You can eventually sell your business. You can hand it over to your team and you don't have to be fully present 247 in order for your business to run right. At the end of the day, scaling means achieving the more, the more efficient and effective and just a widespread adoption of innovation. That's what you want to give yourself an opportunity to do, right? It's not about just growing and expanding. It means that scaling is going to allow you to get more time, get more money, have more fun in your business and in your life. And again, when I work with my clients, that process prowess, I help you bridge the knowledge between processes and we identify gaps in your business and we connect services and hand-on, hands-on solutions to your real experience. I know that business growth isn't easy, but I make it easier. I make it faster for you and make it more sustainable by partnering with you with the processes and the inset that you're missing, the people that you've not thought at all, thought about before. And really taking those blinders off with you and challenging you and pushing you to do things differently so that you can have better experiences. In the end, again, I do offer one-on-one programs. I also offer quick brainstorming sessions. I offer bodily body doubling sessions, and I also have programs coming out all the time. So if you are interested in working together with me so we can really strip back the layers of your business, figure out where those inefficiencies are, figuring out how we can find Mr. opportunities with time or revenue, or people or processes or whatever that looks like for your business. My contact information is connected here and I would love to chat with you if you have any questions about any of this. Awesome, let me know. I would love to hear your comments about this and I will see you guys on the next one.